July St George

MEADOWBANK FARMSTAY

MEMORIAL to TWO PILOTS

This is our 51st stop since leaving Heckenberg. Today we are in St George Queensland and staying at Pelican Rest Caravan Park for 1 week, as we are waiting for mail. the owner is a Lady by the name of Marg she is a -workaholic - she work's from Dawn til Dusk, her husband is very lucky, he is away - Droving - most of the time. This town is very interesting as there are good walk's along the River, a lot of Mural's of day's gone by, and old Building's.

The biggest Parrot Aviary in the world with over 600 bird's and a World War 2 Memorial, to 2 Fighter Pilot's who came from this area.
John FrancesJackson. Who was a Queensland Grazier who had an Airfield named in his honour in the United States of America.

Leonard Victor Waters. He is the only known Aboriginal Fighter Pilot to have flown in the second world war. A vineyard in St George have named a bottle of wine after him (Black Magic) as that was the name of his Plane. The local Aboriginal's have done a lot of walk ways in Mosaic tiles depicting the towns history, they are most impressive. There is an artist who carve's Emu Egg's at his shop here in St George - The Unique Egg - there are hundred's of carved egg's here and each egg take's a few month's to carve, the average emu egg is 17 centimeters long and 29 centimeters in circumference. Only the emu egg has a shell of many layer's ,gradually ranging from dark green down to white. These colours are found when gently hand carving. When the egg is carved down to the very last layer in delicate pattern's and a small light bulb installed inside, the pattern is beautifully illuminated.

We had a great time in St George but our week is now over and we are moving to Surat 79km south of Roma.

8/7/06. Today is Joanne's 40Th birthday and Sandra`s 59Th birthday she misse's not been with Jo today but she will catch up later. Paul is also on Sandra's mind ( Paul is Sandra's late twin brother). We rang Joanne to wish her every happiness. Last night was minus 1.4 deg - day's are great but night's a cold. Sandra is cooking bacon and egg's on the campfire, a cheeky Magpie has swooped on San's plate and stole her toast, "and I get the blame".

A Butcher bird is sitting on a used tomato tin drinking the left over juice's, over 100 white cockatoos flying overhead in all there glory making a hell of a racket. The cold and rain has given us water, the sun is our heater and dry's our clothe's, the farmer's fence is our clothe's line & we dig a hole in the ground to get rid of waste.

Robin and Graeme rang to say that they are in Katherine N.T. there is very little phone coverage in these out of town area's and it is good to hear from them. To save on gas we light a fire and boil water in a bucket and heat our Solar bag for shower's. Said good bye to Mick and Jan who we met in Moree and have spent a few days in Surat as well.

This rest stop is maintained by the Surat Fisherman's Club and they are grateful for donation's to keep this park in a very clean and tidy environment.

10/07/06. We are now on another farm stay, 9km west of Roma called Meadowbank Farm. The road from Surat to Roma was littered with road kill mainly kangaroo's, the field's are bare as there is no grass due to the drought, a few sheep and emu's can be seen from time to time. What a sorry sight it is on this farm we're staying at, it is over 2000 acres with not a blade of grass to be seen, there are 150 cow's in calf and they have to buy bale's of hay to feed them, at a big expense to the owners Pat and Don who are well into there 70`s.

It is $10 a day to stay here and it is a real eye-opener, there is a wood chip heater to heat hot water (bore water) for the shower's ( brings back memorie's of our childhood day's). Pat's grand father bought the cattle station back in 1926-27? and it was sold to Pat in 1994 the original homestead was named Mt Abundance and was built in 1860. We have met everyone here today (all 6 of them) at happy hour, Pat & Don - Tom & Gwen - Neville & Stephanie, only eight of us and we enjoyed our selve's around the camp fire.

A few day's later we went to the cattle sale's in Roma, there was over 13000 cattle sold, it was a great sight to see the auction in progress and there were road train's and cowboy's on horse's all over the place, you don't see that in the city.

Sandra went for a shower about 7-30 tonight,she opened the shower door & a white dress ?(is this another Ghost ?) rushed around the corner from her - took her by surprise it was adult size - very strange feeling - but she said she definitely saw something run out, she came into the van - gums a flapping but nothing coming out, bugger this i'm having another Port or two and maybe a few for San.

18/07/06. We are now on our 54Th stop at Injune for 3 nights, $12 first night, next 2 nights free. Dr visit's the town when there is a few appointment's in the book, the Hairdresser come's out once a month.