Forbes Family Blog: June 2016

Letter No. 234

Dear all,

The weekend after we got back from Straddie we went to our friends the Tods for drinks and dinner. They had been at Straddie with us but somehow missed out on hosting a Sundowners drinks party so they felt they needed to when we all got back! We also had the family over for an Easter lunch on 2^nd April, also to celebrate Mum and Dad’s birthdays. We had a fab family seafood lunch by the pool.

Jessica went off to Melbourne on 4^th April with the Australian Girls’ Choir. It was a week-long music camp with girls from around Australia. I dropped her off at the airport before work on the Monday and then picked her up again on the Friday evening. She had a great week but said it was fairly intense with exercises every morning at 6.30am followed by singing rehearsal sessions until the minute they went to bed!

Katie was still in a bit of pain after the emergency appendix removal and ended up going back to the doctor. She had another ultrasound, which revealed an Inguinal Hernia. It transpired that she had probably not actually needed her appendix out, but there was a bit of a grey area drawn over that issue (by the surgeon). Katie felt that if you have to have an organ removed by mistake, the appendix is probably the best one… and at least she will never have problems with her appendix now. J

So on Monday 11^th April, Katie went to the Wesley Hospital for a second round of surgery to repair the hernia with a tiny plastic implant. It was day surgery this time, so I dropped her at the hospital at 6am and was told to collect her at noon. However, this didn’t go according to plan as Katie had a bad reaction to the drugs they had given her this time round and couldn’t wake up. After six hours in the recovery room, the hospital decided they would have to admit her for the night. I arrived at 4pm just after she had been moved to a ward, but she was barely awake. Her respiration went down to four breaths per minute, which is very shallow. It was quite alarming actually, watching her very slow breathing and waiting for each breath, praying she would! The nurses kept trying to wake her up and were a bit alarmed so they called an EMT (emergency medical team) who fussed over her for about half an hour doing tests and hooked her up to various machines. Eventually they decided not to give her any more drugs as her blood oxygen levels were ok and anything they gave her would just counteract the pain medication.

After a couple of hours Katie sparked up a bit, so I went home and got her things for another stay in hospital. We expected that she would be released the next day but the next morning the anaesthetist gave her more pain medication and knocked her out for the whole day again, with the same respiratory problems. The nurses thought that it was the combined impact of having a second round of anaesthetic drugs only two weeks after the first one and she had to stay another night in hospital. She was finally discharged on Wednesday afternoon with a massive bag of drugs, which she mostly refused to take.

It was all a bit of a worry as I was going on a week-long camping and fishing trip departing the next day. Katie insisted that I go anyway and assured me she would be OK even though she couldn’t drive or do much. She spent several days on the sofa and managed quite well with the help of all of our lovely friends. My sister Lisa was a fantastic help and brought a cooked dinner every night for a week, while Katie’s friends Helen, Carolyn, Wings, Kylie and Leona drove the kids around and called in with groceries.

Derek’s Outback Camping and Fishing Trip

Day 1 On Thursday 14 April I set off an Outback Camping and Fishing trip with my mate Tony Malins and two of his friends Pete and Steve. We met at Tony's house about 1pm and drove to Redcliffe where he keeps his light plane. I was a little surprised to find he has two planes - a four-seater Cessna and a two-seater ultralight. The ultralight looked very unsafe so I was glad we were not flying in that. A bit of stuffing around ensued because the mechanic who had serviced the plane at the weekend had left something switched on and the battery was dead. An hour and $1000 later and we had a new battery, filled up the tank with $466 worth of aviation fuel and were on our way just before 4pm. We were flying to Cracow that evening. It was 368km flying and took a little over an hour.

When we got to Cracow we had to ring the farmer whose landing strip we were using and he came out and chased his cows off the runway ten minutes before we landed, then set up an electric fence around the plane and gave us a lift into town. We were staying the night at the Cracow Hotel. It was a very interesting pub with all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff written on and hanging off every conceivable surface, including the ceilings. It was fascinating just wandering around looking at it all. The pub is owned by Fred Brophy who runs the last touring boxing troupe in Australia. They are banned from most states except Queensland and the Northern Territory. They basically tour around outback rodeos and beat up drunks who think they can fight and charge people to watch. There was lots of boxing memorabilia on the walls. We had a few beers and a steak dinner and watched the rugby. Pete had just flown in from Hong Kong and Steve from Honolulu so they were both jet-lagged. We had a reasonably early night and were in bed by 10pm.

Day 2 The next morning I went for a run at 5:30am. Cracow was a boom goldmining town in the 1910s. It used to be much larger but there were many vacant lots and most of the houses that remained had For Sale signs on them. It appeared that the For Sale signs stayed up until the house fell down and the house was demolished. The row of about six shops next to the pub were all abandoned and falling down. Cracow was the type of place where you would wonder why anyone would want to live there but it was quite sad that no one did! There is still a bit of mining there and exploration for gold, with a large mining camp just outside of town, but apparently the miners do not integrate with the locals at all. We had breakfast in the pub and I ate more bacon than I had ever eaten in my life. The plate of food was so big I initially thought it was for all four of us! By 8:30am we were in the plane again.

