' Beds For Bush Kids '

Drought and the ' Tyranny of Distance,' as explained in my previous blog post, are having a terrible effect on families and their livelihood. In these parts it is the cattle industry that is effected. On the Station we have seen the effects firsthand over the last months as the paddocks become drier, and the rain doesn't come. It seems they haven't had a true wet summer for a couple of years. There are programs organised by local groups to support families on the land like 'Beds For The Bush' and 'Channel Country Ladies' Weekend that we have witnessed firsthand.

Beds for The Bush is a program initiated by Longreach SODE, the school of the air, to raise vital funds to help families send their children to school events, mini camps, excursions etc. These events are very important for isolated children who come into school to have lessons face to face with their teachers and classmates. The opportunity to be social and share learning and play time with classmates is important, but often costly. An added expense that is costly in times of drought both economically and time wise, as families need to work harder to keep feed and water up to stock.

 If  you are at this time or in the future looking for a worthy Australian cause to donate money to, think about giving something to the Beds In The Bush program ! You will be supporting Australian kids in the bush, their families, and your farmers.

Below is a link to the ABC's coverage of this program run by Longreach SODE. The children were attending a 3 day Music Camp in Longreach. Our boys, their Mum and George made the 1600km return trip to attend.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-07/beds-for-bush-kids-program-takes-off-at-school-of/5726100


Another wonderful initiative is The Channel Country Ladies Weekend, initiated in 2012 to support women of the local region. (As referred to in my last post) From Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon women gathered to network, catch up with friends, attend seminars, be entertained and generally enjoy each other's company. There were health nurses from the RFDS and community health, health and beauty treatments, hairdresser, stalls, art classes, body art and a burlesque show, followed by lessons the next day.
Women travelled from hundreds of kilometres away to camp in Betoota, at the racecourse, in the middle of the desert. We made a return trip of 700kms on back dirt roads with not a town or house in sight, and definitely no phone service of any type all weekend.The town itself has a population of zero now, and became the centre of attention for the weekend with Landline, Women's Weekly and newspapers sending journalists and photographers to cover the story.

                

'The Snake', a local Aboriginal initiative, and afternoon Champagne and Nibblies

The Catering Truck

The Big Red Truck with caterers from the Birdsville Hotel, 'just up the road', provided restaurant quality meals all weekend. Everything was trucked in for the weekend, including shower/toilet blocks.

Posted by Lynne 

Outback Life : the 'Tyranny of Distance'

It is difficult to understand the tyranny of distance for remote outback families until you have visited or lived remote for a while ! 
 I often find friends and family don't quite get it.

In the last 6 weeks I have been 'home' on the station for 3 periods of time, totaling 11 days. I feel like I have been stuck going in and out of a revolving door and am looking forward to the next 5 weeks at 'home.'

A Return Trip Home To Sydney

A sudden trip home 6 weeks ago for family reasons meant a 12 hour trip home to Sydney. A 45 min drive by 4wd to Bellare Mining Centre on the edge of the station to board a plane filled with miners to Adelaide, then transfer to a plane to Sydney. 

The return journey meant a plane to Brisbane, then to Charleville, and a 520km drive back to the station. On this occasion we used the north east boundary access ... the dirt 

'driveway' is 85kms long.

We did this return trip of 1140kms a week later to put our daughter Jessica back on a plane 

home to Sydney.

LSODE Cluster Day at Windorah

For the boys we teach on the station a long day's drive is part of normal everyday life. 

While I was in Sydney George accompanied the boys and their mum to Longreach for a 3 day whole school Music Camp. It was a return journey of about 1600 kms. They are used to doing the one way trip in a day. 

On one occasion their dad dropped the eldest off for camp in the morning, having left at 4 am to arrive on time, and returned home the same day.

On this occasion George and I took the boys to a one day Cluster meet at Windorah. Leaving the afternoon before we travelled about 400kms on mainly dirt back roads to arrive in time for dinner 5 hours later. The next day when the school day was over we returned to 

the station. The boys are wonderful travellers, as I assume all children who live on remote stations are, and take it all in their stride. They were a pleasure to travel with !

Local Race Days, Campdrafts, Gymkanas and Rodeos 

We have also attended a couple of weekend events, the last being the Noccundra Rodeo and Campdraft. Unfortunately because I was quite done with travelling, having only been at 'home'  7 days in the previous 5 weeks, and as it was very close to the station I made George drive over for the evening. He would have liked to have gone for the weekend as he loves this sort of thing. It was great to see the rodeo, which I like, and chat with some locals and travellers. We were impressed with ourselves, as we managed to find our way back late at night on local station roads without getting lost. Their are numerous little side roads everywhere leading to gas mine sites.

Channel Country Ladies Day

If we refer to where the roads cross our boundaries as gates, we drove 100kms to one of our western edges on the weekend to go about 270kms north along the Qld/SA border to Betoota for a Channel Country Ladies weekend. Not a single town or house in sight for the 

whole 5 hour drive on remote dirt roads. 

It was an amazing weekend spent in the desert with all types of women living and working on remote stations. The Women from all across the Channel Country had travelled like us, long distances in 4wds, to enjoy a weekend together. A varied mix from young to not so young, station ringers, cooks, govies, managers, owners, health nurses. We all camped in 
tents or trailers at the Betoota racetrack. There were seminars to attend with excellent 
speakers on different topics. Massages, haircuts, and body pampers to be had, stalls to look and buy from, meals to be eaten, drinks from the bar, an unusual Burlesque show, and dancing till midnight. The Burlesque show, which at first took many by surprise, seemed to lighten the mood and led to many trying the art of burlesque dancing, and a few trying full 

body art, and life drawing. 

The Stores

AND now today after driving home last night from The Channel Country Ladies weekend, where George served the ladies with a group of wonderful men from 6.30 am to 11pm each night, he has driven to Quilpie for the station stores. A routine that one of the others do once every 3 or 4 months to get the stations supplies, a return trip of about 700kms. But last week when one of the young men went the truck broke down. The boss went the next day to try and sort it out only to return with the ringer and our cold stores. George took the opportunity to offer. 

                                    

Hopefully this long post gives you an idea of what living remotely is about for those that make these areas their home. It is really hard to explain, and I often have friends and family questioning how often we get to the shops, to town etc. we don't ! Our nearest big store (Target, Big W, Woolworths etc) is about 1000kms away in Toowomba. Taking into account our dirt driveway is 85kms on the eastern border, then the Bulloo Development Rd is 450kms to Cunamulla, and we are not driving freeway speed at anytime, it is a long drive. 

I must also mention that 95% of our travelling is done with no phone service! relying totally on our UHF radio.

Posted by Lynne

Out on the Station - the old Karmona Homestead

While Jessica was visiting we took the opportunity to drive out to the one of the original homestead sites here on the station - Old Karmona. The homestead area is no longer used for this purpose but was a great place to explore and to imagine what it was like.

                   This was the view from the shed area. There was also a shower area in the back area of the shed.

                                      

The old yards here were also very interesting with timbers bowed above the yard. There was a newer meat shed in the homestead area and the yards are still used for butchering. Hence the hanging timber used for lifting carcasses. 

It was a great place to take some photos of Jessica for promo shots for Tamworth.

                                                   

Ps. Sorry about the number of photos, I usually try to keep it down to 3 or 4 but there was too many to choose from, and sometimes they tell the story better than words. Sometimes I feel by keeping the number down readers miss out.

Posted by Lynne