Life in Retirement

Monday, January 27, 2014

27th January 2014

Hi just a quick update regards Nancy's visit to the specialist re-the nasty looking growth on her leg.
The Friday visit became a following Tuesday visit whereby the specialist declared "It must come out", but then reassured Nancy it wasn't cancer. However to have it operated on we have to go to his chambers in the city and she will need some skin graft afterwards. This was to be in a couple of weeks time and within 24hrs it had been pushed out to nearly the end of March thankfully it is not the dreaded rust.

This coming Wednesday she has a pre-op visit to the eye specialist and the following wednesday 5th Feb she has the first cataract operation.

I'll keep you posted

Cheers for now

Nigel

by the way we had a really good Australia Day at a friends house down the Gold Coast, a good bunch of people plenty of laughs and no hangover - I was driving.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

January 2014

15^th January 2014

We have our caravan back from the builder at long last so now I have a list of jobs to attend to, the least of which is to re-stow all of our gear. At least it gives us a chance to sort out what we really need to keep in the van and what we haven’t used for a while can remain at home.

Looking under the van it is obvious the complete running gear has been replaced that includes the four suspension units, torsion arms and shock absorbers, stub axles, brake drums and bearings and according to the builder all new brakes, I’ll have to take his word for the brakes. The important thing is he guarantees we won’t have any more problems with the running gear. Happy caravanning!!!

In the meantime we are having overhauls ourselves. I have new glasses and have had a couple of visits to the dentist, well into the four-figure mark.

Nancy will be having cataracts removed in February one eye to be done in early Feb and the other towards the end, whether she will need new glasses is anyone’s guess at this stage and then of course she needs a visit to the dentist also.

Now a growth on her leg has decided to triple in size over the past two weeks and doesn’t look very nice at all. She has managed to get into a specialist Friday morning at 9.00 am in the city, hopefully it isn’t anything really serious.

We had a good Christmas day, having a hot meal in the evening to avoid the heat. A total of fifteen sat down to enough food to feed an army and included North Atlantic Salmon, pork roasted in the Weber, Baked and glazed ham (we had prawns at lunchtime), and a variety of deserts to whack the kilos on. It all went down very nicely with a few cold beers and some nicely chilled wines in moderation.

I spent most of Boxing Day at the Redlands hospital. Several days before Xmas I was out in the bay crabbing and during a lapse in concentration a crab latched onto my right hand causing quite a laceration. Although I treated the wound carefully, by Boxing Day my right hand was the size of a boxing glove and I obviously needed some treatment. So after several hours waiting at the hospital and having to repeat the embarrassing story of getting nipped by a crab, large doses of anti-biotics were intravenously pumped into my system and I was eventually sent on my way with a fist full of tablets to take. It took a couple of weeks but eventually went down and no ill effects, unless I’m now allergic to crabs that would be dreadful.

Like everywhere in Australia it has been quite hot lately but luckily we get a beautiful cooling breeze across the bay and fortunately we haven’t had many severe storms yet but it’s early days I guess. I certainly feel sorry for those people in areas that are experiencing temperatures well up into the forties. Even if it is a dry heat as opposed to our humidity, 40+ is getting hot.

We have had very little rain since being home, this is our wet season. Is it going to suddenly let loose on us and then rain for months?

Some things are just out of our control.

I will keep you posted as to our activities and the results of Nancy’s specialist visit.

cheers for now

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Brief up-date 30th Nov 2013

Here we are the 30^th November already we have been home 6 weeks how time flies when you are having fun.

The caravan has been at the builders factory for 5 weeks now so I imagine we will get a call soon to collect it and hopefully no more problems or I may slit someone’s throat (probably my own).

Suncorp Insurance made arrangements for the car to be repaired following that incident in WA with the flying caravan awning. It looks like they did a good job and it’s all back looking new again. I drove to the designated repair centre and they arranged and paid for a cab to take me home and when they notified me it was finished they paid for the cab back and all up I probably sat in a reception waiting room for less than 10minutes. I don’t know if this is the norm these days but I thought it was pretty good service all round.

By the time we got home from our trip I was looking forward to getting back on the bike again for a bit of exercise. Eventually after organising the caravan I got it out of the garden shed and gave it a good cleaning, pumped the tyres up and adjusted all sorts of things then sat it in the garage for two weeks while I talked myself into riding it. I have started now and I’m building up the distance gradually each day, already can feel the benefit even if you can’t see it.

