The Central Coast

Well, we've been down on the Central Coast now for awhile (we've both lost track of time and can't work out how long we've actually been down here for). Geoff has been working hard on the renovations for Shaun and Danielle and when he's not working he is playing golf with his brothers, in the backyard or on the local sports field. The photo below is him working today...

What have I actually been up to you ask? 

Well I've been babysitting my gorgeous nephew Hunter while Corina goes for a surf...

I've also been doing the cooking and cleaning for Danielle and Shaun as much as possible, offering moral support to builder bob, some bookkeeping for my other sister Corina, and I cant think of what else I've actually been doing! 2 words.... Time Flies!

One weekend we headed down to North Sydney and spent the weekend with Geoff's sister Naomi, her husband Luke and their 3 kids, Grace, Maeve and Jude...

Grace and Maeve having fun with Mr Nappy Head...

Not long after that it was my birthday... Let's just say I'm getting depressingly close to 30!

Can you tell one of our butts is being pinched in the photo below?

This progressed to a sisterly fight...

And a surprise little party afterwards with all kinds of sweet goodies that we later all regretted...

With dinner to follow at a Gourmet Pizza Place... surprise, surprise.

Tragically everyone left before I had finished my birthday glass of red wine...

Thankyou to my wonderful family for making my day special! It was a treat :) 

Unfortunately my little nephew Hunter spent the weekend in Hospital with a bad virus so he and Corina weren't able to make it to my birthday dinner. He is doing great now though and seems to be completely recovered and back to his smiling self YAY.

Last weekend Danielle and I did a whirlwind trip to Port Macquarie for my Mum's Birthday. She was completely surprised (although we had to tell some porkies to surprise her), and was so happy we came...

The photo below is a storm that we were desperately trying to avoid when we travelled to the Central Coast - we had a new hardwood front door with glass panels on the roof of our car that we needed to keep dry and hail free... It was amazing! We headed west at Taree between two storms and this is a photo of the back of one of the storms. Praise God we got the door delivered to Danielle and Shaun nice and dry and managed to avoid the storms!

Where to next? On the weekend we are heading north to Hat Head to spent a couple of weeks doing some maintenance on my families holiday house. We're then heading to Hawks Nest to spent Christmas and New Year with Geoff's Family. We both CANNOT believe Christmas is only 2 weeks away! Geoff suggests its because our seasons are all out of whack as we never experienced winter this year as we were up north. Who knows, but here comes Christmas and we cant wait!!

Hanging at the Central Coast...

Builder Bob Goes to Work

Tuesday 16 November

I have lost track of the day count now as there really hasn't been anything too remotely interesting to report, no sharks eating sharks, no crocodiles hoovering around the boat, no exploring or finding ourselves learning the hard way. I'm wondering if I should stop the day count and resume it once we hit the road again? We left our beloved new home (camper trailer) in Port Macquarie about a week ago and headed to the Central Coast to help my sisters with their renovations. We are staying with my sister Danielle and her husband Shaun and there is currently no kitchen! As I am sitting downstairs typing this, there is a curious flow of sawdust floating down from the downlight in the ceiling as Geoff bangs around upstairs. Today he is gyprocking and laying timber floorboards in their new kitchen. I'm not sure how long we will be done this way for but in the meantime we are enjoying spending time with our families. We (or should I say Geoff) has some more work organised in Port Macquarie for a few days and then a couple weeks work in Hat Head. So that will pretty much take us up till Christmas which is only 5 weeks and 4 days away! Once again God has provided for us on this exciting journey.

DAY 122 - 136 (Goodbye Caravan - Hello Camper Trailer)

DAY 130 Weds 27 Oct  - 136 Tues 2 Nov

• So for the last week we have been in Port Macquarie packing our new home and getting our car looked at which for the last week or two has not been starting easily. We still don't know what's wrong with it even after being to the mechanic's and auto electricians. Hopefully we will sort it out soon. 
• My sisters also both came up for the weekend and it was so great to catch up with them again and see our little nephew Hunter... 

Trying to work out how to set up our new home...

Our new home..

• Our plan at this stage, and it could change as we are learning, is to try and find some work between now and Christmas so we are around our family for Christmas. So if anyone needs a carpenter just let us know! After Christmas we will make our way south to Victoria and Tasmania. 

