Clem Walton Park..Free Camp...

We drove 45 minutes to Clem Walton Park to have a look around, enjoy the scenery and have some yummy lunch.
It's quite pretty and a large area. It is also a free camp and it seems open fires are allowed, we'll be sure to stay a few nights in the future I'm sure. There were around 10 or so caravans/tents/camper vans camping there, and one group were enjoying a dip in the dam and a boat ride while we were there.

Clem Walton park seems to be a fantastic free camp spot. It has some flush toilets (although we didn't locate them when we were there and picnic table area), there is heaps of space to set up camp, Lot's of bird life, pet friendly, fishing and you can camp by the river, but I wouldn't camp too close to it, it is known to have a fresh water croc or two and if you have heavy rain while you are there the area could get flooded in.
I'm actually really looking forward to spending a few nights here. It won't be for a while though, but it will be good when the time comes!

Shane preparing our lunch...Love having a fridge in our vehicle :-)

Not so much Sandy feet..more like dusty feet, Haha...

Clem Walton Park Dam...

Can you spot Zoey hiding under the shade of our vehicle...

Zoey loving the freedom..Run crazy dog...

Mr and Mrs Love Birds...

Beautiful Girls..and Cute Zoey...

Look at that Gorgeous red dirt...

Beautiful!

Once you leave make sure to close the gate behind you. It isn't looked even if it appears to be.
We had a good time exploring Clem Walton park, and we've already planned to return and spend a few nights there in the future.
Hope all is Well with everyone xo
Take Care,
Dimi

Fun Family Movie Night...

So we had one of our famous Fun Family movie nights last night. Although we often include fruit, yoghurt and some healthy food to the mix on our family nights, as you can see, this time we did not, and I paid for it later that night, oh well, I'm good now :-)
However, we ate some pizzas, and the rest of the party food as we call it and settled down together and watched God's not dead 2. We seen this movie at the movies back in Sydney with the youth group from House of Praise church, but we all enjoyed it so much we watched it again. 
The four of us were all pumped and so inspired throughout and after the movie, we were all singing God's not dead after it was finished :-D
I LOVE the little things we do together that tighten our bond together, fill us with more love for each other, connect us as a family that much more, and create more FUN, Loving family memories together...Really and often I find it's the little things that count...I LOVE my BEAUTIFUL Family xoxox

COOL Kids!

Ready for the Movie...

That was a FUN Family night :-D
Have a GOOD one,
Love Dimi

Pool Fun and Swimming Lessons...

We have the bonus of a pool here at the caravan park in HOT Cloncurry, we are very glad about this. It is so HOT here at the moment, more often than not it's in the high 30's slowly getting to the early 40's, so we use the pool nearly every day!
Most weeks we give the girls swimming lessons a few times a week. The girls had been doing swimming lessons back in Sunbury, Victoria for the last few years, and we've tried to continue them as best we can, teaching what we can, when possible. It has been good for them and they've improved in there swimming and become much stronger swimmers!

Another HOT day at the Pool :-)

Miss. Elissa...

Miss. Serena...

JUMP! Love these two xoxox

Refreshingly Cool...

Mr. Spunk ;-) Love this Guy xo

OK, it's my turn to jump in :-)

LOVE them...

Had a refreshing dip, zooper dooper time now :-)

That was Fun!
Now we are off for another refreshing dip :-)
I Hope all is well in your world...Take care xo
Dimi

This I Believe...

