Nov 5th to Nov 23rd 2009

Thursday 5th November 09

Home day for Merry to catch up on some accounting work.

Friday 6th November 09

We packed lunch and took a slow meander along the coastal roads from Seaford to the Melbourne Harbour stopping to check out the various beaches and cliffs with the Brighton Beach change huts being one of the highlights. By all accounts, one recently changed hands for $200000.

We checked out the ‘Spirit of Tasmania’ Ferry and gained some pricing information for future reference then returned to St Kilda for a stroll along the only beach that that allows dogs at any time off leash, so Foxy had her moment of glory.

Saturday 7th November 09

Visited Garon/Sue and helped remove unwanted creepers, trees, etc from garden in readiness for a tip trip. Merry painted the timber beams for the ‘cat run’ that is being built over the narrow garden outside the kitchen window. (It is against the law to allow cats out at night in Victoria). Garon and Barry mounted them on the existing framework. We stayed the night with Garon/Sue in readiness to continue on Sunday.

Sunday 8th November 09

Garon/Sue returned to their old house to replace the letterbox whilst Barry installed the water tubing to the fridge that produces cold water and ice blocks. Garon/Sue removed to the garden debris to the tip with a hired utility whilst Barry installed another towel rail in the master bathroom. Garon/Sue/Barry then installed the shade cloth and roof sheeting over the ‘cat run’ framework. This also cuts out a lot of direct sunlight into the kitchen, therefore helping with the cooling without affecting the light to any great extent.
We stayed for a second night with Garon/Sue as all of the activity created a rather late dinner with us using the one and only daylight saving advantage.

Monday 9th November 09

Returned home via Southland shopping centre to allow Merry to find and buy a clock for the caravan, which happened to come with a matching barometer. That will help her work out if it is wet or dry outside without having to go out there. Fitted these items in the van later in the day and have to admit they look good.

Tuesday 10th November 09

The weather has remained hot now for about five days with more to come, so stayed in the air conditioning.

Wednesday 11th November 09

Stayed in like yesterday for the same reason, but we did add some Velcro strips to the seats in van to stop them sliding forward.

Thursday 12th November 09

Drove over to Garon/Sue’s and placed plastic netting down the bottom of the fence and under ground to ensure Foxy is not able get under the fence when we leave her there whilst we do the tourist bit were dogs are not invited.

We returned to the caravan and watched the Australian Masters Golf with Tiger Woods, on TV. We had tried to get tickets for the event but they were all sold out months before.

Friday 13th November 09, Saturday 14th November 09 and
Sunday 15th November 09.

Continued watching the Australian Masters.

Monday 16th November Nothing of significance.

Tuesday 17th November 09

We drove over to Garon/Sue’s and left Foxy there and took the bus/train into Melbourne.

Walked along the river bank to the Aquarium and spent several hours viewing the fish/sharks, etc and then crossed the footbridge to the south side for lunch.

The aquarium has a café but doesn’t have much to offer. We then returned to the aquarium to finish off what we had not already seen.

We are probably biased, but didn’t feel the Melbourne aquarium came up to the standard of the Perth aquarium at Whitfords although it had the benefit of the Penguins in their own little ice field. We saw a similar set up in New Zealand a few years ago

We crossed to the south side of the river again to walk back passed the Alfresco area but managed to drift off into the Crown casino (purely for a look) and came out where we had started our walk.

On the second attempt we were tempted to take a return cruise down the river to Williamstown, and on returning we elected not to get off where we started but went on to the next stop on the other bank at Federation Square. The Alfresco strip will just have to survive without us.

We caught the train back to Mentone and found that the trains and buses do not work in conjunction with each other as the bus left just before the train arrived. We therefore walked the remaining distance back to Garon/Sue’s place as there was not a bus due for another half hour. We arrived at our destination about two minutes or so before the bus was due to arrive at that point.
The dog proofing of the garden had obviously worked as Foxy was still there. We assisted Garon for a while thanks to daylight saving with the cat run that he is building, and stayed for dinner which was great as we both were not looking forward to driving back to Frankston and then producing our own dinner as we were both feeling a bit weary.

Wednesday 18th November 09 Declared a day of rest by our feet.

