June 2015 - Ningaloo South Lefroy Bay

Ningaloo 2015 will be remembered for the excellent weather we encountered, and the company of family and friends. Also it will be remembered due to the troubles we had with our brand new Landcruiser 200s VX. We had only taken delivery of our car a week before going away and four days of that was spent with it in Ultimate 4WD having it fitted out with upgraded GVM suspension, BullBar and winch, roof rack and rear storage drawers. Upon getting it back I quickly loaded up our gear hooked up to our caravan and left the next day for Ningaloo.

We only got as far as Moore River when the car started violently shaking and loud banging noises, quickly pulling over my 1st thought was a flat tyre or a collapsed shock absorber, I could see nothing wrong but knew that things were not good so I called Ultimate who could not shed any light so We decided to turn around and head back home. The next day (Saturday) I took the car into Ultimate and they straight away determined the fault was a front left hand CV joint (drive axle). On the Monday I got the call to say it was fixed and they apologised as the problem was caused by them when fitting the new suspension. I believe in life that shit happens but it's how it's dealt with is more important than whinging about it, I obviously was disappointed but accepted the facts and looked forward to heading away again.

Due to our delay in getting our car and then it's drama we had kept having to tell friends Glenn & Karen that our meeting up with them along the road somewhere kept getting changed, they decided to go into Coral Bay for a few days which gave us time to have things fixed and then arranged to meet them at the entrance to Ningaloo Homestead in two days time. I was keen to get there so we left at 4am and after a relaxed comfortable drive finally arrived to surprise them that night around 8pm. The difference in towing our van with the new 200 compared to our previous 79 series was one of quietness and comfort it will certainly have its limitations compared to how handy the ute was but the
comfort factor for our bodies will out weigh any disadvantages.

After being here a week I drove to the Homestead and upon returning to camp we could smell oil from the car, a look underneath revealed oil coming from the front diff and the CV joint had pulled out again. A phone call to Ultimate to let them know and I left the arranging of flat top truck and repairs to them to organise. This was not going to be a cheap exercise for them but they assured me they would do everything required to have this sorted and find out why it kept happening. It finally took 14 days before getting our car back, nothing quick happens in Exmouth. I have now had the car back a fortnight and all appears to be ok apart from a noise coming from the front left brake but most likely sand in the brake pads, the Kinetic KDSS needs to be reset as one side is higher than the other this will be done when we get back and Ultimate go completely over it checking that everything is ok. It certainly has been a huge inconvenience and disappointing especially given that the car is new and has been away longer than we have had it. My confidence in my decision to buy the 200 has wavered but I don't regret doing it. I'm also confident that Ultimate 4WD will continue to make sure that we are happy as they are extremely apologetic.

So the past 6 weeks we have settled in at our camp, we have enjoyed the company of our son Dan and Elle with their two young girls Eve & Heather for a week, Glenn & Karen stayed with us for 5 weeks and have left for Tom Price, Trev & Ashley have also left and so has Maddison who flew in for a week so it's just Dave & Jo and us to see out our last week. Our time has been spent kayaking and fishing, Vickie has enjoyed being able to get on the water as she can get stir crazy :-) sitting around the camp.

Another beautiful Ningaloo sunset

Paradise

Mick and Vickie at Norwegian Bay old whaling station

Awesome time with family and friends

The new Landcruiser and filling the water bladder

Glenn and Karen leaving Ningaloo

Dave, Trevor, Mick

Karen and Glenn

Billy's famous fish & chip night

Ashley & Trev, awesome couple.

Our rig

Poppy and Eve and her 1st Fish her Daddy caught.

Dan & Eve

Eve loving the big sand pit

Bath time for Eve & Heather

Our Niece, Maddison

Another Happy hour!

