Tropic of Capricorn

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Bev Marshall

We are driving west along the Capricorn Highway, across the Queensland Central Highlands on our way to Mt Isa for the rodeo. Highway is an aspirational term, as one lane in each direction really only constitutes a basic road, especially when it seems to narrow alarmingly when a huge truck is coming towards you. I don’t blink till I see the whites of their eyes. Yes, I am towing the caravan – no applause please.

Our first stop is an overnight at a blip on the map – Duaringa. You understand how small a blip when the Post Office cum General Store is also where you pay bills, do banking, buy books and lottery tickets, and it is closed between 10.30am and 2.30pm. The one horse has left town. We park out the back of the Duaringa Hotel, which allows caravans and campers to park up for free. It seems rude not to eat at the pub, so we do. As anticipated, the menu indicates the deep fryer gets no rest. I go off piste and opt for the lamb shank and enjoy really good mash and veg. Yay for country cooking.

The train tracks pass near the pub and we spend more time than is strictly necessary watching the trains – they head inland empty, and back out to Gladstone Port laden with coal. We are agog at the magnitude and the implications for the amount of coal they carry: there are about 20 trains a day each with 102 wagons. Gladstone is a massive port handing about 120 million tonnes of export goods a year, 80% of which is coal.

**empty carriages disappearing into the distance**

The towns we pass through are the remnants of larger settlements created as service centres for work crews laying the Central Western Railway line. The towns would swell up to thousands with plenty of pubs to go round, then as the rail head moved on, so did the town. These days most have a service station (servo in Australian) with a bit of a grocery store attached, a pub, and maybe a roadhouse or motel.

I love it when we get to Dingo. Of course we stop to get a photo of the life sized bronze. Sadly it’s too early for lunch or the obvious choice at the roadhouse would be the Dingo Trap Burger, which comes with lashings of chilli sauce to give it some bite. At least it’s not called the Lindy burger.

Blackwater – ironically not the mercenaries – announces itself as the Coal Capital of Australia, and after watching the trains and visiting the International Coal Centre we are in no position to argue. For $5 entry fee, (coal companies aren’t making enough already) we go into the coal mining museum and find out more about how coal is formed, mined and used. My favourite story is the old guy reminiscing about working down the pits (before open cast) in the 1940s. They all used to work naked except for their boots, because their clothes caused chafing with the build up of sweat and coal dust. Second fun fact: I did not know that the CO2 in soda water is a byproduct of the manufacture of coke. And I don’t mean coca cola. The area we are standing on is part of the Bowen Basin which has 25,000 million tonnes of coal reserves, so I do not see Australia running our of soda water any time soon.

The Sapphire gemfields are somewhat confusingly located around a town called Emerald. Encompassing 900 square kms, they date back to 1875 when a Railway Surveyor found the first gem. Enthusiasts still trample the dusty acres fossicking away, but it doesn’t appeal to us. We hear that tourists turn up for a fossick and never leave, so it must be as addictive as methamphetamine.

The gem we find is the world’s biggest sunflower painting. I’m not making this up. Apparently all part of a concept by Cameron Cross to have seven sunflower sculptures in seven countries representing Van Gogh’s seven different sunflower paintings. Emerald got lucky as it is a major sunflower growing area.

We are on a mission so it’s another one nighter, this time by an old railway station in the charmingly named Bogantungan, which is a disused railway station and nothing more. Yet it is famous for all the wrong reasons: in 1960 a rail disaster killed seven and injured 43 when the bridge collapsed after the creek flooded in torrential rain. It happened at 2.30am so the driver didn’t see the bridge was out. When we look at the creek now, it is a harmless dry bed.

**few trains pass this way now, and the old station is a museum**

You may fear, dear reader, that we are becoming train spotters. I assure you this is not the case: no anoraks were worn in the writing of this blog.

There’s something about Mary

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Bev Marshall

You’ve got to love a town that builds a tourism industry around a children’s nanny. The town of Maryborough runs on Mary Poppins and her creator, Pamela Travers, who was born here in 1899.

