Happy New Year - Roll on 2017

Happy New Year!

 Part of the NYE fireworks display at Coolangatta

 
I can't believe we're nearly at the end of the first week of 2017 already!

 Boxing Day with May Family rellies

 
Both Steve's and my workplaces close down for the week between Christmas and New Year, so we had a nice quiet week off, using that time to go and see a couple of movies (including Rogue One), have a Boxing Day catch up with some of the rellies, hang out with friends, re-waterproof the canvas and put new mattresses into the Jayco, and organise Cheyenne's school books and stationery for the year. Not long now until school starts again. We just have to get her some new track shoes and pay the usual assortment of fees and she'll be ready to go.

May I just say that I have so much love for my new Brother P-Touch label maker?  I have no idea how I managed to live without it for so long!

This Saturday we head off for a week away at Boyds Bay caravan park at Tweed Heads, with some of Steve's family.  The Jayco is mostly ready to go (we leave it packed with the camping gear) - we just have to do our food shopping (tonight) and pack our clothes in.

Looking forward to our little holiday (yes, I know I only just had a week off, but a stay-cation just doesn't feel the same as a proper holiday) and can only hope the weather plays nice for us.

Swanning Around (aka Resistance Is Futile)

Let me just start by saying that we already have a perfectly good soft floor camper trailer.  It's not new by any means, but it's still in great condition and does the job well.  It's also compact and fits nicely in the garage under our house, behind our second roller door.  We've had some great camping trips in it over the years.

For a while now, Steve has been wanting to get rid of our camper and buy another wind-up camper van.  I say "another", because we've previously owned two of the same sort - where you put up the roof and pull the beds out at each end.  We've owned one which was wind-up and the other had a stupid hinged arm setup for lifting the roof. The less said about that one, the better, although it did make it to Uluru and back in one piece, which is about the nicest thing I have to say about it.

Now, when you question him, Steve has tried to give rational reasons for wanting to replace our camper with one of these. It takes too long to set up, Cheyenne doesn't have a built-in bed of her own, blah, blah, blah.  His real reason (which he won't admit to) is that everyone else - all of his brothers, his parents and most of our friends - have either wind-ups or full caravans, and he's been feeling left out.  That, and we've owned the current one nearly five years and he's reached his boredom threshold.

Here's the thing: they go to caravan parks! We don't. We usually go bush or beach camping, on unpowered sites, so there's really not much point having a caravan.  

There's also the fact that we don't really have room to store a van. And, we already have a perfectly good camper trailer. And, a wind-up isn't exactly a top priority in our budget when there are a million and one things that should be fixed around the house.  And, I could go on.  In fact, I have been holding out against this idea for a long time now.  Steve needed reinforcements, so he convinced Cheyenne she'd be better off with a proper bed rather than a stretcher, and the pair of them ganged up on me. Two against one.  He has not-so-subtly been leaving Gumtree ads open on the PC so I will see the photos and I've been getting "Don't let it get away" reminder emails from eBay about the ones he's looked at there.

Resistance is futile, though.  Regardless of all the reasons why this isn't really a good idea, he wants, so ultimately, he gets. In the end, I gave up fighting. It's not worth the effort.  As with his cars, and boats, change is inevitable.

Last weekend we picked up our "new" camper. It's a 1998 Jayco Swan.

The plan was to bring it home and set it up in the backyard to give it a good clean out. This would require a bit of "trailer shuffling" (take boat trailer out, put Jayco Swan in, put boat trailer back in), but luckily we have two vehicles with towballs.

Here's where accurate measurements would have come in handy!  It's all very well to say it's 2100mm wide, but you also need to remember to include the clearance lights, roof clips, handles, and anything else that sticks out.  Especially when you have less than 2400mm clearance between the house and the side fence!

To say that it was a mission to reverse it up the slope of our yard and under the carport without hitting anything would be an understatement.  It's a mission of epic proportions. Think "search for the Holy Grail" epic. It is a very tight squeeze, with only a few centimetres on either side between the Swan and the house and fence. I wouldn't even dream of attempting it, but luckily Steve is extremely good at reversing. As it was, after we'd unhitched it from the car (because the car is too wide to fit up the side of the house) and were pushing it back by hand, we managed to break the plastic cover on one of the clearance lights by hitting it on a carport post.

"It's ok," he says, "the garage door is wider, so when we put it under the house it'll be a lot easier."  "Are you sure you won't hit the steel shelving inside the garage?" I ask.  "No, it's all good, I'll just have to move the cupboard back a bit behind it because it's a bit longer than the old camper."

We gave it a good scrub, inside and out, including the canvas, and transferred all of our cutlery, crockery, pots and pans, and cooking utensils from the old camper. A few minor repairs to the door lock and step and a bit of paint on the drawbar and chassis rails, and she was ready to go under the house (so we can leave it opened up while packing for a weekend away this coming weekend).