On our trip home we stopped at Carnarvorn (Apologies again Tammy) and whilst Vickie was getting some fruit and veg a pretender to the throne pulled up alongside us. :-) Joe and his wife were from Ferntree Gully Victoria and on a big lap around Oz, I'm glad he couldn't spell NIKNOFF correctly lol

Pretender to the Throne :-)

Its been a while, May 2015

Its been a year since we Nicked Off with the van, after coming home a year ago we have concentrated on doing some much needed maintenance around our home plus a 3.5 month trip touring UK & Europe with good mates Geoff & Vickie. Also i have undergone another spinal fusion at two levels so that brings my tally to 3 fusions and 2 hip replacements, talk about bionic man ! i certainly set the metal detectors off at the airports. :-)

Recovering from surgery gave me time to reflect about our choice of vehicle, i absolutely love the Toyota VDJ79 Ute we have but we were again in a dilemma of not having a rear seat and having decided to share our time between home and away we really needed a family car so why not get one that can tow the Van, hence i started inquiring about a new 200 series Landcruiser. Sixty minutes later i had decided and had contacted a few dealers to get a price.

To shorten the story, i was happy to do a deal with Bunbury Toyota whom we have purchased vehicles from in the past and we had a 4 month wait for our new VX 200 to arrive. Not having won lotto it meant selling my Ute, i wasn't expecting to sell it within a fortnight but sell it did, a nice young bloke took one look and bought it, he was very happy.

Fast forward 4 months and after a slight delay in delivery we were the owners of a shiny glacier white VX, 1st impressions were its very flash but what i liked in particular was the smoothness and quietness compared to my old 'farm truck' of course compromises had to be made because it did not have a large alloy canopy to load all my gear and it also meant i had to spend more money to add some basic extras such as Bullbar, winch, storage drawers, UHF and the most important a GVM 3800kg suspension upgrade consisting of Dobinson springs & Bilstein shocks.

At this time of year we are normally sitting at Ningaloo but with the delay in delivery and then the time spent getting the extras added to the car we hope to be leaving in a couple of days time. It will be a new experience cruising up to Ning in luxury, I am sure there will be times i wish i still had the ute especially when fishing on the beach, this 200 seems just to nice to even get sand between the tyres but it will :-)

Stay tuned for updates as they happen.

The jury is still out on the bull-bar, i was supposed to get the ARB Deluxe bar fitted but a mistake was made and a Sahara Bar was fitted, the company Ultimate 4WD have offered to replace it when we get back, they are an excellent company to deal with and can recommend them.

Turning The Wheels Update - June 2014

Having been home we have fitted right back in catching up with all the things that required doing when a home hasn't received any owners TLC for the past 6 years. Plus to be honest we have just enjoyed just being back in our home, having space to stretch out in, a shed to work in, a shower with never ending steamy hot water and a toilet that never requires emptying !

We have loved our 6 years on the road but like the old saying, "There Is No Place Like Home"

Our Rig

 Saying all that we have not given up on caravan travel and we fully intend on using the van a few times a year, but we intend to mix it up with some trips overseas and perhaps some cruises. But one trip we have planned and that is to go to  Ningaloo again for May and June.

Every other year we have been keen as to get there and immerse ourselves in the beauty of the Ningaloo Coast but this year was different, we felt different and our hearts just were not in it like previously. We put it down to the fact that we are going overseas for three months in August and felt like we had much to do back at home, we were still in the middle of selling our commercial property that has been on going for the past ten months and finally the contracts were starting to be drawn up and though we tried desperately to have it all finalized before leaving it was not to be, so phone calls & emails were still interrupting our Ningaloo solitude. I also had Doctors appointments to be arranged prior to our overseas trip so all the above combined made us question our choice to go to Ning this year.

But go we did, We called in at Geoff and Vickie's place in Geraldton, where we discussed our travel arrangements overseas, the four of us are travelling together and it's going to be a blast, we all get on extremely well but living with each for three months will surely be a test to our friendship. We have all made it very clear that if a couple needs time out or wants to do something by themselves that is accepted no questions asked.

This visit to Ningaloo was perhaps the best weather wise we have encountered since years gone by, with all the rain that Exmouth received in the lead up to our visit we were unsure what to expect of the conditions of the tracks but to our surprise everything was dry though very corrugated, in fact the tracks were the worst we have encountered them. With the Exmouth Shire no longer maintaining the gazetted road in it has become terrible.

