Saying Goodbye to an old Friend

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The phone rang and I looked at my wrist watch, it was exactly 2.00am and I had been in bed for four hours, that horrible feeling went through me, I knew it was going to be bad news.

I went in to the living room where, where I had left my phone and looked to see if the caller had left a message, they had!! I picked the message up and it was from a colleague, but listening to the message, I knew I wasn’t going to be getting much sleep.

I called my boss in Sydney, he was up and aware of the situation, he said words to the effect of “get your bag ready, I think you may be going on a trip!”

I called one of our directors who told me the same thing, except for the words “I think”, It was more like “will you get organised and be on the next flight out of Canberra.”

Our company has their own internal travel department, but at 02.30 in the morning, I was connected to the same department, but in the UK and I spent until 04.00 am on the phone, sorting out my travel plans.

My phone calls had disturbed Caroline and she was up, whilst I was on the phone to the UK, she was on her phone, coordinating other things for me.

It was 04.30 when I managed to get in the shower, my flight was at 06.25 out of Canberra, where I was advised by our office that I would be meeting a special charter flight, but at this point in time, they didn’t know what time, just get there and they would worry about the details.

I hadn’t even been home 10 hours, from Darwin and I was off again, we had been so looking forward to our long weekend together in Canberra, and had so much planned, but I was needed else where and that’s the way it goes.

Caroline looked terribly disappointed, whilst driving me to the airport at 5.00am, and I was disappointed that I had to disturb her, when she herself has been so busy and under pressure at work. Neither of us knew what lay ahead of my next journey nor when I would be back, but our golden rule is we keep in touch with each other all the time, just to reassure each other.

My flight would be just under 5 hours, and was as uneventful as every other flight I take, apart from some woman at the front of the aircraft, had particularly grizzly kids, that annoyed me, I hadn’t bothered her, so why was her kid bothering me?

When the plane arrived it was about 10.30 am Perth Time, it was a beautiful Perth day, hot and clear. I was tired already, as my day started at 2.00am, so my first port of call just had to be breakfast.

I called Caroline, it was about lunch time in Canberra, I asked her if she had any further information on my Charter flight connection, but she had not. Caroline was already in the office working, so I knew what ever was going off was serious.

I was later advised that they thought, the charter would be in at 2.05 Perth time and would advise me, with that information, I would only have to hang around for 4 hours or so, which wasn’t too bad, I had a book to read and my I-pod at least.

I said to Caroline that I would give Sue and Cliff a call who live in nearby, when ever I am “In Town” I do my best to see them, as they are dear friends of our and great to be with, so I intended to give them a call.

I jumped in to a taxi and sped from the domestic airport to Scarborough and whilst in the taxi I got a Canberra call to advise me that the charter would now be in Perth a 8.00pm so I had plenty of time to spend with Cliff and Sue.

I arrived at their beautiful home and was greeted by Sue with her happy smile, it was great to see them both. I spent the whole afternoon with them, except when they went to collect their grand daughter and brought her back to the house and then we all went off to the airport as they kindly insisted on giving me a lift.

When I arrived at the airport, I met a lot of other people also travelling on the same charter, and just after 8.00pm we all boarded the plane, only to find out that it had left Canberra late afternoon, so I could have stayed with Caroline another 14 hours or so, instead of getting up at the crack of dawn and having to fly to Perth.

The flight took off and some time later, I was touching down on a familiar runway.

I had already organised somewhere to stay, so the pressure was off here, but it was straight to work. I was greeted by lots of my colleagues who made me feel as welcome as they always do.

Now this is where I have to be a spoil sport, I can not tell you anything about why, or anything about what we had to do and unless you have either seen the Australian news or if it got to the world news then it will have to remain a secret.

Eventually the time had come for me to organise my flight home, on the 24th March and would be flying, back to Canberra via Brisbane and would be home by Friday at 12.15 (Lunch Time) and Caroline was leaving the office early to come and collect me, then she would work from home for the rest of the day.

My plane was on time, and as I rode the escalator down in to the arrivals lounge, my beautiful Caroline was there to meet me. My luggage was straight off the plane and soon we were in the Patrol heading home, to our flat in Bruce.

Caroline suggested that I go to bed for a couple of hours, but as we were off to Sydney tonight to stay with Jan and Ted, I thought If I slept, I would just feel worse.

We managed to get away for Sydney around 4.30, however, as soon as Caroline took the wheel I dropped off to sleep. We would stay with our friends Jan and Ted at their cool house In Winston Hills and tomorrow, Saturday we would be picking up our new Truck in Parramatta.

Jan cooked us a beautiful lasagne and it was just great to catch up with them, I think I managed to stay awake until just about 10.00pm then had to retire to bed.

Just before “my bed time crash” Caroline said, I bet you will want you little nose pressed up against Phil Gilberts, very early in the morning, and my response was obvious, of course I do.
I was very excited about what we had ordered and had waited, sort of patiently from when It was ordered, back in January.

I wandered off to bed and the next thing I new was Caroline, was waking me up, Uh that never happens, she was asking me to get out of bed or we would be late.

“Late for what?” I exclaimed, “picking up the truck” came the reply!

