An eventful trip

Life is never dull

The thing about impromptu trips is that you don't plan for them.  Which is all well and fine if Peter did what we had intended and left everything packed in the caravan so that when impromptu trips happened, we had everything we need.  Just before we left Kylie's place he decided that we would have a few days' holiday together.  He thought Canberra would be nice, there are things there that we enjoy visiting.  However President Obama was also visiting so it was pretty well in lockdown at the time so we decided the Queanbeyan would be good.  For those of you who don't speak Australian, Queanbeyan is pronounced Queen bee ann, with the emphasis on the first syllable.  It is located near to our Capital city Canberra, but is actually located in New South Wales, not the ACT (Australian Capital Territory).  So we pass back and forward across the border several times a day for shopping etc without even being aware that we are doing so.  One of the shops we visit is only 11kms away, and it is in the ACT.

We left Kylie's house around 11am, on Wednesday, stopped for lunch at Parkes,(sidenote: so named in honour of Sir Henry Parkes, otherwise known as the "Father of the Federation". because he is recognised in Australia as having played an instrumental role in Australia becoming a unified country.)  This is a town that used to have family connections for my brother. 10 minutes after we left there we heard on the radio that there had been a huge accident in Parkes, and there were long traffic delays, so we timed that well.

We arrived at our younger daughter's town around 4 or so, and booked in to the caravan park in town because last time we went to her property we had difficulty getting the caravan into her driveway because of the angle needed to get in.  It had been a long day, getting up at 5 to pack the van so son-in-law Ray and Peter could remove the gates from the rear of the property to get the van out of Kylie and Ray's yard before he left for work at 7am.  We were both tired and Peter didn't feel like facing a tricky manouver to get into Kirsten's yard.

It is half an hour's drive out to Kirstie's property, so we simply unhitched and drove out.  We were met by our grandchildren and could really see how the 'baby', Michael, who has just turned two, has grown up even more just in the few weeks since Kirsten visited Kylie's.  He was most impressed with a 'ding' that Peter has put in the running board of our car, and kept telling us 'bang' (with hand actions) and 'ouch' and running out to look at it again.

We spent several hours with them that afternoon and had a great meal with them. Next morning we were hitched up again and arrived back at Kirstie's.  She had permitted James and Grace to stay home from school for part of the day because they wanted to spend more time with us, and they had baked some lovely biscuits in our honour.  They are growing up so fast - James is now 10, Grace will be 9 in December.  Chelsea has just turned 5 and we had birthday presents for her and also for Michael who had his 2nd birthday this week so they had fun opening them.  Michael was quite blase when he saw the caravan at the front of the property, he obviously remembers it from Kylie's.

We were reluctant to leave them all but had another four hours' drive to Queanbeyan, so left around 12.  We arrived here to find that the girl who took our booking hadn't written it down!  They were fully booked, but put us in an emergency site next to a store-room for the night at no charge.  And fortunately we still had power and water.

On Friday we were given our choice between two sites, chose our preferred one and moved.  We aren't on a slab, and that's when Peter told me that he had taken the flooring for the annexe out of the boot and left it at my brother's, where the van is stored at the moment.  So  off he went to the hardware store to buy some shade cloth to make a temporary floor.

Then another trip in the afternoon for a new stepladder because he had taken ours off the roof-rack (he needs it to reach to put the annexe up - neither of us is what you'd call tall).  And a third trip for a stiff broom because as I was helping Pete put the annexe walls up I discovered that the ground is covered in small 'things' that are sharp underfoot and hence would be uncomfortable under the shadecloth!!!  and guess where our stiff broom is?

Then he tells me that the side wall won't meet the long wall by a good 2" so it can't be done up! We have a new awning for the van, because the first one was damaged on our long trip. At least it isn't cold.  It is in the 30's degC most days, but hopefully won't reach the 38 that it was at Narromine. It would have been good to know that before his third trip to the hardware and he could have bought some more shadecloth to at least cover the gap so mossies don't carry Nathan off during the night.

That was just before he discovered that our sullage pipe has been damaged (again) on the trip - maybe on the miles of dirt road that go out to Kirstie's property, and broken off just near a bracket and that the water runs under the van through the annexe. Somehow this seems to be turning out to be an - eventful - trip!! Peter spent a couple of hours trying to fix it, and we couldn't let any water out of the sinks overnight, and we can't have a shower because he used liquid nails for the join and he doesn't think it is a good join anyway. .

On Saturday morning it worked really well - for about 10 minutes! 

I've googled and found a caravan parts place and we might  buy a shade cloth end for the annexe (we have wanted one anyway so it's a good excuse) and we'll have to see what we can do about the pipe.

And yes, I will get to that doctor!!!  I have a nasty cough and don't feel at all well, and the indications are that I have a chest infection.

And just to top it off, our satellite dish won't turn on lol!  We had a second satellite control box installed just before we left and could choose between two satellites.  They both worked fine, and we used the same satellite control to turn the dish on and off.  Of course when we packed up to move we put the satellite 'to bed' - in other words, told it to lay itself flat on the roof.  Which it did.  Now when we tell it to wake up - it won't turn on!  Isn't technology just wonderful?  Fortunately we can still use the normal aerial for television, we have religious DVDs to play on our DVR so we are not exactly hard done by.  But it is confusing.