Scruffy's Big Adventures - Cunnamulla

We knew the great trek to Cunnamulla was coming up as we overheard mum and dad talking about what they had to take with them and how mum was going to get there as she could not get the whole day off work.

Anyway we told them not too worry as Bertie was coming and with his help everything would come out in the wash. The only down fall to this thought was the fact that we went off on holiday with Bertie for a few days just before the shoot so none of us were around to help get all the stuff organised.

When got home with Gran & Grandpa on the Thursday night, we found out that mum and dad had actually managed to organise the whole trip without our help. Amazing!

Mum was to fly out with Uncle John, Uncle Ed and Larso, and we were all leaving really early on Friday to drive out in the rather heavily laden car. Those humans at St George thought it was a good cheap way to get their new lot of ammo out to them without having to pay freight. Cheapskates – but then dad did agree.

Anyway I decided I could not bear to have to put up with 9 hours of snoring from the others while we drove out, so I snuck into mums bag so I could fly out and check the view out, from a great height.

Mum saw the others off about 5.30am as they were going to stop in and see Ma & Pa Maher on the way, to check out their new kitchen, remember I told you about it in my Tarawera story. I know mum was not too happy about not seeing the new kitchen, as she was the one who had to climb over it during the night at Tarawera, and has had to listen to Pa moan about not having a table to sit at in the kitchen for the first time in 48 years. Some humans do go on!

Still, we got rid of them then mum had another small sleep b4 we went off to work. It was then that she found me hidden in the kit bag she was taking with her on the plane.

Work was really boring, but we were soon off to get dad’s mum to take us to the airport, to meet the others. We got lost as mum had not got the name of the building proper, so we ended up at the wrong place. After a bit we decided to do some exploring and guess what, we found the others down the other end of all the buildings.

After ages, Uncle John finally arrived to get the plane ready, I helped him by checking the engines. There is certainly more to flying in these great birds of the sky than one realises, when flying on the giant birds around the world, you just take everything for granted. We found out this afternoon that there is a lot that the driver has to do before the plane can even take off. Flight paths to be done, checked and rechecked, luggage to be weighed including people, he didn’t ask me to hop on the scales as he knew my weight would be right, not like Larso – dreams are free – still everything was weighed then the weight was calculated to be spread evenly throughout the plane. The packing took the experts ages to do, even with my free advice. Once that was complete the petrol pump truck arrived and poured liquid into the wings. Mum had to explain what was happening there, as I was very confused.

Once all this was done and Uncle John the driver was happy, (it was important for Uncle John to be happy as it is a great responsibility to take me and people up into the sky in ones little big bird) we then pulled the plane further out to the starting line, that was a neat little electric puller pulled the plane out while we watched. After that we were allowed to hop into the plane. It was all starting to get exciting now as we were getting much closer to the take off.

Take off came and we just seemed to fly. It was great. Mum said it gave a different aspect to the countryside. Everyone seemed nice and relaxed once we were in the air, and we even made good time against the head wind that was predicted. I took a couple of pickies, to see if I was any good at taking photos then I popped up the front to help Uncle John decide what had to be done, then I settled down with Uncle Ed and had a snooze. It was good, as I could not hear any snoring over the surrounding noise.

We flew straight down the main road pretty much as we passed over Toowoomba, then come St George’s area with all the nice neat what we thought was large paddocks from the road but from the sky they looked small, then onto Cunnamulla. We landed there just b4 dark, which was good. Only trouble, our taxi was not there waiting. Service out there is just not like it use to be.

We were just finishing tying the plane down, Uncle Ed had a lesson on how to do it proper, we already knew, when dad with Gran & Grandpa drove up. I was so happy to see them again. I was busy telling them all about the trip when Aunty Jean drove up in the killer machine to collect the others. The weekend had really started now.

We helped to throw all the gear into the Killer Machine then mum and I jumped into our car and we all took off at break neck speed towards the range. We had a lovely dinner and natter to all our human friends, but Tess the working dog just would not stay and talk to me, so I went off and talked to Bertie. After dinner we all headed our own ways to have a lovely sleep as we had a busy day coming up.

Saturday dawned cool and beautiful, except for Gran being so grumpy about Grandpa making funny noises all night and she didn’t get any sleep. Still, life is great I told everyone I saw, when we arrived at the range for breaky. After a light breakfast this morning, as I had told mum and dad that we were eating far too many bad breakfasts before we all shot, mum wandered off to shoot whatever she had to shoot and I went off with dad to get him and everyone else organised. Its so good having him back to boss around, mum was not so easy to boss. Anyway, ages before the shoot we were all around having dinner at Gran’s daughters place and she told us about how Black Dog Cutlus (otherwise known as Bill Cullus) had shot on her target last year in Free Pistol and had not owned up to it. So I suggested that she shot on one of his targets this year, as we knew he would be out there. Dad had even a better idea, why don’t we get everyone to shoot on Black Dog’s target. So when everyone was setting up we went along and talked to all the competitors. Guess what, they all agreed, but it was decided that if they did it to Black Dog then they should also do it to Stebbo. So they did.