Thursday 19th November 09 Merry visited the Sunspot clinic

Friday 20th November 09 Finally collected our repaired Microwave oven.

Saturday 21st November 09

Visited Garon/Sue and assisted with the cat run project and then went out with them to St Kilda for lunch on the beach front, and then a walked along the popular Acland road, well known for its Alfresco strip with numerous cake shops included. When we arrived home Foxy was sitting in the driveway outside of the dog proofing. We had notice some strands of the plastic fencing had been damaged before we left but didn't think it affected anything, but how wrong we were. Fortunately she chose to stay beside our car rather than try to find us. The damage is now worse so it was obviously Foxy chewing her way out. Back to plan 'B' for our next trip out without Foxy. We continued with the cat run project later in the day. Melbourne enjoyed its best rain for months during the night.

Sunday 22nd November 09

Still raining hard so the attention was turned to indoor projects such as mounting the clock on the wall and shelves in the fridge recess as the fridge is too big to go in there. The rain cleared after lunch so the cat run became the priority again.

Monday 22nd November 09

Returned to Frankston. Merry received the results of her sunspot tests and was cleared of any problems.

Monday 19th October 2009

Monday 19th October 09

Stereo/DVD player produced a lousy picture. Tried several different DVDs but all were the same so checked all connections but achieved nothing. Tried another DVD but it wouldn’t play at all, and it will not eject it either.

Tuesday 20th October 09

Merry discovered water on the en-suite floor whilst the washing machine was on. It was coming from the washing machine during the filling process but not from the external inlet pipe. Can only assume there is a leak in the machine or the internal inlet pipe.

Wednesday 21st October 09

Rain stopped play

Thursday 22nd October 09

We drove over to Garon/Sue’s original house to see it with its newly sanded/polished floor which looks really good along with the new paint job.
In the evening, just to add to the joy of owning a new caravan, the Microwave died.

Friday 23rd October 09

Contacted Jayco about the equipment failures but didn’t gain much other than ‘I’ll call you back’ which didn’t happen

Saturday 24th

Rain stopped play.

Sunday 25th October 09

Garon/Sue drove down to us to see the new caravan and we all drove down to Mornington for lunch which gave us a brief look at the town and a very tasty meal. This ended a bad week pleasantly or started a new week pleasantly depending whether you consider Sunday to be the last day of the week or the first day of the following week.

Monday 26th October 09

Contacted Jayco again but still didn’t gain much response.

Tuesday 27th October 09

We took a late morning drive down the Mornington Peninsular to Portsea and Sorrento where we had lunch. We then went back to the end of the road in Portsea and visited the National Park and took a walk out to the beach and then back a different way to the car park.

We headed back to Sorrento and watched the ferry to Queenscliffe leave, and are considering using it to go across and look at the Great Ocean Road to travel the western side of Victoria.

We also checked the beach in this area but found that in this State you can not exercise your dog on the beaches during daylight hours when ‘Daylight saving’ is in effect, or effectively during the summer months.

Merry hiked up to Coppin’s Lookout. We started to drive home which took us through several small coastal towns which had caravan parking along the foreshore which looked appealing and at reasonable cost, so we checked out the possibility of us using this area when we leave Frankston and over the post Christmas school holiday period. This proved negative as dogs are not allowed during the peak periods. We then drove out to Flinders and back to Frankston via the more casual route rather than the main highway.

Wednesday 28th October 09

Contacted Jayco again and his time gained a bit of attention in as much they arrange for the various equipment agents to contact us to inform us of the nearest respective service point.

Thursday 29th October 09

I took the microwave oven to Mornington to the LG agent for repair and discovered from the serial number that the machine was built in March 2008, so it was 19 months old before it became ours. We don’t know yet if LG work from the time we bought the van or from the time they sold the item to Jayco. If the later is the case, Jayco will be getting a wake up call.

We drove to Garon/Sue’s place for dinner and to stay the night. We took the washing machine with us as we had to take it to a place on Kooyong Road in Caulfield to have it repaired. The possums in the trees in the adjoining gardens make a heck of a noise at night.