It was a 658km flight to Longreach and took less than three hours. We landed and bought another $379 aviation fuel, as we wouldn’t be able to get any for a few stops. There was a bit of concern for a while as Tony could not find the fuel card to pay for about ten minutes, but eventually we found it on the floor of the plane where it had fallen out of his pocket. We looked at the Qantas museum which was right next to the airport and gave an interesting history of the start of the airline and the early days of flying from the 1920s. We had a nice lunch before it was time to set off for our next destination – the annual Julia Creek Dirt ‘n’ Dust Festival.

It was 415km and we arrived at Julia Creek just after 4pm. It is an unmanned airport and there were a few other planes parked there but no sign of life. We grabbed our bag and tents and walked down the road hoping to hitch a lift into town. It was about 1km before we got down the driveway to the airport and we ended up walking another 2km to town, heading for the Festival site. Not one car passed us going in the right direction. The first building we came to was a motel with a vacancy sign. We couldn't believe our luck as we had previously heard that all accommodation was sold out and camping was the only option. Sadly it was just that the "NO" lights were broken; there were definitely NO vacancies. The owner took pity on us and said it was still a long walk but if we left our stuff with him, and went to the nearby pub for a few beers he would drive us over later. An offer that we couldn’t refuse.

Two beers later he picked us up and dropped us and all our gear at the Julia Creek campsite. There was plenty of Dirt and Dust and also flies which were driving us all mad in no time. We had my pop-up tents so we were set up and ready to go back to town in ten minutes. Luckily there was a shuttle bus every few minutes to the festival site. There was a good Country & Western singer on but not many people there so we went to the pub for dinner. I had a piece of barramundi which was clearly cut from the side of a whale. It defeated me! The service was very slow as the place was heaving and we got through two bottles of wine while we were waiting!

A short walk back to the festival for another singer - Western & Country this time – then we had a few Bundies, a little jig in the Dust in front of the stage and it was time for the headline event for the evening: "Australia's Best Butt Competition". Sadly you had to be wearing jeans to enter so I couldn't compete. I was really devastated. It was great fun actually. There were lots of girls there in denim shorts and cowboy boots who would have beaten all of the actual competitors, but they mustn't have got the memo about the jeans rule either. A heavy rock band came on after that which I quite liked but was not to the general crowd’s taste and it started to thin out, so we called it a night. While we were waiting for a bus, two girls wrestled on the bushes of the central median strip for about ten minutes. It was friendlyish and quite amusing. We all sang songs on the bus back to the campground which was fun.

Day 3 We didn't get much sleep as the campground was huge and there were lots of good ole boys and girls drinking and yahooing all night. It started to rain about 3am. It hasn't rained in Julia Creek since 2008, so it was a bit of a surprise to everyone. It was also surprising how many leaks our tent had - one right over my face wherever I put my head! I had intended to go for a run in the morning but the Dirt and Dust had turned into Mud and More Mud so I just went for a shower instead. Poor Tony had left his shoes outside overnight and they were soaked, along with most of our clothes from the drips inside the tent! The darn flies got up with the sun and were driving us mad again.

As we had no camping equipment apart from tents and sleeping stuff we walked into town to look for coffee. There were a group of ladies doing bacon and egg muffins in the Main Street on a BBQ. They promised us they would be better than McDonald’s and it was no contest. They were fantastic. We wandered up and down the six shops in the Main Street and I invested in an attractive fly net to go over your hat down to your neck to keep the flies off your face. We sat outside the coffee shop for about two hours wearing our fly nets. There was a brilliant singer entertaining the huge crowd of spectators for the Dirt and Dust triathlon that was taking place that morning. There must have been 50 people in the street watching. Shortly after we finished our first coffee, the first triathletes came past. Eventually we went into the public library and chatted to the librarians for a little relief from the flies and the heat.

About 11:30am when it was only the tail end of the "athletes" coming in we decided to go to the pub for lunch. We had meat pies and salad and a few beers before heading over to the Julia Creek horse races for the afternoon. We timed it perfectly, arriving just in time to grab another beer and settle down to watch the judging of the ladies Fashions on the Field. There were five races in all and I donated a little money to the bookies but not too much. Somehow we switched to red wine in the course of the afternoon and we were a little tired and emotional by the time the races finished, but had to push on as there was nothing to do back at the campsite in the hot tents. We forced ourselves back to the pub for a nicer bottle of red before walking back to the main festival arena. There were lots of very messy people in town by now, mainly young girls, which added to the entertainment!

In the arena we watched the PBR - Professional Bull Riding. It was great but they were on for a long time without a break. We had moved on to rum and coke by this time and also had dinner of steak sandwiches in the stands. There was a bog snorkelling competition at the interval of the bull riding which was quite funny. The competitors had to snorkel the muddy bog and then run down to the arena and roll in the sand all the way to the finish line. We watched the band for a short while before being one of the first to leave after our long hard day. We were in bed by midnight. About 2am all the yahoos came back but they must have been tired as well as the camp was totally quiet by 3am.

