Our Australia trip

Wooyung has been our longest stop with 3 nights and today we decided that the Queensland school holiday crowd was too much for us to stay.

We very much enjoyed the beach and the spot but the crowd at the beach this morning is something we just don’t enjoy any more. I mean four people on the beach is just too much to handle 😉
Nevertheless Nossi was eager to go and pulled me ahead and of course I was entertained by his zoomies.

Dotti meanwhile recovered somewhat, she woke us up by a repeating drum of her wagging tail on the bus floor, drank water and ate half her breakfast consisting of rice, pumpkin and chicken.

Then it was packing up and at around 10 am we were on the road. Somehow we need to improve our route performance. We can blame the wicked GPS but I guess we need to be a bit more diligent if we don’t want to make it a habit to arrive at a new spot after dark. Today was no exception which means we were on the road for 7 hours and covered 178 km. this is what happened:

First we went the wrong way out of the camping. Marjo will say: I told you so, but that is just nonsense. My gut feel is much more reliable than the GPS. A bit like my thumb measure. The GPS is your best friend though and it found an alternative route 🙂

Then the GPS got it somewhat wrong, it suggested a turn where there were only bushes and then wanted to continue for 15 km where we just could cross the Pacific Highway and get the onramp. This is where I went wrong and at a very crowded and confusing roundabout I took the highway south instead of north. Ah well, what do you do. Then 10 km further we could turn off, cross and get back on the highway north. We steadily refused the suggestions from the GPS to make u-turns on the highway. Even I know that is for emergency vehicles only.

So 45 minutes later we were not much further than when we left the camping. From there it went reasonably smooth. Saturday morning, the first day of school holidays is not really the time to drive around Tweed Heads and traffic was dense. We left the territory of NSW at 10.56 am and at he same time entered the Queendom of Queensland. The highway was perfect though and we got smoothly through to the turnoff for South Nerang. That’s where we would go shopping for groceries. Ah well, plans are only that, a wise man once said. We only saw a man operated roundabout where we had to wait for 30 minutes before it was our turn (in reality it was probably 3 minutes but it felt long. We stopped for fresh produce and a coffee and then continued on our way to Beaudesert.
We stopped in the bikie town of Canungra and bought groceries, wine and beer and canvassed the local hardware store. I won’t admit it, but my hours of mirror repairs meant that all the way the only thing visible through the passenger side mirror was the road up close. So my new parts will go towards an improved mirror design. Patent pending.

In Canungra we got lunch (fish and chips with more questions than I’m used to in Sydney: what fish, whiting or barramundi or … or … – what chips, thick cut or thin cut….what salt: plain, sea or chicken?) and at the local gas station some new water. Well, that was the idea. When asking the attendant she went away for 5 minutes and came back saying that it would be too difficult. I said, no problem. I’ll do it all and will only take 5 minutes. Then she said that is not something the station could afford. And I said I’m happy to pay for the 40 liters tap water. All 2 cents or so. Then she said I should talk to the supervisor. I waited for the supervisor. She tried to avoid me and when I cornered her she said that she needed to consult management. After 5 minutes she came back from the phone and said that she was very sorry but that the station could not help but that we could go to the local park and get it from a tap there. Great service in these Queensland servo’s. Well, the tap in the park was an option, if you carry a 100 meter hose or learn the bus how to jump fences. Suddenly fresh water became a mission and we scourged Canungra for an available tap. We asked people who must have thought we were kinda strange, these two semi Dutch semi Australians driving around in a snow camouflage bus looking for water. Finally we found a tap on the local sports grounds, parked the bus in get away mode because it felt kinda not allowed and filled her up with water.

I think I said it before but am now convinced that the GPS is out to make life as difficult as possible for us. From Canungra it lead us over the Lamington National Park road which is pittoresque. By now you know my definition of that word: bends, hills and this time also “blind curves – prepare to stop”. The road went up this steep hill, with 26 blind curves, many one lane sections, pieces of road where the bus fitted just between the trees, grates tht turned the road into paddocks complete with cows and two GPS advised turns that were non-existent.

