Thursday...28 November 2013

On Monday we moved from our daughters to my sister's place for a change of scenery. The last couple of days have been very warm but as I type it is sprinkling gentle rain and the temperature has dropped off quite a lot. Will not take my eye off the sky just yet as it has been known to hail and storm in this district sometimes.
I love to visit my relatives. Every so often one of them comes out with a bit of family history that shocks or surprises the hell out of me. Its a bit like reading a really thick book over years and years rather than a few days.

Sunday...24 November 2013

Well the roof is on the daughters new shed, it has been a fascinating process to watch but must admit I am no longer a fan of  the constant noise and love the weekends when the contractors are not here! Only the flashing, guttering and doors left to do. Should be finished this week.
Today my foster mother is having her 80th birthday. She will be surrounded by love and the people she cares about so will no doubt enjoy her special milestone.

Wednesday...20 November 2013

Sitting at our daughters place in Victoria watching the contractors build a huge shed that is replacing several old smaller sheds. Fascinating to watch, it is a bit like a big meccano set, but now they are up to putting the tin walls on and in the process they are taking away my view of the surrounding paddocks. All I can see out my big window now is a tin wall! Must be time to move.......to another part of the property!
The weather has been crazy. Some days are clear but cool, some are wet and wild, and we have also had glorious sunny hot days. Today is cold, windy and murky. Think it will rain. One day we have the air conditioner on and today we are back to having the heater on and it is nearly the end of November. Crazy!

Thursday...14 November 2013

So here we are in Victoria. They are having their coldest, wettest November in like a 100 years or so and we are (un)lucky enough to be here for it! It is all in the timing and we have it down to a fine art.
I am sitting here with the newly acquired heater going flat out, waiting for the temperature inside our caravan to get to double digits before I attempt to get dressed.
On the plus side, all this rain is giving the new roof a workout and I am pleased to report that so far we are nice and dry inside. Very good news.

Monday...11 November 2013

Will I remember them? Too bloody right I will. I will remember every last one of the lousy caravan parks I stay at and I will tell as many people as I can not to go there! 

I am totally fed up with the attitude of some parks to Fifth Wheeler Caravans. Some park operators treat us as a lower class of traveller and they also think we use more of their facilities while we are in their park. We are not always given the warm red carpet welcome that normal caravaners get.

Like caravans there is two of us, we have an electric jug, toaster, microwave and fridge the same as them, in fact they often have more than us as some have inbuilt washing machines and dishwashers etc.  They are welcomed, we are often shunned and given impossible sites.

We were left for more than 7 minutes before being attended to on arrival yesterday, while the female manager took a personal call and got disgruntled when her husband pointed out that she had a customer waiting.

We did mention that last time we were there a particular site had been perfect for us but no, we could not have that one, she said it was booked! We spent the night and all next morning looking at that particular spot, that empty spot, in fact there were several empty spots that would have been much better for us that we were not offered.  Last night we had to shoehorn our van onto a site between two close together trees, making putting out our slides difficult, the site was unlevel and in the back row of the park and the sullage point was blocked. 

Did they care? Of course not! They had their money, our difficulty was of no concern of theirs. We could have left, but most parks have a no refund policy for leaving earlier than booked.

So there you go folks, stay away from the biggest and apparently the best park in Pt Augusta!

This entry has been heavily edited by Himself..........I can sometimes be a little outspoken when I am upset! (I still think my version is more accurate!)

Sunday...10 November 2013

Another Nullabor crossing done and dusted!
We took our time again and camped out for two nights making it a three day trip.
Last night we stayed in Ceduna and today we did another long haul and are in Port Augusta.
Of course we saw the usual push bike riders, we even chatted to a female French bike rider who was hitching a lift across the Nullabor rather than riding it, we also saw someone pulling a cart and on another occasion we passed two people running across the damned thing! The usual smattering of roadkill and large numbers of road trains and oversized loads rounded out another interesting drive.

Wednesday...6 November 2013

Much cooler night last night and a fairly pleasant day today.
Himself went off to look at the Mining Hall of Fame and Museum and the famous Superpit.

