19 July 2011 - Black River Stadium, Queensland

And so the last full day here comes to an end. The day dawned clear as can be, the first for about a week although the temperatures have remained pleasantly between 15 and 26 degrees centigrade.

We faced the day with a view to hunting out a part with which to repair the caravan drainage problem and check out a few other interesting ideas we had.

While I dealt with the laundry and other sundry housekeeping matters, Chris crawled under the van to extract the faulty part. Once removed, he cleaned and examined it and then understanding how the working parts functioned, he proceeded to successfully repair it then and there. Subsequent trialing, then and this evening has confirmed the repair was successful.

With lunch again packed in the ever faithful eski, we headed toward the city with one less problem to deal with. We hunted out Dick Smith and Super Cheap Auto to make further enquiries about CB radios and wind deflectors for the roof rack. While neither of these retailers had the products we were after, they gave us some excellent advice as to who may be able to help us.

It was lunch time and neither Chris nor I like to wait too long for meals, so we headed down to the Strand, calling at the central post office yet again in the remote hope that our mail might have turned up in the interim. Again, that was pie in the sky dreaming, but it could not be said we haven’t tried. We continued on to the foreshore, parked and found a picnic table in the shade, where we sat and enjoyed our sandwiches while watching others passing up and down the promenade, with the sea glistening brilliantly in the glorious sunshine.

After lunch we found ARB Townsville, providers of all sorts of wonderful accessories for 4WD vehicles. The shop was a veritable treasure trove but we settled for just the roof rack wind deflector. Chris will have to fix this when he has time to quietly and carefully do this, and when I perhaps can assist.

UHF Comms are an outfit that deal solely with communication systems for vehicles. We had excellent advice from the guy at Olbis last week and a fair price for a system and installation, however they were booked up for about the next two weeks, and while they did suggest an auto electrician up the road who might be able to fit us in, they did warn us against having any installation done by those whose primary business was not in this field. UHF Comms did have a slot this afternoon but not for several days thereafter. Today suited us perfectly and so we walked up to the nearest shopping centre, tried Hungry Jacks out for their sundae making skills and mozzied around a variety of shops, before being summoned back to collect the vehicle.

We headed home with our purchases, including a delightful little number I had picked up in one of the dress shops, and our credit card a little more worn.

We spent about an hour on our return sitting over cups of tea and coffee with Peter and Sandra, discussing what it meant to be on the road, away from our respective residences and families, before heading in to our caravans to prepare dinner and settle in for the evening.