Days 4 & 5 We were up and packed pretty early and wondering how to manage the 3km back to the airport. Just as we walked out of the campground and started to hitchhike, the first car that drove past was a lovely girl who had been working at the event all weekend taking surveys from all the visitors to Julia Creek. We were one of the first groups to do the survey on Friday and our group had the first ever international visitor to Julia Creek for the festival (Tony's mate Pete from Hong Kong). We had bumped into her all weekend and said hi, so we knew each other well and she kindly drove us and all the gear to the airport. After thirty minutes of packing and checking the plane we were off again for the 453km to Sweers Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

We landed at Sweers Island about 11:30am and the owners came out to pick us up from the airstrip and took us to the resort. Tony and I shared a functional little cabin with air conditioning and close to the shower blocks. It felt very luxurious after our camping experience. The restaurant was nearby as well. We had morning tea in lieu of breakfast and our first coffee of the day which we badly needed. This rolled into lunch. The resort was fully catered and the cook Jane pulled together a fantastic lunch. We went for a quick refreshing swim as it was too early to fish. We were a little surprised when a dugong popped up less than 10m away after we had been in the water for a few minutes. It seemed interested in us and kept swimming closer and closer. There were also at least two huge turtles bobbing around. The owner said he had only seen one croc in 29 years, but it was a big one. He did joke that he had only seen it last week, which made us nervous for a while, but fortunately that turned out to have been five years ago. There were LOTS of big fish jumping out of the water so we didn't go in too deep.

At 3pm we got some bait, basic instructions on where to go and how to drive the boat and we were off. We had a brilliant afternoon. I caught a parrot fish about 55cm long (the biggest catch of the day) and a 40cm coral trout. Tony and Steve caught similar fish and Tony also caught a huge barracuda. He was a bit girly about getting the hook out of its mouth but it did have big teeth! We then got a lesson in how to fillet and skin the fish and pack them in the freezer with our names on. Just as we were about to leave I put the last fish in the freezer and caught my hand in the fan blade that was spinning inside the freezer compartment. I received quite a nasty gash so had to have it bandaged. The others put all the fish guts in the water and apparently four of five big sharks immediately came up to fight over the scraps.

After showers we had JFC (Jane's Fried Chicken) for dinner, a nice chat to the other two groups of guests and were in bed by 9:30pm. It was bliss to sleep in a bed with air conditioning.

The next morning we were up early for a hearty breakfast and on to the water to fish by 8am. We didn't have such good luck this time and I was the only one to come back with a fish. None of the other groups had better luck. However the main excitement of the day was that I caught a shark! It was a black tip reef shark about 1.5m long. It was thrashing around next to the boat and we were all panicking about what we were going to do with it. We decided to lift it out of the water for a photo opportunity but as I did the fishing line snapped and it was gone in a flash.

We went back in and had a nice morning tea, a few beers, delicious home cooked lunch and a swim later and we were ready to start fishing again. What a life!

In the afternoon Pete finally caught a fish. He had been out twice and caught nothing. He was getting a bit of a ribbing about it. He did the best of the afternoon but I caught another lovely big parrot fish and a coral trout. We gutted and scaled them, had showers, chucked our fish gutty clothes in the washer and it was time for dinner.

Days 6 & 7 We got up at 5:30am and packed up and went down to the freezer on the beach to get our fish. We packed it all up inside a cool bag with heaps of ice which will apparently keep the fish frozen for 48 hours. We had a quick breakfast and were airborne by 8:00am. It was 205km to Normanton where we stopped to pick up another $506 in fuel (aviation fuel is expensive!) and then we were quickly off again heading for Charters Towers. It was 607km and we arrived in time for lunch. We caught a taxi into town and went to the Enterprise Hotel for lunch. Surprisingly, it turned out that Peter had a friend who lived in Charters Towers and commuted to Hong Kong two weeks on and two weeks off. He was free and met us for lunch. The pub was frantically busy and it turned out they were having a wake, so it took ages. After lunch, Pete’s mate grabbed his car and took us on a quick driving tour. Charters Towers is a lovely old town with some nice historic buildings. We learned that the population is 10,000 and that 63% are on some sort of government benefits or the dole!

We then went back to the airport for a bit more fuel and a 268km trip to Airlie Beach. We caught a taxi to a hotel in the centre of town. We went for a stroll along the harbour front and a lash-up seafood dinner. It was the first time I had been to Airlie Beach. I had always imagined that it would be a hippy backpacker place like Byron Bay, but it was quite upmarket. We were all impressed. We perhaps stayed for one drink too many, so felt a little sluggish in the morning. We had a quick breakfast and were back at the airport for a 10:00am departure to Emu Park where we stopped for lunch in a pub overlooking the ocean. Our final leg was back to the plane and back to Brisbane and home by 6pm.

A fun week! Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.