Cape York Revisited

What a difference 8 years makes. The top picture shows me at a rest area on Cape York when Hannah was only 4 weeks old in August 2010. Then I brought Hannah to visit the Tip of Cape York and on the way back we stopped at the same rest area in August 2018.
The sign has faded, they put in a drop toilet and a bin. They paved the road up to it and made a big parking area.
 The view from the top was the same, and I enjoyed showing Hannah around all the sights on the Cape, so now she knows what I am barking about when I remember the previous trip.

The Tip of Cape York

Four Tollers and a Havanese made to the Tip of Cape York, the most northern point on the Australian mainland. It has been a good trip so far. The road is much better than when I came up here 8 years ago, at least we could sleep for most of the time until corrugations in the road woke us up. It was a long walk across the top of the ridge to get to the tip, but we all made it easily, just having to wait for the humans to catch up. Someone suggested we take the lower path back and that was difficult and took us close to the mangroves. No crocodiles there so nothing to worry about. The pic shows me, Hannah, Tessa, Stella and Maggie posing under the famous sign.

Bush Dogs

Here are the 5 of us at Brunette Bridge on the Tablelands Highway. We have moved on since this pic was taken, one night at Hells Gate (pretty good really) then on to Karumba for a day or two.
We have had some good runs and plays, but we are restricted as we are in the bush with lots of open spaces to get lost in. Crocodiles live in the creeks and a dog makes a nice snack for them, so we don't get many runs unless it is safe.

Alice Springs

We are on our way north to the warm weather. I know it is a long time since our last blog, but I have to get Keith to type. Lots of things happened since the last post, we both have had birthdays, we have been on short trips away and spent a couple of weeks at Maggie, Stella and Tessa's new block.
The pic shows us at Cadney Station posing under our photos on the back of the caravan. We got to Alice Springs yesterday and will be moving on up north on Monday.
I am retiring from competitions, I have gone a bit deaf and cannot hear commands. I was a lot faster than Keith so I relied on my hearing to get directions, so now we just do fun courses. Hannah is also retired as she has slowed down a bit and much prefers to walk than run.
More posts as we move on, Maggie, Tessa and Stella are with us so it will be fun all the way.

Starting out for 2018 trip

Starting out for the next big trip, well staring again. We went to help friends build a shed before we set off, but the shed, weather and various other considerations caused some delays. We came home for a couple of days rest before starting out again. The van is at Port Broughton and we should be there for a few days subject to the weather before we head north to the warmer climate.
We have had a few smaller trips not recorded here. A trip to Geelong was a bit of a disaster when the wheel studs failed on the caravan. Fortunately, the RAA Insurance paid for the majority of the damage, and Gawler Caravans bent over backwards to get the van ready for this trip.

Merry Christmas

We had Christmas at home this year, with Kevin and Molly. Molly is not very well so she was sleeping most of the day, but Kevin Hannah and I had a great time. There were humans there too, which meant that we could scrounge treats everywhere. When it got warm some of the humans got in the pool and we did too. It was great fun, Nate the young human played with us all day. I towed him around on a noodle, we splashed and I jumped into the pool to splash him. After a while, Hannah and I had to go and have a rest and then, later on, we went back in the pool. At the end of the day, we were exhausted. We had our dinner and then just flaked out and slept while KnK cleaned up the mess.

The Pool

We have our own Pool! We went in it today for the first time, and it was great. I got in first while Hannah ran around the outside barking and then she got in too. We swam and swam until we were exhausted, We quickly found the steps at each end so we could get in and out easily, and I can sit on the top step and still be in the water! After a while, we were kicked out so that Kathy could dry us off and Keith could clean the dog hair and dirt out of the pool
There is still work to do, Keith has only just finished building and painting the back fence and we have a temporary front fence. There is a lot of paving to be put down too, which means the pool is surrounded by paving sand and that makes for lots of dust in the pool so we may be limited in how much time we can spend in the pool.