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LIONEL'S
LATEST
Here's
where I pass on thoughts, tips, advice and generally rant away. Come
back soon as it can change overnight. (Don't forget to reload the page
or you may be looking at the cached version
You can still browse the mass of
information in the First Lionel's Latest or the Second Lionel's Latest or the Third Lionel's Latest
I'm starting this diary again after a long break - there's been nothing
since last December in fact but a lot has happened since then.
The most important and hardest to cope with, was that
Vi, my companion and wife for 56 years, died on January the 25th and
has left a huge space in my life and in our family. We did so
much together that it doesn't seem possible that she is no longer here.
I doze in front of the telly and as I'm waking look across to see if
she has noticed. Then harsh reality kicks in and I know she will never
catch me napping again.
After our trip north for the winter last year we talked about what we
would do this year and decided that I wouldn't do seminars at the
Brisbane Caravan Show as that had locked us into going up the East
coast after the show for the past many years and we needed to do
something different. It had been a long time since we had gone up the
Centre and I had a yearning to see those magnificent colours of the
landscape again.
We decided to go north via the Centre and then head eastward and down
the East coast to arrive at Casino in northern NSW in time for the
second National Muster and AGM of the Australian Caravan Club. I'm the
National Chairman so I need to be there at the end of September.
When Vi had a massive stroke in January this year and died a few day's later, I was stunned
for a while and could hardly contemplate the future without her
although I knew she would have wanted me to carry on doing things
without her.
As time passed and I began thinking about the future I decided that yes
- I would do the trip we had planned and I'm writing this introduction
a week after leaving home. I'll try to take you with me on the journey
that started last Sunday. I hope you enjoy our travels together.
* * * * * * * * * * *
To go straight to the most recent entry click the highest number.
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To view from July 1st onwards click here
Day 1 - June 7, 2008
A leisurely start to the trip - checking everything was packed, making
sure the water tanks were full and generally checking on things like
the computer, printer, various chargers and that clothes were adequate
for the planned four months away from home. Our next door friends said
goodbye - Christine with two freshly baked walnut and date muffins. I'd
just made some coffee to I devoured them straight away.
Lois from across the road came to say hooroo just as I was hitching up
- someone always chooses that time to come for a chat and with mind
distracted I finally got on the road at about 12 o'clock.
I hadn't gone far and the mind was still ticking off the things I'd
done. I remembered making sure the front door was locked - but what
about the back door? I was uneasy so stopped and rang Christine to ask
her to check for me. It was not only not locked but was wide open!
I had no firm destination in mind but took the CityLink route through
Melbourne and with the thought that the Murray would be nice I took the
Calder Highway towards Bendigo with Koondrook or somewhere like that as
a night stop.
I stopped for some lunch at the KFC that's part of the Service Centre
complex just after Calder Raceway and continued northwards in lovely
sunshine.
As I turned off onto the alternate Calder that bypasses Bendigo and
goes to Marong I thought about Paul and Ivy who live at Maiden Gully
not far from where I was. A sudden decision and a phone call later and
I was deviating to their home which is on a steep sloping block. There
was no way I could park the van level so with three extensions I
managed to hook up power so I could run the fridge overnight. The slope
was too great to risk lighting the gas at that angle.
It was great to catch up with them again - Paul had just done a 130km
bicycle ride that day as part of his training for a marathon ride
across the Nullarbor in November. He's ridden across there before and
also done a Bendigo - Darwin ride.
DAY 2
No rush to get off so spent a bit of time chatting to Ivy
before getting on the road. Also checking their garden that is devoted
to growing fruit and veges - things are coming on well. The house
is quite new and a great deal of work had to be done to establish the
garden. Paul is very keen on making the house ' green' and everything
has been planned to make it energy efficient.
It was pretty gloomy as I left and before long it was raining hard and
driving was not pleasant. I headed off the Calder and made for Swan
Hill on the Murray. Enough! I pulled into the first caravan park I saw
and took a drive through site. All I did was connect the power and put
the TV antenna up.
The internet connection wasn't great and dropped out several times
while we were holding an ACC Board Meeting using MSN Messenger.
