14 February 2013 - Sydney Tourist Park, Miranda, NSW

The past few days seem to have whizzed by despite the fact we have achieved very little. The landcruiser remains in the custody of Beekman Motors, one of the warranty approved fixit folk who have no doubt been as frustrated by all the bureaucracy as we have been. We understand that the practical work has commenced this afternoon however will not get too carried away with excitement until all is completed. Needless to say the Boss here has been even more irritated than anyone and so I have been setting time-filling activities such as eight kilometre walks and movies.

We have walked to Sylvania, to Taren Point, to Caringbah and back to Miranda. We have been to see “Lincoln” and “Safe Haven” just adding to the list of movies we have seen this past couple of months, a list which includes “Les Miserables”, “Quartet”, “The Hobbit” and “Hitchcock”. This overload of cinematic entertainment should satisfy us for the many months ahead where there are unlikely to be any such friviolities on offer.

We have pulled the maps and Bibles out and begun to pour over them, planning the route ahead. As I write this we are thinking we will head north west via Cowra, Parkes, Nyngan, Bourke, Cunnamulla, Charleville, Barcaldine, Longreach, Cloncurry and so on up to Darwin. While some of these places have been visited before, I have planned as many new routes as possible, in many cases intersecting those already travelled. This is all very prescriptive and may be considered out of character, given our travelling history so far, however we could yet turn this all on its head and head for Perth via a southern route instead. All we have actually agreed on is that we will head for Canberra as soon as we can leave here; we have an errand to attend to on behalf of one of our sons.

So in the meantime, we ensure our cellphone is accessible and turned on and stay close by camp which in turn is within walking distance of the garage, or at least in the Shire, not to be confused by the Hobbit’s shire . Our departure date is uncertain although should the car not be ready by Friday, we will have to enlist the help of another to move the rig across to another site, and you may have guessed by now that we are averse to imposing upon others.