ROSS RIVER

 
 
 
 

DAY 1:
On the way to Ross River we went to the Devil’s Marbles. We climbed up really high and I was a bit scared! They are so huge and quite smooth. There are lots of them to see – a few hundred! We loved climbing over them.

Our next stop was Ti Tree where we played in the park – it had a very high slide which was a bit scary, so I made James go first! He survived, so then I went down.

We finally made it to Ross River where we set up our caravan next to some of the other Pradopoint people and had dinner. We haven’t played with other children in three weeks – there are none to be seen in the caravan parks – only lots of older people so we are looking forward to seeing some other children soon.

DAY 2:
Today a lot of people arrived in their Prados – some have trailers and some just sleep in swags – I am thankful for my comfortable mattress. There is only one other caravan here. Finally, some children to play with. Some of the children we are playing with are named Brittany, Jessica, Samantha, Hannah and Hayley. We help Mav and his wife Dale set up the red, white and blue decorations as we are helping the two American men celebrate the 4th July. We had a Sausage sizzle and Hamburgers for dinner plus some fizzy drink. We got to play while the adults talked, but unfortunately I got a splinter in my hand which hurt. As part of the event we were all given a beanie to wear with the Pradopoint emblem on it. Mum and Dad also got a black and orange t-shirt with the same emblem. Some of the people got some camp fires going – the biggest one had huge logs so they poured diesel over the logs to get it going!


DAY 3:
We set off early with a long day of 4wd ahead. As there are 30 Prado cars, we split into 3 groups to travel. We were in group C and our leader was Sean. We were the second car in line. We tuned our UHF radio to channel 18 and off we went. Sean took us to some interesting sites so that we could have a walk around and a toilet stop before heading into Ruby Gap.

After a few tourist sites we started into Ruby Gap. It was pretty rough driving and no toilets to be seen (nothing like squatting in the dirt – I wasn’t too happy about that and was quite embarressed). The driving was great because we went over big rocks and through sand and dry river beds. There are 43 speed humps over the kilometres we travelled so we had to keep the speed down ( Sean asked us to count them along the way – that’s about the only maths we’ve done while we have been travelling – sorry Mrs Willis and Mrs Robinson).

Once we got to Ruby Gap we started looking for ‘rubies’ which are really only garnets. Two fossickers came to Ruby Gap a long time ago and thought they had struck it rich. They travelled back to Alice Springs to show everyone their riches but were so disappointed that one of them even killed themselves!

We collected lots of garnets and then went for a walk though the gap. It was beautiful! I have collected lots of rocks along the way – especially to give my friends at school.

We returned home and had some toasted sandwiches for dinner and then sat around the fire until about 9:30. We toasted marshmallows and listened to stories that our new friends told. Mum says we can buy some biscuits and chocolate so we can make S’mores for the next campfire!