The Entrance, October 2011

October 29^th, Dianne, Jessica and Annaliese came to the Sydney Gateway Holiday Park this morning for a final good-bye, before we left at 10am. The girls took the opportunity to play on the jumping pillow while Val and Dianne checked out the Saturday Markets put on by the permanent Residents. We checked into Dunleith Tourist Park for a 4 week stay and, after setting up, caught up with Carole and Rob who also arrived today. After a quick walk around the Park, we found a lot of regulars that we know are also here. I unloaded the boat off the car and started setting it up.

October 30^th, I finished setting up the boat, put it in the water and took it for a short run around the island, to make sure everything was in working order. No problems, so drove into shore and chained the tinnie up to the retaining wall. It is very windy and showery today so not my type of fishing weather.

October 31^st, First job today was to put my paperwork into Centrelink, then place our bets for tomorrows Melbourne Cup, at the TAB. I re-acquainted myself with the local Library and borrowed 3 Westerns, did a bit of shopping and checked out the entrance to the Lake. Surprisingly the entrance channel was the widest I have never seen it, 3 or 4 times wider than usual and the locals tell me it was opened out by the bad weather that they had recently. I arrived back at the Park to find that Val had done the washing and I was just in time to help hang it out. What lousy timing! Only kidding. Our good friends, Gwen and Neal, arrived today and are here for 3 days in a Cabin. After dinner we went to Carole and Rob’s Van for a game of “sequence” and wound up an enjoyable night around 12.30am. 

November 1^st, Typical Melbourne Cup weather today, overcast, windy and threatening rain. The girls dressed up for the occasion and as you can expect and looked very lovely, the guys did very little. The owner of the Park put on a “Melbourne Cup” Lunch for all the residents, free of charge, and provided an 8ft Fishing Rod and Reel as a lucky door prize, with our site number as entry. David and Cheryl (Managers) organized $2 Sweeps, the Tables, seating and booked caterers to provide the food. David dressed up as a (very tall) Jockey and Emceed the whole proceedings. We put a table together with Carole & Rob, Gwen & Neal, Val & Ken and Val & myself, and all enjoyed a great lunch with desert. Beer, Sparkling Wine, Orange Juice and soft drink were also provided. David did a fabulous job as emcee and had us all in stitches. They took up a collection of donations for the Starlight Foundation and raised $630, which was a very poor effort for 95 attendees. If everybody had put in just $10 each, very cheap meal and entertainment and a free raffle for a very good fishing rod, that would have been $950 for The Starlight Foundation.

November 2^nd, Finally the clouds cleared away and the sun was out, so I’m off for my first fishing expedition since I launched the Tinnie. Its sounds like I’m travelling a long way out to sea and in a huge sleek launch but in fact I’m only motoring about 50 metres out to fish by the bridge. Success! I caught my one and only fish, a 29cm Bream. We had a BBQ dinner tonight in the camp kitchen with our Melbourne Cup group and Terri & Patrick (friends of Carole and Rob), which was great. After dinner we played “Sequence” with Carole and Rob until the early hours of the morning.

November 3^rd, It rained all night and was wet and miserable, so we went to Bateau Bay to make enquiries at the Southern Cross Retirement Village, as we are now thinking to find an alternate option to The Fingal Bay Village, that is closer to the Family in Sydney. The area manager was away but is back at work next Monday, so we will ring for an appointment then. After putting away our shopping and having lunch, I went out fishing. This time I ventured to the other side of the bridge but the bites were few and far between, although I had caught a small bream and a flounder, which were throw backs. I moved back to the other side of the bridge and with the guidance of some people from the Caravan Park, who were walking across the Bridge, was able to cast a line into a large school of bream. The water was very clear and it was an amazing sight to watch these fish swimming along the shaded area under the bridge. Most of them were in too much of a hurry to stop to eat but I did manage to catch one beauty, who put up a great fight. It came in at 34cm and the fillets will do Val for 2 meals.

November 4^th, Went out for a fish at 5pm and caught 3 throwbacks and a 40cm bream. Val raced all around the Park showing the fish to everybody. It was the biggest bream I have ever caught and people in the Park were telling Val it was the biggest they had seen, caught in the lake, for a long time. Very exciting, it weighed in at 1 Kg.

