HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAURA!

My little baby turned 8 yesterday! We took her shopping to spend her birthday money and came home with a bag full of stuff - CD's, a lip balm making kit, LEGO 4WD and horse float, and Chris' favourite...some streamers/pom poms for dancing to her CD's with!! We went to Hungry Jacks for lunch and had a cake after tea when we sang Happy Birthday. I think she had fun. She also got to talk to lots of family from home who rang to wish her well.


Boy, it's a busy time of year! Birthdays, christmas shopping, present wrapping and then there's WORK. I am getting lots of shifts at the hospital, mainly mornings so I can be home with the family for the arvo, unless of course they cancel me. Today they cancelled my morning shift but needed someone for the PM shift, so off to work I will be going at 1PM. Oh, my poor aching feet!! Never mind, I get 10 days off over chrissy and New Year so I'm really looking forward to that.
As you can see, Will and Laura are getting into the spirit of Christmas. We will be going to Katherine to stay with Caz's family and are all getting very excited...especially Mum!!!
Well better go see what's happening outside before I organise things for work. Love to you all and hope to catch up some time soon xxx

The Wet Season

Well it had to happen...we had a few good (?!!) weeks of lovely hot weather before the wet season finally caught up with us yesterday. There is a low pressure system moving slowly across the top of OZ and it is dumping a considerable amount of rain on Darwin and the surrounding districts. By considerable I mean 275mm yesterday, and 125mm today. Chris tells me that is about 11 inches and then another 5 inches. Boy oh boy, sure knocks the socks off the rainfall we get in Victoria!! Caz and I just happened to be driving into Darwin CBD yesterday to do a little chrissy shopping when the downpour really got underway...as you can see from the photo I took, the drains were having a little trouble coping! We are on a 3 lane highway and passed at least 8 cars broken down on the side of the road and 1 front bumper bar which looked like it had been ripped off!

Every day (up until yesterday) we have been racing home from work to jump in the pool and cool off. Now, since the rains have started in earnest it has been a little cool, even for us Victorians!

Here are Deb, Laura and Caz relaxing when the temperature was high after a hard day.
Down in Katherine we stayed at Caz's mum and dad's and spent lots of time cooling off in their pool...lovely!

Well I must say I am getting excited now that Chrissy is just around the corner. We have the little tree set up on the front of the dash and some tinsel and paper streamers strewn around the bus to make it look all festive. We are going to head down to Katherine to spend the Chrissy and New Year with Caz's family and I know it will be lots of fun. Most of the shopping is done and I am grabbing as many casual shifts at the hospital as I can to pay for it all! So far, in 6 shifts I have been on 5 different wards, so I still feel a little lost, but I guess it will only get better. Chris is flat out working on the BBQ area in Caz's backyard, cleaning bricks and taking loads of rubbish to the tip. Anyone who happens to look even slightly bored is roped into helping and is very sorry after the first hour or so! The kids have finished the 2 weeks at their new school and are now on school holidays. Made some friends and got a load of christmas cards (with lollies inside) and even a birthday invitation! They are loving life here at Caz's with the animals getting all the love and attention they could hope for (and a little more besides!!) Only another week or so and the kittens will be sent to new homes...not sure how they will cope then but we will see.

Well another early shift booked for tomorrow so I'd better get some shuteye, love to you all. Cheers, deb and co xxx

Settling in at Caz's

Hey there everyone, here we are in beautiful Darwin, relaxing and enjoying the mozzie bites! Actually I think they are sandfly bites, but either way they are very itchy and driving me nuts!! Still waiting to see my mate Caz, who is down in Brissy at the moment, but hopefully she won't be too far away. Despite that we have moved into her back yard, with just inches to spare, as you can see from the photo. Stevo had to pull off some pretty impressive driving skills but we are in and poor Caz will have trouble getting us out now!

The weather is as we expected...unbelieveably bloomin' hot and muggy (the humidity is about 70-80%), but so far we are surviving, just! It takes about 2-3 showers a day, a few dips in the backyard bathtub, and at LEAST 3 changes of clothes to maintain some semblance of cleanliness. Thank goodness we aren't on water restrictions! Caz gave the kids a present that will probably save us all...a pool, so tonight we started setting it up and tomorrow we will try it out. Can't wait. Chris and I have been doing a little gardening for Caz to help her out, despite her protests that we would be sorry, and I hate to say it, she was right. Just walking out to the letter box is a job that makes you sweat so piling up dead palm fronds, moving rocks and pulling weeds is almost beyond us. Still, the yard looks better already so it is worth it! Last night we got our first rains of the wet season since we've arrived and it was wonderful to hear heavy rain on the roof for a change and see the flashes of lightening. Unfortunately I was the only one awake to enjoy it (tho' Will says he was awake the whole time too. Yeah, sure!)

