As I write this we are in fact somewhere north of home, Boonah in fact, but it has been quite a journey to get here. We left Benalla on 22 May headed for Darnum (near Warrigal) to see John and Jan Fowler. Raining and miserable – can’t wait to leave this bloody Victorian winter behind us. Got to Fowlers OK but met their gatepost on the way in and took a great chunk out of the gatepost and, Gee, the van didn’t look so good either. I guess its nothing insurance can’t fix but here we are at the start of our two month journey with an unserviceable van. Fortunately John was aware of a caravan parts dealer in Warrigal so off we go and $100 or so later we’ve got the necessary parts to get the van secure for the next journey. Temporary fixes in place but can’t repair the electric steps so a manual version will have to suffice…….
Next morning we fix the gatepost. Needless to say it is raining.
Next is Metung.Here we find the Waterhouses who it seems are in fine fettle. We haven’t seen them for a while which in fact turns out to be 10 years – OH! where does the time go. We spent a most entertaining evening with Lin and John but as always it was time to move on the next day. Our objective this day was to get as far as we could towards Woollongong with a target of the new elevated road between Woolly and Sydney that you see so often featured in ads. We didn’t get that far this day so stopped in Cann River for the night then on to the Gong next day. Now as far as I can remember we got to the elevated road on Sunday only to be very disappointed by the fact that is a minor road accessed through a small village and carries very little traffic. The only viewing parking was too full to take us with the caravan so all we could see were people walking it or driving but driving it gave no impression of the magnitude of the construction. Jude took a video which just looks like we were driving on an ordinary road so I’ll have to refer you to an ad for Hyundai (I think – or it could be for one of those androgenous Chinese things).
From the Gong we passed through Sydney (yuk) and on to Carey Bay(Newcastleish) where we spent a couple of days with Lindy. Really good to see her as a youngster cos that changes on 28 July. We stayed in the Wangi Wangi Caravan park…..
which despite its title is actually a very nice place. After this couple of days it was on to sunny(?) Qld however a stopover in a free camp along the way proved to be a bit of a challenge. Following WikiCamps we found ourselves on a forest trail towards a beach somewhere on the northern coast right on dark. A warning sign somewhat in from the entrance warned us that this place was not in fact the free camp shown on wikicamps and that we would have to go out again and go back out to the highway. Not a chance – in a forest tunnel in darkness I could only go forwards, in the hope that somewhere further on we could turn around. Got to the end, near the beach and lo and behold there was a car park. Attempted a U turn only to be thwarted by trees and the grinding of the caravan stone guard against the Patrols tail light. OK, stop, assess in the morning in daylight and hope we don’t get pinged for illegal camping overnight. Next morning, out, assess the situation, whereupon an innocent cycles up, leans his bike against a tree, wanders over to beside me looks over the scene and pronounces “you’re Fucked” and gets back on his bike and rides off…..
Well I wasn’t – unhitched, winched the van around, rehitched and drove out. HUH! Boy it was tight though – I don’t know how I made it down the track in the dark without hitting a tree.
Anyway broken taillight and us made it onto Boonah where we spent a lovely week with Robyn in relatively warm weather and went to the Boonah show. Now I could put up photos of all our experiences to date but I took most of them on my phone but its not talking to my pooter and to make matters worse I’ve now got a new phone that won’t even talk to me. I might have to wait until we get home to get one of the grandchildren to edacate me on pooter tech and phone talk – then I’ll update this blog (maybe). At least I knew how to deal with my DSLR and my old pooter – damn new tech!
Anyway the night grows older than me so I’ll post this in the hope that someone can be bothered to read it rather than look at pitchers and see what tomorrow brings. We did set out on 22 May and it is now 24 June so there are yet some gaps to fill in.
But as you might see above I’ve managed to download photos from my NEW PHONE and so I’m back updating this post.
Good Night!