P7 Offroad Adventures

It was nice to have a ’sedate’ start to the day.

The girls had some cornflakes and milk as Tracy and I started packing up the p7 Patrol for the second last time.

Goodbyes were said, and we were off.

The other Fraser Coast Families were heading straight back today,but we were making another stop in Miles to see the girl’s grandma.

After arriving in Miles, we met up at the “Creek Cafe” set in the old Westpac Bank for a very nice lunch, then off to the Miles Historical Village, (while the girls were in ‘museum mode’), and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

We spent a lazy afternoon with Kayla playing with her uncle Craig’s legos and colouring in on Grandma’s floor.

After dinner we brought Grandma back to our room at the Miles Outback Hotel – very nice- and showed her some of the nearly 2000 pictures frm the last 2 weeks.

After what ended up being an uneventful night, (although it would appear that the local police were kept on their toes – many thanks from all of us) breakfast was an early one at the Cunnamulla High School.

Unfortunatley we were too early for the kids, but all of the staff were there. Tracy started her teaching career in Cunnamulla, so spending the morning at the school was great.

We decided to head straight for St George and not join the rest of the trailers who would be taking a very ’round-a-bout’ track.

Off to the servo to pick up some supplies and to air back up to highway pressures when i discovered a tek screw through the tread face of one tyre. The tyre hadn’t lost pressure so i have no idea how long it was there, around the corner to the tyre place and i borrow his trolley jack and rattle gun, I took the wheel off and had him put on a proper internal patch and plug. 20 minutes and $20 later we were on our way.

A couple of hours down the road we pulled into Bollon for a little stop,what a great little town, clean amenities, awesomelooking playground (but the sprinklers were on it) and a very charming little cafe. We had an ice cream (the girls can have Dixie Cups) and made our way back to the car.

We arrived in St George a little after lunch time,checked in and headed around to the Australian Hotel for lunch, this is one of those places that is very different from the inside. What a great feed, and friendly staff. The girls burnt off a bit of energy in the dining room, overlooking the river, and had a play with a couple of local kids.

Other trailers started arriving a little later, it seems that a few others left the group early too.

We had organised a parade of vehicles through the main street, so we all lined up andmade our way through town. The ’starlight trek’ was also in town so there was quite a bit of colour in St George tonight.

We had our official dinner at the Merino Motel, people were thanked, auctions were held, and we were given a bit of a taste of what too expect on next year’s Cape York Trip.

Another early start with Breafast at the Catholic School.

Morning tea was about 200kms along someexcellent dirt roads at Adavale station, the girls just loved their garden, what a little oasis.

After lunch we made our way along somemore good dirt roads, avoiding the bulldust, and called in at a small school for an absolutely amazing afternoon tea stop.

We have just now arrived in Cunnamullaand checked into the impressive Cunnamulla Hotel. (we have been asked to reomve anything from our cars which can be easily removed, that could take a while)

Pics from today and yesterday a little later on

After a big night’s activities at the Thargo Sports Grounds we began with Breakfast at the Thargo School.

Today was pyjama day and I am confident that everybody in town knew that there were some strange visitors.

We hit the road and within a few minutes were again on dirt.

Our morning tea stopwas at a river setting on a property. The son of the owners led us along a 26km trek through the property filling us in on its colorfulhistory and taking us to the disused shearing shed and the site of the burnt out homestead, lots of history, and we never cease to be aazed at how people can make a living out of such harsh countryside.

Following our tour we made our way to the Tompine Pub. “The Pub without a Town” forlunch and a gae of tennis on their brand new court.

After lunch we took the option to head straight to Quilpie to give the girls a break.

We checked into our awesome little cabin at the caravan park and got some washing done.

Dinner was at the Bowls Club a little later on and it was agood feed, the kids had fun playing lawn bowls, and watching the Yabby Races.

What a huge day…

We had a big breakfast at the Outamincka Bar before loading up for a far from direct trip to the dig tree.

The organisers had arranged for a local bloke, known as “Bomber” to give us a bit of a history lesson on site.

The dig tree and surrounding area was somewhere that we had wanted to see for a very long time, I think that the significance was lost on the kids though…

After lots and lots of dirt roads we trundled into Noccundra pub for a late lunch. The kids got to play on the playground before we were back into the car for the last leg into Thargo.

Most of the town seemed to have turned out at the sports field to greet us.

A huge day,the kids are very,very tired, but have had a good day

After the previous evenings events, we met up out the back of the Birdsville Pub to enjoy a cooked breakfast and meet the teacher/principal of Birdsville State School. J4K handed over a cheque for $2650 to go towards their upcoming trip to Canberra.

Today was to be the day where we crossed a corner of the desert. I was asked to say a few words about recovery procedure to help ensure that all trailers and machines arrived in Innamincka safely.

The obligatory group photos were taken out front of the pub and we were on our way.

Shortly down the road we crossed into South Australia and started speaking more slowly and using smaller words .

The crossing was made by buddying 2wd with capable 4wds. While there were a couple of soft patches,i am happy to say that with excellent intercar communication the entire group made it acrosss Walkers Crossing and on into Innaminka without incident.

After checking into The Innamincka Trading Post we set about checking out this little town. The Trading Post was extraordinarily well stocked and there is an outstanding restauraunt attached to the pub.

Tracy saw the Chef and he organised a special meal for the girls, which they enjoyed immensely. They played “Open Season 2″ on the big screen outside for the kids. We adjourned to our comfortable-enough little cabin for a well earned sleep.

