A Busy Life

Lifestyle?  What lifestyle?

We have been rather busy settling in to the motel, learning all the little bits and pieces that we need to know.  Well some of it is written down and we take notes where we can, but such a lot of it is in Esther and Kristian's heads.  They have told us loads of stuff we need to know so I just hope we can remember it all.  We were so tired last night that when some guests asked where they could get food, we forgot we had a Chinese Takeaway in town.

We had to learn how to cook all the items on the menu, so one lunchtime we worked our way through it by Esther showing us what she does for each item. We ate well that day!

I have been trying for 3 days to upload pictures to show you of the motel and of us cooking, but with no success.

Suffice to say I have now given up, so no pictures today.

It is now Sunday afternoon, I have had a little nap and we have one more person to check in.  We have started calling them chickins as Esther was so enraptured with our kiwi accents she would repeat everything we said with an exaggeration! So Check in becomes chickin.

I am getting really good at breakfasts and the 3 men on a fishing trip were very pleased with my scrambled eggs and stayed another night and had the same breakfast again.  'Fabulous' was the way one of them described my scrambled eggs!!

R and I walked over to the markets this morning. They are just across the road in the park so no parking problems for us.  We bought some nice fresh corn on the cob which we enjoyed for lunch.

Esther and Kristian have gone now. They fly out to Singapore tonight from Brisbane and then on to Heathrow.  Esther is going to Wales and Kristian to his home in Norway.  They are both excited to be seeing their parents for Christmas and very pleased that we have made it possible for them.  The motel is still not settled, so we are just managing it for now until the bank and the landlord get their s... sorted!  In other words they are the ones holding it up, not us.

Thank you for reading my blog with no pics today.

I hope to have some pics available again soon.

Moving Time

Hands up everyone who likes moving house!

Hmm.. no takers. Not surprising really.  It's not much fun, especially when you have a 3 hour road trip and then have to unpack the trucks at the end of the day, although unpacking was surprisingly easy.

As we moved our things out Kt lost no time in rearranging the lounge at home.

We had lots of willing helpers to load the truck.  Dad was working the lift on the back and needed a hat, so we gave him the one we bought in Longreach.  It was going to be his Christmas present, but he needed one now.  My Dad is very handsome!

Starting to load the truck.

Nearly done.

Once the truck was loaded we all went into the air conditioning to cool down.  Kz showed us her new dress.  She is so annoyed at having to wear a dress.  But it is such a pretty one.

Mum and Dad gave us each a bowl of fruit to have in the car.  It was really cool and refreshing.  Thanks folks.

We had a good trip up.  It took a bit longer than our normal trip in a car because the roads are very bumpy and winding in places.  We were very relieved to arrive at Gayndah about 4.45pm.  Esther and Christian helped us unload the truck.  They think we travel light!

My first task was to put the bed together so we could fall into it.

And then straighten up the lounge so we could have somewhere to sit.

So we are getting there.  We all had chinese takeaways because there is not much choice in a small town.  We were very hungry and pleased to have it.  Esther and Christian started going through some of the things we needed to know but we were too tired to take it all in. 

It was still very hot, but we fell asleep quite quickly.  Today, the sun is shining, it will be another hot one and R has to drive the hire truck back to the Sunny Coast and pick up our car.  He is making a list of things we need.  Like fly spray for that pesky mosquito.

Thanks for reading my blog.  I hope you all have a very good week.

Bye for now

For Loretta

Our friends were recently in New Zealand and left the car briefly to walk to a lookout at Opononi (Northland).  When they returned to their car, it had been broken into and Loretta's handbag had been stolen. 

For you Loretta and I hope your headache gets better soon.

"The rain it raineth on the just,
And also on the unjust fella.
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust hath the just's umbrella.

I loved this quote I found on a friend's Facebook page.  Thanks Ian.

My headache is just beginning when I survey the mess we have created with moving stuff.  Not to mention the fact that we are leaving tomorrow, but the motel won't settle for another couple of weeks and we will be lucky if it settles before Christmas at this rate.  The motel is full according to Esther and Christian and they asked if we were ready.  Is anyone ever ready?

Well I am not ready to shift.  Look at this mess in the garage...

And I can't even lie down on my bed...

Tomorrow is the day.  It is also Mark's birthday.  Well actually his birthday is today the 26 November, but because he lives in the USA, it is still Friday there, so he has to wait another day.  Happy birthday Mark.

I loved one of the blogs I have on my sidebar. "Getting Stitched on the Farm". I love sunflowers and I think she is so clever.

Thanks for stopping by.  When I write next it should be from Gayndah.

