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Published: November 26th 2009
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Gorilla grip does it again G’day Guys and Girls,
How are you all? What is happening with you?
So what’s new down under? Well, we have a new travelling buddy with us for the next 6 months. His name is Harold, he is 21 years old, white, very tall, used to be in the dog grooming business and he has been travelling Australia for the last 6 months from Perth to Cairns and wants to complete the whole circuit, so we are helping him fulfil his dream! Yes, you have guessed it (Well I hope you did) we have bought our Van, it is a young 1988 Toyota Hiace Hi-top. The inside has a Sink, grill, hob and fridge. All appliances run off gas, but the fridge can also run off the mains electric or the van battery. This all basically means we can actually be self sufficient for near on two weeks before needing to refill the gas.
First stop with Harold was a car park on the out side of town to give him the “Big Clean”. We stopped in Crazy Clarks car park (Crazy Clarks is a cheap shop that sells loads of things from cleaning products, Christmas
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BBQ Queen decorations, hangers, boxes etc) , ran in and bought storage containers, new utensils, and other things that we didn’t really need. We went back to JB and cleaned him out, washed the seat covers and cleaned everywhere. We then thought about what else would make this beaut look like a million dollars (or at least one hundred), so we took it to a window tinting garage and booked him in to have black tints all around for privacy and to reduce the level of heat during the day. We then booked JB into the garage to carry out a service and some minor repairs. Once out of the garage we decided we would cover him in a new shade of white, so we went out and bought 12 tins of white spray paint and set about making him look a little tidier. Oh in all of this I forgot to mention we also gave it “the op” as Harold was previously a girl and went by the name Marilyn (Monroe fans I believe were the last friends).
We have been 700km in Harold so far without any dramas. From Cairns we took a steady drive down to mission
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Steak has been a popular dish so far.... beach and found a campsite, where in fact the owner was from a little place called Blackhawton, near Totnes in Devon. We were able to reverse Harold’s rear end onto the edge of the beach front which gave us a fab outlook. We unpacked and I cooked us a cracking sausage, beans and toast meal, which we enjoyed whilst drinking XXXX gold and a box of red wine. We drifted off to sleep listening to the sound of the outdoors as we slept with the boot open looking out onto the great beach front location (mozzy net over the door of course). In the morning I was awoken by David Bailey next to me taking pictures of the “beautiful sun rise” - Kate has certainly taking over my role of the Japanese tourist, even at 5am in the morning!!
The next day we again headed south towards Townsville. Whilst driving we found out something great, we discovered that Kate can actually reach the fridge whilst we drive along. Now this has become very useful when we want something to eat or a chilled drink. Our latest journey found us eating cold sausages with ketchup dip from the night before,
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Make a shape washed down by a 5L cartoon of Chocolate milk and a “lucky dip“ packet of crisps (Basically Kate puts her hand in a multi pack bag and picks out a surprise flavour, anything but plain for me will be fine). Margy, don’t worry, when Kate does venture into the back of the van whilst travelling at high speeds I always make sure I have one eye on the road and one hand on the wheel!!
Anyway in Townsville we did go to a aquarium where we saw an array of sea life that inhabit the Great Barrier Reef as they have their own mini reef within the Reef HQ. We learnt loads of stuff but wouldn’t want to bore you guys even more with the detail. Whilst at the aquarium we watched a talk on Jellyfish, this was scary stuff. Late afternoon we headed down to a town called Ayr where we found our first free camp spot, it had shower & toilets which was great as it was all free of charge and spotlessly clean.
In the morning we decided to head to Bowen. Bowen is a town where they filmed some of the scenes from the
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The bomb expert... blockbuster movie Australia. We also found a quiet spot to spray the van. It was really hard work, masking the windows, door handles, vents etc in the hot sun but after 5 hours the job was complete, I looked like a snow man (slimmer of course) by the time we had finished as I did most of the spraying. Kate did most of the masking of the windows etc, but also took the self elected position of health and safety officer, insisting I wore gloves and goggles whilst spraying. In the end we compromised, I wore Kate’s old pair of sun glasses to cover my eyes and we did not worry about the gloves. The van looks much better now with the new spray job, however I don’t think we could ever be professionals. Strangly someone must have been impressed as an old guy pulled up next to us whilst we were spraying and asked if we could do his next!!!!! I don’t know if he was serious, or it was just one of those, you know, when your washing your car and your neighbour shouts across “you can do mine next if you like” jokes??
When finished we
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BBQ King hit the road again and headed further south about 70km. These distances do take us some time due to big Harold’s weight problem, he feels much more comfortable at 80kmph as he does not get out of breath at this speed. I think the speed limits are 100ish kmph, so it’s quite funny when we get near a town and the speed limits drop right down as we are actually still below the legal speed limit and therefore can carry on at the same pace. Due to HB’s same weight problem we have only overtaken 2 vehicles on our journey, 1 train, which in fact re-overtook us later in the day and 1 JCB digger. Anyway, we are now in another camping area, which has all the amenities one would need. We are planning to spend tomorrow next to the Airlie beach Lagoon, which just looks great and after that we will be planning our trip the Whitsunday Islands.
I will leave you all with an interesting fact. Did you know, that some species of fish can change from a female to male overnight?
I hope this finds you all well and apologies for it being a day
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Pre Op Harold or two late, living in a van + no internet connection = No blog. On the plus side, on 5 days until the next instalment!!
A special thanks to Sam Naumo’s mum for allowing us to register our van in her Western Australia address.
Cheers
Matt
Campervan Driver/Food Taster
Kate
Route Navigator/ En Route Food Preparer & Taster/Music Chooser/Blind spot checker/Directions Enquirer/Drink Passer/Official en route photographer
xxx
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Gareth
non-member comment
Camper
Hi Both Glad its going well! Camper looks good, although sure I've seen it somewhere before... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otgHHUstdSw G