Brand new baby girl

Congratulations to Josh Apps and his lovely wife. They are the proud parents of a bouncing baby girl. Mum & Bub are doing fine. Granddad has a hang over and Narelle is feeling pretty happy.
Not sure how much junior membership is but we will check. Take care.
Teabag

Saturday 20/4/13 Working Bee and 1 arrow

What a fantastic working bee. We have freshly laid concrete everywhere. If you stood still to long you got concreted into the ground. The toilet pad, steps to the canteen and a pad for the genny where some of the concrete jobs. Gary, Alastair, Cec, Peter, Josh and Brett all worked on the concrete, I think Gary drew the short straw as he appeared to be on the mixer. Cupcake made signs and whoshed the top of the concrete with Cec. Her words not mine, Ray, Bruce & Liam worked on the ranges whilst Chris and his 2 boys collected wood. Some idiot let me loose on the ride-on. Sorry about the belt :( We had more workers than usual and more than turn up for some shoots. THANK YOU. The committee and the club in general were very very happy.
Cec had a birthday on Friday and asked me to say something nice so here goes. Firstly he beat me. Bugger. There is little doubt Cec was made by the Gods and in their image as well. Tall, dark and very handsom, yes I know but grey hair comes to all who live long happy lives. Sorta like a badge of honor. Oh Ok he used to be tall but over time he has shrunk down and swelled out. He can't help that. But he still is in their likeness, just happens to be Budda. No offence to any body or any belief's. Just saying nice things about Cec.
Results:
Alastair had a blinder at 390. Chris also shot well Scored 196 for the first 10 targets before becoming a mere mortal again.
Coins Alastair 390, Don't tie with me Brett 386, Granddad Cec 370. Frosty Chris 356, BC Liam 350,  Teabag 346, Cupcake Gloria 340, Jack 258, Ethan 232, Aden 136
Bare bow Fingers Ray 336, Mad Max Stewart 188, Leach Bait Bruce122, Colin 65.

The trip home

The Safari is over for another year. We did some local sight seeing with Geoff & Lee-Anne on the Tuesday. Wednesday we packed the car said our good byes and started the trip home. We planned to spend the first night at Wycliffe Well, the UFO capital of Australia. Had a swim in the pool but didn't see any UFO's. Next day we filled the car at about $1.90 a litre called in at the Devil's Marbles. These were much larger than I expected, some were about the size of a bus. We called in at the hospital in Tennant Creek to catch up with our neighbour  who was working there for 3 months, alas she had gone home. At the three ways we again filled the tank and had a cuppa. This outlet sells over 1,000,000 ltrs of diesel each year. The locals sometimes fly in and land on the highway, taxi around the back and have a few drinks. One chappy flies 500 klms in his helicopter just to talk to real people.
Later that day we filled up at Burnet Station both car and tummy. Diesel was about $1.98 and they claim they use 500 ltrs a day running their own power generators. Late that afternon we arrived in Mt Isa. I have to say I much prefered Broken Hill, both were similar in that the town and the mine co-exist right next to each other. The next morning we spent several hours at the base hospital and no it wasn't me it was Cupcake. We left rather late that morning and travelled to Kyuna That night we stayed in a cabin, a 3 bedroom house cost about $20,000. Our cabin was built in a container along with 3 others, very very basic. Fuel $1.58. How on earth does fuel cost $1.58 we were in the middle of no where and paid Kempsey prices. The next morning we set off early and called in to Longreach, had a look at the Qantas museum, very expensive so we only looked at the free stuff, across the road is the Stockman's hall of fame and this we did pay to see. It is very well done and would take probably 2 days to read everthing. several hours later we contiued to Tambo We chose to stay in an on site van cheap and nasty but the people were very nice, Genuine Aussies doing it tuff. Each night we looked for air-conditioning as we were told it would help poor old Cup cake. Day 5 and once again on the road At St George we paid ONLY $1.49 for fuel and continued to Moree for the night. Moree is a very beautiful city and we enjoyed our few hours. We had to find an engineering shop as we urgently needed some welding doing. We left Moree and had lunch in Armidale then travelled down the Armidale, Kempsey road. This was our first time down this way and how it gets called a road defies logic. A sign stated the road was closed. Well we ignored that and travelled to Kempsey. Road signs stated "narrow road" then came "Very Narrow road" followed by 'Watch for timber trucks". You would be flat out passing a push bike with safety. so just how you pass a timber truck I don't know.
In conclusion we travelled just over 7,000 klms, saw parts of Australia I have never seen before, learnt to really appreciate how beautiful the Kempsey area is. Enjoyed the company of friends and enjoyed the company of my best mate Cupcake. Finally I can't work out how fuel is priced it really does seem like a big rip of, $1.49 at St George $1.52 at Kempsey Go figure.
Cheers All
 Tea Bag