Pretty smart really - the Secretary and Treasuer live on the
Sunshine Coast in Queensland, the Webmaster lives in Melbourne, another
Director lives at Point Cook and I was on the road at Swan Hill.
DAY 3
 A much better day. It was pleasant driving along the Murray
to Mildura and then on to Renmark in the Riverland of South Australia.
I had thought of calling on Dave and Ela who are members of the
Australian Caravan Club and have a property out from Wentworth.
It
would have been quite a bit out of my way so I gave it a miss and found
a lovely campsite on the bank of the Murray river. The publican of the
historic Overland Bend Hotel nearby put me on to it when I called in
for a beer and look around.
I was completely on my own apart fom a couple of pelicans and it was a beautiful peaceful spot.
Day 4
I had to go outside last night to get an internet connection for the
computer and that made things a bit awkward so I didn't do much work.
Today in Burra I stopped in the Main Street and fired up the Mac IBook
and connected to the net. There was quite a bit of email waiting so I
answered what needed to be done, turned on the inverter to get 240volts
for the printer, printed out some minutes and some labels. Then I
talked to a friend on Skype before posting the mail and moving on -
modern technology is great.
I wanted to go to Arkaroola in the Flinders Ranges so spent the night
at Hawker which is a good base for reaching that area. It's a long time
since I was here and I decided to go via Wilpena and Blinman to see if
things had changed much over the years.
Day 5
The road was sealed till the Wilpena turn-off and then wasn't too bad
to Blinman. The little settlement looked just as I remembered it except
there were no petrol pumps this time - a price war was going on when I
last visited. Looks like nobody won.
There was about 160km of unsealed road from Blinman onwards and it was
pretty rough in parts. It had rained a few days earlier and there was a
lot of muddy sections plus ruts where vehicles had gone through while
it was wet.
I ruined a tyre of the Falcon and bent the rim. The rim was straighted
OK and a new tyre set me back nearly $200. There were a couple more
little problems. A stone had knocked off the outlet of a water tank and
let all the water out and the trailer plug had been pulled out and
dragged on the road. Fortunately I had one I could swap so that was
fixed. What a good thing I have a print-out of the wiring sequence.
Day 6
This was a morning that will never be forgotten.
I went on the Ridgetop Tour and it was absolutely fabulous! It
cost $100 and was worth every cent. It took four and a half hours and
it was truly mountain goat country. Twists and turns, bumps and thumps,
steep climbs and equally steep descents while sitting on a bench in the
back of a specially converted Toyota Landcruiser ute with six other
intrepid adventurers was a journey of a lifetime.
The final climb up to a small space on top of a ridge was the highlight
with magnificent views in every direction. The icing on the cake, as it
were, was that in this absolutely isolated spot, our guide produced
flasks and proceeded to dispense tea and coffee plus lamingtons!
In the afternoon I set-up my sat TV dish and found it very quick and easy to do.
Day 7
You could buy internet wifi time for $10 an hour but the signal wasn't
strong in the caravan park area so I finished up sitting in the car
doing my email business. I also had to use webmail as I couldn't send
using my normal servers. This meant cutting and pasting nine separate
email replies and was quite tedious.
This was Saturday so I was able to watch 'The Bill' and 'Midsomer Murders'.
Day 8
The unsealed road from Arkaroola to Copley was a bit better
than the Blinman route and at Copley it turned into lovely smooth
bitumin until Lynhurst when it reverted to being unsealed and was quite
rough in parts. In Lyndhurst I was pleasantly surprised to see they had
LPG so I filled up at 100.00 cents a litre. For a moment I didn't
realise it was $1/litre but it was still much cheaper than petrol at
$1.80/litre. I'd been on petrol all morning as there was no lpg after
Hawker. I don't expect to get any gas again until I get back on the
Stuart Hwy at Marla.
After I'd paid for the LPG and started the engine, the TomTom you beaut
GPS unit I bought specially for the trip, refused to turn back on. And
hasn't gone since. It does have a warranty but what good is that out
here?
