Safety Bay WA

The last two weeks being at home base have been ticking along, i spent the 1st week cleaning up the F250, Toyota and Bushtracker. I have had the Effy advertised in the Sunday paper and today it went to it's new home, Weststate Motor Auctions, they gave me what i wanted and it will end up being bought by some silly bugger who could have got themselves the deal of the year had they bought direct from us. I have fitted the electric brake controller & neccesary trailer plugs to the Toyota and had a new set of tyres fitted, next i have to get the ute's rego transferred to WA and have our NIKNOFF plates fitted.

We have also sold our tinny complete with outboard & collapsable trailer and having a change of direction by buying another Hobie Kayak to play & fish in. Not so great for the Croc country but it certainly saves us some weight and the hassle of carting & unloading a boat and associated gear. I can always hire or pay a charter to go out those times when the Kayak wouldn't be suitable, as with every decision we make time will tell how things pan out.

Whilst home i have also had to arrange the purchase of a new recliner chair & mobility scooter for Vickie's Dad, with all that done i was foolishly thinking we could head off early to catch up with Vickie's sister & bro in law, Jo & Dave who are camped at Ningaloo but i have been told we have to stay an extra few days and watch our 5 year old granddaughter Millana's Ballet concert.

I am looking forward to when we do hit the road with our 'new' rig, stay tuned.

Streaky Bay SA - Safety Bay WA

Friday 7th May we caught up with Lloyd & Heather at their home in Streaky Bay, they are Bushtracker owners as well as owing a nicely set up new V8 Toyota ute, we have met them previously and we looked forward to catching up again and comparing news on the towing ability of the ute's. Lloyd & Heather were leaving for WA to visit one of their daughters and that evening had planned on visiting long time friends Glen & Libby who have a 4000 acre farm out at Wirrulla, we were invited to come along and it was suggested we all leave the next day and travel together to WA. That was fine by us as i was keen to see how their new ute travelled towing their Bushtracker.

Dog Fence Road



It was a 40klm drive along a corrugated dirt road before we arrived at the farm, we met Glen & Libby and their son Jack and settled down and had a few drinks before Lloyd & Glen got into shucking dozens of big juicy Streaky Bay Oysters. We must admit we were not fans of Oysters, I thought when in Rome do what the Romans do and give it a go, i had previously tried Au-Natural and Kilpatrick and i certainly wasn't a fan of them straight out of the shell, BUT i did give it a go and Eeeeww yuk! It was everything i remembered but i did swallow it followed by a big drink to wash away the flavour. Vickie wasn't game to give it a go but said she would try some cooked, Heather & Libby got a few dozen and did 1/2 as kilpatrick with cheese & bacon and the others they did as sweet chilli flavour, cooked in a home built professional looking stainless steel BBQ that Glen had 'knocked' up the smell was very tantalising. We both tried a few and must admit we quite liked the chilli flavoured oysters, enough so that Lloyd & Heather made up another batch for us when we were camped along the Great Australian Bight, but that is getting ahead of myself.


Libby, Lloyd, Heather & Glen and young Jack



We had a lovely night and the biggest surprise was a cake that came out with some birthday candles ..... Yes it was my Birthday and Vickie had got sneaky with Heather and bought a cake when they went to the shops at Streaky Bay, it was a lovely surprise, thanks Babe. Dinner was lovely with huge steaks & snaggers and a few more drinks before Vickie & i hit the sack. The next morning we had a look around the machinery sheds where they have a huge John Deere Tractor / Harvester, big machinery for big properties! They are also going through a mouse plague and there was evidence of thousands of mice, Glen kicked a compressor that was covered in a hessian sack and dozens of mice scattered everywhere, the sand was littered with millions of tiny foot marks, i'd hate to fall asleep drunk as i think you would literally be carried away and eaten ...

A quick look at Harris Scarfe ....... the dump where all old machinery and plant go to die revealed some old treasures, and it was interesting looking around at the history of the place.


Old Relics of the past







It was time to head off, so we said our goodbye's and hit the track, we passed though an old siding at Nunjikompita and had a look around and continued on to meet up with the Eyre Highway and head West. The trip was very relaxed with Vickie generally out in front driving our 'new' Toyota Ute, me behind towing our van with the F250 and tail end charlie was Lloyd & Heather, with the three of us doing different speeds it was interesting to see that when we stopped their wasn't much of a time difference in everyone's travel.