Finally it lead us down Sandy Creek road. Yes. Well. Sandy indeed…..creek too….the road was a rutted track with a sign: 4WD only, road inhabitable after rain. And it had rained the night before. So no hope in a 100 years would I send down Sandy Creek road the bus with two dogs and my wife. Let alone with myself in it. Turning around was no option either, so we were hoping that the road would lead to some other option further down. Not quite. We arrived at around 3.30 pm at a national park on the top complete with visitor centre. Dogs not allowed.
What this meant was 26 blind curves down and an extra 98 km to make it to Darlington Park. As penalty we closed down the GPS and went it alone. Back in Canungra we turned it back on but were forewarned. So when it told us to take a turn on some small road we looked sharp and noticed the sign “no through road” and ignored the GPS for the rest of the trip.

We arrived, after dark of course, just missing two kangaroos that were sitting ducks on the road, at Darlington Park that was full with holidaying Queenslanders and walked around to find a spot. In the end we settled near a water pump close to the creek and after dinner and coffee went to bed. Tired but satisfied….we finally beat the GPS.

Marjo likes variation and she deserves it. Now before you get any thoughts, we are still on the subject of food here. If you’re planning to meet us somewhere and want to surprise her with breakfast you need to know the following. In the morning with breakfast she has generally two decent sized sandwiches. No toast (unless you leave it out in the sun too long). Each sandwich gets halved which makes four half sandwiches. And each gets it own topping and then cut in four bite size quarters. Choices are ham, salami, peanut butter with honey, peanut butter with a slice of banana, cheese with a smudge of Vegemite, pâté with a slice of cucumber, jam. You could be brave and invent your own topping combination. And three times a week a boiled egg. And black coffee.
Of course you could also treat her on bacon and eggs, hashbrowns and baked beans.
That followed by a cigarette ensures a great start of a perfect day.
Axel is a lit less adventurous. I’m sure Marjo will let you know.

This night was a typical sick dependent night. Marjo went out twice with a sick Dotti and I did once and took them at 7 am for another walk. Dotti was content with a walk around the camping ground and refused any further ventures. She plainly sat down as if to say: “this is as far as I go”. After returning her to the bus, Nossi and I went for the beach. Across the road and a little path we came to the perfect beach. As far as the eye can see (yes, I know, I need glasses) and wide enough with easy waves. Where in Crescent head the water was pinky size cold, here it is mellow warm. Perfect!
And finally the quarter falls. I have been all night pondering why the bathrooms are called “mangoes” and “no mangoes”. I was thinking, perhaps men are supposed to be brave and bravery is measured by their parts that women don’t possess. But of the size of this big fruit? Well perhaps the men are very brave in northern NSW. Now I understand! The water doesn’t ever get very cold, even in winter, so no reason for northern NSW men’s bravery tools to shrivel up and hence the size of mangoes.
Then again, you can also use Marjo’s explanation of “Man Goes” and “No Man Goes”. But that’s just logic and would require the use of left brain cells……
I admit, having a lot of time does that to you, over analyzing stuff.

Hitting the sand Nossi went nuts and did his zoomies as Niki calls them, running at full speed circles, looking crazy eyed and enjoying himself immensely.

I’m now having my less adventurous breakfast sitting outside in the sun, bird screams around me (in Australia birds don’t twitter or play nice tunes, they scream or laugh at you) and Dotti on the ground trying to stay awake but every time I can see from the corner of my eye her head drop bit by bit until the next noise her head jerks back up. The same you see in airplanes with fellow passengers. Finally she doses off.

Around us people are starting to wake up. Pay their visit to where mangoes or no mangoes or driving off to some destination.

Marjo finished her breakfast and is coming outside to have a smoke and finish her coffee. Enough writing for the morning; beach here we come!