I stayed in a very basic caravan park at Marree but as they only
charged me $10 for the night I couldn't complain. They had a nice open
fire going in the evening and everyone sits around and talks - this
night two 4x4s had come in and there were two boys and about four girls
who were what would have been called hippies in the old days. They were
very friendly and intent on saving the world!
I walked to the pub for a meal and spent an enjoyable time talking to
two brothers from Mudgee, The steak was great and then I went back to
the fire for more chatting and a few glasses of port.
Day 9
This day started out OK but it didn't continue that way for
long. Just before the lookout for Lake Eyre a stone hit the Falcon back
window and it went into a crazy pattern. A new one will have to be
bought when I get to Alice Springs. There is water in the Lake at the
moment.
The road was very rough and very corrugated in parts and I shuddered
when I thought what it might be doing to the caravan. I had every
reason to shudder because when I reached Oodnadatta some 400km of poor
to middling road later I started to find out what that horror stretch
had done.
When I opened the van door I was met by the door of the toilet/shower - loose
and leaning on the van door. The full length mirror was smashed and
pieces of glass were scattered on the floor. It took ages to remove the
rest of the glass from the door - in fact some is still in and will have
to be removed in the morning when I try to do something with the door.
Lots of red dust had got into the van despite using the roof hatch to
pressurise the inside. Then I found I had no water from the pump.
Another broken outlet so that's to fix. They are short of drinking
water here so even if I fix it tomorrow I can't fill it. I'll just put
some in a jerry can. I can get water from the other tank using the
hand-pump though.
The tv antenna pole has broken - I spent ages before I left repairing
its mounting but it didn't stand those horrid corrugations.
The telly's on the blink as well! No picture and purple lines!
I booked an extra night here at the famous Pink Roadhouse when I found
all these problems - I'll probably be able to fix some of them
tomorrow. The caravan park is one stage before basic!
If you haven't met my friend Murphy, well meet him now. You know - what can go wrong will go wrong.
I couldn't face cooking so walked up to the pub for a meal. They had a
group in and couldn't serve anyone else. It's called the
Transcontinental Hotel although that wasn't what I called it as I
walked back to the 'Pink Roadhouse' in the dark with an empty stomach.
The roadhouse had some
sandwiches left over so I had them. Didn't taste like steak though.
Vi never wanted to travel on unsealed roads. Now I know why! Only another 200km and I'll be back on the tarmac.
I've now caught up so this diary will go live as soon as I get an internet connection again.
Day 10
Staying an extra day here at Oodnadatta to try to fix a few
things. Successfully taped up the broken back window of the Falcon to
stop further bits falling out and then taped a sheet of clear plastic
over the outside - shutting the door after the horse has bolted but it
will stop dust and wind getting in tomorrow on the 200 km of dirt road
still to cover.
An Ecotourer Offroad caravan came in during the afternoon and they
had punctured a tyre on their Nissan. Their microwave was permantly on
and they were trying to find the plug to unhook it!
The cd player and stereo still work so I will be able to have some music tonight.
As it turned out, some nice people from Bendigo had a fire going and
welcomed me to join them for a chat around the fire. They were two
couples who were four wheel driving and not towing anything. Much more
sense on these roads.
Day 11
Last unsealed stretch today and it was mostly much better - just a few corrugated sections.
A great relief when I got to Marla and tarmac!
Decided to push on to Kulgara but there was no NextG cover there so changed my mind and made for Erldunda where I'm typing this.
Forty km after Kulgara there was a big bang and I shredded the offside
caravan tyre. The spare is not really flash so I may get two new ones
in Alice Sprongs. Fingers crossed for the next 200km.
Murphy had a new trick today. The window over my bed came open and the
curtain rod came loose. So Mr M sucked the curtain out of the window!
It will be quite public until I jury rig something tonight.
This is about to go live while I have a connection.
A towel makes an excellent curtain I've found.
Day 12
It was very cold last night so when I got up for my usual toilet break
I turned the heater on. It's one we bought at Easter last year when it
was freezing cold in Castlemaine, Vic. You can set the temp and that's
handy if you are a sook like me and hate the cold - you can set it and
let it run all night.
