Backo'Bourke Motel

... so its all good. We worked 3 hours and charged about 7 or 8 for day one and this was the theme for the 8 days of work we had up here. Now we are outloading the grain, Steve is here to drive a big outloading loader to pile the grain into trucks slowly but surely. Each bucket of the loader holds 3 Ton and we put about 75 ton into each truck - usually about 10 a day. The 4 of us just sweep up and tidy uyp which takes very little time each day. i have the ...

... and it is really nice. Bourke its self is rubbish but I have really landed on my feet here. We cruise into work when we like, finish when we like and the only thing that stops us doing loads of crazy hours is the rain which comes weekly. I plan to be here until Christmas now just to earn that bit more cash and then after New Years have to get some other job somewhere - god knows where! Well, because of day and night shifdt I have ...

... in an unheated tent is proving to be very trying for this pair of softies. Maya is really sick with bronchitis (so much so that we decide to stay at a motel in Bourke) so we have a conference & decide to cancel our desert plans (Tibooburra, Innaminka & Birdsville) & head north ASAP which will get us to warmer places at least a week earlier.

... River. During the next night I had a bad dizzy spell and we were impressed by the medical services here. It seems I have vertigo and hopefully it will right itself so I just had to pace myself for awhile. 3rd. The weather has been cool and a bit of rain. We travelled on to Cunnamulla and went to the ...

... Victorian city like Hobart in many ways where we stayed until the 7th. 7th. On to Echuca, a lovely old river port town on the banks of the Murray. Here we camped for two very pleasant nights on the banks of the Murray among the red gums, complete with campfire after a couple of nights in a caravan park in town. 12th. Kerang, a very pleasant small town on the way to Mildura. Stayed until 15th. at The Ibis Van Park ...

... the most touristy thing we did the whole trip, after that we made our way to Ted's farm where we spent the first night which was literally in the middle of nowhere9the nearest town was 40 minutes away). Our first activity was boar hunting, we were unsuccessful that night but Ted assured us that we would have better luck in the morning, so at 5am we were awoken by Ted's dulcet tones and off we went once again. Ted was ...

... not trails here). their tracks are great, maintained well . . . but they ALL have steps galore - i hate steps . . . then we went west a little bit and even played a round of golf on a course where we had to avoid the kangaroos! Enjoy the pics.

... the actual miners. We spent the next 2 days searching for our fortune digging in the dirt. We didn't actually find anything of any value, just lots of "potch" which still looks pretty but isn't worth anything. We also met a chap who could see our dissapointment at not finding anything and so he gave me a couple of pretty pieces of his to keep as a memento. After our opal trip we headed on back to the Gold Coast. We arrived back on the Gold Coast as ...

... Dijoe" of which he has resided for more that 50 years. His home is accustomed to large family reunions, meals of more than 30 people, and a house of more than 20 beds. A wood cook stove is the only oven and most often used cooking apparatus, while a small electric cook top had all it's elements covered with a wooden cutting board. I found there were actually a number of similarities to farming in Canada, the weather being a huge determining factor on their success ...

We camped out "Back of Burke" and were greeted with a very cool morning. A quick fire, toast and a cuppa got us off to a good start. Of course one can not mention Burke without giving a plug to the great Australian saying `the back of Burke' referring to the start of the true outback.