Last Sunday...

Last Sunday turned out to be a very long day for DH and I, but a very enjoyable one. After having breakfast at our motel, we packed up, vacated our room, and then drove around to the 'school house' (departmental accommodation)  where DsD1 lives in town. The plan was that we would help with the clean up of the showgrounds after Saturday's Camel races. By the amount of rubbish I saw lying on the ground the night before, plus all the cigarette butts on the ground, I wasn't looking forward to that! But DsD1 had another job for me...help her and her mum count the takings from the previous day. That sounded a good idea to me so it was just DH who went to tidy up and dismantle things at the showgrounds...:-)

Well our little team of 3 worked for 3 hours counting the money, bagging coins and banding up notes into bundles of 10. We counted the takings from the raffles, the donations at the gate, the souvenirs, the fees from the jockeys, the fees from the stallholders, straight up donations and various other monies collected including sponsorships and the bar takings...remember we sold 11000 tickets at $2 each for the bar drinks...so we had lots of money to count. We counted  over 30 grand, plus one brown button and a 10 Euro cents coin lol! None of us had ever seen that much money in one place before! lol

Some of our counting work...

This ' Omo' bucket had the 'gate' donations (including the button, lol! )

After lunch DH, myself and DH's first wife, piled into DsD1's car, along with Dan, and we travelled the 60 or so kilometres to Dan's family property. Much of the road was gravel...so it was a bit bumpy in the back for 'the three parents' as my stepchildren describe us! lol It was lovely to see where DsD1 spends most of her time...
Warning: Photo overload follows...

It is a beef cattle property and to a city slicker like me, it is huge in area!  Part of the property ( it's thousands of hectares) has been rezoned to allow for a tiny part of it to be mined; they are mining basalt/blue metal which is used for road building. Surveys have shown that the layer of basalt is incredibly deep and will be mined for many, many years. the family will be paid a percentage per tonne extracted.

The mining company is making a road on the property

 This knob of land is made of basalt and the basalt extends way down underground...as the mining continues, the knob will disappear,,,

The actual site of the mine...

One of the views from the smaller house on the property

Another paddock near the smaller house...note the horse under the trees

DH, DsD1 and her mum on the veranda of the smaller house...

 And the next 2 photos are some of my new friends...the property's 4 dogs...

Ralph...

Blue, Banjo the puppy and Odie...

 I also took a wander around the beautiful garden of the main house on the property...

  The veggie garden...

As I wandered around taking photos of the garden, a mining company vehicle came up the drive; the two blokes in it came to say that there was water leaking from a pipe on the property. These employees were going off duty so the leak wouldn't be repaired until the next day. (the mining company was responsible for damaging the pipe BTW)

So dan started looking for supplies to throw in the ute so that he could go out and do repairs to prevent too much water escaping. The dogs are ready....lol

DsD1 was going to drive the ute to the leak... because she knows I'm a 'precious city princess' (snigger, snigger; my words) she offered me the passenger seat in the truck! Her mum, dad and Dan stood in the tray of the truckalong with the dogs and off we set on our rough ride through this beautiful property countryside...

Young Banjo is leaning out and you can see the shadow of those standing in the back of the ute...

The track is wide here as the mining company has graded this for their vehicles...

I was told that the person in the passenger seat opens and closes the gates...so I did my best but some of the catches were similar to those 'Chinese puzzle rings'...baffling how to undo them! lol

 We reached where the leak was...DH and Dan checked it out...

 While us girls chatted and generally looked beautiful, the boys worked hard and soon the job was done...

Some of the cattle on the property

 On the way back to the house we went to see where the 'weaner' calves were kept; we also saw where the cattle are branded and where the cattle dip is.

And one more photo to finish...this is on the other side of the main house and this beautiful horse, 

 Reluctantly we had to leave this lovely place and be driven back to Wandoan to collect our cars and start the long drive back to Brisbane.

( I think that this property is at a place called Bungaban or if not that, maybe it's Bimbadeen) It's north-east of Wandoan.