Griffith, 2010

December 7th, Left Gol Gol and travelled to Balranald. We booked into the Balranald Caravan Park, for 2 nights, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. The river was up, as there is still heavy rain and flooding across Victoria and feeding into all the rivers. We drove into Town, to check out the shops, and Val found out that the local Club was having Bingo to-night at 7.30pm. We went back to the Club and had a very nice Dinner and a flutter. Val played Bingo while I read my western, and she won 2 X $15 Vouchers that could be spent around Town. There were only a dozen ladies playing, including Val.

December 8th, I went to the local Museum, which was in the original Stock and Station Agents and found it had a very interesting collection of local items. I then looked through the old Schoolhouse, which was only one room and built out of timber slabs, cut from local trees. The last treat for me was the old Goal, which was built in 1887, and at one time held Ronald Ryan (famous for being the last man hanged in Australia) who was caught for robbing a Bank, at the age of 16. We spent Val’s vouchers at the IGA Supermarket and packed up ready to leave in the morning.

December 9th, We set off for Griffith, after some overnight rain, it was a lovely sunny morning and the drive was going well, until we were 20 Klms out of Hay. A Highway Patrol Car passed by us, going in the opposite direction. I quickly looked at my speedo and was happy that I was not speeding. Next thing I know, the patrol Car overtakes me, lights flashing, and flags me down. We were both surprised and puzzled, as it certainly wasn’t going to be to “Welcome” us to their Tidy Town, of Hay, I was sure. He informed me that his new camera equipment, recently fitted to his vehicle, had read our number plates, then run a check on both our car and caravan and came up with the fact that both vehicles were un-registered. I immediately protested my innocence and informed him that I had fixed the registrations up “online”, as we are travelling all the time, and our vehicles were indeed registered. He said “can you show me your receipts”, my answer, “I’ll check my files”. We walk to the Van and I go through my files looking for some proof, while he watches me. He is friendly and continues to tell me that the Fine for driving an unregistered Car is $1000 and Caravan $550, I said “Bloody Hell” under my breath. Also, failing to stop is also an offence and I should keep looking in my rear vision mirror, as I failed to see him when he came up behind me and flashed his lights. My search only turned up the receipt for the Green Slip and the rego papers. I was still maintaining my innocence and stated that obviously I had not printed a receipt when I did it all “online”. He believed me and said that he wasn’t going to write me a ticket, even though without showing any proof he was in his rights to do so, but I must drive directly into the Hay RTA and sort out the problem before driving any further. I said, Yes Sir, as many times as I felt necessary to convince him of my sincerity. After checking with the Hay RTA, I was informed that both vehicles were indeed un-registered as they had been cancelled approx. 8 months ago, when I didn’t respond to the reminder letter that was sent to me. The penny dropped as I realized that because we are Pensioners, we do not pay for Registration in NSW, but I still needed to validate the Registration with the RTA. I was under the impression that because I went online that I didn’t need to have it validated, so stupid me! And now the fun started! HA! I had to treat this as a new registration for both vehicles, so, hand in Plates, get a Blue Slip on both, renew the Green Slip Insurance on the car, with the NRMA and get it all back to the RTA before 4PM. We had lunch at the Services Club while we waited 2 hours for the Blue Slips, I left Val at the Club to have a few Chardys and a flutter while I ran around (by Taxi) and sorted it all out. Finally we were on our way again at 3.45pm, extremely frazzled, heading for Griffith. This had been an expensive exercise, started with $800 on the Visa Card when we left Gol Gol and arrived at Griffith with $17 on the card. After telling our tale of woe to the Griffith Caravan Village they booked us in for a week with the promise of payment to-morrow. Just when I thought all our troubles were over for the day, when I connected the power to our Van, the safety switch tripped off and we could not get power. After removing all the appliances from the power points and trying it again, it still wouldn’t work. Suspecting my 15amp lead was faulty, I rushed down to Bunnings with all the money we could find around the Van and bought a new 15 metre 15 amp lead, for $25. Rushed back and plugged in the new lead, still No Power. I finally woke up to the fact that I had forgotten that there were other power points in the cupboards for the fridge and microwave and guess what! When I unplugged the Microwave the Power came ON. That was the end of our worst day since we started travelling 4 years ago. So I’m off to buy a new microwave to-morrow.

