New Caravan?

June 29 – Sunday

With a bit of cloud cover, the night wasn’t quite so cold, although someone still had to wear his beanie in bed. Hopefully as we travel north and the supposedly number 3 hair cut (the barber’s number 3 proved to be longer than the number 3 on the home clippers!!!)grows, this attire will no longer be necessary.

Today we headed up Black Mountain to the Telstra Tower for an elevated view of Canberra and its regions before visiting the National Museum. What a great place for children – Michael and Emma would have had a ball! Lots to see and do and plenty of iconic 20th Century goods, including a very modern caravan. Thank goodness there has been some forward development in this area as I certainly couldn’t have faced 3 months in their plywood teardrop.

Then it was a short drive in the country to a small town (supposed to be old and historical) which had a centre with the most magnificent handcrafted timber furniture. We could have spent $100,000 quite easily on a few blackwood pieces.

Spaceships

28 June – Saturday

A day for relations. This morning was spent meeting for the first time and visiting Pauline’s third cousin, Gayle, and her family. We had an interesting morning discussing family history and solving the problems of the welfare and education systems before moving suburbs and meeting Les’ sister, Margaret and her husband, Alan. Margaret and Alan are spending a couple of nights in Canberra on their way home from Darwin and our time in Canberra happened to coincide.

We took Margaret and Alan for a drive through the surrounding countryside, with a visit to the Tidbinbilla Space Station being a highlight of the afternoon. It was also a great place for a coffee and biscuit!

The drive home was during the late afternoon and we saw literally hundreds of kangaroos (not wallabies) in the paddocks around the suburbs. The mobs or kangaroos were like sheep in a paddock – I have never seen so many. With the large number eating the grass in the lawn cemeteries, mowing wouldn’t be a high priority. No wonder the authorities of Canberra complain about the problem.

Politics

27 June – Friday

Another clear, sunny day following a very cold night. The sky is incredibly blue. A big of excitement to start the day when a couple in a caravan near us became a little confused as to who was doing what when they were packing up. For some reason, the jockey wheel was not on the caravan (most unusual) and before the man of the caravan had hooked up to the car, the lady of the caravan released the front jacks, with the result that the draw bar pointed quite sharply towards the ground. They both remained very calm and no words were spoken while the large jack was put in place and the caravan raised. They probably wont try it again!!!

Today was political, with a visit to Old Parliament House followed by the new Parliament House. We didn’t realise, but Parliament had their last sitting yesterday, so unfortunately we missed out on seeing our representatives at work!

We took the guided tour at Old Parliament House and were shown around by a volunteer who was probably aged about 80 and very smartly dressed in red and black, red net stockings, red shoes, black skirt, absolutely beautiful red jacket, pearls and a gorgeous black velvet beret with red roses. The guides at the Female Factory may have to rethink their dress code! We were able to enter both the Senate and House of Representatives chambers, the press gallery, cabinet and party rooms. I’m quite sure everyone who had worked there was quite happy to move to the new building. Lots of school children about, of course.

A short walk up the hill took us to the new Parliament House, with its lawn covered roof and enormous flagpole and flat. Again it was a guided tour, this time with a young man who definitely needed to do a bit more research into political history. A member of the group asked him about the Gough Whitlam dismissal and because it was before his time, he didn’t know anything about it! Because Parliament wasn’t sitting, we were able to go into both chambers. The green in the House of Representatives was paler than I expected and the Senate was much pinker.

We finished the afternoon with a drive around the embassy area and no doubt had our number plate taken when we stopped in front of the US Embassy – very impressive building and VERY impressive security.

War Heroes

26 June – Thursday

A clear, sunny and VERY cold day in Canberra. Today we visited the Australian War Memorial and TomTom did a marvellous job of navigating through the confusing roadways of Canberra. A 90 minutes guided tour helped orientate ourselves and then we retraced our footsteps through the various exhibits. We spent some time in the Vietnam area, which contained a couple of very realistic sight and sound exhibits. An Iroquois helicopter was set up with two different shows – one was the actual radio traffic as a helicopter attempted to retrieve soldiers and was shot down, and the other was a movie behind the display of an insertion, with very realistic lights and sounds. Les was very impressed with the realism, especially the silence after the soldiers had been dropped off and the helicopters had departed.