On the way to 'The Alice' I saw a camel farm at Stuart's Well but didn't stop for a ride today.
Want to see my tyre? I don't mess around!
Beaurepaires only had Dunlops to fit the van this morning and although
I don't like them, I settled for two new Dunlops. This gives me two
newies on the road and a good spare. The car's well shod as well and
that gives a little peace of mind.
Tomorrow Trixie get's a new back window. My taping temporary repair has
lasted the distance so no straight through wind tunnel effect was felt.
The RACV informed me today that the excess for the window would be $500
as I hadn't taken the optional glass cover. Didn't even know they had
one! The very helpful chap at Trusty Glass (agents for Windscreens O'Brian) said he can do it
much cheaper than that including tinting so that''s good - he's also
going to run me home and then pick me up when it's ready. The Ford
dealer didn't have one and if they had got one up from Adelaide it
would have been quite expensive.
I went looking for the little plastic thing that screws into the water
tank outlet and the hose fits on it. Can't think of its name but a man
in a plumbing shop that didn't have one, sent to the Heritage Caravan
Park out past the 'Gap'. I was amazed at the stock of caravan bits and
pieces in their little store. You name it and it seems to be there
including the little gizmos I was after. It's an Oz Park and if I'd
known I'd have stayed with them - I'm a member and who knows what other
parts I'll need!
They didn't sell small flat screen TVs though and nor did Harvey
Norman! They had some for home theatre but they would have been a bit
big for the van. 'Come back in July - we're getting some new models in
then'. Yes!
KMart had some though although they had sold out of the one I fancied
and which was still on display. They had the next model up which has a
dvd player built in and only cost an extra $30. The old heavy Sony
Trinitron is sitting forlornly outside at the moment.
I don't know what I'll do for amusement tonight. Last night was fun. I
put this up on the website and then emailed many many friends from my
address book to let them know it was there. I didn't know my mail
system only allows a certain number of recipients for the same message
until it refused to send the email. I'd put everybody to get a bcc that
doesn't disclose everyone's email address - unlike those jokes people
forward without hiding the address details. Unfortunately it puts them
in alphabetical order as you add names to you can't just say I'll send
the first 20 or whatever because they are all mixed up in the address
list. Anyway I sorted that and sent four batches off and sat back
feeling quite smug.
Then an email arrived from my good friend and fellow ACC Director Rob,
who pointed out that I'd put 3 ens in caravannning and no-one would
find my website. So I went through the whole exercise again with the
right spelling! Not so smug this time but thanks to the folks who
emailed today with words of encouragement.
I booked in here for a week so maybe Muphy will settle down and give me a break as opposed to breakdown.
There is water to the sink now so maybe tomorrow I'll start cleaning up some of this lovely red dust!
Day 13
Things are looking up. Last night I talked to Bill next
door about the TomTom GPS unit as they have one themselves. He told me
their's had refused to fire up just like mine and the dealer had
pressed a reset button and it came good. We couldn't find a button on
mine as it was a different model but a Google search turned up the
answer and disclosed the cunningty concealed reset button. It worked
and Tom is again a member of the team. (Me, Murphy and Tom.)
The temporary repair to the back window lasted to The Alice! It was better than flow through air-conditioning
It's only 11 o'clock and Murphy's at it already. I went down to the
laundry with my basket of red-dust-streaked washing only to find it
closed and a gaggle of ladies waiting to retrieve their laundry. A
machine had become disconnected from its drain and had flooded the
floor. Hence the early closure while the cleaner mopped up after friend
Murphy's little prank.
I'd typed another two pars and the computer quit before I'd saved them! It's him again I'm sure!
What I remember of what I said was that I managed to get the washing
done and dry so I'm right for a few days now. I also mentioned that the
back window was fixed by Trusty Glass and they kept the cost down to $400. If you
haven't got the Glass Option on your insurance policy it would be a
good idea to take it. Could save some money.
I did the shopping as supplies were running low and also bought the
material to fix the shower/toilet door. It's not done yet but is in
place. I don't like it without the full length mirror but when it's
painted I guess I'll get used to it. John emailed today to thank me on
behalf of all caravanners. He said I'd used up all the bad luck that
they might encounter this year on their travels. At least I must have
got the seven years of bad luck for breaking the mirror in one week!