That was the start of an excellent day. I had so much fun going around hassling everyone I could find. Aunty Jean was the best though. She had told us at Tarawera that she was going to freeze all the food for this years shoot so it would give her more time, so I had everyone asking her if the food they were buying was fresh or stale. Still the food was much better than last years effort.

Mum kept disappearing, and eventually I found her in the “The Old Grey Mares” Horse float they were using as the scoring room. Aunty Chris kept nabbing her when she saw mum was not shooting to help her keep the scores up to date. They said they had a good system going, and they never seemed to argue, so I guess they did work well together.

As the day drew to an end and the great cooks were doing their thing in the kitchen, everyone else was getting comfortable with bottles of wine and beer and whisky, makes shooters sound like drunks, but they aren’t really. We decided to sneak off with mum and Gran to get a present we had wrapped up for Aunty Jean. Last year when Aunty Jeans cooking was a little bit not as good as we have come to expect, this was due to her lazy holiday at the nationals for ten days just before the Cunnamulla shoot, Grandpa had in his travels around garage sales back home, in the Land of the Long White Cloud, come upon a real neat New Zealand Cook Book, so he got it for Jean. Now Aunty Jean and Aunty Liz can learn to cook some real food. So look out, next year it could be curried Eel.

The evening meal was a great success as we had expected, so just as Aunty Jean was finishing her meal mum had to get up and do a speech thing as Gran was tooooooo scared. She managed to get everyones attention then said a few words, forgetting most of what she had actually wanted to say. Still I think it went down OK. Aunty Jean actually got two gifts that evening. Uncle Thud had asked mum to give her another gift as he would not be at Cunnamulla, due to being on the otherside of the world, oops sorry country, nearly the same distance though. Anyway he gave mum a parcel and she had wrapped it up like the book in real neat pucky coloured paper and put a bow on it –at least the bow clashed with the paper – when mum explained to everyone why Aunty Jean had to receive this gift they all aggreed that she deserved to get it, what was it, a green frog. She would be the worlds best green frog killer in the history of frogs. Need I say more!

After all the speeches as mums then started other idiot humans wanting to say a word or three, we were just about to get ready to go to our home for a sleep when we found we had lost Gran. After hunting for ages we found her in deep discussion with a human they call Crossie. We finally found out what it was all about. She wanted him to move into our room and mum and her to have his room for the night. At least by this time she was not so grumpy. As you can no doubt guess, Crossie said NO.

Sundy dawned the same as Saturday and off to the range we drove. After another light breaky we all hit the ranges. Its funny how some people actually shoot well while others who probably should shoot well stuff it up. Well this went on again all day, nothing exciting happened today like yesterday so it was generally a boring day. Time seemed to go quickly even with the day being boring and soon we were all sitting around chatting while the cooks cooked.

Uncle Herb soon got everyone under control and started to dish out all the prizes. Most people seemed to get something although some humans got more than others. The most exciting thing that happened all day Sunday was during prize dishing out when Aunty Pam went and sat beside her oldest son, he was not pleased as the outfit she was wearing and the chair she was sitting in made heaps of electricity and boy did she bite.

Sorry I digress again, bad habit I have. Prize dishing out went well, but at the end of it Uncle Herb gave his usual speech about people donating their prizes back to the club. I know over the last couple of years mum and dad have explained to him that we like to donate our prizes back to the clubs as we just enjoy going to the clubs and having a really good time. Winning is good but the fun of shooting and socializing with all our country friends is far more important. Little does Uncle Herb know but as I am only little, I am able to sneak around and listen in on what humans are saying about things, and most of the others feel the same as my mum and dad.

The rest of the evening went and it was soon time to wander home for a sleep till the next morning. Boy were we looking forward to a really good sleep. Most of the other humans were rushing back to their homes to watch a silly game of league – it was only a bunch of overpaid male humans running around in circles kicking and throwing a funny shaped ball around. Can’t understand it myself.

Monday was another beautiful day in sunny Queensland. We were soon packed as it was drive home day. Bertie, Mr W and I rushed next door to wake Uncle Crossie up to say goodbye as we knew he was heading off early as he had to get back to work on the farm or he would be in trouble. After the goodbye’s were said to him we took off to the range to have breakfast, our last one out here for another year. Everyone called in for a feed and a chat, even the loosers from NSW, so I had heard. All too soon it was time to say goodbye and head east to our home. We left Grandpa there, as he was going to fly back in mums place, but he was a real meanie and would not take any of us with him, so we sat in the back seat of the car and would not talk to anyone, till the icecream stop.