Day 117 - 119 Heart over head

-
Emerald QLD - 3 days

We are both equally grateful and proud to have reached this hub in Central Queensland. The destination is only a 100km short of reaching the 5,000km marker. Fair enough to call a time out for a couple of days. But like so often, there's always something to do. And Saturday turns into Sunday before we know it. Excited to watch the French Open Women’s Final on TV, I lasted only two games before I fell asleep. 

We divide our attention between bicycles, laundry, cleaning (tent) and restocking our food supplies. There's hardly a moment where we stop. And when we do, we lean over maps and do some research on where to next. The bicycles look splendid after a clean, a tune and with their new shoes (rear tyre). And when we take them for a little test spin it feels like a line in the Paolo Nutini song New Shoes "Hey, I put some new shoes on / And suddenly everything is right / I said, hey I put some new shoes on / And everybody's smiling, it's so inviting..."

I think we find ourselves in a fascinating equilibrium: on one side we start to think and talk about what next? when is it time to stop? and on the other side we feel strong, physically and mentally, to keep going. Our heads and hearts are buzzing with ideas and good energy. As they say:  If you don't seek, you won't find. Louise's dad Mick and his partner Francesca are now on their way to Cairns (caravan). The prospect of a joyous reunion with them in the tropical capital sometime in July is pretty exhilarating. 

We make the decision to add another rest day and hit the road again on Tuesday. I think at this point it is heart over head. The wide open spaces are calling and we follow them towards Longreach and maybe even onto Winton? 

And on the note of heart over head:

Wherever the roads will take us, we will share them with the many truckies steering their road trains towards distant horizons. We have sent a note of heartfelt thanks to the editor at the Big Rigs magazine, which they have published on their website - here is the link Heartfelt Note to the Truckies . Also see post on Day 104.

And, last but not least, to our dear friends at the 'Clare Valle Wine Girls', wishing you all a bright-coloured Grenache tasting tonight, boasting with juicy flavours and lots of fun on the terroir of common ground. We are ready...

Hopefully no bottle shock tomorrow









Location: Emerald QLD 4720, Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for sharing! We read all the comments, replies depend on internet connection and energy levels.

Popular posts from this blog

Accidents happen

-
Image
It's slow going writing this particular blog post as I am doing it with only one functional hand.  After almost 7000kms on the bikes, injury found me while running.   I wish I had a fantastic story to tell, but I simply tripped on a rocky trail and fell over.  You know that meme that goes "If you want to know if you're old fall over.   If people laugh you're still young,  if people panic then you're old!"  I can confirm, I am definitely old! It probably didn't help that two of my fingers were quite obviously either dislocated, broken or both.   I begged Kerstin to remove my wedding ring before the finger started swelling, being three hours from the hospital I was imagining the worst case scenario of the ring tourniqueting my finger and its subsequent death and amputation.  Poor Kerstin, this kind of thing makes her faint, but she gritted her teeth and pulled off the ring.  I then gritted my teeth and asked the ex-army maintenan...
Read more

Learning a new language

-
Image
There's plenty of things I anticipated learning when we accepted the positions at Avon Downs.  I thought I'd learn a lot about cooking for groups, about different cuts of beef and how to prepare them.  Maybe some stuff around the logistics of running a community which is 260km from the closest centre, and even then, its still Mt Isa... But I didn't really expect to learn a new language.  To be fair, I haven't spent a lot of time in the Territory.  But they really do speak their own dialect here.  Much different from costal Queensland, which is a slower, relaxed kind of Australian drawl.  Here it's fast, brief and usually mumbled.  I think I spent the first month constantly asking people to repeat themselves, answering the phone is always a diabolical risk.  And trying to understand the radio chat, impossible! Then there is all the slang and local shorthand.  To be fair some of the slang I suspect has been created by the Ringers themselves, as...
Read more

Don't be a fish; be a frog!

-
Image
I recently took a phone call from one of the ringer's mums. Not quite sure whether she had dialed the right number, she asked "are you the new cook?" and I replied "I am the other half that came with the new cook, I am more the (kitchen's) helping hand". We then continued to have a lovely chat. She was kind enough to enquire whether we are settling in okay and then she asked "are there still frogs in the toilets?"  Ha! I laughed out loud. I told her that almost every toilet we have cleaned on the station so far has come with a "froggy" surprise. Fortunately, they don't make themselves known while you are "in business" but once you proceed to the flushing part of your toilet visit, they jump or slip-and-slide into your vision. God knows how they get into the system in the first place, but once they are in there, they are hard to get out. This is not so much of a worry if they reside in the staff toilets. But when it comes to ...
Read more