A quiet wander. Things you find on a day out.

A working day. Lamb marking and baby sitting

Lots of activity on the farm…….Two days of lamb marking. The lambs get vaccinated, drenched and have rings on their tails. The males get fixed as well. K catches and lifts the lambs.  Our daughter and son-in-law do the doctoring.

Our three year old granddaughter is very involved. She climbs into the pen and tells Poppy which one to catch next. The lambs move as far away from the threatening two legged ones as possible and pack up in the corners of the pen climbing on top of each other. Granddaughter’s job is walk around  using hip and shoulder and  “shushing the sheep”. Pretty cute and very effective. She moves the ewes around in the holding pen as well, looking for her favourite black “mum”. I didn't get a video of her doing this yesterday, but here she is moving the sheep at shearing last summer.

The sheep dogs are supposed to stay in the trailer. They do this for hours, well until joined by a three year old distraction.  She loves the dogs, climbs in and out of the trailer and gets lots of cuddles.

I am on grandkid duty. I get to cuddle a restless grandson while his mother drenches and inoculates lambs. Its a good thing the baby is little and easy to carry because his sister is very mobile and while she is very happy to help daddy with the sheep, she moves like and Olympic sprinter and can be outside the shed and on to some other activity while you blink. I got told to get a chair at one point and “sit there grandma with mummy’s baby”. She wants to run her cars down the ramp and wash them in the water trough.
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The work goes on until sunset, then  we pack up and have a cuppa and go to our respective homes.

At the Fergs residence the supper of choice is lamb curry, made with the left overs of the roast from earlier in the week. (Some of the crossbred lambs look like they might make good roast next year by the way)


Life is good
Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move

Travel memories. Dust and storm Ouback NSW

The relatively gentle rain and glistening green grass and trees here in the Southern Tablelands of NSW still feel a bit  strange after a season in the NT. My eyes are used to stronger greens and very red soils. We got talking about storms here and other places today. We have to be sure to have the annex tied down against wind and rain.  One memorable time we left the annex up and came back after a storm to find the canopy ripped off the caravan. That was the  weekend the same storm took the roof of the cinema in Bathurst. K has considerably strengthened the annex structure since then. A topic for another blog maybe.

Looking through files I came across these photos of a storm we travelled through one trip across from SA to here. K decided to come via Broken Hill. Not a route of which  I am particularly fond, for some reason.

 

We ran ahead of this amazing dust storm for about an hour. It was just behind us and generating a strong head wind. The dust eventually over took us and we couldn't see anything but red.


Then suddenly wind changed to directly head on and the dust turned to mud, coming horizontally at us. Red rain hit the windscreen.

K slowed down and we followed the left hand white line trying to find a place to pull off.

Just as suddenly as the red rain started it stopped. The heavy drops of water had settled the dust and we were driving into heavy drops that thudded like hail onto the car.

A few minutes later the sun broke through.

Through all that I was just cowering  in the passenger seat. K on the other hand was having fun and had the presence of mind to grab the camera off the dashboard and get me to take some photos.

So glad the master driver was behind the wheel.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Travel Memories. Derby Corroboree

During one of our trips across the north of WA we managed to be in Derby on the weekend of a cultural festival. Everywhere we went in town people were urging us to go that evening. I think it cost us $5 to park the car and it was one of most interesting evening we have ever had.

The local artist had displays, the schools kids had displays of work and craft and there was  an enormous variety of food and music. We attended the night of the children’s corroboree. There were mostly kids dances as well as performances by some of the very elderly elders. The kids were dressed up and took their roles seriously. 

The little children had glow sticks that they put around their necks and then they ran all over the grounds and climbed the trees. After dark there were circles of light in every tree, moving constantly and the air rang with giggles. They chased each other through the crowd, and across the arena.

K found me a seat to watch the dancing and went to get me food. A very nice indigenous lady decided she was my friend and was really impressed with kind, polite, and helpful man.  She was very keen to take us back to her camp for the night and show him off to her sisters. I think if I had not hung on really hard I might have lost K.