Day 14
Well this hasn't been a very exciting day so far! It's been
very cold and there's been a bit of wind chill to help things along as
well.
I had to go back to the timberyard this morning to get 5mm taken off one side of the board but now it fits and is back in place.
After it's painted I'll probably put a nice picture on it to make
it a bit of a feature - it still won't be as nice as a full length
mirror though!
Trixie is back to looking respectable because I took her to a car wash
today and got rid of all the red mud that made her look like a
candidate for a wreckers yard.
I tried out the DVD part of the new telly today and James Last
entertained me very well for a couple of hours - that's a great sound
and the recording was made at a live concert in Germany.
That's not him by the way!
I did something this afternoon that nearly brought me undone. I went
looking for where the vineyard used to be and then I started
remembering the time Vi shouted me a Father's Day lunch there years ago
when they had 'Jazz at the Winery'. It was a great day - a nice meal, a
bottle or two of wine, beaut music and surroundings and - best of all - Vi's
company. The winery Jazz Days are gone and so is she - there are too many memories
here at Alice Springs because we once spent a month here taking
pictures of school children. I shouldn't be surprised that it's cold -
it was twenty years ago but I still remember scraping ice off the windscreen some mornings during that
visit.
Day 15
I didn't find the winery yesterday but decided to have another look for
it today. I found it - but oh so sad. The gate was padlocked and there
was a 'For Sale' sign outside.
In its heyday it was a great tourist attraction and you could sit at a
table and the waitress would bring you tastings from white to red and
dry to sweet plus a lovely port they sold under two labels - one
straightforward and the other was 'Horny Tawny' with a picture of one
of the Centre's ugliest lizards.
They
also served wonderful Ploughman's Lunches with crusty home-made beer
bread! I can taste it now.
Ted Egan used to entertain on Sunday nights
and the place was an icon. The last time I was there was with my friend
Paul during a round Australia trip and I'd told him all about the
lunches.
That
was the first sign I had of its demise because the lunches had
finished
and Dennis, the owner, said his cook had left and he wasn't
bothering to replace him.
I think Dennis was getting to the
age of retirement and was losing interest. I see on the sign that it
was Chateau Petrick now so perhaps someone took it over and changed
the name from Chateau Hornsby.
I
knocked on the neighbour's door hoping to find out a bit of history but
all I did was stir up the dogs. No-one seemed to be about in the whole
road except one man who said he had just come from Tennant Creek and
knew nothing about a winery.
Channel 10 doesn't seem to be available here so I won't be able to
watch the French Grand Prix tonight worse luck. Ferrari look very
strong from what I see on the Formula 1 site on the net. I may watch
the tive timing with commentary.
It's five past eleven and Ferrari just took 1st and 2nd! Great result.
Day 16
After
all I've said over the past few days I've just been to Trusty Glass
and ordered a mirror for the toilet/shower door! It has been so much a
part of our van for the past sixteen years or so that it didn't seem
right without it. It will be cut this afternoon and they will deliver
it for me. I feel better about it now - it's only money after all.
I also found a dump point listed in Camps 4 - this park doesn't have one. So now I have an empty cassette in the loo.
Do you use Skype? I was able to chat to one daughter tonight for 45
minutes and it didn't cost either of us a cent! I called my other
daughter through Skype but to her mobile phone and it still was far
cheaper than mobile to mobile - and yes I have 'My Hour' but can't
remember what time I have selected.
After lunch I felt like a drive - I've been spending too much time
fixing things, cleaning things or buying things to fix things
with.
I headed east towards Ross River Resort with the idea of having another
look at the campground at Trephina Gorge - a round trip of about 180km.
The road into the gorge is unsealed and a little rough in parts but not
too bad. The colour of the rocky cliffs was magnificent. The bright
afternoon sun made the rocks glow with an intense redness that
contrasted with the clear blue of the southern sky behind them. It was
awe-inspiring - Central Australia at its magnificent best - and I'd
left the camera at home! Sorry!
