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Published: October 30th 2014
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Our 2nd Caravan Park in Dalby
We loved having the communal campfire just outside our van. Yes this is a big one. Those of you who don't like to read too much can just look at the pictures through the text and at the end of the report. Just click on the "See more Photos" button at the bottom of the page.
Last Christmas we travelled back to the coast to catch up with family and friends. We left the motorhome at Stanthorpe with some new friends and drove the rest of the way in the car. The Christmas break was gone too soon and before we knew it, it was time to head back to Queensland.
On our return to Dalby, Wendy had a driver assessment with Stonestreets and was accepted as a school bus driver for one of the country runs. For Term 1 she drove out to Jimbour to collect and transfer primary school and high school students. She really enjoyed the work. At the end of the term the run was assigned to another driver, and with no other obvious available run, Stonestreets offered the opportunity of upgrading Wendy’s licence once more to enable her to drive the “big buses”. Yes, please! In the meantime she started driving office workers out
Surprise!
Happy Birthday Tim! to Chinchilla (80km away) in a people mover. This was fantastic as it was similar hours to Peter, an easy run, though very boring at times, but paid at the industrial rate. (More money!) Peter continued to do the rig runs and the occasional emergency school run and charters. Life was becoming a bit monotonous with very early morning starts, home for breakfast and back to bed for an hour or so, up in time for lunch and soon after, back to work for the afternoon run. Back home at about 6:45pm in time for a quick drink around the communal campfire. More often than not we would cook dinner over the fire and then retire to the van for a spot of television or catch-up with the kids.
Whilst in the caravan park Dalby we became members of a great little community. You probably can’t imagine just how many Australians live a similar lifestyle to us: travelling around in a van, looking for and accepting all kinds of work opportunities. There are lots of lovely amazing people and we now have a lot more friends and contacts from all parts of the country.
Our son Tim has
Wendy (and Jan's) birthday celebration.
You're lucky there's no sound attached to the photo joined the Air Force and we hated the thought of not seeing him before he began his training in Sale, Victoria. As his birthday was in late June, a few days before his departure, we surprised him and his family by arriving at their house unannounced. As it was also Wendy Mum’s birthday on the same day, so we took her to lunch in West Wallsend. It was very exciting for all of us. We had a lovely dinner with Tim and the family and the next morning we were on the plane back to Brisbane. It was a short trip but oh, so worth it. Wendy's Mum is now in a Nursing Home Hostel in Stockton, and she seems quite happy and has settled very quickly.
The occasion of Wendy’s 60
th birthday did not go un-noticed. Our little community in the caravan park arranged a surprise party in the recreation room of the dis-used work camp at the rear of the caravan park. Sue is a great cook and party organiser, Simon has all the karaoke gear and is a talented musician, as is Leah. We discovered that Doug is a great mover and shaker and Paul can
Carnival Spirirt
A great ship and a great cruise line sing a song backwards (so long as the song is “TNT”, although he did have some trouble with the spelling). Great memories guys. Thank you to all of you. The party was such a success that a few weeks after we left they enjoyed a country and western karaoke night. We’ve seen video evidence – some things are best kept unpublished!
It was sad saying goodbye when we departed Dalby on 12
th July, travelling back to the coast via Lismore, but we had 2 granddaughters’ birthdays to celebrate, a cruise booked for late July, a sinus operation booked for Peter and other parts of Australia to explore.
The motorhome needed some rejuvenation and repairs so on our return to the coast we took it to the Avida (Winnebago) factory in Emu Plains. Our eldest granddaughter, Matilda enjoyed travelling in the motorhome to accompany us to drop the van off, and we all looked forward to collecting it.
To while away our time, we went on the cruise to New Caledonia. We sailed on Carnival Spirit and can highly recommend the cruise and the company. We had a great time and would love to do it again.
Martini tasting?
Why not! If not just for the showmanship of the bartender. At the end of August, Peter had his sinus operation. All went well.
On 22
nd September the van was ready for collection. We were quite thrilled with the repairs and new hatches but the new decals sure did give it a facelift. Some of our friends and relatives thought that we had a new van. We have FINALLY given our van a name –
“Peter and Wendy - Finding Neverland”.
With Tim’s RAAF graduation set for 24
th October it was time to make our departure plans. Firstly, we wanted to spend some more time in Lismore with the family and there was a friends’ 60
th wedding anniversary/80
th birthday celebration in Quirindi so we headed off for a little holiday. It was good to be back in our own house again. We were able to take our 2 granddaughters away for 2 nights at Evan’s Head, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
Back to the coast for a final post-op check-up and we were on our way to Victoria. However we did have some final warranty work to be done on the motor home so we rushed down to Emu Plains only to arrive when the workers
Skill, drama, colour, and amazement!
8 martinis, 8 glasses, one pour, and not a drop spilt! were finishing for the day. That meant we had to camp in the car park for the night, but we got the work done next morning and were on our way to Peter’s uncle and step-aunt living in St Georges Basin just south of Nowra so that was our first port of call. We had an enjoyable and relaxing couple of days there in all sorts of weather conditions.
It took us 2 days to drive from there to Sale in Victoria, a lovely town in Central Gippsland. Tim’s RAAF graduation/passing-out parade and dinner were a big day and we were very proud parents. The Roulettes RAAF aerobatic team is based here in Sale, so OF COURSE they had to do a flyover during the parade. It was a thrill to see them. Naturally, Georgina and the 4 children were here, very excited, proud and happy. The 2 older girls were excited to be able to have their first ever sleep-overs without mum or dad. They stayed 3 nights in the van with us. Tim packed up all his new belongings and his family and they headed back to the Central Coast to finalise packing and moving to South
Beautiful Isle of Pines, New Caledonia
The weather could have been a couple of degrees warmer but it didn't detract from the stunning beauty of the place.....Heaven! Australia. (What was that noise…. Oh yeah! It’s silence and now we remember what silence is like.)
We will be staying on in Sale for a short while to investigate employment options, and then who knows where? We are looking for work anywhere in Victoria in case any of our readers have friends in the right places.
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