Toowoomba, Wk 1, 2011

August 22^nd, We packed up and drove to Toowoomba, planning to stay at the Big 4 Caravan Park. Because the Flower Festival was only a few weeks away, they couldn’t give us a site, for a long period, but they rang another Park for us and found out that The Jolly Swagman could accommodate us. We booked in on a weekly basis, with the first 2 nights on their drive through site then onto a permanent site for as long as we needed, which is an unknown. This worked out well, as I was given a glowing recommendation for a local Caravan Repairer who would quote on our Van repair to-morrow and being on a drive through site I didn’t have to unhook the car from the Van. After hooking up the power and water I tried to tune in the TV, but to no avail. No signal was being received. I unpacked our 2^nd TV, which I had bought from Coles when we saw them on “Special”, back at Bateau Bay. It is a digital ready model, so doesn’t need the separate set top box. I connected it up, tuned it in and we had perfect reception, so after checking all my cables it was obvious that the old HD Set Top Box had “karked it”.

August 23^rd, I dropped Val off at Spotlight and took the Van out to “Trail-a-Van” to get things started on a quote to repair our Caravan damage. After a look and a few quick photos, they will prepare a quote and send it to the NRMA Insurance for approval. It’s now just a matter of waiting till we hear from them. The young fellow at Trail-a-van recommended Superior Springworks, in the next street, to fix my rear suspension problem on the Territory, as they did all that sort of work on their vehicles. The quote for the car was $340, to replace both rear suspension coil springs with HD long and it’s booked in at 8am on the 31^st August. I picked up Val from Spotlight and on the way home we checked out the local, Federal Hotel, and decided to have dinner there to-night. We walked across the road to “Big Dads Pies” and had takeaway pies and chips for lunch, back at the Van. They were really good pies. It was only a 2 minute walk from our Caravan Park to the Pub, the $11 meals where great but the Pokies weren’t good to Val.

August 24^th, I dropped Val at The Grand Central Shopping Centre, in the CBD, while I went to Centrelink to put in my paperwork. Parking is impossible, every street, laneway and back alley has Parking Meters and I had absolutely no money on me. At Centrelink I found a 10minute parking space and was in Centrelink for at least 30 minutes, so I was a little stressed, worrying about getting fined. When I got back to pick up Val, I had the same parking problem. I couldn’t drive into their car park as the boat was on top of the car, so I rang Val’s mobile, numerous times, without an answer, while driving around the streets looking for a place to park without meters and you can understand the level of frustration I was feeling by now! Finally Val answered her phone and I picked her up and went home for a couple of Chardies. When I checked Val’s phone, somehow the ring setting had been accidently changed to buzz only, so I soon fixed that.

August 25^th, I took the boat off the car and unloaded most of the gear from the back. Two reasons for this, I wanted to be able to drive into underground car parks and Scott, at Superior Springworks, wanted to check the unloaded height of the back of the car, so that he could make sure he selected the correct springs for the rear suspension. After I got back from Superior Springworks, we walked down to the Information Centre just down the road from the Caravan Park. We browsed around and picked up some brochures on local sites and events, had a free coffee and walked back home.

August 27^th, The weather has been good since we arrived in Toowoomba, with the temperature being kept down by a cool breeze, until last night. The rain caught up with us and this morning it was quite a sight to look out a see the air was white with, what I can only describe as “sleet”. Something I had never seen before and very cold.

August 30^th, The weather has been controlling our activities. We have had a good day , then a wet day, sunny day etc, so in between we have filled in time with a few repairs around the Van. I cleaned up my boxes in the back of the car and put a lot of stuff in the bin. The painted base of the table was an eyesore, the chipped and worn areas had Val complaining for a long time now. So I dismantled it all, cleaned up and painted the base, then to stop the base being damaged by our feet I cut a circular piece of carpet and glued it in place. I am very happy with the finished job and it met with Val’s approval.

August 31^st, I took the car into Superior Springworks at 8.30am and waited while they fitted the new heavy duty coil springs, into the rear suspension of the Territory. I’m very satisfied with the finished job, the back is well clear of the tyres now.  Scott pointed out that one rear tyre was badly worn on the inside edge and needed replacing. When I got back home I thought that I would replace the worn tyre with the spare and put that problem aside till later. Not a chance, the spare was as bad as the worn tyre, so now I’m up for 2 new tyres. We did a bit of shopping after lunch and stopped off at the Federal Hotel for a flutter, on the way home, and came home $120 in front.