6th - 12th October

Monday 6th

We drove out to Fairfield Dam this morning – it is HUGE!! We had no idea how big it would be. There is also no free camping here, but there is a farmstay nearby called Higher Ground that you can stay at really cheaply apparently, so we might check it out once we have been to Bedford Weir.

We got to Bedford Weir just after midday – pretty hot, so we set up the awning for the first time – made it much better. This is a great place – you can camp for free here for up to a week as long as you follow the rules (generators only between 8am and 8pm, dogs always on leash, no open fires). There are toilets and hot showers but no drinking water.

We went for a walk to look at the weir, then for a swim, then put the boat in the water (first time) and went and put out some yabbie traps to see what we could catch.

We had happy hour with all the other campers at 4:30 and found out that the fish are too well fed at the moment and aren’t biting – but we will give it a go anyway – tomorrow.

Tuesday 7th

We had a lovely leisurely day today - our first since we started our trip!! Did a few domestic duties in the morning, etc. Went and checked the yabbie trap (found out whe had put it in water too deep). Went for a drive around the dam in the boat, did a spot of fishing (caught a bunch of catfish), collected firewood, cooked a lovely meal, happy hour again - then bed! We are going to bed earlier and earlier and getting up at 5:30 of a morning. We are finally settling into our new lives and aren't fighting all the time!! We were getting a little frustrated with life and taking it out on each other when we were travelling every day, so we are really appreciating these few relaxed days. We don't have to get to Bribane until about the 17th. We were also told how to catch red claw better and are going to try that tomorrow night - apparently they like veggies - not dog food like we were told!

Wednesday 8th

Well, we finally caught our first Red Claws!! There were only three, but it was a start!! We will try it again tonight, but we are finally getting the hang of it! We put them on the BBQ for appetizers for dinner.

We spent most of the day just chatting with neighbours, doing little jobs, swimming, driving around in the boat, etc, etc – it was a lovely day – so relaxed!!

Thursday 9th

Bit of an overcast day. We got about 8 red claw in the nets this morning and cooked them up in a curry for tea – yummy! Ross isn’t all that keen on them so unfortunately I had to eat them all!! We went fishing and managed to terrorize the local catfish population again – man, if they were any good to eat we would be living like kings!!

Friday 10th

We had quite a bit of rain overnight but it had stopped by the time we got up this morning. At about 10:30 we made the decision that we should move on and head down to Carnarvon Gorge. We were in no hurry packing up and we didn’t get away until 1:30 (only 3 hours pack up time!!). We were heading for a caravan park at Injune that only charges $12/night for powered sites.

Ross rang his boss at Port Macquarie today to find out whether he could do some work over the Christmas period – Pat thought that was a wonderful idea, so we will aim to be back in Port at around mid November and will stay until about the second week in January before we head off down south.

We didn’t arrive in Injune till about 7:30 pm and set up at the caravan park – it had been raining most of the way down which made going pretty slow. It’s not looking good for a visit to Carnarvon Gorge L

Saturday 11th

Still overcast and miserable – it’s even cold!! Two days ago we were withering away in the heat and today we have all our winter woolies on! We can’t get in to see Carnarvon Gorge with the weather like this – can’t get through the roads. We are in a bit of a dilemma. If we move on we will have to either go to an free site with no power, which would be bad because there is no sun, or move on to another caravan park to get the power and where else can you get a powered site for $12/night?

We have decided to stay one more night to see what the weather does. If it is still raining tomorrow we might forget about Carnarvon and leave it for another day and move on.

We had a wander about Injune (lovely information centre – give you tea/coffee and bikkies), went for a walk up the main street (took about 5 minutes) then went for a walk around the lagoon – that’s pretty much all there is to do here so we settled in for the afternoon to watch movies.

Sunday 12th

Still overcast and miserable so I guess we will move on. We don’t have to be in Brisbane until the weekend, so we might pop out to Charleville and have a bit of a peek around there. If this weather isn’t going to clear up though, we might just pack it in and head back to Brisbane early. We have to get our power situation sorted out – we can’t survive in this bad weather for very long the way our power situation is at the moment.

We decided to walk down to the Roadhouse to get pies for lunch, but that proved to be a mistake, as they pretty much had nothing there as far as pies, etc were concerned, so we wandered over to the bowling club, but it was full of old people so we went back to the van to have sandwiches for lunch instead. There is pretty much nothing else to do in Injune so Ross watched Bathurst while I read a book.

Just before lunch a couple in a caravan pulled up next to us and we got chatting and after awhile we worked out that they lived in Lake Cathie (close to Port Macquarie) and have done for 20 years and Ross had sold them a laptop just before we went on holidays!! Small world eh? We also worked out that their names were Bruce and Jenny Adamson and they know my old workmate – Simone Cook – so Mon – if you are reading this, Bruce and Jenny say Hi!!