I was not teaching in remote schools at the time so this was my first look at indigenous  culture. I have since attended a couple of festivals but this one stands out because it was so friendly.



Party time. Dancing to the band.

 

We had a great night.

Have to go back sometime.

 

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

 

 

 

Gentle days

A routine has developed here on the farm.


Breakfast sometime after sunrise, which thankfully is not as early here as in Mataranka since there is a 1 1/2 hour tine difference due to daylight saving. Check the water bucket under the shower and top up the toilet flush tank, or dump it in the twin tub for clothes washing.
K checks the power situation before making coffee in the pod machine if the sun has already started charging the batteries or in the plunger if it is still overcast.


Wander outside and contemplate the view. Be it raining, misty or sunny the view is pretty good.

Visitors at breakfast time

At the moment and probably for the next few days there is water in the buckets that we have placed to catch water runoff. Got twenty litres off the caravan roof yesterday and last night. Pumped through the filter that's one trip for water collection K doesn't have to do.

At sometime during the day the dogs, chickens and any other penned stock will get fed. K takes all 8 dogs for a run each day.

Two of the farm's dog contingent

 

Make bread, sort out food for dinner, try to use up some eggs, wash clothes, wander up to the gate to check the phone calls. Maybe go for a drive to one of the local towns we haven't visited yet.
We wandered over to Taralga one day, finding a café and drinking coffee watching the rain.

Will  get busier when the family get back from Sydney but .....

Mr Fix It and his new grandson.

Life is good.


Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move

Darwin to Crookwell. Amusing and amazing

The recent dash from Darwin to Crookwell meant we didn't stop for sight seeing. In fact a lot of my photos were taken from inside the car. Well would you get out if it was either 38 degrees or there was lightening crashing down?

So the sky. Spectacular cloud formations, sunset as we hunted for a camp and smoke from the many fires.

Another sunset.



Smoke rising from fires behind Elliot township

Sun in the passenger window

Storm clouds just north of Pt Augusta. I couldn't
time it to get a shot of the lightening

Strange sights. A very unique tourist bus that is a cross between a sleeper car and a normal Greyhound bus. Boulders near the Devil's Marbles site. The strange alien at Wycliffe Well the UFO capital of Australia.

Devil's Marbles turn off is just ahead

Aliens at Wycliffe Well

Some kind of hybrid bus sleeper cabin

The landscape changes hourly.

Rain on the windscreen

Dry hot and brown

Red dirt

Last hotel in NT

Much greener camp between Hay and Narrandra

We did however find time to revisit an important tradition. Breakfast at Banrock Station Winery in SA's Riverland. We try to stock up both good food and good wine here every time we go past.

 

 

Balcony dining at Banrock Station Winery 

Murray River Flats

Decision time

 All set up on the farm now. Sheep and lambs grazing outside.

Sheep and a lamb or two at the farm.
This is the view from my doorstep for the next month or so.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

Darwin to Crookwell. Settling in to travel

Mataranka has been our home for 7 months of this year. Travel mode is very different to our living set up. We sprawl out into the annex and except in really hot weather live outside the van most of the time.

 

Just about ready to hook up

So all the extra luxuries get put away and we live, still in quite luxurious circumstances, but with less.
Things need to be locked down. This we know. Or I thought we did. Someone, probably me, didn't look down closer to floor level before we locked the door and left Mataranka. Oh yes all the overhead lockers were shut. But every drawer had pushed open. Lucky nothing fell out..........So I'm out of practice.





Van all packed up for travel

 



 


K had an attack of the funnies and left these pegs on the back of the van. They are still there 6 days later.

Good quality pegs still on the line 6 driving days later

For the first time we travelled in convoy. The silver Ford sedan is going to be left in the east somewhere....still deciding where. While it is handy to have two cars with two workers the sedan is not really suitable for travel to many of the places we work. So K drove the ute towing our house and I followed behind. It is a bit strange watching your house travel down the road ahead.