Today we went to see one of the 2 local schools we are looking at for the kids next year. It was great and I don't think we'll have too much trouble getting them to start, they may even do a few weeks before the end of the school year. We have not done any serious school work since we left Mackay and the kids are keen to get back into it. What the?!

There are lots of animals here at Caz's and the cute and cuddly kittens are probably getting the most love and attention, closely followed by the dogs, chooks and fish. We are expecting baby chickens in the next day or so, that will be interesting. I've almost forgotten what it's like to be a new mother, the stress is terrible! Hope the family are all still safe and well when Caz returns.

Alright, almost time for bed so I'm out of here. Cheers to you all and take care, love Deb and Co. xxx

The beautiful Northern Territory

We made it to the border on Wednesday the 18th and I was so excited to get to the NT. As you can see from the photo, Laura was less excited as she had had a small disagreement with her brother and didn't want to be in the photo. We made her anyway!

This is one of the open cut mines at Mt Isa.

We stayed at the Barkly Homestead for our first stop in the Northern Territory. Met a nice couple and his teenage daughter who were on their way to Karanda (Qld). They had found a joey in it's dead mother's pouch on the side of the road that day and were trying to keep it alive. They bought it over to show our kids. Will and Laura enjoyed having another new friend to play with in the pool and we had a few drinks together that night and shared travel stories. It was great. Next morning we were off to Dunmarra.

Major Blow Out!

We had our first blow out on the bus a couple of days ago. An inside back tyre, couldn't have been a worse one. Meant we had to take off and replace 2 tyres instead of just 1. But the good news is WE DID IT! Had me worried a few times that the heat would beat us, but no, we got thru'. It happened at 12 noon, just half an hour short of our stop for the night. We had just finished all the cold water in the bottle, thinking we would be there soon enough and were looking forward to lunch at a reasonable time, having had a few late lunches over the previous few days. In reality tho' it took us just over 2 hours of struggling in the sun and the dirt to get it all done, and boy we looked a sight when we'd finished. I was sunburnt and our faces were all red and the sweat was just running off us. Chris had dropped the tyre on my foot (accidentally, he says!) so that was aching, and the kids had given up playing nicely after the first hour and were at the point of murdering each other. It was fun all round! Anyway, with the job done and a quick jump thru' the shower (which was too warm, even with just the cold tap on), I unearthed a couple of icypoles from the freezer and we hit the road again. Boy, we were exhausted! Got to our stop at Dunmarra at 3pm and almost fell into the pool. Brought an enormous bottle of cold water and that went in no time flat, phew! Guess that's the price we pay for the otherwise very cruisey time we spend touring around the country. Can't be relaxing all the time. Can it?

Gulf of Carpentaria

Wow, we sure are making tracks now. I can't keep up with the news at the stops any more! What a dilemma to be in...to type up these posts or to stop and have a bourbon...aw, heck you made me feel bad. OK, I'll have a drink WHILE I type the blog! Now we can all be happy. :)

Here are some photos from our time in the Daintree. We went on a river cruise and saw "Fat Albert", a regular on the river.

Then we headed over to Atherton and spent 3 days at Innot Hot Springs, touring the area to see the many beautiful waterfalls (this is Zillie waterfalls) and this very impressive "Curtain Fig Tree".

Stayed a couple of nights in Normanton, up at the Gulf of Carpentaria. Two days here so we can have a day trip to Karumba. The park itself is very dry, no grass to be seen and notices everywhere to lock up all your belongings so we are super vigilant.

Went to Karumba and it was OK, but that's all I'm saying. Chris says it would have been better to see it when the tide was in. Beaches were layers of compacted shells, that were good to see but lousy to walk on, and covered in mud.

I was a little scared of crocs near the crab pots that were on the beach, but Chris said it was silly to worry. Then back in Normanton (an hour inland) we saw an exact, TO SIZE, replica of an 8.5 metre croc that was shot in the river at Normanton 50 years ago. The jaws of the replica were wide enough for both our kids to climb into for a photo...silly to worry??? I think not!

From there we went to Mt Isa for 2 nights. Went out for tea at the Buffalo Club which was lovely, great kids club. The Argylla caravan park had a BIG pool, which was even lovlier!! Temperature is around 35-40 degrees in the shade I would say. In the bus when our air con. freezes and won't blow any cold air it is even hotter!!!!! But we are hanging in there and using any mean possible to survive...wet tea towels, icy poles, swimming 3 times a day...what ever it takes. Mmmm, loving this warm weather.

Went on an underground mine tour which was very informative, and by that I mean great for Chris and I, but too much info for the kids. (Plus it was very hot in all the safety gear and with the battery pack for the lights etc.) Having said that, they did still enjoy most of it, especially the bit where they got to drive the train and detonate a charge to blow up Kmart Plaza (well that's the story our guide gave us!) Cheers for now.

