Day 4: A cold night in Dubbo

Today started off with a sprinkle which we thought would soon go away. So we packed up – a quick job as we had not unhitched the caravan the night before. Off we went from Narrandera north to West Wyalong where we had morning tea

Joke enjoying coffee and a Raspberry and White Choc Chip Muffin

West Wyalong from the tearooms

 and a bit of a walk around town. I counted 5 pubs and 2 banks in one block. Then on to Forbes: our lunch destination. Well, we were only just under way when the rain came back. This time it stayed with us all the way to Dubbo. It was real weather of Pock (liberally translated from my Dad’s Dutch pokkenweer): light rain, heavy rain, low cloud, misery.

Our lunch venue in Forbes

Lunch in Forbes was OK, we opened up the caravan, turned on the gas, heated up the soup and lunch was served. 

De Havilland Vampire bomber in Forbes

   

After lunch we drove on through Parkes (got a glimpse of the radio telescope through veils of rain) and finally got to Dubbo where we are now situated in a very basic caravan park right next to a shopping centre, and next to the Macquarie River, also prone to flooding. The friendly caravan park man explained that in the last flood the office had been in about 50cm of water. It was on the first floor! What is this fascination with floods in country New South Wales??

Despite the very best efforts of our little heater, it is getting colder by the minute and the only solution to that is to dive under the winter doona. And to think that we had wondered whether it was worth taking along.......

Day 3: Wet start, lunch on the Murray and a dry finish

At the Murray in Tocumwal

Yesterday (Day 3) we left the caravan park in Braybrook between showers, or so we thought. Actually, the weather was just pausing to gather strength for a real onslaught. This caught us on the Ring Road in peak-hour traffic and it was not much fun. However we struggled manfully and womanfully onward, made it to the Hume Highway and took off up north, hoping to out-distance the elements and their liquid fury. No such luck until we got to Seymour, so we slithered and slid and aquaplaned along until the turn-off to Shepparton. Gradually the weather improved, and the sun made an appearance. This encouraged us to take a break at Tocumwal on the banks of the Murray, just inside NSW. We had lunch (soup and rolls) there on the banks of the Murray, listening to the corellas screeching on the other side of the river and generally enjoying ourselves.

Joke at lunch - note the soup bowls

Murray River at Tocumwal

Then we took off up the Newell Highway, which was going to guide us on our journey for the next 1200 kms or so. We passed Finley, our planned stopping place and proceeded to Narrandera, where we took a site in a cheap caravan park which was rebuilding itself after the Murrumbidgee floods of 3-4 months ago. The park had been under about 170 cms under water, just above my head! We decided against free camping because we needed the power to run our little heater, thereby making life bearable.

Day 2: Melbourne on Sunday

It’s Sunday evening. We have good music on our little digital radio (thanks Alice!), we have finished dinner – traditional Sunday-night chicken soup :-), 

Special one-finger preparation of chicken soup!

done the dishes and are now sitting back with a well-deserved coffee.  

Yesterday we viewed the rain in the morning with some dismay. 

Dismay-causing rain.

We had a hill to get up and down (West Launceston) and did not really need a slippery road. However, though it was pouring when we picked up the caravan at Roelf and Tiny’s, it dried up nicely by the time we got home. 

We finished off the packing etc. at our leisure, said goodbye to Niels, and toddled off to Devonport mid-afternoon. With its heavier-than-ever load and new tyres the caravan handled really nice and it was a smooth ride into the ferry terminal. It was well into twilight by the time we were lined up to go on board.

Twilight at the ferry terminal.

Boarding went smoothly. We were directed almost to the front of the boat, which meant we would be one of the first ones to get off at the other end. Our cabin was also at the front of the boat. It was the size of a roomy walk-in wardrobe, but it had everything we needed plus two spare bunks. 

Lifejacket drill with realistically simulated panic.

We had a meal and bumped into my colleague from St Lukes, Deb and her husband. They were on their way to Cape York, and hoped to be in Cairns by Wednesday, whereas we need to get there by 22 June. They were going to travel 900 kms today. We, on the other hand, enjoyed our day of rest!

Sleeping on the boat can be problematical, but we managed a few hours between us. The hot-and-cold-again air conditioning didn’t help – at one stage I was so overheated that I thought I was joining Joke in the overgang! But the ferry did its job, and woke us at 10 to 6 to tell us so, and could we please get ready to up and begone by 6:30. In the very quiet of an early Melbourne Sunday morning with almost zero traffic we got to Ashley Gardens Caravan Park in Braybrook just on 7 a.m. While Joke was getting out the makings of breakfast we were invited to enter the park and make ourselves comfortable. By 9 a.m. we were all done, so we decided we would attend the morning service at Box Hill Christian Reformed Church, 27 kms away. We got there in good time, enjoyed the service led by pastor Albert Esselbrugge whose sermon on Acts 5 was well worth listening to. We met all sorts of Dutch types at the coffee counter afterwards, including a Mr Visser, whose brothers are all members of our churches in W.A.

It took us much longer in time and kms to get back to the caravan park as we chose to ignore the GPS. When we decided we had better take note, we managed to misinterpret its instructions and found ourselves on the freeway going in the opposite direction. Don’t you hate that?

The scribe at work.

Tomorrow will be an early start and then we’ll see how far we get.