We arrived in Dubbo mid afternoon and the caravan park looked great. We set up before Em helped me clean out one of the stabiliser legs of the trailer. Over the past few months, they had clogged up with dust and dirt and had became really stiff. One had finally seized so after putting off the job for a while it was finally time to take the offending leg apart to clean and lubricate it. Em then retired to a chair to read given she wasn’t able to walk on her sore ankle, so I played a bit of soccer with Oli before dinner. The main purpose for going to Dubbo was to visit the zoo and take our bikes there to explore the park, but with Em out of action we weren’t sure if that would be possible. We went to bed that night hoping all would be good in the morning.
The next morning we awoke to lovely sunshine, something we were always happy to see now after all the rain of the south west. Em’s ankle was still really sore so we decided to enjoy a lazy day catching up on things and generally relaxing. I got to work cleaning another trailer leg and the kids did a bit of spanish study (they had an app that was teaching them the basics of spanish which they did every now and then) before we got them to catch up on journals. After lunch Oli and Kat rode into town and Em and I drove in, where the kids scoured the local Vinnies, before Oli and I did some Pokémon Go while Kat and Em drove home to do a bit of cooking. We then rode back to camp after a long walk around the town catching Pokémon to enjoy some dinner before bed.
Em’s ankle was still hurting her the next day so we decided maybe we should get it checked out (being the semi responsible parents that we are), so after breakfast Kat took Em into hospital, prepared to spend much of the day there waiting. Fortunately she was seen pretty quickly and an x-ray confirmed that there was a hairline fracture in her ankle. Luckily there was no need for plaster or a boot, with the doctor saying she should be fine to walk on it and that we should just get another x-ray in a couple of weeks to check things were healing ok. Unfortunately things weren’t looking good for going to the zoo, but since it wasn’t too far from home, we decided we could come back another time to visit the zoo instead, keen to ride around rather than just drive through it. That afternoon Em still wasn’t up for walking much so she hung at camp with Kat to do some sewing while I rode into town again with Oli for a bit of a play around town.
The next day Em seemed to be able to hobble around which was a relief as Kat and I were both getting pretty tired of carrying her around. We spent the morning at the pool and playground in the caravan park. The pool was pretty cold but that never stopped Em from getting in the water. We did a few exercises for her ankle before she finally took the plunge. I had been putting off getting fully in as I was not so excited about the cold water, but just as I was about to get in, Oli managed to stub his toe and soon his toe was nice and bloody. I took him back to camp to clean it up, skilfully avoiding the a swim in the antarctic pool. With both children now invalids, we were keen to find an activity that would keep everyone amused but not require the use of feet. Kat had found something at the local showground that looked good so, that afternoon we headed out there to watch a ranch sorting competition. The kids hobbled over to the stands where we sat for the next couple of hours enjoying the spectacle. It was surprisingly good and really exciting to watch. The competition involved two riders on horseback that would race against the clock to muster 10 cattle, one by one and in order from one pen to another. They each had a number on their backs and the judge would tell them which number to start with when the clock started. We really enjoyed it and decided it would be really fun to track down a rodeo some time to watch a few more of those competitions.
On pack up morning Kat took the kids down to the local netball courts as Oli was looking for a big space to have a play with his Ollie Robot Racer. Em and Kat did some more sewing down there while he played, before they returned to camp once I had packed up the trailer. We hitched up and headed off towards Coonabarabran and the Warrumbungles.
Wide open spaces 