Time to catch up with our news of late, which is not terribly interesting, but still - its all news I suppose. Our last blog saw us on the road back to Aberdeen, and after a nights stop over at Warragamba - the worst!!! caravan park we have ever stayed in- over rated and over priced. Mind you, when a caravan park has no NRMA rating it is not hard to give it a rating - and this one certainly doesn't deserve one. We had to run two extension cords to get access to power, if we'd needed water we would have had to cart it, and the amenities block a good five minute walk away - all for $37 a night. Leaving the next morning we loaded the car onto the trailer for the last time and navigated our way through Penrith and headed up the Putty Road, which I think we included in our last Blog.
We arrived back in Aberdeen on March 25th, in time for Barry's dad's 90th birthday.
The day went off all ok, but Harry has become very frail, since last we saw him, and his medical condition worsening by the day. It was great to catch up with the family
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| Harry With All His Children |
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| The Two Youngest Grandchildren Justin and Kimmy with Pop |
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| Matt, Debby and Alicia with Pop |
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| Barry and I - Helping To Celebrate The Day |
The day went off all ok, but Harry has become very frail, since last we saw him, and his medical condition worsening by the day. It was great to catch up with the family and we ended the day with a nice meal at the pub up the road for dinner that night. All in all a good day.
As most would know we had decided to sell the trailer and buy and A frame tow hitch, heavy enough tow the courier. We ordered it from Melbourne and had arranged to have it installed in Newcastle, so it was back to Newcastle we headed, back to our old and great friends Barb and Ian. Always made to feel so welcome at their home and Barry and Ian enjoy their afternoon happy hours everyday. We are blessed to have such good friends.
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| Barb and Ian |
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| The Braking System Inside The Car |
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| Barry Checking Out The New A Frame |
The A Frame took about 2 days to install and is quite amazing with a wireless braking system. All just done with plugging the system in the car into the cigarette lighter in the car and this communicates with a similar LED system on the dash of the bus. When not towing it all swings back up against the back of the bus and locks in place. All very impressive and will hopefully make life much easier for Barry, rather than loading and unloading off the trailer.
After the installation it was off the the RTA engineer for certification - that's whole new story. This isn't required in any other state other than NSW and the certification is only good for 3 months all for a $350 for half an hours work!!! But prior to having the RTA check done it was off to a mechanic to have a brake test done - should try taking something this big for a brake test in the middle of Newcastle - makes life interesting - thats for sure. Anyway passed with flying colors.
A couple of new tyres and a wheel alignment later and we were able to leave Newcastle - some what poorer!!! (that is after paying registration and insurance on the bus as well).
Camped at the Aberdeen Rodeo grounds, which is one of the best free camps anyone could possibly want. Water laid on and if you are lucky enough the council workers will come around and let you into the shed to run a power cord - so what more could you want. Mostly have the place to ourselves, but Friday night we had the company of the Queensland Polo Cross team, who left very early the next morning on their way to the Royal Easter Show.
Have spent a lot of the last week trying to help Sandra and Kay clean out Harry's unit - who is now safely within the confines of the Strathearn Nursing Home. A huge relief for us to now head off, knowing he will be looked after and safe. But boy the amount of stuff that has had to be cleaned up and sorted out is unbelievable. Still some to do over the next couple of days, but nearly there now. Had a lovely day off yesterday and had lunch with Sandra and nice couple of hours it was too.
The Easter bunny even happen to find us down here too and Barry has now nothing to show for it, an now will have to sit here and watch me slowly!!! plow my way through my two boxes of Cadbury Favourites - which could be anything up to two weeks - slow torture, I think you could call it. lol.
Starting to wonder if we will ever get past the NSW border, but after this week, that is it - due west is where we head. Mum and Dad coming over here for a few days next weekend and after that we are off. Planning to just slowly make our way to Broken Hill and across to South Australia, and a few weeks of making our way across the Nullarbor Plains - so much to see along there and a great site to check out is right here -
http://www.abc.net.au/eyre/nullarbor/default.htm?site=capricornia&date=%28none%29
So looking forward to heading off and seeing some new things and get this camera going. But a few things to deal with this week before we get going and we hope you will enjoy keeping up to date with our travels as we go. Our timing is not all that good as we have been delayed so many times, as we were hoping to get up north of Western Australia during the winter, but our plans will have to change and we will just take it as it comes - Day by Day.
Having visitors for lunch today and have the camp oven going now ready to enjoy some good company and food.
Spent Saturday at the Nundle Chinese Festival, which will be our next blog, so some more reading for you coming up real soon.
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