My home disappearing over the rise

I don't drive at night. K loves night driving and is often the only caravan tower on the road after dark. So he has spent 6 days and more than 3500 kms pushing the Ute and caravan up to 95km/hr and I had the sea anchors out keeping the Ford below 100.

Still nothing beats pulling up in a road side parking spot and cooking in your own kitchen and sleeping in your own bed. And using your own shower.

Nothing like your own bed

Saw some spectacular scenery even though this trip was more like a race than a leisurely holiday.

Might post those pictures tomorrow.

We are settled on the farm. Its cool and wet. And I have to drive up to the gate to get phone, so I might be sitting in the car a lot.  Baby lambs in abundance around here. Pictures of them later too.

View from our camp on the farm.

Baby has not arrived yet so we are in time to mind the farm during the event.



Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Hi everyone,
got phone for a few minutes. Travelling well. Had very hot 38 degree days at first but as we have come south we now have lightening and rain. First rain I have seen since we were in NSW in April. Lots of photos and stories to post later.


cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move.

Travel Memories: Camels on Cable Beach

We hit the road tomorrow, so blogging will depend on whether we have mobile phone coverage wherever we pull up each night. We are heading off to Crookwell in NSW as the first stop in our summer travels. Arriving in time to mind the farm while our daughter has her second child. Not a fast trip but we will keep moving each day.

I showed you the sunsets off Cable Beach in Broome a few posts ago so I thought I would finish the story of Broome with some pictures of another time honoured means of outback transport. Camels. Australia has a very large population of feral camels and is one of the few places were they are disease free.

We have ridden camels a couple of times. Once when our youngest son was with us on a trip to Uluru.  We rode camels in the morning and had camel pies for lunch. We decided  not to talk about our plans for lunch during the ride just in case the camels decided to protest.


These photos are of the morning camel ride on Cable Beach. I got talked into going with K on the this expedition. It was ok, but give me a horse any day.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

Post by Mr Fix It: Sure Start 6 for Airconditioner

Mr Fix It is so thrilled with the soft starter he installed on the air-conditioner yesterday that, while he was sitting in the caravan with the cooling running from the generator for the first time, he both rang the supplier to thank him and wrote a letter to Caravan World.

Hi everyone.
I'm the other half of this partnership. I'm pretty happy with the outcome of this fixing project.
Here's the text of my letter to Caravan World. Maybe they will publish it.

My wife and I have been very happily living in our 2007 Jayco Stirling van fulltime now for years. We work the tourist season in the NT and roam in the southern summer. A lot of our travel and off grid camping  is therefore in the very hot weather. Unfortunately our new generator wouldn't run the air-con despite it being well within specifications to do so.  On  hot nights we were forced into caravan parks. 

An electrician friend suggested installing a soft start unit to control the start up current draw. The air-conditioner manufacturer wasn't much help, didn't supply soft starts and stated that the air-conditioning was only meant for 240v mains supply. Yet we saw many campers running their cooling on a generator.

 

Finally this month after a bit of online searching I found a company which supplies soft starters. Hyper Engineering. They supply a product called 'Sure-start 6'. I contacted them. A very helpful team. I gave them the specs of my air-conditioning unit and they supplied me the right part. It comes with an excellent install sheet. ( If in doubt get an electrician to install it.) The result after a cost of 150 dollars is that we can now efficiently run our air-con from our 3000 watt generator with plenty of power to spare.  A useful outcome as we are about to set of from the NT on our summer holidays and the temperatures are in the high 30s. 

 

 

Cheers  Kevin

 

The Other Ferg on the Move

 

 

 

 

 

Note from Sue

Actually he salvaged this second hand soft start off one of the old air-conditioners in the "to be repaired pile" here at the Homestead. It is too "big" for our little unit so he got busy on the internet to find one for us. Ordered, shipped and arrived inside a week.... a miracle for the postal service here. Installed and working in half a day.... pretty normal for Mr Fix It.