Travers started life as Helen Lyndon Goff – cursory research indicates Pamela Lyndon Travers was a stage name. The town markets itself as a Town full of Stories and trades heavily on Travers being born here, even if she moved away as a young woman and never returned. Her father was a bank manager and the bank building in which Travers was born, upstairs I imagine, not behind the counter, is now a Story Bank, doubling as a Travers/Poppins museum. We successfully fight the overwhelming urge to enter. Instead we head for the Mary Poppins statue.

We also cross the street multiple times to get a decent photo of the Mary Poppins traffic lights. Sadly, the Mary Poppins Festival was two weeks ago so we missed the opportunity to participate in the Nanny Races and the Chimney Sweep Challenge, which is possibly just as well as I’m fairly sure Scott doesn’t know all the words to Chim Chiminee, and his Dick Van Dyke impression is far from award winning.

Of course there are murals featuring our hero who, given the amount of attention she receives, you’d think had split the atom. But to be fair to Maryborough they celebrate heroes and the history of the town in multiple tourist friendly ways. I juggle the Maryborough Mural Trail Map with its 36 stunning wall murals and installations; the Maryborough Story Trail Map – 41 sculptures, artefacts, installations, and Story points; the Maryborough Military Trail Map; and the Maryborough Walk Tour Discovery Trail – well, you get the picture. Safe to say there’s overlap but it all comes together to tell the rich history of a town settled by immigrants in the mid 1800s and which opened as a Port and Bond Store in 1847.

**Hilda Ogden would love all the murials**

I love it: it’s colourful, beautifully maintained, reveres its history by keeping it front and centre, and it’s on a river so there’s water and boats so Scott’s happy.

Mercifully the river wasn’t named after Mary Poppins. Originally known as the Wide Bay River, in 1847 Governor Fitzroy, in that inimitable style of British bureaucrats, renamed it in honour of his wife Mary. Never mind it had been called the Moocooboola by the local Kabi people for centuries.

**The Mary River today – we are ensconced in the Wharf RV park to the right of the jetty**

Our favourite museum – the only one we go to – is Brennan and Geraghty’s Store which, after 101 years in business closed in 1972 leaving the stock, accounts, ledgers, equipment and records in situ. Mr Geraghty lived next door and if someone knocked on the door he’d sell them what they wanted if he had it, but basically the old stock stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Looking at the shelves, if it hadn’t sold by 1972 it wasn’t going to sell. I kept expecting Arkwright to pop up behind the counter.

At least one other famous person was born in Maryborough and that was the poor sod who was the first ANZAC ashore at Gallipoli, Duncan Chapman. He gets a bronze life size statue at the catchily named Walk With the ANZACS Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial. The memorial itself is striking, with towering rusting steel columns representing the cliffs of Gallipoli. As you walk along the audio starts and you hear the thump of marching boots accompanying the personal stories of soldiers.

**Poor old Duncan Chapman trudging off to Gallipoli**

When we arrive to check in at the park, the owner is away. When he comes back he tells me he’s been burying his mother’s Clydesdale. You don’t hear that every day. Apparently the horse died of cancer of the penis which his mother has been treating for a year. I don’t ask what the treatment entailed.

We’re ba-ack

Posted on July 18, 2019 by Bev Marshall

It’s a joy to be back on the road again. We leave wet, windy weather at home in Wellington, NZ and arrive to sunny warm days on the Gold Coast in Australia. Locals tell us we are lucky we missed the storms they too had last week so it seems our timing is perfect. The car, which we left in storage near the airport, starts first time and we head south to pick up the caravan which we had left at the dealer for its 1,000km service.

We spend a couple of days on our old favourite site at Tallebudgera, reminding ourselves about the caravan and making the mandatory trips to Bunnings the hardware store.

It’s 185km drive north to the southern end of Sunshine Coast and we check in at Dicky Beach – so named after the SS Dicky, a 226 iron steamboat that ran aground here in 1893. Little known fact: Dicky Beach is the only recreational beach in the world named after a shipwreck.

We are becoming a well oiled machine at setting up: stabilise the caravan, put chocks in the wheels and detach the van from the car. Level the caravan by lowering and adjusting the stabiliser legs (one on each corner) as necessary to prevent drinks sliding off the table. Turn on the gas, plug in the 15v power cable, attach the water hose, and attach the sullage hose (which takes grey water away).

