Chapter 35: Cunnamulla to Blackall

Saturday Week 13

Dave decided to give the girls some space, so went for another bike ride before breakfast. He would have liked to have been a fly on the wall, because he figured that Wendy was going to tell Kellie what had happened yesterday afternoon and why she had left the light on while she made love to Kellie. He found out later that afternoon that he was right.

When he got back, there didn't seem to be any problem and Kellie was happily preparing breakfast for them.

It was almost 10 am by the time Dave set off on the four hour drive to Cunnamulla. On the way, Dave stopped for half an hour to enable them to have some lunch, so it was almost 2:30 pm by time Dave drove into Cunnamulla and parked the RV.

They walked around the town centre, coming to the famous statue of the 'Cunnamulla Fella', a large bronze statue immortalising the larrikin in all Australians as he sits on his swag, enjoying the moment. The three of them spent several minutes, walking around the fascinating statue, looking at it from every angle. All agreed it was a very interesting and well made statue. Dave didn't waste the opportunity to take several photos, insisting that the girls pose with the statue.

Next stop was the Cunnamulla Fella Centre, where they looked through the art gallery and the interpretive displays of local history, opal mining, wool, native vegetation and the Great Artesian Basin. They were fascinated by what was presented and how once again they were learning so much about the country and its past.

Dave particularly loved the saying he read in the brochure he had been given, describing Cunnamulla as the place 'where the handshake's stronger and the smile lasts longer'.

"Why don't you two have a coffee, while I go and make a call to my family. I'd rather use the public phone as this will probably take some time" Wendy told Dave and Kellie.

Dave order two cappuccinos and sat down with Kellie.

"I can't believe what you did to Wendy yesterday. She told me about it this morning" Kellie said, but without any bitterness or rancour in her voice. Dave didn't know what to say, so took the easy way out and said nothing.

"Don't worry, I just told her that it will be my turn next. You promised me a massage, so now it has to be as good as you gave Wendy. Is that OK?" she continued.

"I can assure you that nothing would give me more pleasure, as long as it doesn't come between you two" Dave replied with concern.

"Oh it won't, I'm just glad you were able to give her some pleasure, she really enjoyed it. I figured out why she left the light on last night, sort of to reward you by letting you watch. Did you enjoy it?" Kellie asked.

"Of course I did, although at the end I must admit I was wishing that one of you was Jill, so I could have called her to my bed and let her take care of the problem that had grown" Dave said, causing Kellie to burst into laughter, while blushing at the same time.

Wendy came back as Dave and Kellie finished their coffees.

"All OK love?" Kellie asked and Wendy assured her that everything back home was fine, except that her favourite aunt was very ill.

Dave got a map from the information centre and they drove down to the river bank and walked along the trail.

"Why don't you have a beer on the sundeck, Wendy, while Dave gives me my massage" Kellie said as soon as they were back at the RV.

"OK. Think I'll take my book and have a read as I assume you'll be an hour or so, Dave?" Wendy replied.

As soon as Wendy had shut the door, Kellie undressed apart from her panties, while Dave got a towel and spread it on the bed. She lay face down and then pulled her panties off as well. Dave climbed onto the bed next to her and poured a little oil onto her back and started his massage. He spent at least 15 minutes giving her neck and back a proper massage, before moving down to her feet.

His hands slowly and tantalisingly moved along the back of her legs, until he reached her bottom. He massaged her cheeks, allowing his fingers to tease along her cleft.

After a while, Kellie figured she'd enjoyed that enough, so rolled over and looked up at his face, smiled and said "now for the good part, I hope" as she spread her legs slightly apart and put her hands behind her head, causing her breasts to thrust up towards him.

Dave wasted no time, starting briefly at her feet again, but moving fairly quickly up her legs, his fingers massaging along the insides of her thighs but just avoiding her sex as he moved around her tummy then up past the outside of her breasts to her neck.

"There that's finished. Shall we call Wendy down?" Dave asked, cheekily.

"You dare and I'll kill you. There had better be a lot more than that" she almost exploded her frustration at him.

Dave laughed and brought his hands down to her breasts, teasing, caressing, pulling, fondling until he brought his mouth down to join his fingers, nibbling and gently biting on her nipples. She yelped softly from the brief, sharp pain, but it felt good. Dave let his fingers and tongue trail down to her belly button, his tongue rolling around and around in her little indentation. Finally, he reached her pubic hair, running his finger through the small triangle of soft down, gently pulling and teasing the hair with his fingers.

At last she thought, as Dave's fingers caressed the lips of her sex and found her clitoris. His mouth quickly followed and he was able to use his tongue and his teeth on her hard little nub. The fingers of his other hand were equally busy, teasing up and down her cleft, before finally entering and plunging into her vagina.

