Inverell April 2014

April 1^st,We finished packing up and did the 1 hour drive to Inverell. We passed a lot more roadside cows but Val was a bit slow with the camera and only took one photo. We booked into Fossickers Rest Tourist Park, for a week. After setting up, we went into Town, for a look around, and checked out the Visitors Centre.

April 2^nd, I went into town this morning to put my paperwork into Centrelink, then joined up at the Inverell Library, as a visiting member.

April 4^th, I was back in town this morning to pick up a few things from the Supermarket, so took the opportunity to take a few photos of some of the historic buildings. I also came upon the Tennis Centre and had seen an advertisement for a big tournament this week-end, so went in to find out a bit more. On the way home, I spotted a monument in a local park and went to investigate. It was a dedication to the families and inhabitants of this area that were part of the development of his area, leading up to the Federation of NSW. We rang Annaliese this afternoon to wish her a Very Happy 10^th Birthday.

April 5^th, I went down to the Heritage Centre this morning only to find that it was closed to the Public. The Inverell Motorcycle Restoration Club were hosting a Motor Cycle event in the grounds of the Heritage Centre. For a donation of $2 I was let in to look around the bikes. There must have been around 200 bikes of all ages and types. As an old motorcyclist myself, I found it very interesting. I stayed to watch the very organized way they all left the grounds. It was all over in around 15minutes. I then went down to the Tennis Centre and watched a mens singles and a girls doubles. That kept me interested until it was time to go for lunch. In the afternoon I decided to throw a line into the lake, that was at the end of our street, to see what was biting. Guess what! Not a bite, so went home for a Chardy.

April 7^th, Inverell is known as The Sapphire City so we had to have a go at fossicking while we were here.  We took the advice of some neighbouring caravaners who recommended Billabong Blue as the best and packed up some lunch and did the 20 minute drive out to Sapphire. For a cost of $20 each we were provided with all the necessary equipment and shown how to Fossick. Sapphire Blue has a working mine and they gather up a pile of wash from the creek and deposit it at the Fossicking Area. The process for us was to shovel the wash through a large sieve into a bucket. The next process is to pass the contents of your bucket through a fine shaker sieve, to get rid of the dirt. The third process is to sloosh a sieve full of stones in a tank of water to clean them, then flip the washed stones onto a bag on top of a 44gallon drum. Finally, with a pair of tweezers, gently look through the washed stones for Sapphires. We did this, with Val and myself working as a team, until closing time at 4pm. It was a backbreaking task for us both but we enjoyed our day and came home with 26 pieces of sapphire. Our biggest piece was about one cm long but nothing of great value. I did a bit of packing up this morning, before we left for sapphire, as we leave for Moree tomorrow

Glen Innes March 2014

March25^th, We said our “good-byes” to Terri, Patrick and Pixie and left Wallamba River Holiday Park, knowing that we were not coming back while the current Manageress was still there. We have enjoyed our stay with Terri and Patrick, fishing was lousy but the company was great. We decided to go to Glen Innes by a different route, after being told by other Caravaners in the Park. They had pointed out that the road through Walcha entailed 50 Klms of winding road through the Mountains, not great for towing a Caravan. We decided to then go up to Coffs Harbour, then out past Grafton to Glen Innes. We stopped in Coffs, did a little bit of Shopping and booked into the “Clog Barn” Caravan Park for the night.

March 26^th, it was a wet trip, rained all the way to Glen Innes and was very foggy up through the mountains. The road was good and we only had about 14 klms of windy road, so I knew we had made the right decision to come by this route. You know when you are travelling through “cow country” when they are let out to feed off the grass alongside the Highway and they do as they please. No “looking left and right” to cross the road, they just go! Luckily the rain had broken up when we reached Glen Innes and we were able to get set up at Fossickers Tourist Park, for our 6 night stay.

March 27^th, It rained all day but we couldn’t put off doing our washing any longer. We took it all to the laundry and had 2 full loads. The machines were well past their “use by date” and it took 2 cycles for each load and they still weren’t properly dried.

March 28^th, We drove into Town, checked out the Information Centre, did a bit of Shopping and I had a nice lunch at The Tattersals Hotel, in the main street. On our way back to the Park, we called into the RSL for a chardy and flutter, and went home a few dollars in front, thanks to a win Val had on Keno. After dinner I started with a dry little cough that I couldn’t stop and when I went to bed my head was filling up and I couldn’t get off to sleep. I felt so bad that I wasn’t game to go to sleep and I can’t ever recall having this before. I eventually found that if I lay on my stomach that I didn’t cough but it wasn’t comfortable, even without a pillow. Val woke up early for a toilet break and I sat up for a while and felt better. I did settle after that and get a few hours sleep.