We decided to make a little adjustment for the day. Dotti is more serious sick than we thought. She hasn’t moved all day apart from hiding under the bus and taking on a little water. We therefore moved the bus to the less structured part of the camping (nojuice…..hmmm, doesn’t sound the least as creative as no mangoes) for those not needing external power and have better view, less people and car movement and a better view.
This also to do a little bus mechanical work. The mirror on the passenger side is under sized and in no way I can see the curb on that side with parking, which leads to comical situations of moving 10 cms, stopping the bus, handbrake, get out, walk around, observe, judge, estimate, back behind the wheel, go again 10 cms, etc. etc. That’s how you end up with the bus perfectly parked, level and so, but accidentally with the door opening facing a tree (Uralla continued). So a new mirror mounted and a special shaped curb view mirror. Took me more than an hour to puzzle with bits and pull out all the stops on our trailer, the shed-on-wheels.

Also fixed the toilet. Now before I co any further, those with weak stomachs and just about to have dinner, lunch or breakfast skip the italic part: The toilet works with a cassette that holds everything yuck. Quite neatly the cassette can be removed from the bus on the outside through a little hatch. Removing the cassette closes a slide that seals the opening to the entry where everything yuck enters. Also there’s a turning knob that slides a round disc against a seal from inside the cassette to close off the cassette from the inside, so the when the cassette sits in the bus the cassette is still closed and only opens when you want to flush. The turning knob slides neatly in a handle on the toilet cover so as user of the toilet you never see or touch the cassette. After this somewhat long intro I’ll explain the problem: after years of use the disc mechanism got somewhat stiff and didn’t close fully and requires more purposeful closing of the handle. By the way, there’s still a chance to skip over the not so nice part…. So when driving with the disc not fully sealing the yuck probably splashed between the disc and the seal and covered the floor of the bathroom. The first few times we only had water in the cassette (after emptying and cleaning we leave a bit of water and throw in some nappisan (for non Australians: that is strong but environmentally friendly washing powder). So we mistakenly took the water on the bathroom floor for leaking flush water. After moving the bus from juice to nojuice it was clear that this had nothing to do with flush water. Yuck. Hopefully it is fixed now.
While I had the job of fixing the cassette Marjo offered to clean the yuck from the bathroom floor.
Marjo went with Nossi to the beach and took some nice pictures.

Great plans are only that….. The day started with Dotti not well. In the middle of the night she needed to get out, as most men I have a sixth sense that makes me deaf and blind at nights when children or pets demand help from adults. So Marjo took charge and helped the poor dog outside. Nossi analysed the situation and felt that there needed to be balance so to penalize me she quickly jumped on the bed and under the doona, of course on my half……

In the morning Dotti was sick again, this time it was only 7 am, outside of the active hours of my sixth sense, so I got up and took both dogs for a walk. It was still cold and foggy, close to the river near Jackadgery, which made for some nice pictures.

I fed the dogs; Dotti wasn’t hungry and Marjo had meanwhile arranged breakfast. Great teamwork.

We sat down near the river and looked for our next stop. We decided that the Rummery camping ground a nice bush camping in Whian Whian State Forest would be our next stop. We checked to make sure it was no National Park, rang the accompanied information line, checked online and all seemed ok. As fail safe we even looked at the nearby Camp Old Cottage park.

We left early to have plenty of time and arrive once at daylight and took the winding road to Grafton and from there via the Pacific Highway up the coast. The navigator helped us find the most obscure little dirt roads and several times we are convinced that it leads us down the most pittoresque (and winding, hilly and bumpy) dirt roads. It was a very nice trip though, through the rolling hinterlands of Byron, Bangalow and other hippy towns. We stopped on the way to get a new bigger mirror, for coffee and teacake (with apple, yummy) and also for a Dotti stop under Macademia trees. Of course we couldn’t stop ourself cleaning up a little and ended up with half a kilo of Macademia nuts.

Everywhere along the road people are offering produce, all very healthy, macro biotic, vegan, organic and more. Prices are in line with these special features and we felt a bit guilty when we saw a sign for 100 grams of Macademia nuts for $7. Ah well.