This is what Val reckoned I looked like at the end of the day.

December 10th, We carried on with our Christmas Shopping and picked up a new Microwave from “The Good Guys”. We called into the Griffith Leagues Club to check it out and found that they had Christmas Raffles on, so we stayed for dinner, raffles and pokies. Didn’t win anything to-night, so better luck next time.

December 11th, To-day we drove down to Leeton, only ¾ hrs away, to pick up a special present for one of our special girls. We were surprised at the number of Vinyards we passed along the way. Leeton was a reasonably big and very busy Town, for a Saturday. We dropped into their Services Club for lunch and a flutter, before heading back to Griffith. It was still early, so I started to pull out the Fridge, in the Van, to allow me to fit the new Microwave. I didn’t realize how much trouble I was going to encounter, seeing that I hadn’t done this before. My approach was based on how fridges are installed in a home, ie, Switch Off Power, remove any fixings and simply shuffle the fridge forward, as all cables and tubes will all be flexible and long enough to allow the fridge to come clear of the opening. HAH! Not so in a Caravan. I now know that you must remove the 2 outside vents to gain access to the back of the Fridge and disconnect, power connections, Shut off then disconnect the Gas line (copper tube), remove the Drip tray drain hose and the heat vent tube. Now the fridge can be removed easily and safely. Here comes the easy part, remove 2 U-clamp nuts then lift out the old Microwave and place it in Big Bin. Next step is to put the new Microwave in place, but it is a slightly smaller size, so the holes in the locating bar do not line up. So, after drilling new holes in the locating bar, the new Microwave is in position ready to fit the u-clamp. The new Microwave is an inch lower than the old one so with a garden stake, donated by the Park Manager, I made a spacer and secured the clamp. Now I moved the Fridge back into position and made the wiring connections to be able to run the Fridge, overnight. I need to buy a new drip tray drain hose from Bunnings, in the morning, to complete the installation.



December 12th, After picking up the drain tube, from Bunnings, we phoned Dianne to pass on our Birthday Wishes (21 again). I had to disconnect and remove the Fridge to fit the new drain tube then re-install the fridge. I can’t believe what a huge job it ended up being. Val kept herself busy re-organizing and cleaning out all the drawers and cupboards in the Caravan.

December 13th, Val did the shops today, hoping to finish off most of the Christmas Shopping. I drove up to the Lookout to check out the views and visit the Hermits Cave. In the early days there was an old local character (hermit) that lived in the Caves in the hills around Griffith. I found that the caves were no more that overhanging rock formations that gave him shelter. The only inhabitants living on the rocky hillside is a herd of Mountain Goats. I picked up Val and we checked out the Ex-Services Club and found out that they are having a huge Christmas Raffle on Wednesday night. Need I say anymore.

December 14th, Today I visited The Pioneer Park Museum, which also includes the Griffith Italian Museum and Cultural Centre. In the early days, this area was populated by Migrants, who were mostly Italian. They came with very little and struggled against the harsh conditions to make a good life for their families. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Pioneer Park Museum and I’m sure it would be even better when it’s the busy holiday season and the tractor train is running. The walking was very rough going. We had no power from 9am to 3pm, as the power lines in this area were being worked on. While the power was off, the fridge was running on LPG. It was a very hot 30deg. today so we spent the afternoon in the air conditioned Shopping Centre. My last task for the day was to empty and clean out our “Porta Potti” and, bugger me if, the flush outlet disappeared inside the flush tank and cannot be retrieved. So now we need to buy a new Loo, what next.

December 15th, Went to 5 different shops around Town, looking for a new Loo and couldn’t get one the right size to go under our bed. It looks like we will have to get one in Sydney, in 3 days time. I did however find a bargain at Supercheap Auto, while looking around, that was too good to pass up. A Reversing Camera for the car at $145 and the last one they had in stock. I spent the rest of the day fitting it to the car and it works well. I will have to make a few of my own improvements on the mounting methods, before I will be truly happy. We leave here tomorrow for Young, so packed up before heading off to the Ex Services Club for dinner, Huge Christmas Raffles and pokies. We didn’t win at the raffles but had a good meal and a fair run on the Pokies.