We put the annex up as we are here for a week. So then it’s pull out the awning ensuring it comes out to the right level so the anti-flap (self-explanatory) bars are easy to attach and so the annex walls can be fed down the channel that holds them in place. Thanks to advice from Dave (remember Dave and Michelle?) when we first attached the annex I have labelled all the bags and we remember how to get it all in place so it happens without any major cockups or arguments.

The weather is consistently warm at around 20-22C during the day but I find the 21C water temperature rather brisk, so swimming is at a minimum. Bike riding and beach walking make up for it, and the hunter-gatherer, ever the optimist, goes fishing.

Having researched koala cuddling opportunities in the neighbourhood we find there are two. We settle on Wildlife HQ Zoo which is, happily, right by the Big Pineapple. Australians love big fibreglass flora and fauna – we’ve already racked up the big Prawn in Ballina, and the Big Banana in Coff’s. It may have been the Big Pineapple that tipped our choice of venue, but it’s more likely we were averse to paying double to go to the Steve Irwin retail extravaganza that is Australia Zoo, when the main aim was koala not tigers or giraffes or keychains.

Wildlife HQ has a lovely bush setting and is quite small. There are a few “exotics” such as three or four different tamarin monkeys, red panda, marmoset, lemur and capybara, but no large animals – unless you call kangaroos large. There are lots of meerkats and koalas which are the cutest things. I have a close encounter with Keda, who is 12 years old and very cuddly. She has sharp claws, a very soft coat, and a hard bum, used for wedging herself into the tree to sleep – for an average of 18 hours a day. The other six hours are for eating. Way to go koalas.

On Wednesday we head up to Eumundi for the famous mid week market, hoping for fresh fruit and vegetables, homemade chutneys and interesting people. Yeah Nah. We park about a kilometre away as the entire population of Queensland has descended on the place. The market area is bigger than the town itself and contains vast amounts of useless (read macrame dream catchers), useful, tasty and/or tasteless crap, miles of womenswear, yards of menswear, hats for all the family, and a fortuneteller, palm reader, medium or psychic so you can get in touch with someone who knows better than to consult these charlatans. If that’s not enough, there’s gallons of snake oil available to cure your sleeplessness, stomach disorder, eczema, arthritis, back pain, and neck pain, but not enough to cure my scepticism as to their efficacy.

North to Maryborough from here – they have a statue of Mary Poppins.

But wait, there’s more….

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Bev Marshall

After five weeks on the road we’ve completed our inaugural caravan trip and are back in New Zealand for two months – a wedding, and various pre-arranged diving, fishing and boating trips to be attended to. We’ve left the caravan at the dealer for storage, and the Landcruiser in a lock up near Brisbane airport.

So what have we learned to carry us into the next phase when we return in July and head to less travelled parts for six months or so.

I can cook scones on the barbecue
You can drive a couple of hundred kilometres and go from incessant rain to five year drought
Caravan parks are the equivalent of the gladiatorial arena, but in this case Caesar is sitting in a deck chair with a beer
People who have been caravanning longer than you – in our case that’s pretty much everyone – have lots of helpful tips
Beware things that want to kill you – actually, we already knew this

Drop bears are killer koalas – or so we’re told. Further in-depth research (google) reveals they are a hoax. Though let’s face it, with so many other deadly creatures it isn’t much of a stretch to believe in carnivorous bears that drop from trees and devour tourists. I’ve made a mental note to adopt the generally accepted protection of spreading Vegemite behind my ears whenever we are walking in the bush.

We think that after five weeks we’ve covered a lot of ground and we have – over 1,300 kilometres towing the caravan, and more driving about unencumbered. How humbling is it then, when we look at the map and see just how far we’ve travelled. You have to laugh.

And here’s the 3,000 km bit we did by car last year – see my previous blog agoodsetofknives.blogspot.com for more on that trip.

