where's julia

Birds - Yarn Bombing

FYI
have met 2 different campers who commented that the piece at Cactus Beach is still on the rafters-this was a recycled piece..

This is my latest piece inspired by the colours of birds in the Mt Remarkable National Park

libraries - photos - port pirie

sports equipment that can be borrowed

To market to market to buy a loaf of bread….

Superman writes….

We needed a loaf of bread so Murray suggested a trip to a country town and lunch at the oldest hotel in the Southern Flinders and a look at Murray Town – the round trip approximately 125kms from our campsite.

Wilmington – our first stop; the general store was closed (completely!), so we popped into the toy museum-this is mentioned as a must see – if only for the cobwebs and dust! So0000000 dusty-$4 entry to look at a collection of spiders and dust – there were toys somewhere…… so I believe-Julia found a clean bus…

No bread at Wilmington so another 30kms and we came to Melrose – lunch at the oldest hotel. Another couple were also waiting for lunch – they told us the barmaid had gone to ask the cook if there was any food to cook!  Nothing on the menu that day. Off we headed to Murray Town to buy a pie.

Now there should be a sign on the main road to say this town is closed! Yes the butcher, the post office, general store, garage were boarded up, closed no sign of any life here.

Fortunately we had some nuts and muesli bars to eat.

We arrived back to our campsite to find Muldoon climbing the tree.

Muz and I met some lovely campers Mayan and Tuval from Israel. Mayan has just completed her masters in winemaking-they are doing a quick trip to WA, then flying to NZ to work at Martinborough for the vintage season, returning to Israel next winter.

Muz and I have been observing children and camping. When is the best time to introduce children to camping?

Do you send the dads out with 2 toddlers, new tents, rum and coke for the dads, bottles for the toddlers, 2 tents – one for the kids and 1 for the dads, the kids cry and cry, they are hungry, thirsty wet and cold. Not to worry a bit of the old rum and coke into their bottle and they are quiet in no time, they wake crying again at 4am, when Muz and I woke at 8am they had gone home!

Or how about the family – 10mth old girl and 4 yr old boy – not a sound from either – a bouncy swing for the little girl, a bath of toys, bubbles and a scooter for the boy.

Or the campers who bury disposable nappies in the bush – Muz and I see them….. or the kids who take a short cut through our site…..

Overall we love camping with the kids, babies, everyone loves us and we love the attention-children come by looking for us and play with us, including us in their hut building...

Mt Remarkable National Park

Mount Remarkable National Park is proving to be just the spot we need, providing us with a clean peaceful environment. This park has fantastic clean facilities-hot showers, clean toilets, Adelaide drinking water which we are able to connect to from our van. There are 54 sites with the road running between the sites. With our SA pass it is not costing us anything to camp here.

The park is halfway between Pt Pirie and Pt Augusta. We tend to go for a drive 2/3 times a week-visiting the country towns, farmers markets, etc.

It is a very high fire risk season, so we have worked out our fire escape plan. The ranger has told us he will know when a fire is coming long before the radio station. We have our grab bag in the truck so feel relatively safe.

There are numerous walks/tramps/hikes/treks. We try to do one every 2^nd day-it takes me a day to get over them… Murray is doing well with the tramps and has managed the 18km Hidden Valley trek. I have done a 1/3^rd, but did manage the 7km hike and a 2km hike, but this one put me off as it was my first experience with an eastern brown snake – on the track!

We are reading a lot of books, I am knitting and learning to sketch birds. There are 118 varieties here and I often sit under the trees watching the kookaburras attacking the lace monitor lizard Muldoon as he moves about the hollow trees searching for their nests. The willy wag tails in turn attack the kookaburra as he tries to steal their young chicks. Muldoon scavenges on the ground for camper’s crumbs and baby lizards.

Emus, kangaroos and euros appear all the time and move around the sites.

Summertime is the quiet time for the park so Murray and I are often the only campers here.  We have no trouble filling in the day-by the time we get up 8am!, have breakfast and do our chores-Murray is constantly shifting the solar panels around, time for lunch, then perhaps an afternoon nap, 5sies, we get the dinner ready before we have 5isies, (that way we have the ingredients correct)??? Murray cooks, then a game of scrabble, lights out between 9-11pm, depending on whether we are meeting other campers.