October 2012 - - 2wander-yonder

October 2012.

01 October 2012

We didn't end up going back into town but had a nice chat for a while with a truckie who was on his way to South Australia to pick up camels for a Brisbane abattoir to export the meat to Germany and then we enjoyed a nice BBQ dinner.

A peaceful night with one other camper in and this morning we tested one of the three water taps around the rest area only to find some of the sweetest water we have had in some time and so we topped up our tanks. This whole area is supplied with Artesian Water and that might have something to do with the number of water fill points around.

Heading back into town we visited the laundromat and then headed out to check a campsite we had heard about. 10 km from town down a single vehicle strip of bitumen is the Lloyd Jones Weir on the Alice River. Turning off the hard stuff we had about a kilometer of a sandy but firm underneath track to cover before we arrived at the campsite, and what a beauty it is. Clean toilets, dump point and fresh water and enough room to park about 30 or so vehicles and next to the river and weir. We stopped for a coffee and a chat with some people we had met back along the track and almost stayed but decided to push on to get to a little place called Tambo.

On our way to Tambo we stopped for lunch and fuel in Blackall which is a lovely little town with nice streets many of which are lined with bottle trees. There is two caravan parks in town but that has not stopped them having a $5 a night camp in an open park area on the banks of the Barcoo River, and with water, toilets and a dump point nearby it will be worth another visit one day.

With 100 kilometers to Tambo we drove carefully along what is arguably the worst road you can get. Bumpy, bouncy, potholes, patched, narrow and windy, and if you easily get motion sickness then this is definitely not the road for you.

Arriving in the little town of Tambo we found the road out to our intended campsite at the Stubby Bend rest area where we promptly set up home right next to the creek and were visited by fur Emu's who came down for a drink. They were not too sure what to make of this big white thing parked at their drinking spot but had a drink and then just casually wandered u the gravel road.

Stubby Bend Rest Area on the Barcoo River

Sitting here about to upload today's text and Joanne calls out to me to come quickly. There about 2 metre's in front of her was a bungarra. He had come to check us out and then decided to go back over the the grassed area opposite us. Just as he got there though he was buzzed and harassed by a magpie. So with Emu and now lizards visiting I wonder what is next?

Emu

Bungarra

02 October 2012

It's getting a bit chilly these nights and last night got down to 13 deg which meant sleeping in the top bed over the cab was definitely the better option. The rear bed has been wonderful for the hot nights but...

Joanne took a walk along the Coolibah Trail this morning and while she was gone I had two kangaroos visit. When Joanne returned we took a short drive around the small town of Tambo before taking another motion sickness nightmare for most of the day. The truck drivers around here really know the road well and so you know when they straddle the white lines in the middle of the road it is a good time to do it yourself.

Arriving in the small town of Morven we stopped for morning tea and then we took a ride around the back streets and found about 20 campers all enjoying a nice area alongside the creek at the Morven Recreation Area. For a donation this is a great spot to stop for a week, and we very nearly did that.

Road kill has been plentiful here in Qld and apart from the usual dead Kangaroo's there has been quite a few Emu's and more recently wild pigs and we saw 3 of them today.

Moving on so we could use the road to fix Joanne's sea sickness for ever, we stopped for a look at Fisherman's Rest another campsite on the river and just 5 kilometers out of the town of Mitchell. It's a great spot but really suited to four wheel drives and campers not motorhome's so we continued on to the Neil Turner Weir free camp which is just 2 kilometers out of town and definitely more suited to our kind of rig.

The area alongside the river where you can camp is almost a kilometer long and has very shady spots (which are all taken) right on the riverbank and then open area ones as a second row. Toilets and taps this makes a good spot for the rest of the day and maybe even tomorrow. A quick count now has 30 campers in.

The Neil Turner Weir

03 October 2012

Left Mitchell this morning for Roma where we had some shopping and things to do before heading on towards Surat to not only set up ready for work but to meet with John and Shirley in their motorhome "Home & Away. We first met John and Shirley during our cycle tour of Australia and for a while there they were going as far as we were each day and we often camped together and while we have kept in contact with them over the years it is 9 years since we last saw them and so have some catching up to do.

Arriving at the free camp just out of town we found Home & Away tucked nicely under a shady tree waiting for us.

04 October 2012

Surat is a very nice welcoming little town with a few shops, a pub, motel/caravan park and a river running through the middle of it where everyone knows everyone, everyone is friendly and nobody takes life too seriously. Surat is also one of the old CObb and CO Stage coach towns and has retained that theme.

The Surat Shopping Complex

05 October 2012

Joanne and I took a drive out to the wheat silo this morning for a look and hoping to be able to pick up our high-vis shirts and other safety gear but were unable to get to see the manager who was off over the other side of this very large grain laydown area, so we drove back to our camp and spent the day sitting around chatting with John, Shirley and other campers.

