MacKay – October 2013

Well our stint at Home Hill, unfortunately, was short lived!  They needed Tui back in MacKay so it was pack up Tiki Tourer and we were off.  Goodbye pool, goodbye Jen & Mick, not happy!!

The day we left, Tui worked & Jen got to go for a ride with him while Jude took some last minute photos & packed.

Jude & JenAll Aboard

Home Hill Diorama is an important educational and tourism asset to this area and was originally built by the local Lions Club to commemorate the region’s pioneers. It features laser-print aluminum interpretive panels depicting the history of the local area, including Indigenous Australians, explorers and first settlers, providing information on farming, the Burdekin Bridge and the local water industry.

Burdekin BridgeDiorama

Diorama 2Byproducts

The Information Centre is a great place to start at Home Hill, extremely friendly staff will give you all the information on the town and surrounding district.  There are beautiful Historical Buildings and we picked up a helpful brochure on the Heritage Town Walk, amongst other literature.  Unfortunately Jude ran out of time to get photos!!

Tui arrived back from work then it was time to load Suzi into the truck trailer.

Loading SuziInside Trailer

After one last quick swim we headed back.Bus & Truck going to Home Hill

Arriving back to the house in MacKay after dark, presented a bit of a challenge guiding Tui into our tight spot. No scratches on Tiki Tourer on this occasion!  We were pretty tired by the time we got to bed at 10pm.

A fews day of night shift followed which didn’t please Tui too much.

Jude was busy vacuuming Tiki Tourer and was just doing the steps when she caught something out the corner of her eye.  First instinct was a snake but it happened to be a Goanna.  Rex had been telling stories about this huge Lizard that looked like a small crocodile and of course we didn’t believe him.

Goanna 2Goanna 3

After  searching on the Net, Jude discovered it was a Lace Monitor which are the second-largest monitor in  Australia. They can be as long as 2.1 m with a head-and-body length of up to 76.5 cm. The tail is long and slender and about 1.5 times the length of the head and body.

A couple of days later John went to go to the downstairs toilet (the one we use) and called out “snake”, which was slithering into the room that Daniel occupied.  Jude never got any photos as she was staying well away, but according to the 3 Kiwi hunters it was a “Brown”, only small, but very venomous, considered the world’s second most venomous land snake.  Very vigilant visits to the toilet now!!

We have had a couple more leave the house with Daniel heading to Port Hedland WA to drive road trains and John heading to Hyden WA to drive grain trucks.  It was sad to see them go and Jude’s mission to get them to the airport.

One of the good things about coming back to MacKay was Jude got to have another day with her mate, Sydnie.  This time they went to the Blue Lagoon.  Comprising three tiered lagoons, the Bluewater Lagoon is a free family-friendly leisure facility overlooking the picturesque Pioneer River in the heart of Mackay’s city centre. Covering an area equivalent to three 50 metre swimming pools, Bluewater Lagoon provides a safe all-round stinger-free swimming environment. As it was a spur of the moment decision no “togs” (bathers) once again!! Bummer!!

Blue Lagoonblue-water-lagoon

A couple of close calls at Tui’s work lately with the loader nearly going off the edge.

Loader oops 1Loader 4

A crane & 2 trucks were needed to rectify the problem.

The CraneTrucks

Also Tui was very lucky the other day.  As he was coming out of the Mill, onto the road he discovered he had no 4th gear.  Stratching his head, he looked in the rear view mirror & low & behold he had lost his back wheels!  It was extremely fortunate he wasn’t traveling at 100kms! Mill staff raced out and directed traffic and he managed to get the trailer off and get it off the road.

Wheels off 3Wheels off 1

Saturday night, in between Rex having to sleep for work, we managed to watch the All Blacks once again beat the Wallabies.  It was a close game toward the end but all credit to the All Blacks they kept passing the ball even after the final hooter.  Great sportsmanship!!

Go Allblacks

What will the next Blog bring?  Who knows!! Things have a habit of changing quickly in our world!  Until next time “Laugh more, live longer!”

 

 

 

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