The last day

What the? How did that happen? I thought we were going for a big trip and yet all of a sudden there is only one day left!!!!

Holidays go way too fast 🙁

Sorry about no blog yesterday, but there really wasn’t much to talk about. The first day we pretty much did…. well… nothing! Oh and it was fantastic! The kids spent their day exploring the park, the jumping pillow and the multiple play grounds while we sat and relaxed.

Obviously there was a very intense game of badminton between the boys and the girls, but that was ended by the lure of a cheese platter and a couple of bottles of red wine 😉 Badminton was a huge success and I think we got our $7 worth out of it right up until some girl rode her bike through the net in the dark trying to cut through our campsite… busted a pole but luckily Mark and I were able to fix it with some old tent pegs and insulation tape. The young girl escaped with a bruised ego, very embarrassed and probably won’t cut corners in the dark again.

Yesterday was a better day, started with some yummy omelets for breakfast before Mark and I shot into town for a quick restock.

Weather was a little warmer and we were finally able to break out the tank tops. Was beautiful in the sun, although every now and then the wind would swing to the south and it was like standing in the freezer section at the supermarket…. Coles of course!!

The afternoon was spent down at the river. Was a little too cold for the eldest girls who sat in the beach chairs to watch the rest of us have fun. Water in the river was a little cold, although nothing on what the ocean felt like. Mark and I took the big boys for a walk to see the ocean and play in the waves. Kids being kids went straight in, but Mark and I were a little more hesitant… oh my god was that water cold!!

Zac lured me into the water about waist high to fight the waves, but my body quickly went numb and we retreated to the warmth of the river which suddenly felt like someone had run us a nice warm bath!

We built a small sandcastle before giving up and simply dug a trench to bring the river to the girls. Sand wasn’t that good near the river, although Zac and Matty made a new friend with a little blue sand crab that was great for scaring little sisters.

Well that was pretty much it yesterday. Been a pretty lazy trip so far, and while the weather hasn’t been perfect it hasn’t been too bad either. Of course that could all change in the next 10 minutes as there is definitely a storm on the horizon and rain on the radar… Had better go and batten down the hatches and pray it passes quickly… I’m sure it will.

Will try to get one more blog in for this trip… will see how we go.

Have fun 🙂

PS – Might have to get some photos on here today, we have been a little lazy this time round (if you hadn’t guessed!!

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Badminton

It all started as fun, but now a couple of 8 yo’s are going to get their butts whipped by a couple of nearly 40 yo’s!!!!

This game is getting serious!!

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Cup Weekend in Angelsea

Cup weekend in Melbourne and what better than spending it at the Angelsea Foreshore caravan park.

We left Friday arvo reasonably on time yesterday (which is rare for us to be so organized!!). We picked up the kids after school, went home, threw the last bits in the van and managed to be on the road by about quarter past 4!

Trip down wasn’t too bad, of course we hit the slow moving peak hour as we came across the westgate, but that soon cleared up and while the traffic was was heavy, it was at least moving.

We decieded along the way to stop at KFC for a feed (seems to be what we do), but unfortunately they have extended the by-pass and we no longer come out near shops, so we had no choice but to continue on. We arrived at the (very packed) caravan park just after 6pm.

Is a great park, with over 600 sites, beach and river access, a jumping pillow, multiple playgrounds and games rooms. There is even a toddler room for Claire! The kids will have a ball.

Mark and I had a less than easy Van setup this time, as we had both decided with the wind and potential rain we would put the walls up on the annex. Stupid anti-flap design meant we probably spent a good 2 hours mucking around to get it up and secure… almost gave up a few times!

Luckily we did get them up while Fi and Kate drove into town for fish’n’chips, cause once the sun went down, the onshore breeze picked up and it got really cold. Once the kids were in bed, we spent the night huddled around the Kerosene heater on the lee side of the Annex. It was so cold that Fi even pulled out the “..ugly rug that I would never been seen dead in… it is a G’ma rug!” Lucky it was cold so no one saw you Fi…. except the whole world now cause here is a photo LOLOLOLOLOLOL!

