We are (left to right) Jemma (5), Ruby (7), Imogen (8) and Mina(8). We're four best friends, we're all from Queensland and we're going on a big adventure with our families to central and northern Australia. This is our journal of our travels.
Monday 6 June 2011
Our friends, the native mice
We looked up the native mice we saw at Montecollina Bore. They are called the Dusky Hopping Mouse, they are a threatened species and they are only found in the Strzelecki Desert, so we are very lucky to have seen so many of them!
Day 3: Noccundra (QLD) to Montecollina Bore (SA)
(Mina): Today we did a huge amount of driving! But all the fuss was worth it. We started from Noccundra and went all the way into South Australia. On the way, we stopped at the Dig Tree. We learnt in our "car school" the story about Burke and Wills before we got there, so we knew that the Dig Tree was the place where some people had buried food under the ground when they gave up waiting for Burke and Wills to get back from their expedition.
When we got there there was a huge creek next to it (Cooper Creek). You couldn't see the word "Dig" anymore but you could still see some other carvings.
Not long after the Dig Tree we got to South Australia! We started driving on the Strzelecki Track, which was a bumpy, jaggedy road that had rocks covering it. It was so bumpy that Tam and Holger’s kitchen came unlocked and their table fell out! We didn't even find it! So we had to say “bye bye” to the table.
So finally we arrived at the Montecollina Bore, and it was a huge desert, and we were the only people camping there in the whole place!
When it started to get dark, thousands of mice came out. There were two kinds of mice this time - the field mice again and a native hopping mouse. The native mice were nice and fat and looked well fed and they loved Twisties. They were light brown on top and white tummies, with a long tail that was bushy on the end. They were bigger than the field mice and they seemed to like running close to our fire. If we sat quietly they came up to us and we could pat them!
When I went to our little camp toilet there were about 7 little mice scampering around inside the toilet tent. I grabbed a handful of Twisties and tried to lead them out. Most of the mice made it out on their own, but one of the mice could not find his way out! I got one of my Twisties and put it up close to his face. The little mouse grabbed it with his two front paws and started nibbling on it. Every few seconds, I moved the Twistie a little bit closer to the door and each time the mouse scamperd up to grab the Twistie again and keep eating! In the end, I lead him out through the door and he was lucky because he got a treat on the go!
Day 2: Bollon to Noccundra
(Imogen): It was a very cold morning at Bollon. We packed up our camp and we had a beautiful breakfast of spaghetti bolognaise sandwiches. Boy we were glad that we had our thermals!
We were really helpful collecting firewood, creating stories, writing songs and doing "car school". We've been travelling from Bollon, heading for the Dig Tree, learning about Burke and Wills along the way. We saw lots of emus and some brolgas along the way too. It is very flat land and flood plains.
We saw wild goats, spotty pigs, eagles, crows and hanging birds' nests along the roadside. We saw shearing sheds, wedge tailed eagles and tumbleweeds.
We had chilli con carne at our camp in Noccundra. Our camp was by a river and there were thousands of field mice! They climbed up our tents and danced on our tents all night, I could barely get to sleep!
We went and had some showers and the showers were freezing and the floor was full of prickles, and thank goodness we had our thermals under our pj's! The night sky was amazing with lots of stars and the milky way was really pretty, like a big splat of yoghurt in the sky. The stars were like shiny sprinkles.
We were really helpful collecting firewood, creating stories, writing songs and doing "car school". We've been travelling from Bollon, heading for the Dig Tree, learning about Burke and Wills along the way. We saw lots of emus and some brolgas along the way too. It is very flat land and flood plains.
We saw wild goats, spotty pigs, eagles, crows and hanging birds' nests along the roadside. We saw shearing sheds, wedge tailed eagles and tumbleweeds.
We had chilli con carne at our camp in Noccundra. Our camp was by a river and there were thousands of field mice! They climbed up our tents and danced on our tents all night, I could barely get to sleep!
We went and had some showers and the showers were freezing and the floor was full of prickles, and thank goodness we had our thermals under our pj's! The night sky was amazing with lots of stars and the milky way was really pretty, like a big splat of yoghurt in the sky. The stars were like shiny sprinkles.
Day 1 - Gold Coast/Brisbane to Bollon
(Ruby): Today we had to wake up at 3.30 in the morning!!! We wanted to get a lot of the driving out of the way quickly. When we got out of the car for breakfast I could see my breath in the air. The rest of the day we spent driving.
We stopped at Bollon for the night, in a beautiful place by the river, with lots of trees by the riverbank.
For dinner we had bolognaise (in Bollon!!! ha ha ha) and for desert we roasted marshmallows. We roasted them on a fire that we collected firewood for earlier.
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