A real loyal mate

Flickie is my first dog and I feel blessed that my good friend Kelly Smith decided that she should live with us. She has been the best dog you could wish for as a family. Our children have all learned to love animals because of her and she has been the most loyal, kind and soft dog we could have wished for. 7 years was not as long as I thought she would stay with us. I miss her a lot.

An emotional goodbye

Around midnight, at bedtime Jolmer calls my name from outside of the bus. Flickie is dead. Just like that. There is her body on the ground. From a distance it looks like she is sleeping, but of course she would never remain on the ground when approached by Jolmer, and this time she does. She is also quite cold. She might have been this way for a couple of hours, we don’t exactly know.

There is no sign of any injury as far as we can tell, and we are puzzled as to what could have possibly happened. She was in perfect shape all day.

It is awful to see her like this. We cry.

Tomorrow we shall tell the children and find a place to burry her.  Once we are in bed we cannot sleep, our tears wake up Laura who hears us talk and for second believes she is in a very bad dream when she realizes what we are talking about. She crawls into bed with us to share in our crying session.

The next morning I don’t know what to say to the children. Well, I know what to say, but I don’t know how to say it. Jolmer has to break the news.

We go over to the trailer so that they can see her, and understand what we have to do next.

It is the saddest thing. Laura, Jaap and Peter shed tears, like us. Funnily enough Tim and Hugo remain completely dry. It must be something about age and emotional maturity.

We all grab something that we want to burry with Flickie. Jolmer grabs one of his shirts to cover her. When we first had her has a pup, he would put his shirt with her over night in her sleeping basket. That brings us full circle.

 We locate a good spot and Jolmer digs Richmond, for real this time. With all the world famous fossilised dinosaur bones, we feel it’s only appropriate to add to the earth the remains of only the very sweetest dog in Australia.

Apart from Jolmers shirt some favorite shells from the children join Flickie in the hole, to symbolise all the long walks we had with her in the past few months, combing the beaches for things to find. I bring a peacock feather from Darwin to celebrate all the chickens and other birds and animals she would always try to round up in our back yard. 

Once she is covered over with dirt we say things that we are grateful for or what we liked about her so much. 

I for instance remember fondly when we went snorkelling near Albany at Muttonbird Island. Jolmer went in with Laura. Flickie followed him with her eyes for the entire duration of his time in the water. When she realised he was coming back to shore she ran over the rocks and into the water to welcome him back. I never knew she did that every time Jolmer went snorkelling.

So I have been told dogs will teach you two things. When they come into your life they teach how to love and when they go, they teach you about letting go. It was a lesson that was not due for a couple more years at least. We shall miss her tremendously.

Richmond Fossils

Richmond is only a small town with a massively interesting museum. Back in the day when Richmond was actually the ocean floor for millions of years aquatic dinosaurs would swim the waters in this area and when the ocean retreated their remains were trapped in the soil and clay, and over 100-110 million years the bones became fossilized. Farmers working the land found many bones around this area. The museum Kronosaurus Korner provides us with fantastic displays and information.

For the afternoon we plan to dig at one of Council’s dedicated dig-sites for tourists. “You’ll dig Richmond” it says on our new coffee mug and T-shirts.

We make the silly mistake to cause a flat tire on the Toyota while driving it out of the trailer. Unfortunately there is no tire-fitter in town today able to help us out. Jolmer changes the tire in no time though, so we decide to drive to the dig-site on our spare.

The afternoon is filled with playing in the rubble of a previous sand-pit used by Council for road constructions. Now abandoned by heavy dig-machines it becomes playground for tourists like us. The children have variable levels of interest in digging. Other things that are entertaining include parts of the dig site consist of mud, or more so clay. It is easy to get very, very dirty without too much effort.

Flickie is roaming around the sand pit as well, getting patted and sticking around to see what we’re doing.

There is a lady who has been here for a while and she explains how we should be digging and also what we found: a fossilised jaw of a fish, with teeth. It is not pretty and it’s not a dinosaur, but it’s something!

We camp the night on a block provided again by the Council, for self contained vehicles. Long showers in the bus are out of the question, but the children do need a good scrub. I take them to a public shower on the other side of town. The water is not heated, but the weather has been so nice that it’s not really cold either. 

After they all finish scrubbing I get them to wear their new Richmond T-shirts. We like it here. However we did not know that Richmond was about to become a sad part of our trip and forever personal to us.

From the Northern Territory into Queensland

Because of work commitments south of Cairns we now have a reasonably good idea how much time we can spend here and there on our way East and North.

First stop into Queensland is Camoweal. There is a wonderful long, reasonably large waterhole at which you can pull up and camp. The bird life is interesting. Brolgas roam the water edges and grace the skies with their flight from one side to the other. We decide to stay here for two nights, so we can enjoy and feel the beauty of this place in an un-rushed sort of way.

We do produce another damper on the fire too. The children are getting quite good at this.

 Next stop is Mount Isa. High chimneys dominate the city’s skyline. It’s a nice place. We stop at the visitor center but don’t get much wiser. We decide to skip the museum and see more of that in either Richmond or Wyndham, and we get some shopping done, including some books to read.

For the night we are looking for an easy place to pull up. We find a parking lot, which is a bit secluded, and at the back of a play ground where we can start the next day. It works out well.

The Mataranka hot springs (June 2015)

The Mataranka hotspring is the weirdest little stream I have ever seen. The fresh warm water flows through the forest. It is nice and warm, just a touch cooler than a nice hot bath, and very clear. Frank takes us in his car, we are getting late because the sun is setting and soon it will be dark in the forest, so no time to get our Toyota out of the trailer. 

A quick dip is all we need to know we have to return to do it again the next day. This time we check out, drive to the hotsprings with all our gear and bring snorkeling stuff and our GoPro, floating devices and a plan: get in on one side, let the current take us all the way to the other side and walk back to the bus. Tim will have my flip-flops on his life vest for extra floating and to spare my delicate feet on the little walk to come.

What a delightful morning we spend in the water. Simply delicious.

For a truly Australian experience we stop at THE Dalywaters pub for lunch. They have a lot of quirky things in the pub like the largest thongs collection I have ever seen as well as 100's of number plates. They also feature the most remote traffic light in Australia. It is always on red so you have no choice but to stop for a rest. In true outback stile we have bacon and egg on Demper.

Somewhere along the road we pull of for the night and have another quintessential outback experience with food from the fire and setting sun sipping coffee.