Dinner tonight was going to be the pub but then got changed to the bowls club where we were told the food is better and the prices cheaper, so we got ready and walked the 2 kilometers down to the bowls club for a very nice meal ($14 and rhubarb crumble and ice cream $3.50). We even got to meet some fellow workers and spent a very nice time chatting with them before we walked back home around 9pm.

06 October 2012

Just as we left to go to the Bowls Club last night a Rotary tag along tour came in and added to the numbers in camp and a count in the morning had around 70 campers in and after a quiet night the tag along crew all had breakfast by the river this morning (cooked for them by the local Lions club) before they got back on the road again and the place looked very empty when they had all left.

07 October 2012

A very pleasant happy hour with a number of other campers followed by a very quiet and peaceful night and today starts off with a BBQ breakfast of eggs in bread (in the cut out middle of the slice), bacon, mushrooms, baked beans, coffee and toast with ginger jam and it was sooooo good and filling that a rest was required afterwards.

Breakfast with Home & Away
Breakfast with John and Shirley aka - "Home & Away"

The weather yesterday was quite hot and today is shaping up the same, just in time for the harvest and work.

11 October 2012

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to work we go....and it is nice to be doing so. We commenced at 8 am on Monday 8 October along with 18 others. One crew had already been there a week or two and our crew will be boosting the numbers. We are both working as grain handlers and tarp team members, and our new best friends are a shovel and broom.

After undergoing a site induction and a number of "how it is to be done" videos we spent the first three days doing a lot of standing and sitting around with the occasional bit of time with our new best friends and some hands on instruction in the various stations and with various pieces of equipment like tarp welders. Some of last years wheat was going out on trucks and as expected there was the usual sweeping and shoveling to be done, but with so many people onsite the work is done quickly and easily. What is harder than the physical activity is the heat and dust which we are told will get worse, but like everyone else we are getting used to that, and its nice to be out in the fresh air and working with no responsibility except to work safe.

Our workmates are a mixed bunch and there are a number of traveling couples like us, some Italian and German backpackers and one Indian. Its a good group and we all get on very well with the couples having their traveling lifestyle in common. Some of the crew are staying in the caravan park and some in the pub rooms in town, and others like us are staying at the free camp down at the river.

Our daily routine has been fairly easy and smooth with a 6.30am departure from our campsite for the short 4 kilometer drive to site. Parking up and signing on and then the days activities, most of which have finished around 3 or 4 pm, though we have already been working into overtime for two of the days. Then is is a case of hoping into the motorhome, a quick change out of our work clothes and a short drive into town where we stop at one of the two free hot water showers for a clean up which saves us using ours and then it is onto the river for a campsite for the night.

Today however was an exception as the pitter patter on the roof caused the boss to give us the day off as "rain and grain don't mix". So, we got changed in the motorhome in the car park and drove the 80 km to Roma where we refilled our supplies and looked for a few things we wanted and then came back. There is a nice little supermarket come hardware store in Surat but its stock is limited and more expensive than the big smoke.

All being well tomorrow the sun will again be shining and the work back on, if not, we will just have to spend a day by the river until the weather improves.

Once the real harvest starts we will be unloading the trucks via the dog (grid the trucks dump into) and operating "the stacker" as it conveyor's the grain up the shute and out onto "the stack" which we will cover with the very large sections of tarp (22m x 34m) that we have welded together and pulled mechanically across the top.

The process goes something like this - truck comes in, and a sample of the grain is taken for analysis (protein and moisture content), the truck then gets weighed and then goes over the dog unloading in the process, the dog feeds the wheat into the stacker and the stacker feeds the stack, the truck then goes back over the weighbridge and the load is calculated and the whole thing starts again until the farmers run out of grain to send to us, and it is then that we hope to move onto another site and another site and another site further South to start the whole process again until the end of the harvest for this year, but we'll see how this goes first.

More later...

17 October 2012

"You can expect it to be hot, dusty, dirty and noisy..." were the words we kept hearing from experienced hands and the boss, and they are right. This week has been exactly that and as the number of trucks coming to take the last of last seasons grain away decreases, the number of trucks bringing in this years harvest are increasing, and so is the temperature.

The Surat wheat stack sits on the top of windy hill and as you can imagine the dust and wind teaming up with the temperature make for an interesting day, especially when there is nowhere to get out of it. We have gradually been taught and learn 't the ropes on the dog and stacker and it was very good to see Joanne taking control of a road train and driver as she guided it over the dog and then took charge of the unloading using hand signals as the dust rose and the grain fell down the shute and was eventually deposited on the stack. Like me she was a tad nervous at the thought of doing it but she did it okay and now has another feather in her cap.