March 29^th, This morning I woke up stuffed up in the head and had a bad chesty cough. We went down Town and found the Chemist shop closed so we picked up some tablets and mixtures from “Bi-Lo”. We had planned to go to The Australian Cattle Dog Trials tonight and the main event was a “State of Origin” challenge between the 6 best dogs from Queensland and NSW. Unfortunately I was not well enough to go so we had to give it a miss.

March 31^st, Today I was feeling the best since last Friday when this all started. Val has been waiting on me “hand and foot” and taking good care of me. This has been a lost “do nothing” week. I was certainly well enough to start packing up as tomorrow we move to Inverell

Darawank February 2014

February 25^th, We finished packing up and drove up to our next stop, at Wallamba River Holiday Park. We set up on site 50 which was the nearest we could get to the waterfront. Terri came around to welcome us and to invite us around for dinner with them. We had a lovely roast dinner and it was great to catch up with them.

February 26^th, I took the boat off the car, set it up and, with Val’s help, put it into the River. While Val took our car back to the Van I drove the Tinnie into the Lagoon and tied it up, ready to use tomorrow. The first difference I noticed was that the entrance to the Lagoon was very shallow and I would have trouble getting in or out at low tide. While Val was getting dinner ready, I threw a line in off the riverfront walkway and caught a 29cm bream (great start).

February 27^th, Patrick and I went out for a fish this morning and I caught the only keeper, a 27cm Whiting. Val enjoyed the whiting and bream fillets for dinner.

March 1^st, We had heavy rain all day yesterday and today. We had intended to move to site 53, facing the river but it was pointless doing that on a wet day. We had decided to go to the Tuncurry Races today but it was cancelled due to the bad weather. Val made dinner for us all and we took it around to Terri and Patrick’s place. It’s much better having a nice meal in a dry and warm house.

 March 2^nd, I had just enough time to move to site 53 in between showers. The TV reception on site 50 was poor (only 5 channels) so we were hoping for better reception. Unfortunately it was better but we still didn’t get all the channels. I pulled one of the aerial head pins out so that it could be positioned vertically and that was an improvement. So, between our 2 TV’s (one inside, one outside) we were able to get most channels except channel 2, which we rarely watch.

March 4^th, I took Patrick out fishing today and we didn’t get many bites and didn’t catch a thing. The water was very dirty after the rain we had, so we decided to leave off fishing for a few days until the water cleared a bit.

March 6^th, We did a trip to Taree today, only 20 minutes away. Val had to go to Spotlight and I dropped off her Overlocker” at a Repair place in Taree. It crashed on her a couple of years ago and now Val has “the bug” to get into sewing again.

March 7^th, I checked out the Camping Shops in Tuncurry, Forster and Taree, only to confirm that nobody was stocking my Coleman’s Jumbo Padded Chair in this area. I had planned on changing it under Warranty but I can’t do without my chair any longer, so I decided to repair the broken arm and if that looks good enough, I will modify both our Coleman Chairs. I had a length of rectangular tubular aluminium that I bought while at Anna Bay, so I went to the local Bunnings and bought  ¼ “ bolt and nuts to replace the existing hinge pins. I cut one side out of the box section aluminium to make a channel piece, fixed to the end of the plastic arm with super glue and pop-rivets, opened up the hole through the bracket arm and chair frame, fitted the bolt and cut it to length. Works just like new and is stronger.

March 8^th, I made up 3 more brackets and fitted one to the other arm of my chair. Tomorrow I will fit my strengthening brackets to both arms of our other Jumbo padded Chair.

March 11^th, The Manager (Huey) came down today and told me he had 3 fellows coming tomorrow to inspect the riverside walkway and wanted to see under the walkway from the water, so could I take them out in my boat. My boat was the only one in the water and that was OK with me. We went around to Terri and Patrick’s place for dinner, tonight.

March 12^th, Terri and Val had a day out in Taree and picked up Val’s repaired Overlocker. The 3 men turned up to do the walkway inspection and my boat is licenced to carry 3 people, so I let them take the tinnie out themselves. This is the final check before the old walkway is demolished and replaced with a new one. After they left I went out for a fish and came in with a 43cm flathead, finally! Now Val wants a few more, so that we can all have crumbed Flathead fillets for dinner.

March 13^th, Didn’t catch any fish today but when getting my line off a snag, I pulled up a complete fishing rod and reel. It had been in the water a long time as there were little shells growing along the shaft and was beyond being used ever again.