So there’s a whole lot of gaps to fill in, starting 9th July 2019 and going for several months. The plan is to head up the Queensland coast then cut inland to connect to the Stuart Highway which runs from Darwin (which I wrote about last year) in the Northern Territory, to Port Augusta in South Australia. We will drive south and experience a town called Alice, and the wonder of Uluru (Ayers Rock). Then, who knows?

And we all know weird stuff happens in the Outback of Australia, so anything is possible.

Gonna jump down turn around

Posted on May 6, 2019 by Bev Marshall

and I’ll just bet you finished that line with “pick a bale of cotton”. I’ll be disappointed if you didn’t, because I was singing it, in my head at least, all day when we took the Cotton Farm tour in Goondiwindi.

We are now on the border, literally, of Queensland and New South Wales and this is big farm country – grains such as wheat, sorghum, barley and chick peas, and cotton. This is the type of place where the toilets at the caravan park are labelled Blokes and Sheilas, or The Old Fella and The Missus. You overhear conversations in the pub about whether there were many dead kangaroos on the road into town. A major town attraction is a statue of Gunsynd, a horse that ran third in the Melbourne Cup in 1972, (to be fair it did win 29 of 52 starts). The toilets here are labeled Fillies and Colts in case you are wondering.

Goondiwindi is a lovely town with an urban population of around 5,500, bulked up by about that number again when the districts are included. You feel you wouldn’t mind paying your rates (city taxes) as the facilities are so good: lots of green spaces, parks, sports centres and playing fields. We’re told that through dry periods they keep the town watered and green, to lift the spirits of the farmers when they come from their brown, drought ridden farms. Water is a tightly held, monitored and metered resource here, as we find when we tour the cotton farm.

**The cotton flower is white for a day then turns pink before forming the boll, which you can see at the top right of the plant**

As we drive towards Goondiwindi the roadside looks like giant bags of cotton wool have exploded. This isn’t too far from the truth as the cotton gets blown about during harvest, which is just finishing. Our tour takes us to one of the 1200 farms that grow cotton in Australia. Cotton planting is rotated with crops, and how many acres are planted, or if it is planted at all, depends on available water. Every drop that is taken from groundwater sources and rivers is allocated and metered. A system of gravity fed channels irrigate the crops and a tail drain collects any run off, which is returned to the dam. It’s a very tough life: in a good year you may get 11 or more 227kg bales to the hectare, but the last good years were 2012 and 2013. This year the crop will be about 7 bales/hectare with the break even price of $400 a bale. This year the price is $640.

**Harvested cotton to the left and bales waiting to be picked up and trucked to the gin**

What more do you need to know? How’s this – gin is an abbreviation of cotton engine. Ginning separates the seeds from the fluffy stuff. Cotton seeds can be used as stock feed, and if the oil is extracted it’s flavourless and low in cholesterol. We don’t get to see the gin working – health and safety – but Faye, our tour guide has a mini gin to show us the process.

As with every tour you’ve ever been on, the exit is through the giftshop – in this case, Goondiwindi Cotton, a shop created by a cotton family to diversify by adding a garment manufacturing operation. Questions reveal not all the cotton is local, some imported from California which just seems odd, though all the manufacturing is still local.

**And here’s what you can get from a bale, though really, who needs 4,300 pairs of socks?**

Now where’s the rain?

Posted on April 29, 2019 by Bev Marshall

On Easter Sunday we bid farewell to the Jacaranda City, its bendy bridge and showery weather, to make the steady climb to cross the Gibraltar Range at 1170 metres elevation. The view isn’t much as we are in the clouds until we descend to the Northern Tablelands on the western side. At one point I check the fuel consumption and the Toyota is gobbling 40 litres/100 kms as it drags the caravan up the steep sections. And diesel is about $AUS1.50 a litre.

We have our first ‘unsupported’ night in an overnight camp. We pull off the highway to a large rest area beside a stream, surrounded by paddocks. There are a few horses, some cattle and a few kangaroos. We hear dogs barking in the distance. No power or water so we are self-sufficient. The gas runs the fridge when we’re not hooked up to power, and the stove top and barbecue are gas anyway. A couple more caravans turn up during the evening and there’s the usual chat about where you’re headed and where you’ve come from. As usual, Scott gains a few more tips about the caravan. Everything works as it should so we’re confident to free camp again.

