Our Cloncurry Year...

The 10th of September marked our one year anniversary of living in the hot Cloncurry outback, in North West Queensland, WOWSA!

We can't believe we've actually been living in this tiny town for one year, the time has just flown by so quickly, it's madness!

After nine months of travelling along the east coast of Australia and then across the top of Australia we made an unexpected stop in Cloncurry, North West Queensland and a whole lot of doors opened for us and life took a different turn. We've had ups and downs, mainly ups here in Cloncurry and over twelve months later we are still in Cloncurry. We are going to find leaving this place quite difficult, who would have thought we'd get so into living this outback town lifestyle...Me, well I'm open to nearly everything and anything, I love the adventure and experiencing a different type of lifestyle!

At first our car broke down out of town, however, we thought we would have it fixed over a few days and be on our way over the weekend, well, as we soon found out everything happens at a MUCH slower pace out here in the outback towns. Apart from the mechanics being closed so that they could attend a rodeo, we where told we had to wait 6 weeks for parts to arrive from Melbourne...So we decided we weren't going to spend our travel money on living expenses, so we quickly got some work. Well, plenty of work kept rolling in, so we decided to stay just a couple months. We then very quickly (Shane preached the second Sunday we were here at Cloncurry Christian Church) got involved with Church and decided we would stay and help out at the local church, work, and see what life would be like in the outback. We also got involved and got to know many people in the community and when we decided to consider leaving again, we were offered a cleaning contract at a caravan park which I did for about 5 months before I got sick and Shane for over six months (and the wet season was coming up quickly too), which then leads me to the next reason we remained, I got sick!

I've remained up and down with my health, Shane continued working and just went with the flow...
We have had the privilege of being part of many AWESOME outback community events both in Cloncurry and Mt Isa ( Mt. Isa is about 120kms West of Cloncurry..we have made many trips to Mt. Isa since living in Cloncurry)...We've been to 4 rodeos and one of them was the biggest one in the southern hemisphere, it was FANTASTIC! We've been to the Cloncurry Christmas festival, Cloncurry show, gem festival, horse racing, the BIG C150 celebrating Cloncurrys 150th birthday celebration and many more Fun, community outback events, it's been a privilege do be a part of these events.

So many reasons have kept us here...we decided to remain here because we wanted to, we never thought though that we would still be here nearly 13 months later. The more we get to know the community here, the harder it is to say goodbye, especially for me, I think I've kind of formed an attachment with this place, something about it that I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is and it's not just one thing, it's a few different things...I'm definitely a sucker for community events, I'm a sucker for being involved with the community. I want to give more to the community, I want to see communities thrive and come together, support each other, celebrate ups and be there for each other during the downs of life...

  

                                           We will miss this place when the time comes to leave...We'll see what the future holds...We plan to settle somewhere one day, after a lot more travel and maybe a long stop somewhere on the coast...you just never know what the future holds!
Thank You Cloncurry and the Cloncurry communtiy for embracing us, for those that befriended us...Thank You. Thank You for so VERY much!
Cloncurry became our home and it is once again a bit sad to say Goodbye, however, Goodbye for now Cloncurry, we'll see you again one day I'm sure...It is time to move on and see what else the future holds for the RECH Family on our FUN, CRAZY, ADVENTURE...Our Faith Led Journey!

                        

I hope all is well in your world.
Love from,
Dimi, Shane, Elissa, Serena xox