20th April 2011
My break from sprucing up the house last week came and went so quickly, not that I’m complaining but the three and a bit days we spent out at Wivenhoe Dam was wonderful and just what I needed to rekindle my enthusiasm for continuing the clean up. This was the first time we had been to the caravan park area at Wivenhoe Dam and what a pleasant surprise, there are a few powered sites with easy parking and concrete pads 50metres or so to clean ablutions’ and plenty of hot water. These sites are set out in a single line around the top perimeter of a wooded hill that slopes down into a sheltered cove. Each site also has the provision of a wood fired BBQ should you wish to use it. A hundred metres away extending out to a small peninsular is a huge grassy area with shady trees and several picnic shelters with BBQ facilities for use by the general public. The good thing about Wivenhoe, as apposed to Somerset Dam several kilometres to the north, powered boats other than electric powered craft are not permitted on the dam and consequently you don’t get the hoons with their ski and wake board boats or tinnies roaring around, just people paddling kayaks and small sailing boats and young people like me catching Redclaw. Another good thing is that the ranger locks the entrance gate at 11.00pm and re-opens it at 6.00 am, this also keeps out the hoons and give a feeling of security.
Wivenhoe is the sort of place you would go to enjoy a tranquil, serene environment with plenty of bird life, kangaroos and possums at night. As a bonus we caught quite few Redclaw over the few days and enjoyed having them with a special dip knocked up by our friend Judy and also in a curry that Judy’s husband Al made, they were delicious and went down well with my last bottle of Church Block purchased at Wirra Wirra vineyard when we were down south. As usual when caravanning you meet nice people, we had good neighbours at Wivenhoe. Next to Al and Judy a young couple like us were using an electric powered collapsible boat, consequently they were able to get to locations in the dam that haven’t had a flogging for Red Claw, on one trip they returned with a 20lt drum 2/3 full of Red Claw that were the size of small salt water crayfish. Unfortunately the husband had a rather inhumane way of preparing them for cooking. The normal procedure is to remove the head from the body prior to cooking, most people euthanase them by putting them into a freezer, this guy just ripped the heads of and dropped them into a bucket so he had a moving mass of heads and legs with no bodies attached, quite gruesome.
On the other side from us were another couple, Liz and David (another one), David is a quadriplegic and is confined to a wheel chair the whole time, obviously the caravan has been adapted accordingly and a special fold away ramp constructed to wheel him in and out. David is a competition shooter and turns out he and Liz are good friends with Jonas a paraplegic Olympic shooter from Sweden who trains in Australia and is in turn a close friend of our daughter Lisa. Lisa stayed with Jonas and his now wife when she was in Sweden a few years ago. Liz would have to be the most dedicated wife or person for that matter that I have ever come across. Liz drives the car of course, towing the van and they have covered about 40,000 kls so she knows what she is doing, manoeuvring and parking is no effort, setting up the van level, water and power hooked up, awnings out etc, etc. David is wheeled out and made comfortable, sun protective hat, or a blanket when a slight chill comes through the trees and moves him around to ensure he can watch everything going on or to get the best of the day be it sun or shade, all with a cheery smile and bright demeanour . Nice people attract nice people, Ron and Del were set up on one of the un-powered sites (we had their site). Spending 90% of their time at Liz and David’s site they were all obviously very good friends, Ron has limitations of movement having crook knees and shoulder joints, he spent most of his time sitting and chatting to the ever pleasant David, while Liz and Del pumped up the rubber ducky and paddled out on the dam to drop yabby pots amids lots of splashing, great peals of laughter and numerous unplanned circles, ever tried paddling one of those rubber duckies especially when you are both facing one another. We joined them all at night to sit around their open fire and yarn and partake – had a good few laughs that’s for sure.
Home again and back into the painting, repairing and replacing, what a tedious job repairing and painting palings in the pergola balustrade especially when they are a contrasting colour to the top and bottom rail. Good progress has been made, pergola is all finished, kitchen and family room has had a complete repaint, couple of doors have been painted and rehung so I’m getting close. Nancy has helped, she runs errands to Bunnings for paint and such, thank god for mobile phones, even when you write things down it still results in several phone calls, she also purchased a couple of shrubs on Wednesday which she planted today, Good Friday. Things are looking up, the last time she stepped foot into the garden was about 5 years ago to look at some butterflies. Or were they fairies?
Am I the odd one? I don’t consider myself religious but I respect people’s faith, Christianity and what it stands for. The heathen across the road sends his kids to Churchy and yet he starts his lawn mower up at 0840 Good Friday morning, he mows about 3m x 3m and puts the mower away, he does the same thing on Xmas Day. It’s a bit like the mouse giving the cat, which is about to pounce, the fingers or the little frog sitting on a pelicans beak poking its tongue out – it’s the last act of defiance and yet he is supposed to come from a Christian country. Then Mrs Heathen starts up the noisiest vacuum cleaner in South East Qld, it’s one of those Vacumaid things that you plug into a wall fitting and it all goes to a central unit, in this case in the garage so it megaphones it, in fact I think it’s got big amplifiers attached to it turned up to full volume. They usually do the vacuuming at 11.00pm at night just to let the neighbourhood know they are home from their business. I always believed you didn’t do a lot of noisy things on Good Friday, after all we are celebrating a religious event.
And Easter Monday is now on Tuesday because ANZAC Day is on Monday. Bullshit!!! Why aren’t both events celebrated on the one day? On the correct days. In other words it’s just another excuse to have another public holiday and incur more cost to the economy, we’ve become a country of bludgers.
I say all public holidays should be banned and school holidays should be at least halved and every State should have them at the same time.
You know when your retired and travelling it seems as if there’s either a public holiday or school holiday every second week, then all the rates are at peak or you are being hit with a surcharge.
While typing this and looking to the south I can see a black sky, must be a storm building up It’s 1630 so by the time I batten down the hatches and have a shower it will be time to partake in happy hour.
Toodleoo
