Scruffy's Big Adventures - Gladstone

Not long after we got home from Cunnamulla I over heard mum and dad talking about the next trip. I knew that we normally went to the Gold Coast shoot about this time of the year, but I had heard mum say ‘ well why don’t we go there, we haven’t been there before’. When I asked where were we going and could Bertie come, they said that Bertie would be back home when we did our next trip. This made me sad.

The Gladstone trip soon came around and mum had a whole day off for a change to enable us to travel up in the luxury of daylight. Huh, this didn’t happen. Mum and dad stuffed around so long in the morning we only got away not long before lunch. This of course meant – we got there in the dark.

Just as we were driving around trying to find the centre of town our phone rang, I jumped to try and answer it but mum beat me to it. It was for dad, and as he was driving we had to pull over for him to have a chat. We heard him say something about John Smith, I thought that’s Bertie’s dad, they must be back over here and didn’t tell me. But alas no, it was another person with the same name. Why can’t people have real names rather than names like John Smith. One day we might find out what their real name is. Anyway I digress again. It was a call to tell us that the weekend house mum had booked us into had not actually booked us in at all, so we were homeless.

We decided to head out the main road and see if there was a home on the way we could stay in. As we drove past a lot of shops we found a motel sign that pointed up a hill. Up we drove to find a weekend home at the top tucked away from the world, and guess what it was called – Top of the Hill Motel. Cool aye.

After dad had sorted out a bed for us, we stayed and guarded the house while our humans went off in search of food. After a period of time they arrived back with some bags full of goodies. We sure found out that they were real grumpy by this time, because as they put the bags of food down we tried to have a look at what they had bought, and did we get growled at or what, we were only interested as to what was for tea.

After we had eaten dinner mum sent dad off to bed as he looked really awful and you know the best thing about our house, it was so big that we all had a bed each, it was great. After a bit I decided I would share dads room and when I went in there he was making funny loud snore noises so I went back out and shared mums room. And may I say, she was not much better.

The next morning came around all too soon for everybody this time. With all the racket during the night from mum and dad it had made us all really tied. Anyway we tried to struggle forth and after a small breakfast we went off to find the range.

We were very lucky that we found a shooter heading to the range or we would have driven off up to some ones house. It was very confusing! However we finally found the range and after setting up our boot sale and then getting a cuppa it was time for our first match of the day.

Mum had entered 4 events for this shoot, as she had been well when they sent the entries in, however on the weekend she didn’t know if she would get through one event let alone four. Still onward we strode and to the 50m range we went to shoot free. What a great match this is. The targets are miles away and the gun is so long the front sight moves around like it is the fashion, but still the humans insist on trying to be competitive in this long long event. It seems to take forever to shoot this match. I am always being growled at when dad shoots this match as I fall asleep, must be due to much excitement. We battled through and what seemed like ages after we started we finally finished. I had to go and rest in the car for a while to get over the excitement created by Free Pistol.

I was so lucky with my life. I was sitting guarding dads bag when a SG (Snot Gobbler - short for child) came and grabbed me. I thought – Oh no my life is over. I could see mum looking worried and just as he was to dognap me a scungy possum came out of the air range for its lunch and thankfully this distracted him from me and Aunty Sharyn grabbed me and gave me back to mum. Lucky, it was sooooooo close.

Later in the day Aunty Raelene asked Mr W and myself if we were going to the dinner that Gladstone Pistol Club had arranged. We of course said we would love to, but then dad came along and squashed our excitement. He said no as we, meaning him and mum, were not very well so we were going straight home. Miserable sod.

Boy did we sulk when we got home, but this still would not change their mind. Even when they got home with pizza for dinner, which we love, we wouldn’t eat just to upset them. But even that didn’t work, dad just said it was all the more for them. Still they couldn’t eat it all so when both of them finally went to sleep we snuck into the kitchen and ate what was left.

After a very quiet night, still not happy about not being allowed to go out for dinner, we woke to find another day was dawning, sorry my music thoughts started to take over. Again we had breakfast, but then we packed up all our gear as well. Mum explained that dad had decided, since when does he make all the discissions in this house, that as we were not feeling well we would probably drive back home that afternoon then we could wake up in our own bed the next day.

We all struggled through the day, what with mum bring tired with her disease and dad being tired and grumpy with his disease and us just being tired from nibbling on pizza all night, we were not really a good lot to be around. Dad did shoot his play match today which made him smile. He does enjoy lying in the mud to shoot Service, check out me coaching him though. Some humans reckon that you are not allowed to coach on the line, but who gives a rats anyway.

Still I was very pleased with how my mum shot over the weekend. You see I can sneak around and look and listen as I am so small. The only thing that sometimes gives me away is the blasted bell that hangs on my collar.

We stayed around for present giving, which we like to do as the clubs go to a lot of effort to put the shoots on it is nice for them to have the shooters there to get given their presents. Mum got a very big surprise to find out how well she had actually shot over the weekend.