Cue the trailer shuffling, only this time, add the old camper trailer to the mix.  Oh, and the old camper has a completely different type of towing hitch that doesn't use a towball, just to add to the "fun".  Boat trailer out, Swan out, boat trailer back up the side of the house, change towing hitch, old camper out from the garage under the house and put up the side of the house in front of the boat trailer (so it's easy to get at when potential buyers come to look at it after we advertise it next week), Swan into garage under the house. Phew!

All this, we did last night after Steve got home from work. The drama we had getting it up the side of the house in the first place?  Imagine that at night (with only a single fluoro light to see the minimal clearance available). In the rain. With a sloped yard, full of wet grass. 

But wait, there's more...

I'll say it again. Accurate measurement is key. Measure twice, cut once, as they say.  Did I not suggest the steel shelving along the wall of the garage was going to be in the way? Were my concerns not ignored? (see previous conversation mentioned several paragraphs above)

Was I not, in fact, correct?  You're damn right I was.

Much swearing from Steve when he realised his error. Lots of eye rolling and "I did tell you, but nobody ever listens to me" from me.  

After some creative angling and decisions to cut and re-weld not one but two entire shelving units at some point in the near future (because the Swan is longer than he'd thought, as well as wider), it's in the garage.  I may now be down 4 washing lines (the Swan is also a lot higher than the old camper) and can no longer see the screen on our solar inverter (to keep an eye on it to check it's functioning correctly), but it's in and we can close our roller door.

If our mate Jason hadn't come over to help us, I'm positive Steve and I wouldn't be talking to each other right now.

Easter Camping Trip

What a difference the weather can make to holiday plans. We were all set to head to Elanda Point on Lake Cootharaba... until we watched the news and saw that the upper Noosa River had flooded. A quick phone call confirmed our worst fears - the campsite was closed due to flood damage and we had less than a week to find another destination.

Naturally, on the Monday before Easter there are not a lot of vacancies left anywhere, but I phoned campsites on the northern side of Brisbane, and our friends who were going with us phoned campsites to the south. On a recommendation from some other friends, I finally got onto Island Reach campgrounds at Imbil. Their advice - "It'll be chockers, but since you're coming up on the Thursday morning you should still be able to have your pick of the spots." When I phoned back later to confirm, I spoke to the lady owner, who said she'd been telling everyone it was fully booked ! When I explained that in my earlier phone call one of the men had said we'd be ok, she said "Oh, it's alright love, we won't turn you away!" Geez, I hope not, since we can't get in anywhere else!

It was overcast when we left home Thursday morning and it drizzled on the way up the highway, but at least the rain held off until later that evening - thankfully, after we'd set up our campsite!
Just as well we didn't arrive any later than we did, since there weren't many large areas left when we got there. Plenty of spots for single tents, but not a lot for larger groups. We found a large, shady, flat area on the second terrace down - nicely placed about halfway between the creek and the amenities block. Plenty of room for our two family tents and our tarp. The area was probably only vacant due to the large concentrations of green ant nests (!), but the rain seemed to keep them subdued and there were only a handful of bites suffered during the course of the whole weekend.

We'd borrowed a pair of ocean kayaks from our friend Mick, and although it rained on and off throughout the weekend, we still had fun paddling them up and down Yabba Creek. Up around the bend to the left of the campsite, as far as the road and railway bridges, and to the right of the campsite, down as far as the weir.

While paddling down near the weir, we had seen people swimming and fishing on the other side, so one afternoon we decided to go for a walk to check it out. We climbed down some muddy steps, waded through a knee deep narrow creek (the guys carried the kids), followed a cow path up and over a hill, through a pasture and eventually came to the weir. There were a surprising number of people there - swimming and fishing. It was very picturesque... just a shame that it was still overcast and the surrounding rocks were still too wet to sit on. It'd make a fantastic picnic spot on a sunny day, with the sunlight sparkling off the rapids. Wayne had brought fishing rods for his kids and they were keen to try their luck, but the fish clearly weren't fussed on the bread we were using for bait. The kids still had a ball.

Sunday night we had a campfire and toasted marshmallows under a sky full of stars. This naturally fooled us into thinking that we'd actually get some sunshine to dry out our gear before we had to pack up to leave. How wrong we were! Late Sunday night it started to rain heavily and it just didn't stop. In fact it seemed to get progressively heavier the closer it came to the time we were going to leave. There were even a few flashes of lightning and ominous rumbles of thunder! The gullies became puddles for the kids to play in, the ground became squelchy with oozy mud and there was no chance of packing the tents up dry. Dripping wet and soaked to the skin, we gave up trying, and just jammed it all in the trailer, tied it down and left for the long drive home in holiday traffic.