Truck DOg

DOg adn Stacker

We get assessed by the manager on each part of the operation so she can ensure she has good operators on each of the shifts and so everyone is interested in getting it right. The truckies are just interested in dumping their load and getting off to get the next one and so it is vital that the grid operator takes charge of the grid, people around and the truck driver or it is dangerous and messy.

The amount of grain coming in is increasing and so the 40 of us are now split into two shifts working a 6 days on 1 day off roster and either on morning or afternoon shift which at peak will be 7am to 3 pm and 3 pm to 11pm until the last grain is on the stack and covered up. It is hot and dusty but we have a good team and so far everyone is enjoying it.

We are still camping at the rest area just out of town each night, driving in to work each day and stopping for a nice long hot shower in town at the tennis courts on the way home in the afternoon before hitting the sack for a well earn 't rest each night.

28 October 2012

Rain, rain go away come on back another day.... It's Sunday and it's raining and we are missing out on double time pay! Thankfully though we managed to get 4 hours worth in this morning before the rain that has been circling us for the past few days finally decided it's threats were over and began falling, drenching us in the process and turning the thick bull dust made by the trucks into rivers of slush and bog.

Up until today this week has been rather good and we have managed to get plenty of work, grain and $ in. Two of the six stacks are now just about full, two others have been started and are a quarter full, another is left from last year and if the sun comes out the harvest will be on in earnest again and the others will fill up pretty darned quick.

We have had three dogs and stackers going this week and trucks going all over the place, sometimes with up to five waiting in line to be unloaded. It's hard to believe when you look at the site that it was almost empty just a few weeks ago and now it is looking decidedly full with the stacks at least 100m long, around 10-15m high and now because of the rain, totally covered with those heavy blue tarps. When the chance permits we'll get some photos and include them for you.

The past two days have provided two new learning curves, driving the stacker with it's wheels that seem to have a mind of their own; and walking up the grain and pulling the tarp as you go which is not as easy as it looks and sure provides a good workout for the legs and lungs. The minute you step onto the grain you begin to sink and the more you fight it to stay upright the more you sink until you are up to your waist in grain, and the higher you go on the stack the steeper the grade to walk up and the harder it gets. The level of difficulty increasing when your movement causes mini avalanches and so you end up almost flat on your face on the side of the grain mountain, getting caught between the tarp which is being pulled up from each side with a tractor and the quicksand you are trying to walk on, then just for good measure throw in the haste to get the tarp on before the grain gets too wet and you have one giant mega work out! The end result being legs of jelly; lungs that are bursting; boots, gloves and pockets full of grain; and your clothing covered in husks and wheat dust. But despite all of that it is good fun and a sense of achievement is felt when it is.

So with the rain falling quite seriously now (and washing all the dust off of the motorhome and solar panels) we expect to have another day off tomorrow, and maybe even Tuesday, then of course our RDO on Wednesday before we start our working week again on Thursday.

31 October 2012

The wet weather lasted two days with an inch of rain hitting the ground at Surat so it will take a day or two for the ground and the crops to dry out enough to resume the harvest.

In the meantime we took off to explore some of the surrounding countryside. Heading West we found our way into Glenmorgan, the end of the line railway town that is definately the end of the line as the rail has not gone there for some time. It's a small town of around 20 odd and which boasts a small store, school, vehicle museum and, and, not much more. We stopped for a look at the free camp in the middle of town and it turns out it is the old railway station. A donation box sits next to the building and they provide toilets and a shower, tank water, power and a BBQ for those staying.

Exploring and morning tea over we moved onto Meandarra, Legend has it the township was named after a swaggie was asked "who lives here?", with his reply being "Me and Darra" - Darra being his dog.

Meandarra is a sizeable town also with a free camp right on the river and a hundred metres from town. No toilets or showers but power and water plug in's and the cost of $5 for the first night then nights 2 and 3 are free then thay charge the same as the caravan park in town - $17. The town also boasts a great ANZAC Museum which houses a Canberra Bomber along with an engine from a German U-boat and unfortunately it was closed when we went through.

Tempting as it was to pull up and plug in we moved on to look at another of the GrainFlow sites at "The Gums" stopping on the way to retrieve a turtle from the road just in time before a truck came along. He/she was so thankful that it piddles on Joanne as she moved it off the road. Arriving at a crossroads we had apparently arrived. The Gums is a a small locality with nothing other than the silo's, a crossroads corner store, golf club ($15 a night camping with power and ful use of the clubhouse) a school and, and, and...

Turtle

And so it was on to Tara, a much larger town also with a free camp on the river with power, toilets and showers. Again $5 for the first night, nights 2 and 3 free then $20 a night as per the caravan park. We were going to stop here but as our fridge is almost dead we took the opportunity to return to Surat to meet the fridge mechanic from Roma who was travelling through to St George, and whose eventual diagnosis of the fridge problem was it's terminal. We have a gas leak somewhere inside and it will be too hard and expensive to locate it so we are now shopping for a new fridge.