DAY 129 - Tues 26 Oct

• We packed up and left Lismore and headed to Ballina to pick up our new home.
• There has been an ongoing debate between us regarding hearing - Geoff says I speak too quietly and I say he is deaf and needs to turn his hearing up. There was only one way to solve this and so today we both had a hearing test. My overall hearing is slightly better than Geoff's but we are both within normal range...
• By 2pm we had still not had the call that the trailer was ready so we decided just to turn up and see what was happening. They then told us that sorry, it would not be ready today but we could pick it up tomorrow. We were both not happy as we had packed up in lismore and driven to Ballina to pick it up as they said it would be ready today. Eventually, after I suggested that they find us accommodation if it wasn't ready, they 'somehow' found the parts that were 'missing' and by 5.30pm we had our new home... 

• Because we had SO much stuff with us from the caravan that we now no longer needed, we decided to drive 5 hours back to Port Macquarie and unload.

DAY 128 - Mon 25 Oct

• We spent today getting organised for picking up the trailer which was not quite ready yet.

DAY 127 - Sun 24 Oct

• Today Daff and Helen took us for a tour around the beautiful countryside which included a stop at Nimbin. We were out of the car for no more than a minute when we were offered drugs. By the time we got back to the car (less than 5 mins) we had been offered drugs 5 times! It is truly like stepping onto another planet filled with hippys, drugs and lots of rainbows...

DAY 126 - Sat 23 Oct

• With a FULLY loaded car we left Brisbane and made our way to Lismore to spend the weekend with our Cape York buddies Daffyd and Helen. 

DAY 125 - Fri 22 Oct

• We spent most of the day today trying to jam a caravan full of stuff into our car - somehow we managed to fit it all in except for our bikes which will have to stay in Brisbane for now...

• Tonight, we had dinner with Emmi (another cousin) and her family. Their youngest Dan, (4 yrs old I think) couldn't pronounce my name properly so I was "A-panda" for the night - so cute!

DAY 124 - Thurs 21 Oct

• We decided to try unpack, clean and deliver the van by this afternoon rather than tomorrow so our cheque would clear in time to pick up the trailer on Monday. So that meant a 6am start and we didn't stop until 3pm!
• By 4.30 we had delivered the caravan to its new owners and we high-fived as we drove away - Goodbye caravan - hello camper trailer!

DAY 123 - Weds 20 Oct

• After breakfast we had a call from Kimberly Kampers to say that our camper trailer was ready a week early and could now be picked up on Monday. God's timing is perfect as now we could sell the van in Brisbane on friday and pick up the camper trailer on Monday in Ballina. 
• So we said goodbye to Uncle keith and Aunty Hilda and made our way to Brisbane.
• We stayed with my cousin Jenni and Aaron (their kids Ella and Aston in photo below) and left the van at my Uncle Bill and Aunty Corrie's place to clean.

DAY 122 - Tues 19 Oct

• We awoke to another beautiful day in Hervey Bay and shortly after had a call from my Uncle Keith. Apparently they were camping at Tin Can Bay which was only a short drive south away, so we spontaneously decided to pack up and head to where they were. 
• I'm afraid our exit from the Hervey Bay caravan park was less than graceful and was definitely embarrassing. It's hard to explain effectively what happened, but here goes. We had to drive along in front of all the other caravans facing the beach and then slip between two vans to get back to the road. The gap between the two vans was ridiculously tight so we thought surely there is another exit up ahead. Unfortunately to drive forwards meant driving right through a grey nomad tea party that was taking place. When they saw us coming there was chairs, snacks and grey nomads fleeing everywhere. We apologised as we ploughed through their tea party only to discover it was a dead end and we had to reverse back through it. By this time we had quite an audience as it was narrow and difficult to reverse. We eventually managed to get our large 13m rig out of there only to hear a grey nomad running after us calling for us to stop. In our haste to reverse we had collected a large branch on the bike rack. We thanked her, and headed south towards Tin Can bay. 
• We spent the rest of the day catching up with Uncle Keith and Aunty Hilda.

DAY 117 - 121 (Heading to Brisbane)

DAY 121 - Mon 18 Oct

• We planned to leave Hervey Bay today but it was such a beautiful, perfect day we decided to stay another night... 

• In the afternoon, we just drove around and checked out the town. The ridiculously long wharf was a popular fishing spot...