I have started painting again at long last, tackling photos of our trip I have started in watercolours to try and master this difficult medium. I have done a couple of pen and wash paintings and a straight out painting that surprisingly turned out acceptable, but I am looking forward to the aroma of pine turps and messy paint to be started shortly.

that's all for now

Main street Historical Beechworth

David hiking the Pound Walk Ormiston Gorge West MacDonnel Range west of Alice Springs

Nancy at Cope Hut Vic Alps this hut was built in 1929 for hikers and skiers to shelter from mountain storms
has 8 bunks a large wood fired stove a permanent spring at the back and a large annexed woodshed attached.
Still useable today for shelter.

Friday, November 01, 2013

Up to date at last 1st Nov 2013

30^th Oct 2013

Kalgoorlie-Boulder:

Kalgoorlie is the centre of WA’s goldmining industry. It was once called ‘Hannan’s Find’ named after the first prospector Paddy Hannan to discover gold there in 1893. Hannan basically stumbled on what turned out to be the richest goldfield the world had known.

In its peak by 1903 between Kalgoorlie and nearby Boulder the area supported a population of about 30,000. In recent years with the resurgence in mining the population has grown again, in fact according to the 2011 census the population had reached 31,107. Water shortage was a real issue in the early days and in 1903 a pipeline was opened pumping water 560 kls from Perth. This water supply is still maintained today as you drive from Perth to Kalgoorlie you can see the pipe running parallel with the road almost all of the way.

In its day the two towns boasted 8 breweries and 93 hotels among other things.

The two towns amalgamated in1989 to Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

The Super Pit

Although the region supports numerous active mines the most prevalent and spectacular one is the Super Pit. This is an open-cut gold mine approximately 3.6 kilometers long, 1.6 kilometers wide and 512 meters deep. It was created by Alan Bond, who bought up a number of old mine leases in order to get the land area needed for the Super Pit. Every now and again the digging reveals an old shaft containing abandoned equipment and vehicles from the earlier mines.

The mine operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and produces 850,000 onces of gold per annum. A visitor centre overlooks the operation. The mine blasts at 1:00 pm every day, unless winds would carry dust over the town. Each of the massive trucks carries 225 tonnes of rock and the round trip takes about 35 minutes, most of that time being the slow uphill haul. Employees must live in Kalgoorlie; it is not a fly-in fly-out operation. The mine is expected to be productive until about 2017. At that point, it is planned to abandon it and allow the groundwater to seep in and fill it. It is estimated it will take about 50 years to fill completely.

We counted an endless procession of 20 haul trucks working while watching from the lookout.

10^th October

It took us three days to cross the Nullabor to Cedunar in South Australia. Fairly straightforward driving a lot of it is through undulating country with a variety of scenery trees and vegetation, if you stop thinking about the distance you have to travel the run isn’t so bad. Our first night stop was several hundred kilometers from Kalgoorlie at a free camp spot called Baxters Rest Area. The following day included one section of road between Balladonia and Caiguna that is 90mile dead straight (that’s miles not kilometers), the longest section of straight road in Australia. Although it is straight it is also undulating so reaching the crest of one hill you can see the road crest of subsequent hills disappearing into the distance, you need to stay positive or it would get you down and as our friends have said, ‘it never seems to end’. Like others we stopped for a break at the top of the Madura Pass to take in the expanse and solitude of the Nullabor and visualize the area once covered by sea. From there you drop down onto what was once the seabed and run for quite sometime adjacent to the original shoreline cliffs, it’s all quite fascinating.

To be on the safe side we topped up with fuel a couple of times on the trip across not knowing the frequency of roadhouses or the price and paying $1.97 and $2.00 per litre. As a friend once said there is nowhere else to go.

Talking off crossing the Nullabor, everybody stated how the wind always blows west to east so we would have a tail wind coming home. We of course had one day tail wind, one day side wind and one day head wind. Head wind is expensive and side wind is hard work.

When we eventually hit the coastline we were amazed at how calm and blue the sea was knowing how violent it can be down there.

We diverted off the highway and visited the ‘Head of the Bight’, this is a viewing platform that has been set up for travellers to observe the migrating whales in season or just to see the scenery. This is Aboriginal Lands but operated by white people (how else can you put it), there is a fee for accessing the place $9.00 each with seniors concession. Yes we qualified.

12^th Oct 2013

Ceduna was cold, wet and blowing a gale, we stayed one night and moved on in the morning by-passing Streaky and Smoky Bays with the weather being so foul. Driving almost 500kls from Ceduna to Port Augusta at the head of the Spencer Gulf, the road takes you in a big drooping arc across the Ayre Peninsula through undulating grain growing country. At this time of the year farmers are harvesting as can be witnessed by the number of large grain carrying trucks that thunder back and forth between storage silos. Most of the centres you pass through are whistle-stops usually a rail head, a series of huge grain silos the obligatory pub perhaps a garage and maybe a small store. We stopped for a late lunch break at Kimba, a more substantial town of about 650 population. The rest area is in town where the road changes direction and crosses the rail line, Nancy suggested we stay the night I think she had enough of sitting for hours in a vehicle. I could imagine freight trucks slowing down for the corner and then accelerating on one side of us and the train on the other and wondered what sort of night we would have so I kept going for another 140 kls or so finally pulling up 25kls short of Port Augusta and although we were just off the highway we slept like logs.

