hi edd and harry we knew you were coming home and we decided to have a celebration and we bought you a big present………we bought you a shop haha. Also we thought you might have been jealous of us buying a van for Maisie so that was another reason we bought it for you.see you soon bye.xx

hi everybody the weather really hot we came into brisbane yesterday and each year they have a celabration of spring. we went to it yesterday and it was cool because there were loads and loads of fire works and there a jet that flew right over our heads and it was really cool. see you soon bye xx

There are lot’s of ‘dry’ areas in Australia, especially where the aboriginies have a drink problem. The bit about pornography made us laugh as generally there the boards are right out in the middle of nowhere and you’d have trouble finding a newsagent in a radius of 500km, let alone a top shelf to buy ‘Debbie does Darwin’ or the like!

I looked through the photos and there are hardly any of me and none with animals so here is one with the aboriginie!

The sheep station we are staying on is huge. I think they said it was 94,000 acres. It took us about 30 minutes to get down the drive when we arrived. Bill and Ann manage the property on their own. They are both in their late 60’s. It is an incredibly difficult life. We’ve been staying in the sheep shearers quarters. We are all trying to help them out while we’re here. At the moment Robbie, Jack & Bron are off rounding up some stray sheep for shearing. I had a lovely day yesterday with Ann in the jeep, moving sheep from one paddock to another. I loved listening to her stories of life in the outback. The kids are having a whale of a time. Bron has fallen in love with the new sheep dog Bella. Bella should be trained by now but her liveliness makes her completely untrainable. She adores Bronte and follows her everywhere. It was funny watching her today. Bron was sitting on the chair and the dog starts with two paws and her head on Bron’s lap. Then she hitches up another leg, and then the other, squeezing herself into the chair next to Bronte. It was so funny. We think they suit each other because Bronte always sneaks in between Robbie and I in bed each morning.

If I ever came back to Aus, this would definately be a place I’d revisit. Beautiful scenery, tons of wild emus and kangeroos and green grass which we haven’t seen for over a month. We were sharing the campsite with a film crew filming a new movie called ‘the last ride’ We saw the baddie in the film Matrix, Hugo Weaving (something like that anyway!). He was in the same restaurant as us that evening.

The last week or so has been great the first stop Coober Pedy is a little town in the middle of nowhere it has alot of greeks and a lot of opals.We went into an opal shop and the guy in there was very nice he gave us a little tour of his shop and let us look through his pot of opals and he said he would clean them up for us and let us keep them,mum and bronte got one polished and they look very nice. In the summer the book says it gets up to 50 degrees in summer so all their houses are made under ground to keep them cool. Then on the way to the next stop we were caught in alittle dust storm we got out of the car to have lunch and and everything got covered in sand and dust so we carried on to a very small town called williams creek the population’s only 5 but when we arived it was 9.We had a drink in a pub and moved on to our stop for the night Flinders Range it was really good there very green and lots of emus and kangaroos to look at. We went on some walks but we only had a day there but even a day was good. Now we’re in a property near a place called Broken Hill. Its a sheep farm and we have been doing a lot of sheep rounding up and driving in the little suzuki we have to sit in the back and its very bumpy but fun. We have been sleeping in the shearers quarters. Its a small room with a few beds and a kitchen there’s two dogs and they’re both fun to have around, we’re leaving tomorrow and heading for Brisbane,ive also found to shingle back lizards nests and ive got lots of pictures to show everyone,see you in 11 days……..jack   

The wierdest place we’ve been to yet…Coober Pedy is in the middle of the desert and looks like a moon landing station. It gets up to 50 degrees here in the summer so most of the houses are built underground. It’s famous for it’s Opal mines. Mad Max 2 and Prisilla Queen of the Desert was filmed here. While Robbie was off doing manly car things, we popped into an opal shop. The man that owned it was Greek. He took us to the back of the shop and showed us how to find opals. I think the kids have already told you the rest.

I don’t really need to say much about this place as you know it all already. It is much bigger than I thought. You can climb up it normally but the climb was closed when we arrived. The aborigines don’t want you to climb it anyway so it took the decision out of our hands. We walked round both areas. In fact we did a huge amount of walking..about 11 miles in all. It is sunny here during the day but cold at night. Ideal travelling weather. Tomorrow we are off to the Flinders range which is a bit further South. We might be out of range for a while.