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 :)

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Happy Australia Day to all.

Sorry we couldn't be there to share the great day

We managed to round up a few people at the park

for afternoon drinks and BBQ later on,

even though we worked till 11.00.

Had a good afternoon/evening with most having a drink

or two and the couple of kiwis here

joined in also. They were quite receptive when

Les and Gordon, (one of the residents), decided

to put up some aussie flags around

their vans. We also replaced a larger All Blacks

flag at the front of the park which had been flying

since the world cup games.

There is a now a real Australian flag flying.

Below - from left Gordon, Maree, Les

Les and Bryce the kiwi.

Bryce trying to look Ausie till he speaks!

And the crowd grew, we ended up with 17 people.

We haven't worked since Aust Day, back to

the mushies Tuesday.

We have started applying for some other jobs

around here and also other towns, see what

response we get.

We decided to get out and go for a drive to

Parkes the other afternoon.

Whilst in Peak Hill, about half way to Parkes,

we came across this bone yard with heaps

of old cars sitting in this yard.

The photos will give you some idea of

just what is there, couldn't believe  it!

Unfortunately, the man who owns these cars is

not interested in selling any of them

or any part of them apparently.

He used to own/work the local Holden dealership

quite a few years ago and supposedly has an original

 FJ sitting in storage somewhere.

We hear you guys have had considerable rain

over the last week.

We have only had one real rain day and it

has just been overcast, drizzle etc.

Still saying we have rain coming though??

'til next time

Hi again everyone we have had an up and down

week with work. Couple of days 8  and 10 hours, then 3 hour

day and then Thu off, work 4 hours Fri, Sat off

and working for a while Sunday.

We visited the Old Dubbo Gaol on Wed night for a night tour.

Quite interesting evening, learning about the old gaol

opened in 1887 and had quite a checkered past.

It was used not only for prioners, but also

for hanging of some of the locals most dangerous

criminals. The guide was dressed as an original warder

and gave a very authentic look at the way things were.

They had some other actors in a few of the cells also.

we were all locked in the solitary confinement

cell for a few minutes in complete darkness,

the prisoners who were sent there spent 21 days in the cell

Storms have been threatining here for the past three days, Bathurst

and Orange have been getting it all, we have missed out.

Bye for now cheers.

Hello everyone, we have had a couple of bike rides since last post, to Lake Burrendong and around Narromine and Trangie, (smaller towns out from Dubbo).

Average working week, basically been off work since

Thursday after we finished at 7.30am.

We decided to take a bike ride on Mon 9th after work as we finished

earlyish. We went down to Lake Burrendong which is out from Wellington towards Orange. It's about 80ks away.

Very nice set up there, owned and operated by

State Govt, so there is a fee to get in even as a day visitor.

It has all the facilities and is used as a water supply but also

power boats, skiing and fishing are all carried

out on the lake. They have some permanent residents,

cabins, camp sites, kiosk and fuel.

As you can see we found the Burrendong Hotel,

it's at a town called Mumbil, near the lake.

Saturday we went on another ride just to a couple of the local towns,

Narromine and Trangie, not really much at these towns,

but we did find a statue of Glenn McGrath, who was born and bred

at Narromine and been playing cricket there from 7 years old.

Friday night we had dinner at the "Drovers Dog Hotel"

at Eumungerie, which is about 30 k's from Dubbo.

One of the women from work lives up there and invited us up

there for dinner. It's a classic old town country pub.

Meals were $10 each and very nice.

Cam and Amanda know of this town, as some of Cam's

relatives are from there.

There isn't much there that's for sure!

Saturday night we copped a huge storm here, the neighbours' annexe collapsed during the storm. He wasn't around as he is a tanker driver

and is out for days at a time.

We went over and sorted it out Sun morning.

Our van and annexe withstood it all, did very well

There is a constant flow of short term visitors coming through,

being holiday time I guess.

One of the motor homes here has a classic saying

"Jim and Sue, Cruzn, Boozn and Snoozn", love it.

We have finally got around to including some photos of the model car and caravan Amanda and Cam gave us before we left.

We had to name the van "The Snail" of course.

here they sit on the exhaust fan ledge.

Brother Chris also gave us another model car and caravan,

it's an XW panel van and old caravan, they all now live on the ledge

above the exhaust fan. The number plates on them

is "Moff 81". Check the Peter Brock magnet also.

Well that's about it for the week, back to the mushies in the morning.

Happy New Year

Hello everyone, happy new year to all, we are now back in Dubbo, after a very busy two weeks back home.

Apologies to those of you we didn't catch up with.

We did have some great times with our children and

grandkids, as well the newest of them, Bailey.

Prior to leaving Dubbo and the mushroom farm,

the bosses, David and Janelle, gave us a coffee

mug each with the mushroom farm name and our name on.

They were also very generous and included us in

the bonuses given out to everyone.

The trip back to Vic Pt was quite good, only

minimal leftovers of flooding around Moree and out from Goondiwindi.

We had borrowed a tandem trailer from the caravan park

owners, took it home and loaded the

bike on and took it back to Dubbo.

Had a very smooth run back, no dramas and

the bike travelled very well.

So you may ask how do we tow the van and the bike?

Susan is going to tow the van whenever we move around

and I will ride the bike.

The previous tenants on the site we are on planted a small

tomato bush and it has now gone beserk and we have lots of

cherry tomatoes to eat. There is also a capsicum bush and parsley growing in the garden.

That's about all for now, we are back to the mushies tomorrow

and the early starts, so will update again soon.