The roads got narrower and narrower, with many 25kph turns, bridges and through vine covered tree archways. Very nice and leading up to a beautiful setting for Rummery. Finally we reached the turn to the camping and we were not disappointed. Or? we tried hard to ignore the sign “NO DOGS” and almost convinced ourselves and other camping users that it was only for the north side of the camping. Then we found the camping information board with a large section about domestic pets not allowed.
Finally we decided to go for the backup plan: Camp Old Cottage park only 3 km up the road. After more dirt road with potholes and curves we arrived at three big stumps next to the road preventing vehicle access. I walked up the path behind the stumps and walked into some youth camp with 20 or more 17y old girls and as many tents and cooking pots. Finally we had phone reception and contacted Whian Whian State Forest management. This time someone answered and told us that because Whian Whian is a State Forest Conservation Area no pets are allowed and there was no camping near by.
So much for careful planning.

Maps open, camping books reviewed, internet on…..so we found Wooyung Camping near Pottsville. On the coast. Pet friendly. We wanted to make sure and called them only to find out that the camping management has their day off on Wednesday….today.
The pittoresque and winding roads, rolling hills and pretty sights lost a lot of their charm on the 65 km between Rummery and Wooyung. Certainly now it got later and darker and we were happy to reach the Wooyung caravan park.

Now, with a belly full of nice dinner (compliments to Marjo), a Gin and Tonic, a warm fire and the sound of rolling waves, everything seems like a past dream. I’m sure we will wake up with the sun and have a ball on the beach tomorrow with the dogs.

Sleep tight 🙂

The next morning the sun was out, the temperature soon rose and the place looked much different. No rain. No screaming. No cold. We canvassed and found a nice spot to park the bus, not too far and close to the river. After several attempts I got the bus perfect only to realize that the side door opened straight into a tree. I had parked the bus facing the wrong way. With Marjo’s help we tried a second attempt and got a perfect setting.

The sun made it really nice and we went out to look at digging our retirement fortune of gold. I guess naivity can be a blessing. When we arrived at the sand riverbank we were greeted by a 1:100 ratio of gold to sand grains. The sand was literally glittering with gold. Unfortunately the gold was so small and flaky that trying to collect it only meant that the flinter thin gold ended up smearing over your hand. A gold speckled hand is nice but not useful other than that we now understand the meaning of a golden handshake.

We managed to find some of the thicker pieces of gold but still only about half a millimeter thick and 2×3 millimeter in size. You would need thousands of those to make any noticeable weight, let alone making a fortune. I guess at some areas there could be larger nuggets but we lost interest.

The area is stunning though, large boulders everywhere and the water cold and in places streaming fast. The temperature of the water I experienced up close. Marjo ventured further with Nossi and returned after half an hour, I meanwhile tried ways to collect the gold slivers quicker and was professionally washing sand, sitting on my hunches, failing miserably. When Marjo returned I got up and apparently my veins decided to supply my legs with fresh blood after having been constricted for some time. With insufficient oversupply of blood my brain cells got starved even more than what is normally the case and I blacked out for a few seconds. I mumbled something and Marjo thought nothing special of that. The hill of sand on which I stood guided me back so that in two stumbling steps I fell backwards in the freezing water and got saturated. If something wakes you up better than freezing water then I don’t want to know about it. I was up in no time and got back to the bus, realizing that I had no keys. Luckily I only found the waterproof camera in my pockets. Marjo followed soon with keys and I changed clothes, hanging the soaked ones to dry in the sun.

After this adventure we lit a fire, found more wood and made a nice big fire to warm me and dry the clothes. Both worked so so, I stayed cold all night, also because with a clear night the temperature dropped to 2 Celcius and also the clothes smelled nice of smoke and were still quite wet on the clothes line.

NOW Axel..I honestly thought you were joking, when you mumbled something and started stumbling toward the waters edge! Sorry!
And yes the river area is stunning,I love the boulders in the water, creating little waterfalls.
On my walk with Nossi, he did a perfect impression of a kangaroo while spotting one across the water.
And a bit later he spotted an echidna,which in turn tried to hide under a rock.
Lucky only it’s bum stuck out,(Nossi was sniffing it) and not it’s face, I think Nossi would have gotten acupuncture otherwise.

Axel also collected firewood to put in the trailer for future campfires. At the last camping a guy commented you should jump on fire wood if you see any!

