After a wonderful afternoon and night of celebrating, lots of us had trouble sleeping last night. It was so strange to hear so much noise in the caravan park as we tried to sleep. While we were in the Desert it was so quiet except for the odd bit of snoring but, last night our senses seemed so heightened to other voices, cars, horns, crickets, etc - it was really strange.
We were all awake by about 6.30 am and off to have another awesome shower before heading back to take our tents down and roll our sleeping mats for one last time.
With bags full of dirty clothes and a little bit of Birdsville Souvenir shopping, somehow they seemed heavier and harder to zip up than when we started !
Unfortunately the Birdsville Bakery and the Roadhouse Cafe were both shut today and it seemed the only place open for coffee was a small cafe run by Paddy’s friend Don’s wife. Don is a ranger out here and has known Paddy for a long time.
While she made all our coffee orders, Paddy helped Don whip us up a toasted sandwich each to eat.
We then headed to the airport and once we were all checked in and got one final photo, we hugged all our support crew before waving them off. It was a bittersweet moment for us all. They now had a couple days of driving to get back to Townsville and then a lot of unpacking and cleaning.
While we waited we charged phones, updated Facebook, swapped photos and Ali sorted out snacks for everyone for the plane as it was going to be a long day.
We boarded our Rex flight about 10.30 am and bid Birdsville a fond farewell. Our first stop was then to a little place called Windorah where we had a 40 minute break to collect a few more passengers and have a toilet break.
Today is Troy’s birthday and while we were stopped he got to heat up a Mrs Macs pie in a microwave and get a can of drink for his birthday lunch !
About 12.30 pm we were back on the plane and this time headed for Quilpie. We didn’t get off the plane once there and just got two more passengers.
Up into the air we went again bound for Charleville. This airport had a tiny bit bigger arrivals area that even had a small cafe.
At 2.45 pm we took off again headed to Toowoomba Wellcamp and arrived there at 4.00 pm. Once again we were asked to stay in the aircraft as a couple of passengers disembarked.
We were then back up in the air again and finally on our way to our destination of Brisbane.
We finally got to our accommodation about 5.30 pm and then went out to dinner to celebrate Troy’s birthday, Em’s impromptu Hens Night and being the first Charity to walk from one end of the Simpson Desert to the other !
We were all very excited to climb into an actual bed tonight and all really excited about seeing our families tomorrow after being away for almost 4 weeks.
Until tomorrow,
Donna x
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