 

 

 

 

Mr. Fix It battles the Ants

Mr Fix It is right into the final maintenance tasks before we leave next Saturday. He has already worked on the air conditioner but this morning early, before it got too hot to be on the roof he dived into the bowels of the machine to fit a new soft start unit.  This will allow the air-con to build up power as it starts instead of it banging on at full power  as it cycles. This is not a technically accurate description but, as he is up on the roof still I’m not yelling up at him get a better one, so that will have to do.  But the net effect of this is supposed to be two fold. The massive jolt to the van as the compressor starts should eliminated and it should run on our generator if needed. Not that we plan to do that much but it would be nice if that were possible even for an hour on really hot outback travel nights.

But the technical description is not the real topic of this blog.





Mr Fix It On the roof of the caravan



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m inside going through cupboards. K Is clomping on the roof of the van. I hear  mutterings and thumping.  Drill noises. Louder conversations with passers-by. (Staff are all fascinated by what happens at the Ferg’s camp.) I have a policy of ignoring all noises not directed to me, although I keep an ear out for any sound that might indicate a slide or fall just in case.

“Jolly things” I hear.

Now…. the word jolly uttered by my husband is a sure indication that disaster has struck. In fact the whole family know that a sentence containing jolly twice, followed by a huff is the equivalent of anyone else’s very loud swearing.

Realising that something is seriously wrong I rush outside. “Something up dear?”

“Jolly ants,” he says. “Throw me up the surface spray.”

Spraying noises. Sweeping noises. Ant carcasses flying of the roof. A huff or two and all is well.  Ants disaster of epic proportions averted.

I blogged early on about ants. K says they were in every nook and cranny of the air-conditioner except the fans he had cleaned last week. All over the mother board, under the seals and everywhere. How did they get in? Through the tiny space left around the power cord! And while this is an amusing story, the little insects were pretty close to shorting out the motor and in the kind of heat we get here, that would have been a disaster.

Ants vanquished, the cover goes back on the Air-conditioner.

All good now

 

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

Travel Memories: Sunset over water

Sunsets over water have figured in our lives quite a bit.

There’s the sunset on Cable Beach at Broome, which I showed you in my last post. Truly spectacular.

Sunset on 80 Mile beach netted us some spectacular shots as well, taken with K's salvaged camera.

Sunset 80 Mile Beach WA

And then there was the sunset on Lake Argyle in the Kimberly region. The moon was up that night. I painted this when we got home. (No I don’t have a photo of the art work, I think it is in storage)
 

Sunsets and Moon rises, Lake Argyle WA

 

 

Sunset at Derby through the mangroves out over the water. We went to a corroboree that night, but that is for another blog.

Sunset Derby WA

 

Closer to home for us are the sunsets on Mindil Beach in Darwin. These are a dry season institution. Tourists and local flock to the Night markets to enjoy fantastic food and browse the stalls. We like to take a bottle of wine and some delicious munchies and watch the sun go down while sitting on the sandy on the beach. Usually catch up with friends and any members of the family who are in town.

Sunset Mindil Beach NT

Oh and I’ve already told you about the sunset cruise at Katherine Gorge.

We have also watched the sun go down at Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. (We turned east of the Stuart Highway that trip and went over to almost to Cairns and then down the east coast) There was standing room only at the restaurant, which specialises in sea food, so we parked ourselves with the “bring your own snack from the caravan group” and yarned as the sun sank spectacularly into the sea. We have no photos from this trip at all since some nasty creep stole the laptop before I got a chance to sort and back up the shots. I guess that is as good a reason as any to retrace our steps one day soon.

There is something spiritual about watching the sun seem to go underwater. A universal reaction is to cheer and clap at the precise moment when the yellow ball is extinguished by the water. Doesn’t matter what language you speak or where you call home every one is driven to clap. Cheering creation I guess.

Applauding Sunset Mindil Beach NT

Brings tears of joy to my eyes.

A Ferg on the Move.