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Mind you I shouldn’t laugh cause I was huddled under my “cow” blanket!!! At least no one got a photo of that!!!

Anyway, lazy day today, and while it is not cold, it is not warm either, so no beach for us! Not sure what we will end up doing, so you will just have to wait for tomorrow’s blog…

PS – Hopefully Judith come through and comes down to visit us on Sunday… weather is meant to be good and we would love for them to join us… hint…hint…

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2 more sleeps…

Only 2 more sleeps and a new adventure awaits…..

….Stay tuned…

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We made it home…

We made it home… was a long slow trip… but we finally made it 🙂

Well we made it yesterday that is… was slow but not that slow!!

We left Taggerty just before midday, and made it home just after 2:30pm. Not bad considering how slow the car was! Painful coming through the spur, and I’m sure we pissed off a good number of the cars that were unfortunate to get stuck behind us… Oh well, at least we didn’t have 300km to travel like the last time, and I actually managed to get a good speed up going down hill!!

The rest of the day was spent unpacking the van and the car, before Zac and I took the Pathfinder up to Car Lover’s to get the mud off it. Left a nice amount of mud in the wash bay too!!

 Note :- this is something Mark and I love to do after he was arrogantly told by the owner not to bring a really dirty car up there as it costs him too much money! He even had the nerve to tell Mark to take it to BP first and get most of the mud off, then bring it back…. yea right…. going to go to one car wash then come back…. and like they aren’t sitting on a gold mine and ripping us all off anyway!!

Anyhow, I took the car to Nissan today, and it turned out to be the solenoid for the turbo and a broken vaccuum hose. All fixed now and ready for the next big adventure on Cup Weekend.

Fingers crossed we don’t repeat that exercise….. again!!

Let’s hope Mark’s wiring in the Prado is just as easy to resolve!

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Heading home…. Far too soon!

Had a great relaxing day yesterday, the weather was superb, the kids all played nicely and made new friends, and Mark and I managed to gather enough firewood to have a very reasonable fire 🙂 Even managed to get the Pathfinder (slow as it is) off road in the State Forrest.

What a great weekend. Our wives tried to convince us to have a sickie on Monday and I must admit I was tempted but…

Unfortunately…. this trip is already over 🙁 it is home time again.

So, time to pack up (I still don’t understand how we managed to spead ourselves so far in so short an amount of time) and hitch up the Pathfinder for another very slow trip through the Black Spur. Let’s hope the car makes it! Keep your fingers crossed for me…

Has been great fun, and can’t wait for the next adventure…. Angelsea for Cup Weekend.

 

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Panorama’s of Taggery

Thanks to Apple and IOS 6, here are a couple of Panorama photos of Taggerty

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Oh, and here is the Waldron Van

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And the Morton Van

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Taggerty… we made it…. eventually!!!!!

Well it is finally here, the next adventure in the caravan, and the first time the Waldron’s get to try out their new van 🙂

The plan was simple…

Vans were packed, straight after work we would hitch up and head to Taggerty around 5pm. It is only and hour and half away, so we would be there and setup around 7pm.

Fi had to work until 6pm, so she would head up afterwards in her car… what could go wrong….

Well…

First of all, I got a distress call from Mark around 4pm. Where Mark stores his Van is a little challenging to drive in and out of, so he invested in a ratchet jockey wheel to drag the van out and around  a couple of meters to allow him to hitch it to the car. Problem was, as the van hit the lip of the concrete, it got stuck and wouldn’t move.

No problem, I raced around and after a bit of curseing and swearing, we used the original jockey wheel to drag the van around enough to hitch up to Mark’s new Prado. Too easy eh?

Well that was when we realized problem number 2. The brake controller in the Prado indicated that the brakes where shorted!!  So I left Mark to check his wireing and headed home to load up the kids.

