Sydney

As forecast all arrived in Sydney - Myles and Thomas on Thursday 18th, with Myles returning home on the following Sunday.  Thomas and Myles went to the football at the SCG on Friday night and as both Harriet and Bill were working Friday, Myles, Thomas, Finn, Hannah and I went across to the City on the Manly ferry.  It was very windy and the sea was rough but the boys enjoyed it.  Hannah was a little nauseous but we managed.  We spent several hours walking around, looking at the Opera House and the entertainment at Circular Quay.

The top two photos are evidence that Tom's desires were met.  He wanted to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.  The bottom one was completely unexpected and certainly not desired by Myles who is the nefarious looking character on the right wrapping the street entertainer up in chains.  The children wanted to watch this entertainer as he started his act.  He first of all did some impressive handstands and so forth, then he wriggled his body through the frame of a tennis racquet.  When he got stuck half way through, he came up to me and said "Mum, you bought the wrong size again!" much to the childrens' amusement.  Then when he wanted helpers to wrap him up in chains, padlock his hands behind his back etc he called for volunteers.  When he didnt get any, he chose the two biggest blokes in the audience, one of whom was extremely reluctant to be part of the act, but Myles was pressured to do so and so he did.  He did not enjoy the experience.  The whole show went on for ages and of course the entertainer succeeded in wriggling out of the fully padlocked chains and unpicked the handcuffs with a hairpin from a girl in the audience.

 

 

 

After Myles left on Sunday, we went for a picnic at Manly Dam which is a short walk through bushland near Harriet and Bill's house. This was the intrepid three who were stopping at this point for emergency supplies which were being managed by Hannah and maintained in her back pack.  They had been walking by then for about 4 minutes with about another 4 to go before arriving.  Bill drove around the block to get there carrying all the chairs, food, drinks etc.  We met other friends of the family who were there with their children and all had a great time.  Finn and Tom went fishing with no luck had, and Hannah and her friends found an area where clay abounded and they made lots of figures from clay.

 

Luckily I bought two computers with me, my little notebook and a laptop which is identical to the one that Hannah and Bill have.  The three children book time slots for them all to play a game and they get thoroughly engrossed in it for limited times allowed.  Hannah gets bored with the boys games and she ends up playing with patterns or one game which takes her shopping where she can buy all sorts of weird clothes.

I have tried to flip this photo but it wont work.  It is flipped in the original.  Hannah, Finn, Bill and I went to Luna Park on Wednesday when Harriet was at work.  It was what I would think pergatory would be like.  I have hated the Royal Show since I went when I was about 16 and havent been back and it was worse!

 

 

Anzac Day we took off early to the Blue Mountains and to Scenic World which is where you can catch a funicular up or down to the Valley at the bottom, ride a cable car up or down and also a sky train across the valley which was 270 metres below.  My vertigo has been somewhat numbed by the number of bridges and mountains I have driven around and it gave me no trouble at all.  It was very cold as can be seen by how rugged up everyone but Bill is.  He left his jumper at home!

 

Tomorrow, Tom and I head off to Canberra where it has been very cold of late and Tom is hoping for snow.  I dont think that 0 degrees at night is going to get him snow but we are still hoping for miracles.

Inverness to Glenn Innis and Yamba

The road through the Great Dividing Range was testing with its sharp bends and inclines but through truly beautiful country. The trouble was the road is so narrow that it was impossible to stop to take photos except at designated stopping areas.  This was one called Raspberry Lookout.

 

I was able to take this one from the van as I was stopped by roadworks where half the road had fallen off the mountain and so we had only one lane for a couple of kms.  You can see the lush growth of ferns, creepers and anything else that was growing.

 

This is a photo I wanted to put on my last blog of the little towns along the way.  Again, this is the Clarence River and the town was McLean.

 

My first sight of the Pacific Ocean.  I stayed with Lyn who I met at Blaze Aid in Yamba. She had left a week before me but invited me to stay with her on my journy.  Lyn's house was about 200 m from the Clarence River and she had been flooded out 5 times in 4 years. Each time it was designated a one hundred year flood. She was very fed up.  Lyn originally lived on the river bank but the council compulsorily acquired her house about 7 years ago due to flood risk and it was demolished.  She is a long way back now but says she has had more flooding than in the original house.

