As I start this, there is much activity all about the camp. An elderly couple have taken nearly half an hour to reverse into the site next to us, just about taking out the hedge and fence. Truth be told, the caravan rig was brought in from the wrong direction and the angle he had to manoevre would have been a trial for even the best of drivers. Activities like these are such an entertainment in a caravan park, especially for those with little to do but sit about under their awnings and observe the passing of life. I am sure we have provided much entertainment for others during the past two years of travel.
And
speaking of two years, while I was pegging out the washing on the communal line
this morning and in conversation with a rather paunchy chap doing the same, he
told me that he was from the Sunshine Coast and took to the road for six months
at a time. He expressed wonder when I told him that we had been on the road for
just over two years; he said that he would have no marriage at all if he were
to suggest a similar lifestyle to his wife. I shall take that as a rather back
handed compliment, that Chris and I are such compatible travellers and share
the same eccentricities. (I am not sure he would agree with eccentricity bit)
I do
believe that I said sometime in the last week that we had completed our film
going excursions, and have at least once put lie to that? And so we did yet
again this morning when we headed up to Miranda to see Argo. As I looked around the twenty or so fellow cinema goers, they
all appeared to be candidates for the likes of Quartet rather than the film we were about to be presented with. No
doubt they, like us, had seen the publicity on the morning television regarding
the likelihood of Argo winning Best
Picture at the Oscars today and thought they’d better see what the all the hype
was about. Both
Chris and I enjoyed the movie, but we both agreed we would put others ahead of
this as a winner and that it would not top the list of those we have seen over
the past two and a half months.
We were
quite horrified to learn the extent of the storm damage up and down this
eastern seaboard, mostly north of Sydney but also hurricane style damage
suffered south at Kiama where we had spent some days prior to reaching Sydney
in December. I also learned that our friends visited in Port Macquarie mid-2012
had been evacuated a couple of days ago but were now home safe again with only
their motorbike having been lost. It is poor consolation perhaps to say that it
was only a motorbike, but said in the same vein as when we lost our own landcruiser
in the 2011 Brisbane flood; it was after all only a vehicle. It could have been
so much more.
Chris
had phoned Maurie the Mechanic after breakfast for an update and been told
there was every likelihood of us being able to pick the vehicle up before the
end of the day.
The day
passed in this sedentary manner, later learning that Argo did indeed win the Best Picture award and that a State of
Emergency had also been awarded to locations severely effected by the weather. The
good news of the day is that we now have our landcruiser back after almost two
weeks without. We were there at the garage before closing time to collect it,
irritating as customers can possibly be, but then would you be any better?
Maurie said he would prefer to have the reassembled vehicle for testing before
we headed off and more importantly, I believe, he had yet to make up the
dreaded invoice.
We took
it shopping so we were able to stock up large, something we have been unable to
do since Day Two of our return. We have pulled the awning down yet again and
packed all our paraphernalia into the landcruiser. The alarm is set for an hour
far earlier than our normal waking time and Chris will have the vehicle back
around at Beekman Automotive for final tests before 8 am. I shall complete
packing up and all being well, we will be off out of Sydney and on the road to
Canberra before midday.
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