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Published: November 1st 2010
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First of all, apologies to those who have been anxiously waiting for the next blog (!) but we've had a bit of computer trouble and even our back-up team in the UK (Sarah and Ed) couldn't solve it. They did their best early on Saturday morning (for them) so thanks to both of you for your efforts - in the end we popped into a computer shop in Warwick and they sorted it out in about an hour which was very impressive. No doubt we could survive without the laptop but it does make keeping in touch with everyone so easy.
Anyway, back to the blogs: Sunday 24th October:
We got up fairly early on Sunday and were ready to go by about 9am so we had time for our regular venture out to the end of the boardwalk. Just along from “Sweetie” and Pie” we had noticed a very smart vintage car and caravan combination painted to match each other. We had photographed it and included it in our last blog “Just Strolling”. Today, having a closer look, we noticed that the caravan was called ‘Ruby’ and the car ‘Morry’ - brilliant! There were plenty of people out
and about on the boardwalk already, taking advantage of the lovely morning. The tide was in so fish and fishermen were abundant. Graham was tempted to go and get the fishing rod but decided to leave that particular adventure for another day.
We had a final chat to “Irish” Sean and Michelle - what a delightful couple they were. Graham gave them a copy of ‘Mo Mac ‘n’ Me’s CD by way of thanking them for the anti mossie solution. Sarah and Darryl had left a solution of dettol and baby oil in Sweetie for us but this new stuff smelt much more pleasant!
We had spent quite some time wondering which route to take to get back up to our destination which was Warwick. You may wonder why we were intent on going back to Warwick so soon after our three week stay there in September. The answer is simple - almost ever since my brother David has lived in Warwick we have said that one day we would be in town to witness Australia’s biggest and best Rodeo (pronounced: roh-dee-oh) and now we had the opportunity. The problem was quite a large one - The Great
Dividing Range - and also our desire to travel as much as possible on unfamiliar roads. The first stretch presented no problem as the road up to Grafton was mainly dual-carriageway so we made very good time. But there we had to make our first major decision - whether to travel on the Bruxner Highway towards Glen Innes (a route we had already covered in the opposite direction) or carry on up to Casino. After consulting Sat Nav we chose to go to Casino on the Summerland Way - it was a good road and very quiet so, after re-fuelling in Casino, we ventured on to Kyogle where we stopped for a bit of lunch.
Initially, when we set out, we thought we would need to stop for the night at either Casino or Kyogle but having made such good time we decided to try to get as far as Killarney or perhaps all the way to Warwick. I popped into the Kyogle information centre and asked what the road to Killarney was like and was it good enough for a caravan. The very nice chap behind the desk said that it was ‘bumpy’ but should be OK if
we took it steady. We had plenty of time and at first the road was fine but once we got past Woodenbong (what a lovely name!), although the scenery was magnificent, the road deteriorated and did indeed get very bumpy and narrow. We began to regret our earlier decision but were committed to keep going and so, for Graham especially, as he was driving, it became a very arduous and stressful journey. There were lots of signs along the route explaining that funding for upgrading the road had been applied for but that didn’t help us much. At least it remained a tarmac road throughout.
We eventually left New South Wales behind and drifted towards Killarney, had a break and phoned David to tell him we were on the way but only got his answer machine. We left a message and decided to complete the journey to Warwick as it was only another 40 kms or so. We got to David’s at about 5:30pm but as Queenslanders don’t adjust their clocks for “Daylight Saving” it was actually only 4:30pm!!! Alas David hadn’t picked up the phone message so it was a bit of a surprise for him. Once he
recovered from the shock he soon got into action sorting out some supper for us all (freezers are wonderful things!). We weren’t too sure where we would store Sweetie for the week but for that night she was left on the road still attached to PIE. We had travelled 410 kms that day, making it our longest travelling day with the caravan by some way so we were glad to be able to fall into bed.
On Monday morning Graham cycled off to speak to the owner of the nearby caravan park about the possibility of storing Sweetie for the week. He had sounded him out when we were here before so we hoped it would be OK. While he was gone I emptied a few things from the caravan (quite a lot actually) - it’s like going on holiday and having to take all those essentials with you. David had gone out on a job and phoned from that house to say we could store the van there. By that time Graham was back having fixed up for Sweetie to stay at the caravan park so we had a bit of a dilemma - but we decided to
take Sweetie to David’s friends house which was on the other side of town. We soon got there and I assured Graham that there was plenty of room in the back garden for him to drive through the gates, leave Sweetie and continue round without having to reverse. However, when he tried to get the caravan up the drive off the road it was clear that the caravan sub-frame was going to scrape along the ground. The garden was on quite a slope and with the guttering at the edge of the road, even with the car in 4WD, it didn’t seem possible (where is Darryl when you need him?). We didn’t want to risk damaging the base of the caravan so had to give up which was a shame as we could see that it would have been a very secure place for Sweetie to be stored. We drove back through town to the caravan park and the chap there directed us to a pretty good spot away from the main parking area and we were happy that Sweetie would be fine there. It was rather sad leaving her but at least she had some horses for company just over the fence! After all that excitement we just strolled around town and relaxed for the remainder of the day.
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