When having a chat with people and I tell them I'm a Christian, I at times get asked what that means.
We have some resources that are in line with the bible that we hand out to those that are interested and want to know, it really explains Christianity and God simply, these have been hugely helpful when chatting with people, so has sharing our testimonies (the stories of how we came to know God amongst many other testimonies we have). I've also come across this song and lyrics, so simple and beautiful are the lyrics I wanted to share them on here xo

Listen to the song and sing along with me :-D...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNiYUPsHgls 

 

This I Believe (The Creed)

Hillsong

 

Our Father everlasting
The all creating One
God Almighty

Through Your Holy Spirit
Conceiving Christ the Son
Jesus our Savior

I believe in God our Father
I believe in Christ the Son
I believe in the Holy Spirit
Our God is three in one
I believe in the resurrection
That we will rise again
For I believe in the name of Jesus

Our Judge and our Defender
Suffered and crucified
Forgiveness is in You

Descended into darkness
You rose in glorious life
Forever seated high

I believe in God our Father
I believe in Christ the Son
I believe in the Holy Spirit
Our God is three in one
I believe in the resurrection
That we will rise again
For I believe in the name of Jesus

I believe in You
I believe You rose again
I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord
[x2]

I believe in God our Father
I…

For I believe in the name of Jesus
For I believe in the name of Jesus

I believe in life eternal
I believe in the virgin birth
I believe in the saints' communion
And in Your holy Church
I believe in the resurrection
When Jesus comes again
For I believe, in the name of Jesus

I believe in God our Father
I believe in Christ the Son
I believe in the Holy Spirit
Our God is three in one
I believe in the resurrection
That we will rise again
For I believe in the name of Jesus
[x2]

For I believe in the name of Jesus

 

Songwriters: Ben Fielding / Matt Crocker

This I Believe (The Creed) lyrics © Capitol Christian Music Group

 

I believe in the name of JESUS xo

I Hope everyone is having a blessed week xo

Take Care,

Dimi

The Beautiful Colours of the Outback...

The BEAUTIFUL colours of the outback!
The burnt orange, more often than not the clear blue sky, and the golden, green surrounding bush...it is Beautiful. 
It is so HOT here, the sun beams down all day long, it's amazing that you see any green at all...it is Beautiful!

Large Rocky hills along each side of the road...

The Beautiful Outback Landscape...

This is our home...So very different to so many other parts of Australia, and still beautiful in it's own unique way :-)
Take Care and God Bless you xo
Dimi xo

What We've Been Up To...

We've now been here in the Cloncurry outback for about 6 weeks. In that 6 weeks we have been able to minister to quite a few people here, mainly at the caravan park. We've ministered to many casual travellers that have stayed here for just 1 night to a few nights. We've been able to have a chat and minister to some travelling families that have spent a few weeks here, resting from the constant travelling (and allowing time for our children to hang out together), we have ministered to back packers and the caravan park cleaners and we are ministering to the permanents here at the caravan park. We've invited a few people to church, none have come so far (but some will I'm sure) and over the last few weeks Shane has been asked to preach at the Cloncurry christian Church twice, we are sure that this arrangement will be an ongoing arrangement for as long as we stay here in Cloncurry.

The Pastor at the Cloncurry Christian church wants us to get more involved at church and in the community, so as always we will do all we can to help within the church and within this community...It is our pleasure to serve, and to be a helping hand here in Cloncurry and wherever we go!

Shane has been working in the early mornings cleaning Woolworths over the last few weeks, he will also be taking on shelf stocking at Woolworths for possibly a few weeks (could be ongoing) until November. We've applied for another cleaning job, so either I will do this job or Shane will leave Woolworths (which they are aware that he is only temporarily at Woolworths until a better paid job comes up) if the money and hours are better for us and we will both take the new job on together. So basically we will either have 2 or 3 jobs between the both of us, while homeschooling, ministering, preaching, family life...well it sounds like a whole lot of work but WE CAN DO IT, we are a Great team :-D It has been great, over the last few weeks we have had quite a few different job offers, so really the difficult part has been which job to say no to and which to take on that suits us best, both savings wise and hours of work.

We have become known to the locals and already feel part of the small town of just under 2,800 people. I've really warmed to this area, and even though it's in the outback and there is nothing much to do, we've actually found ourselves to be quite busy now that we are settling here for a while!

