First Year of living in Fregon

| Introduction | How we got there? | Fregon: Where is it | First Impression| Bush picnic | School life | All by myself | My son the cash register | Leonie the rally driver | I hate snakes

All by myself

Bruce could only spend one week before he had to return to work in Adelaide. As my job was only temporary the plan was for him to keep working unit I was made permanent. So one week after arriving it was time to drive the 5 hours by dirt into Marla so that he could catch the train back to Adelaide. We had a wonderful take-away meal at the Hotel.

Marla Roadhouse

 

At 9pm we drove out to the railway station which was 2km out of town. There was nothing there except a signpost and some mooing cows. We had no idea if the train was on time and there were many conflicting reports as to when the train actually went through. Adelaide had said it was to go through at 9pm, Alice Springs thought it would go through at 12am. So we waited on a moonless night trying to keep the children amused. James had started vomiting and I hadn't brought a spare change of clothes as we were only staying overnight and driving back in the morning. So now it was pitch black, cows mooing, children whimpering and smelling of vomit. Yuck. We waited until 2:30am and decided that the train wasn't coming. (We found out that it went through at 7:30am)

We missed the train so the bus was the only option left but that didn't come through Marla until 7pm. I couldn't stay a moment long with a vomit-smelling child, so Bruce was going to wait at the service station and I was going to drive back. We were both very teary as this was the first time we had been separated during our marriage.

It was the first time that I had driven on a dirt road and Bruce had told me to keep at 80 km/h to keep above the corrugations. It was rather warm so we wound all of the windows and tailgate down and blasted off towards Fregon. As the kilometres went past I gain confidence and I thought that I was going really well. On the last corner before Fregon I almost spun the car out. I was going too fast for the corner and the back of the car slide sideways, I took my foot off but over corrected the steering wheel and snaked backwards and forwards along the road. All the time with my heart was pounding in my ears and the boys screaming with delight in the backseat. When I looked back all I could see were two sets of eyes and teeth. The rest of them were completely red, as the car had acted like a gigantic vacuum cleaner for the 200kms. What a mess! Oh well I was rather proud of driving all that way by myself. I was amazed that the people living in Fregon knew nothing about the Gulf war, which was well underway when I arrived. They had no TV , radio or newspapers and they had no idea that a world war could be just around the corner. Also the lack of pace was difficult to adjust to.