Sydney, April 2011

April 17th, Booked into Sydney Gateway Holiday Park for 9 nights. After setting up we gathered up Jessica and Annaliese’s things and took them home, to Greg and Dianne. After catching up on all the family news, we headed back to the Van to clean up. We had a wet pack up when leaving Dunleith Caravan Park and had acquired a foul smell in the Van. After clearing out the Van of the wet mats etc, mopping the floors with disinfectant, the smell was slightly better. I bought Pizza for dinner and we had an early night.




April 18th, Jessica and Annaliese arrived around 8.45am, we were looking after them daytime, while Greg and Dianne were at work, till the Easter Holidays. I had my usual visit to the local Centrelink Office to put in my rent assistance paperwork. It was a sunny day, so I was able to lay out the floor mats from the tinnie, and a roll of carpet to dry. Robert had given us the carpet to line the top bunk. We use the top bunk as a storage shelf while travelling around. We all went around to Greg and Dainne’s place so Val could do her washing and stayed until they came home from work. Back at the Van, we were still getting whiffs of our bad smell and couldn’t pin it down.



April 19th, All the wet carpets were now dry and not responsible for the bad smell. I went searching for places to locate the source of our smelly problem. The last item I thought to clean out was my fishing box. As I went through the contents, lo and behold, I picked up 3 plastic bags of bait, left from my last fishing day when I took Rob out with me. I quickly disposed of the evidence and thoroughly washed and hosed out the fishing box and its contents. I was very happy to cop the blame and tell Val the smelly problem was solved. Dianne came to pick up the girls at 4.45pm, as we were meeting Steven and Margaret in Town for dinner. The traffic into Town was horrific, it took 1 ¾ hrs. to get to Darlinghurst. We had a quick drink at the Beauchamp Hotel before walking down to the Show Chef “Teppan-yaki” Restaurant for Dinner. This was the first time that Val and myself had been to Teppan-yaki, and it lived up to all that we had been told. The food is cooked on a very hot BBQ hotplate, right in front of where you are seated. The Chef is a not only experienced in this style of cooking but is comical and has the patter to go with his display of skills in food tossing. All the food was delicious and we were thoroughly fed and entertained by the end of the meal. Steven was the only one to catch the raw egg, on first toss, and Val was the only one of our group to catch the cooked egg in her mouth. We all caught our bowls of fried rice, flipped by our Chef, into a bowl we had to hold up in front of us. It was an experience that we won’t forget and can recommend that everybody should try it. We dropped Margaret and Steven home (Balmain) and was rewarded with a large piece of homemade pavlova, which I enjoyed back at the Van, for late supper.



April 20th, I took the girls to see the 9.45am showing of “HOP” at the Rouse Hill Hoyts. It was a great story about the Easter Bunny that we all enjoyed. I fitted the new carpet to the top bunk base and had enough left over to cut 2 mats for the front floor of the car, replace the mat on the Caravan step and a good sized outside mat to go in front of the door. Greg and Dianne came over after work and we all enjoyed Val’s Roast Pork Dinner. After dinner we showed them how to play our new board game, “Sequence”, which they liked.



April 21st, The girls went to their Pa’s place today, as I had thought that we were going to the Rosehill Caravan and Camping Supershow, but during a Seniors Moment I got the dates wrong and the show does not start till the 30th. I took the boat off the car, then spent 3 hours scraping and cleaning the bottom. It had collected shells and weed growth during the 7 weeks it was in the water, at The Entrance.



April 22nd, Good Friday, no shops open, so we caught up on a bit of reading. Greg, Dianne, Jessica and Annaliese called in for afternoon tea and a chat.



April 23rd, Greg picked me up this morning and took me to the Family Boats yard at Blacktown, to show me what Dianne and he are looking at buying, by the end of this year. They both like deep sea fishing and are looking at a 6 metre boat with cabin, preferably fiberglass hull and suitable for their 7 and 9 year old daughters as well. There were some very nice boats on display and of course very pricey. They will be buying 2nd hand, when that time comes.



April 24th, Sydney Gateway Holiday Park had a kids Easter Program organised for today, so we invited Greg, Dianne, Jessica, Annaliese and Karina, Chloe and Riley for lunch so the kids could join in the afternoons activities. They had fun with air tattoos, sand painting, plaster painting and a guessing competition.



April 25th, Typical Easter weather, raining, windy and very unpleasant. In-between showers, Val prepared and cooked flathead fillets, quiche and tuna pasta for dinner and had all yesterday’s visitors join us. It was a great meal enjoyed by everyone and our last chance to be with our family, as we leave in the morning for Stockton. Steven missed out as he spent his Easter in Melbourne visiting friends.