Why didn't I bring my uggboots??

 Evening! A quick blog update as we're free camping tonight which means no external power source and therefore no means of recharging the computer which means not long to do the blog. We can recharge via the generator but obviously that would be an unpopular move in this serene setting at 8pm at night... we're hoping everyone else that's here will need to do likewise in the morning so we don't get frowned upon as Peaceful Camping Spot Menaces.

So, a brief overview of the last few days. The day after dad and Trish left Huskisson, we went to see Up at the little Husky cinema (pictured below) which is totally hillarious animation. That was in consolation of not being able to book into a dolphin cruise with 2 different companies for lack of people booked in. Probably now that it's school holidays one would have trouble booking in for the abundance of people...

Thursday morning I turned a year older and so a breakfast buffet was in order at the famous Husky bakery (see pic below)... well, it's probably only famous now that I've written about it and all you people are reading this. Then fully satiated, we set off for Mollymook Beach which is near Ulladulla - about 50kms from Husky (not all that far in other words) - to stay with some family friends for a few days.

I hadn't seen Sandy and Wendy since I was about... 10 years old? They hadn't really changed and apart from me being slightly taller, I think we just picked up where we left off and had such a great time with them. I'm missing them already! We parked in their front yard (see pic) which is right on the beach, and enjoyed the balmy air of the 30 degrees day. Weather-wise it was pretty much down hill from there - Wet and Cold for the rest of our stay with me inwardly whining to myself about my lack of uggboots. Cold feet!!! Not to be deterred we filled the next 2 days with shopping and eating (not necessarily in that order and certainly more of the latter), as well as catching Mao's Last Dancer at the movies which was beautiful and as tear-jerking as the weather.

My mum arrived on Friday afternoon and joined the general food-shop-fest, the highlight of which was Milton markets on Saturday morning which left us Central Coasties salivating over the fine deli's, great cafes and classy shopping which we deep down feel is rather lacking where we come from. Ju Ju was impressed with all the Quals (Quality People, darling) and I was rather taken by the Arty Vibe. Yes, so we picked up the local real estate guide and starting dreaming...

Ooh, I forgot to mention (battery level is going down) that Sandy has a 1948 Bristol (that's a car girls) which is a total Chick Magnet and so cool. Since their other car is up north at the moment (no time to explain) we had to go in the Bristol when we went to the movies. Have to say it was a bit tight but that made the lack of seat belts less of a worry as we were so firmly wedged in there, no-body was going anywhere. They certainly don't make 'em like they used to! (see pics below).

Today we did our longest drive yet - 130kms! I know, wow. We drove down to Mogo (old Gold Mining town with lovely shops) then backed up a wee way, continued west to Braidwood (will post pics later) and slightly further up the road to... I think it's Werri, where we are free camping in a Werri lovely spot with the rain romantically pattering on the roof and our blankets around us for warmth (no external power also means no heater - talk about roughing it).

Ok, made it with battery to spare. More later...

Huskisson Picture theatre

Breakfast at Husky Bakery

Pristine beach at Green Patch which we stopped at on the way to Mollymook

Enormous tree in the park in Milton where we stopped at for lunch before arriving in Mollymook

Parked out the front of Sandy and Wendy's place in Mollymook

Mollymook Beach

Ah, the beautiful Bristol...

Wendy, mum and Sandy

Windy weather and visitors

Backtracking just a little...
Awoke to a glorious morning,in the wildlife van park and decided today was the day I should attempt to drive the Manna House for the 1st time (actually Marnie insisted) We figured, with a large, flattish oval at my disposal, it might be a good place to start, and it was. I managed a few circuits without tipping it over and got bold enough to drive it to the caravan park office, then handed over to Marnie for the trip to Husky.

What a beautiful caravan park, with great views of the beach....roooly noice, but just how windy can it get? It hasnt stopped blowing a howling gale since we got here. Beginning to feel more than a little windswept. One good thing about the big blow, it dried our washing very quickly. We pushed about 10 kilos of dirty clothes into the machine then hung out 50 items with 10 pegs! it tied itself in knots instantly but almost dried in an hour.

Being in such a beautiful spot but unable to enjoy it, makes for a frustrating time. Walking anywhere gets us almost airbourne. We did have a stroll into Huskisson yesterday for coffee and provisions. Thankfully it is only about 500 meters and we managed to stay anchored to the ground. Also spotted an Anglican church we decided to visit the next day(Sunday)

We are really getting some rhythm going now. Learing to do the Manna House shuffle. Our abode is so compact that in order to get to something, another item needs to be moved, so its 2 things out, one down then 2 back. It could be the beginning of a new dance craze! Not daunted by the wind, Marnie is inside, painting a water colour of a photo she took at dusk last night.