Several minutes of this were just too much for Kellie, she arched her back, grabbed his head pulling it hard into her groin and groaned with orgasmic pleasure as her muscles shuddered and contracted from a massive orgasm.

Dave slowed, but didn't stop the relentless thrusting of his fingers and tongue and it wasn't very long before, unbelievably Kellie thought, she contracted into a second orgasm. Dave finally stilled his fingers, gently holding her and lifted his face from her groin, coming up to her face and giving her first a gentle kiss and then as she put her hands behind his head and pulled his face hard against hers, a very passionate kiss enabling Kellie to taste herself on Dave's tongue and lips.

Dave pulled back and stood up, adjusting his shorts.

"Wow, that was fantastic. No wonder Wendy enjoyed it. Oh but look at you. I've just made things hard for you again, haven't I? Well perhaps this time I'll just have to fix it for you" Kellie whispered as she reached for his shorts and pulled them down, enabling Dave's erection to burst free.

Kellie put her hands behind Dave's bottom and pulled him close to her as she sat on the edge of the bed. She brought her mouth down to him then her hands came around, one gently holding and fondling his testicles while the other stroked the base of his penis, all the while her mouth moved up and down his shaft.

Dave knew after the past couple of days without any sexual relief together with the pleasure he had received from massaging Kellie, that he was not going to last long at all, so quickly warned her that things were about to happen, but she simply put her hands back on his bottom and pulled him further in to her mouth as he exploded, the liquid steaming down her throat. Kellie stayed with him until his last spasm finished, before licking and kissing the end of his penis. She then stood up, drew him close to her and gave him a big, passionate kiss.

"My turn to say wow. That was absolutely fantastic. After the past couple of days, I really needed that. Thank you. You are so sweet and lovely" was all Dave could say.

"Guess we better dress before Wendy comes down. Perhaps you should go and have a beer with her while I have a shower and then make dinner" Kellie said smiling at him.

"What do you want me to tell her?"

"I don't mind. I doubt that she'll ask you much, although I'm sure she will ask me. On reflection, though, perhaps we shouldn't tell her about the last few minutes" she said, her eyes twinkling.

Dave adjusted his shorts, grabbed two beers and went up onto the deck. "Ready for another beer?"

"Thanks. Finished with Kellie already, I thought you might be a while yet?" Wendy asked.

"Nah. Told her to get on with making dinner while I had a beer with you, OK?"

Wendy laughed, accepting the beer gratefully and they sat their sipping on their beer, enjoying the ambience and chatting about inconsequential things.

"Massage good love?" Wendy asked Kellie after she and Dave had come back down.

"Yes, sure was. You are right about how good he is, my love" Kellie replied, giving her a kiss.

As they were sitting sipping their after dinner coffee and port, Dave's phone rang, which was a fairly unusual occurrence, so momentarily he was worried. It was Peter.

"Hi Dave, how's the trip going. Where are you now?" Peter said.

"I'm in Cunnamulla having a great trip so far. Tomorrow I'm heading for Charleville" Dave responded.

"Look I don't know if you can make it, but I've been able to organise a party here at the Dunk Island resort for Jill's 21st birthday which is on Thursday week. I would love you to be the surprise guest if you can get here. I can book you into the resort for a few nights, so you can leave the RV and bus it to Mission Beach or drive the 4WD" Peter told him.

"Yes, I'd love to come. Look, I'm planning to be in Hughenden the day before her birthday, so I can easily drive from there to Mission Beach in one day in the 4WD. I'll make sure I am there in time to catch the last water taxi there on Wednesday night. Thanks for inviting me" Dave said.

"Don't forget, your visit will be a surprise. The only people there will be staff, so you'll represent her family and friends. I'll bet she'd prefer you to any of them any day."

After he finished the call, he explained to Kellie and Wendy what had just happened.

"That's still more than a week away. You are welcome to stay with me until then. You can even stay in the RV while I'm gone, as it will only be for three nights, if you want to wait and continue on with me. You know I enjoy having you with me so please don't think you are imposing." Dave told them.

"Thanks Dave you are too good to be true. Why don't we make that decision closer to the event?" Wendy said.

So when Dave got into bed that night, he was in real turmoil. He had just had a fantastic hour with Kellie, but now his thoughts were back on Jill. He was certain that if he spent three nights on Dunk Island he would spent some time in bed with Jill or at least he hoped so. If he did, and he couldn't wait for that to happen, he realised that it would probable make the parting even harder than last time. Although at least this time he might have Kellie and Wendy to come back to.