 

I am now in Sydney with Harriet, Bill, Hannah and Finn and will await the arrival of Myles and Thomas on Thursday evening.

En Route to Sydney

I have now arrived in Sydney and am able to get back on my blog.  I have not had sufficient internet cover for a few days and so have not been able to pass on my adventures.

After leaving Bingara, I moved onto my next overnight stay at Jackadgery Creek in New England on the road to Grafton. Again, I had a flowing river and animals to accompany me, albeit this time behind a fence.  A gorgeous morning with mist on the mountains followed.

 

 

Arriving in Grafton at about 8.30, I was desperate for a hair cut and while waiting for the shops to open, I took a walk along the levy bank. This is the Clarence River which had flooded twice earlier this year.  The levies were very high and I took this photo which includes a man rowing a boat leading a horse, and the bridge.  The bridge may not look very high here, but I almost passed out at the sight of it.  If you look closely, you will see that the cars are tiny spots on the top of the bridge, not within the engineering part of it.  The thought that I would have to cross it worried me enormously.

 

Having found a hairdresser who gave me a cut, I asked if there was any way to get across without going over this bridge.  She gave me a route which would take about an hour but was through pretty countryside and I decided that is what I would do.  She then asked me where I was headed, which was Yamba and she laughingly told me I didnt need to cross the bridge at all, just stay on the same side of the river for half an hour or so and I would get to Yamba.  I did just that.

 

I found lots of pretty sights along the river which is very wide, lots of fishing villages etc - prawns and fish are caught in the river and oysters seem to be farmed everywhere I went for the next few days.  I cant seem to upload the photos on this post, I will have to start again with a new one.

Leaving Blaze Aid

This morning I left Blaze Aid at Coonabarabra behind and headed off solo on my journey.  Before leaving I was treated to a poem reading at the morning muster.  The poem was about me. It was quite embarrasing as it told the story of my fencing career and then my kitchen/laundry takeover. It was however gratifying to know that my efforts were appreciated.

I learned a lot in my two weeks - not just how to erect an electric fence in putting in the insulators, plastic clips on the top two rungs and ceramic "cotton reels" on the bottom two and stringing 3 rows of barbed wire between which had to be twitched onto all the star pickets, and how to stack fallen tree limbs - but also how to wash up breakfast dishes for 70 people without a dishwasher.  Additionally, I discovered that the big 20 litre pink bottles labelled disinfectant which I used to clean the toilets and showers one day when the regular bloke went on strike actually contain detergent as well - there was froth and bubbles so high, it had to be hosed off.  I even took in a water colour painting lesson!

On leaving town, I took a 10km rough dirt track to see the Piliga Pottery which turned out to be well worthwhile, I nearly turned back several times knowing I would have to do the 10km back to the main road.  Everything rattled and when I finally stopped, all my careful stowing had been shaken loose.  However you will see from these pictures it was worth it.  Of course, I bought a jug.

The artist Julie gave a demonstration as to how she etches each pot before the glazers take over and painstakingly colour each section before firing.  Here she did a BIG jug with a bluebird picture.  I bought a little one with a blue bird. They were very expensive.

 

I then went on my journey through the Piliga Nature Reserve to Narrabri where I had lunch at yes, another lake.  Narrabri says it is the cotton capital of Australia.  There were odd shaped big bins that didnt look like wheat bins so I suppose they were for cotton.  No evidence of cotton plantings but later I saw some plants growing by the side of the road with fluffy white bits on them as I  turned North West and drove down a small road through the Mount Kaputar National Park.  Spectacular scenery, mountains that forbad me to look at the side of the road on the hair pin bends.

 

 

This was driving towards the mountains - the photo of the mountains is at the end, I cant seem to move it up here.  After the mountains I went through beautiful farming country - green as anything with fat black cattle everywhere.  That road came out at Bingara where I am camped by the riverside. When I pulled up to park, a donkey (or is it an ass?) was munching away right next to the van.  Most unconcerned as I got out and put up my pop top and my awning and then just wandered off.

 

I took this photo from the front of the van.  I am about 10 metres from the edge of the river, under paperbark trees.  Lots of birds chirping in the trees and ducks in the water. There are two other campers - about 100 m away.

