Well, at last we are away!
Despite Liz's outstanding efforts with packing our rented maisonette and setting up a timetable of required events which was childproof, I still managed to get behind. Notwithstanding my skill with dragging the chain, (I prefer to call it "just in time management") we did get the van out of storage on the appointed day and off to the chaps fitting the new towing hitch before setting up in West Beach for a couple of weeks to make all shipshape.
In my quest for legality and safety, I put the rig on the weighbridge at Marion Sand and Metal en route to the caravan park. As I later compared the results with the various weights for which the van is rated (if ever you want a challenging few hours let me recommend coming to grips with the seemingly endless permutations associated with caravan towing....aggregate trailer mass, gross trailer mass, ball weight, combined vehicle mass etc) I sadly realised that we could not treat this big beast as a "tardis" and that the compelling human instinct to fill every available space with bits and pieces would have to be strictly curtailed. This was a particularly confronting realisation for those (such as me...not Liz) who like to have clothes for every occasion and sufficient booze to cater for significant nightly knees up for at least a fortnight prior to restocking.
Having obtained counselling, I set to to rationalise our contents over a a number of ensuing days. This combined with a few handyman tasks saw the days at West Beach fly past. The plan was to try out as many of the systems as possible whilst our initial travel itinerary left us within reasonable travelling distance of Port Clinton (where the Roma agent is based) to have warranty repairs effected. A sound idea! We found that the rear water tank did not feed into the pump (I am only grateful that this discovery occurred just as I was finishing my shower) and we noted problems with a leak along the awning seam during heavy rain.
The weight problem was solved in part by hosting a couple of party groups in the annex during which we plied our guests with as much of the contents of our several wine crates as possible but I remained concerned that we were still too heavy ( I have subsequently learnt that probably 95% or more of those towing are overweight). On the day we left West Beach I filled both tanks and again we took the entire rig over the weighbridge. Disaster! My best efforts to rationalise the results were to no avail. More hard decisions to be made.
We had initially planned to stop over at Balaclava for couple of days to reset and reorganise, however as we pulled in to the park which had always looked quite inviting on those numerous occasions on which we had driven through the town, we realised that a closer inspection is always a good idea. Liz rang Clare and we were delighted to find that the site we had booked for the gourmet weekend (which we have each year) was available. Off to Clare.
We popped into town first thing the following morning and bought a cheap set bathroom scales and spent the rest of the day weighing and discarding all those goodies we had thought initially were essential to long term travel. The negotiating process I am sure would have been of great interest to any onlooker. Liz and I bid various items against each other as a result of which, for example, she decided she could live without our (specially selected) small vacuum cleaner and I would have to make do in the galley without my favourite large (and ridiculously heavy) skillet, my Weber Baby Q and a few other "essentials". As a result, I drove back to Adelaide the following day and increased the contents of our storage facility by 120 kgs. We have since discovered that we can do without our jockey wheel (use the jack instead to unhitch) and a number of other items which will make the trip to town on Monday next and should leave us (hopefully) legal, but more importantly safely loaded.
After a few days in Clare, we headed up to the Leigh Creek/Copley area via Orroroo where we overnighted. This town, through which we had also driven many times, did not disappoint (despite the rather dusty site and the strong northerly). The extraordinarily wide streets, a legacy of the bullock train days which is common in many mid and far north towns, house an array of really interesting shops and buildings. We had the additional pleasure of catching up with a local colleague with whom I had worked closely during a protracted and difficult investigation in the Melrose area some years go ago and a subsequent closer examination of the interior of one of the town's two hotels. It transpired that the recently new publican of this fine establishment and I had a previous working association in SAPOL transport so I am pleased to say that my record of knowing someone wherever we go (according to Liz) remained intact.
The personal relationships continued through our stay for two nights at Copley where the park and local bakery owner is an old school friend of a mate of mine who grew up in the area. Very funny bloke.
We visited Leigh Creek (God bless company towns...one can have any coloured house providing it is cream) the open cut mines, and local dam (which is indeed spectacular both for its location and the dust which is created on the drive in and out). I fulfilled a long held ambition to drive on the Strzelecki track (for a good kilometre...photo opportunity only) and had a beer in the Lyndhurst pub! Time constraints and my long held aversion to fine dust, which by now was being sorely tested during our stay in this part of the world, precluded a trip up the 80 kms to Marree and we contented ourselves with a long walk around the fascinating Copley township (the local cricket club is gem) and a wonderful last night dinner in the Leigh Creek pub, but a short stroll from the caravan park. This wonderful old country hotel is the only remaining local edifice to bear that name (Copley was the original Leigh Creek until some luminary discovered that the town had been built over a very large coal deposit....all move south 6 kms and start again!). We shared the dining room with at least a dozen denizens of the caravan park and had a jolly night of information sharing with the receipt of some of those wonderful tips which can only be sourced thus.
We spent the next night in the Quorn park (marvellous tress, but sadly more serious dust) before making our way south to a mate's farm some 20 kms out of Jamestown were we 'free camped' for the night, spent a very peasant evening, and awoke to lament the fact that our generator was not connected and we had no real way of blunting the 0 degrees morning chill. The rising sun warmed both the landscape and our moods as we then made our way to our next destination.
