Friends and Family

The rainbow and a panorama of our camp at Yelarbon

We’re on the downward stretch towards home and enjoying stopping off to see family and friends along the way.  Our adventure around Australia is defiantly coming to an end.  It is a total different feel – traveling to destinations that are pre-planned due to meeting up with others and no longer looking for WWOOF places or work as we aren’t having any more extended stops.  It is kind of limbo – we’re not traveling as we were, not holidaying as such and have our minds on home thinking of where we will live, what work we will do and even what kind of fridge, washing machine etc we will get!  No one really knows what is around the corner each day for our lives – a house and job can give a sense of security, but the reality is in a flash our lives can change – so whether it be our situation of not knowing where we will be next month or maybe you have a house and a secure job – our lives can change in a blink of an eye anyway – so I just trust – all is ok and all will be ok no matter what – a motto for everyone.

From Longreach we went to Anakie – to try our luck at fossicking for sapphires.  We had a fun day trying, and found a few :-).  We also had Matthew’s birthday here.  He had a lovely day playing with his new lego, flying his boomerang, playing with cars and his truck plus feeding the lorikeets and eating cake!  This is another interesting place in Australia.

Happy Birthday Matthew – no candles, but he pretended anyway 🙂

The boys feeding the Lorikeets the day we arrived

This is what you now search through for something shiny

Washing the dirt and rocks

Lots of hard, dirty work

Fossicking for Sapphires!

They were so tame and friendly

From Anakie we stayed in a free camp next to a community hall.  It had a flushing toilet and grass (which is a change!) to camp on.  From here we travelled further on to Pomona – an absolutely beautiful small town, kind of between Gympie and Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Qld.  My cousin and her husband have a property there.  They’ve built a lovely home, established amazing gardens and have breathtaking views in every direction you look.  The kids were blessed with a horse ride from their neighbour and they even got to cuddle kittens at the local vet, play in the park, op shop, fish and kayak in Noosa and enjoy fish and chips and multiple ice-creams.

Free camping

Fun times in Pomona

Next stop was Samford – just north of Brisbane.  Here we were completely blessed by our friend Jenny, who cooked us all a scrummy dinner on the evening we arrived, took me out for brunch and coffees and did multiply loads of our washing!  The other reason to stop here was to meet up with our friend Rosie – whom we met at the station we worked on last year.  It was brilliant to meet up with her again!  Dan slept out in his swag so Rosie could bunk in with us.  Everyone enjoyed Rosie’s company again and look forward to seeing her in Sydney in January.  Anyone want to sponsor a gorgeous Irish girl so she can stay in Oz, just let us know :-).

We farewelled Mum & Dad in Samford and then when all was quiet we realised we’d been sharing our campsite with a koala the whole time – what a shame Mum, Dad and Rosie didn’t get to meet our fury friend but we were delighted to spot him and then witness him swap trees, bolting across the grass to his next home for the evening.  We’d been hearing his growls on and off and at first had no idea what it was – we are now attuned to the sounds of male koalas as this one gave us quite show!

Having Rosie was a great excuse for a fire and S’mores (choc biscuits and cooked marshmallows)

Our Camp at Samford in the local scout camp of approx 140 acres!

The Koala!

Heading down….

Going up….

From Samford we travelled south of Brisbane to a camp near Lake Moogerah.  We picked here to meet up with my Uncle, Aunt and cousin from Brisbane.  We spent such a lovely day with them hanging out at camp, cooking lemonade scones, squeezing into our trailer when the rain came, campfire cooking dinner and damper.  Enjoying their company I totally forgot to take photos… DOOHHH!!!  This place was a cute little camp, on a running creek with flush toilets and a bucket for a shower.  We decided upon staying just the two nights.  We’ve roughed it many a times, but maybe our roughing days are over for a while as we all opted to move on to a place with showers that turn on hot with just a tap :-).

A quick shot of where we camped after we packed up

The creek

Yelarbon is a very small town about 50km east of Goondiwindi and this is our stop with a shower!  Are we procrastinating about heading back to NSW?  Maybe :-)!  Each stop for quite a while has been less than 200km apart – unheard of during our trip – except for perhaps Tasmania.  We’ve seen some fantastic free or low cost camps in Qld and this is one of them.  There are beautiful gardens, herbs to share, spotlessly clean bathrooms, very cheap washing machine, fire pit, BBQ all for the price of $10 a night or $15 if you’d like power.

Yesterday a stormed came in and it rained for much of the day, we decided to take a drive into Goondiwindi and take a look at the shops and pick up some fresh produce.  On our return there was a beautiful rainbow that lasted our entire journey back to camp.  Rainbows are always a reminder to me of our Creator and His hand of grace over our lives.  We’ve had an amazing couple of years and through out it all I see His hand on our lives – I’m thankful yesterday we didn’t have a major car accident.  While driving, in the rain at about 105km/h a commodore over took us – thankfully Stephen was aware and broke heavily as there was an on coming car.  They took to the verge, the commodore just swerved in and all was safe – our hearts pumping with what could have been.  As I said at the beginning, life can change in a flash – ours remains relatively the same for now – but it’s always a good reminder to live each day for what it is – enjoy each moment and live in the now.

The storm is coming!

The rainbow and a panorama of our camp at Yelarbon – after the Storm