November 5^th, Joan & Robert came down after lunch, with our mail. Nothing exciting, mostly Bills that I didn’t want. After catching up on all the news I had planned to take Robert out for a fish, but he didn’t have a current fishing licence and all our efforts to buy one failed, as it was late and all the shops were closed. We enjoyed a game of “sequence” after dinner.

November 7^th, Went out fishing after lunch and came in with 2 bream, 29 & 31cm. After dinner we had another “sequence” night with Carole and Rob.

November 8th, Sandra came down from Blue Haven this morning, for lunch with a water view. Fortunately we still had a water view to see, as there wasn’t anyone on the site behind us. It was great to catch up and Val got her fill of family news and gossip.

November 9^th, 10am we met with the Area Manager of the Southern Cross Retirement Village at Bateau Bay, to check out their accommodation and cost. We were thinking that this is an area we like and it is central to our group of friends and family. Both Val’s Mum and my Dad lived at the Southern Cross Head Office/Village, in Merrylands, Sydney. It was a good layout with all levels of Aged Care available on site, but the 2 bedroom Apartments were too small and the cost was more than we could afford. So it’s still Fingal Haven Retirement Village at Port Stephens, for now. We drove on to Erina Fair Shopping Centre for lunch and shopping.

November 11^th, Only caught a 28cm bream today, they are getting smaller each day. We went to the Bateau Bay Sports Club with Carole and Rob for raffles and dinner. We won a leg of lamb, first number drawn, and Val had a bit of luck on the Pokies and came home with $95.

Brisbane to Sydney, Oct 2011

October 19^th, Arrived at Trail-a-Van at 7am and sat in the car while Rod, the boss, fitted our decals and after admiring the finished job, only 30 minutes later, we headed directly for Brisbane and booked into Brisbane Gateway Resort, at Rochedale, for 2 nights. Just as I was going to open the Van door, I noticed that one of the gold stripes was missing. I couldn’t believe that Rod and myself has admired the finished job and that we didn’t notice the missing decal. I rang them to tell them of the problem and followed that up with an email and photo of the area in question and asked them to send the missing decal to Cardiff and I will fit it myself. After an afternoon nap, we went to Brian & Julies for a BBQ and family catch up.

October 20^th, I rang Nerida & Rob, caravanning friends that we met in WA a few years back, and arranged to meet for lunch at the Redland Bay Hotel. After a nice lunch and a catch up, we went to Brian & Julies. It was our shout for a takeaway Chinese dinner and then I cleaned them up at a game of Tiles (Rummycube). Tomorrow we leave for Coffs Harbour.

October 21^st, Drove to Coffs Harbour, after putting clocks forward 1 hour for NSW daylight savings, and booked into Park Beach Holiday Park for 2 nights. When setting up the Van, I found the power switch was broken, we only had 240V power, so no lights or TV as lights and aerial booster are on 12V. We had a quiet night doing crosswords, reading and cross stitch.

October 22^nd, After buying a $19 replacement switch, I installed the new switch and was back to normal power supply for the Van. After lunch I went to the Coffs Harbour Over 50’s table Tennis Club and enjoyed playing with my old friends. Tomorrow we head for Foster/Tuncurry for a 2 night stay before heading for Sydney.

October 23^rd, left Coffs Harbour and had a great run down the coast. It was still early when we reached the turnoff to Tuncurry, so we kept driving and eventually pulled into Karuah and booked into the Big4 for 2 nights. We walked around the Park and decided that this would be a good spot to spend some time, when next up this way. It’s on the River and there are places to tie up the tinnie near the jetty. The locals told me they are catching flathead up near the road bridge.

October 24^th, After a quiet day we went to the Karuah RSL Club for dinner and Val played Bingo at 7pm. She won a $10 club voucher on the first game. The Club had been completely renovated since we were there last and we were very impressed. The meals were very good.

October 25^th, Arrived at Sydney Gateway Holiday Park to find out that it had new owners. The NRMA took an offer “too good to refuse” and the old managers have moved to another Park down the coast. At 4.30pm I dropped Val off at Greg & Dianne’s house and went to pick up Jessica and Annaliese from School. The girls were excited to see me and I couldn’t believe how much Jessica had grown. It was good to catch up with Greg, Dianne and the girls. We bought Chinese for dinner, which was very enjoyable.