 

This is a photo I took while driving through the mountains. Really spectacular scenery.  I just never thought that NSW would be so beautiful.

Tomorrow I am heading off towards Grafton driving through Inverell and Glen Innes.  That will be testing as I will be driving through the Great Dividing Range and three national parks.

A Change of Duties

Its been a while since I posted. Two reasons, the first is that I have been really busy but the real reason is that I lost my internet connection for about a week. I feel so stupid, having called for a person with computer skills to sort out my problem, I found that I had used up $180 worth of internet data in a month! This is because I had not been compressing my photos I put on the blog and the size of them gobbled up my credit.  I have now purchased more credit and am back in business.  Hopefully my reduced size photos are still in viewable form.

I remained on fencing duties until Wednesday morning.  Here are some photos at the farm owned by Arthur who had broken his leg in 3 places 4 days before the fire.  He had been on his quad bike and the dog ran in front of it, tipping him out.  He was laid up in bed and asked some friends to come over and draft some lambs from his flock.  When they arrived, the fire was heading his way.  He told the mates to forget the lambs, but to go up to the back paddocks and bring in his cattle.  They did so, but in driving the cattle towards the front of the farm, the fire was on them.  Helicopters who were using his dam to scoop up water could see they were in trouble and kept blasting the cattle with water and made a path for them to get through. They were all saved.

Arthur who has been ordered to stay off his leg, because he did more damage, continues to work harder than all of us.  He hobbles and runs and drives his tractor and does more than humanly possible.  He works for the national parks and has been trying to get his property to the stage where it can support him without working outside.  He has two teenage daughters, one of whom joined us over easter in doing fencing.

The little white blob on the skyline is the Sidings Springs Observatory.    The top photo is our mob eating lunch which is about the only time when we get a chance to take a photo.

 

After leaving Arthur's farm, we went onto John's farm about 40 km away from town and on the exact opposite side of those rocky outcrops.  I have photos of the observatory on the same hills from the opposite side.

 

These photos are of John and his son Robert (drop dead gorgeous 23 year old) who speak with such strong  Scotts accents that no one can understand them.  Robert's is less pronounced and he was born here, but obviously very isolated from other Aussies on the farm with mum and dad.  John bought the farm 26 years ago.  Here we did fencing, but also another woman, Mary and I got to pull up the rabbit fencing that was surrounding a house that was completely burnt and had been removed as it contained asbestos.  This was hard work because firstly the fencing was very old and had barbed wire through it and also to stop the rabbits had been dug in to the ground and had lots of old stuff blocking it in, like big rocks, old pipes, old pots and pan and everything.  It was very hard to pull out.  A lot of the farms can't be worked on until all the asbestos has been removed.

 

 

On Wednesday morning, as I was about to join my group at Morning Muster, an advertisement went up on the notice board.  Two positions vacant - one for mornings to do washing and breakfast dishes and clean up the kitchen post breakfast and the other to do evening duty to get the kitchen ready for the volunteer community groups to come and cook dinner and then to clean up afterwards and lock up everything. The first job was from 7am to 12 midday and the second from 5pm to 8.30 pm.  I asked if I offered to do both, could I please be taken off fencing.  (It had been a particularly had day on Tuesday with being in the sun all day and no logs to sit on).  My application was accepted and my lot in life was eased.  I now have a big break in the afternoons in which I can do what I like, which means reading mainly.

One of the kitchen girls said they had to take a photo of me in my work gear before I ceased to wear it and so here it is. Don't all laugh at once. I got my jeans and my workboots plus socks from the opshop that is operated here from all the donated clothes and goodies that people sent after the fire. It is quite chilly in the mornings. People other than me all complain.  It has been about 6 -12 degrees, I am fine with that, I just cant take the heat later.  Mostly it is about 25 in the afternoons which is OK.

I will stay here until Sunday working and head off on Monday 8 April to go a little further north and then head east to the coast to slowly wend my way down to Sydney to park at Harriet and Bills by Monday 15th and to meet up with Thomas who is coming over with Myles on 18th April.  Myles flys home on Sunday after taking Thomas to a footy match and Tom will stay with me at Harriet's for the next week with Hannah and Finn for the school holidays and then when they go back to school, Tom and I will head to Canberra for a week before he flys home on Friday 3 May.