After 2 blowy days, the wind has become a breeze and we can at last enjoy the surroundings. John and

Trish arrived safetly and we enjoyed a great BBQ dinner. Next day we went 4 wheel driving in their super dooper Prado (with snorkle). This is a very strange passtime. It's the fine art of finding joy being tossed around as if in a cement mixer. At least that's how it seems from the back seat! That aside, we did eventually find what we were looking for....Swan Lake. Not a dance, but a lake with thousands of black swans. Got our picnic stuff out and ...yes...the heavens opened.

We spotted a cute mummy possum in the BBQ area of the van park, while enjoying our BBQed Prawns.
It had a sad and hungry look, so we fed it strawberries and I swear it smiled at us. There went our dessert, but the wildlife was happy!

John and Trish are leaving today (Tues). We had an appointment with the Winnebago people in Nowra,

to fix our plumbing problems, so dropped the Manna house off and went to Gerroa fishermans club for lunch, overlooking the beautiful 7 mile beach, with J and T. (we do a lot of eating!) On the way back, John brought the Prado to a screetching halt and hung a leftie down an irrisitible looking narrow dirt track. Tossed around again, for a few kms, we arrived at a disappointing dead end and so... we tossed our way back to the main road. Well one never knows if there'll be something special to see down a narrow dirt track!

Arrived back to find the RV not quite ready. Ended up a total of 4 hours and we finally set of back to Husky.

Vicki

Swans, puddles and pot-holes

Greetings from Huskisson White Sands Caravan park, where one must endure white sands, turquoise waters and sorry to say, Dolphins!! It's an understatement to say that it was blowing a gale when we arrived on Saturday, which continued through Sunday accompanied by frigid air from the artic circle or somewhere equally cold. But we braved the rugged conditions to visit the Bay and Basin Anglican church on Sunday morning to fellowship with our Husky brothers and sisters. The building is quaint, people friendly and the sermon down to earth.

Later on in the day, dad and Trish arrived while we were huddled up under doonas in the ve-hicle. We extricated ourselves to do a tour round our place, followed by the Afternoon Nap, followed by the BBQ dinner at their place (cabin opposite us) thanks to dad braving the cold whilst We prepared the periferals safely In of Doors.

Joy of joys we woke up this morning to a light breeze and blue skies. During my morning walk along the beach I was treated to a pod of dolphins playing in the water. If you look closely you can see one in this picture...

We headed off to explore the surrounds in Dolly the 4WD (named for her Big Front). So eventually we found the 4WD track that dad had in mind, taking us around the perimeter of Swan Lake which appeared from one side to be swan-less, but from a different vantage point, where we decided to stop for lunch, more swans than you could poke a stick at! Being an accountant and all, dad felt compelled to do some rough calculations as to approximate numbers and came up with 'thousands'... Unfortunately these photos don't capture the breadth and depth of the herd... wait, pack? pod? flock? I think it's flock... With the naked eye one might say they were merely 'black' and not doing much at all, but through the binocks they were actually variations of dark brown with bright red beaks, white feathers at the tips of their wings and busy as beavers: honking away to each other, preening and cleaning, head down / fluffy bottom up for whatever it is they eat and various courting manoeuvers... What a treat!

Back to the 4WD track and we encountered some Puddles and Pot-holes... here is Dolly strutting her stuff...

Muddy rain and peacocks

So, we woke up on Wednesday morning to a bright yellow sky and a howling gale carrying frigid air from the snowy mountains (presumably). Upon closer inspection we discovered it was raining mud! On even closer inspection we discovered that the van was covered in the aforementioned mud. Obviously Vicki was slightly more heartbroken about this than I was (in her dreams about travelling around Australia the vehicle was always sparkling clean), but I was a bit sad to see the state of my bike! Talk about an adventure, who ever heard of muddy rain? We really thought we had something special to write home about until we turned on the news to find that the whole of Sydney was having a dusty 'Day to Remember' and we had merely been on the outskirts of the excitement.

Anyhoo, after getting hypothermia from the packdown (no Pack-Up-Motorhome botton unfortunately), we were soon on our way to our next destination: Kiama. We were BUFFETED by the howling gale all the way which was a bit disconcerting at times and had me quietly wondering just how strong the wind would need to be to pick us up and carry us away. Not to worry, we made it safe and sound to a lovely caravan park with oceanic views/glimpses...

On Thursday Vicki popped up to see her good friends Ros and Rod whilst I finally got my bike down off the rack and took her for a spin to see the lighthouse and blow hole (as you do when you're in Kiama, unless you're Vicki and you've been there done that a million times already). I even got out my watercolours and pushed a bit of paint around. It's a hard life...























 

















By late afternoon someone who shall remain nameless had the enlightening thought that we were wasting lovely waterviews having to strain to see them through the mud and mire that was pasted onto our windows. Consequently there was a sudden frenzy of activity as the One who shall remain nameless gathered the necessary instruments for The Big Wash. Before I knew what had happened I was up a ladder making use of the Gift of Tallness which as you can imagine is helpful when washing a 3.5m high ve-hicle such as ours. Ah, but how she doth shine now! Since we heard the news that another dust storm is iminent we've been desperately scouring the motorhome manuals for the Self-Cleaning button. Will keep you posted.