October 26^th, We met up with Steven and Nikos at the Duck Inn (which is a Pub) at Chippendale, for Dinner. It took us 1½ hours to drive from the Caravan Park to the Pub, the traffic was horrific. We had a great meal and catch up and then drove Steven home, to Balmain. We went in for coffee and caught up with Margaret, before heading home.

October 27^th, After picking the girls up from School we went to Greg & Dianne’s and Val made Lasagne and salad for dinner. It was delicious and we followed that with Mulberry and Apple Pie with custard, Wow!

October 28^th, Dianne got me a great deal on 2 tyres for the Territory, from Jax Tyres at Blacktown. I had been putting this off for some time now, but the back tyres were badly worn on the inside edges. I picked Jess and Annie up and brought them back to the Caravan Park for a swim and some playtime on the jumping pillow. Greg and Dianne came over after work and we all enjoyed Val’s Stroganoff and rice, followed by rice custard and rhubarb. We finished off a great night with Greg and myself playing Table tennis with the girls. We leave for Dunleith Caravan Park at The Entrance in the morning.

Toowoomba wk 8, 2011

October 11^th, Dropped the Van into Trail-a-Van this morning, for repair.

October 14^th, I rang Trail-a-Van today to see how they were progressing and found they had completed the side wall repairs, and had picked up the wheel arch trim, which were still to be fitted. Still no sign of any decal arriving yet, so I said I would pick up the Van on Monday, with or without Decals.

October 15^th, We have been enjoying the extra kitchen space and having our own ensuite, in the Bungalow.  We went to The Toowoomba Sports Club for dinner before going to the Empire Theatre at 8pm to see the Carl Baron Show. We enjoyed a wine before taking our seats and the show was laugh packed from beginning to end. We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

October 17^th, I picked up the Van this morning and we moved out of the Bungalow back into the Van. I was told that the decals were a week off being here, so we had to decide what we were going to do, as we were due to be in Sydney on the 25^th October. After we finished settling back into the Van we made the decision to leave for Brisbane on Wednesday 19^th, regardless of the availability of the decals. Trail-a-Van said they could post the decals to us when they came in.

October 18^th, I said my goodbyes to the table Tennis Group today, this was my last day. I rang Trail-a-Van after lunch, to tell them of our decision to leave to-morrow and was told a set of decals had arrived in the morning mail, from Concept, who originally couldn’t supply them. What a pleasant surprise, so I booked the Van in for decal fitting tomorrow morning at 7am and then we would leave Toowoomba for Brisbane.

Toowoomba, Wk 7 2011

October 5^th, Val gathered up her current craft gear and at 10am, joined in with the Craft Group (men included) here in the Caravan Park. At 1 pm she arrived back home having met a mixed group of locals that gather every Wednesday and caught upon all the local gossip. The ladies were impressed with Val’s cross stitch.

October 7^th, Still no word from Trail-a-Van, so gave them a call and found out they were still waiting for the decals and wheel arch trims. They are chasing them again today but  we booked the Van in for Tuesday morning, as there was nothing to stop them doing the wall rebuild and sheathing. Hopefully the missing dress parts would come in soon. I have now booked a Cabin from Monday morning, which will allow us time to move all our gear from the Van into the Cabin and get ourselves organized.

October 10^th, Went down to the Office to find out which Cabin we were to move into only to find that, as expected, the Cabin still had to be cleaned and we could start moving in as soon as the cleaners left, which was around 9.30am. We were put into Bungalow 12, only 8 sites down the hill from our Van site, which sounded convenient but as we found out by the end of the day, it was just as much work as moving a kilometer. Yesterday, I packed up all the outside gear, so the back section of the Territory was full. That left me the front seat area to transport our gear down to the Bungalow, as no way was I going to carry anything that I could avoid. We were surprised how much stuff we had to move as well as relocating the contents of the cupboards, on the damaged side of the Van. I lost count of the number of trips I did in the car and by the time that I finished hooking the Van up to the car, it was 5pm. The Van was ready to be dropped off at 8pm in the morning and Val had finished organizing our gear in the Bungalow. What a long tiring day!

Toowoomba, Wk 4 & 5, 2011

September 13^th, While at Table Tennis this morning, I got an SMS from NRMA Insurance to say the quote for our van repairs, by Trail-a-Van, was approved. I dropped Val off at the Shopping Centre and went to Trail-a-Van to get them moving. I found out that there was no accommodation available in Toowoomba, until Sep’t 26^th, when the Flower Festival was over.