Friday 30th October 09

The washing machine was found to leak where the inlet solenoid is connected to the inlet nozzle via a shot hose which did not have a clamp around it, which is now cured. The service agent waited until I had returned to Frankston and re-installed it in the van and then rang and asked us for the serial number that he didn’t check whilst he had the machine. This of course meant pulling it back out.
The agents for the Stereo/DVD player rang and told us they were posting out a new unit for us. Apparently, a different brand and more upmarket unit.

Saturday 31st October 09 and Sunday 1st November 09

Very dim drizzly days

Monday 2nd November 09

We drove south to a small village called Loch to check out the memorial reserve that offers cheap camping at $10 a night including power, water and gas BBQ. It is the village footy/cricket pitch in a very quiet, pleasant setting, alongside a river. The river has a $54000 pedestrian suspension bridge across it which is guarded at one end by a soldier at attention with is rifle, carved from a tree trunk. The bridge is the result of the local committee known as the ‘Loch, Stock and Barrel committee’.
On arrival back home, the replacement stereo/DVD had arrived.

Tuesday 3rd November 09

Victorian public holiday for the Melbourne cup horse race. At the moment we are experiencing very strong blustery winds and the threat of rain. We have installed the new Stereo /DVD upgrade but it didn’t cure the problem but it does return our DVDs when we want them back. The original one returned our DVD after disconnecting and reconnecting the power. After experimenting with both units and a domestic type recorder, we are now convinced the poor picture quality is due to the cabling, but as this is encapsulated in the roof there is nothing we can do about it. When we contacted the suppliers to find out where to return the original one to, they told us to dispose of it rather than return it. We now have two units.

Wednesday 4th November 09

The first few hours of the day presented a continuous drizzle, but cleared later so we drove down to ‘Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Gardens’ despite the threat of more unpleasant weather.

Ashcombe boasts two hedge mazes a rose maze and a lavender maze plus lake complete with water lilies, a rock garden a potted plant garden all surrounded in acres of woodland.

They are set up with a café and a marquee for wedding receptions. We spent several hours meandering through every area and then used the café for a coffee just as the threat of more drizzle became a reality.

The hedge mazes have grown so thick that there is only just room to pass along the pathways whilst brushing both sides. The roses where not at their best but still very effective, whilst the lavender was in it’s peak.

Despite the frequency of the rain, the dams are still less than 40% full.

Saturday 26th September 09

Rain stopped play

Sunday 27th September 09

Garon/Sue took us out for an extremely nice breakfast.

Monday 28th September 09 to Thursday 1st October 09

Can not recall anything of significant interest so was probably shopping, washing, cinema, etc.

Friday 2nd October 09

We drove up into the Dandenong Hills to a Tulip Festival at a tulip farm which naturally had every colour tulip under the sun plus some wild and woolly shaped lumps of scrap metal apparently considered as artist sculptures.

We spent several hours amongst the tulips and were allowed to let Foxy enjoy the experience, and then drove back down the hill to Grant’s picnic area that we visited a few weeks ago, for lunch.


Saturday 3rd October 09

Assisted Garon/Sue with clearing out their garage, etc.

Sunday 4th October 09

Start of the daylight saving in Victoria.

Took the bus/train into Melbourne as the weather was good and it is the first day of the Seniors Week which entitles people with a Seniors Card to free transport for the week. In Perth this is available every Sunday.

We followed the alleyways and arcade route from Flinders Street Station which took us through narrow lanes, that we would otherwise know nothing about, that host numerous Alfresco cafés and on into high quality arcades which fortunately also housed a Haigh’s Chocolate shop.

This was followed by a general wander though some of the main streets.

After lunch (not on chocolate) we crossed the River Yarra and

went up the Eureka Tower that is claimed to be the highest in the southern hemisphere 88 storeys and has a section known as ‘The Edge’ that is basically an all glass cubicle including the floor, that is mechanically/electrically winched out of the side of the building so that you can look straight down past your feet. We didn’t bother with this partly because it cost another $12 each, but more importantly, it had a ninety minute wait to get in it.

We had the experience of standing on a glass floor in a high building in Auckland a few years ago.

When we returned to Flinders Street again, we caught a city loop tram and gave our feet a rest whilst we circumnavigated the city.

On returning home, Barry assisted Garon with another fence pole insertion for the fence on the other side of the house.

Monday 5th October 09

When Garon arrived home the fence was adjusted to the upright position, secured and the concrete poured.

