Saturday 6th February 2010.
I had the intention of sitting down and making a report to bring all up to date with our plans only to find that what I put down in the last report was almost exactly what I had in mind to put down today, so it just goes to show that not much is changing. We have set a date for departure of the 4th March, so almost another 4 weeks and we will be on the road again.
Sunday 24th January 2010.
Linda had a few days of baby-sitting last week and will have the same again this week, then the kids all go back to school so that should be the end of that, for Matt and Lou anyway. We are now starting to plan our travels back up to the Sunshine Coast, yes it looks like another quiet year in the warm weather again, we are looking at doing some more touring next year. It seems that it may not be straight forward travel from here just going where we want because Narrelle has a need for Linda to baby-sit a couple of times so our travels might have to be planned around that. I may have to do a little travel from here on my own, to Canberra for eg. and have Linda meet me there, then travel to Port Stephens, Tamworth, Glen Innes and up the New England highway to Brisbane area so she can fly back for another session. I now have a tentative travel plan drawn up so we will just have to wait and see what happens from here.
Saturday 16th January 2010.
We had a day of difference yesterday with a tour to Macedon Ranges. We had a day where we weren’t tied down to doing anything, or visiting the kids, so it was decided that we should go for a drive somewhere and have a look at some scenery around the district instead of our usual act of leaving Melbourne after our annual visit saying “We didn’t do or see anything while there”. Macedon Ranges, between Ballarat and Bendigo, was the order of the day as Hanging Rock, of the famed movie, is in the area and we have been saying for a long time we should have a look. The views from lookouts on the range, and the small towns in the area made the trip worthwhile, but when we arrived at Hanging Rock to find toll gates at the entrance with a fee we decided why should we pay to see another rock just because of its fame, especially when a drive around the hill gives a good view of it anyway. The only thing we didn’t get to do was climb it, but that might not have been an option anyway as Linda had developed a blister on her foot after the walk earlier on the climb to Camels Hump. Today is going to be a relaxing day, maybe a bit of car washing, in readiness for Linda’s upcoming regular babysitting till the kids go back to school.
Wednesday 13th January 2010.
I have taken the plunge once again, and hopefully it will be permanent this time, yes I have stored the pipe away and have filed the few packs of tobacco I have in the cupboard until I decide what to do with them. Most people would say the best thing to do is to throw them out but I keep thinking of the cost of it and would like to think that someone, perhaps needy, may get some good use from it one day, and I reckon that if I can give it up with all the required equipment still stored in the cupboard I would give myself a better chance. I am now on day 4 and going well, and now wish that I hadn’t started again when I went without in WA in 2008. We have just had another few days staying at Nelle and Matt’s baby-sitting as Narrelle had to go to Sydney for a few days and Matt is working, Linda may get a few more days in soon as Matt is to have several trips to Perth WA for work and she would love the chance to keep Nelle company. I am having trouble with the battery charger in the van at the moment, well the old one anyway as it stopped working, so I am in the process of getting a new one. I can’t believe the problems I had getting a charger to do the job I wanted it to. The one I had was good as it was a switch mode type, automatic, sat across the battery permanently, whenever something was turned on the charger took the load and just kept the battery topped up. When the battery was down the charger would provide an actual 10 Amp charge so it didn’t take long to top it up again. They don’t seem to make Switch mode type that simple any more as technology has taken battery chargers to a complete new level. They all seem to have four to seven odd charging phases to ensure the battery is topped up fully, and there seems to be this thing called ‘Pulse Charge’ that they are all into, which is to supposedly disulphate older batteries. I am rather sceptical about running a charger on my battery full time putting out a pulsating DC current continuously as I don’t like the idea of what it might do to any appliance I might connect to it, so I refused to buy one that had Pulse Charge. One other thing I didn’t like about most of them is that one of the charging Phases charged the battery up to something like 15.2 volts, and even 16 volts, and no way are my batteries getting a charge like that. I ended up getting a plain old straight forward transformer type charger with an automatic cut-out and cut-in for maintaining the battery and it should do what I want it to. It seems nowadays most chargers are built to connect to a flat battery to charge it and hold it charged until required for use, and not for the purpose I would like to put it to, unless one wanted to pay an astronomical price for a ‘Switch Mode’ one that does do what I would require.
Tuesday 29th December 2009, Epping.
Epping you might say? No we haven’t made another move, we are house-sitting for Narrelle and Matt while they are away on a few days holiday. It is a very welcome change to be living in a house again, with a garage to work in, so we are enjoying it while it lasts. I have been taking advantage of having the garage, shed, to undertake some rearrangements to the 12volt wiring in the back of the car for carrying the extra fridge, and I have to work out a slightly new packing arrangement for the back of the car as a result of same. I was going to install a battery charger in the car the same as I have in the caravan so I would only have to use the 12volt for the fridges and it would keep the battery at a full charge as well, but, they don’t seem to build a simple switch mode charger any more the same as the other one, they all have a processor controlled multiple function, or mode, charging system that seems too complicated. The other problem is that they all seem to adopt a pulse charge system, to rejuvenate older batteries, that I am not too happy with as I am not sure what the pulsating DC will do to any device I connect to the supply with the charger connected, so the final decision was to just keep the system I have had all along and be happy with it. Well Christmas is over and it is very close to being a new year, we don’t have any plans, as yet, for new years eve, but I’m sure something will come up.
