Thursday...2 July 2015

Moving day again. Echuca to Bendigo........sort of!
Up nice and early, have you seen how bloody cold it is first thing in the morning? Anyway, unlike some of the occupants of this caravan, I was up just after seven o'clock. I did have the alarm set for half past but the little room was calling me very loudly so gave up and just got up earlier than planned. Then we went through the usual routine of me calling him and him ignoring me or just plain rolling over and going back to sleep for a while before reluctantly getting up and getting started on the moving day routine. Hooray. Progress.
So we did eventually get packed up and hooked up and off we went, just before the mandatory ten o'clock check out time.  Five minutes later having just exited the caravan park and established our travel sequence there was an almighty metallic CRACKING that was loud enough to have every one walking in the street we were driving down, stop and look at us!
Now we all know this cannot be good!
As soon as we could, about five hundred metres further along our route, we pulled over to check out the rig. Hmmmm he says as he disappeared under the wheel area of the caravan. What what what I said as I wondered what the hell had happened. Himself eventually came out from under the caravan to inform me that we had a broken spring hanger. Yep, know what he means, keep breaking hangers myself!
Apparently not so simple. We had to unhook the caravan beside the road and I got to sit in it and be guard dog while he drove off to see what he could do about spare parts. So I sat with a cup of tea and a biscuit and a magazine and several crosswords and a novel and my phone to wait for his return. Three hours later he came back....... empty handed.
Next move was to ring the youngest brother and ask him for technical information in the form of local knowledge for likely places to acquire the needed spare parts. We also asked for a couple of lumps of wood of a certain height to help raise the caravan to enable the repairs to happen. Bless him he dropped everything and came to help. Thanks LB, much appreciated.
Himself eventually sourced the needed bits and then spent nearly an hour on his back in the dirt under the caravan to replace not one but two spring hangers as he found that the other one was also broken. Clever man bought four on the off chance he would need them so now he will make time and replace the other two as well and then we should have no further trouble with them as the ones he used as replacements are way stronger than the originals.
By now it was three thirty and we could finally head off to Bendigo. It was nearly five o'clock when we arrived and then we had another hiccup. The site we were booked on had been taken off us and given to a bigger rig that was staying longer. Damn! But the park owner personally escorted us to the area we were assigned and offered us a double site which is actually better than where we were meant to be. Win win for us.
We were way late for happy hour but golly that first glass tasted sooooo good!
By the time we got to site it was getting dark so we did a lick and promise set up and will fix everything properly tomorrow. We are way too tired today to bother any more.