OUR FIRST SCALP!

On the road from Narrandera to Forbes we were stuck behind a small truck with a large caged trailer surprisingly even less aerodynamic than us. Our top speed being about 5 km/hr more than him he finally got on the UHF radio and offered us the chance to go ahead. We found the right spot and got out the whip, racehorse style, “Come on Baby”, and overtook our first vehicle, a cause of some celebration as there is someone out there slower than us. I feel like painting a symbol of a truck on the side of the bus as our first “kill”! I spoke to Phil, the guy we bought the bus off and he said that they had kept a tally and had overtaken 17 vehicles on their trip around the massive stone. A massive congratulations to our good friends Ty, Matt, Willow and Thommo who took part in the Oxfam Trailwalker yesterday, attempting to walk 100 km in 24 hours. They completed 90km in 17 hours and arrived at the bottom of Mount Donna Buang at midnight in very ordinary weather, unfortunately the SES (State Emergency Service) and the Police had closed the mountain for safety reasons due to the rain and asked the teams to wait until daylight (7hours) when they would reassess the situation. The team retired as there was no guarantee that they would be able to continue. Even more impressive I reckon is that on the way they each ate 25 apples, 16 bananas, 8 litres of water, 4 litres of Gatorade, and assorted sandwiches, energy bars and more. Great effort Fellas, we are all very proud of you. Tomorrow morning Tal and I are heading back to Forbes for his first Auskick session of the year. We are going to try and track down Auskick centres along the way and join in the footy training where and when we can. Have been spending some time and effort trying to iron out a few bugs on the bus. One being the water coming through the overflow pipe when you let the plug out of the sink. Have tried two different ideas with no success, it is very draining……. I have got another plan which I will try tomorrow. Talking about ironing out bugs, we have collected quite a variety on the radiator’s mesh screen on the front of the bus. So we arrived in Parkes, quite a nice town and the home of the Southern hemispheres largest radio telescope, ironically we can’t get reception on the ABC so as to watch The Bill tonight, how disappointing. An interesting feature of the last few towns is the method of parking in the main streets, one of which is aptly named Bogan Street, Ha! It is 45 degree angle parking but you back your car in, ie. rear to kerb, a very good idea so you do not need to back out into the traffic. We watched a DVD of the 3 Stooges together last night and we have not laughed like that together for a long time, they are wonderful. Went to the library for story time this morning and I went to see a game of hockey this afternoon which was pretty good standard, but very rough. There was a tractor “start up day” at the Parkes Museum today, we were quite curious and went along for a look. Out the front of a house on the Newell Highway was a hand painted sign and we entered the front door of the run down looking house not knowing what to expect. A few steps down the floral, wall papered hallway was a piece of paper saying “pay here” and in a doorway on the right we handed over $12 to the old lady there who was sitting behind the similarly aged desk. Continuing down the dim hallway with the water stains on the ceiling, left then right and out the back door, past the old dog on the long leash and through the back yard, we heard the sounds of tractors and headed that way. When through the back gates it opened out into the most amazing collection of vehicles you will ever see in the same spot, mainly tractors, trucks, cars, lawn mowers, train carriages, most of them beautifully and painstakingly restored. Every four months they start up all the tractors and drive them into a fenced off yard to give them a bit of exercise and to show them off, it is quite fascinating. There are sheds and sheds of bits and pieces of rusted steel, old car parts, ploughs and all manner of things. The trucks and tractors are up to 100 years old, many examples of solid timber trucks, one of which used to take loads to Queensland and its top speed was 12 miles/hour, another vehicle that would be slower than us!!