Steve is very lucky and gets his Birthday and Father's Day in the same week! His Birthday was a bit boring because he had to work and go to a staff meeting but we went to The Coffee Club for dinner and had a Krispy Kreme birthday cake.
Here are the girls putting the cake together. Apparently it is a very zen experience.
He was psyched (ha!) that the last season of Psych also includes the musical episode - which it doesn't in the US. We are now watching this series from the beginning to end. Lucky I like it too! Amita and Lizzie got him some Superman gear and I also got him tickets a long time ago to see 'Singing in the Rain' (and we are seated in the splash zone).
Luckily I could make Father's Day a bit more special for him. Steve had said a few times that he'd like to go visit Augathella. It is a little town out in West QLD and his Grandfather's family come from there. I decided to take us all on a weekend camping road trip out there. I know it sounds like a crazy idea but we loved it and the girls did so well with all the driving (5 hours on both days).
Making a stop in Roma and posing with a cow in the info centre. Roma is known for it's cattle saleyards. I got lots of brochures for places we'd like to go camping at next!
We followed a sign pointing to a historical site along the way. We have no idea what or where the historical site is but we found a bunch of emus on the way (fun fact: a group of emus is called a mob). They decided to cross the road in front of us as we were driving back to the highway. It was definitely worth the detour.
Steve loved this sign! He likes to think it means 'beware of cows that eat cars!' 100m after we saw the sign we came across a herd of cows crossing the road.
Here is Amita being super helpful in the tent while Lizzie sets up her bed. We love our new instant up tent! There is plenty of room and it takes less than 5 minutes for us to put it up and take it down. We could probably do it in 1 minute if we wanted to.
There are 2 options for eating out in Augathella - the Pub and the BP roadhouse. We went to the BP and the girls got a can of soft drink each with their dinner. Amita's friend at school collects cans to recycle so she insisted on getting a can of drink, and anything Amita does, Lizzie has to do too. It only took 30 seconds for them to go crazy.
And what does any sane parent do after giving their kid red fizzy drink? Give them Bubble-o-bills to eat for dessert of course! Luckily they were tired and went to sleep easily. Steve and I however did not (more on that at the bottom).
We had a BBQ Father's Day breakfast at the park. Lizzie got Steve a box of Favourites, Amita got him a pen, magnet and rocky road. I had given him a hammock earlier on that was at home.
We then went to find interesting things in town to take pictures of. Here a couple of them. My apologies that the first one is the toilet block. I thought it was funny that it was called a 'Public Convenience.'
The Big Meat-Ant!
We think (based on directions) that this is the old family home. It does not look like anyone lives there now.
This is the Police Station. We hear it is a one man operation. We also went to the cemetery and took photos of Steve's ancestor's gravestones.
Ready for the trip back home. If Steve and I look tired, it is because we are! Apparently for a town of 500 (of whom you see no-one during the day) they love to party hard on a Saturday night. The Pub had a DJ going till 3am. The Pub is on the other side of town to where we camped but the music was crystal clear. After the music died down Lizzie decided to wake up and announced that the Sun was up now so she can get up - it was about 4:30am. Steve generously shared his blankets with her to get her back to sleep. From 5:00am, Amita was snoring like a freight train! We managed to get a few hours of sleep in between all of those distractions and I'm sure we'll sleep well tonight.
