History of Terowie

Once a thriving town with a population of over 2,000 people, Terowie is now little more than a ghost town with only about 150 people living here. Most of the buildings are abandoned, roofs caved in and stone walls crumbling. So little traffic comes through there that it’s safe to have the dogs off lead on the main street. So what happened?

Terowie, from an Aboriginal word meaning “hidden water,” is about 15kms south of Peterborough. In the 1870s wheat farmers arrived and in 1880 the broad gauge railway arrived from Adelaide. Because from Terowie on was a different gauge, this made Terowie Station the “break of gauge” going north and south for almost 90 years. Most of the people in the town worked on the railway.

In 1969 the broad gauge track was extended to Peterborough.  No longer a vital part of the railway industry, Terowie’s population quickly declined as many people left to find work. The Terowie Citizens Association Inc. has apparently brought and restored seven of the  buildings. In 1985 the town was declared a historic town.

 

A welcoming sign has been placed at the entrance to the old railway station.

So we stayed a night, and had apples for breakfast fresh from the tree! The dogs liked them too.

 

And for just $165,000 we could have brought the local school!

 

Birthday

All the routines for Mummy’s birthday on the 20th went without too many issues. Sparkie did obedience and the other three did tricks.

 

We’re still waiting on times for WS but we’re already thinking up routines!

The Gladstone Gaol

Our “road-schooling” field trip this month was a tour through the old Gladstone gaol. It was closed down in 1975 after new laws came in stating flush toilets be installed in all jails. Until that point, the Gladstone gaol had been using buckets for toilets. Eww!! They decided that installing proper toilets would be too expensive, and so relocated their prisoners to the Port Augusta jail, which (as far as I know) is still in use today.

Interestingly, the Gladstone gaol also with a birthing room in the women’s section – apparently six babies were born there. Crikey, I’m glad I wasn’t born in a gaol! LOL!

 

What was really cool is that the dogs got to come in as well. They all were pretty well behaved.

 

I also have some great news – we’re going to perform at the Wallumbilla Show in May! Not sure what times yet but I’ll let you all know when I find out.

Finally!

Watch the new Superdogs video here (YouTube link) – sorry, can’t get the video to appear on my blog.

Day At The Beach

Sun, sand, and silly dogs equals fun! We spent most of today at the beach and playground in Port Pirie. The dogs seem to have a lot of energy, despite the runs we’ve been giving them every morning – oh, wait, they didn’t get one this morning… Blame in on a roadside camp again! But we managed to get some good photos and we’re now about to make camp for the night.

We ended up leaving Germein at the last camp with a large supply of food and water. She did “number two” all down Chantel’s shirt at one stage (poor Chantel!). She took a swipe at Tess, spat at Lassie, and couldn’t stand poor Gyvie. Her and Gyvie were at it again at 4:30am, waking both me and Jessica up. We poked our heads into the hallway and Jessica says, “Should we do something?” I checked my watch and said, “At 4:30? Nah, they’ll be ok.” Both cats turned up just before we had our coffee at about 10am, unhurt despite the racket earlier.

 

I’ll leave you with some of my favourite photos from this week. Enjoy!

Off the grid

First day out of Whyalla, we went shopping at Port Augusta. It was awesome to have beautiful green grass to sit on – there was only gravel and concrete at the caravan park. We played around a bit at the tiny playground there, then headed off to camp. I didn’t get to sleep until 12:20am, both me and Sparkie were too hot and listening to outside noises.

We spent most of yesterday at an awesome playground by the beach in Port Germein – unfortunately it was too cold for a swim. But we had fun on our scooters and took the dogs for a walk down the 1km jetty.

We made it through the second night away from the caravan park, with no rocks through our windows! Woohoo!! Woke up this morning to light rain, which has eased off now and the sun has just come out. And look what we found early this morning!

We’re calling her Germein. And no, we’re not planning on keeping her, although it might be nice – except for the fact she chased Sparkie and smacked her on the back, swiped at Tess, and bopped Gyvie on the nose! She’s not the nicest cat around, that’s for sure.

 

Due to the rain, and lack of decent campsites, we haven’t started filming our Superdogs 2012 video yet! But I’ve given the team a list of tricks each for them to work on, and I’ve chosen some music so we’re not just lazing around all day!

Four years of travel!

And no sign of getting into a house yet either! Four years ago today we left our house, packing all our bedding into an eight seater Ford Falcon. And we had no idea where we were going! It was about 10pm on a Friday night. We were officially homeless. We spent the night in a motel room, where I got the top bunk. I woke up falling – the bunk had no rail on the side! No broken bones, luckily, but I had one sore ankle from landing on it and quite a few bruises. We came down with really bad colds (at least, mine was bad!) and I had a slight fever the day we brought a Jayco Eagle. I remember waking up the next morning feeling a lot better and thinking did we really just buy a caravan?! We headed up to Townsville, through rain and rain and lots of rain! This was, of course, February 2008.

      April 2008                                             July 2008     

A year later we brought the bus from Sydney. Straight off the school bus run. And then we had to leave the showgrounds where were staying three days later. Nobody told us there was a time limit there, until we had three days to go! So Mummy sewed up the curtains, we piled everything into the bus, took our caravan to a caravan yard, laid down some mattresses in the back of the bus and then away we went at about 9pm. I’d never gone to sleep so quickly in a new bed!

May 2009                                           July 2009

 

So here we are, four years later. We’ve been to Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands to Julia Creek, Roma, Brisbane, Sydney and Newcastle, Melbourne, and out to Port Augusta, and pretty much everywhere in between! We’ve seen some awesome places – each town is so different. The sunsets vary so much. Some people we’ve met I’d love to meet again, and others I couldn’t wait to get away from!

December 2011

 

Currently we’re back at the caravan park, fixing up our windows. We’re organising our 2012 tricks video – which means I have to find a decent training area, get the team motivated, find someone who will film us, choose some music, then have it all put together by the 20th! We also have some annoying dogs hanging around our camp – possibly Lassie’s coming on heat?