14^th Oct

We tossed up whether to head for Adelaide as we were looking forward to catching up with some friends there, the weather was still nasty and I had my tail up for getting the caravan back for repairs, so we decided to cut across country while we were having a good run with the crook wheel and picked up a good tail wind – sure makes a difference. That night we pulled up at Renmark another big day but pleasing progress. Renmark was in the middle of a rose festival the town looked absolutely beautiful with its wide streets and median strips ablaze with beautiful roses. I held up traffic by slowly driving around round a-bouts so SWHO could take photos – wouldn’t get out of the car to do it. Of course hardly any turned out and it was my entire fault for going too fast!!!

15^th Oct

While Nancy shopped at Renmark I managed to find a place that would fill our gas bottle. These days most places only offer the swap and go service, it’s getting harder to find places that actually fill bottles. No doubt we will eventually be forced into this process but I will hang onto our caravan bottles as long as possible as they are Australian made ones for caravans and are stronger than the others. With getting away late we made it a short day pulling up at a nice lakeside free camp rest area half way between Mildura and Balranald on the Sturt Highway about 240kls all up and plenty for a change.

In all of our travels over the west with numerous trucks and the big road-trains of enormous length I never heard one of them complaining about other road users. In fact when a truck caught up with me I would call on the radio and establish a passing procedure, most of them would wish you well or even query as to where you were from. On the road in the Renmark, Mildura region I have never heard so many whinging truck drivers in all my life. All of them complaining about those effing caravans holding them up, no attempt to communicate when almost every caravanner has a VHF radio. You feel like reminding them that they hold up traffic on hills when they are heavily loaded, but what’s the point you would then have to listen to their verbal diarrhea or turn the radio off.

16^th Oct

We stopped at the Narrandera show grounds the next night $10 for an un-powered site. On the way we called in to Hay and visited a sheep shearing demonstration and museum, had lunch there and bought a couple of home-made Anzac biscuits for afternoon tea, they were the size of saucers and almost a meal on their own.

17^th Oct

The next day we turned off the Sturt Highway and headed for Junee, Nancy’s old butcher (as in 80+ something) in Brisbane buys Junee lamb and it is delicious so a call into the Junee abattoir for a carton of Junee lamb shanks was the order of the day and a visit to the famous Junee chocolate factory where they make delicious liquorice and Nancy purchased a large carton of the stuff.

Our direction of travel was to be through Goulburn to Sydney where we would catch up with our earlier travelling companions and then on up the Pacific Hwy home but by this time the devastating NSW bushfires were at their peak with areas of the Pacific Hwy south of Sydney closed smoke was thick everywhere so we found it necessary to change our plans and started heading in a north westerly direction that took us an extra two days through Bathurst and Orange and eventually a great loop back out onto the Pacific Hwy north of Newcastle where we had a good run all the way up to Grafton almost 600 kls for the day and far too much.

What a beautiful sight Grafton is this time of the year all the streets lined with flowering Jacarandas absolutely stunning.

Sunday 20^th Oct

We plugged Tyalgum into the GPS, that’s in the upper reaches of the Tweed River below Mt. Warning where friends live. Our GPS decided to take us on all of the back roads and we even had to make a ferry crossing at one point, can’t see how it was supposed to be the quickest route but it was certainly scenic. Mid afternoon we left Tyalgum for our last leg home arriving just on dinner time. Both the house and gardens looked immaculate, Lisa had been very busy and it was nice to be home.

It took most of the following week to gradually remove everything from the van and find homes for it all without cluttering the house; a lot of the gear is stowed under our neighbour’s house. Then I scrubbed the van inside and out to get rid of the red dirt so it all looks nice and new again.

Nancy has complained for a week and a half that she is still sore and stiff from sitting in the car for such long periods on our drive home. (she’s just getting old and cranky).

Following a visit to the caravan builder he is going to up-grade all the running gear and guarantees we won’t have any more problems with it, van goes into the workshop on the 19^th Nov. In the meantime I am systematically attending to a substantial ‘to do’ list and then there are Dr’s, dentists, opticians and Nancy needs to have cataracts removed.

And that my friends is about up-todate

see photos below