Silo's at Nunjikompita



Our 1st day we drove through to the Great Australian Bight and a scenic lookout at the 133klm Peg, [CAW5 #669] We stopped in the parking area along with a few other caravaners and i quickly got the 'Kimble' pot out and got it fired up whilst Lloyd & Heather got a few more Oysters cooking in their Weber Baby Q. A few drinks and chat with some other campers and we hit the sack after a long day. Up early the next morning to greet the sunrise and get some photo's, it was freezing cold but a lovely view looking over a relatively calm sea.

Camped along the Bight



Pulling into the Eucla Quarantine check point i was annoyed that we got the treatment with just about every cupboard being checked whereas Lloyd & Heather were waved through without so much as a glance. Vickie and i have been through the check points dozens of times and knew what we could and could not take through and already had a small bag with some honey and a banana to hand over, I had already eaten two other banana's and an apple and wasn't worried about eating a 3rd. We just got out of the check point and next we were pulled over for a licence & breathalyser check, all ok there so we finally got away and headed further West, stopping along the way for coffee breaks we spent that night at Domblegabby Rest area [CAW5 #16] where we had another nice camp fire and lovely sunset & sunrise the next morning.

Domblegabby Rest Area, & Evening Sky





Our 3rd night out we stayed at the Gorge just out from Coolgardie, it is a lovely spot far enough off the road to be quiet and a large lake with plenty of Bird life, Heather was in her element as she is a keen Orthamologist and her bird book is well covered in notes of where she has spotted different species of birds throughout Australia. Another camp fire and Heather treated us with a beautiful Lemon Merangue Pie for desert, Yum these people can travel with us anytime!

Nature's Artist, another stunning Sunset




We stopped at Merriden for lunch at the Bakery and our last coffee stop was at Meckering where we said our goodbyes as they were soon heading to the North of Perth and we were going South. With Vickie in front i just cruised along behind but we soon got seperated with Vickie scooting up the hills and around trucks all i could do was watch and hear her dissapear into the distance, gosh that Ute sounds lovely with it's 3" exhaust! Everything went well as i listened to my Ipod untill i got onto the Roe Highway it was starting to get busy and by the time i was near the Kwinana Freeway turnoff i was down to a bare crawl. There had been a traffic accident along the freeway and it was a frustrating snails pace as i stop started inching along. After 45 mins or so i got passed the accident and speed back up the freeway limit. Soon i was back at Safety Bay and greeted by our Daughter and Granddaughters, It's lovely seeing them again.

Now i have to get the F250 cleaned up and get it advertised for sale, hopefully it sells quickly so we can then depart and head to one of our favourite places in Australia, along the coast at Ningaloo Homestead, between Coral Bay & Exmouth.

Glenelg - Streaky Bay

We spent the week with our youngest daughter Erin and her boyfriend Scott, some of the neighbours know us well with all our comings and going's, Charlie & Rita the next door neighbours are also caravanners and were getting ready themselves for a trip to WA & Broome. We love the Adelaide markets & China Town, we have the best Hainenese Chicken & Rice there at a very reasonable price of $7.50. We went there twice whilst we were in town, the rest of the time was spent catching up with some shopping & washing the rig to remove all the locust guts that had plastered themselves everywhere. Vickie's Dr's appointment was all good news with the Dr very pleased with her eye and could see no evidence of a further bleed, he explained it could be the jelly like substance behind the eye breaking off and causing the flashes she occasionally see's. The next visit was not required for another 12 months so we were very pleased with that, not that her eye will ever recover but it's heartening to know that it has stabilised and no worse.

As soon as we got the good news we were back at the Van and hooking it up, we had decided to head on down the Eyre Penninsula again and spend a few days at Lipson Cove, but prior to getting there we had a call from some friends Rosco & Chris who told us they were camped just out of Whyalla along with another couple Nev & Linda whom we also have met previously, so it was decided to call in and spend the afternoon & night with them. The camp is listed in the CAW book's but gives very little directions, Rosco's directions were clearer but i still stuffed up and turned when i should have stayed straight, this dirt track took us down along a fence line and onto a large open clay pan, I was unsure what to do and tried phoning Rosco again to find out if i was heading in the right direction. No answer on the phone meant i had to make a decision and of course it was the wrong one! I could see wheel tracks going across the clay pan and foolishly i decided to follow them, realisation soon set in when the 8 tons of rig started to loose traction and sink in the mud.