Movin' on

Hi friends and family, we are on the move again and at the moment we are near Cairns at a place called Fishery Falls. The caravan park is lovely and the whole area is surrounded by mountains with a cute little stony bottomed river running thru' the back of the property. Ah, the serenity!

The trip up here was pretty cool too, we met some great people and the kids had a ball making friends. We stayed at Bluewater caravan park (just north of Townsville) the first few nights and met Steph and his wife Fi and their 3 kids, all about our kids ages. They are doing the trip around OZ, just like us, but they are going clockwise, so had lots of tips about the places we are yet to go. We chatted for ages and Chris and Steph had lots in common...fishing, shooting, comparing buses, catching crocs...OK, just Steph on the last bit...the photos were fantastic! A lady named Ann who lives at the caravan park came to ask if our kids would like to go around the camp on Halloween with her trick or treating. I think there's a saying about a bear in the woods that would be useful at this point, suffice to say...they went! They got so many lollies I don't know how they will ever get them eaten (I can hear Shas and Tanya saying "just let them eat them", but believe me, it's not worth the stress later in the day!) Our buddies were moving on the next day to a free camp just up the road at Toomulla, so we decided to hold off on our move to Cairns and spend a little longer with them. Glad we did, we got to meet another great couple, Mick and Michelle and their 5 daughters. So all in all we had 10 kids between us and barely a disagreement to be heard for the 2 days we were together. Amazing! Will and Laura had so much fun at the playground, on the beach, riding bikes and just generally playing around with the other kids they didn't want to leave. But of course we had to get a move on, Caz is waiting for us!

Here we all are on top of the lookout at Townsville.

Here are our little "trick or treaters". Laura is the ghost, then Elly, Lacey, Jay, Keira and Will (the pirate).

The camp site at Toomulla with our big blue bus in the background.Steph in his boat with Will and Laura and some of the other 10 kids!

We found these little bird "nests" all along the beach at the high tide mark. Think they were tern's eggs and they were just plopped in the sand in groups of 1-3 amongst the shells. They were really well camoflauged so the kids ran around marking them with sticks so noone would stand on them. When we checked them the next day a few had hatched out. Very cute, hey?

Got to Fishery Falls on Wednesday the 4th. Caught up with Sandy and Trevor, had a few drinks (of course) at happy hour and met some of the locals. The next day we went into Cairns and spent the day on the Esplanade at the lagoon and the snazzy little playground called "Muddies".

Green Island

Yesterday we spent the day snorkelling out at Green Island. It was great fun, once we all got the hang of it, and found a spot that wasn't too wavy. The trip over on the "Big Cat" was a little bumpy but we quite enjoyed the rockin' and rollin' and didn't get sick at all, unlike some people! Although the water was a little murky in places we still found lots of flora and fauna to spy on. Chris got some super photos with an underwater camera we hired, as you can see by these shots.

The kids are here giving their tired little legs a rest from the flippers. In the background at the end of the pier is our boat, the "Big Cat".

We are so lucky to have such amazing things to see and do here in Australia. No wonder so many tourists come here every year. Each time we stop at a lovely new spot or visit a new sight I'm amazed at how little of Australia I have actually seen. What a special thing we are doing, not only for our children, but for ourselves. Come on all you people and get out there...before it's too late!

Emptying out the park...

Well today we had to say goodbye to another lot of wonderful friends, Kerrie and John. They are from Albury, Vic. and with any luck we'll catch up with them next time we are down that way, or better yet, maybe we'll run into them unexpectedly somewhere in the great beyond! Sorry, too much "Land Before Time" (one of the kids fav. shows). We had a little send off last night, and I do mean little. There are only two couples left now from our original group of 7 "long-termers", and the last ones, Carol and Paul will be leaving on Sunday! As I'm not fond of goodbyes at the best of times, I am glad there will be noone to wave us off when we leave, we can just jump in and hit the road. No tears, just lots of great memories!

Jen sent me some photos from when they were up last month (seems like much longer ago now), and I've added some of them in. Love the one of Nikki on the back of the motorbike with Uncle Chris, she thought it was wonderful, and the other one of Nikki on the swing in her new dress (cute!). The rest are us at the waterpark and the kids in the tent.

My husband officially became unemployed today, YIPPEE!!! Now we can spend some time with him and get on with the rest of this trip. OK, truthfully.... Deb just wants to get to Darwin, but I am glad poor Chris doesn't have to do any more 3am wake ups, and the kids have been missing him something shocking so it's great for them too. We will need to be a bit cautious with the finances, but at least Stevo is catching fish again so maybe we won't starve after all! At the moment he is off trying to catch some red claw (yabbies) at a nearby dam. Just hope he doesn't find a snake instead, the taipans up here are deadly! We sold the motorbike yesterday, although we didn't really want to, we just couldn't fit it on the trailer. Will buy a cheap car in Darwin instead. Well that's news from me for the moment, cheers to you all and take care, Deb.