Wednesday 23rd December 2009, Melbourne.
About time to tell what has been happening over the past couple of weeks. As one can imagine our time has been fully occupied with the things that would normally happen at this time of year:- visiting family, Linda filling in time baby-sitting and doing all her Xmas shopping, in fact she is on her final day of shopping today with a venture into the city on the train. I have as usual on our annual visit to Melbourne being rearranging the storage area in the back of ‘Tilly the Truck’ to make things easier for our next year of travelling, things can always be improved. We are still thinking of having a relaxed year again next year with another extended stay on the Sunshine Coast till, hopefully, the financial situation improves a little, but having said that things do change. We are looking forward to a very quiet Xmas on our own this year for the first time that we can remember, as Matt, Lou and family have gone to Tassie to be with Lou’s mum and family, and Narrelle and matt having Matt’s parents down from Albury so we thought we would let them have a dedicated get together with his family. We intend visiting them late afternoon on Xmas day though so we don’t miss out on family all together. So soon all the pre season rush will be over and we can get back to a normal lifestyle once again, but I guess we are not the only ones in that situation.
Tuesday 8th December
One thing I didn’t mention on the last post was that we had our family reunion at Geelong on Sunday the 29th November and it was a well spent day catching up with family members I haven’t seen for quite some time. The reason for the reunion was that it was a year of multiple memorable family birthdays, my 60th, Dorothy’s 70th and Annette’ 50th, a good enough reason for a get together. We are now feeling a lot more comfortable after our move into Craigieburn, even though it is cold, wet and a bit miserable at the moment, as we are closer to the kids and can visit a lot more often. We had an outing planned tonight with Matt’s kids in a school end of year concert, but with the weather as it is it has been postponed until Monday, but we will still go over and visit anyway.
Thursday 3rd December 2009, Craigieburn (Melbourne).
Well here we were thinking that we had settled in at Kilmore for the duration of the Christmas period, and we have now moved into Craigieburn, North of Melbourne on the old Hume Highway. (see map) We weren’t extremely happy with Kilmore this year for several reasons, the site we were put on had no concrete slab and when it rained, and it poured one day, the ground under the annexe filled with water with there being a basic dip in the level of the ground. We had to go out and buy some foam square clip together mats to lift our matting above the water, but still the end result, because it was always damp, was to create a very musky smell in the annexe especially when it was closed up for any period. We also decided that we weren’t really saving anything by staying there with all the trips we were having into Melbourne, especially when we found out that Apollo Gardens in Craigieburn, where we usually stay when in Melbourne, once again has a deal for long term residents, so the decision was made to move here and after partly setting up we almost feel like being at home again. The move has proved fruitful already as Linda packed up and went to Port Melbourne, not long after we got here, to baby sit for Matt and Lou, and Narrelle rang earlier to ask me round for tea. Seeing we are now much closer to Narrelle’s the reply wasn’t very hard to consider.
Thursday 26th November 2009, Kilmore.
We are experiencing the hassles of getting a caravan site without a concrete slab, as is the case here due to not having much of a choice when we arrived. Typical Victorian weather has so far thrown everything at us and on two occasions so far we have had a downpour that heavy we have had pools of water outside the door of the van. We suffered the first time, but went out and bought some thick foam square matting that all clip together to make a large flooring, and this made us a little more prepared for what was thrown at us today. Today was a new experience with rain though: We were actually on the road coming home when the downpour occurred and when we got home we found the water had actually come in the partially opened windows and drowned the seats, we have never experienced this yet, the wind must have been that strong the rain must have been coming down horizontally.
Anyway for more cheery things: My 60th birthday, yesterday, celebrations are now over, just having a small one with some of the family, so now it is time to try to settle down to somewhat of a normal routine, if that is possible nearing Christmas and all, and having the family close by.
Friday 20th November 2009, Kilmore.
Once again I can’t believe it has been a week since the last report. I know we had the idea of relaxing at Cobram, seeing it was such a nice place to do just that, but again we didn’t do much at all while there and the time was gone before we knew it. We are now at Kilmore, near Melbourne (see map), and will be here for a while over the Christmas period. This may be an on and off stay as we may just pack up occasionally and go for a visit somewhere. We have over the years been saying we would like to do this and see some of Victoria while down this way, but we inevitably spend all our time here visiting the Kids, so we really should do it this year.