Tuesday 6th October 09 Rain stopped play

Wednesday 7th October 09

We took the majority of our belonging that were at our Garon/Sue’s place back to the caravan ready to leave on Friday. Whilst there, Barry installed two ‘F’ type antenna sockets through the van wall, and chatted a guy modifying some sea containers and talked him into shortening the brace that is used to wind the van legs down as it no longer needs to be a metre long.

Thursday 8th October 09

Took the van out of storage and delivered to Bayswater Jayco for them to find/fix the leak and arranged to collect it the next day. This had meant an early start to deliver it for 9.00am so had our breakfast at the Dorset café near the Jayco agents

Friday 9th October 09

Collected the van from the Jayco agent and was informed the leak was due to the lack of sealant around one of the external power outlets. Set off for Carrum Downs near Frankston where we had booked in for a month, and set up the van and annexe. The park is well set out and spacious with low maintenance gardens, but lacking trees, but unfortunately the designers have no idea about the concrete slab requirements.

Saturday 10th October 09

Barry spent the morning fitting tool clips inside the front boot of the van to hold a variety of handles against the back wall, rather leaving them loose on the floor, which provides easier access to the items and tidies up the boot. He also moved the jack from the main storage area to the gas bottle compartment to provide easier access to the jack and a clear floor in the storage area.
Tried out the new washing machine and discovered that the outlet pipe had been fitted too low so that the water ran straight through rather than filling the machine. We did manage to complete the washing with some juggling.

Sunday 11th October 09

Lazy day

Monday 12th October 09

Jayco head office informed of the washing machine foul-up as it is covered by the warranty although Barry could alter the pipe work himself as it only involved making a hole through a shelf to raise the outlet hose, but Jayco needs to know in case some idiot is fitting all of the washing machines this way. Jayco sent out there mobile repair team and the job was done by late afternoon. Barry fitted support struts to the cupboards over the kitchen area so that you don’t have to hold them open whilst putting stuff in, or out, of them. Jayco do not fit struts to these cupboards because they have fitted some fancy halogen lights over the kitchen bench which scorch the cupboard doors if they are left open. We have removed the globes from the two lights as fitting the struts is a much more useful option.

Tuesday 13th October 09

Cold and wet. Went into Frankston to visit our friendly Centrelink crew and then shopped.

Wednesday 14th October 09

Assisted Garon with some packing and took some boxes to the new house.


Thursday 15th October 09

Assisted with the removal performance and some unpacking.

Friday 16th October 09

We returned to Garon/Sue’s old house and assisted with redecorating.

Saturday 17th October 09

Returned once again to assist with the redecorating

Sunday 18th October 09

Day of rest to get over the previous few days efforts but were on standby if required but as no call for help came we assume Garon/Sue worked their respective butts off.

September 1st to September 25th 2009

Tuesday 1st September 09

Returned to Fort Knox storage to collect various items required to make our stay in
Melbourne more comfortable and then drove out to Page brothers caravan display yard.
Here we found a caravan that would actually suits us to perfection if one modification was possible, which the sales staff assured us it was on three occasions. However, we resisted the urge once again and on arriving back at our son’s home made a appointment with Jayco to do a tour of their manufacturing plant for the following Tuesday.
Garon and Sue returned from their interstate trip, but Garon is crook.

Wednesday 2nd September 09

We drove out to another Jayco agent that operates in an area that contains several caravan brands to look at other options, and other Jayco variations. The other brands had some nice features but cost considerably more and in the final analysis Jayco is better value for money and improving all the time. In the Jayco section we made the same enquiry regarding the modified style of van that we would like and this time the agent contacted Jayco planning and found it was not possible, which shot the Page Brother sales team. We could have what we wanted if we went to a longer van but this was not an option we wanted to take. We did however, find a caravan that came close to being ideal which was our preferred size, and offers many advantages in comfort and practicality over our current van. This included stabiliser legs that are easier to use, shower with more room to move in, toilet with more room to move in, skylight in the bedroom area rather than a four seasons hatch. The kitchen also has a skylight rather than a small flimsy opaic hatch. The toilet has a window instead of a flimsy roof hatch, which effectively means two of this type of flimsy hatch has been replaced with better alternatives that do not break up due to UV problems. The kitchen range hood has been modified so Barry will not continue to bang his head on it (slow learner) plus the kitchen has a proper pantry and much larger fridge/freezer. The washing machine is built into the en-suite rather than mounted on a platform on the back of the van with a canvas cover. The most important advantage is the dining arrangement is now a café style rather than ‘L’ shaped which makes life easier for both to watch TV with our feet up. We submitted to the urge, and this van, which gives us another advantage in as much as the urge has been satisfied, at least until next time.
The disadvantage that goes with this urge is that the Jayco agent wouldn’t do a straight swap.