Bye for now

Red-backed Fairy-Wren in Eclipse Plumage

That's a great title!  But what does it mean.
Let me explain.  In between serving breakfasts and making lunches at Biloela, I occasionally got to sit down and rest my weary legs.  On one such occasion, I spotted a little bird hopping around in the fence below the lounge window.

I managed to get a picture to show you and I was really surprised to find such a scruffy little bird!

So I got out my trusty Field Guide to Australian Birds and on page 224 found the Red-backed Fairy-Wren which normally has brilliant scarlet and black plumage with brownish wings.  However, in autumn, males moult to eclipse plumage for five or six months, but older dominant males miss the eclipse plumage stage completely, moulting directly to their new colourful breeding plumage.  So now we know that this is a young male. 
He was very cute and I never saw him again so I was lucky to get this shot.

We are still packing stuff and moving stuff and labelling stuff. We have the truck booked and plan on leaving Sunday to arrive late afternoon in Gayndah.

While on the subject of Gayndah, I have to sit a TAFE Course for a Food
Safety Supervisors Certificate.  This will allow the council to issue us with a Food Safety Certificate and we can pepare meals for guests.  Well, I can anyway.  This course involves about 10 hours study and I have to squeeze it in along with everything else on my mind. It's not so much a matter of finding time to do the study, it is remembering the study enough to pass the tests, because my poor brain is whirling around with lots of different threads of information and lists and requirements and schedules.  Oh! No wonder I sometimes feel a headache coming on.

Mum and Dad gave us a farewell dinner last night with family all invited.  They surprised us with a gift of a weather station photo frame which we will put in our reception area as a talking point.  Thanks everyone!

Thanks for dropping by.  Hope all the Sunshine Coasters enjoyed the rain we had last night.  The grass is no longer crispy crunchy.

Bye for now.

Hi. I am back

It has been a busy 3 weeks. I can hardly believe it is that long since I was in touch. 

After coming home from Biloela I was very tired and worn out. I had a sore throat and felt run down.  It is hardly surprising after getting up at 4.30 am to help with the breakfasts and continuing on until the restaurant shut after 9.00 pm.

Here are some of the sandwiches we made one night.

And here they are in the fridge all ready to take down when we do the breakfasts.

We had some interesting requests; like the men who informed us "We are not eating meat!" So we scrambled round and looked on the internet for vegetarian sandwich fillings and after a few days they must have been getting sick of it because they announced " We are eating chicken!"   I know we will look back and laugh.

Anyhoo  back home we are and facing the most tremendous upheaval to get packed to go and live in Gayndah.  We have put everything we want to take with us in the garage.  And then we brought all of Kt and Kz's stuff out of the storage shed and put that in the garage too.  And the dog sleeps in the garage too!  Stuff has overflowed into our courtyard. I hope the rain holds off a few more days.

We are leaving this coming Saturday to manage the Country Roads Motor Inn in Gayndah.  Absolute mountains of paperwork and trying to get to grips with insurance and lease requirements, not to mention banks and finance and plant and accountants and suppliers and ....  Well you get the picture.

I still haven't told told you all about the remainder of our trip out West and shared some of the great photos I took.  I haven't forgotten and will definitely get a round tuit soon.

Love to all of you great people and thanks for reading.
I will be back soon.

We are away again

Yes.  You heard me correctly.  We are in Biloela to help Judith and Grant with the running of their motel as they are full to capacity and have lots of breakfasts, lunches and dinners to provide.  As I said a few days ago, their manager has been taken very ill and after several days getting the run around from the Queensland Health Service, Lee is now home and we wish you a speedy recovery.  Our thoughts are with you and Margaret.

Biloela is 500km north west of the Sunshine Coast so were on the road for about 6 hours.  We arrived just after 5.00 pm in the evening and only one kangaroo crossed the road in front of us, but we had plenty of time to brake.  I also slowed down and travelled well below the speed limit, although lots of people passed me, but I would rather be safe and sure.  Don't mess with kangaroos.

When I last posted we were staying in Winton, so I shall pick up our travels from there as I have so many stories still to share.


At Winton we stayed in a cabin, which was a surprise to us, as it was very small and also very hot.  We coped alright with the bunk beds, but the bathroom was tiny.  Think of your average small toilet and throw in a shower at one end and one of those tiny skinny wall handbasins, but don't put a mirror on the wall.  We all became acrobats for a night trying to get changed in such a small space.  Judith did not get a good sleep and awoke with a very bad headache, but we fixed her up with toast and a cup of tea and she soon came right.