Luckily we had the MIGHTY Toyota Ute with us, as there is no way i would have got the F250 & BT out of the quagmire, I backed the Toyota up as close as i could get without getting it stuck and hooked on a rope to the rear of the Bushtracker, with Vickie then driving the ute in 4WD and myself reversing the rig we were able to get back onto solid ground again, relief as the sun by this time was setting and soon to be dark. I thought about taking some photo's but i was too concerned in getting out than gettting any Un-happy Snaps. I did take some photo's of my shoe's though and this was just stepping out on to the mud and walking a few steps before i took them off and went bare feet.







After that stuff up we arrived at the camp to find the others settled in to happy hour and we were only to eager to join them and drown some of the recent stress away. We had a chatty night discussing everything to the criminal life of Underbelly to Rosco's funny stories about stowing away on a ship many years ago, we also found out that Neville has a 'thing' for Sailors !! lol No wonder this lot like travelling togther, :-))

Everyone was leaving camp this morning and we headed off to Lipson Cove, the head winds were shocking with fuel economy plummeting to new low's. The weather is threatening rain and gusty winds but we have made camp in a nice spot with views of the ocean. Last time we were here we had a great bunch of people camped around us, and the weather was very hot, there were a few people camped down on the flats but if they were here today they would be under water as the beach is flooded.





Not sure how long we will stay, at least a couple of nights and then make our way to Streaky Bay and catch up with some more Caravanning friends Lloyd & Heather, they have recently bought a new Toyota Ute as well and we are keen to have a show & tell, they are travelling to WA very soon so hopefully we get to spend a few nights togther along the way.

Raymond Terrace - Newcastle - Mannum

A fair bit has happened since i last wrote about our travels, with the dissapointment of what occurred at Kilcoy now behind us and the recent purchase of the Toyota Ute and the decision to sell our F250 we drove on down to Newcastle and catch up with Kimbo & Ned. As usual we expected to take the best part of the week to get there but two days later we found ourselves pulling up out the front of their home at Fern Bay. It had been arranged with Ned's sister Trisha & Husband Rod that we could all go out to their 15acre property near Raymond Terrace and camp up there for a week. Kimbo sometimes stores his Caravan there so all we had to do the following day was grab some provisions and go camping.

Bro getting his Oz Pig Fired Up


The property is lovely with a nice home, undulating hill's and a massive shed, we set up and proceeded to have an early happy hour which continued for the next week. In between Kimbo & Ned showed us around the district and a couple of times Vickie and i ventured out by ourselves checking out some lovely country town's, hard to believe we were only a short drive from busy Newcastle. Rod & Trisha's son Blake entertained us whislt we were there, a good young fella who gave as good as he got.
I discovered Darby Bakery at Raymond Terrace, the pie's were $1 and specialty pie's $1.50 !! A Bargain and over the next week i spent a few dollars enjoying good pies' at bargain prices. We went for a drive to Newcastle and walked along the harbour where we came across the Queens Wharf Tower, 182 steps up was worth it for the view.

Taken on top the Queens Wharf Tower In Newcastle




On the weekend we had Kimbo's sister Mandy & hubby Glen join us with their van for the night and we had the most superb camp oven roast pork & beef supplied by Rod who happens to own Morpeth Butcher Shop. A camp oven roast just cannot be beaten in my view and we all had 2nd's and went to bed with bloated tummy's.

On the Tuesday Kimbo drove us down to the Sydney Caravan Super Show at Rosehill, if we had known it was going to take 3 hours to get their we wouldn't have bothered, it also took us 3 hours to get home and it wasn't because of the distance as we were only 120klms away, the Sydney traffic is horrendus with us taking over an hour to travel less than 10klms. The show itself was a dissapointment, we were expecting it to be the biggest & the best but it wasn't a patch on the Melbourne show and we even preferred the Perth show and layout to what Sydney put on. Even so we appreciated the effort to take us there and we did get to spend some money so it wasn't all bad.

The following day, Wednesday we said our goodbye's and started our drive down to Glenelg and our daughters house. With two vehicles now, Vickie drove the V8 Toyota Ute and i towed the Van with the F250. We both have UHF radio's in the vehicles and were able to stay in constant contact, at times too constant as i would cringe when Vickie started chatting away about things that i didn't want other people on the airwaves listening in too. We had been warned about the locusts plague on the Newell Highway and we came across a few patches but it wasn't untill we were on the Mallee Highway that we realised how bad they were. Both vehicles needed the windscreen's cleaned at every small town and hundreds of dead locusts were removed from around the radiator's. Interesting with the different aerodynamics of both vehicles, the Toyota Ute copped more bugs on the windscreen due to it's more upright stance whereas the F250 copped them more across the big bullbar and wider bonnet. We donated some vegies to the fruit fly inspection at both NSW & SA, bad planning on our part as usual we were travelling to fast to plan things better.