Thursday 3rd September 09, Friday 4th September 09, Saturday 5th September 09 and
Sunday 6th September 09

All of these days were wet and windy so all were treated as lazy days with some local shopping

Monday 7th September 09

Barry sanded the front door wooden threshold which appeared to be stopping the security screen door closing positively without being assisted. This improved the situation but the door handles hang down and had to be lifted to the horizontal position to allow the door to close properly. The handles were removed, and as expected, the return springs where permanently compressed from years of use and one was broken, therefore not returning them to the proper horizontal position.

Replacement handles were purchased and fitted, which annoyed Barry as buying the whole thing for the sake of twenty cents worth of springs doesn’t go down well with him.
When the weather is less windy the threshold sanding will be completed so that it can be re-sealed with paint, or varnish.

Tuesday 8th September 09

Rain stopped play

Wednesday 9th September 09

The car was taken to the local auto electrician for a new type 12 pin plug to be fitted to suit the new van which requires extra wiring to accommodate the larger fridge/freezer.

Thursday 10th September 09

Drove out to Fort Knox storage and started preparing the van for the handover and on attempting to exit the computer operated gate failed and wouldn’t let us out. After many computer re-starts and phone calls the staff manually opened the gate by winding the motor with a short handle that took quite some time due to the low gear ratio.

Friday 11th September 09

Rain stopped play

Saturday 12th September

We drove out to Dandanong and had lunch at the popular Grant’s picnic area where one can stand and hand feed the lorikeets, which unfortunately also attracts galahs and cockatoos that cause a lot of damage.

The authorities are trying to stop this feeding but the chances of success are next to nil.

From there we drove to an open garden display which had a wide variety of protea, camellia and azalea. The garden was only open for the weekend and Saturday had perfect weather for it, whereas the next day was wet and windy.

We moved on to a daffodil farm which really surprised us with the number of different variations in colour and formation, plus that is the first time we have seen vast fields of daffodils.

Sunday 13th September 09

Rain and wind. Garon is still unwell so we cancelled the lunch we were going to have in the Docklands to give him a chance to recover. As previously mentioned we picked the right day for our trip in the hills.

Monday 14th September 09

The weather is reasonable which allowed Sue to do her volunteer work with handicapped children riding horses. We on the other hand had a lazy day with the slight exception of removing an offending metal bracket from the front gate area and adjusting the bathroom door catch to operate more positively

Tuesday 17th September 09

The weather is still quite pleasant so we went into Melbourne by bus and train to Flinders Street Station and then crossed into Federation square and on along the river bank and eventually into the MCG. This was in the week leading up to the AFL grand final so everything is being prepared for footy.

Here we took a guided tour of the MCG ground and facilities which took almost two hours for a one hour tour, and then after lunch in their café we went into the National Sports Museum under the MCG which also took a good two hours.

We left the MCG somewhat footsore so we took the short stroll to Jolimont railway station and took the train into Flinders Street Station (2 stops) and then crossed to platform eight for the Frankston train home.

Wednesday 16th September 09

This was treated as a rest day as Tuesday had been full on.

Thursday 17th September 09 and Friday 18th September 09

Also treated as rest days due to bad weather but took the opportunity to drive to Bayswater and checked out some measurements on the new van for shelving and rugs and then went to a canvas place down the road to arrange to have the annexe fitted after we have taken possession of the new van. This will also require a new draft strip as the old one will not fit due to different door positioning.

Saturday 19th September 09

Shopped at Bunning’s for a few necessary items and then dug two holes in appropriate places by the driveway fence and cemented in two red gum posts to stop the fence leaning in over the drive. .This also included cutting the creepers back that were hanging over the top of the fence into the neighbour’s garden.

