THE JOURNEY - STAGE TWO

Christmas time again!!! It is coming around quicker and quicker these days.

Doug and I wish you and yours a joyous and blessed Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013.

This sure was one doozy of a year, don’t you think? For us it held some momentous events. Firstly we finally tied the proverbial knot and secondly we lost my Mum to cancer. Just to finish the whole thing off, my eldest son Brett has parted company from his wife Naomi. Certainly from our point of view there have been some dramas. Having said that tho’, I don’t wish to give the impression that the year was a bad one. After all, getting married was lovely and something we had been trying to ‘get around to’ for quite some time. Mum’s passing was ultimately a blessing for her and although I will always miss her, we are now free to continue our journey. As far as Brett’s marriage is concerned, I am terribly sad for him and the boys, but it is life altering certainly, but not life ending and many of us have moved on to much better lives after parting from ‘the wrong partner’.

In amongst all the major events, we did manage to get away to Denmark, Kalbarri and GreenHead for short breaks, and they are all beautiful destinations. We had some happy times spent with friends and family and our health has been good.

I inherited mum’s home and we have been super busy getting it in order for Brett to live in with his boys. That has been quite challenging. Now we have handed that particular baton on to Brett to carry on the good work. Brett will live in the house looking after it while we travel.

We have ,of latter weeks, also been trying to get the van and car ready for a long trip. A major storm which passed thru’ Perth a couple of weeks ago caused us a small delay when a random gust of wind picked up our awning and tossed it up onto the roof of the van. Fortunately there was no damage done to the roof, air-con or sky-lights, but the awning itself was wrecked. We have in short time claimed on our insurance and had the necessary repairs effected. I have to pay full homage to both our insurer (SGIO) and the repairer, Daniel at Applied RV Services for their speedy and diligent service.

I had vowed to lighten the load in the van considerably, but have to say I have been unsuccessful in this regard. Because of our destination, we are compelled to carry all weather clothing and that does take up quite a bit of space. Other than that, we keep finding ‘things’ that we simply cannot travel without. I think it is part and parcel of living in caravan parks. Everyone we meet seems to have one particular device which they just cannot live without and we get sucked into their enthusiasm and end up buying one for ourselves. Good examples of this would be the soda siphon which now lives with us, the little gas cooker which comes with its own tiny little gas bottle, just for quick stops and off road stuff and of course my new toy, the circulation boosting thingie that I put my feet on each evening! All these things are good things, but they each need their own little corner of the van, and quite frankly, we are running out of corners.

Do you realise, that we have now been living in our van for just over 3 years! It seems impossible, but we started off here in this caravan park in Forrestfield in November 2009. It seems appropriate that we leave from here once again.

We were supposed to hit the road today, but as these things go, there was a last minute hiccup. We are in the throes of having solar panels installed at the house and they were supposed to be done yesterday. Alas, a too busy schedule caused a log-jam for the installers and the panels are going on as we speak, today. We couldn’t leave before installation as I need to sign paperwork on completion of the work. Oh well, I guess it will be for the best – there must have been a good reason why we shouldn’t leave today. DD tells me there is an old sailing rule stipulating never to start a journey on a Friday.............well, perhaps we are just adhering to that rule. Now we will be striking out for Great Easter Highway tomorrow, Saturday.

The plan is to spend night one at Southern Cross, night two ad Fraser Range and night three (Christmas Eve) at Eucla. We will spend a couple of days in Eucla and then continue on our merry way thru’ South Australia, heading slowly down to the Spirit of Tasmania dock where we intend to board the ferry (van and all) and travel to the Apple Isle. We hope to spend somewhere around 6 months in Tassie. It will all depend, I think, on how the bloke handles the cold. Me, I think I will love it, but he does suffer from the cold. I know the cold will hurt all the joints, but at least I will feel like doing something. I find it difficult to get motivated when it is hot.

As before, we will blog our way around the country sharing the experience. For now however, have a wonderful and safe Christmas.

Steph & Doug