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Sunday 6 September 2009

Father's Day




6th September – Sunday

Happy Father’s Day to all those fathers out there!

The last two nights in the caravan park we were kept amused by two female bush poets – great entertainment from a couple of women with an amazing memory for reciting poetry and yarns, and also making them relevant to the audience. Of course, being in Banjo Patterson country, there was a Banjo poem each night.

The majority of caravan parks in the outback allow dogs (under control, of course) and we haven’t really been bothered by them much until the last week. A couple at Hughenden had a snarly terrier who was not tied up and allowed to do his droppings under our awning (not amused) and only some were picked up. These turned up at Winton yesterday, along with a large number of other travellers with dogs, and they have now followed us to Longreach! We also had a family with four children under the age of six pull in beside us yesterday afternoon. Two of the children were twins about 2 years old and they all drank coke and cordial all afternoon. Not hard to imagine what they were like by 6.00 pm!

This morning we travelled to Longreach – all of 180 kms and a good road all the way. We were rather surprised, though, at the large number of road trains we met. The Mitchell Grass plains continued and we saw a herd (is that the word?) of pigs in a muddy pool beside the road, some kangaroos and a couple of bustards. There is evidently an emu plague in the district as we saw another couple this morning – that makes 14 in four days!

The Discovery Caravan Park at Longreach is quite acceptable – a very large park, all gravel, of course, and we have a drive through site. There are even three very nice spa pools, but the water isn’t heated. Even with the temperature hovering around the 32 degree mark, I still don’t consider this hot enough for unheated water! The air is also extremely dry, with a humidity of only 8%. This certainly dries out the skin very rapidly, as well as the nasal passages.

A quick tour of Longreach quickly revealed that NOTHING happens on Sunday and even the Information Centre was closed. All the streets have bird names, are very wide and have the power poles running down the middle of the road. Intersections are a bit tricky with a great power pole fair in the middle!

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