We spent the 1st night at a rest area south of Dubbo and the 2nd night at Sandy Point at Hay where previously we were harrassed by locals doing laps around the camp site late at night, this time no idiot's surfaced and we had a nice quiet night. Our next two nights out were spent at Mannum SA, a place we have stayed a few times previously. Because of the long weekend and Anzac Day we were expecting it to be busy and it was but we managed to get ourselves parked up in a prime position with river frontage.

View from our Caravan Bedroom Window


We had messaged Brian & Lis and told them that we were in the area and they phoned us back and arranged to come out the next day for a visit which they did. Lovely to catch up again with them and we even managed to have an open fire thanks to Brian bringing some wood. We were both tired though from the long drive that day and Brian & Lis left around 9pm, we crashed into bed only to then have to put up with a noisy generator running for another hour followed by a bunch of loud blokes partying on all night. No consideration for anybody other than themselves.

Left Mannum this morning and now camped back on the front yard in Glenelg North for a week before Vickie see's her Dr on Monday 3rd May and then hopefully we will head West with a visit down to Eyre Penninsula and catch up with some friends we know at Streaky Bay.

Deception Bay - New Cruiser - Tewantin

Plan B followed our exit from Kilcoy, I phoned a mate who own's 3 Cabin / Van Parks and told him of our situation, he kindly offered to have us stay in their personal cottage and park the Van beside it for as long as we needed to. We had Caddie & her girls staying with us for another 12 days and our youngest daughter Erin & boyfriend Scott flying out the next day and our son Daniel & his girlfriend Elle then arriving a few days later. It was going to be a hectic time and extremely difficult to try and arrange accomodation for everyone over the Easter holidays so we took up on his offer to stay.

We spent the days showing the kids around, they all loved the Hinterland area and the rainforests and mountain drive's. We did go for a drive down to Surfers Paradise but ended up turning around and spending the rest of the day at Mt Tamborine which they all liked.

Chermside Shopping Centre got a work out with 3 visit's from us whilst we were there, Vickie was fortunate to get an appointment with a Specialist who did some tests on her eye and though he could see some recent damage he suggested she see her own specialist if it required any further treatment. I drove back to Kilcoy for my medical appointment to have another suspect mole removed, haven't heard any news back as yet so no news is good news.

Dan & Elle went to the Australian Zoo, Vickie, Cad & the girls caught a bus for a three and half hour trip that took them 30klms and subjected them to bad BO from the passenger's, I had an easy morning at the Transport Branch transferring the registration over on the new ute we have bought.

New Ute?? i hear you ask ...... When did this happen?






Well, never been one to procrastinate about things i saw a nice Toyota GXL VDJ79 Ute advertised for sale on the net. The model VDJ79 means it's a Cab chassis but this one was different from the usual as it had a full alloy canopy fitted on the back and was loaded with extra's.

IPF HID Driving Lights
ARB front and rear air lockers, Arb Compressor,
ARB Deluxw bullbar with Fog Lights
Warn 9500 Winch & Remote Control
80L under tray water tank with Flojet pressure pump
6 of 17"x 9"alloy wheels with 285x70x17 BFG Mud terrains
Sand Grabba Moulded Floor mats & Dash Mat
ARB dual battery system
80w solar panel mounted on roof with regulator
Adjustable Rhino Roof Racks
CSM Full Alloy Canopy, Gull Wing Door's, Gas struts, & two underbody lockers
Rear work lights and internal lights in canopy
240v change over controller with outlets in canopy,
Black widow Fridge slide and draw system custom made for vehicle,
Aftermarket JVC CD player and Custom door pods to suit 6x9"speakers
3" Taipan Exhaust and DP chip
Tow bar and Anderson plug
50mm suspension lift with King Springs and Koni Shocks
Over head consol with GME 4400 UHF
High gain mobile phone aerial
Nokia bluetooth car kit

If you start adding up the cost of the extra's and the price of a new ute, you will get a shock at what this set up has cost.

