21st June to 28th June 2011

See NOTE at the bottom of this publishing.

21^st June 2011

Over a period of many days Barry has been assisting Mark to replace the clutch in Jeane’s car, which due its east/west engine configuration has been extremely awkward with little help from the manual.  However, the transaxle unit is now out and the clutch replaced, but they still have to refit the transaxle unit, drive shafts and exhaust system, etc. 

22^nd June 2011

The car had to go to Mackay to have the new dash board top fitted which meant we were stuck in Mackay for most of the day so we spent the time doing the Heritage Walk to see the old buildings of significance.

Some were quite interesting buildings from the architectural point of view whilst others only go a mention due to age, but it also took us through the attractive main street, and also out to the river side walk. 

We walked back from the river to Queens Park in order to be there for 10.00am for the opening of the Orchid Shed which proved to have a large number of orchids in bloom despite the time of year, plus the park was a pleasant setting. 

On arrival back in the centre of town we treated ourselves to a cuppa and then went to the visitors centre to find out about any more attractions within walking distance, but the only unhelpful suggestion was a taxi ride to the marina.  We don’t know which part of ‘within walking distance’ the woman didn’t understand, so we left and wandered through the main street again and had lunch at Hog’s Breathe Cafe which is something Merry has wanted to try for some time, despite the name.  It proved to be a very good meal with extremely tender meat and your choice of whatever you want with it. 

We then walked back to the river and along the walkway to the 3 tiered swimming pools which was not entirely open to the public yet as they are preparing it for the school holidays plus the temperature is down a bit; however, we were allowed to wander around for a look.  Entry to this pool complex is free as all rate payers contribute to the it although Barry is not in favour of that idea as he wouldn’t want to pay rates for something he would never use. The kids area is especially interesting with jets of water in all directions and huge suspended bucket that is slowly filled until it’s balance is upset enough to tip the contents out onto a roof top to make it splash out over anyone on the ground (not a direct hit with a heap of water that would flatten a child).  The top 2 tiered pools had an attractive water fall from one to the other and a lot of shade area was provided between the main pools and the kids section with the kids pool virtually completely covered with shade cloth. 

As we were leaving the pools we received the phone call to say the car was ready which was about 1.5 hours earlier than expected, so we collect the car and headed home with a brief stop off at a caravan parts shop to buy some LED replacement lights as we are gradually converting our lighting from halogen lights to LEDs.  This reduces the current draw from the battery when we are not connected to a power source, therefore prolonging the battery’s staying power before charging is necessary, plus it provides a whiter, brighter light. The 6 that we have installed so far use only slightly more current draw than one of the original halogen lights that we replaced.

23^rd June 2011

After relaxed morning, Mark and Barry had a monumental-all-afternoon struggle and finally managed to get the gearbox/transaxle unit back into Jeane’s car so now they can get on with the relatively easy part of refitting the exhaust system, sense wiring, battery mount and battery and a few other fiddly jobs.  All being well we might actually see the car on the road today.

24^th June 2011

The car is not on the road yet as Mark tried operating the clutch yesterday and didn’t achieve much, they bled the system to ensure no air had got in but that didn’t help so the master cylinder was removed and disassembled to find the internal return spring in 5 pieces.  Jeane could only have been days away from being stranded in the middle of nowhere, or a busy intersection, with no clutch at all. 

25^th June 2011

Mark attempted to buy both master and slave cylinders today but nowhere in Mackay has one so he had to order them, and they will not be here until Tuesday.  Until then the rest of the necessary rebuild will happen so that there is only the replacement of the cylinders left to do, subject to yet another disaster.

26^th June 2011

Merry and Jeane went into Sarina to the Sunday market and in the afternoon we were joined by the company of some of Jeane and Mark’s friends from Salonika Beach for a BBQ.

27^th June 2011

We drove out to Broken River again with a stop at Melba House in Marian that was lived in by Dame Nellie Melba for about a year when her husband was the manager of the local cane farm.  You are only allowed into thtree rooms, one room with photos and a few items that she once owned and the other rooms are the local visitor centre and a souvenir shop, so the visit only lasted about 10 minutes.  The next stop was at a sugar cane mill where we managed to sneak into the area where they unload the cane from the train with a rotary dumper that empties 2 cars at a time.  The cane drops onto a conveyor belt going into the factory on the other side of the road and probably straight into the crushers.  Apparently, they only have 16 hours from the time they harvest the cane to the time it is crushed before it starts to degrade.

This was followed by a roadside stop to film a cane train on its way to the mill, and then a stop by a creek for lunch. 

 After lunch we stopped at the small township of Finch Hatton for a look around the area and met a fellow that we met last week out at the gorge  who made the suggest that we drove round the Crediton Loop whilst out at Broken River as it is only a short distance out the other side of the river.  We did continue past Broken River and on to the Crediton Loop but it didn’t do a lot for us and were quite happy to return to the river. 

It was a bit early to go to the Platypus viewing area so we took off on a riverside loop walk with views of several cascades and through some very impressive rain forest.  This decision proved rather eventful as we met some people coming the other way who stopped to chat and recognized Barry who then acknowledged that the other guys face looked familiar and realized it was Frank and his wife Heather, who we shared a plane ride with over Lake Eyre 2 years ago, almost to the day.  We told them we were staying in Sarina and they told us they lived in Salonika Beach which made us comment that the people we were living with also had a place in Salonika Beach.  It turned out that they know Jeane and Mark and live across the road from Ankie who was at the BBQ on Sunday. 

They also knew that some people had stopped at Jeane and Marks Maloolah property to help with their clean up but they didn’t know it was us until we mentioned that we had stopped there for a week.  We then continued the walk in amazement at the coincidental meeting especially as we had been going to do this trip on Saturday but Barry had developed a slight knee problem, which happens from time to time since having keyhole surgery on it in Karratha.  We suspect the fly in/fly out surgeon (quack) left the key in and it turns occasionally. 
The other coincidence is the fact that we chose to do the loop walk in the clockwise direction.  If  we had gone the other way it would have meant following them at a considerable distance and would never have caught up to them, especially with the photo stops.

On returning to the car, we put on our jumpers as the temperature was dropping and went to the Platypus viewing platform and struck lucky immediately with platypus and an Azure kingfisher.  The platform gradually filled with other interested parties so having achieved our objective went to the car for a cuppa and returned later for a final platypus show by which time we had the platform almost to ourselves, and then headed home.

28th June 2011

Jeane's car is finally finished and on the road with a new clutch, master cylinder, slave cylinder and fresh hyraulic fluid.

NOTE:

We have just discovered that we can insert a 'Location' which is printed near the publishing date at the end of each publishing.  If you click on the location it will provide the Google Earth view of our location and in some case also offer photos (not ours) of the area.  It only took us 3 years to spot this nice addition.