• We found a little creek that wasn't so crowded so I attempted to catch dinner (but with no luck).

• Tonight, we are both nursing extreme sun burn after under-estimating the UV index today.
• On Wednesday we will drive to Brisbane and spent a few days cleaning the van before delivering it to the new owners on Friday afternoon. We have about a week after this until we can pick up our new home - the camper trailer from Ballina. 

DAY 120 - Sun 17 Oct

• We left Tannum Sands and headed to Hervey Bay... We often see some strange and interesting things on the road...

• We arrived at Hervey Bay mid afternoon... I put some much-needed washing on yet realised near the end of the cycle that it didn't sound real good. I was SO shattered when I realised that I had forgotten to remove my cherished souviner driftwood that I had found a the tip of Cape York from the machine. I would often store it in the machine when we travelled to keep it safe. So now all our undies were full of splinters!

• Not only that but on one of the rough roads we had travelled the machine had broken the brackets that held it in place and one of the feet was off... Mr fix-it to the rescue...

• Geoff then headed off to play a much needed game of golf, after spending long hours driving the last few days.

DAY 119 - Sat 16 Oct

• We left Nebo truck stop early and continued our journey south. Once again the road back to the main freeway was rough. At one point we stopped and checked inside the van and all the bathroom stuff was all over the floor, the microwave door was open and the glass round plate from it was on the floor (amazingly not broken tho). 
• We checked out a coastal town called Yeppon... pretty nice

• And also Gladstone which I think has to be the biggest industrial hole in Australia. (sorry if you are a fan...)

• We spent the night a Tannum Sands. Another nice little coastal town just south of Gladstone.

DAY 118 - Fri 15 Oct

• We left Ayr and headed south-west to a mine near Glenden. (My sister's husbands, uncle works there and had arranged to give us a tour). I have to be honest here and say that I really wasn't looking forward to the mine tour and might have grumbled a little along the way (as it was a slight detour). However, I actually quite enjoyed seeing the enormous size of a drag-line in progress... As Geoff said, it was like watching a ten-storey building swinging around dragging an enormous bucket. The bulldozer in front of it that you can just see is actually a D11 (the largest bulldozer in the world!). Looks pretty small when compared to the drag line... 

•  Newlands Xstrata coal mine soon plans to move this above dragline 36kms to another mine site and it takes one hour to travel 50m. 
• Below are photos of another open cut mine onsite... To get one tonne of coal they need to remove 20 tonnes of dirt. 

• The nearby town to the mine is called Glenden and is fully owned by the mine - it is a strange place. All the houses are pretty much the same and cost $30 a week in rent. We had dinner at the local club (also owned by the mine) with Matt (my sister's husbands, uncle) his wife Tuva and their kids. We planned to spend the night at a dam about 20kms away from Glenden but somehow with it being dark and raining we totally missed the turn. 
• So we just kept driving until we came to a random town called Nebo. Not wanting a repeat of our noisy night on the highway a few days ago, we decided to head into the town and park near a reserve. We did not realise though at the time how close we were to the local pub. At about 12 midnight we were woken up by a fight just outside the van between two men. One of the men then rallied a group of friends (have no idea where they all came from) and starting planning on bashing up the other fellow. Honestly at this point, I was petrified inside our little van. When they had walked a little away from the front of our van, we quietly got dressed in the dark and slipped into the car. I think we both breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the police had arrived. We drove back to the highway and parked at the truck stop. We prefer truck noise now to drunken fights outside the van! 

DAY 117 - Thurs 14 Oct

• Today we left Undara and began to make our way south-east to Brisbane to deliver the van. 
• Part of the condition of sale was to get any warranty work repaired on the van so we needed to head to Townsville to get that done. Unfortunately the road to Townville from Undara was a little more rough than we had anticipated - there was a large section of dirt roadworks and the majority of the road was only one lane tar with dirt either side. So to pass any oncoming traffic you had to veer off the side... The van has never been so dirty - what a shame! Check out the width of the road...

• Geoff also informed me along the way that when we were at Elim Beach (coloured sands) about a month ago, a lady came up to him (when I wasn't around) and said she just saw a snake near our tent! I'm SO GLAD he didn't tell me until now! 
• We travelled most of the day (except a brief stop in Townville Jayco) and spent the night in a small town called Ayr.