FOUR NIGHTS IN EMERALD

We arrived here yesterday after Springsure, booking into Emerald Cabins and Caravan Park, which is quite good.  It was car servicing day, so that took up most of the morning.

The weather has been great, with each day getting quite warm, though nice and fresh in the mornings.  I believe there are some colder mornings coming though.

After lunch we drove to Fairbarn Dam, which is quite close to Emerald.  We took quite a few photos, see below.  The dam is like a massive lake in the middle of nowhere.  It was built and officially opened in 1972.  They have many water sports there, though it was pretty quiet today.

We are keeping well, though Peter has had a few run-ins with hay fever lately.  I've been ok, but frustrated with not being able to do the climbing, walking and anything fast.  But that's my burden.  I need to stay well, no cardiologists out here!  Well, there might be, but not mine.

Misty-Rose is adapting to travelling and ever changing scenery.  She spends most car trips being mostly calm and likes watching the passing view, and sitting on my lap 95% of the time!  We take her for a walk some days on the harness and lead, she has become used to it at last.

We are going to Emerald Baptist Church on Sunday morning, and will leave Emerald on Monday morning, heading to Clermont.

Will keep you all posted, and thank you for all your positive comments to my blog.

Judy x

The Peacock and his Peahens in Biloela

The second post was about Biloela, but I had a limited knowledge of how these blogs work, so there were no photos to illustrate our two days there.

Below are pictures of the peacock family aforementioned:

Two Days in Bilo

Monday 15th July 2013 we packed up and took off from Cania Gorge Big 4 and went back on the road, heading for Biloela, about 100 kms north of Cania Gorge.  Soon the grubs started biting, so we stopped and had corned beef and pickle sandwiches at a rest area, filling all our empty bottles with lovely fresh rainwater from the tank.

We arrived in Bilo (as they commonly call it) well into the afternoon and booked in at Biloela Caravan Park, for the night.  Park was complete with a family/harem of one beautiful boy and three peahens.  The boy was hilarious, very narcissist as he couldn't tear himself away from gazing at his unsurpassed beauty in the chromed bumper of our Mazda.

Misty stared in disbelief.and has since been too scared to be taken outside on the load.

The reason we stayed in such a humble place as Bilo was my coat.  I had put it into the dry cleaner's agent at Monto well over a week of working days previous and it hadn't come back.  Turns out it was sent to Rockhampton to be done and was somehow delayed in getting back to base.  We arranged to pick it up in Bilo, but it didn't turn up, forcing us into another night.  But we had plenty of errands down town, groceries, RACQ, pharmacy etc etc.  We got the coat at 3 pm.  Only $20 too, you'd pay more than that on the coast.

Peter has been suffering terrible hay fever for about a month, and was really bad today.

Tomorrow we are heading off again and are going to attempt to get to Rolleston or Springsure, depending on how we go.  Misty has an eye problem and we may take her to a vet in the morning before leaving Bilo.

Go the Maroons, by hook or crook we will see the match somewhere........

In April 2013 Peter retired from working full time and we took off in our new Kingdom Balmoral Cara-Mansion, towed by our new Mazda BT50.  Thus far we have stayed in Maryborough for a couple of months parked in my brother's front yard, while we joined in with the community of Grace Community Church to see what we could offer in the way of  inspiration and practical  help.

We left Maryborough about mid June and spent our first days in a nice caravan park at Biggenden, then moved on to Gayndah for a night free camping.  Then Mundubbera, where we stayed some nights at the Three Rivers Caravan Park, a lovely park as it had just been refurbished after the massive floods.  We went to Mundubbera Baptist for the morning service and met some lovely people.

While there we discovered on Workabout's website an opportunity at Cania Gorge National Park's Big 4 Caravan Park and arranged to come by and spend a month.  That is almost coming to an end now, we leave on Monday 15th July to continue our travels.  Peter has mainly been doing electrical maintenance and quite enjoying the work.  All of the staff are nomadders and here for varying lengths of time, but they are on the payroll, whereas Peter was just being paid in accomodation and meals, which suited us.

Whilst here we have been delighted to be visited by Geoff and Mary Parry for a few nights in their own van, and Trevor and Jan Stock.  This has been amazingly enjoyable, sitting around the campfire with a few bevies (and learning to blog).

Will tell you more when we are back on the road.

Retirement Afternoon Tea and Champagne :)