The last two weeks, were catching up on me and I was exhausted, so much so, my tiredness had masked the fact that we were swapping our trusty Patrol which had been such a good servant and had taken on our adventure of a life time, for a new vehicle

I managed to drag my lazy backside out of bed, dress, then sit with Caroline Jan and Ted for breakfast, as I came around from my slumber, I was bum dancing with renewed excitement.

Ted and Jan sadly were off to a friend’s funeral today, we wished them as pleasant a day as you can have at such a sad time, them we left for Parramatta in the Patrol. The morning traffic in Sydney was quite busy, I love the hub bub of Sydney, but couldn’t live there, not unless we had jobs here, so never say never.

So we were turning in to the side of Phil Gilberts Toyota and there was our new girl, tucked at the back looking gorgeous.

We went and did all the boring money stuff, their people were really pleasant and all that and the coffee was really good, with all that crap over and done with, they give us the keys and let us loose.

We have one last job to do, as I had only just returned to Canberra I had not had time to take the roof rack off the patrol and it was far too heavy for Caroline to lift. I had taken our tool box, so had all my sockets and spanners to do the removal job, all I needed was two burly fella’s to give me a lift.

Hey “presto” two guys came in with their vehicle and after a “Hey Fella’s, could you give me a lift with this?” the roof rack was lying in the bay next to the Patrol awaiting to be taken back with us.

Just before we left Phil Gilbert, Caroline went up to the Patrol and patted it and thanked it for never letting us down on our amazing adventure.

We have just purchased a Toyota 79 series, V8, 4.5 litre Cab Chassis, why, well our mentality was this, when we decide to go travelling again, and do some of the things we want to do, like the “Gun Barrel highway, the Canning stock route, the Simpson Desert, the Birdsville track and all those things, then if we had gone for another 3.0 litre patrol, and towing a trailer or a T Van, then I was just a little bit concerned about the available power, not on bitumen, but in sand.

The second justification to myself or ourselves, was the fact that we, so wanted a Toyota landcruiser, and a V8 of course.

It is our intention to have a back built on the tray of the new ute, not to “camp in” but custom built to house all the stuff we need to take with us. I have enclosed a generic picture of what it will end up looking like.

My final justification, is simple, when we do our citizenship test, and they ask if we own a “cruiser” then there is not bigger Australian Icon, oh except, Kangaroo, Koala, Boomerang, wobble board, sunshine, Beer, BBQ So my justification seems really flimsy.

Due to such excitement, we decided to go and get a coffee and take stock of the morning events. Caroline thought it would be nice to drive to the Sydney Olympic village, where the 2000 Sydney Olympic games were held, to take some photo’s of the truck, I thought to myself, how cool is that, just popping down to where the games were held just to take some photo’s , how lucky were we?

We took some photo’s in front of the main stadium and down by the fountain, the morning was beautiful and we were both pleased with our new truck.

After all the photo’s we headed back to Ted and Jan’s house, and as so pleased I was with our purchase, I just needed to go back to bed to catch up on my sleep, as we were going out tonight, “with the family.”

I know it is not that appropriate, I just had to get some sleep and eventually surfaced at 4.30 only to find that Jen had been over and they had all eaten lunch, I slept right through. We were all going out at 6.00pm to a great pub called the Old Bull and Bush, very near to Jan and Ted’s house.

All spruced up, we arrived at the pub where we were met by Jenny, Ted and Jan’s daughter, Erin and Adam who were Jan and Teds other daughters older kids.

Natalie and Justin were soon walking in with their new Twins who were only 5 weeks old, so it was nice to have a complete Davis family clan evening together which was great fun.

Justin, Ted and Jan’s son in law, is cycling 1400K’s on the Tour de Cure cycle event which sets off on Friday 1st April and will be cycling from Sydney to Melbourne. The Cycle event is for cancer research and Justin has his own personal reasons why this event is so important to him, so we wish him well.

It was wonderful to see the whole family, the twins didn’t really even peep, snuggled up in their twin buggy, and Natalie looked radiant after only delivering these two little bubs only five weeks ago.

We got back to ted and Jan’s and after a quick cup of tea, we both soon retired.

Sunday morning, we were up fairly early and sat and had a nice Breakfast with our hosts and were soon all packed up and sorry to be leaving after our fun packed weekend.

We soon hit the road heading out of Sydney towards Canberra 275K’s away and pulled into Bruce where we live at around 2.30 and settled in to being back.

Tonight, back in my own bed would be the first time in over 3 weeks.

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Photos

Outside the main Stadium
Parked outside the main stadium

The new Landcruiser
Photographed at the Sydney Olympic Fountain

Front View
At this time it wasn't even registered and the Permit plates were cardboard

Happy Snapper
Caroline taking some shots

Anniversary Cake
For Natalie and Justin, Happy 18th Anniversary

Erin and Adam
Pleased with the cake

A generic Picture
Of what the back will eventually look like on Our cruiser

Comments

[Gary]

Very nice
Very, very nice. This should make your 'outback' trips a bit easier. Now for the new camper!!

[kangaroojack]

Thanks
Hi Gary, We are really pleased with the new truck, but were very sad about changing the Patrol, as she served us so well, and took us all the way on our mamouth trip. Andy

[Stu]

new truck
Hi, Guys, how are you going ,have had some emails but unable to read them, ute looks great ,just carry plenty of oil stu.