I was impressed with the camping area and it would be a lovely place to
spend a few relaxing days. There are plenty of walks and although
there's no power there is water, toilets and gas bbqs plus plenty of
room on the sites. There was only one caravan and a tent-trailer there
today so no shortage of spaces to park. I thought the fee of
$3.50/person/night was very reasonable. There's no phone or internet
reception which would be a mixed blessing - when I get back on the net
after a few day's absence the amount of email is a bit daunting.
Before I send this off to the website I'm going to have a little port
and some chocolate. Want some? It's Chocolate Overload Kit Cat
but I'm afraid my GP won't approve of my decadent ways. G'Night.
Day 17
The new mirror arrived this morning so first priority was getting it
glued in place - I'm happy now that's back looking the way it was when
we had the van built all those years ago.
Yesterday I went east - today I decided to go west young man and headed out towards Glen Helen.
The first thing you come to is the grave
where the Rev John Flynn now rests. John Flynn was a remarkable man
and these few pictures give some idea of his work.
I'd made a sandwich for lunch and stopped to eat it and take in the
great view at a lookout. All was peaceful until three vehicles that
were travelling in convoy arrived and just about fenced me in although
there was a huge vacant area.
The worst thing was that one diesel motor was kept running just in
front of me the whole time they were there. Some people have no thought
for others!
People say those rugged peaks that form the
skyline, look like an aboriginal girl sleeping - it's just before you
reach Glen Helen. What do you think?
I went to Ellery Creek Big Hole to see if it looked the same as it did
when we last visited it when my Mum was with us. She loved travelling -
I guess she passed that on to me.
And that's it for today. I went out to the Casino for dinner
tonight - a bit tired after a 260km round trip and so didn't feel like
cooking. There's still a couple of small jobs to do around the van but
nothing that will stop me moving a bit further north on Thursday.
Should be warmer.
Day 18
I expect you are sick of me waffling on about the mirror.
Anyway I put some corner brackets on today to prevent another disaster
I hope.
We practically had a family reunion via Skype today - No 1 daughter and
partner called at my son and daughter-in-law's home in Adelaide and we
linked up through the computers. It was great to be able to chat and
the bonus was that it was free.
Talking of money, I couldn't resist a couple of pics of a nearby
motorhome. There are plenty of members of the SKI Club out here
(Spending the Kids Inheritance) but these folk have spent it all
Day 19
Today
was hitch up and go day. It's the first time I've hitched since
Arkaroola and true to form someone came to talk while I was getting
everything done. He was really interested in the two magnetic gizmos I
use to get lined up - they were always very helpful but even more so
now I'm on my own. Not a lot to write about today - I did about 400km
to reach the Devil's Marbles where I booked in for two nights. It's an
honour system and costs $3.50 a person/night. I think I can afford that
even though I had to run on petrol for a fair way this afternoon
because the pump was out of order at the only place that sold lpg.
Trixie is excelling herself -she did 290km on a tankful of lpg
which is very good. We were sitting on 90k/ph most of the time. I
wouldn't want to do a trip like this with a dedicated lpg vehicle.
You'd be stuck if a pump was out of order like today or they were out
of gas.
I set up the satellite TV tonight and it wasn't hard to locate the sat. Other
people were having problems but I got lined up fairly easily. Not that
there was much to watch anyway. I also got out the solar panels for the
first time this trip and to my surprise it wasn't long before the
batteries were showing fully charged despite me having the sat reciever
and TV on while I did the set up. This TV only uses about half the
power than the old one - about 2 amps even with the sat turned on as
well..
This morning I passed the Tropic of Capricorn so theoretically I'm
now in the tropics and it should get warmer soon. That's the indicator
of the Tropic on the left of screen.
There's no phone reception here so I'll be off the internet until I
move. The mail's coming to Tennant Creek this week so I won't be moving
far until it arrives. There's a Tennent Creek somewhere in FNQ and when I put that into the GPS by mistake this morning it told me I had more than 2,000km to go!