A couple of other Second World War sight and sound shows were also very good – a bombing raid with an Australian crew in a Lancaster bomber and the Japanese mini submarines invading Sydney Harbour. It was also good to see that no attempt has been made not to offend Japanese tourists as the treatment of prisoners of war, and the civilians, is history and should be remembered. A very poignant display was a wall of small photos of all the men who died on an infamous death march. It reminded me of the baby bonnets project at the Female Factory.

There were large groups of school children visiting the War Memorial and it was great to see their respect when they entered the Hall of Remembrance. The mosaics in this hall would definitely be equal to anything we saw in Europe.

TomTom is our GPS navigational system - she tells us where to go!

Technical Difficulties

25 June – Wednesday

Decided last night to use the laptop and mobile phone to connect to the internet and update The Blog. Just a small panic until the right connecting cord was located, then a click on the icon which the nice man in the shop had set up and tested – it worked just fine in the shop, of course. What did I get? A message to say there was no dial tone! Had to ring Telstra, try and explain to a computer what my problem was before finally being connected to a very helpful techie. We had to set up a new connection and everything worked perfectly. Keep the fingers crossed for tonight!

A very cold night but fortunately we realised the insulation in the caravan does help – 1o outside and 9o inside. It also pays to get up first, have breakfast and a shower. We discovered our power pole had a very dodgy connection and we lost power just after I had my shower and before Les cooked his toast. Much muttering as the gas was connected to cook toast and fingers were crossed I had left enough hot water for a second shower.

Onwards to Canberra, only a couple of hours down the road and similar country to yesterday. High country grasslands and hills, lots of sheep and some cattle, plus an ostrich or three! There didn’t appear to be many houses about but there were certainly plenty of letterboxes at the ends of roads.

TomTom is proving very helpful and making life very easy as far as finding addresses, especially. He hasn’t been upset for a couple of days now.

The Crestview Caravan Park at Queanbeyan is very similar to most parks now – mainly on-site cabins with a few powered sites. However, the sites are very large and flat and hopefully there wont be any power problems. We have booked in for 7 nights (same price as 6 nights), so decided to pull out the awning for the first time. After much reading of instructions before and during the operation, the awning was set up and looked lovely. The weather was glorious, with not a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately, three hours later there were still no clouds but it was very windy and extremely cold. The decision was made to roll up the awning – instructions were to reverse the procedure. Easier said than done! Again, much muttering took place before the awning was secured and hypothermia had set in.

The Man From Snowy River

June 24 – Tuesday

Departed Waters Edge Holiday Park (certainly would stay here again, nice flat and grassy sites, good amenities) shortly after 9.00am, heading for Cooma via Cann River. Beautiful weather finally – blue skies and no wind. Travel today was very different to the flat, open farmlands of Gippsland which we passed through yesterday – lots of hills, windy roads and bush today. We saw a couple of wallabies eating the young grass growing on the edge of the road (not the least bit concerned about traffic) and a large bird which looked rather like a lyrebird. Lunch was at Bombala in the Snowy Mountains, where Les found an old grader to play brrrmm brrrmm on! Country was typical high country pasture, mainly sheep grazing on very dry grass and not a stockman in sight riding headlong down a steep ravine! Arrived at Cooma about 2.00pm and headed for the only caravan park which just happened to be on a hill, like everything else in Cooma. Fortunately the sites were flat, but very little grass, possibly due to drought conditions. No snow on the mountains, even though the ski season opened a couple of weeks ago.

On the Road

23 June – Monday

No sleep-in today as today is the start of the BIG trip north. Packing up was proceeding well until the refrigerator was opened and Boags Premium snow ice was discovered in the bottom of the door, flavoured with glass shards. Perhaps the frig needs to be turned down a bit!!! Cleaned the mess, hooked up and were on our way by 9.20am and at least it wasn’t raining, not like yesterday.