**the hunter-gatherer gathering wine at our overnight spot**

We head for the small town of Inverell then south west to Copeton Dam. The Dam is in 1,400 hectares of State Park and we arrive on Easter Monday as most people are leaving. It’s hard to explain the extent of the waterway which, when full, is 4,600 hectares: three times the size of Sydney Harbour. Unlike Sydney Harbour, it needs rain and they haven’t had much for the past few years so the dam is nowhere near capacity.

Having set up camp we head off in the car to explore some of the Park’s 1400 hectares. We find a boat ramp that runs several hundred metres, but the water level is so low it doesn’t come near the ramp. We are a long way further down the track before I look at the nav screen and see we are in the blue bit – by rights we should be under water – or driving an amphibious vehicle.

**the high water line is clearly visible and a long way above the water**

Our camping spot is in the midst of several caravans peopled by an extended family who have been coming here every Easter for 20 years. Most of the older guys – well, they’re our age – were involved in building the dam in the 70s. They tell us it’s been at least five years since the dam was last full, and at that point it laps the road in front of our campsite.

**Though the good old Edmonds Cook Book recommends an oven, it can be done – scones successfully cooked on the barbecue –**

Our new acquaintances also tell us to be careful when we go walking in the bush as ticks can fall from the trees. Having freaked us out telling us how the tiny bloodsuckers burrow into your flesh, Lynn casually says “but you’d have to be unlucky to get bitten”. I feel itchy just thinking about it and have visions of Scott and I examining each other like monkeys after every nature encounter.

A couple of hours later we join the family at the fire pit for drinks, and what do we find? Lynn attending to Peter who has a tick buried in his belly. Yep, really unlucky. They were collecting kindling from under the trees when Peter felt a bite on his belly. While Peter pinches his flesh to stop the tick burrowing deeper, Lynn dabs on Tea Tree oil, which apparently smothers the tick. It is then extracted with tweezers along with the advice “be careful not to break off the head”. Break off the head? The bloody thing is the size of half an ant.

At least now we’ve seen one and know what to do: I buy Tea Tree Oil in anticipation. However I must look like a Lady Grantham clutching her pearls whenever we are under trees, as I hold tight the neck of my shirt .

**apparently these jumping jacks are full of ticks as well**

A Highland Fling and a Bendy Bridge

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Bev Marshall

A rainy Easter is no fun for anyone: not for holidaymakers, kids on school vacation, and not for tourist operators who suffer when the last big Summer weekend of the season is a washout – literally. That’s the fate of many northern New South Wales coastal towns this year.

We’d planned to avoid the big coastal towns over Easter anyway, and count ourselves lucky when a showery Grafton clears up on Easter Saturday and provides a beautiful day for the Highland Gathering down the road at Maclean.

Maclean must surely be the only town the world where all the power poles are painted tartan. Aside from decorative poles, there’s little else to distinguish Maclean from other small towns on the shores of the magnificent Clarence River.

But the Highland Gathering draws a decent crowd to the Showgrounds. You know you’re at a country event when the slightly nauseating aroma of stewed onions and barbecued sausages assails you. Where’s the haggis and mashed swede?

The competition between what seems like many, many pipe bands (actually 20) isn’t as tortuous as I fear. They each have five minutes and play classics such as Me Clotch is Awee! Geese In The Bog, and Last Tango in Harris. It’s fair to say we don’t find anything to sing along to.

The highland dancing is fun to watch for a while, especially when the littlies come out and show some footwork that is perhaps, not specified in the standards.

Yet best of all, there’s the highland Sports Events. Ahh, the sports. Putting the Stone, which is shot-put by any other name, and the Farmer’s Walk – this involves being timed over a set distance carrying a couple of logs. Presumably in older times this was a couple of sheep or puny Englishmen.

For us the much anticipated Caber Toss was a treat – I had to look up the origins, for what possible use could this be? Loggers used the technique to ford streams, so being able to toss the log straight, so it falls at the 12 o’clock position is key. Otherwise the log falls in the stream and all is lost.