3 arrow round 13/4/13

Hi gang.
What a day this was we finally made it to the club and shot a round, I think that makes 2 visits for this year.
Granddad's tea making ability was put to the test after my sensational round of 360. As president of the husbands who get beaten by their wives club, I again held up my end by watching Cupcake score 366. Alastair found a novel way to score 380 and it goes like this 17'a'' + 2 'c'' + wait for it a 3"a".
Top effort of the day goes to Fingers, annoying little bugger he is. Whoever lifted him out of the bale press has a lot to answer for. 368 barebow is a very good effort. Well done Ray.
Scores BP Glenn & Cons Alastair 380, Fingers Ray, Bare Bow and PB 368, Cupcake 366, Rob 362, Teabag 360, Granddad 354, BC Liam 312, Jack 298, Tate 274, Ethan 270.
Cheers Teabag
Nearly forgot,,,,,,,WORKING BEE NEXT SATURDAY MORNING

National Safari

Karen, Gloria, Alastair and Teabag made up the Macleay contingent at this years Safari. Now Teabag being somewhat clever decided before leaving home that he couldn't shoot all the events so had decided to sit out the national IFAA titles. 81 shooters met the starters gun, the temp was climbing towards 44 C Teabag survived all this by sitting in the shade drinking cold drinks & eating tasty ice-blocks, the other people well that's a different story. Several people were badly heat effected with several actually throwing up. Our girls looked a bit like freshly cooked lobsters whilst Alastair didn't appear to notice it was hot. There is an old saying about dogs, mid-day sun & Englishmen. Now I know why. The club is set in the foot hills of the MacDonald ranges it has 4 ABA ranges &1 IFAA range. Another IFAA range is overlaid on ABA 3 and the 3d were overlaid on ABA 2 & 4. Range 2 was mountain goat country, range 3 ABA and 1 IFAA were half flat and half hilly Range 4 was just nice and range 1 was a bit like Hunter Bowmen's grounds. Many arrows were sacrificed to the archery gods with Lee-Anne Edwards breaking 8 in one round. I have to say how proud I was to be part of branch E, the enthusiasm had to be seen to be believed. As a branch we entered teams in all the events. We did have small meetings with input from several people to reach a decision on who would be in the team. It is really hard, much harder that it would appear.

Our team results were pretty good and were as follows IFAA Juniors First, Adults Second ( Alastair was in this team) ABA team Juniors First (you should have seen young Ashley Pecks face when she received her team medal. Just fantastic.) Adults forth ( Karen was in this team  and finished 3 in her section) 3D Juniors second, Adults third. All in all a good result.
Branch E supplied 26 of the 81 starters. Gloria shot reasonably well and won her division but had no competition. Karen had a first in her section. with competition and Alastair finished 5th only 41 points from 1st place. Teabag had 5 ice blocks, 3 cans of drink and 2 cups of tea quite exhausting really.
After a couple of lay days we hit the track in the ABA rounds. The weather had cooled a little by now and the local indigenous people were wearing hoodies and GLOVES. The shoot took 2 days and we shot each range once, well those that finished did, By the last range the lure of the ice blocks proved to strong so of I trotted. Branch E supplied 37 starters. Results were good for Macleay, Karen came third, Alastair was stuck in 5th position but only 36 points from 1st. Gloria came first, again but still no competition and Tea bag came in last I did however shoot a nice 380 1 arrow. Whilst Cupcake had no competition and she was feeling a little down it turned out she had shot a national record for a 3 arrow round. Another score worth mentioning was Cathie Munns Australian record 304 with a long bow. Karen & Alastair left the next morning and left the 2 oldies to carry the flag, bloody heavy it was to. Tea bag once again slipped in to the ice blocks and pulled out on range 4 and thus finished last, whilst Cupcake got a Migraine and also couldn't finish. One thing I nearly forgot was Cupcake won the major raffle prize of a trip to Norfolk Island at the end of June. I on the other hand won a Milkshake maker.
The next instalment will be the trip home. It would appear that 45 people looked at the site yesterday. Please could somebody anybody leave a note saying this is all worth while.
Cheers Tea bag