We spent the next night in the Quorn park (marvellous tress, but sadly more serious dust) before making our way south to a mate's farm some 20 kms out of Jamestown were we 'free camped' for the night, spent a very peasant evening, and awoke to lament the fact that our generator was not connected and we had no real way of blunting the 0 degrees morning chill. The rising sun warmed both the landscape and our moods as we then made our way to our next destination.
Liz has had a long held ambition to visit Laura which we sated with a stay for the next two nights in what also proved to be as pretty and interesting a town as she had imagined. Apart from the fact that it is the town in which CJ Dennis grew up (not his birthplace as the blurb is quick to point out), many of the town buildings which line another very wide main street, complete with a tree studded median strip, have been wonderfully maintained and/or restored. The park itself is very pretty and showing the results of the current manager's efforts in planting new gardens and trees.
This also proved the perfect location to empty and reorganise all the exterior van lockers and prepare for our trip down to Port Clinton the next day for the repairs and service needed. That done, we returned to site 5 at Clare where we have now been in residence for the past five days. This period of relative stability and calm has enabled the ship's cat to regain some of his lost equilibrium which is making for a more peaceful life for the entire company! Hopefully he is adapting at last to life on the road (he has been somewhat less than amiable during a few days' travel, a fact he has commuinicated vocally non-stop over a number of hours on the road).
We were greeted on our arrival in Clare with the news that the 'Discover Downunder' team was about to descend on the park for filming and so on which explained why we have never seen the place so primped, preened and pristine. We were invited to join a "happy throng" in the park BBQ and fireplace area a couple of nights ago at which we rubbed shoulders with the faux famous (Brooke Hanson...presenter and ex-Olympic swimming gold medallist and her co-presenter, assorted camera crew and directors, producers etc) and the not so famous (us, our site neighbours et al) for a very good night indeed courtesy of Greg Cooley wines (complimentary, of course) and a park staff BBQ of genuine excellence.
The Clare gourmet weekend is now in full swing. We are planning to be a shade more circumspect this year than has been the case in the past. Had a lovely dinner last night with a sailing colleague and his wife who live locally and rather than flit from place to place today we have booked into Taylors Wines this evening for a 'long table' six course dinner to be presented by the owners of a newly established Italian restaurant in nearby Burra which is enjoying very good reviews. This will give us the time to properly catch up with the manager of Taylors and his wife who have become very good friends after our first encounter at the Adelaide Test match nine years ago. A planned visit to Stonebridge wines tomorrow for a morning recovery session (a pleasant ten minute walk from the park) followed by a late afternoon around the fire with friends from Adelaide into whom we bumped at a local market this morning, should complete a delightful weekend before another delivery of unnecessary items to Adelaide on Monday and our departure for Peterborough and places beyond on Tuesday morning next. I have known the owner of that park for many years through the Childhood Cancer Association and we are both looking forward to a good catch up.
More in a week or two when hopefully our (Liz's really) technical skills will extend to the addition of photos and proper paragraph spacing.
This also proved the perfect location to empty and reorganise all the exterior van lockers and prepare for our trip down to Port Clinton the next day for the repairs and service needed. That done, we returned to site 5 at Clare where we have now been in residence for the past five days. This period of relative stability and calm has enabled the ship's cat to regain some of his lost equilibrium which is making for a more peaceful life for the entire company! Hopefully he is adapting at last to life on the road (he has been somewhat less than amiable during a few days' travel, a fact he has commuinicated vocally non-stop over a number of hours on the road).
We were greeted on our arrival in Clare with the news that the 'Discover Downunder' team was about to descend on the park for filming and so on which explained why we have never seen the place so primped, preened and pristine. We were invited to join a "happy throng" in the park BBQ and fireplace area a couple of nights ago at which we rubbed shoulders with the faux famous (Brooke Hanson...presenter and ex-Olympic swimming gold medallist and her co-presenter, assorted camera crew and directors, producers etc) and the not so famous (us, our site neighbours et al) for a very good night indeed courtesy of Greg Cooley wines (complimentary, of course) and a park staff BBQ of genuine excellence.
The Clare gourmet weekend is now in full swing. We are planning to be a shade more circumspect this year than has been the case in the past. Had a lovely dinner last night with a sailing colleague and his wife who live locally and rather than flit from place to place today we have booked into Taylors Wines this evening for a 'long table' six course dinner to be presented by the owners of a newly established Italian restaurant in nearby Burra which is enjoying very good reviews. This will give us the time to properly catch up with the manager of Taylors and his wife who have become very good friends after our first encounter at the Adelaide Test match nine years ago. A planned visit to Stonebridge wines tomorrow for a morning recovery session (a pleasant ten minute walk from the park) followed by a late afternoon around the fire with friends from Adelaide into whom we bumped at a local market this morning, should complete a delightful weekend before another delivery of unnecessary items to Adelaide on Monday and our departure for Peterborough and places beyond on Tuesday morning next. I have known the owner of that park for many years through the Childhood Cancer Association and we are both looking forward to a good catch up.
More in a week or two when hopefully our (Liz's really) technical skills will extend to the addition of photos and proper paragraph spacing.