Men and women compete in all events, but one – for men the Hammer throw and for women the Haggis Hurl. Which I think you’ll agree sounds more like what happens after a hard night out. It is a real haggis, strongly wrapped, but I’m told one year it exploded.

Maclean is about 35 kms east of Grafton, and Grafton has one of the few fixed crossings over the vast Clarence River. Aside from the Murray, the Clarence is the largest river in Australia south of the Tropic of Capricorn. We decide to take the northern side of the river and cross by cable ferry closer to Maclean, just for the hell of it.

It beggars belief that the only bridge for miles is what the locals call “the bendy bridge”, and snicker into their hands when they hear you are towing a caravan. The bendy bridge is heritage listed was built in 1932, before articulated trucks, caravans and other long vehicles. It is a standard two car width and has sharp angled approaches – the bendy bits – at either end. It is built above the original rail bridge and the approaches come from roads parallel to the rail lines. It makes for interesting driving. When locals see a big vehicle coming towards them on a bend they stop and give plenty of room. When tourists see a big vehicle coming around the corner on their side of the road their eyes widen in terror.

**It’s hard to capture how terrifying this is when a huge truck is coming towards you**

Aside from the bendy bridge, Grafton is famous for two things: the first town in northern NSW, founded in 1851 and the Jacaranda Festival, held in October/November every year since 1935. It must be beautiful to be here when the hundreds of jacaranda trees lining the very wide streets are full of their purple blooms.

In the meantime, it’s mostly purple prose as you drive across the bendy bridge.

And where there’s a river there’s fish. And where’s there’s fishing there’s Scott.

**Rain or shine, you can’t keep the hunter-gatherer down**

Two weeks in

Posted on April 15, 2019 by Bev Marshall

It’s our anniversary: two weeks since we took possession of the caravan. So far no more hitches, small or otherwise. The trip to our second stop was mercifully uneventful, and this week we’ve been staying near Lennox Head in northern New South Wales.

Lennox Head is known as one of Australia’s top 10 surf beaches: it’s kilometres long with soft, white squeaky sand and is, quite simply, stunning. The swimming is great with the water still warm at about 25 C, and we enjoy watching the surfers, skilled and unskilled, in their never-ending search for the perfect wave. I left the water when I saw them putting out what I thought were shark drum lines (see below), but which were, in fact, only buoys for a competition later in the day.

The baited drum lines were already in the water.

**Looking out to Lennox Head from the lookout**

As with all Australian beaches, beauty comes with warnings.

We’ve spent the week dodging rain showers as there have been downpours on and off every day. In between we manage some coastal walks along the headlands, some swims, and a couple of forays into Ballina to buy supplies, go to dinner for our birthdays, and buy new bikes. I’m sure it will come as some surprise to you to learn Scott was keen to go to the Maritime Museum.

This turns out to be fascinating in one respect. We had never heard of Las Balsas and I suspect you haven’t either. Forget the Kon-Tiki, this is a much greater feat. In 1973, twelve guys and three cats set off on three balsa wood rafts (4 guys and one cat on each) to sail from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Mooloolaba in Queensland. The point was to prove that early navigators understood the winds and current of the Pacific and could have sailed to the Pacific Islands. Light winds towards the end of the journey saw them drift south and land at Ballina, having travelled 14,000 kms in 179 days. One remaining raft is in the Maritime Museum and there’s a great film “The Pacific Challenge” documenting the trip. Fun fact – Salvador Dali donated an original artwork for the sails and it was sold to raise funds for the trip. I still want to know what happened to the cats.

**The one remaining raft at rest in the Ballina Maritime Museum – art by Salvador Dali**

This morning we leave our site near Lennox and come into Ballina as Scott gets delivery of his bike today. He had booked a drive through site – no need to unhitch and set up the caravan – as we plan only one night.

As we drive into the caravan park he has selected, I hear the theme for Deliverance playing even though there’s not a guitar or banjo in sight. While Scott gets out to find someone to ask where to park, I dial another caravan park and tell them we’ll be there in 15 minutes. Scott doesn’t argue.