Two days later and the tent is still spread out in our garage, the fly slung over the clothesline. At least all the washing is done and the wet towels smell fresh again!

We had a great time despite the weather, although I'm not sure the Perry family will be so keen to come camping with us again. Twice they've been camping with us - the first time, at Straddie, we got caught in a hail storm, and this time it rained all weekend. Oh well, if they can survive that, they can survive any camping situation, I reckon!

Hope everyone else had a great Easter - regardless of the weather!

Camping hijinks

This weekend just gone we went camping with some friends and their two kids. We decided to head over to The Bedrooms campgrounds on South Straddie as the guys had camped there before with the kids on a Father/Son (Father/Daughter in Steve's case) weekend with their surf club mates. It was the first time our friends had gone camping as a whole family, since their kids were born.

Since it was only going to be an overnighter, and we were going by boat, we had to pack light to fit it all in. That meant just the bare essentials - one small tent for each family, the small 2m tarp (no poles), airbed and sleeping bags rather than the mattress and bedding, one small folding table, folding chairs, the single burner butane stove, frypan and esky.
(Longer trips or when we go by road and can take the trailer, we'd take our big tent, the large tarp, with all its poles, our camp kitchen and our camping box which contains all our camping necessities.)

So, with the tide times and BOM online weather report double-checked (fine weather, with 5/10 knot winds), we loaded the gear, four adults and three kids into our 5m tinnie and set off early from Jacob's Well boat ramp. We found a great shady spot, a little north of The Bedrooms, away from the other campers, where the boat was still close enough to shore at low tide, and set up camp.

Around 10am, while we were kicking back relaxing and the kids were digging in the sand, we noticed the clouds building and the sky getting dark. So much for the fine weather report! Then again, when has the Bureau ever been known to get it right? Steve was sure it was headed out to sea and would miss us, but that was not the case!

11.30am saw us all huddled in our tent, since it was the slightly larger of the two, waiting to see whether the expanding puddle of water at our tent entrance was going to make it all the way to the inner door, and trying to stop the kids from touching the sides of the tent - a little difficult when the wind is flattening the dome of the tent down on top of us! Naturally, curious little people are going to want to touch. "Look Mummy, the water's getting in. See? Right here!"
Yep, thanks. How about you make it leak on your own side of the tent, LOL.

Steve noticed that one of his anchor ropes was slipping and ventured out to make sure the boat didn't float away...round about the time the hail started. Yes folks, hail. That was definitely a first...for all of us! I've been camping in the rain before - who hasn't? But hail is a little less tent-friendly. Luckily they weren't golf ball sized or anything, so the tents weren't damaged. The storm and accompanying rains blew over after a while and the sun came out again after lunch.

I really wish I'd taken photos of how close the water came to getting into our tent. The "puddle" expanded far enough that it reached into the front vestibule area, which has no built in floor and is where we store our gear.

By the time I thought to dig out the camera (after it was all over), the water had soaked into the sand and most of the hail had melted.

Since the storm hit so early in the day, there was plenty of time for everything to dry out during the rest of the afternoon.

We even managed to find enough dry branches to have a small campfire to sit around, after our sausage sizzle dinner.

Of the two queen size airbeds we own, one has a hole, so we'd planned to inflate both during the week before the trip, to make sure we took the good one. Great idea, except that when it came time to test them out, we discovered that we could only locate one. Naturally, we figured this meant that we'd decided against repairing the one with the hole and had simply thrown it away, leaving us with one good one. Right? Err... no!

After sitting on the sagging airbed whilst sheltering from the storm, we decided that it would need serious re-inflating before bedtime. We re-inflated it at about 9.30pm, just before turning in, but by 11pm we were pretty much lying on the ground. Even so, I could probably have slept on regardless, if not for rustling of plastic less than a metre from my head! Possums (or some other small nocturnal thieving beasties) had snuck under the fly, into the front vestibule of our tent, and were snacking on my cheese and bacon rolls! So, with the remainder of my rolls rescued and relocated to inside the tent, and the call of nature answered (as you know, once you're well and truly awake, there's just no ignoring your bladder), I lay back down - on the ground - and dozed off... only to be woken once again at 3am by the beasties raiding our rubbish bag!


Sunday dawned gloriously bright and sunny and stayed that way for the entire day. We went for a ride in the boat down to Couran Cove to see how the other half lives, passing a pod of dolphins on the way. The kids had a great time playing in the sand and splashing in the water, until it was time for us to reluctantly pack up and head for home.




It really was a fantastic spot and, despite the storm and the airbed (which we dumped in the bin on the island, where it quite rightly belonged), I could have easily stayed a few more days. Maybe next time Steve will take a few days off work so that we can stay a little longer than overnight.