March 15^th, The fish aren’t biting and the water skiers are here for the week-end, so we decided to have a day out. We picked up Terri and Patrick and drove up to Ricardoes, a Tomato and Strawberry Farm, just north of Port Macquarie. It was a nice day for a drive and only took a bit over an hour to reach our destination. We had a look around the array of products in the Shop and then ordered our lunch. This was our 2^nd visit but Terri and Patrick had never been there before. After lunch we collected a bucket and scissors and went down to the hot house and picked our own strawberries. Val wanted to buy green tomatoes but unfortunately they were sold out. We all enjoyed our day out.

March 16^th, This was a day not to be forgotten. Terri called in to chat with us around 3pm, as usual, while walking Pixie (their dog). Just after she arrived the wind started to pick up and when we looked to the sky, we could see a huge black storm cloud approaching and driven by a strong wind. Terri said I’d better get on home (which is on the other side of the Park). I said, jump into the car and I’ll drive you home. Terri thought she could walk home before the storm hit but with Val’s persuasion she accepted the offer. We were about half way to Terri’s place when the storm hit its peak and the driving horizontal rain had every loose things flying around the Park. There are a lot of tall trees in and around this Park, so it was a bit scary. I dropped Terri and Pixie off and headed back to our Van. When I came to the intersection in front of the Takeaway Shop, a huge tree had been blown down across the road. I had just enough room to squeeze the car past and carry on Home. When I drove up to our Van I saw that a huge limb off the tree next to our Van had fallen where I had my car parked. How Lucky for us that I drove Terri home, otherwise our car would have been under that limb and severely damaged. The storm didn’t last long but it did a lot of damage. Apart from the trees down and the general mess, one of the annual’s had the complete awning picked up and tossed into the paddock next door. Apart from that, we all survived.

March 17^th, I thought yesterday was a day to remember but one event today, left us gob-smacked. We got up to the mess all around the Park and the staff busy with inspecting the damage then starting the cleanup. Val had some issues with the Cleaners not doing a proper job of cleaning the Amenities that she was using. Keep in mind that we have been here for 3 weeks. Val did lodge a complaint with the Relieving Manager a week ago and the following day the cleaning was done properly. However that didn’t last long and we had some of the cleaners working on the En-suite next to our van, so she went over and spoke with them and told them of her problem. They were not the cleaner involved with Val’s problem but went straight down to the office and reported Val’s comments to the Manageress. Well! That’s when “the shit hit the fan”. A little while later, Val was sitting out in the annexe when the Manageress charged up to our Annexe and, hand on hips, aggressively verbally berated Val about not talking to her Cleaners and bring any complaints to her, she had been monitoring them (obviously not very well), If we don’t like the park then “don’t come back” and then charged off. We were shocked by this barrage, dressing down or whatever you would call it. We will definitely not be coming back to this Park while this Manageress is still here. We did finish off this day with a very pleasant BBQ and drinks for Patrick’s Birthday.

March 19^th, Terri and Val went to the Forster Shopping Centre for lunch and some “Retail Therapy”, while Patrick and I went out for a fish. It was a repeat of yesterday; we caught a few small fish but no keepers. The fishing is not good this year.

March 23^rd, The last few days the weather has been very ordinary and the week-end skiers were ripping up and down the river, so not much doing. I went out with Patrick for a fish, this morning, as this was our last opportunity before we are moving on. Patrick bought home the only catch of the day, a 37cm flathead and was very happy to have caught a flathead for Val. After lunch, I took the boat out of the water, packed up all the gear and loaded the boat onto the car. Val enjoyed Patrick’s flathead for dinner tonight.

March 24^th, We had to pack up this morning and move to site 130, at the back of the Park, due to another Van coming onto our site. I knew I was low on petrol in the car, so I drove towards Tuncurry and guess what? I ran out of petrol 2 klms from Town. Luckily Terri was in Tuncurry, so I rang her, and she had just finished her shopping. She picked me up from the Servo and drove me back to the car. I was very thankful for her coming to my aid.  We had a lovely dinner at Terri and Patrick’s place and Val made a coconut crust pie filled with passionfruit lemon curd topped with meringue, Yum. We leave in the morning for Coffs Harbour.

Anna Bay February 2014

February 11^th, We arrived at Bays Holiday Park and booked in for a week. The workers were updating and expanding the 2^nd amenities block, which will be appreciated during the busy periods.  We settled onto our site then went down to the Salamander Shopping Centre to restock the Larder.

February 12^th, We went to the Medical Centre at 12.10pm for our Annual Check-up and an hour later actually got in to see our Doctor. We both came through our examinations with flying colours, pending the results of our blood tests.

