The Long Way Home - Chapter 3 - Rockhampton to Gladstone

A direct line home to Smiths Lake would take us down the coast, potentially skirt around Brisbane and head down Highway One to the mid north coast. We were supposed to be “home” by mid November last year. Covid has thrown a spanner in the works for us just as it has effectively everyone.

We have an appointment with the family and a court case commencing in  Brisbane in mid February. To us its a hard date and one that cannot be missed. Robyn in fact has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness.

Almost 45 years ago, Robyn’s older sister and two friends were murdered in Mount Isa. If you want to check out more, please check out the Spear Creek Murders Podcast. This is not the place

It has taken an eon to get someone to trial over the murders but in February someone will have their “day in court”

That “hard” appointment has seen us take the decision to stay in Queensland to ensure we are available for the case. The madness of lockdowns, border closures at the whim of a premier hellbent on apparently doing everything to upstage her Commonwealth compatriots or those of other states (read here we are all Australians) has seen the decision to have Christmas away from immediate family taken.

This apparent “protecting their jobs rather than doing their jobs” has been a particular bug bear of many as we sit back trying to sort out what of the mixed messages are actually relevant. All we have been able to glean is we need to stay here lest, should we go home, we will be locked out and unable to return when we NEED to.

Primary school was much easier. Rote learning of times tables, answering directly to SRA questions, other than but also including the “implied but not stated” ones was an easier time. My report cards from years 3 to 6 at Rye Park Public School show from a possible 400 marks I scored 398. 

Yes rote learning was much easier

High school was a different story. Term 1 Year 7 I managed to secure the mumps. Never one to do things by halves, I had them 4 times effectively reducing my term one to one or two weeks. Starting well behind the others it didn’t help that when I walked into Mr Jones first class his first comment was “keep it down to a dull roar” – a far cry from the strict rote learning process of primary school.

High School was very different from primary school. For one Rye Park was only seven miles from home whereas Boorowa Central was twenty miles away. A little green bus run by John Frost used to pick us up from the front gate (¾ of a mile from the house) to take us to Primary School whereas with “High School” we had to drive the seven miles to Rye Park where we were to catch a larger bus for the thirteen miles (after we did a free more out to the Southwell home and back) into Boorowa.

In order to get to the bus on time we needed to leave by 7.20am. We did have the chance to be a little late as we could catch the bus on the return run but not for our parents who hated being late. Other than the mumps episode we very rarely missed school. In fact I got awards in years 9 and 10 for perfect attendance.

Having missed the most of term one, settling into the routine of a new school setting was not perfect. For the first time in the history of Boorowa Central School Year 7 had to be split into 2 distinct classes – 7X and 7Y and although it was stressed the two classes were “the same” clearly they were not. The country kids, students form Rye Park, Frogmore, Rugby and Reids Flat, small surrounding towns with only primary schools, were ostensibly accumulated in 7Y whereas the town kids from the central schol’s primary section and the adjacent catholic primary school were accumulated.

We were “misfits” in the genre of the school. The huge influx of humanity had placed stresses on the school and its new principal Geoff Williams and I remember all 64 of us the first day of school, just before the mumps attacked, sitting on our school cases in the sun for the period up until recess. 

I knew most of my companions from the smaller schools as we had competed against them in sports at the primary school level, but the townie’s were a different matter. Left to our own devices, niches quickly formed. In time most Student Council Representatives and in fact school captains all came from the original 7Y.

Its Monday morning which means staff meetings for Property Portfolio Solutions. Its a public holiday and Shaun has taken a chance to sleep in with his new partner.

I have had a shocker in the move and transfer to Gladstone. I ran over one of the wheel chocks looking to release the leveller. Not a good start. Thankfully it is robust and very little damage has been done but at Gladstone on the entry to the village, I changed my mind, looking to obey signs for new arrivals and did not realigning the van and took out two bollards. The bollards of course fought back, taking out the mud flap and one of the handles to stabilizers.

The whole event is farcical really if it not for the fact it makes me feel as if I am “getting old”. This is something like my father in law would be susceptible to, and that annoys me even more.

There will be repairs that will be required but we are here a week so no hurry. The mudflap screws will all need replacing with larger ones as those that have been pulled out have stripped their threads. We might as well replace them all as a precaution. The stabilizer will also need replacing, the handle bolts were sheered off in the attack.

The set up is done, Dave (1993 Warner Bros) is the first thing to come up on the TV when we finalise the autoscan. Kevin Kline is one of my favourite actors. Movies like The January Man (1989 Metro Goldwyn Mayer) and one of my personal favorites The Big Chill (1983 Colombia), I can watch easily to take away time.

The comic Kilne works through the vagaries of taking over the roll of “the leader of the free world” in the face of the corruption that put him there. Its a fun  movie. We miss only a small part as we wander off to the Telstra Shop to understand why the dongle we have is showing we have used all the download units when clearly we should not have. I believed we had upgraded to 80gb at Mackay a week ago but the dongle is suggesting we have cleared our 60gb limit.

Thankfully the Telstra Shop is not busy  and we are immediately on the trail of the issue. The staff member quickly has our account up and we are seeing the account was upgraded, not to the 80Gb I thought but to 400Gb of which we had used 180Gb plus already. Nothing like the 60Gb allowance the dongle was warning of exceeding.

Everything  is sorted and we are on our way and back in time to catch the last of Dave. As we drive in I catch the mirror (still out from driving the caravan) on the inward bollards. I think to myself this will take more than a couple of paragraphs to explain the events being fair to my wife.

Gladstone has several cousins and Bruce knows we are here and invites us to his house for an afternoon catch up. Given the incidents of the trip today it seems like a good place to go and laugh them off.

I load a bag of prawns from the freezer as a stipend to the visit. We had already agreed this would occur. There may be a time in the next week when we sit down and assist them in consuming them but for now they have simply been transferred from our over-frozen freezer to theirs.

The visit is a huge comfort after the event so the day. We discuss for the benefit of Bruce’s wife some of the events of his childhood and pictures from his/our past, especially a picture of a painting of the Mt Buffalo homestead, a place of many “events” pivotal to the development of us as children occurred. 

In the “early days” they lived not far from us. Our families were connected by not just blood but by proximity and for the children it was fun. For my mother, the seclusion of the farm took its toll on her. 

They are on grandparent duty tonight and the grandies tonight, giving us a reason to head back to the van. This time I manage to negotiate the bollards without incident. 

Its been a difficult day. The stresses of the events have created no end of dissention in my nerves and reflected in memories surfacing of difficult prior history. At the van I resort to uploading more data to the website then have dinner and head to bed.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day