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Published: April 3rd 2013
Wookie? There are some explanations. Many years ago when Graham had a bushy beard and long hair his nick name was "Wookie". Because we will miss our cat Fray (aka Princess Bitchface) whilst we are away our friends Alan and Sylvia gave Graham a stuffed toy as part of his birthday present - Chewie. Then out of the blue his great and silent friend Bartholomew Otis arrived having heard of the impending journey complete with his little duffle bag to accompany us. He must be a sturdy little fellow, he hopped all the way to Brinkworth SA from Waikiki in Western Australia. They will be company for each other and can sit in the back and play "I spy".
Do not despair we have been fortunate to find a couple to live in our house and become Fray's guardians/companions/servants whilst we are away. Thank you Sally and Chris you have made this trip possible.
Really this first blog is to let everyone know we are off on 20th April and explain how you can sign up to our blog. If you are reading this you have received a notification that we have put up a blog entry, you clicked
on the link and are reading it. If you want to continue to be notified of new entries you need to subscribe. It costs nothing. Look to the right had side of the blog entry and under "Blog Options" click the subscribe button and you will be automatically added to the list to receive new entries. If you subscribed last time you are still there.
If you want to leave us a message you can do it at the bottom of the blog entry or a private message option is available under the aformentioned "Blog Options" on the right hand side. If you have difficulties email me and I shall add you manually.
Because we are going to some really remote places we will be without communications for long periods of time, but will add entries as often as we can. Messages you have added do not display until we have reviewed them and that may be sometime if we are out of communications range but will be a main priority when we get a signal again.
So what special preparations have we been making this time.
We have planned the trip down to the day and because it is so extensive too much to write in here, so it will reveal itself in time. A brief description is simply we head out by ourselves and do the Oodnadatta track and head for Kununnurra to attend a birthday celebration. Then down the Gibb River Road to meet friends Shirley and Dave in Willare Bridge. Together we are heading up the Victoria Highway hitting lots of high spots. After Katherine we head out on the Roper Way to join onto the Old Savannah Way until we get to Gregory Downs in Queensland. We then head south through the real outback ending our Queensland time in Birdsville. Down the Birdsville track to Muloorina Station. From there Dave and Shirley head back to Bathurst. We still have 7 weeks until we are due home and at this stage we plan to head up the Strezlecki Track and visit 6 national parks in far west Queensland, but who knows.....
We have been and done a towing course, not because we need to learn to go forward, we can handle that, but reversing the van is as son David says a "Black Art". We did learn some other really good things but the backing was the best bit. Graham managed much better than Chris. What we were taught was a process to back. Chris can go straight back for about 70 meters whilst smarty pants Graham can do 100 yards. Graham also achieved backing the van into a site, the thing he most dreaded. Chris just gets to guide him in.
Chris has been dehydrating vegetables to take with us. 8kg of potatoes down to 1.5 kgs. Experimenting with cooking with them and they are fine, especially in the ecopot. This week she hopes to perfect onions. We have been checking specials for several months and stocking up on canned and dry goods, something we are not very familiar with as we tend to cook using only fresh ingredients.
We found out yesterday that the one modification we have made to the van is illlegal. We have added special fuel carriers to the back bumper of the caravan and they are not allowed but we can use them for water carriers instead. Into the future we will have to add a long range fuel tank. My lord the future is here, he is on the phone arranging for one to be fitted in Adelaide when we are down playing in a croquet competition on Monday!
Most importantly stocking up on ebooks for our Kindles so we don't run out of reading material. We resisted them for so long and now are totally hooked on them.
Graham has been researching satellite phones because they offer such a good emergency communication option and yes one is in the mail. I am discovering that he is becoming a high maintenance cost person.
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Carol
non-member comment
All sounds fun (particularly all the new ebooks :) ) I am actually just writing this to make sure that I am still subscribed so that I can travel along with you. Carol