The Gap - Minlaton - 8th October 2011

We spent four nights at the Gap during that time we just relaxed, went for the odd walk and mucked about doing some maintenance on the rigs. The weather was overcast for most of the time and it was one of the few times i have got the Honda generator out to charge up the Van batteries. The Honda is 5 years old and has performed faultlessly in the time's we have used it, i topped it up with fuel and started it up and after a few minutes it gave a cough and started running rough. Thinking it was a dirty spark plug i checked it and also gave the filter a clean but the generator would only run on full choke.

Bob had an on line service manual for it and after having a quick look decided to check and clean the fuel filter, easy said than done as it required the plastic body to be removed to gain access. By this time Noel had wandered over and gave me a hand, after stripping the body off and finding what we thought was the filter and giving it a blow through with compressed air we put it all back together only to have it not start at all. IT WAS THEN the penny dropped!! i had filled the tank with DIESEL !! ....... talk about a dumb moment, with Noel walking away mumbling to himself about dumb bastard awards i quickly emptied the tank, gave it a flush and refilled it with unleaded petrol, a pull start and away it went running better than ever.

On the last night we had a lovely meal with each camp contributing, mains was a lovely camp oven roast pork cooked by Muzza and Judy, Vickie made a potato bake and Judy P cooked the veggies with Denise and Noel making a lovely chocolate pudding for desert.




We left the Gap and drove to Maitland for a restock before heading to Rob and Glenda's property just out of Minlaton. With 4 vans to start with we formed a square and produced the fire pots for our 2nd Fire Pot Challenge, we had a new contestant with Bob's SS Keg conversion which was named the Holy Pail, along with Muzza and Judy's Pig, Noel's Tankard & our Kimble we soon had the fires roaring which was just as well as it was a chilly night. David and Maureen Walker also turned up and camped alongside us all.



I enjoy looking around old property's especially at their 'Bunnings' section - the old tip. A lot of history can be seen in the old dumps with plenty of car bodies and machinery. Farmers throw nothing away, they never know just when they might need some steel, wheel, cog etc to bodgy up some useful piece of gear.



The main reason we had come was to celebrate Rob's 60th Birthday, they had around 50 - 60 other guests attending on the Saturday night. Friday prior Rob had two large lambs to cut up and get ready for the BBQ. I helped bone out the legs & forequarter's and Rob and his SIL took care of the rest with a dangerous looking band saw. Bob had a semi secret recipe for marinating the shoulders so that is where they ended up for 24 hours.

Late Saturday afternoon the friends started arriving so that was time to have a beer or ten, I helped Bob cook the BBQ shoulders and carve them up, Adrian was cooking up the chops and snaggers. The girls helped by contributing salads and Vickie made 3 large potatoe bakes, no one was going hungry here. We all enjoyed ourselves during the evening but due to the early start by most of us we headed back to our vans by 10.30, all starting to show our ages.

Glenda and Rob

Next morning it was the Bacon and Egg Recovery breakfast which went down a treat. Not long after that we had said our goodbyes and headed towards Adelaide where we would be based at our Daughters for a fortnight helping them do some jobs on their newly purchased home.