Winton has many local attractions. We found it a delightful and quirky town to visit.  We drove over to have a look at the Musical Fence.  Of course the children among us loved hitting the instruments with the pieces of pipe and hose provided.  Here is R about to play some hubcaps.

Grant had a wonderful time playing the fence strings like a guitar.

R was swinging this gas cylinder thing into a couple of rubbish bins.  The noise was deafening.

Then Judith got carried away with a set of drums.

It was all getting a bit loud for me, so I read up about the original Qantas Landing Ground.

We then drove round to have a look at Arno's Wall.  It has all sorts of stuff built into it.  Quite a novel idea and certainly a lifes work.

So that is what happened to my old sewing machine!

I think I will leave our story there for today and hope I get the chance between making sandwiches and meals to finish some more later.

Thank you for following my blog.  I would love to get some comments about what you would like to see more of, if you have the time.

Bye for now.

Winton - Camels

Continuing on from our side trip to the Age of Dinosaurs, we drove into Winton.  This is a lovely town.  Home of Waltzing Matilda, it has carvings in the main street about the song, so that visitors, who do not already know the song will remember it in future.  We drove around the town for a bit of a look before checking into our cabin.  More about that later.

We saw this wonderful new road train as we were driving round.  It seems the length of road trains has just been increased and they can have 4 trailers.  It is a very large truck indeed.

Here is another view.  He was just starting to pull away.

We went to check in to our cabin. Judith went to the office, while the three of us sat in the car waiting, and waiting.  Suddenly, she appeared at the door.  Come here quick. Bring your camera.  The office lady, plus helpers, was trying to entice two young camels into a horse trailer - without much success.  They got a rope and put it behind them, and the little dog was trying to help too, but the camels were trying to kick him.

Then the smart camels figured out that they could put their heads under the rope and slide underneath it.  So they did and galloped down to say hello to us!

Then the ladies managed to get halters on them and began the slow drag into the horse trailer.  They finally achieved it, but the camels were bawling and kicking all the way.  Such a noise!  But we eventually got checked in, although the poor lady was very hot and bothered.

We thought we would go out for a meal in a hotel.  These small country towns have wonderful old hotels and really good food.  Rump steak seems to feature in a lot of menus, but excellent steak.  Huge meals too.  I feel like an elephant.

Winton is not a very big town, but has two pubs (hotels). As well as a sprinkling of shops and local businesses. 

We decided on this one for our meal as it was a warm night and the tables on the footpath looked inviting.

There was hardly any traffic, not many people and it was that time of night when the sun gets that special glow.  The food was really good and we had a most enjoyable night.

The place filled up as it got darker, but by then we had finished our meal and were ready to brave our cabin!

I will tell you about that next time.  Quite a mission.

Enjoy your day, hug your children and kiss your husband or partner.

Back soon.  Bye

Plans blown apart

I am so sorry, that I haven't blogged for a few days. I was doing so well and then we got to Winton and lost all internet connection for a couple of days.  Well actually we were staying on a cattle station and had no phone contact either.  We had a wonderful time there, then moved on to Isisford where we stayed at Clancy's Hotel. The hotel was built in the late 1800's and had the sagging feeling you get in really old buildings. I had to walk uphill to my room! But no room to even put the laptop on my knee, so couldn't blog there either.
We moved on to Augathella and it was the All Blacks final match for the World cup, so once again no blog.  We travelled to Roma and it was there that everything fell apart.  Grant's brother, who is managing the motel for them while they are away fell ill and Judith and Grant had to drive home the very next day.
Which left us wondering how to get home and flying was the only reasonable option.  Well, most of you know how I feel about flying!  Anyway, that is just what we did. Hopped on a tiddly plane out of Roma and flew to Brisbane, then caught a Sunair bus up to the Sunshine Coast.
So we were home again.  However, I will still put up some of the photos from our trip as it was just so fantastic. 
Below is part of a blog I had already started about our expedition to dinosaur country.

Thursday 20 October
We were up early this morning as we wanted to walk down the road to watch the Spirit of the Outback go past. This is a train which comes twice a week through Longreach.

Returning to the camp we found some Brolga, which are large storks. We were able to get quite close as they seemed to be quite comfortable having people around.

We headed out of Longreach. More flat roads and not many trees. We stopped at a rest area for a cuppa, but it was quite windy so we didn't stay long.

And found the sign pointing to the Age of Dinosaurs.  Do we have to go up that hill?
Yes we do.

They had a place at the bottom of the hill to park campers and trailers as the road was too steep for them.  But the view from the top was magnificent.  You are looking at what was the dinosaurs garden over a million years ago. 

