The Wandering Tews

Friday 12^th March 2010, Wellington.

Cootamundra is another one of those towns that one could relax in for a while, but then there are quite a few of them in this area, we travelled through quite a few again today without even stopping. We keep saying it, but we would enjoy having quite some time in this area to just check out these small towns, but in saying that there are numerous areas the same throughout the country, so its no wonder that we think that we will never get to completely see all the districts in depth that we would like to. We have now moved on about 300K to Wellington (see map) to visit K and A and it was nice to catch up with them again, and it will be nice to just sit around here and veg. for as long as we can, even it can only be for a maximum of about 10 days or so. It has already proved well worth coming this far north as it is warmer already, as is proven by the fact that I am sitting here at 9:00 PM writing this and still have my shorts on, I haven’t been able to keep my shorts on of an evening for some time now.

Wednesday 10^th March 2010, Cootamundra, NSW.

Another move after all the wet weather now sees me at Cootamundra (see map) North of Gundagai and Wagga Wagga. The main reason for stopping here is that it is the last train stop for Linda to embark from the train to Sydney that is in the area of our travel plans, she is on her way here very soon. The train turns south from Cootamundra on to Yass, which is back down on the Hume highway at the intersection to Canberra, and then follows the Hume to Sydney. Our travel plans are not too stringent so we are on our way to Wellington to visit K and A for a week or so, then I want to go to Port Stephens for a week and must get there before Easter, and high park prices. Then we will have a month to get to the Sunshine Coast so Linda can return to Melbourne for a short visit.

Monday 8^th March 2010, Wodonga.

I have been telling everybody that I am glad that I left Melbourne when I did, but we were hit with heavy rain here as well. It was the hail that Melbourne had that I was fortunate to miss because I hate to think what it would do to the solar panels on the roof of the van, and the van and car. We have had heaps of rain, as did the entire state of Victoria, but not the floods as Melbourne had, and I have had to extend my stay here for a couple of days to give everything a chance to dry out. Not that I have had a problem with things getting wet, I have been ok inside the van and under the small roof I erected outside, but I just need to give the ground etc. a chance to dry a little. Linda sent me a message last night saying she was having trouble with water invading Matt and Lou’s house at several points, I will have to give her a ring later to find out how bad it was. This extra time here will give me a chance to do some washing, and Linda is due to meet up with me tomorrow so it will save her travelling any further.

Thursday 4^th March 2010, Wodonga.

Yeah, back on the road again, although it being without Linda. She had a late call for baby-sitting this weekend so I left her there in Melbourne and started to make my way north on my own and she will catch a train or something to meet up with me where ever I am. I got as far as Wodonga today, on the NSW border. I chose to stay somewhere different to where we normally stay in Albury just for something different, as I have had my eye on this, The Wodonga Caravan Park, for some time and never thought to check it out. We actually had some not so good reports about this park from a web site I found so I decided to find out for myself how good the park was, or not, as the reports on the web were a bit old. My impressions so far is that it is a little cramped but tidy, but the next few days will give me a better idea as it is forecast for rain and thunderstorms and that is the sort of thing that ultimately gives one a good or bad experience that influences ones ideas. I guess one is getting somewhat used to settling in one place for an extended time nowadays, as the trip today seemed a fair bit out of the ordinary as one is not used to it lately, but I’m sure it won’t take long to come back. It is going to be interesting over the next couple of years as to where we go because, while we were watching a TV show on the Nullarbor the other night, Linda was heard to say that she would like to go across there again. This threw me aback a little as I too have been having ideas that I would probably like to go to WA again one day, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see us try it again, at least this time we will be prepared for it.

Monday 1^st March 2010, Melbourne.

The time is very nearly here again to pack up and start our move north. I plan on leaving here on Thursday, but Linda has been called on to baby-sit and will be staying back for a few days. It wasn’t Narrelle that called on her services but Matthew and Lou, so it is now looking like she will come and meet me at Albury on Monday or so. The plan is to pack up the annexe tomorrow so we will have Wednesday to make sure all is roadworthy with the van, meaning the things that haven’t been checked during the problems we had recently on our journey down here, then on Thursday just casually head north and see where, being on my own, end up. I am looking at rest areas to possibly do a couple of nights camping out, but then we will see what happens.

Saturday 6^th 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 4^th March, so almost another 4 weeks and we will be on the road again.

Sunday 24^th 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 16^th 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 13^th 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 29^th 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.