I had coffee with his aunt who came over to see the caravan for herself at last. She liked it, she really really liked it!
After a late lunch we took the tour of one of Kalgoorlie's famous Hay Street brothels. This was an entertaining, informative, educational and highly interesting couple of hours. The tour was conducted by the madam herself who has owned the business for 21 years and is very open and encourages questions. During our tour the madam actually turned away people as her little place was too full to fit anyone else in, so there you go, a madam who turned people from the door! Would not have believed it unless I had actually seen it happening.

I would have liked to look to see if I could afford a small gold nugget but by the time we left the brothel  my back was killing me from the long periods of standing and I know I am leaving myself wide open saying it but I could hardly walk and had to forget going shopping! Never mind, maybe we will come back one day and I can get one then.
Tomorrow we head off across the Nullabor. Last time we crossed there was not a lot of mobile reception out there so we may be off air for a few days.

Tuesday...5 November 2013

What a night! Himself turned the air conditioner off late in the evening as he thought it was finally cooler, I did not agree! Come morning I moaned about the lack of sleep owing to the heat, Himself muttered about the number of trains that passed us during the night. Seriously, I hardly heard them even though we were parked right beside the busiest rail line in Western Australia. That caravan park has the Great Eastern Highway as its front fence complete with the constant flow of trucks passing in the night on their way to Perth with their important loads of freight, and on the other side of that is the main rail line between Sydney and Perth with their competing loads of freight from the Eastern States. Constant and noisy. Not a lot of sleep.

We were up and travelling fairly early today, like everyone else in that caravan park!

Somewhere during the day the Melbourne Cup stopped a nation but we motored on stopping in Coolgardie to discover that Gai Waterhouse had won her first Cup with an Irish horse.

We made it into Kalgoorlie and met up with Himself's aunt who was pleased to see us and invited us to dinner at one of the local hotels and we have just returned from a wonderful dinner and lots of catching up She will come to visit us tomorrow for a first hand look at the inside of the travelling taj mahal. So hope she likes it.

Monday...4 November 2013

Picked up the van from the roof repair man this morning and headed off towards the eastern states. Very happy with the results. Just waiting for it to settle down and if it is as good as it looks we will be telling everyone how good it is along the way.
We passed the necessary bike rider and met the usual oversized loads. All is well on the state's roads!
The weather has warmed up at last. Not sure how I feel about that. I like warm, I do not do hot any more as the old body is not very fond of that. Still it is way better than cold......
Kalgoorlie tomorrow. Maybe we will meet up with some new acquaintances who are planning to head off on a holiday in the next day or so.
Himself says he intends to do the brothel tour. Can't fool me, he probably has seen it all already!!!!!!! I am hoping to find myself a genuine Kalgoorlie gold nugget, even if it is in a jewellery store......lol.
Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup Day. I guess the winner will be a horse. We will be travelling so will save our money and watch the replay when we make camp for the day.

Sunday...3 November 2013

Himself has been to look at the caravan and says the roof is fixed! Just waiting for the stuff to cure and tomorrow we can be on our merry way. Much excitement. He has gone down to the shed to use the roof man's scaffolding to clean and polish the rest of the caravan while the opportunity is there to reach all the high bits. He might get a bit warm as the weather is supposed to reach 36 today!

There is a group of people having a club meeting in this park this weekend, much chatter and laughter floating around our cabin as old friends meet and catch up with their news. The air down this way is crystal clear and every little noise travels quite a way!!

WOW! 29,000 hits, maybe my wanderings are interesting after all. Thanks for reading everyone.

Friday...1 November 2013

Dreadful night moaning and groaning in my broken sleep from the pain of a migraine. Himself was up early and headed off to the roof man's place to fetch the desperately needed pills from our caravan and I have spent the day pilled to the gills and sleeping off the headache and the effects of the heavy medication needed to bring it under control.
This is a beautifully maintained caravan park and today they were fixing their internal roads, trust me to throw a migraine on the day they are working beside our cabin. Most of the day there was machinery of all sorts working just outside my bedroom window, quite an experience!
Did get the bug spray and sugar so all is well in our household. No more sugar withdrawal for me and the mozzies  have been put on notice with a quick squirt of the spray.
There is birds all over the place. Tonight we saw a mother duck with her nine ducklings and several other ducks plus a whole flock of beautiful green parrots and a chicken wandered past too. I think maybe the ducks are safe but that chook should check the calendar, its nearly time for Christmas dinner!