After calling in at the Homestead and collecting our key it was on to our site at South Lefroy Bay, we have been coming here now for 19 - 20 years and the feeling is always the same when we 1st glimpse the aquamarine colour of the Ocean. I was feeling a bit crook upon arriving so didn't rush in to setting up our camp, as Murphy's luck would have it i also had a few problems to fix, with the Aux fridge in the ute switching itself off due to low battery volts i found the Aux battery had stopped taking a charge and was kaput. A phone call to Dave who hadn't left home yet had him organise one to bring up. Next on the list was the Aux Engel in the Van was no longer working, everything checked out OK power wise but the motor wouldn't run for longer than a few seconds, i thought the piston in the compressor may have jammed due to the corrugated roads so i emptied it and turned it upside down for a day, turning it back over we had an improvement with it running but not getting cold, i turned it off for another day to allow all the oil and gas to settle and separate and tried again, this time we had success and the Engel worked and has been fine ever since.

Our Camp

Fixing a fuse in the Ute that powers the compressor and changing a fuse in the van for the toilet flush were easy fixes, but a water leak in the roof off the van was definately an annoyance. The only people who have been on the roof of our van was the people from Sound In Motion when they serviced our Oyster Sat Dish, and one of them had squashed the roof cladding where it meets the side resulting in the sikafix sealent becoming unattached allowing water to flow into the wall cavity of the van. Luckily no damage was done as the water was leaking into the shower cupboard area, i was able to do a temporary job in sealing the gap.

So the after the 1st few days of feeling crook and fixing the problems, the Billy's arrived just as the weather turned bad, with rain pelting down we all helped to get them set up temporarily.

Our intentions were to stay the two months but with the hassles of contracts and Doctors appointments  required plus the fact we wanted time to have everything organised before going over seas we pulled the pin at 5 weeks. In the time we were the weather was beautiful, the water temperature was enticing enough to go for a swim a few times a day, i ventured out further than i ever have trying to put the thoughts of a 15' Tiger Shark seen in the area out of my mind.

Not a bad breakfast view ;-)

Chill'n Out

Fishing this year was lousy, it has been in decline for a few years now, towards the end of our stay we started to see more activity in the water, the resident dugong's were around and schools of hardy heads started to become more active. The Billy's had there kids joining them whilst they were there and they in turn had bought some friends up so things for us were not the same as previous years as we let the young'ns do there own thing. I beach fished with my nephew Trevor a couple of times but it wasn't until i pulled the pin late into the night that his perseverance came through and he caught a few sharks after i left.

Happy Hour Sunset

We caught up with some friends Anne and Elizabeth up there, and also had some friends Fozzie and Julie turn up and stay with us a few days and other than that we just chilled out.

Pose Shot

Oh What A Feeling

Our Crew, Ashley is the Fittest

Julie and Fozzie

The Fosters Leaving Ningaloo

Steve and Mary with their Ltd Edition Signed copy of Carnarvorn Tourist Brochure

When we did leave we caught up with some other Bushtracker friends Stephen and Mary at Galena Bridge who were heading North, we had a chatty night and Steven surprised us with a tourist brochure that featured a photo of our rig crossing the Carnarvorn bridge,  so being the kind guy i am i autographed it for them. In the morning we said said our farewells and that night we stopped at Geoff and Vickie's again for more discussions on our up coming overseas trip and then home the next day.

All The Way Home - November 2013

This could well be our last update for many months, we are now home.

Getting here was just another drive, it was lovely catching up with mates Mal & Lynne at Maldon though we only stayed a night as the pull of seeing our now pregnant daughter Erin in Adelaide was to strong to ignore. We had a lovely Thai meal and caught up with any news that we all had and left Maldon the next day, stopping at the Chocolate Mill just out of Daylesford where Vickie bought some metal art for our garden, and NOT ONE chocolate .... amazing

From there it was down and across to Adelaide where it was hugs all around with our Daughter and husband on the fantastic news that they are expecting a baby next April. We are so happy for Erin as she has always been baby mad from a very young age, her working life has involved child care in one form or another and now she is to be a mother herself. What with our son and his partner having a gorgeous daughter and our eldest daughter with two girls of her own we feel our lives as parents passing on the baton to our children is accomplished, though Erin and Scott i think we need to have a BOY ....

