Tuesday 26 February 2013 - on the way to Longreach
Yesterday was a much better day. We decided to stay another night at Barcaldine and just take it easy in the hope that it would help the girls feel a bit more settled. We walked up to the main street in the morning, stopping at a park for the girls to play at and checking out the local historical sites. There are six pubs situated along the main drag, beautifully maintained with information signs in front of each of them. There’s also an old-fashioned cinema and a few other buildings of historical value, making our stroll up and back quite an interesting one. We stopped at the bakery in the hope of picking up some sourdough we saw advertised in a brochure, but they didn’t have any. The sliced white loaf we bought instead was absolutely delicious anyway. The girls even ate it plain – too impatient to wait for butter or spreads.
Back at the campsite, we sheltered from the increasingly warm sun under a big leafy tree and read books, played the iPad and computer and generally just chilled out. Glenn filled a few little tubs with water and the girls stripped off and splashed around, they thought it was great. After nap time we took them to another playground, took a few photos of the sites and had a pink beer (for the girls – Glenn’s was the golden kind) at one of the pubs. Dinner time went much more smoothly, although we still breathed a sigh of relief when the girls were finally tucked up in bed.
Today, after a fairly a pain-free pack-up (we probably only told the girls off 20 times instead of 50), we fuelled up and set off for Longreach. Glenn has spent the last few days tracking our diesel usage, comparing travelling in fourth gear at about 85-90km and fifth gear at 95-100km. The former has proven to be only slightly more economical than the latter (16.2L as opposed to 16.6L per 100km) so we figure we’ll stick to the slightly faster pace, unless we’re in really hilly country.
Tuesday continued - at Longreach
On arriving at Longreach, we called into the information centre and then scoped out the free-camp spot and two caravan parks available. The free camp was 5km out of town and offered little shade, and considering the mercury’s supposed to hit 35 today, we decided to pay to stay. The first caravan park we drove past looked nice enough, but we chose to stay at the other one. They were both the same price ($25 a night – at that price we won’t stay for too long!), but the one we’re in is huge, has two pools and spas, an awesome camp kitchen and stacks of amenities. It’s practically empty too – one of the advantages of travelling in the off-season. We picked a great shady spot and set up camp, then hit the pool to cool off before lunch and nap-time.
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| The advantage of travelling in the off-season – a practically-deserted caravan park! |
It’s pretty warm at the moment – too hot for me to sleep (because our bed is elevated on the trailer, the heat gets trapped there) but the girls are enjoying a snooze because their beds are on ground level. A breeze blows through most of the time and there’s a bit of cloud cover occasionally too. I can see why this is classed as the off-peak season, as most of the grey nomads wouldn’t find the heat too uncomfortable, but we’re coping well enough. I think that coming from Mackay and being accustomed to the humidity has helped us deal with the climate typical of the Central Queensland summer – hot but dry.
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| Spot the Brit – our grey nomad neighbour sunning himself in 35 degree heat! |
We’ve been eating fairly well whilst so far. The girls always start the day with Brits and milk (Glenn sneaks honey on it when he thinks I’m not looking), toast for Glenn and I usually have eggs and vegies, often using what was leftover from dinner the night before. Morning tea consists of bikkies/crackers/slice/nuts, depending on what’s open and how recently I’ve baked and fresh fruit if we’ve got it. Lunch is sandwiches or crackers, pretty much always with Glenn and Yasmin’s favourite of peanut butter, honey and cheese and either Vegemite or cheese for Sienna. If we give Sienna the peanut butter/honey/cheese combo, she pulls her sandwich apart, eats the cheese and sucks the honey off – I figured out today that she doesn’t like peanut butter. I’ll make myself a salad and the girls and I have a bit more fruit if we’re still peckish.
Afternoon tea is much the same as morning tea, although we try not to give the girls too much because they eat an early dinner. They eat sometime between 5:30-6:30pm and if we’re organised, we eat with them. They usually have (frozen) peas, corn, cheese, (raw) carrot, roast pumpkin if we have it, an egg for Sienna and occasionally baked beans for Yasmin. This is followed by more bread if they’re still hungry and a small bowl of yoghurt and honey or fruit for dessert.
Glenn and I will have meat (lots of venison and beef in the freezer at the moment) and cooked vegies or salad. I try to get creative with the vegies, varying the textures (sometimes boiling and mashing; sometimes frying) and using spices, nuts etc to keep it interesting. Salt and pepper (especially) are pretty well-used at mealtimes. (Last night’s meal was a fail though – I cooked zucchini and onion with ginger and garlic, fried some chopped beef in it and boiled up some peas and carrot. Unfortunately, Glenn hates zucchini, so he ate his meat, some of his other vegies and then was forced to make a sandwich to fill the gap! Luckily the bread was still fresh from our bakery visit earlier that day.) Fresh produce is pretty expensive out here – we haven’t seen a big supermarket since about Stanthorpe and you can tell that everything at IGA has been on a truck for a while. But, beggars can’t be choosers!
In the afternoon we took the girls for a bike ride into town, strolled around for a bit and then headed for a park with a decent kid’s playground to allow the girls to let off some steam. On arriving back at camp, we threw our swimmers back on and made the most of the facilities, this time cooling off in the spa (sans bubbles – at $2 for ten minutes, we decided to pass). The evening passed uneventfully and we enjoyed a nice cool breeze all night long, although it did turn into quite a bit of wind in the early hours so Glenn had to drag himself out of bed to pull the fly down cause it was flapping around and making a racket.
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| Daddy keeping Sienna's fluids up in the heat! |