So after telling the seller that it was a nice ute but way over priced i received an email two week's later telling me that he dropped the price to what i thought was a great deal considering the amount of money that had been spent on it. We took it for a drive and considered it bought, It took a week to arrange the money and we went and picked it up. So now we have two vehicles & a caravan, we do have the F250 advertised for sale but no interest has been shown yet. We plan on driving both vehicles back to WA where i will attempt to sell it on home ground. The F250 has been a great tow truck but we were finding it more and more annoying as we tried to explore towns and cities. It has to go so if you hear of anyone looking for a nice 2004 F250, please let them know.

We are now at Tewantin, near Noosa, we have booked Dan & Elle into a motel in Noosaville and we are at the Tewantin Caravan Park. They fly back to WA on Saturday and we will head back down to Brisbane and catch up with some friends for the night, then we will make our way down to Newcastle where we will meet up with Kimbo & Ned again and visit the Sydney 4WD & Camping Show.

The Best Laid Plans ......

Plans .. We have heard the term used that God laughs at those that make plans, we have never been ones to travel to a structured plan as we prefer to go with the flow and have no time limit on places we end up. Kilcoy was one of the very few 'plans' that we agreed to give it a go. It will also be the very last especially in the situation that we found ourselves.

What was supposed to be a 10 week stay on a 388acre property turned into a stressful dissapointing three week's. It had been agreed that our children were welcome to come and visit whilst we were farm sitting, an opportunity that our daughter's jumped at as neither had taken a holiday for many years and looked forward to seeing a small part of Queensland. This was all arranged last August and though we choose to drive the rig back to Perth for Christmas and return to Qld in February we weighed the cost of of doing so with being based for two & a half months and agreed to help out the owners of the property so they could go away for a holiday.

Problems started early with the floods in the district, unable to get into the property due to the river flooding we stayed at Somerset Dam for a few days, there we were visited by the owners and assured that all was as planned and they would call us when the river levels dropped sufficiently to enable us to get the rig across, this happened a few days later and we were pleased to be finally on the property.

We expected the owners to take a couple of days to show us around and get themselves ready to leave but this stretched out to two weeks, during this time the owners told us that their plans had changed and that they were putting the farm on the market and asked us when our children would be arriving and how long they would stay, this was all out in the open as we had mentioned dates many times before, we felt a dark cloud come over us as we thought about the expenses our kids & we had incurred with non refundable airfares. We mentioned to the owners that if they felt they didn't want to go away with their property on the market to let us know and we would have time to make other arrangements, we mentioned this three times to them and each time we were assured that they would go away as they dearly needed a break and all would work in with our kids stay,

The Best laid plans ....... not only did they wait untill the very day our youngest daughter & partner arrived from SA, they only went away for 2 nights before arriving back for the day, away they went again for the night and back again next morning, ..... How could we expect to 'relax' and enjoy our stay when we felt on edge all the time. Again they left and this time we thought they would be gone for the next 3 weeks at least but after 4 days they came back and told us they were back to stay ...... not even the courtesy of a phone call to say 'sorry our plans have changed we coming home' ..... Is it any wonder Vickie's stress levels increased and her damaged eye had another bleed which resulted in more visits to the specialists for treatment.

Arriving back unannounced was the straw that broke the camels back, we had nothing to hide and were quite proud how we looking after the place & grounds from working my guts out mowing acres of lawns, whipper snipping acres of fence lines and pressure cleaning paths, with Vickie attending to the house and making sure everything was neat & tidy at all times ..... we had the owner's return after four days away without the courtesy to let us know.

We are very dissapointed that even though we gave these people the chance to alter their plans, they assured us they were people who kept to their word, obviously not ..... Regardless, i am a believer in Kharma and we hope their plans go the way they hope they do. We hope the dogs are well and don't miss us to much.

Kilcoy

Eventually the rain stopped and things have started to dry out, we have been helping around the property mainly whipper snipping and mowing the extensive lawns and fence lines. It's hot & sweaty work but i have enjoyed doing it, one job i undertook whilst David & Maureen were away for the day was removing a large tree limb that hung precariously over a post & rail fence, i was certainly conscious of the limb falling and damaging the fence or worse landing on me, they aren't called Widow Makers for nothing. But with my usual multi talented skills [insert smiley] i was able to get it down, cut up and removed with no damage. It is a very attractive property with beautiful views it has Vickie & i dreaming about owning something similar but on a couple of acres, not 400. We are not sure when the owners are leaving on their holiday, one of our daughters arrives next Wed or Thursday so we are concerned & hope that it will be soon. With not much happening other than farm work i probably won't be updating the site as much as i do when on the road