The big smoke of Emerald

Greetings from Emerald

Further to our trip from Dubbo to Vic Pt,

we had a small matter with fuel.

On the Newell Hwy somewhere just around

Moree, after we had passed two huge

Harvesters on the way, Susan let me know she

wanted to pull over. Susan advised the fuel light

had been on for some time and the fuel gauge was

nearly on E for "enough".

At this point we had about 6-7 k's to Moree.

Threw in the 10litres spare from the back.

pics for proof

Our Goondiwindi stop

On the Newell cruising

Sunrise at Gundy park

Morning at Monto free camp site

We had quite a good trip to Emerald via an overnight

stay at a free camp just outside Monto, on the range.

Nice little hideaway off the road with basic toilet

facilities. We ran the genny for a couple of hours

to keep the fridgemate running.

The battery power in the van worked well.

Some 6k's out of Monto, the bike ran out of fuel,

used the spare 10 litres knew it was close,

just didn't quite make it.

Plenty road works on the way, including a

longer stop on the Blackbutt range as they

are re-aligning the road over the range, so

was a longer stop.

Generally, the run up was good Susan has handled the car and van very well for the whole trip and has become

quite good at the towing and listening in

on the CB to check what is happening around.

Once we got onto the Capricorn Hwy, we encountered

the triple road trains and a very large

bulldozer on a lowloader with cop pilot.

Had to pull of to the side of the hwy.

Getting very hot on the bike by the time we got to Biloela

and beyond. Emerald very hot, around 36 today to creep

up to 38+ in the next couple of days.

Pic of our set up at the van park, not a

tree in sight at this new area of the park

and getting to 36+!

PS Air con running 24/7

Susan's back has got worse in the last couple of days,

so much so, we visited the hospital on Sunday morning.

The doc gave her an anti-inflammatory

injection and scripts for Panadeine Forte and Diazepam

to try and settle things. Left there better then when we went in.

Whilst Susan was at the hospital, Les had

an appointment with his new boss at

Emerald Coaches at 10.00, so

had to go and see him while Susan

was at Emergency.

Emerald Coaches is a family owned business

operating since 1981 and have 24 buses/coaches.

The boss, Murray, is a great bloke, spent some

hour and a half with him.

Les starting work Monday doing some familiarisation

and training with Murray and the others.

They have contracts with a variety of mine sites, school runs

and local runs to/fm Springsure, Clermont, Blackwater.

Not sure what jobs Les will be doing yet, will

wait and see what pans out.

Susan will be checking work situation

during the week, plenty of local jobs,

Woolies, local shops etc, so shouldn't

be a problem.

No word from the job up north QLD as yet,

hopefully by the end of the week.

On the road again

Well this update, while being late, brings some news.

We have now left Dubbo, heading to Emerald.

Currently in Victoria point till Thursday or Friday.

Said goodbye to the mushies last Thursday as

Les was offered work driving buses with

Emerald Coaches. They do a variety of work

including runs out to the mine sites taking employees

out and back, school runs and also out to Blackwater.

Susan will chase up work once we arrive.

Susan put her back out on Sunday morning

as we were packing up at Goondiwindi

She has been very sore with limited movement over

the past days. Susan also has a specialist appointment

in Cleveland Tuesday.

As we had taken the bike back to Dubbo after

Christmas, Susan was driving the ute and towing the van.

We had a mostly unspectacular trip back to Brissie, thankfully.

Susan is an old hand at towing now and has a couple of stories

about fuel and a certain B Double driver on the Newell Highway.

Talk about numb bum on the bike, we were stopping

every hour or so, usually in a town for a break, so Les could

get off the bike and stretch.

So, the next leg of our journey begins shortly on the

trip to Emerald, anothe 900 odd k's.

We have applied for a couple of positions at a caravan

park in north QLD at a town called Mt Surprise.

It is inland from Cairns and Townsville on the Gulf Development Road. The owners/operators conducted a phone

interview with us Saturday afternoon just after

we arrived in Gundy.

Les has applied for a Tour Guide position there with

the owners, who operate the tours around the area including

the Undarra Lava Tubes and the Savannahlander motor rail.

This also includes driving buses and taking the

tourists around and explaining the history of the area.

Susan has applied for a reception/cleaning job at the park also.

She may have a couple of options at the park, so we will hear

more by the end of February.

The town is some 300k's from Cairns so is a bit remote

and has 65 permanent residents.

We will update as we know more on this and other

news as we get into Emerald and settled.

Cheers fo now

Hello again,

Another quietish week at the mushies, having said that

we did work this morning.

Had a variety of weather this last week,

Thursday was a high of 18, showers and cold!

We had to dig out some cold weather gear, crazy.

Then it was back to 29 the next day and fined up

enough to take the bike out for a run.

We visited a very detailed and working railway model

of a Swiss town ship, with houses, church,

playground, mountains, ski lift, buses and trains running

etc etc. it was an amazing exhibition.

We then visited the Royal Flying Doctor Service education centre

at Dubbo airport. A very interesting and informative

place. They have two of their own planes based here,

it also has a small souvenir shop, a collection

of old equipment etc.

They also now have a computerised

mapping system of their service area,

displayed on the wall in real time,

which shows where each of their planes and Broken Hill's planes are, and includes the air ambulances.

The park owner has a Honda CB1000r and has been

wanting to go for a ride with someone for a while

now. He and I went for a run out to Wellington

and out along some back roads and back to Dubbo

via a small country pub on the way back for a beer.

Here at town called Ballimore where we stopped on the way back.

Mick's bike

Mick cruising the back roads.

Someone sent this map of Aust, pretty close at the moment!

Made friends with a couple in the park, (Gordon and Maree) 

 who have been

here working for 10 months now.

Maree works at the park here and Gordon is involved

with disassembling of machinery but then

pack into containers and ship to China for

reassembling. They have finishe one contract late December

at the local meat works, Fletchers.

He is waiting for his business partner to return

so they can start o the next project again at

Fletchers. If this happens shortly, Les will

get some work with him for couple of months.

In the mean time we have applied for various jobs

around here and further afield and also registere with

a local job agency.

All for now cheers to all :)