2010/09 Australia trip - Melbourne |
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Dear All,
We had our usual scramble to get ready for the trip to Australia, trying to get projects finished in the warm weather as we’d be traveling until the end of November. Once we’d finished the construction of the front patio, we set about some overdue home maintenance, like cleaning out the gutters. We bought a really long ladder for getting up onto our roof, two and a half stories up. Our builder came out too, making the final fixes to the house, so two years after we moved in it’s really finished. I still have work to do along the driveway and in the back yard, but nothing too major there.
Just before we left, Hope held its Brigade Days celebration. It was the third Briggie Days we’ve attended so we thought we knew all the ropes but the town was anxious to take advantage of the new construction in the park and managed to confuse us by moving all the events to new locations and running the parade in reverse. We had a good time anyway: pictures in the next letter.
I think I mentioned that the satellite phone we were renting for Australia had got lost in UPS limbo. Amazingly it got from Florida through customs to Richmond BC overnight, but it wasn’t scheduled to make the short trip to us until the next day. We waited all day and then the UPS website showed that the delivery man had reported that we weren’t there to receive it. We were out in our front yard at the time so he was either lost or lazy. After a very frustrating weekend when nobody at UPS responds to anything, I managed to persuade them to deliver again on the Monday and this time I stood in the street and waved the truck down. The phone was an antique, even older than our model, but it could get us out of trouble; some of our planned destinations are way off in uninhabited wilderness, and probably too risky to visit without some way of calling for help.
Tuesday September 14th – Thursday September 16th
Our neighbour Jim kindly dropped us off at the bus stop, and after three hours on the bus and two rush hour trains, we settled in for a few hours wait at Vancouver airport. The plane took off 15 minutes late, just after midnight, and it never made up the time. We zoomed across Sydney’s airport on the Thursday morning trying to make our connection to Melbourne. We made it in time, but our luggage didn’t, so we were bumped onto the next flight, and we were too late to stop John and Edna from setting off to collect us. Luckily we were only an hour late, as Melbourne’s parking fees at the airport have to be some of the most expensive we’ve experienced.
It was our first meeting in four years and we noted that we were all showing signs of wear and tear; John’s back is still painful, and Edna’s been having problems with her hip. We’ve been luckier but we definitely aren’t as spry as on our 2006 trip.
Friday September 17th
We spent most of the day catching up on each other’s news. The recent big event in Oz had been baby Mitchell’s arrival, uneventful except that Carolyn had coughed too much and broken a rib just beforehand.
Eventually we had to get down to work and get the camper ready for the trip. The Troopie’s snorkel had split, and John riveted a plate on to cover the tear. It’s unlikely that we’d go into water deep enough to get into the tear, but it’s good to stop the rain from accumulating there. What am I talking about? This is probably a good point to talk about our Australian camper. The original vehicle was a Toyota Landcruiser Troopcarrier, commonly referred to by Aussies as a “Troopie”. Our model was an eleven-seater, with three in front and two sideways benches holding four each, and it was intended for taking work crews out into the Outback, so the emphasis was on ruggedness and simplicity with no frills and little automation.
The vehicle had to be able to cross rivers without bridges, so it has a diesel engine to avoid the need for spark plugs and a snorkel attached to the air intake so that it can survive the engine going underwater. This was not something we wanted to do too often though as the camper has to have vents for the gas supply and batteries, and we didn’t want to be flooding our luggage and electronic gear. It has four-wheel drive with high and low gear ranges, so it can climb river banks, or descend them slowly – very important! Our builder had installed a sofa/bed, fridge, stove, and sink, and added a pop-top roof to convert the Troopie to a camper. The end result is a camper that can go just about anywhere, whether there’s a road or not. It’s small enough to squeeze along the tiniest track and also small enough to squeeze its passengers!
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