Bushboys and Girls (3 Weeks)

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Well Bloggers, 3 weeks today is when we left dear old blightly, and what an adventure so far.

What a hell of a day, we finally made our camping purchase today, so read on! The weather men said it would be cloudy with rain today, they were right, not much rain though but really hot all the same (Still shorts and T shirts though).

I was keen to be up and out today fairly early today as I new my sister Jane had some news on my mum, that she was excited to tell me.

Let me tell you a bit about my mum, she is an amazing lady, she always see the good in everyone. What has always made me proud is that my friends always liked my mum and dad for who they were, not because they were Andy Trenfield’s Mum and dad. Dad just would have loved what we were doing, he was always so enthusiastic for what ever we did. I do miss his zest for life. Anyway back to mum, she has spent nearly 40 weeks in hospital and I don’t think I ever heard her moan once, and because of her being a lovely old lady who needs to have a little help with being cared for, and is in a really nice nursing home in Birmingham. As Jane my sister lives in Hertfordshire, mum thought it would be nice to be moved in to a nursing home near to where Jane and the kids live so mum and see her grandchildren on a much more regular basis, so in a nut shell mum is moving on 15 December, which she is really excited about.

So we arrived at Starbucks at 07.15, to upload 2 days worth of blog’s and see if we had any e-mails, before our Skype call with Jane at 8.00. The Skype went well and It was great to see Jane and Gary, (Jane’s Husband) but sadly Harry and Lily my niece and nephew were in bed as it was 10.00pm

Once our call was over Caroline and myself spent time doing some more research in to roof top tents, and thought we had hit on a winner, with a product called “open sky” so we found a dealer and off we went. The product was fantastic, Australian made and a really good price, once all the calculations were done we went and sat in the car to talk about it. The guy at the shop said you will love camping in Australia, he and his wife left home 2 years ago from Victoria and haven’t got home yet, we asked if he would and he said probably in the next couple of years.

Don’t forget we are not working now, I know its self imposed but our philosophy is only spend money once and make it count.

It started to rain so we decided to shoot around the corner just to have a look at the trailer tents at our favourite camping shop called Camping Country, we talked and talked with one of the Guys, “Jarrod” who gave us his opinion, he even said we could borrow his and his wife’s trailer tent next week if we wanted.

We walked out 2½ Hours later after a great deal of deliberation, lighter in the bank account but the proud owners of a new 4x4 Bushboys Trailer Tent. It is cool, and I will up load some pictures soon. Don’t forget bloggers this will be our home from now on all over this huge continent.

It is Australian made, built by the company we have brought if off, Jarrod is the son of the owner and he and his dad developed it. So far they have sold 2000 unit.

It wasn’t cheap, but cheap is not best, not in a country like this where your kit could just save your life. Caroline and myself have spent hours researching equipment that was right for the job. Our solar equipment from Power Traveller, the 3 first aid kits we carry, 2 for the truck and one when we are hiking, these kits combined contain, such items as a scalpel, emergency dental kit, anal lube (Only joking) compassion bandages, tourniquet, cyalume sticks, eye washes, and a kangaroo stethoscope.

If you brought a British fridge out here it would last 5 minutes, things here have to be built for the extreme temperature, I really should not be reading (Left for Dead) how I survived 71 days in the outback, but it’s a gripping read.

They are fanatical campers, the whole company go out together every 5 or so weeks to test new products, induct new members of staff and just generally camp together as a team, to build a good product based work environment, they don’t deal with large corporations but tend to support smaller family based companies, what an excellent idea.

Caroline and myself now feel liberated, from being weighed down with decision making, we now feel we are ready to move on, and look forward to our next step, we look forwards to packing up and setting off the Fraser and double Island.

Tonight we are going to BBQ some tucker, but being Friday night, I would think it may be busy, still we are not in a rush.

Well, here we are down at the bbq site and it is blowing a real hooley, the wind has already blown some pretty hefty items off the table already, I am really hoping that the food does not get blown away.

Both bbqs were absolutely pristine when we arrived a while ago. I do not think everyone is as meticulous as Andy, I am wondering if the local council send someone out every day or maybe once a week to clean the bbqs up.

As we have not done any pictures today, we have loaded some library pictures, taken by Caroline on our 2007 Australia trip, and the two landscape ones are of Port Stephen’s where we are spending Christmas, plus the great picture of my mum.

Must go for now.
Andy & Caroline
x

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Photos

Mary
The other Mrs T, Andys Mum.

Port Stephens Sunset
Just beautiful

Port Stephens morning
Library photo. A view of Port Stephens taken early morning.

Port Stephens
Library Photo. This is were we will be spending christmas.

Lizard
Library photo. A Lizard in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney.

Comments

[Gary]

I am somewhat envious
Although we have just come back from 3 hectic months in Australia, I am jealous of your forthcoming adventure. We will be following it with a great deal of pleasure. Our blog is at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ThePass/, in case you might be the slighted interested. We travelled too far, missed to many sites and still saw a whole lot of a vast country. ENJOY