Sunday Week 13

Dave figure it would only take about two and a half hours to get to Charleville so was in no hurry to depart. He thought that although it would be his third day in a row he should give the girls a little space so he set off on another bike ride. At least he would get healthy if he kept this up he told himself.

As he suspected, as soon as he was gone, Wendy turned to Kellie and started to make love to her, but at the same time was trying to get Kellie to tell her what happened between her and Dave. All she would tell her was that she had a fantastic massage and Dave had given her a massive orgasm that she really enjoyed and hoped that both she and Wendy would get to experience his massages again.

Eventually Wendy accepted this although she said she didn't know if she wanted to let Dave massage her again. Kellie told her she should, but in the meantime let's concentrate on what we are doing, she moaned to her lover.

When Dave got back, the girls were up and dressed and breakfast was almost ready.

"Have your shower, Dave and I'll have your poached eggs and vegemite toast ready for you when you come out" Kellie said, knowing that this was Dave's favourite thing to have for breakfast.

Once again it was almost 10 am by the time Dave drove out of the caravan park and headed north along the Mitchell Highway that was also called the Matilda Highway, to Charleville.

Their first stop was in Wyandra 100 kilometres north of Cunnamulla. It only had a population of about 60 people but welcomed visitors to their newly established museum in the Power House where Dave was able to find out about the township. This included the fact that the building used to provide power to the town from 1955 until it joined the state electricity grid in 1970.

The township sat beside the Warrego River and was originally called Claverton when gazetted in July 1896, however, the name was changed to Wyandra later that same year. The railway line from Charleville to Wyandra was opened in 1897 and the link from Wyandra to Cunnamulla completed the following year.

The town then became a busy centre with rail not only providing the important passenger, freight and mail services to the town and surrounding grazing properties, but also a much needed, though primitive, rail ambulance. The railway station building had been relocated to the racecourse, where it provided catering and officials' amenities for gymkhanas and polocrosse competitions.

One of the original pubs, the Gladstone, was built in 1889 and commenced business the following year. After a fire in 1927 it was rebuilt and today, being the sole surviving hotel in town, services the locals and travelling public. Wyandra's Primary State School has emerged from the building of a provisional school in 1897 to the present well resourced facility in pleasant surroundings, providing a wide range of educational and social subjects.

Not bad information for such a small town, Dave thought.

Once they had finished their morning tea, Dave continued onto Charleville, a large country town with a population of over 3,500, arriving there a bit after 1 pm. They checked into the caravan park. Kellie prepared them some sandwiches and when lunch was finished, Dave got the 4WD off its trailer for a drive around the town.

Their first stop was back to the Charleville Visitor Information Centre that they had passed on their way into town, to get lots of brochures and maps as well as book several activities. Dave booked them in to see the Bilby Conservation Centre that night and the Cosmos Centre and Observatory tomorrow night.

As they sat and had a cappuccino, Dave read them some of the information in the brochures. He told them that Charleville was located 750 kilometres from Brisbane and 300 metres above sea-level, on the banks of the Warrego River.

The area around Charleville was first explored by Edmund Kennedy during his 1847 journey through the area. At the time he was trying to solve the riddle of the outback rivers. His expedition succeeded in establishing that the waterways in Central Queensland, particularly the Barcoo, which Thomas Mitchell had called the 'Victoria', flowed south into the Channel country rather than north into the Gulf of Carpentaria. During this expedition Kennedy passed within 10 kilometres of the present site of Charleville.

By the 1860s the area was being settled and as early as 1866 a pub and a general store had appeared on the site of modern-day Charleville. In 1868 William Alcock Tully, the then Queensland under-secretary for public lands and chief commissioner for crown lands, surveyed the town and named it after his boyhood home in County Cork, Ireland.

Even more surprising was that the name Charleville had originally come from France.

"Isn't it amazing how the names of towns and rivers mean nothing until you read a bit about the history of a place and then it all makes sense" Dave commented, before continuing reading from the brochure.

By 1888, when the population had grown to 1,470, it was a thriving centre with a number of hotels, a brewery, a cordial factory, four sawmills and three butcheries. Prior to the arrival of the railway in 1888 (and even until the early 1900s) as many as 500 bullock teams passed through each year, carrying woolclip to the railhead at Roma.

The location of the town at a permanent waterhole meant that it was on major stock routes through the area. By the 1880s it had become an important stopover point for Cobb & Co, who established a major coach building factory in the town in 1893 that employed over 40 people (blacksmiths, wheelwrights, trimmers, painters and coach builders) and a sawmill was built to cater specifically for the timber needs of the factory. It was closed down in 1920.