Sunday 20th September 09

Dug a third hole by the driveway fence in readiness for a third support post then moved to the fence at the side of the house and tensioned the five straining cables to pull the fence upright where the fence was leaning into next doors garden.

We then cleaned up and went to a restaurant in Docklands for lunch.

This turned out to be a very large lunch so we strolled round the shopping precinct to wear of some of the effects.

On our return home we cemented in the third post along the driveway fence

Monday 21st September 09

Went out to Fort Knox and prepared the van in readiness to do the changeover. On attempting to leave the area the electric gate refused to let us out, despite putting in the correct code three times. This held us and several other people up about half an hour until they wound the gate up by hand.

Tuesday 22nd September 09 and Wednesday 23rd September 09

Rain stopped play

Thursday 24th September

Collected the old caravan from storage and took it to Bayswater Jayco where it was parked alongside the new van to allow us to move our possessions from one to the other, in the rain some of the time. During this time we realised that the Auto electrician had fitted a plug to the rear of the car instead of a socket so when we finished the loading at Jayco’s knock-off time of 4.30pm we went to their recommended auto electrician and had it changed.


Friday 25th September

Drove out to Bayswater Jayco and finished the transfer and then took the new van about 200 metres up the road to have the annexe runners attached and a new draught strip made to allow us to retain our old annexe. This took about four hours during which time we tracked down a few items that we deemed necessary, such as new locking bolts for the spare wheel carrier, and longer bolts to hold the pole carrier on to the van ‘A’ frame as the ‘A’ frame is 20m deeper than on the old van. I then mounted the pole carrier whilst waiting for the annexe job to be finished. We then took the van back to the storage area as we had chosen to extend our stay at my son’s place.

August 16th to August 31st 2009

Sunday 16th August 09

Left Broken Hill on yet another windy day, and meandered down to Mildura arriving around 3.30pm and as it was still a bit windy opted to leave the awning and annex down until tomorrow if the weather is less windy. The caravan park is a few kilometres out of town alongside the Murray River. Later in the day we drove into town to find Kmart for Merry to buy some knitting needles to knit Foxy another jumper for the cooler weather.

Monday 17th August 09

I erected the annex whilst Merry sorted the finances on the laptop and also removed unwanted programs from the old laptop, and then installed the required programs on the new laptop. I used this opportunity to use the old laptop to update this blog.
In the late afternoon we took Foxy for a walk along part of the river bank.

Tuesday 18th August 09

Today’s highlight was a quick visit to Dick Smith’s to buy a wireless mouse and then went to the Jayco agents for an antenna socket and came perilously close to trading the caravan for a bigger, better, version but the $11000 difference helped us to resist, plus the extra weight would exceed the cars recognised towing limit due to having an automatic gearbox.

Wednesday 19th August 09

Merry worked on the SAFE bookkeeping whilst I worked on the old laptop to produce a DVD of our trip in South Australia.

Thursday 20th August 09

This was a pleasantly warm day out backtracking to Wentworth to see the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers which also included a visit to Lock 10 where we had lunch.

After lunch we inspected the Wentworth Gaol, followed by a trip round part of the heritage trail that included an Inkberry Tree, then drove out to the local sand hills.

The sand hills seem to be in the middle of nowhere and somewhat out of place being so close to the river, but make it obvious that you are not far from the desert either. You would expect them to be by a beach.

We finished the Wentworth trip with a 2km return walk along the strip of land between the two rivers to view the Lock from the tip of the junction, and then stopped on the journey home to take photos of the Murray Bridge, which has a centre section that can be lifted to allow paddle boats, and houseboats, through.

On the way to and from Wentworth we passed through the small town of Merbein which may, or may, not get a more thorough inspection as the weather forecast is not real good for the next few days.

Friday 21st August 09 and Saturday 22nd August 09. These two days remain a mystery so it can only be assumed that the weather did perform badly as predicted.

Sunday 23rd August 09

Being a day of acceptable weather we packed a lunch and went to ‘King’s Billabong Wildlife Reserve’ as this allows dogs on a leash.