September 14^th, We rang Jessica late afternoon, to find out how she went at the Combined School Regional Carnival, at Blacktown (Western Sydney). She was competeing in the 4 X 100 metre Relay and although they didn’t win she had a great day.

September 15^th, We walked around our Caravan Park, looking at their Garden Display which was entered in the “The Chronicle Garden Competition”, and were very impressed with their display of colourful plants and flowers. They had put a lot of effort into the gardens and were rewarded with a 1^st place in the Caravan Park Section. We found out later that it was the 8^th year in a row for them.

September 16^th, We did the rounds of the 4 Antique Shops in Toowoomba, Val has some old coins and a crockery set worth getting a price on and is interested in selling them. We went to St. Lukes Anglican Church to have a look at their “Water of Life” Floral Display and found it very impressive and a lovely old Church.

September 17^th, I left Table Tennis early to get ready to go into the City for the “Flower Festival Parade”, starting at noon. We walked to the starting point for the Parade, only about 4 blocks away. The Floats were amazing, colourful and the Parade was a huge success. It went for an hour and was watched by a huge crowd. I took lots of photos, too many to put up on the Blog. We had one piece of excitement during the Parade when somehow a piece of metallic foil streamer floated skywards and shorted out across the overhead electric wires and created a very loud “BANG”. The Police sprang into action and diverted the Parade to the other side of the road and the Parade continued on without any further ado. After the Parade finished, we walked on into the City and had lunch at St. Lukes Church and Val checked out the Craft Display while I had a coffee. On the walk back home we called in to the “Federal” for a drink and a flutter and went home with $60 in our pocket.

September 20^th, had a call from Trail-a-Van to let me know that they are on the job but having a few problems with what Concept can supply. Val has started on the Dukan Diet, 6 days now, and has lost 2.7 kg already. She has bought the book and is determined to follow it, to the letter. It has 5 stages and could take 6 – 12 months to reach the final stage.

Toowoomba, wk 6, 2011

September 21^st, Today we went to Queens Park to look at the gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day and we thought that the crowds would be easing off, as it was half way through the Festival of Flowers. Wrong again, there were busloads of people at the Park. The Garden displays were beautiful, full of brilliant colours and designs. The whole grounds were neat and lawns manicured. A band was playing relaxing music and adding to the atmosphere. We did notice that the few rose bushes that they had were not in full flower yet, so we decided to leave visiting the Rose Gardens for a couple of weeks and drove up to Picnic Point park. Once again, the gardens were great and they had live music in the Rotunda. The view is usually spectacular from this Park, but today the smoke from the nearby bushfires put a haze all over the Valley. Our next stop was one of The Chronicle Exhibition Gardens at 41 Stenner Street. This was one of a group of houses that charged a $4/person fee, which went to a local Charity. The flowers and the work required to prepare these gardens is amazing and very enjoyable. We also wanted to see the 1^st place winning garden but will have to leave that for another day as nobody could tell us where it was. We called into the Federal Hotel for a drink and flutter, to finish off a nice day out.

September 25^th, We went looking for the Top Prize Winning Garden and in desperation had to phone the Info Centre, to find out where it was. It was well worth the trouble to locate it, the house was huge, the gardens were spectacular and the owners were a nice old couple that were wandering around and talking to all the visitors. They told us that they did all the planting themselves, which is incredible. It was like walking through the Botanical Garden, that’s the feeling we had. Even the street, with its trees and flower beds, was immaculate.

September 27^th, Still have no idea when the parts, to repair the Van will be received so, I paid for 2 more weeks at the Caravan Park, that takes us up to October 10^th.

October 1^st, After Table Tennis, this morning, I had to (as instructed by Val) go directly to the Empire Theatre and purchase tickets for the Carl Barron Show, on the 15^th October. Luckily, they still had seats left for the last Show, half way back and towards the centre of the Theatre. That now means that we will not get away from Toowoomba before the 16^th October, at the earliest, and want to be in Sydney on the 25^th October. I can’t tell you how much I hate having to make a “fast’ trip to anywhere.

October 3^rd, Today marks the end of our 6^th week in Toowoomba and I still don’t have a booking for our Van to go in for repairs!