Adventure 2025

 

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 consists of a TV, iPad, stereo (with speakers that were part of a stereo that was the first gift Bill ever gave me -we are great recyclers!) and space for a collection of helmets and my camera. So far, the only helmet to be used is Bill’s motorbike helmet. He came home from his second ride and declared ‘Those blokes are crazy, I did 25km of the Finke Track, it was rough and hard work and I was going slowly, those blokes ride it at a crazy speed!’

I’d been out earlier in the day for one of my favourite past times – walking. I’d left about 7am but didn’t last long before returning for a scarf. I had thought that leather gloves, beanie and long johns under my jeans would do the job nicely, but no, it seemed the -3 on my phone really was true! Such a cold, still morning made for a beautiful sunrise. After returning ‘home’ I did a load of washing before heading to my first day of paid work at the café that’s on site at the Transport Hall of Fame. I learnt their way of serving hot dogs, toasties and Dutch apple cake. I’ll be back on deck there on Sunday.

Tomorrow will be another volunteer morning – Bill has had one day in the Kenworth shed and other days getting trucks running and moving them around. I’ve been asked to work on the inductee stories once again. So, Wednesday, I spent the morning reading stories and creating a blurb about the inductee which I will read out at the festival on August 27^th.  I’ve finished 5, only another 60 or so to go. Thankfully, 30 frames are already made thanks to the team of volunteers I worked with last year. The other 30 or so have their stories drafted, I just need to read them and match their photos to the stories. This year this is all happening digitally which is very lucky, as there is only one of me and last year there was a team of up to 7 working on this same task at various times. 

After lunch we will head into shop in our ‘new’ vehicle.  Nic, the manager here, saw us head off in the white truck to do our shopping, later in the day he popped by with the keys to his spare vehicle and suggested that might be easier for popping in and out of town. 

Tomorrow night we are planning another evening around the fire pit, but with a shared meal. Sausages, corn in husks, potatoes in coals and who knows what else will appear around the ‘pit of bullshit’ where many stories are shared and jokes told. But for now, it’s time to go back to my novel. I was so ‘into’ it today I thought a dust storm had hit, I quickly closed the caravan door and wondered how Bill was getting on as he was away riding, when I looked up and realised that it was just a whirly whirly that I had directly been in the path of, yet another new experience in Alice Springs.