It has a range of walk trails with most of them out of our league but we managed one to a bird hide and back via a more inland route which took just over an hour to complete. We then had lunch near the car park before driving through the reserve to the ‘Psyche pumps’ which is the location of the old steam driven pump station that supplied water to the surrounding area, which is now supplied by the electric driven pumps nearby. It has been restored to it’s former glory but was not open at that time of day so we headed back through town and visited the Trentham Estate winery. On the way back we deviated to the Botanical gardens but only had a quick drive through to determine whether it was worth stopping for a proper look, which proved in the negative. Winter is not the best time for gardens of any sort.

Monday 24th August 09

This was a very windy day with a threat of rain so I worked on the DVD of SA for most of the day.

Tuesday 25th August 09

The weather improved enough for us to drive to Merbein after lunch and checked the common for the walk trails that proved a bit uninteresting, so we sought out the lookout and white cliffs.

We found the lookout after finding another area to leave the car and walked down to the river near the water draw off point that presumably feeds into the irrigation system.

We then found the lookout which allowed views of the river and along the white cliffs. Unfortunately there wasn’t a good view of the cliffs and they were only on the side of the river that we were on. We did, however, take a short walk along the cliff top.

We then drove back to Mildura via a different route to visit the advertised ‘Snakes and Ladders’ which turned out to be purely a kids playground so we didn’t stop.

Wednesday 26th August 09

We took an afternoon visit to ‘Woodsies Gem Shop’ which boasts an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ A café which is also done out as a cave, and a maze. The gem shop is a girls dream and to add to the interest they put on demonstrations of gem stone cutting, polishing, etc, after which Merry had some lunch (she had a late breakfast) and then we collected Foxy from the car and took her into the maze. The maze was very well laid out and kept us amused for quite a long time and probably still didn’t see all of it. We gave it away when a bus load of school kids turned up and started running around yelling and screaming. Like us, Foxy dislikes kids that run and yell.

We drove back into town and parked the car and walked around collecting photos of the interesting buildings and monuments.

After this we drove along the riverside to Lock 11 and then on to Mildura Homestead which provided us with another way back to the caravan park.

Thursday 27th August 09

We have now seen all that we need to see of the area so used this as our washing day prior to preparing to move on. It also allowed me to continue with the SA DVD.

Friday 28th August 09

This was treated as a completely lazy day apart from a little shopping and finally completing the SA DVD.

Saturday 29th August 09

The day was spent removing the annexe and rolling up the awning and general packing in readiness for an early start for our move in the morning.

Sunday 30th August 09

Left Mildura on yet another windy day, and headed towards Melbourne. The overall distance to Melbourne is further than we normally travel at any on time but we also wanted to be close enough to Melbourne to ensure a short and easy trip to the Storage area we had arranged with Fort Knox, as we were leaving the caravan for a while to stay with our son and daughter-in-law in Melbourne. We made our overnight stop at Kyneton which fulfilled our requirements but would have been nicer without the drizzle.

Monday 31st August 09

Set up the navman to take us to the Dandanong storage area avoiding toll roads and expected to circumnavigate the city to avoid the madhouse traffic. Unfortunately the navman has a warped sense of humour and took us over the Westgate bridge on a windy day, but fortunately it was a tail wind. Having survived that we headed for as much traffic and narrow roads, including trams, that the navman could find, so I can now claim to be fairly experienced at towing a caravan in traffic. I thought it was bad enough in Adelaide and can think of better things to do.

We did manage to avoid Swanson and Burke streets so I imagine the navman may be thinking he made life easy for me. After delivering the caravan to the storage area we headed for the safety of our son's house where we expected to have to let ourselves in, as both Garon and Sue work, but Melbournes weather had rained off Sue's day so we had a welcoming reception. Also very fortunate, Foxy and the resident cat 'Sox' have agreed to get along together whereby the dog ignores the cat, but the cat likes to tease the dog, but no fighting.

