On the Road with Donna

Donna had a window where she could do the road trip with us and much to my surprise she took it. Our daughter is well-known to be exclusively a “five star” traveller so roughing it with Maurs and me in the camper suggested a stretch in her comfort zone parameters. We made for Jerilderie the first night – lovely little town – makes you wonder why Ned Kelly was so intent on shooting the place up.

Jerilderie coughed up a freezing cold night. Did I mention that our daughter is also a well-known frog who feels the cold like few other warm-blooded mammals? She wore every scrap of clothing she had, wrapped herself up on top of her air mattress and shivered through the night. A pathetic sight greeted us in the morning – just a pair of eyes in a sea of clothes and blankets. The next night in Dubbo was a little milder and with the aid of Maurs’ thermals she made it through the night.

                              Rock on Global Warming! (Donna freezing in Jerilderie NSW

We drove past the famous Western Plains Zoo on our way in to Dubbo but all I could see was a bunch of cattle in a field. Some zoo. I mean would it kill them to place an elephant in the distance as an incentive to see more? After we settled in we went for a walk and bought a local paper. The Dubbo Daily Liberal is a mighty fine little paper that seems to do a lot of street reporting of local opinion. We were particularly impressed with Keira who was 16, unemployed, likes eating chicken and watching Jersey Shore on TV. The future of Australia is assured. There was also an article about how four of the white Rhinos at the Zoo had died of a mystery disease. It occurred to me that they could get a bunch of those cows and strap their heads sideways so that it would appear to have a horn in the front – might be very effective at dawn and dusk at least.

I’m still adjusting to Caravan Park living. Guys ablution blocks are something else (apparently it’s not near as traumatic in the female blocks – it’s just guys and their...habits). I’ll blog an entry one day on the subject. I’m still compiling evidence.

We’re driving to Glen Innes today. The girls have thrown me in the back seat to write the blog while they take turns in driving. Please excuse the shaky typing. It’s really not easy to do this in a moving vehicle.

We made Glen Innes – had a meal at the local steakhouse that couldn’t be beat and spent our last night on the road for a while. The next day was rainy as we made our way through the mountains and down the Cunningham Highway to Bris. A nice friendly truckie on the Motorway nearly caused me to miss the critical turn-off to Pete’s place but somehow we made the leftie and got to Pete’s at one minute to two in the afternoon. I had phoned him from Glen Innes saying we’d be there at two. “Sorry I’m early” I said. “Don’t let it happen again” he said. Brisbane is warm and humid. It’s nice to be home again.