Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Hey Everyone,

We are alive and well in Birdsville! We had a great last few days in Brisbane before heading out. We got to watch some Rugby League playoff games with Woody and some NFL football with Ryan, as well as see some sights in Brisbane. We took a city cat boat tour along the river in Brisbane one night, which was beautiful with the water front all lit up. There was also the Brisbane festival going on, with light shows and other attractions, but we didn’t make it to anything because we had some rain. But Brisbane was a great city and we are excited to have another chance to see it once our adventure in Birdsville is over.

So, now to the nitty gritty. We left Brisbane on Tuesday, September 17 at 7pm on the overnight train to Charleville. Oh man, was that a hilarious night. First of all, it is a 17 hour train ride west into the outback – the line is called the Westerner and we learnt while we were on it that they may be shutting it down soon because not many people use it anymore and because it is OLD! It sounded like it could have used some oil on it because it squeaked and squawked all night long. Also, there were two options of tickets – since ours was bought for us by the people running the caravan park we were in economy with all the rif raf. We had one gentleman who coughed a gross phlegmy cough the entire night long and screamed out randomly, just for fun it seemed. There was also 2 little kids who ran up and down the aisle and screaming, stood on top of chairs to turn the lights on and off constantly and stole a pen from a man near us and started drawing on seats. Needless to say, their grandmother wasn’t very good at keeping them in line. We may spring for a sleeper cabin if we train back to Brisbane J

The train only goes as far as Charleville these days, so we switched onto a coach bus for a short bus ride to Quilpie, which is a town of about 300 people. The owners of the caravan park also own another park in Quilpie, as well as the Heritage Inn hotel. So we stayed at the Heritage Inn for the night before our flight out to Birdsville the next day. Quilpie was a cute little town though – we went for a short walk around and saw a little museum about the area, as well as the town pool, pub, grocery store, post office and coffee shop. It only took us about 20 minutes to do all of that!

On Thursday afternoon we finally boarded our last mode of transportation to get us to Birdsville. Laura, you would not have enjoyed this! The flight starts in Brisbane but makes frequent stops landing and taking off again in small communities along the way – including Charleville, Quilpie and Birdsvile, as well as 5-6 other towns. Man, were the landings and take offs rough!! I think I almost broke Dave’s hand grabbing it so hard out of fear – and were my hands ever sweaty! Once we were in the air it was okay and the view was pretty amazing, but I am not excited to do that again on the way home! But we successfully made it Birdsville by mid-afternoon…we had arrived to our new home for the next 3 months!

 

We immediately got a tour of the town and a run-down of its history from Neil, one of the managers of the caravan park. It probably could have been summed up in about 5 minutes but man, can Neil talk! We were out there roasting in his Ute (his truck) for about 30 minutes getting driven around the town, which only consists of a bakery, police office, hotel, community centre, info centre, gas station (which also doubles as the post office and bank) and the caravan park. Apparently, the population of the town is 80 people, except on the weekend of the Birdsville races (which happen on the first weekend of September). The population of Birdsville increases to almost 7000 people who camp all over the town to enjoy the races.  The best part of the tour was when Neil mentioned that the community centre had a gym. Apparently the Australian government and donators like to donate random stuff to Birdsville and one of those donations was money for a gym and two tennis courts. The tennis courts only ever have 4 people who play on them and the gym has about 4 pieces of equipment, but we should be able to do a little bit of stuff there, and it’s got A/C!

So, since being in Birdsville, we have settled into the Roma (our caravan) and had 2 days of work. We have been working with Barb and Steve cleaning the caravan park – they are so very sweet and very helpful! They retired about 3 years ago and have been travelling around Australia ever since. They go from little job to little job and travel the rest of the time. You should see the set up they have in their car! They even have a satellite dish with them and TV so they can watch over 300 TV channels. We went to watch another National Rugby League (NRL) playoff game with them last night!

Our job at the caravan park is basically trying to keep the desert clean! We have to do a lot of laundry, clean all the rooms and cabins they have on site, as well as keep the amenities clean. It’s not hard work, but it is exhausting doing it in 30+ degree heat – and the temperature is only supposed to climb while we’re here. Oh yeah, and one exciting feature of working in Birdsville is constantly being attacked by flies! They don’t bite, but they sure are irritating, especially when they try to fly into your nose and eyes!

I think that’s it – sorry I’m rambling! I hope you enjoy hearing about our small town outback life. We will continue to post updates when exciting things happen – so you may not hear from us for a little bit because we’re not expecting many exciting things to happen, hehe!

Oh, and for those of you who read about Birdsville on Wikipedia, they caught the fresh water crocodile a few weeks ago…don’t fret J

We hope everyone is doing well and we’ve really loved reading your comments and emails!