Tuesday 11th August 09

We visited the Silver City Mint Gallery which is a picture Gallery combined with a silver jewellery shop. The paintings were by local artists, of which there are many, as Broken Hill seems to attract artists like honey attracts flies and ants. It was claimed that this is because of the red colour of the soil, etc, at sun rise and sunset but if that were the case they would all be in the Pilbara. I think it is more likely a case of numerous vacant rundown miners’ cottages available at lower rental or purchase cost, unlike the Pilbara. However, some of the paintings were good enough for me (Barry) to admit to being prepared to hang them in my home (mainly by Paul Anderson), but this was made non-viable by ridiculous price tags. The gallery boasts to having the ‘Big Picture’ being the largest picture in the world (12m x 100m), by Anderson, effectively including scenes of the surrounding area of Broken Hill within a 300km radius. It is very impressive but we actually prefer the slightly smaller ‘Panorama’ at Hawker, of the Wilpena Pound, plus this had the addition of three other exceptional outsize paintings. In Anderson’s favour, his paintings of birds in close up view are hard to believe they are paintings and not high definition photographs.

We moved on to both Jack Absalom’s and Pro Hart’s Galleries and came away disappointed in both cases. Pro Hart has never appealed to me and Absalom’s paintings seemed very dull and drab. Pro Hart’s offspring have also gone down the same arty path and some of the paintings by the daughter look like a copy of the old man’s; highlighting the same trees. It would appear that the Hart family have only ever seen one type of tree.

In the Visitors booklet there are 14 art galleries listed and I suspect there are many more.

We then drove up to Mullockers Memorial and Miner’s Memorial on top of the slag heap behind the railway station, the former being a café and souvenir shop and the later being a tribute to many unfortunate miners as a result of a vast variety of accidents. Many of which simply could not happen nowadays due to improved safety regulations and the fact that mining is almost all open cut, rather than tunnelling.

Wednesday 12th August 09

I dropped the car off at a garage in Broken Hill South for its 70,000 km service and collected it after lunch.

After shopping for a few items, we visited the Geo Centre which is a museum displaying 300 mineral specimens which includes a 42kg silver nugget (not the largest found in Broken Hill by any means but the only one that was kept in original form) and a rather special silver tree which is about 3 feet high.

There was a display of some of the rocks under black light which was really spectacular with some amazing iridescent colours. Just before 4.30 we went to the station to watch the Indian/Pacific come in from Perth but after waiting ½ an hour we realised that it wasn’t coming. Merry rang the number shown on one of the boards and the recorded message said the train left Perth on time on Wednesday morning at 11:something am. We realised that it couldn’t possibly get to Broken Hill by the afternoon so a further study of the time table showed that the train arrived at 4:30 pm on Fridays, so we will try again then.

Thursday 13th August 09

We had to do some more shopping so we took the opportunity of calling into the Silver City Mint Gallery again so that Merry could have a new silver charm added to her bracelet, which we left there for collection the following day. We then called into the visitors centre and acquired the key for ‘The living Desert and Sculptures’.

After lunch we headed out to view the sculptures.

We then drove to the living desert which Merry walked around alone. I started the walk but there wasn’t anything of interest for me as there were no flowers, animals, insects, etc, so chose to wait in the car, which Foxy appreciated.

The key for this little expedition was supposed to be returned within 5 hours which we only discovered after the 5 hours had elapsed, and by the time Merry returned from her walk we were also too late to return it, as the visitors centre closed before we could get there.

Friday 14th August 09

In the morning we collecting our mail from the post office in the

northern part of Broken Hill and then we drove into the main town area and returned the key to the visitor centre. We then went to the Silver City Mint Gallery to collect Merry’s bracelet and also have 2 other charms which she bought when we toured New Zealand, added to it. Fortunately they were able to do this straight away which allowed us to walk around part of the Heritage Trail that includes the CBD, which didn’t do a lot for us as it mainly involved the Pubs on every corner (some still in use and some now shops or private residence).

In the process we dropped into a store and bought a new laptop which may solve some off our computing problems, or possibly even add to them. On returning to the caravan, Merry played with the new toy until it was time to greet the Indian/Pacific train, which we successfully managed this time.

Saturday 15th August 09

We drove round the Heritage trail, both through the CBD and the outer lying parts which took in more pubs, churches, numerous miners’ cottages, a quarts outcrop and several lookouts, including another visit to the top of the slag heap behind the railway station. On this occasion it gave us some photo opportunities of the City (sun in a better position) and the ‘Southern Aurora’ train standing in the station.

We spent the afternoon packing up the annex and awning in readiness to move on in the morning, and achieved this before the gradually rising wind made it too difficult.