We both decided that we had seen the mid north NSW coast too many times and not the hinterland. So we decided instead of following the Pacific Highway that it would be good to go and check out Armidale.

In the Camping-with-dogs guide there was a nice camping presented near Uralla, with gold and gemstone fossicking. Rule of thumb measurements (my thumb worked well) made it a three hour trip.
The road was nice, past Bellingen, Ebor and other picturesque places and nice rolling hills. Six hours and 1,000 meter elevation later we arrived at dark near the Uralla Fossicking Area.

It was very dark with the only light coming from cars close to what we assumed was the water with screaming voices from drunk or otherwise excited teenagers. We could only find a small curve from the parking area as stop place and parked the bus, set up and tried to find wood in the now starting rain. This was going to develop quickly to be our most favourite spot. Not.

The fire was struggling, the voices were getting louder and cars kept coming and going. The rain was intermittent and when it became steady, the rain gave in and so did the teenagers. The temperature dropped meanwhile to somewhere around 7 degrees which is cold when you sit outside.

The highlight of the day was that I got lucky that night 🙂

Waking up to….well nothing really. Because we felt like it. The dogs slept like roses, Nossi in front of the passenger seat, where he also travels and Dotti between the seats. Marjo and I on the king size bed in the back. In the background the noise of the highway….or….no….the ocean of course.
I get up to make breakfast, Marjo coffee and sandwiches with cheese, pâté and jam and for me peppermint tea and muesli. We share half an apple. Then back in bed to consume this while reading a book on the iPad, the dogs still slumbering. Marjo gets up, feeds the dogs and walks to the beach. Nossi goes nuts when he sees the sand and runs laps, he seems to have this running laps association with grass and sand. What goes on in a dogs mind will always remain a mystery although I’m sure most of it won’t be rocket science.

Meanwhile I have shaved and cleaned up, collected some firewood, my only planning for the day and made coffee. In the already warm sun we sit and watch and drink coffee. I said before, this could grow on me.

Then we do a repeat and walk with both dogs to the beach, a 1 minute walk. There we kick off our thongs (or toe slippers for non Australians) and walk barefoot on the still wet sand. The dogs run after the tennis ball and each other and run towards the sea until the oncoming water chases them back. We walk around the corner over the rocky breaker and see that it’s low tide. That creates little ponds with warmish water. In one Marjo gets a scare from a large fish (brand unknown) that was more scared from her delicate foot and trashes around to try and hide in the small pond. Nossi is intrigued and investigates. The fish gets even more scared and trashes himself out of the water onto the beach. Now Nos is triumphant and as he does pokes his nose into the fish. Being a softy I can’t let my dog kill a fish and help the poor little fella back into his pond where he clings to the rockwell in the hope that Nossi loses interest. He does when we walk on to give Dotti water therapy. This to activate his back leg since she’s been three legged for the last 2 months or so, avoiding to walk on her arthritis plagues back leg. This therapy consists of slow walking so that she uses the leg and also water movement so she can move it without having to put pressure on it. The idea was to do this in a shallower part of where the sea circles the rocky area. Well that worked only as long as not a big wave decided to come around and swoop Dotti with her. I could barely prevent her from becoming a seal.

In the he afternoon I picked up my guitar again, Marjo had a nap, we planned our next stop and I took my practice kite to the beach. It feels nice to let it soar through the air by moving the handle bar. Soon I have to do the real kite boarding!

Our first day on the road. This could grow on me 🙂
The morning was still busy with emptying the last few things from our house, locking up, feeding the chickens one last time and ‘hey surprise! An egg’ as parting gift from the chickens. While saying goodbye to neighbours we found how many people like to potter around in their pyama’s while unsuspecting visitors.
The neighbourhood will have to endure a week of the roadside throw away stuff to be collected by council but many promised to increase the pile by unwanted gifts, something everyone seems to do and I must admit that I’m guilty of this practice too.

The first time we hooked up the trailer behind the bus everything seems to work. A little puzzle was to try and unlock the perfect fitting padlocks on the 20 litre drums for diesel and water. They fit so well that it is hard to find the keyhole. Ah well, a quest for when we really need them.

