Changing plans and forecasting the weather.

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9th January 2011

The British, it is known worldwide, are obsessed with the weather. My wife the geographer tells me that this is mainly due to the convergence of five different air masses right above the British Isles. This in turn leads to highly variable weather. One minute it is stormy, the next it is sunny; it can be still, then blowing a gale; it can be nice and warm even hot then cold; you could even say that we can have four seasons in one day.

It’s strange that an antipodean band could write about this given that it couldn’t be further from the truth down here on this big continent sized island.

This may be the reason that even now when the weather is the main subject on the news, trying to find a forecast that is more in depth than “ tomorrow rain” is difficult.

It is a Sunday and we are trying to work out what we are going to do with our time here in Australia, but it isn’t an easy plan to make. We have been looking at transport options and none of them are particularly cheap.

One option in particular takes our fancy and that is relocating a campervan. Relocations are available if you are travelling against the flow of traffic so to speak, or at the end of a season. We have been looking online, and there are some deals available but they go so quickly and you never know from one day to the next what is going to be available.

After a quick look this morning we headed out to the shops to buy some provisions for dinner. I offered to cook tonight, although we hadn’t decided on what to eat until we got to the shops, and decided that it was a Sunday after all so why not have roast dinner. After collecting the ingredients, and a couple of bottles of wine from the “grog shop” we headed back to Chris’ place for a lazy afternoon, surfing the web, cooking, and reading.
When we got back, I didn’t check my email until it was nearly 4pm and the email letting me know that there was a vehicle available that would fit our desired route of Brisbane to Sydney had been sat in the inbox since mid morning. I called but the vehicle had been taken by somebody else and there was nothing else that fitted the bill. We’d have to check again in the morning and if there was nothing then arrange another form of transport to let us work our way down the coast.

The problem is the distances here between places are so big that any form of transport will cost a lot and take a lot of time. As such I was really holding out for another camper relocation but until the morning we wouldn’t know what was on the daily list.

After a couple of skype conversations with various family members and a very nice roast dinner, even if I do say so myself, we listened to a bit of music and surfed the internet until it was time for bed.

A true Sunday if ever there was one!

10th January 2011

Despite the time difference between Bali and this part of Austalia being only a couple of hours we seem to be struggling to wake up before about 10am (8am in Bali)

I am up a bit before Lou but the news isn’t good, the daily relocations lists I have found don’t show us any available campers that we can get.

Plan B : we start to look into buses, trains etc etc Whilst doing this Jeff a former lifeguard colleague of mine came online and so we picked his brains about how to get around cheaply. We had planned on visiting Jeff anyway but when he suggested that we could save some cash by flying to Sydney, and then stay with him for a week, we decided that we would take him up on the offer.

Flying, it turns out, is a cheaper way to get to Sydney and with the rain that is currently falling here, and in the surrounding area in a country that is geared up for outdoor living there isn’t much to do. As such compromising and skipping on down the coast isn’t such a bad idea, as there is no point in going to beach resorts in the rain. So we bit the bullet and booked our flight for the next day. Jeff even offered to coma and pick us up from the airport in Sydney and hours drive from his place in Wollongong. What a legend!

We head into town after the arrangements have been made to do a bit of shopping for dinner, and to seek out a post office to try and lighten our cases again by sending back the now out of date guidebooks. We also stop by an apple shop to pick up yet more accessories for the iPad. With the new keyboard purchased, and dinner in the bag we head back.

When Chris got home he was full of news of the evolving crisis that is emerging. A place not far from here (in Australian terms) was hit by flood water that came with no warning. The scary thing being it is upriver from Brisbane, and the forecast is that the floodwater is going to hit Brisbane tomorrow and keep rising for a couple of days potentially.

We are now starting to wonder if we are going to make it out of Brisbane on our flight before this floodwater hits. We have dinner and continue to check the web for the astounding pictures that are unfurling. We head to bed a bit later tired despite not really doing a lot, and also a bit nervous about tomorrow.
P.S. No pictures were taken in the course of this blog, sorry.

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