13th June to 26th June 2012

13^th June 2012

Our first leisurely day at Mark and Jeane’s allowed Barry the opportunity to do a few little jobs on the caravan and help Mark dig some post holes for a ‘sleeper’ wall to create tiers in the vegie garden.

15^th June 2012

We drove into Mackay to have our cracked windscreen replaced which was long overdue as it also had a couple of chips in it and was quite sandblasted which split up headlights and direct sunlight, but a crack appeared after being hit by a stone in Emerald.

17^th June 2012

Barry moved a load of rocks to the culvert in the driveway ready to help Mark build a stone wall up to the culvert buttress where the bank is being eroded away.  The cement mixer is electric so we will take our generator down the driveway to run it.

19^th June 2012

The car went in for its 120,000km service and bought some more LED lights for the caravan which has now completed the change of lights in all of the main fittings so now the 9 LEDs use 16 watts whereas the original Quartz Halogen lights used 54 watts if they are all on at the same time.  That rarely happens, as we usually only have the kitchen/dining area lights on so the draw on the battery will now only be 6 watts when we use the free camp sites with no power.  The LEDs are much brighter and brighter than the originals and give a white light rather than a yellowish light so the lighting is much improved despite the lower current draw. We collected the car in the afternoon and were informed that there are some jobs that needed doing that will cost about $2000 if we let them do it, so Barry well do much of it himself.

20^th June 2012

We rose early to visit the local Pathology clinic for our annual blood tests to keep a check on our progress.  After a late breakfast Barry helped Mark with the stonework wall under the culvert and at the end of the day it looked pretty good, which is more than we can say about the cement mixer that fell of the trailer on the way back to the house.

22^nd June 2012

Barry went with Mark to Mackay and bought replacement brake pads for our car which cost a total of $150 for both front and rear brakes whereas Nissan wanted $185 just for the front pads.  In the afternoon we both went with Mark to Sarina Golf Club for a round of golf. We both played extremely badly as a result of a year’s break since our last game, however, the course is a really good challenge and a good hard 5.5kms walk with several steep hills to negotiate.  We both ended up fairly exhausted with aching legs.

 23rd June 2012

Jeane went to a garage sale in Salonika and came home with a garden chair which Barry modified and fitted onto their ride on mow in place of the original uncomfortable broken down one.  The seat is now slightly higher, further back and has a high backrest and is much more comfortable and convenient for Jeane’s long legs.  Barry was going to replace the brake pads on the car but the weather wasn’t really good enough to do it outside as the car is too high to go into the garage.

24^th June 2012

Once again the weather isn’t suitable for working on the car as there is s biting cold wind along with persistent drizzle.

25^th June 2012

The wind has gone and by the afternoon the drizzle had stopped as well so Barry replaced the rear brake pads.  Once the first wheel and calliper were off it started drizzling again but the commitment had been made so Barry completed the job before coming inside completely soaked.

26^th June 2012

Once again the weather looked acceptable so Barry proceeded to replace the front brake pads but once again the weather turned sour and rained reasonably hard but again the commitment had been made and the job was finished even though the water that ran down from the house accumulated in a puddle right where Barry was working on the first wheel.  The rain eventually stopped whilst he did the second wheel and all brakes are now fitted with new pads with a total cost of $150 compared with Nissan’s quote of around $700 fitted.