Leaving Sydney seemed emotionally difficult so we took the longest possible detour via Coles for some last shopping and a circling visit to the Shell. On the highway in Wahroonga the petrol station is on the other side of the road and only accessible by circling the block twice; once to get access to the petrol station and once more to leave it in the direction we wanted to go.
The bus odometer is set on: 294,350

By then the clouds had parted and we could join the F3 motorway heading north. This road is well known, we regularly take it going to La Manda, our rental vacation home in Smiths Lake (link: La Manda). The road starts with a big hill that normally we drive with 110kph like everyone else. Now we find there’s another category of road users that struggle to go any faster than 40kph and we joined this stream of trucks. The rest of the road also showed that from not being concerned about hills and bends we now feel ourselves part of the trucking community that cares about down shifting up and breaking down hill. We event went sofar that we signaled extended semi-trailers when it was safe to return to the left lane after passing us, one kph faster than we were going and we got rewarded by the blinking left and right indicators.

With two stops in Heatherbrea (we had the McDonalds Sydney Stack for lunch, verdict: not recommended) and a roadside stop we arrived at Kempsey and turned off to Crescent Head. Luckily this is one of Marjo’s regular stops on her annual pilgrimage with Els the air hostess so via a winding road, roadside watching roo’s and the worst corrugated and potholed 5 km road (ok, I admit I’m not used to much) we tried to find the camping in the dark. Arriving at some turnoff I decided not to turn in head first but park our rig (sounds impressive) on the round and walk to see in the pitch dark whether we would not drive straight into the local swamp. Luckily a local stopped and gave instructions after which we arrived at the campsite, parked on the first reasonably looking spot and got out. In no time we had seats out, dog beds, awning and while Marjo looked at food options, I got friendly with a neighbouring camper (a young couple doing the same as us but with a brand new ute converted with sleep-on-fold-out) and begged for his wood. With everything still wet from the weeks of rain dry wood is hard to come by but with his dry wood and some other found woodcuts we managed a small fire that the dogs approved of too.

Not much later, after dinner (yummy beanstew with chicken mince), coffee (with oat and raisin cookies) and beer/wine we hit our beds. Marjo expertly made everything work. Evening wash, all the things you might ever need to go to sleep and wake up and for the dogs a perfect cosy nest in the front of the bus.

All in all a perfect day (a well, we won’t tell that I forgot to lock the trailer and that I left the keys all night in the door of the gas bottle with the door wide open).

Odometer: 294,769

Posted from Crescent Head, New South Wales, Australia.

We had a late start at the Copeton Dam camping. A real shower with real warm water is actually quite nice and also we tried out the kayak which we carry on the trailer that we tow everywhere during our trip. We tied Nossi to a tree as he keeps trying to chase kangaroos and within a minute from leaving him there he chewed through the rope and was standing next to us. Ah well.
Marjo had the first go on the water and Nossi didn’t like it at all, he tried to follow, first with advances in the stone cold water but, being a bit of a wuss, that didn’t succeed. Then he tried to follow along the shore until a kangaroo got his attention. Well Marjo seems to have a lower priority than a kangaroo. Loyalty only goes so far.

We finally packed up and were on the road by midday. First we wanted to go higher up inland, but reading the weather forecast we didn’t want a freezing night (forecast -2). So we decided to go towards Grafton and camp on the only dog friendly bush camping in Boundary Creek Falls.
On the way there we passed Inverell and did shopping, ate a burger with fries :p and stocked up on diesel and water. Water is something scarce; most places we go to have tank water which is darker brown then my white socks after 3 days wearing and not something we want to fill the water tank of the bus with. So when we were taking on diesel at a petrol station where people looked quite healthy and it seemed they were connected to the power grid and the sewer, we trusted that the tap water would be of consumable quality. So I asked the attendant (at small places like Inverell they actually put the nozzle in your tank for you…..unexpected service!) if I could have some water. I’m sure he expected something like “a litre” when he asked “how much”, and I underestimated and said 40 liters or so. He uhm’d and ahhh’d and said: “sorry, the truck is in the way” and I said: “we’ll wait till it goes” and then he tried “also the utes are parked in front” and I countered with: “our hose is long enough”, then his final attempt was “I don’t have the key for the tap” and luckily he got overruled by his colleague who said “just ask for the key when you pay for the fuel”. So we got our water. All 80 liters.