February 14^th, Joan and Robert came down to visit, from Cardiff, and stayed for Dinner and tiles. We had an enjoyable night until Robert, who was sitting in my Coleman’s Jumbo Padded Chair, lent back and the left arm of the chair broke off at the hinge point. We weren’t surprised as every one of these chairs, which we have had, has broken at this same point after 12 months use. We should get another warranty replacement as they are covered for 5 years.

February 17^th, Happy Birthday Steven, we sent Steven an email today, as he is currently overseas in Bologna and we will give him his present when he lands back in Australia. We have had a very wet weekend, so we were happy to have an overcast day without rain. We did a drive around after lunch to check out Nelson Bay, Shoal Bay and Fingal Bay for any changes from our last visit here, 12 months ago, and very little has changed. We did notice on our way in to this area that they have started on the next leg on the upgrade of Nelson Bay Road.

February 18^th, I went into the bottom of the pantry this morning to get out the washing liquid and discovered that the floor area was wet. On further investigation confirmed that we had a water leak and it had affected the wall area in the 3 bottom shelves. The leak wasn’t new as the back corner had rotted away from the dampness. I borrowed a ladder from the workshop and checked the roof joints for areas where leaks may occur but it all looked good. I will get some silastic tomorrow and clean and seal the outside corner and see if that stops the water coming in. I cleared away the damaged wall paneling and cleaned up the mess.

February 19^th, A trip up to Bunnings, just up the road from our Park, secured a cartridge of silastic and a silastic gun. I carefully sealed the outside LH rear corner of the Van and cleaned out the lower pantry wall of any loose damp material, then I used our little fan heater to dry out the wet area in the bottom wall space. The roof of my mouth has been sore for the last week and I have just been treating it by rinsing twice daily with Listerine Mouth Wash. It wasn’t getting better and Val’s diagnosis was that I had burnt the roof of my mouth by drinking my coffee when it was too hot! Anyway, after some discussion Val rang a local Doctor and got me in at 3.15pm today. The Doctor’s diagnosis was an Ulcer that was healing, but he took a swab for testing and told me to keep up the mouthwash and if it hasn’t gone in 2 weeks to come back. Val didn’t agree with the Doctor and said get some SM33 from the Chemist and I’ll treat it for you. Mind you, while I was at the Doctors, Val got in a pickle when the awning filled up with water, pulled out from one end of the Aussie Traveller clamp and flooded that end of the annexe. Fortunately this Park is on sand and the water drained away quickly. I did a temporary re-clamp when I got home but I will need to reset the awning, as is has moved in the windy weather that we have had and allowed the water to collect on the awning.

February 20^th, The rain had stopped today and Val went to Salamander Bay to do some Shopping, so I decided to re-set the awning while I had the place to myself. I have tried to alter the position of the awning roller before, when the annexe walls have been up and found it impossible to move, so I was prepared to remove all the annexe walls if necessary to fix the problem. I was surprised to find that by simply releasing the Aussie Travellers, slacken off the tie down ropes and removing only the side wall (which is hanging directly off the roller) that it was easy to rotate the roller to the correct position, adjust and re-clamp the Aussie Travellers and ropes, and then refit the side walls. The whole exercise only took about an hour, I was Happy.

February 21^st, Joan and Robert came out today for a nice Dinner and a game of Tiles. This is the last time we will be seeing them, as we leave next Tuesday for Wallamba River Holiday Park, just north of Tuncurry. I’m looking forward to getting my boat into the water and catching some flathead.

February 22^nd, I went out this morning to buy some lightweight metal channel to strengthen up the plastic arms of our Coleman Jumbo Padded Chairs. I drove around to where “Metaland” used to be, only to find that it was no longer there! I decided to call into the Recycling Centre on my way back and see what they might have and I had noticed that the new sign, on the front road, said it was open 7 days a week. I was amazed at the changes I found, the old main shed was still there but they now had a bigger new shed alongside to old one, they had a Museum area (which had a lot of very interesting old stuff), the staff were all young people dressed in motifed T-Shirts. The displayed goods were very organized and I wandered around the whole area for about an hour. I was very impressed, but I couldn’t find anything to help me, other than I  was able to leave my old boat battery with them, that I have been carting around for the last 2 months wondering how to dispose of it properly. I then went to Bunnings and the only thing I could find was an aluminium box section, that was the size I wanted, and I will have to cut out one side to make it into the channel shape that I need for my chair improvement job.

February 23^rd, Happy Birthday Greg, we rang him to pass on our good wishes for today and his present is in the mail.

February 24^th, We started to pack up, ready to move on to Wallamba River tomorrow. I’m looking forward to doing some fishing with my mate Patrick.