We stayed a week in Adelaide, visited China Town three times for the best Chicken and Rice and also visited a Chinese restaurant twice for an evening meal, Adelaide is fantastic for its reasonably priced restaurants. I did a couple of handy man jobs on Erin's home and spent most afternoons on the lounge with their [child] dog, Kenya. We caught up with Vickie's Brother Al and his wife Eileen on a Sunday and drove to Hahndorf for the afternoon, they were flying home the next day and Vickie had arranged to fly home as well and let me drive the long road home by myself, that suited me fine and that's what we did

The long drive home was just that ... a drive, nothing exciting happened nor did i do anything exciting along the way, Vickie and I are both looking forward to being home and settling back into our house, it's been 5 years and 11 months and we are over traveling around, WHAT? do i hear you say .... well Yes ....... we are over the traveling with no real purpose, we don't intend to stop and or sell the van but what we will do is revert back to what we used to do and that's go away for a month or three and then come home for a similar time, we both need to get back into our home for sanity but also well aware that we will also need to get away again for the same reason. When we first started it was exciting and different, we saw many places for the 1st time and enjoyed the experience of moving slow, the last twelve months has not been like that, we have felt that we were being steam rolled along through circumstances arising and not all of it has been enjoyable, we felt like we were doing it just for the sake of it. We need to chill out at home, get our lives back, re-socialize with friends and enjoy time with our family and grand daughters and get our mojo back.

So there we have it, this blog has been enjoyable but also i created a monster for myself, i tell people i have done it for myself which is entirely true, i want to be able to look back at the many places we visited, the people we have met, some whom we now call friends, it's been lovely to read the comments from visitors and i am pleased that many have found it interesting, i don't write like a travel / tour company but from my heart and our experiences. 

Thank you to those that have taken the time.

Kenilworth QLD - Bingara NSW October 2013

 A lot can happen in a few weeks,

We received the approval from the Insurance Company for the repairs to our Caravan, Thanks CIL as i mentioned on the phone to them we are insured with them for the simple reason that most owners of Bushtrackers use CIL and the Insurance company are aware of the brand of van and the quality workmanship that goes in to the manufacture and repairs and are happy to accept the quotes from BT.

So with approval given we just had to wait a few days to get the van into BTi, they required the van overnight so that meant us booking accommodation not quite that simple as it was school holidays and majority of places require a minimum of two nights, we managed to get into a Motel at Noosaville, not quite around the corner but we were running out of options.

Whilst at Kenilworth we received a call from Kimbo and Nerida that they were on the move south from Mackay and would be calling in to catch up, Excellent ! we were not able to previously as they were there and we were here and certainly wasn't expecting to be back at Kenilworth again so soon. There had been a recent Rodeo on at the showgrounds and we were one of the 1st caravanners back in and the workers were still cleaning up, Clem the caretaker knows us well by now and was very surprised to see us back, after explaining what had happened we were told to camp anywhere we liked.

There was a distinct aroma of horse manure which gave it that earthy country smell but as each day went by it either lessened or we got used to it, We did the usual Eumundi Markets again on the Wednesday and on Thursday Kimbo & Ned turned up. The usual catch up's and extended happy hours occurred and on the Saturday they went to the markets to catch up with Ned's sister Claudia and Brother in Law Clive whom we also know well, we 1st went to Yandina markets but it was mainly fruit and veg so we also went back to Eumundi and caught up with everyone for lunch.

On the Sunday night i was taking down the awning and packing things away to be ready for an early start, a couple of the tie down pegs were hard to remove so i grabbed my fossicking pick and using the pointy end levered out the 1st peg, the 2nd peg i attempted to do the same except i stuck the pick into my ankle ! YEEOOOW that hurt but i didn't think i had done to much harm, it bled profusely and did so for that night. Up early and delivered the van to the BT Factory finally looking forward to getting the repairs and getting back on the road.