FISH, GLORIOUS FISH... (AT LAST!!!)

LOOKIE WHAT WE GOT!! Chris, Elliot and Kai went out on a charter while they were up on holidays and came home with these 5 beautiful fish. Kai got a flathead and a mangrove jack, Elliot got the barra, and Stevo got a GT and a morgan's cod. For three yummy meals the eight of us stuffed ourselves with fish. Delicious!
So for all you doubters out there (yes, I mean you two, Holty and Mooka!!!) here are the photos. Official photos of real, beautiful, fresh fish. OK, caught on a charter (to Stevo's disappointment), but still caught and able to be eaten by us, not brought from the shop!
Tans, Elliot and the kids came up for just under a week and although it wasn't nearly long enough, I think they had fun, so now onto the relaxing part of the holiday...

Spent lots and lots of time in the pool. Everyone's skills came along in leaps and bounds. Will learnt to float on his back and to dive. Elliot and Takia also learnt to dive and practiced at every opportunity, getting us to give them a score out of ten to see how they went. We had scores anywhere between 2 and 10 and lots of laughs!

We caught the bus into town one day to go to the water park (we couldn't all fit into Jimny) and the kids had a blast. Poor Chris had to go to work, but the rest of us made the most of it.
Here are Stevo, Deb, Tans and Elliot relaxing after a hard day of swimming and catching up on the news from home. It's a tough job but someone's got to do it!!
We had a going away party for Paula and David while our visitors were up, so they got the chance to meet all the lovely people we have befriended here at the caravan park. They also went to see Chris at work and Kai got a now customary ride in the tractor to see it all up close.
But like all good things must come to an end, so did the holiday :(( I hope they all had a wonderful time, we sure did. Here are the girls (Laura and Takia) spending a little quality time together on the swing.

RIP Bindi

I'm sorry to report some sad news this week...our one and only bus pet has passed away. Dear little Bindi the spiny leaf stick insect died yesterday from unknown causes. She had just shed her skin a few days earlier and although it was the first time she had done that she seemed perfectly normal, just understandably a little sleepy. Over the next few days she got floppier and floppier until finally, thank goodness, she died and put us out of our misery! Laura and I took her out to be buried last night, Chris and Will decided they had more important things to do (go figure!). I said a few nice words over her grave about what a lovely pet she was and Laura sobbed for an hour or so that "she wasn't just a pet, she was family". Then this morning we all woke up to a brand new sunny day and have moved on, so no more sad faces. Despite Laura's insistence that we get another stick insect NOW, we are going to wait until we get to Darwin and spend a little time in Caz's menagerie and hope that satisfies Laura's need for a pet, at least for a little while. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at last count Caz had a couple of dogs, a couple of cats (and photos showing a handful of kittens, maybe not hers??), chickens, ducks and a rat, all in her little backyard. That should give our girl plenty to do for a while. OK, we are off to the pool now. Tans and family arrive in TWO DAYS!! YIPPEE!! Chat more later, that is if anyone out there is actually still reading this site???

Things are heating up...

Jen and I took the girls to the markets in Sarina during their visit. It was a busy morning and after dragging them around to all the stalls we grabbed a bite of lunch and headed off to the beach to cool off. As you can see, a lack of bathing attire was no deterrent to our beautiful girls who stripped off and jumped right in. The next photo shows the little darlings relaxing on the way home...please note: Jen's kids NEVER sleep in the car!!

Just grabbing a quick bite to keep the energy levels up! Laura, Nikita, Will and Hughie having brekkie in the bus.

The weather has been heating up over the last few weeks (early 30's) and the humidity is pushing 50% some days. Building up a bit today and looking like rain but whether we get any or not is anyone's guess. Just getting us ready for Darwin where the temperature will be in the high 30's and the humidity will be in the 90% region...can't wait!! Have been getting lots of emails and photos on the phone from Caz, who just happens to be in Melbourne at the moment and is freezing!

Last week we had to say goodbye to some wonderful friends, Carol and Allan, who have made our stay here in Mirani a really joyful experience. They live in SA we are planning to drop in to see them on the way across the bottom of OZ at the end of 2010. In true Mirani Caravan Park style we cracked out the drinks and nibblees the night before they left, and after lots of chatting and a few tears we gave them an unforgettable send off.

Laura is at the party with Paula and Dave, our friends from NZ.

The Mirani Girls! Kerrie, Carol, Paula, Deb and (Kiwi) Carol.