Gol Gol, Mildura

November 27th, Travelled to Gol Gol and booked into Rivergardens Tourist Park. It rained all the way up, so we opted to take an ensuite site instead of a riverfront site, which meant a long walk to the amenities block. At only $25 a night we thought it was a bargain. This looks like a good place to stay once the rain stops. The boat ramp access is on the side road and the riverfront is set up to tie up boats and leave them in the river. We are only 5klms out of Mildura, so we took a drive across the NSW/Victorian border into Mildura, to refresh our memory of the place. It must be at least 3 years since we were here last. On the way back from Mildura, we decided to drive down to the boat ramp then along the waterfront homes. The homes were huge and had well kept gardens. I saw what looked like a dirt side road and turned in, to make a U-turn on the narrow road, and head back to the Park. When the back wheels hit the 2” deep soft mud, the back of the car slid sideways and towards a downhill gully. Attempts to drive out were fruitless and made the situation worse. I was trying to use a couple of mats under the wheels to get a grip and hopefully drive out, didn’t work. Val thought she would get out of the car to size up our situation, immediately loosing her footing in the mud, and only just saved herself from sitting in the mud, by grabbing hold of the car door. I rushed around to help, heaving her bodily back into the car and retrieving her shoes from the mud. We were on a backroad which has very little traffic and as I was wondering what to do next, 4 trail bikes turned off the highway into this road. I flagged the bikes down and the guys were only too happy to help. They all pushed from behind while I drove and after a few attempts they succeeded in pushing us up onto the tarred road. They were covered in mud from the spinning back tyres. We thanked them and were about to leave when they decided to ride their bikes around the mud track heading towards the River. One of the boys said he would try it first, so off he went down the slope and around the track, then called back and said “Yes, it will be OK”. When he attempted to ride back up the slope his tyres couldn’t get any grip in the mud so the other 3 had to push him up to the roadway. What a fiasco!

November 30th, The rain finally eased off this morning, so, in-between showers I took the boat off the car, ready for launching and hosed yesterdays mud off the car. Mildura is a big Town and we have used the wet days to get started with our Christmas shopping.



December 1st, Rain has stopped, the skies are blue and now the boat is in the water. I went out fishing but came back empty handed. There is a lot of activity on the river here, lots of houseboats, water-skiers, Paddle Boats and tinnys.

December 3rd, Our days have been, fishing in the morning (nothing caught yet) and Shopping in the afternoon. One of our neighbours, up from Swan Hill for the weekend, was telling me that, on the first day, he caught a 70cm Murray Cod and returned it to the river as he thought he would catch a bigger one. We couldn’t believe it, Val would have loved to try some MC for her dinner. We decided to treat ourselves to-day, so went to “The Working Mans Club” for dinner and a flutter. Nice Club, nice dinner but Val didn’t have any luck on the pokies.

December 4th, I came back from my fishing trip to-day with my first catch here, a Yabbie. It didn’t want to let go of the line so ended up in the boat. This prompted me to put down a couple off yabbie pots and so Val had 2 yabbies for her dinner. She did say she wanted to lose weight. Her request now is to catch 12 Yabbies, so she gets a decent meal.

December 5th, No fish and no Yabbies this morning. Our neighbour from Swan Hill was leaving for home to-day and didn’t catch another Murray Cod, wouldn’t that make you spit chips. We took a drive out to the “Inland Botanical Gardens” only to find it closed, so just around the corner was “Orange World”. It’s an orange & avocado Farm that runs train Tours but we were too late for the last Tour, so just had a free orange juice and bought some souvenirs.

December 6th, Last fishing attempt this morning resulted in the same outcome. We leave to-morrow for Balranald, so the boat is out of the water and packed up for travelling. I drove into Mildura after lunch, had to go to the Telstra shop and get a new sims card for my phone. While I had a little “Poppy Nap” a couple of days ago, Val thought she would see what games I had on my phone, for her to play. God knows what she did, but when I awoke my phone was no longer working and she had been trying to punch in codes, when it asked for it, without having a clue what she was doing. It locked up completely when it couldn’t accept anymore wrong codes. With my phone problem solved I then went down to Auto Barn to pick up the “Reverse Camera” that I had ordered, only to find that it wasn’t in, so I’ll have to get one somewhere else. Probably when we get to Griffith, as it’s a big Town.