So with the van dropped off we visited a few shops until after lunch and went to our motel, Anchor Lodge in Weyba Road Noosaville, the place was very clean and offered all we needed for a night, a comfy bed and large TV. My foot was still oozing blood and i kept changing the band aids, such a small cut for so much blood. Dinner that night was at a Thai Restaurant in Noosaville and it was delicious, back to the motel for an early night.

Tuesday we filled in the morning and around 1pm we received the call to come get the Van, as usual we were delighted with the quality of work completed, we had a new fridge which for us was a gamble as we had been very Happy with the last but they were no longer available and this model is not what BTi usually install, Also their were quite a few unhappy owners of the Vitrifrigo with the earlier model but we had bitten the bullet and decided to give the new and improved version a go because it meant an easier install. To say we are delighted is an understatement, the fridge looks quality and the small problems with the older version has been changed to what appears a far better design, of course time will tell but so far with only a week gone by it is working perfectly.

Vitrifrigo 230lt stainless steel

Same with the new oven that was installed, same brand as previous but updated and everything works just that much better than before.. So very happy with the outcome, it may have inconvenienced us a lot and cost us a couple of thousand dollars in extra fuel costs doing the big loop back to the Sunshine Coast ... but very happy all the same.

New Swift Stove

Away we go again, heading down the Bruce Highway heading to Blackbutt where we were going to wait for Kim & Ned to catch up again my ankle began to ache, intensely ache, excruciatingly ache, it got worse to the point i was unable to use my left foot to push the clutch in without in agony, I knew it wasn't good and headed straight to the Kilcoy Hospital. By the time we pulled up out the front i couldn't walk and literally had to drag and hop myself into the Dr's surgery, there they took one look and said that i was off to hospital but 1st i had to go to a 2nd surgery for an x-ray, one of the kind staff drove us there as we still had the Van on the Ute and i wasn't able to drive and Vickie didn't feel confident. After seeing a 2nd Dr and having an X-Ray we then had to wait an hour before we could be taken up to the Hospital where i was immediately given Morphine and a cannula went in my arm and they started pumping IV anti biotics into me..

I was thinking i would be in overnight but each day the Dr would visit and wasn't happy with the progress, he started talking about having to go to Redcliffe Hospital to have an operation to have the would cleaned out and also 12 weeks laid up in Hospital with a permanent IV if the infection got into the bone. Luckily for me after 3 days of drugs they let me out on the proviso i took a course of anti biotics and if the pain or swelling should come back get to a DR ASAP..

Re-Enactment - ouch!

 I felt for Vickie as she was sleeping in the van in a side street with everything on an angle and the weather was hot, everyone in the Kilcoy Hospital was so nice and helpful offering to move the Van but we were not comfortable with people un-hitching not knowing what they were doing so Vick stayed where she was on the street ......

Our 1st night out of Hospital we only traveled a couple of kilometers to the showgrounds, the next day feeling ok we moved onto Blackbutt where again we stayed ion the Showgrounds, we were surprised at the price as it was $8 un-powered or $20 with power, a fair bit of difference for some electricity but as Vickie wanted to catch up with the clothes washing it was $20 for us.

The 3rd night was another short drive to Cooyar where we stayed at the free camp Swinging Bridge, a great spot and Cooyar congratulations and Thank you from us for allowing travelers to stay.

Edith Tebb's grave, sad story of a 4 year old drowing

Swinging Bridge Cooyar

Another place we have visited and stayed at twice before is Tooloom Falls near Urbanville, a great free camp with a lovely waterfall, not having phone signal and knowing Kimbo and Ned would be on the road looking for us we decided to only stay one night and move on to our pre arranged meeting spot.

Tooloom Falls

 4th Night, Texas - again, it was only a few weeks ago that we were here .. but this time Kimbo and Ned also turned up so the 'team' was back together again.

Presently we are camped along the Gwyder River - AGAIN at Bingara NSW, this is getting out of control just how many times we have been to Bingara since my Mother and Step Father lived here,  and their ashes scattered on top of Batterham Lookout ....

We will be staying here 3 nights before making our way down to Victoria to visit friends Mal & Lynne and then across to Adelaide to stay with our daughter Erin and hubby Scott .