Of course it was hot.  We had our lunch while we waited for the next tour to start and a cute little bird paid us a visit with his wife to collect tiny insects off the car. This is a red-capped robin, the smallest and most brightly coloured of the red robins.

He was so smart and his little wife was quite plain compared with him.

We took a walk along a track to a lookout point and a goanna crossed our path.  He was not in the least concerned about us and walked just a couple of metres in front of us.  Such beautiful colouring.  His tongue was flicking in and out as he walked, looking for food.

We began our tour around the Age of Dinosaurs. It was a really interesting place to visit as almost every bone they had on display had a corresponding bone from a present day cow or similar so we could compare the sizes. Dinosaurs were massive!!  At the entrance the display showed a leg bone which had been painstakingly pieced together like a 3D bone jigsaw.  The little white bone in front is from a cow.

They told us all about how the bones are getting pushed up through the black soil of the plains, how they found them, how they go about digging them out and then how they encase them in the foil and plaster jackets to protect them from the corrosive effects of moisture and air.

They currently have enough bones in storage to keep them busy for another 26 years!  They are building another facility which will give them better working conditions and enable them to have more workers, but most of the work is voluntary and uses volunteers. Anyone from the age of 12 years and over can volunteer to go on a dig and perhaps find a new dinosaur. 
We walked through the area where they work on the bones. They use very fine equipment, a bit like dentists drills to get the earth and rock off the bones so they can study them in detail.  One of the bones they showed us has been 9 years work!  Can you imagine that?  This is the area of the big tin shed where they do this work. 

We saw the bones of Banjo and Matilda.  Banjo was an Australovenator wintonensis, which is a swift predator with 30 cm claws and flesh slicing teeth, and Matilda which was a Diamantinasaurus matildae which was a herbivorous giant of a sauropod 16 metres long. W O W! (I love the way those names sound, don't you? They just sort of roll off your tongue.)

Here is Banjo.

And here are some of the hind leg and hip bones of Matilda.  If the guide reached his arm above his head, he could scratch her stomach!  She was HUGE.

We treated ourselves to an icecream after the tour as it was so very hot and then made our way back down the hill to Winton.

I had better end this post here.  It has taken me about 4 days to get this one up because the photos wouldn't load properly. I need to find a better way to do this!

Thank you for reading and I will be back soon.

Stay safe. I love you.

Qantas Founders Museum in Longreach.

Hello again.  We are seeing so much good stuff that it is really hard to find the time to get it all onto my blog because it takes over an hour for each one.  Generally it is loading the pictures that takes the time, but they are so worth the effort, don't you think?

On Wednesday morning we started out by heading straight down to the LSODE or Longreach School of Distance Education.  This is where the education is sent out to all the children on remote stations in this part of Queensland. We watched a teacher taking a preschool class over the radio and took a tour through the building.  They have 7 studios, but they need eight. One for each grade.  They also have students come to stay for up to a week at a time to meet others in their grade and it also gives the mothers time to socialise with mothers of other children.  The parents, usually the mothers have to supervise the children at their lessons.  Each family has a computer and a radio, and the work is sent out each fortnight by mail.

This is a picture of part of the administration area, showing some of the children's assignment work which has been sent in for marking.

After we left the school, we headed into town for a coffee at Kinnon and Co, where they have lots of old time memorabilia.  This stagecoach was in one corner of the yard.  Looked very uncomfortable inside.

Then in another area was this display. I giggled when I saw the empty beer bottles in the crate as I haven't seen that sight for a long time.

We had our coffee and some scones and jam. R had some delicious looking gluten free loaf.

Then off to the Qantas museum.  It is easy to find. Just look for the 747 parked beside the main road into Longreach.

Inside the museum there is so much to see. Lots of displays about the founders of Qantas. A couple of motor vehicles, such as this Model T.

And this bus. The seats looked a bit hard on this bus too.  Old timers must have been pretty tough and hardy.

I liked this display! Took the words right out of my mouth.

They had lots of models of the first planes circling on a track above our heads. Here are two of my favourites.

This was an impressive plane, but still not one I would have had the confidence to fly in.

J, G & R took a tour of the Boeing 707 and had a look in the door of the 747, then we went out to the engineering workshop where they used to make the first planes.  It was warm enough when we were there, but it would have been most uncomfortably hot for the first mechanics. We took a look in this plane. It seated 7 people, but the pilot sat alone in a seat up behind them.

That was enough sightseeing for that day. We were worn out.  This place is definitely worth a look if you ever get to Longreach.

Tomorrow we leave this town and head over to Winton.  See you there.