**The charming playground at the Methamphetamine Inn**

**The well kept utilities block at the same location**

A hitch or two to start the trip

Posted on April 10, 2019 by Bev Marshall

We fly into Brisbane and are on the right side of Australian Customs racial profiling and go through the green lane. It is straightforward to take the train to the end of the Gold Coast line and within a few minutes Jeff turns up with our Toyota Land Cruiser – as advertised and as promised. By the way, change of ownership which is free in New Zealand, cost us $3000. This is known as a LCT – luxury car tax.

So far, so good. What could go wrong? Quite a few things actually, both large and small.

The mighty Toyota and caravan set up at Tallebudgera

We have a no drama trip towing the caravan from the sales yard to the Tallebudgera where we plan to spend the first 4 days. It’s only about 10 kms but I manage to give Scott plenty of advice on towing, which I’ve no experience in whatsoever. Actually, it’s more along the lines of: are you ok? how does the car feel? watch out for the traffic light, shouldn’t you brake now? don’t cut the corner. Those of you who know Scott know he is man of almost infinite patience so we arrive still speaking. I’ve watched a video entitled “How to park a caravan without getting a divorce”, so the parking goes well.

Ready for its new owners – scottandbevgocaravanning

Tallebudgera Creek Tourist Park is a beautiful place well situated on Tallebudgera Creek – no surprise there – which is more of a river mouth, and the ocean of Palm Beach. The park isn’t very full but this will change at the weekend when school holidays start.

looking towards the river mouth and down Palm Beach from Burleigh Heads.

Having successfully parked, levelled, connected water and power, and organised the grey water disposal, the only thing that remains is getting the awning out and the annex (aka outdoor room) up. We’ve been led to believe erecting the annex is akin to building the pyramids and that it would take as long.

As we’re short a few thousand slaves, we are lucky to meet Dave and Michelle who are parked a few bays further down. “No worries” is Dave’s mantra and he leads us through the pyramid building in short order – where short order is a couple of hours rather than all day. He is also the source of a ladder, a drill, advice about towing and weight distribution hitches and much else. Michelle introduces me to all the useful apps for caravanning, including those for locating the best fuel prices, weather forecasts, and emergency assistance – the last of which we hope never to need. They are a great couple and very generous with their time, providing enormous help to us novices.

Sadly Dave and Michelle won’t be travelling with us to lend tools and a helping hand.

It’s at this point we realise how much other “stuff” we need that we hadn’t anticipated. We extend our stay at Tallebudgera another 3 days and spend our time going to outdoor equipment stores, BBQ outlets, kitchen and storage solutions stores, supermarkets, technology outlets, and I’m fairly sure I do my 10,000 steps every day simply going up and down the aisles of Bunnings.

Annex successfully erected, ready for a drink

It’s when I am stashing stuff in cupboards I notice the first hitch – three of the cupboards lack an internal catch – visions of spilled contents. We call New Age to tell them about the oversight, and after some disbelief on their part – they require photographic evidence – Rodney comes and installs the necessary catches while dispensing advice on what he thinks are the best caravan parks. Analysis reveals his preferences – there is a strong correlation with proximity to RSL or Bowling Clubs.

So after a week of getting organised, stocking the caravan and getting into the travelling mindset, we are ready to move on. The first step is to reverse the process of setting up. We take down the annex and pack everything up. Anything loose inside is secured and, as advised, we work through a checklist to make sure we don’t drive off with the power still plugged in or the tow hitch not correctly connected. In fact, our first stop is the tow bar shop to get, as Dave our consultant in all things caravan advises, a weight distribution hitch. This does what it says on the box. It evens the weight distribution across the car by putting more load on the front wheels – handy, as this impacts steering.

So we head off to the tow bar fitter quietly congratulating ourselves on how well we’re doing. Ha Ha. Small hitch. Scott notices the little outside table which folds down from the side of the van and needs to be locked up for travel, is flapping in the breeze. We stop on a bus stop, Bev runs back and unlocks caravan, grabs the keys, locks table in place, locks caravan, runs back to car. We agree if that’s the worst to happen we’ll be doing well.

But worse is to come.

