Bon Voyage Brisbane!

Soon after arriving back from Fraser Island, it was time to say goodbye to Brisbane, family and friends.... for a while anyway. As most of you know, the weather was only getting worse since our return from Fraser and we weren’t too sure our original plan to travel down the east coast over summer was such a good idea. With most of the country in flood, we contacted our friends Cheyne & Casey at Davenport Downs and luckily picked up a few months work until things dried up!

First things first though, it was off to NSW to spend some time with my family before heading off again. Sadly that was a bit short lived as I was sick for most of our stay and then the rush began to get to Davenport ASAP!

That’s right, another challenge. By now Toowoomba and Brisbane had been hit by disastrous floods and we soon found out we only had a small window of opportunity to get to Davenport Downs before they too started to experience the wet season. Our friend Jo was heading to Davenport with us and so the planning began to find a way to travel from Lismore NSW to Davenport Downs QLD.

Easier said than done! News broadcasts were reminding everyone that there is no possible route from NSW into QLD but you all know how determined I am and it was now or never if we were to make it to Davenport. All that said, we found a way....via Dubbo and we had to leave the next day if we were to make it.

As exciting as it was, I was sad to say goodbye to my family so soon. It always seems to be such a fleeting visit and we had intended a much longer stay this time around. However, as fate had it, the next day we were packed, picked up Jo and on our way.

You did read correctly... VIA DUBBO! How well do you know your geography? Instead of travelling the normal approx 1400km trip from Northern NSW to Davenport in far south west QLD, we were in fact going to travel 800km south, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, to Dubbo in order to travel north to Bourke and Cunnamulla where we could cross the border. Bugger.

If it wasn’t enough that we had to travel 2200km instead of 1400km, we had to tag team constant driving over 30hrs straight to ensure we arrived before the channel country began to flood. With the 3 of us, 1 person could sleep (if that was possible), 1 could observe and the other drive. We ended up doing this in 2 hours shifts.

WE MADE IT! I remember my Mum warning someone never to tell me i can’t do something. Where there is a will there definitely is a way. It certainly wasn’t smooth sailing though, as if we hadn’t had enough water and driving, only 10km from the Davenport Downs station homestead we got bogged! Can you believe it? We had conquered so much in the last 2190km and so close to our destination we had to call for help. Eventually we were  “Home” for the next few months and it was exciting to be working as a station cook again and for Ben to experience station life!



Nearly there.... bogged about 10km from the homestead at Davenport Downs.




After getting ourselves out we had to pull the truck out too!