We had been looking forward to a ‘day off’.

Breaky was served at the Birdsville Bakery with a couple of our team helping out the cooks.

After breakfast we all did various tasks about the place. We caught up on lots of washing, visited the information centre,picked upafew things at the Servo, did someminor mainteance on the P7 Patrol and made our way over to the Birdsville Pub for lunch. The Staff were very accomodating, making up a specialmeal for the girls.

During the afternoon i needed to atted an official’s meeting so we organised the last of the washing and picked up some carael tarts from the bakery.

Dinner tonight was on Big Red (yep, all of us, sitting down for a meal on top of Big Red).

We journeyed in convoy to the base of the most famous sand dune in Australia. I am happy to say that team P7 made it up without incident (and at the top realised that the handbrake was on – oops).

We then watched as others had a go, some took a few attempts, or some assistance, but all who wished to drive to the top did so.

There are a number of tracks over Big Red, fromboth directions and we had a go at all of them. Sadly, one of the tracks was too much for us, with only V8 Cruisers making it on this day.

Once the sun set, dinner was served, and it was quite a feed. It was a very unique experience and one not likely to be repeated.

After everyone ad had their fill we made our way off Big Red, and back into town.

Awesome day.

After a reasonably (relatively) early night last night, we still had to wake the girls up to make it too breakfast. Kira’s firsty words thismorning were “Where is my sword” (after last night’s Star Wars theme) and Kayla’s were “Kira, get off me.” This was the first night that they had ‘top and tailed’, it worked reasonably well, we think.

Breakfast was served at the Boulia State School. The Boulia Kids are off to Townsville this week, and a few special extras were organised by the J4K entrants. Team Bananas orgainsed a trip ove to Magnetic Island with the Townsville Coast Guard, and Team Red orgainsed the Townsville Sunrise Rotary Catering team to deliver a free hot meal to the kids one night.

Once we were away we enjoyed a last bit of sealed road for a while and made the turn into the desert country. We really did pick the best year to visit as the colours in places were amazing. Lunch was to be had at a historic bore site, but scout reported that there was a sand storm at the site so a detour was organised and lunch was moved to Bedourie. This was great for us as i had wanted to visit Bedourie.

The kids got to play in a great little park, you have to love these smaller councils that really go out of their way to make visitors welcome.

The interdunal swales were full of life and colour around Bedourie and made for excellent travel.

While at Bedourie we came across the girls from “Frontier Serrvices”. These ladies have a massive area to cover and see to ensuring that all the kids in the remotest parts of the state are not forgtooten in regard to play times, but also to ensure that their developmental progress is monitored.
The team was so impressed by the work done by these guys that team 07 donated a KCI Easy Wrench to make tyre changing 100% easier, and Team P7 (that’s us) has organised to attend their next state conference (there are 5 of these teams in QLD) and organised accredited 4wd Training free of charge.
Back on the road and we became sweep as we were giving the girls an extra feed before departing for the last 200 kms to Birdsville. The role of sweep is a significant one and it is our job to keep everyone moving along.
Unfortunately team 351 (the green Kombi) experienced a few difficulties and team S OV 9 had to rigid tow them over 100kms into Birdsville. This made for very slow going, but did give both the girls a chance for an air-conditioned sleep. It also meant that we had plenty of time to get out and visit the ruins of the 140 year old homestead.
We eventually made our way into Birdsville, checked into our comfortable room at the Caravan Park and ducked across to the famous Birdsville Pub for a photo opportunity and a cold beer.
We absented ourselves from the evening’s activities to let everyone get an early night.

what a great day. Today had everything, interesting driving sections in magnificant scenery, visits to historic pubs,and lunch at a remote school.

The girls got to play with the kids from Dajarra School,and everyone had a ball.

Tomorrow we head to Birdsville and an expected max of 37 degrees…

There is no Next G for the next three days but hopefully there is wireless available someowhere for an update of today and the next few days.

Adels Grove certainly know how to cater.

After a sumptious breakfast, our road boss “Harry” (if that is his real name) reads out our current ‘points’. Seems that team P7 has lost 200 points for not doing anything outstanding, we’ll actually take that as a good sign…

The scout this morning had radioed back to warn entrants that the dust hazard was signicant, especially as we were driving into the sun for the first little while.

As with yesterday, the entrants took excellent care of each other and called thru obstacles and road conditions.

We pulled into the Gregory Downs Roadhouse, with the worst of the road behind us, enjoyed morning tea and then made our way onto the Burke and Wills Roadhouse for a compulsory fuel stop. We didn’t really need fuel so we transferred the contents of the sub tank and just took on a few litres.

We had a few kid chores to attend to so we took the role of sweep (last car) from the roadhouse to our lunchtime stop 68kms away.

We enjoyed a fantastic spread at the station (whose name escapes me right now – but i’ll look it up) and the kids hot to play on a HUGE trampoline and check out the chickens and roosters.

With two very tired kids we sought permision to head out behind the scout in the hope of finding clear road so that the girls could sleep, sure enough Kira was soon asleepand stayed that way until Cloncurry.

The roadback to the highway was rough and featured large rocks in places, we called back a few suggestions to help protect man and machine. That section ended up claiming a few tyres back in the group,but help was never far away.

The highway run into Cloncurry was uneventful and wechecked into a great little cabin at the Gilbert Park Motor Inn.

Dinner and entertainment was at the PCYC and they really outdid themselves…

50 odd kilometers down the road