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It has perhaps taken until the second last week of the bootscooting venture to hear the quote of the trip, courtesy of Claire’s Dad Rick: ‘I found a turtle on the road, you claim to be able to teach things with two left feet so off you go’ …
Our week started with hanging out in Tamworth playing on some very fun play equipment (surprise surprise we were the tallest there), watching The Longest Ride (a Nicholas Sparks movie we’d been meaning to watch since the start of trip), and being guests on the Australian Ag podcast where Kate accidentally said ‘dance on Keith’ rather than ‘dance on stage at the Keith Urban concert’. A 30-minute recording turned into an 8-minute segment yet that bit still somehow made the cut!
There’s a first for everything, and we ran our first ‘online’ hoedown on Tuesday, teaching the students from Quinalow High School to line dance over zoom. This brought back memories of the two of us line dancing over zoom when Claire lived in Adelaide and Kate in Yeppoon (because we’re just that cool), and yet Claire still seemed to be confused by the brief lag and the back to front nature of the teaching. Thanks to Brooke, one of Kate’s teachers from high school, for teeing up the e-hoedown!
On Wednesday we dropped into the Tamworth Country Music Hall of Fame, where Claire got a photo with the Keith photo, then drove down to Newcastle. We stayed at a caravan park just south of the city which had 4-minute timers on the shower – a major challenge for Claire who is definitely the tortoise of the two of us. Our event on Thursday night was at a community centre with a stunning oval as a backdrop, and while the crowd was on the small side (5) we had two ladies show us a dance their local bootscooting group had choregraphed, and it was brilliant!
Friday was our final ‘on the road’ day, and after a fairly uneventful drive up the Pacific Motorway involving Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran hour, and Acapella hour, the pressure was on for the perfect soundtrack for the final two hours, in the hands of Kate. By this point in time, there are a few songs which have naturally become theme songs of the trip ‘The Warrior’ by Scandal, Feathered Indians by Tyler Childers and ‘O Vertigo’ by Kate Miller-Heidke had us both screaming with incredible tone deaf pitch.
We stayed with Kate’s cousin Meg and Meg’s boyfriend Brenton on Friday night, watching baseball but mainly watching Brenton being particularly annoyed about one particular ad which kept showing up. On Saturday, Claire flew to Melbourne for a family reunion – where the turtle comment was made – with Kate in the air as we post this, flying down for the Shine Awards lunch in Melbourne on Tuesday. After that, we’re back up to Qld ready for our final event in Allora on Thursday, and then on Saturday… IT’S KEITH TIME!
Yours in bootscootin,
Kate and Claire.