Does electrical trouble come in threes?

We hope it does, as we have had some trouble this week. A couple of days ago John turned the tv on for the first day of the cricket, well he tried to anyway. No response. We flashed back to a couple of years ago when we had huge problems with our then tv in the van. Not so bad this time, we found a tv repairman locally and he was able to fix it that day, costing us around $100 (slightly less for cash). Last night Wendy turned on the microwave and phhhtt - it sounded just like a light globe does when it goes, turn on and less than a second later, ping! No microwave, no clock, no power, no nothing. While we were eating dinner only 10 minutes later (including raw beans, it was way too late to cook them in a pot) - beep! short pause - beep! The smoke alarm decided that its battery needed replacing. At least it wasn't at 2 am, which seems to be the normal time that smoke alarms do their thing. After dinner we hunted around for a replacement battery, but couldn't find one so had to get one at the supermarket today. Today we also figured out how to get the microwave out of its bracket, which wasn't easy. We measured it up and headed off to Harvey Norman (which was open despite the Australia Day public holiday), they had nothing even vaguely similar, we needed to get one the same size so it would fit snugly back in the bracket. We came home and had a look on the net, then off to Big W for a replacement. Not quite as good as the one that has gone, but at least it is the right size. We considered waiting until tomorrow and going off to the repairman again, but at less than $150 for new it didn't seem worthwhile.

So our 3 electrical failures have cost us rather more than we would have liked, but at least they have all been overcome quickly.

New Year with Family

A few days after Christmas we put the van into storage in Armidale and drove down to Sydney to visit family. Once again John's sister and her husband kindly opened their home to us, we used this as a base to visit his children and grandchildren. We really enjoyed a Christmas visit with the kids for the first time in a few years, how do they get so big so fast? We also played golf with John's son and brother, the family competition was taken very seriously.

Over the New Year weekend we headed down to Jervis Bay for a few days, to visit Wendy's sister and her partner who are currently staying there. We hadn't seen them for about 18 months, so it was great to get together. We went to the fireworks at Huskisson on NYE, along with thousands of other holiday makers, luckily for us old fogeys these were at 9:00 so we were all tucked up in bed well before the magic hour.

Jervis Bay has many miles of beaches and bush, we went for several long walks while we were there. In Booderee National Park we visited the ruins of the Cape St George lighthouse. This was built to warn ships about the aptly named Wreck Bay, but the surveyor was more concerned in finding a site easy to build on rather than the most suitable position. Thirty-eight years later a replacement lighthouse was built on the other side of Jervis Bay, but even then the original lighthouse caused confusion to passing ships, particularly on moonlit nights when the sandstone glowed, so eventually explosives were used to reduce it to rubble.

We had a wonderful time on our 'holiday' away from the van, and once again thank everyone who provided hospitality.

Christmas in Armidale

One of the problems with living in the caravan is finding somewhere to spend school holidays. Anywhere on the coast tends to be a family holiday destination, and not only escalates in price but fills up with kids. This year we've decided to spend the Christmas period in Armidale, on the New England Tablelands in central NSW. Like most of the east coast, the summer is struggling to get started in Armidale. Most days we've been here have been fairly cool - we've even got out the winter doona again.


The first day we were here we did the half day heritage bus tour, provided free from the visitor information centre. Armidale has a lot of lovely old buildings, with lots of verandahs and iron lace work. After the bus tour we did the heritage walk around town, getting a closer up view of the architecture.


On another day we drove 200km northwards to Tenterfield, made famous in the Peter Allen song 'Tenterfield Saddler'. The saddler's building is still there, with no resident saddler but still selling leather goods. Apart from the local heritage walk we also did an interesting drive around various granite outcrops and to the local lookout.

Not yet sated with local heritage, we did a scenic drive down to Uralla, about 20km south, where we once again did the heritage walk around town. The New England area is all Captain Thunderbolt country, and there are numerous sites scattered throughout the tablelands supposedly used by the 1860s bushranger. Captain Thunderbolt was shot and killed just near Uralla, and they are as proud of him as if he had discovered a cure for cancer.


Christmas Day was cool and cloudy, ideal weather to indulge in a Christmas dinner of duck and ham with roasted veg, along with some delicious sparkling. Once again John excelled himself, with Wendy taking advantage of it being her birthday to relax and be indulged.

Coffs Harbour

We've had 3 weeks at Coffs Harbour, on the NSW mid-north coast. We spent 5 weeks here a little over 3 years ago, when we did our 3 month 'shake-down' trip of the caravan, and at that time we did most of the tourist sights in the area (the most famous of which is the 'Big Banana'). So we've spent most of our time here this time relaxing, playing golf and contemplating our future. After almost 3 years on the road we feel we've covered most of Australia, and we're getting close to being ready to settle down again. With reportedly just about the best temperate climate in the world Coffs is an attractive place to make a home base, and we have decided to take the plunge, purchasing a block of land here. Now all we have to do is engage a builder, design a house and have it built - simple really! Luckily we don't have to actually be present for most of this process, so we will still spend most of 2012 travelling, but hope to be in our new house by Christmas next year. Exciting times!

Gone From Queensland

After 3 months making our way slowly down the Queensland coast, we've finished in Queensland and headed south to NSW. We covered nearly 2,000 kilometres from the northern tropics to the state's south east, staying at or near most major population centres and experiencing most of the tourist delights on offer. The best known attraction of the northern Queensland coast is of course the Great Barrier Reef, the only living thing that can be seen from space. We visited Green Island and Magnetic Island and went snorkelling at the Low Isles near Port Douglas, we could have visited any number of other islands and had lots of other boat, snorkelling or diving trips, but we figured that after a while all coral starts to look the same.

We did quite a bit of walking at various national parks, although not much of it was wildly memorable - it seems that the western parts of this country offer much more spectacular experiences. Still, various waterfalls, gorges and coastal views have kept us sufficiently interested.

The countryside is remarkably similar all down the coast. Sugar cane fields stretch from north of Cairns down to Bundaberg, and the ubiquitous Australian scrub fills up many of the spaces in between. You can tell the local rainfall level by the colour of the landscape, vibrant green around Cairns and Tully, a lot browner around Townsville.

One thing that sets the Queensland coast apart from the west coast of Australia is the number of large towns, even cities. Our longest journey between stops was less than 400km, several times we had not much more than 100km, or even less, between places to stay. And in between the places we chose to stay at there were always innumerable villages and towns. Contrast this with the northern half of Western Australia, where you can do journeys of 700km without passing through a single settlement!

Having got as far south as Bundaberg we decided we really couldn't face the huge conurbation that is the Sunshine Coast/Brisbane/Gold Coast megalopolis, so travelled for 2 days down to Coffs Harbour, on the NSW mid-north coast. We'll now sit back for a few weeks and think about where our journey will take us next year.