Headed out of Melbourne on the Monash Freeway without any problems and made our first stop at the Gippsland Heritage Museum at Moe. A highlight of this stop was to actually view and enter the slab bark kitchen which belonged to John Caughey, great-grandfather to Les. It is unbelievable that a woman actually lived, worked and gave birth to 10 children in this building (and the remainder). We certainly were left wondering what the remainder of the house would have been like. It is wonderful that this part of the building has been preserved and moved from its original site to the museum at Moe.

Lunch was a very quick rest area stop – it was far too cold to sit in the caravan for too long without heating. We arrived at Lakes Entrance about 2.45pm and were quite pleased with the fuel consumption today – down to 15 litres per 100 km. We are in a very nice caravan park right across the road from the water. It does seem a lovely town to spend a holiday, unfortunately it is very windy, wet and cold today. Definitely dumper and hat weather!

Relations

22 June – Sunday

First up, we compared caravans with Gary, who has a "new" caravan as well. It was definitely a case of you show me yours and I'll show you mine!

Another "relie day" with a visit to Les’ cousin, Wendy, for lunch and long discussions about family history and exchange of information. The laptop really came in for a workout here! We were left wondering if there was a connection between our ancestors in colonial Van Diemen’s Land as Wendy (and Les) has an ancestor called Margaret Lettice whose daughter was named Ann Eliza and I have an ancestor named Margaret Lettice Martin, who has a sister named Ann Eliza. With other coincidences in the families’ history, we were left wondering if Margaret Lettice was assigned to the Martin family as a servant.

Then a surprise when we returned to Aunty Pat’s to discover her son, Brian and his wife, were there. We haven’t seen either of them for about 20 years!

Melbourne

21 June – Saturday

Arrived exactly at 7.00am and had driven off by 7.10am. We travelled directly to Aunty Pat’s, upsetting TomTom on the way as we ignored many of his travel directions, had the caravan positioned in her back yard and breakfast eaten before 9.00. Had a quiet day with a wander around the DFO outlet at Cheltenham (the sales are on and some things were rather cheap!) and then Aunty Cath and Uncle Bill joined us for dinner. It was lovely to catch up with them again.

Departure

20 June – Friday

A relaxed morning spent loading the final bits and pieces into the caravan, a couple of goodbyes to Emma and Diane, a quick mow of the lawn and we departed home at 12.10pm. After such a cold, icy and gloomy week weatherwise, the sun was shining and the sky was clear, of course.

Drove directly to Ulverstone and recovered Les’ down jacket from Gene Raspin (another story all of its own!) and then bought fish and chips for tea to eat at Les’ mother’s house. Eventually we arrived at the ferry terminal at 6.30pm, collected our boarding passes, were inspected by a security man (I think he only wanted to look inside the caravan as he certainly didn’t conduct a "security" inspection) and drove straight onto the Spirit of Tasmania.

What a change from the previous voyage (the ship broke down in the middle of Bass Strait), plenty of room around the vehicles, reasonable size cabin and ensuite, well appointed public areas with lots of television screens – which were showing programs originating in Alice Springs! The weather wasn't too bad, it was fairly calm before we went to bed and only moved up and down during the night - noticed during the many waking periods!

Nomads

The caravan is now packed, biscuits have been baked, the water leaked has been fixed and Les has stored the Boags in case of emergencies!

The caravan has all the essentials like a full size shower, separate toilet, vanity, island bed, oodles of storage space, large refrigerator and microwave, plus a good size stove complete with range hood. No roughing it in amenities blocks!

The weather has been very cold and icy lately, so it is time for the new nomads (no grey hairs here - that's what chemicals are for!!!) to say a very sad farewell to the family, hope the grandchildren remember them and head to Devonport on Friday.

World Tour Continues

The world tour of Les and Pauline is about to recommence - watch this site for the first Australian leg, departing Hobart on the 20th June.