Then we continued on our way to Boundary Creek Falls, almost in free fall, from 1,000 meter elevation down winding roads, some bends so sharp that we could only go 20kph to the dismay of the cars behind us. Luckily there are many rest areas where we could veer of the road to let the cars past.

When we arrived at the turn off for Boundary Creek Falls, again in the dark, we followed the dirt road and were surprised by the sign that we were entering the Boundary National Park. Hmmmm, National Park = no dogs…..the camping guide was pretty clear that this was the only camping on the way to Grafton where dogs were allowed. Continuing on the dirt road we came to the camping ground, pitch dark, no one there, and again pretty clear that it is National Park. Closer inspection of the Camping guide revealed that it is from 2003 and the National Park signs didn’t look much older than a few years……After some discussion, Marjo in the warm bus with the dogs, Axel in the just above freezing cold outside, we decided not to take the risk to camp with dogs in a National park. The same dude that told us to carry lots of firewood also said that getting caught with dogs in a National Park could cost us up to $20,000.

The next option was an overnight stay on a roadside stop and we both decided not to go for that since the road is used mainly by trucks and from the roadside stop we could hear, feel and almost touch trucks coming past.

Then there was Mann River Camping in Jackadgery. A paid camping with shower (yumm again) and power. The nice part of it is the luxury, the downside is that the sites are pretty close to each other and that the dogs can’t walk freely around. The risk was though that it would be closed and the mobile phone had no reception. At 6.05 pm the mobile sounded a message, from Niki….reception! So, soon Marjo was talking to the caretaker who was not too happy with the call. He was in the process of locking up. With all her charms and her sweetest voice she convinced him to stay another half hour. The rest of the trip down the hills was an adventure of tight turns, analyzing every stump on the side of the road as being a stump and luckily not a kangaroo and with a minute to spare we arrived at the camping.

Now we are parked on the Mann River Camping in Jackadgery. Just finished Dutch Kerrie soup with rice and a sandwich and are calling family over VoIP. I got lucky again (with food of course, what were you thinking) and we had Griesmeel as desert (for the non dutch: semolina custard).

Tomorrow the coast!

Yesterday, Marjo and I went for the trial. Just in the normal car, to get around Sydney to visit 5 trailer places. A trip from 9.30 am (after peak hour traffic) till 3.30 pm (before peak hour traffic). Goal: to find a trailer light enough to tow for a year and convenient enough to take our stuff. We agree on what we need although we got tempted a couple of times (one 4 grand aluminium trailer with all options thinkable) and settled for an affordable trailer that was returned and had a buy-it now price we couldn’t resist (sensibility prevails)

Only have to think how to take the kayak on this…..

What we found is that:
– need to be specific about the purpose of going in a funky clothes shop. The purpose of looking is very different from the purpose of buying……..
– map reading is an art, thank god for navigator apps
– don’t come near schools at around 2.30 pm
– a trip is a trip, no side tracking unless pre-announced at the start of the trip
– no multi-tasking. In the post work period focus on one thing is good. No driving and sorting out payments at the same time.

All in all a successful trial.

As part of our journey we are trying to get the least amount of baggage. That means getting rid of stuff like the house and its contents. So the house is for sale (link) and we hope to be able to sell, pack up and be on the road end of May or beginning of June.

As part of the sales process you have open houses (Wednesday and Saturday) which means that it needs to look at its best with no leaves, no personal effects, no dogs. Today we had one of those days where we cleaned inside and out. Luckily it is a nice and sunny day which helps people to see the house and gardens in the best possible way.

In the afternoon Marjo sold our 50 year old sewing machine and did yoga while Axel went to meet up with some ex-colleagues to say goodbye. Perfect day for it.

Day 2 being unemployed and still enjoying it.