Towing mechanisms in place and $990 later we are on our way but for another small hitch. The fridge has three power sources: it operates off 240 when we are plugged into mains, or shore power as Scott likes to call it, gas when we are parked up with no outside power, and on the alternator of the car when we are driving, so there is constant refrigeration. When we take off driving the fridge isn’t working off the car as it should so we call New Age (again) and they say to call in on our way out of town.

Mark at New Age tests the cabling and we find there’s no connection to the fridge – Jeff had said all the cables were there for caravanning, so we didn’t check. Maybe Jeff doesn’t like cold beer. Ok what do we do? Turns out this needs a couple of hours at the auto electrician. Booked for Wednesday. It’s Monday and we are on our way 100km down the coast. No problem, we can drive back up on Wednesday.

It’s midday and at last we are leaving town and on our way. Or are we? Why isn’t the rear caravan camera working? Mark! Can you have a look please?

Oh dear. A major hitch. When Scott did a tightish U turn in the caravan yard the cables between the car and the caravan got caught in the towing plate. One severed completely, one partially wrecked and one red face. Mark, the workshop guy, is a Kiwi from Maungaraki so gives Scott shit. Lots of it, while reassuring him he isn’t the first and won’t be the last. Fortunately they are great guys and send us away for a couple hours and get Jordan, another Kiwi who is an auto electrician, on to fixing the mess.

We bring back beers to say thanks, cadge another small favour, and at 4.00pm hit the road, having left the caravan park at 10.00am.

We are now at a small place called Skenners Head, near Ballina on the NSW north coast. Scott has been back to the auto electrician and another several hundred dollars later we have, all the required connections and plugs sorted. We hope we’ve run out of setting up costs as they seem endless. I know you don’t feel sorry for us – I wouldn’t either!

The final countdown

Posted on March 25, 2019 by Bev Marshall

It’s like moving away from home for the first time – you have nothing, except maybe some sheets and towels your Mum gives you. Except we don’t have Mums. But we do have sheets and towels – more than we need here, so let’s take some with us.

With 5 days (5 days!) to go before we embark on our caravan adventure we have lists:

what to take for inside
what to take for outside
what we need to buy for inside and outside – and this list is very, very long
what we need to set up a kitchen
basic pantry – thanks Annabel Langbein for your essential holiday list but I don’t think the caravan is big enough
emergency stuff – everything in Australia, from the climate to the flora and fauna, wants to kill you
oh yes, paying for, registering, and insuring said car and caravan.

Everything needs to be lightweight. The caravan tare (I’m still not sure if that’s pronounced tear or tarry) is 2,700kg and has a fully loaded capacity of 3,500kg. With water tanks carrying 240kg that leaves 560kg for everything else. Sounds like a lot, but think of the weight of the annex, a couple of outdoor chairs and a table, 2 x 35kg gas bottles, bikes (yes we will get bikes), not to mention food, crockery and cutlery, pots and pans, BBQ, linen, clothes, shoes and so on and so on and so on……..I got a migraine reading about caravan tare, vehicle tare, ATM, GVM, TBM and many, many more acronyms I am sure I’ll be tossing around like tennis balls before I’m much older.

Some things aren’t so important for these first weeks of learning to caravan, though I suspect things about towing are important, as we won’t be too far from civilisation. However, come May when we head off into the wilderness we want to be sure we have what we need for day-to-day and emergencies.

The current plan is this: fly to Brisbane on the 30th March 2019 and get the train to Burleigh Heads on the southern Gold Coast to collect the Toyota Land Cruiser VX. We send many tens of thousands of dollars to someone who is, I’m sure, a very trustworthy fellow – he will meet us at the train – or not.

Assuming he has gone to South America with our money, and is at the station to meet us, we’ll drive to the caravan sales yard and check out our baby – the New Age 19LE Manta Ray. When we ordered it back in January we also asked for a grey water tank to be fitted, also bike racks and a front tool box. Assuming all is in order, we will go to stay somewhere and reflect on the magnitude of what we have done. There may be hysteria – there will be drinking.

On April Fools’ Day, which I hope isn’t an omen, we pick up the caravan. There’s a half day orientation to its features. A half day. Clearly caravans are as complicated as VCRs once were. Will we need a teenager to explain things to us?

Scott and Bev are not caravanning

continuing our travels, but not by caravanning