The girls are good, enjoying the pool here on most days (the weather here at the moment is HOT, usually in the high 30's everyday and it's only going to get hotter, well into the 40's and possibly 50's as the months go on) and doing a heap of extra homeschooling. The library as always is a big hit with them, and we go at least once or twice a week, usually spending a couple of hours there when we can. As usual, the girls take everything in their stride, they are little champions, always fun and full of life climbing trees, riding their scooters, usually reading a novel everyday or 2, making friends when there are other children around...I love our girls, they are very adaptable, confident, adventurous, they know that life is what you make it..I'm very proud of them xo

We are loving the beautiful sunsets here, even though it is very hot here, we enjoy a splash in the pool with the girls. We are getting used to the many green frogs we encounter in the toilets every day, but we are not getting used to the bugs, spitfires, midges, moths, mosquito...the bugs are difficult to get used to, we have been bitten many, many times. One of the times both my legs were infected with about 25 Midge bites, it was horrible. We've had to learn to apply horrible bug repellent on a daily basis to control the amount of bites we've had, even though I hate using bug repellent on both the girls and us, it is the only thing that seems to work.

Nothing much else to update on. The vehicle seems to be driving fine, and so it should be with all the $$$$$ we've spent on it. We've now driven to Mt Isa twice, just to check out and explore a different area and to purchase a few goodies for Elissa's birthday which is coming up fast!

Other than all that, life continues to move on and unfold before us and we continue to make the most of it :-)

I'm hoping all is well with everyone xo
 May God bless and direct your path xo
Have a good one xo 

Dimi

What we've Decided...

The Beautiful Colours of the Outback...

What has happened with our vehicle has forced us to re evaluate our plans. Most of our journey we have gone with the flow, not planning much ahead of time and it has worked out well for us.
When it was coming closer to the time we were heading down the red centre of Australia, we decided to put some plans in place for that trip, so that we were well prepared for the different conditions we would find in the outback and down the middle. We had planned and prepared well for this part of the trip, we had planned many overnight stops at some free camps, planned some caravan park stops (only ones with pools) so we all could have a dip in the pool after a long drive in the heat of the day.
We planned to go down the middle and back up and stop at Darwin for about 1 week, were Shane was going to have the opportunity to share his testimony with an Aboriginal community there. We then planned to purchase a generator (mainly for the use of our air conditioner since it was going to be VERY HOT) and free camp hop (basically go from one free camp to another and only visit a caravan park when we needed more water, needed to empty the porta loo, and wanted an extra long, good clean shower ;-)) in most of Western Australia. There are quite a few spots by the beach we looked forward to stopping at in WA, and we had decided after we did some exploring in WA we would stop in Perth to relax from our constant travelling and get some work and top up our budget.
(So when we were in Cairns we felt that we wanted an extra long stop so that we could all settle for a bit and have a break from constantly moving around, and we also wanted to top up our budget. We had done well with our budget, but since we had planned on a 12 to 14 month trip, we had needed to top it up because the way we were travelling we were going to take much longer than that. Before we left Sunbury we knew we might need to work, so this wasn't anything new for us).
We decided we would go down the middle of Australia first and then decide if we would return to Cairns to settle and work for up to 6 months, or go down to Perth to settle and work for up to 6 months.

So that was our plan!!

Well, I'm sure most would know that plan hasn't quite worked out, well not yet anyway. We still plan to do all the things I mentioned above, but...BRACE YOURSELF...Haha, we now have decided to stay right where we are, in the Cloncurry Outback!

So we are not going back to beautiful Cairns for rest and work, we are not going to beautiful Perth for those reasons either (well not yet anyway), we are staying in the Outback, Hahaha...I think we've been sitting in the HOT Cloncurry sun for too long and we've gone a little bit mad, Hahaha :-D

I'll give another update in a later post on what we've been up to here :-)

Side note: I just want to add, our journey continues but our travels have been put on pause for a little while, our posts will be fewer than usual..instead of up to 7 posts each week, I will post possibly 3 or 4 posts a week and update and journal what we have been up to. It also gives me an opportunity to write some posts I've been meaning to get around to.

So I'm hoping all is well in your world, and everyone is enjoying their week.
Till next time...Take Care xo
Dimi