Thanksgiving in Birdsville

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

We hope everyone enjoyed spending time with friends and family over the holidays! We sure did miss being in Canada to celebrate, but we did our best to celebrate here on our own. A delicious dinner, phoning home to family and talking about what we are thankful for.

We have been pretty busy since our last blog post so bare with me…I know, can you believe it?! Busy in Birdsville!! We have almost checked everything off our ‘To Do in Birdsville’ list, which is good timing because the caravan park in considerably slower these days, so I think our days here are limited.

We started our busy 2 weeks with the star show. The police officers wife, Sandra, used to work in an observatory in Charleville and has since bought her own telescope and runs star gazing shows in the Birdsville desert. It was AWESOME! It was about 1-1 ½ hours of her talking about planets, stars, galaxies, pointing out constellations and specific stars. She was s knowedgable and we even got to see some neat things through the telescope – including Saturn and its rings! That was definitely the high point of the night for both Dave and I…it was so cool!

That weekend, there was a ‘fun-day’ at Pelican Point here in Birdsville (just across the billabong from the caravan park) put on by the Diamantina Shire Council, which is the council that looks after Birdsville and surrounding area. It was called Wet Fest. After we were done work we went over to see what it was all about. We knew it was mostly for children, but we thought it would be nice to try and socialize with some locals. It was actually a really fun day! There were tons of organized games and activities for kids and adults to participate in – tug of war, 3 legged race (Dave and I won the adult division!), kayak races, etc. And the prizes…insane! The prizes for the kayak race, which Dave won with two local kids, was sand toys and a Canon camera each! Obviously we declined taking the camera and Dave made some friends with some little girls playing in the sand fast when he asked if they wanted the toys. But it was a very well-run day, with lots of fun for the Birdsville and surrounding community. People actually came in from the next town over called Bedourie…over 200km away. So hilarious how they describe being from the next town over – only 2-3 hour drive!

One of the best parts of the day was meeting some of the local people. We met a man named Jody (a local) and his German girlfriend Franzie. They were both so nice and welcoming. They even invited us back to their house after the day because they had some friends coming in for the weekend from a nearby cattle station. Obviously we agreed! We went back to Jody’s house and met a group of 6 people who he used to work with – they were from all over the world! Tanzania, Australia, Denmark…it was so nice to spend some time with them and have a few drinks as well. We also spent our first night at the local pub – a hilarious establishment with amazing sayings all over it. For example, they have a 7 course meal for only $22 – a pie and 6 beers…hehehe. We played pool late into the evening and got to spend some time getting to know our new friends J Some of the most hilarious parts of the evening were the animal life we encountered. In a 3 hour span I got to hold a baby pig (named Terry) and feed a baby calf. The things you can do when you are open to any opportunity.

The next day was the NRL finals – so we found ourselves back at the pub to watch the game. It was a pretty good game actually – the Sydney Roosters won over the Manly Sea Eagles. Rugby League is a much more interesting game then Rugby Union, which is what we play in Canada. If you haven’t seen a game ever, you should try – so insane how much contact and tackling there is!! We watched the game with our new friends and the night got away from us again! We are definitely too old to drink 2 nights in a row and have to go to work the next morning….but it was too much fun not to join in, especially since all of our friends work on a cattle farm that is over a 3 hour drive away. They only make it into town every 3-4 weeks, so we may never see them again, but it was so nice to get out of our little caravan and make some friends!

One of the nights we were at the pub we also met a girl named Jenna. Her family is from Birdsville and we have since found out that they pretty much own all of Birdsville – the Brook family. They also own 2 of the 3 cattle stations around the area. Anyways, she is about our age and very nice. She even invited us over to her house a couple of nights later for a games night. There were 6 of us there and we played Pictionary – Dave and I won! It was a really nice relaxing evening with people who actually live in Birdsville and who will hopefully get to see a little more before we ship out of here.

One of the best things we’ve had the chance to do since being in the outback is spend a sunset at Big Red. Big Red is a sand dune about 40km outside of Birdsville and it is one of the main attractions of Birdsville and the Simpson Desert. It is the tallest sand dune in the Simpson Desert. We got there just in time for the sunset and it was spectacular. A warm, still night, with a beautiful sunset! One of the managers of the caravan park, Neil, took us out and we were so grateful that he did. It was amazing!

We’ve been keeping our evenings busy with campfires, roasting marshmallows and watching The Wire and The League. We are thinking of hosting Jenna and our Birdsville friends for a campfire tomorrow. That is, if the weather cooperates! We’ve also started to plan our adventures after the outback. We have bought a flight to New Zealand – leaving Brisbane on January 1, 2014. New year, new country! We are starting to really plan things to do while in New Zealand so if you have any suggestions please feel free to email! So far we have planned a 4 day hike, a 3 day kayak trip and a rugby weekend in Wellington in February… we are very excited about them all!

I think that’s about it for now! We really are enjoying our time in Birdsville, as crazy as that sounds coming from a city girl who never thought she could live in a town of 80 people. But everyone has been so nice and we have had some great experiences and been able to spend a lot of quality time with each other also. It’s been great so far and we’re ready for any other adventures ahead!

Special shout outs now: Congratulations to our friends Meag and Andrew on the birth of their beautiful baby boy, Harrison. We couldn't be happier for our friends Laura and Forrest on the birth of their baby boy James (a 4meister in the waiting). Last but certainly not least, congratulations to our amazing friends Gorman and Zulys on their engagement!!! Yay! Cannot wait to celebrate when we are back in Canada!!!

Miss you all

xoxoxo