Another adventure begins

  Settled Up and Settling In Well, it’s now over a week since we left Cooks Road West. The sale of our home settled earlier than expected and without a hiccup, (just a nervous hours wait to be sure I’d supplied the correct bank details)! So now we’re focused on settling into our mobile home here in Alice Springs.                   We’ve got two living areas. One indoor and one outdoor – today I’ll show you around the indoor areas. We’ve got the bedroom of course, (I think of Molly every time I look at my doona cover) an indoor kitchen with oven and 4 gas burners and a 250-volt bar fridge. The caravan’s 3-way fridge gave up working 2 weeks before we left home and we were just a little busy to get a new one sorted.   Luckily, Bill decided not to take the small bar fridge to the clearing sale so it now works perfectly in the mobile home. The ocky strap keeps it in place while we are on the move. The indoor entertainment area c...

  We made it!! The first part of this adventure, as planned at the moment, is a six week stay in Alice Springs so we always intended an express run. And so here we are, already in Alice. Our truckie mates don’t think it was so express but for a traveller who likes to explore and take photos I’m sticking with my story that it was express!! Having left Glendambo intent on getting to Marla we stopped for a short lunch break of noodles an hour or so above Coober Pedy, where we had refuelled and chatted to Kyle. Bill’s legs were aching because of the seating position and my neck was a little sore thanks to the suspension but otherwise we were feeling fine. I took a very big breath as the pilot for the 5-metre wide D10 called us around – but I did manage to keep my eyes open. And you know what – nothing went wrong.   We were around in no time, nothing blew off, nothing came towards us, all soo easy!   We arrived at Marla by about 2.30pm, looked at each other and decided ...

  Peace and quiet thanks to no telecommunications (written in Glendambo on 22/7/22)     Tonight, I’m sitting two thirds of the way to Alice Springs and so far, most of our days have gone pretty close to plan.   After holidaying together a fair few times  I’ve learnt that our first few days on the road never go to plan, they are always, always slower than I imagine. There are the stops at Big W because we need a Sav Nat (which we have one of back in the shed at Fish Creek) because the speedo doesn’t work (only took us 2 days to figure out how to show us our speedo on the new device), or we need a bucket because we couldn’t find where we put ours, or we need to stop because we forgot to fill in paper work…but today after farewelling Trev and Vina (big, big breaths to keep the tears at bay) we headed to Glendambo. The wind was pushing us side ways all day (Trev always tells us we should get up early to beat the wind) but we had slept in (having nightmares of ...

                                                                 Tonight, Wednesday 20th July, we are parked up at Red Cliffs, our first night 'on the road' in our van. Last night we enjoyed an evening with my mum and brother, as well as my niece, nephew and his fiancé and daughter before heading off today to start sleeping and living in the van for about three months.   Tuesday, of course, was a day of mixed emotions. Whilst I stayed busy and focused on the cleaning of the house and the packing of the van I felt 'in control and fine'. I'm pleased I stopped and took time to enjoy a cup of tea watching my last sunrise at Cooks Road West. It made me think of my aunt as she once told me about being able to see the planet Venus as you drove into Venus Bay, and as there was a planet twinkling beside the moon I couldn't...

A slow rumbling began a number of years ago in both of us. A disquiet with our jobs, grumbles about the weather and just an unsettling of the souls. So, when we looked at each other in September 2021 and Will said, ‘We could sell up, see new places and try new things,’ we both quickly agreed to take a chance, explore our options and see what experiences life offers us.   Now the time is almost here for us to head off. The tv is sitting on a packing box, we’ve got the camp chairs in the lounge room and the mattress is on the floor. Thursday we mini-golfed with Georgia, Val, Rory and Holly.   Yesterday I walked at Sandy Point with a friend I met at teachers college before being farewelled by my book group. Today we had another of our farewell meals (the first was a month ago with friends), today was with family. It makes it much easier knowing that we will be back in November. Our plan at the moment is to travel to Benalla, then Mildura before having a night with friends in...