Monday, February 25, 2013

25 February 2013 - Sydney Tourist Park, Miranda, NSW


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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