To Alice and beyond part 2

Not really sure if anybody is interested or not but here goes with the next part. We arrived at the entrance to Alice Springs happy, hot and pestered by flies. We had our photos taken at the entrance sign then made the final few klms to the turn of to the club. To say I was a bit buggered is an understatement but we decided to see where the club was. After travelling a few klms down the road we stopped and I could smell the familiar smell of hot Diff. oil a quick check revealed the rear drivers side wheel bathed in shiny new diff oil. I had very mixed emotions ranging from thoughts that can't be printed here to feeling really grateful that I was here and not somewhere that didn't have a name.
 We drove in to Alice and found our home for the next few weeks. We were staying with Geoff & Lee-Anne Edwards who had moved to the NT a few months earlier, Geoff had been the branch score recorder. The temp was 44 degrees and you realy have to like flies. The pesky little critters get in your eyes up your nose, never to be seen again and stick to the back of your throat. If you are really lucky you can feel them buzz as the descend into your tummy, oh joy of joys. About 95% of the homes have 6' high fences around all sides some with barb wire and a few with razor wire across the top. All of them had dogs usually at least 2. One yard had its front gate open and three very large German Shepherds' sitting just inside it was a bit like "Please come in we are hungry and haven't had anything to play with for a few days" Nobody entered. The next day we found a mechanic who said he could fix the car. I was a bit worried when the workshop foreman and the mechanic looked at the back wheel with its liberal coating of fresh oil and asked "Is this the wheel?" 8 hours and $680 later we were back in one piece. Have I mentioned the flies and the heat. I am afraid the outback hasn't really got the idea of creeks & rivers. The basic premise of both is that they have water, not so in the outback, creeks have narrow beds of sand whilst rivers have wider beds of sand. No water, well not whilst we were there. As most of you no we get our TV from the NT so we new a lot of the shops etc from our adds. We found it interesting to actually see the businesses whose adds we have watched for 4 years.
Next instalment will be the National Safari.
Cheers Teabag

Boring but true

Hi all, Well cupcake and I are home and what an adventure it was. The moon, stars and all other things finally aligned and we left the farm about 11am on Monday the 18th of March. The plan such as it was, was simple follow the Nav man and get to Alice as quickly as we could. The creek was still high but all went well and we spent the first night just west of Coonabarabran, Cathie & Paul from Tuggerah were at Cobar and Alastair and Karen were some where near the SA border. The next day we set of in total darkness full of enthusiasm for the trip ahead. From Cobar to Broken Hill the road verge was like a zoo, Goats were plentiful. The bird life was impressive as were the few Emus we saw. We arrived in Broken Hill late that afternoon, had a look around took photos of the Indian Pacific  which was at the station. That is one very long train, about the size of Tassie. Cathie and Paul were somewhere in SA and Karen & Alastair were at Coober Pedy. In the main street and over 2 city blocks we counted 13 big hotels, in it's early days it must have been a pretty wild old town. We left early the next morning and set sail in the dark (again). We were not really sure what the time was as we couldn't remember if we had put our watches back or not. We travelled through the ranges and then the road opened out to a beautiful vista of Port Augusta. We turned to the north and the nav man told us we had 1214Klms to go to our next turn. Man this is one big country. Boredom started to set in as nothing really changed over the remainder of the day. Everything we saw was dead, bleached and bloated. A few birds sat in trees deciding which tasty morsel should they try next. A word of warning here, it would appear that cars along this stretch are very unreliable and burst into flames regularly. There was a burnt out shell about every few Klms, we were told by locals that it was about 2 weeks supply. For that entire 1200 k's we saw 5 domestic horses and about 50 head of cattle. Cattle, Kangaroos, emus made up the roadside carnage. As we drove through each cattle property signs told us to watch for wondering stock. Some had just cattle, some had cattle & sheep. One sign had Cattle, Sheep and small girls on it, but alas we saw nothing. The locals it would appear are also bored as we passed a series of trees the first had a bountiful crop of old shoes, the next was filled with old bottles. Then came one with mugs dangling from the branches. The final one I saw must have been just coming into harvest as all it had was one lonely bra. That night Karen & Alastair camped at the venue whilst Cathie, Paul, Cupcake & I had Pizza in Coober Pedy. Cupcake & I spent the night in the underground backpackers hostel. A very interesting experience. The next afternoon we arrived in Alice Springs.
To Be continued if anybody is interested.