Tonight we are staying in a caravan park in Nowra. We're in what seems to be a bit of a paddock beside the section with all the cabins and it's peaceful and full of wildlife, most of which is in the wild-life park opposite but we did have a visit from a friendly kookaburra and one Partial to Bread Peacock... What a beautiful creature! We were trying to look as sexy as possible so he might display his glorious plume, but not too surprisingly our casual camping attire didn't do it for him.

 

 

Mittagong

A Little news from me now…..The Mittagong van park is noice but not the most picturesque available. Our allotted site happened to be on a little slope. Not all that noticeable until you find your self almost rolling out of bed. It caused a few more problems too. The water in the sink drained into and out the shower hole, not very conducive to showering when you have tiny bits of rice and broccoli floating round the floor. Mopped it up and decided it best to use the amenities block for showers until we can purchase levelling blocks. Thankfully the A block is excellent. I arrived back all refreshed after breakfast…..went to glance at my watch (this was an hour later) bummer, I must have left it hanging on the hook in the shower cubicle. Raced back praying all the way and there she was….my lovely Longines still hanging on the hook! PTL.

It was great to catch up with Ursula and Lorraine over a delicious lunch at their newly purchased home a short drive from the van park. Their 1 acre garden is a picture of magnificent spring blooms.

We are encountering our first storm right now. Lots of rain and thunder, but we feel very nicely cocooned in the Manna House.

We are off to Kiama tomorrow to see my friends Ros and Rod. We are now armed with a spirit level and will make sure our next stop is on even ground. On route we will be calling in to a caravan place to pick up some levellers.

Vicki

On the road

What sort of flower grows between your nose and your chin? Twolips! We have arrived in Mittagong at the height of the tulips season, and they are a sight to see. These ones are outside the information centre in town.

We departed Killarney Vale on Sunday morning amidst mild pomp and fanfare with Judy and Margrett to bid us fare-thee-well. First stop, the BP servo 500m down the road to check the tyre pressure of our Fully Loaded ve-hicle. While I fiddled and got suitably greasy fingers to feel like The Man of the gig, Vicki put on an mp3 cd to find that the CD player wouldn’t recognise the disc. So being 5 minutes from home we decided to pop back to my house to pick up all my bought cds. By the time I had found the cds, hugged the cat goodbye for the 10th time (and things), it was roughly an hour since our Official Departure and we were ready to try again. On the road… Mind your head Len!!!!!

Thanks to James (GPS) who tells us how to get places in an oh so polite English manner, we arrived in Mittagong without tragedy and proceeded to press the Set Up Motorhome Button which launches a series of events: plugs in power line to site power, attaches hose pipe to tap, raises sun vents, turns on gas at cylinder and stove, unlocks all cupboards and draws, turns on all mains switches ETC. No, wait, that was a dream I had last night, there’s no such thing as the S.U.M button. We did all that ourselves and then had a well deserved Nap.

Yesterday we popped off to the chiropractor in Mossy (Moss Vale) to attend to a certain ailing back and check out the countyside, after which we had lunch with Ursula and Lorraine who have just moved to Mittagong. Alas, with all the catching up of family news and intricate family connections We (yes the royal one) forgot to take pics for prosterity. But here are some other general photos of our trip Thus Far…

Moments before Official Departure

 The First Supper

On site at Mittagong caravan park

 In Bowral

Storm coming

Marnie xxx

What's in a name?

From what we can tell on the CMCA (Camping and Motorhome Club of Australia) forum, everyone has a name for their camping/motorhome vehicle. We've decided to call ours The Manna House, manna being the 'bread from heaven' that God gave the Israelites to eat while they were wandering around in the desert for 40 years. The motorhome we'll be living in and the opportunity to take this trip to see the amazing and varied landscapes of Australia is a provision from God that we are very grateful for. We also have the nickname 'Len' for our rather tall van, in honor of the one and only Pa. When he used to get into the car he would often bump his head, so it became his habit to deliberately announce 'mind your head Len' as he endevoured to enter the car without injury. We think 'MIND YOUR HEAD LEN' will become a deeply ingrained part of our driving strategy as our 3.5m Manna House endeavours to traverse the countryside without losing its top. And praying like mad, as apart from the obvious inconvenience, it will be my bed and socks and undies that will be scattered far and wide in the event of such a disaster, may it not be so!!!

Please feel free to tune in to this blog at your leisure to follow our progress through NSW, Vic and SA over the next 6 months. Only 2 more sleeps until we head for our first stop Mittagong to visit Vicki's cousin Ursula.

Marnie