About 5:15pm with no word from Mark I said a “see ya up there” to Fi and drove around to Mark’s. He still hadn’t solved the problem, so we got the test light put and started tracing the wires. About 30 mins later, Mark cracked it and said stuff it, he will just tow with out electric brakes.

That was about the time we realized that the problem was the electric brakes were stuck on!!! We were not going anywhere!

Luckily, Kate’s car was also able to tow, so we quickly switched cars, and rang Fi (who was due to finish work) to join us and go in the same car. All good, and only an hour and half behind schedule.

We stopped at KFC for a quick feed and finally we were on the road 🙂

Now long time readers will remember that I had a little car trouble as we were heading across the Nullabour a few years back. Car’s all good in first gear, then zero power as we hit second.

It was just as we were coming up of Healsville into the Black Spur that it happened…. No power!!! Was a very slow crawl through Spur at 40km per hour, but what could we do? Normally coming through the spur I am getting frustrated at slow drivers, but this time I had to keep pulling over to allow the 20 or 30 cars behind me past!! How embarrassing!!!

Any how, we finally arrived about 8:30ish and set our vans up in the dark. Put the exhausted kids to bed just after 9 and settled down for a few long over due Bourbons.

The park is pretty much as we remember it, and is more or less empty, so the kids can go where they want. As I write (after a great B & E breakfast on the BBQ), the girls are on the playground and jumping pillow while the boys collect wood for tonight’s fire and explore the river… how long until one of hem falls in?

Doesn’t look like we will get out 4WD’ing given my car is in poor condition, and Mark’s car in stuck in Vermont, but I’m sure we will have a good relaxing weekend anyway.

As long as nothing else goes wrong!!!

Pic’s of the camp will follow soon….

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Taggerty adventure…

We had planned to leave at 5 after piano lessons.  Somewhat delayed after the van and ratchet jockey wheel didn’t quite go to plan.  With Craig’s help we turned it and hitched then.  Then the electric brakes showed a short.  Decision was taken to go without after unsuccessfully tracing the fault.  Oops – the van brakes are locked on.  Almost 6 so may as well try and further diagnose and wait for Fi.

Then the good wife has an inspiration! The Sorento was wired up for brakes.  Quick tow vehicle change over and voila, all good!!

While being behind a bit we left, then just past Healesville, the Morton’s hit “Nullabor” syndrome with loss of power .  I think i can i think i can they slowly climbed the hills.  We know all the good slow vehicle lay over spots as we had regular peak hour stuck behind us.

Made it though and the Waldron’s feel “grown up” with hot and cold running water, an awning up in minues and tons of room.  Excellent.

No 4wding unfortunately as the Prado had tO stay at home and Craig has minimal power.

Good to iron the kinks out before Cup day, the Murray and the big trip next year.

Highly recommend U-bute bbq’s! Double butant stove that has a hotplate. Light, compact and cooks for a family!

Lets hope no more dramas.  Ask Fi about how to actually plug in 240v leads so the van has more than battery power………

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The next van trip

Well I don’t know about anyone else, but I am missing hooking up the van and heading away. The big trip isn’t planned until sometime late next year, so not much point getting too excited about that one…… yet!

What we need is a quick weekend get away, the Waldron’s can finally get their new van out for a spin, and we can just well…. get away!

And so for a little sneak peak teaser, I can let you know that it has been planned. Last weekend over fish n chips Mark, Fiona and I (Kate was off relaxing on a girl’s weekend) all got chatting about how if we didn’t just book something we would never get out until the end of the year… so the next thing we knew, Fi was on the phone and we are booked in for a weekend away in late September 🙂

I won’t tell you when… you’ll just have to watch for the blog updates, but I can tell you that it will be a quick weekend trip to the Taggerty Big 4. Should be enough to give the vans a run, get some mud on the cars in the Black Forrest and this caravan park allows fires 🙂

Pity we still got so long to wait…. but stay tuned because the next adventure is not that far away!

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