This is a lovely place and we stopped here a few times during our
travels. After we had left here one morning when I'd been climbing on
the rocks, Vi said, "What do they call those monkey things you told me
about at Gibraltar?" "Rock Apes," I replied. " That's it. That's what
you looked like on top of that rock!"
I'll get some more pictures of the area tomorrow.
Day 20
I've changed all the jpeg pics to gifs this morning so the
page will load much quicker now. When it gets to July I'll start a new
page so you won't need to load all this each time you visit.
A bit more maintenance today in between fiddling with the telly because
I can't get Imparja at the moment. It could be the card but I'll have
to wait until I have internet to investigate.
Once again I proved the benefit of the Trail-a-Mate jockey wheel/jack.
I needed to get under the van to reconnect the wires for the caravan
brakes - they had pulled out during the rough stuff. With the van
jacked at one side. I was able to get under and fix it although it was
still a bit awkward.
I also removed the platform I had made on top of the fridge to mount
the Trintron telly - the new one doesn't need it and it sits lower
without it which is a plus for my sore neck!
The weather here is perfect for harnessing solar - clear blue skies all
day so even with charging the computer, camera and phone batteries and
with a bit of tv at lunchtime, the controller soon told me the
batteries were fully charged.
I've put the pictures I took this afternoon of The Devil's Marbles on a page of their own. Click to view
Day 21
I didn't light the hot water yesterday but made that No 1
priority today so I could shower. I hadn't properly cleaned the shower
since the red dust invaded so it was a good chance to clean it with hot
water available.
Long-time followers of our adventures will remember I lost a brand new
bike off the back of the van between Clermont and Emerald one year.
Trevor at Page Bros Jayco in Frankston uses it as a warning to others
not to put bikes on the back of vans. Last night a family with a camper
came in and while setting up suddenly realised the kids bikes had gone.
The father went off to look for them but I don't think he had any luck.
Gee - this roughing it in the bush is hard. I had to put more
peppercorns in my electric pepper mill this morning before I could have
freshly ground black pepper on my scrambled eggs! Come to think of it,
I've got quite a bit of modern technology in this old van - the Mac
iBook I'm writing this on for instance and the wireless modem I'll use
to send it to the internet once I get to an area with reception. Then
there's the inverter that turns 12volts to 240volts, a transformer that
does the reverse when I'm in a caravan park and hooked up to mains
power. Add to this my satellite TV dish and receiver, the telly with
built in DVD player, my digital camera, TomTom GPS unit and uhf cb
radio. I nearly forgot the cordless drill for fixing things that go
wrong - very handy to have and the dust buster for sucking up red dust. Did I tell you that I have a
printer/scanner/copier with me? I've already mentioned my two loose solar panels - they are wacking about 5amps into my two 90AH AGM
batteries as I type this.
Day 22
Last night was memorable. A group of people travelling
together invited me over to share their fire and company and it turned
into a great evening. Three of them were Life Members of Apex - four if
you include me. A lot of laughter, a fair amount of red wine plus a
bottle of Tawny Port I'd bought at a farm near Aileron on the way here.
I think I'll stay here one more day - at $3.50 a night it will be a bit easier on the wallet than recent events have allowed.
A pretty uneventful day - a lot of RVs in by nightfall but not quite as
many as last night. Colin next doore counted more than 40!
The Sat TV is good and I was able to spend a quiet night watching
telly. It's been in the mid-twenties during the day here and down to
about 12-14 at night. Much better than Alice Springs where the nights
were chilly.
Day 23
A gentle drive just over 100km to Tennant
Creek. Gentle because the van ahead was only travelling at around
80k/ph and when I saw how good the fuel consumption was I decided to
stay at that speed. I've been on petrol so need to conserve a bit.
There were 74 emails downloaded plus another 73 in the junk folder! It'll take a while to sort and answer them all.
It was a pleasant surprise to find I'd parked next to a couple from the
ACC Southern Nomads - Rod and Marion. We had Red Rooster together,
drank wine and swapped yarns. It was a great evening and I was able to
help Marion learn a bit more about her Mac Power Book computer and also
get her on to the ACC Forum.
Day 24
Hey - I promised you a new page! Where is it? Here
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