Last month

Two weeks into July & so much has happened (so much so that I can't remember half of it!). No, we didn't win the cash give-away, because we didn't want to stay there until nearly midnight. Yes, we put our holiday back by 3 weeks. We are now not going to Brisbane, because we can't afford that much fuel for the bus, but we will toddling around for 9 days, much closer to home, out towards Temora & Forbes.

I tried out the new dog park that opened in Yarralumla. I took Angel first & she had an absolute BALL. Bounced around everywhere, came when called (sort of) & generally went exploring. I then went home & took Kelly down there. He wasn't so sure & kept very close to me for quite a while, although once we got away from other dogs, he did go off & run back to me.

Julie's work went through an audit by the local Government. I didn't see her until about 7pm each night leading up to it.

Angel appears to have learned how to lick, not just the air, but actual legs. Like when I'm brushing my teeth prior to having a shower. She & Kelly are starting to play with each other, rather than the male stand-off thing & her snuggling up to his tail. She sorta tries to grab it sometimes, but mostly just wants to rub against it. We still think she's part cat.

In the bus, we have now had the generator serviced, so that should be one less thing I have to worry about. It's been bloody cold here in the mornings too. Even worse for me taking the Suzuki to work with NO heating. Several mornings I have driven to work wearing my motorcycle gloves. The other day, there was a heavy fog at 5pm when I left work, eerie. And it's been raining too, allowing the lake to fill up & overflow. Now that is something hasn't happened for quite some time. And snow on the ranges last night as well.

And the website development for this year is a mailing list to which you can subscribe, so that I can send out an email to everyone on the list when I update the newsletter or photos pages. It's on the home page. Please go there now, fill in your details & click on Subscribe. The system will send you an email for you to confirm. All I have to do after that is to remember to send out an update!

I have also made some other changes to the home page. There's a picture of the courtyard at home, updated every minute. I have also set up a camera in the bus, pointing out the front window, updating every 30 minutes via the wireless broadband gateway. So from next weekend, you should see some changes there for the following week while we are out & about.

Thursday, in Batemans Bay. Julie had a training course on today down here (yes, it's the closest one to Canberra), so I took the day off & we drove down last night, most of it in the dark. I've had a great day today, just cruising around. Went for a drive through the State Forest, going very slowly for a while over some very "interesting" roads. And sat by the beach for while as well.

Saturday, day 1 of our short 9-day holiday. It must have been the slowest & most relaxed start to a trip that we have ever had. Even vacuumed the tiled floors & washed the dirtiest bits of them. Got away just before midday. North through Yass, then west via Bowning, Binalong, Wallendbeen & through to Temora for a fuel stop. Finally found the Dump Point there that I have been trying to accurately locate. After a quick phone call to check that the Sportsground Camping Area at Ariah Park was still in operation, we arrived in the town about 4:30, collected the keys from the pub & drove into the area in time for the last of the footy match, which the locals lost to Collingullie. This place is brilliant, run by friendly people, making use of a community facility & earning a bit of money for the town. We are parked on a level site with lots of grass overlooking the oval. And we loved the pub so much, we both thought of going there for dinner on Monday night. We expect to be here until Tuesday.

The webcam at the front of the bus is working well & I have managed to grab & upload a selection of pictures for the slideshow. As mentioned above, you can also see the latest picture on the home page; clicking on the picture starts the slideshow. Eventually, I will remove some of the "this is a road" pictures from it, as we acquire better ones.

We had visitors last night at 1 am & as it happens, I was up & about inside the bus, when one of the young guys having a bonfire over by the oval decided to knock on the door. I don't think he expected anyone to respond so quickly & he was still standing at the door when I opened it. So I hurled a bit of abuse at him as he ran off. I thought about going over to share their fire for a while, but couldn't be bothered getting dressed. Perhaps I should have let the Kelly guard dog out to chase them off. And a very nice picture of the early fog taken by the bus webcam this morning.

We had more visitors later in the morning. Ian & Trudy, whose house backs onto the camping area, had heard the commotion last night & came over to let us know that the culprit was well known & was now in even more trouble. As usual, we got talking about computers & I ended up over at their place for a while looking at their setup & fixing a few things. We invited them over for dinner & had a fantastic BBQ over one of the fire buckets that are provided here, complete with plenty of firewood.

Monday, day 3. We went into town & looked at all of the shops, which occupied less than an hour (not a big town). Then got talking to Kathy & Michael, who are permanently on the road in a caravan. When Kathy mentioned that her laptop had never been connected to the Internet, now there's a challenge. Even after connecting it to our wifi, I couldn't get it to talk to Windows Update. Ended up installing XP SP3 followed by a mass of updates, then setting up an email account. Ian dropped in at the end of his day, to say that he was just zipping out to one of his farms & would I like to come along. Silly question!  He leases some farms & share farms others. The stuff in his hand in the picture is lupins, like a hard pea, which is excellent stock food, & the crop adds nitrogen back into the soil. I think the crop was wheat, although at that early stage, it's hard to tell.

Tuesday, day 4. We'll hit the road again sometime today, when we manage to get moving. We tracked up the back roads to West Wyalong today. For the substantial town that it is, they apparently have only one supermarket, an IGA, & according to Julie when she shopped for a couple of essentials, the franchisee has a virtual licence to print money. We were actually pleased to see on the way out of town, that there is a new shopping complex under construction. They certainly need the competition. All in all, we were simply not impressed with the town.

Evening, & we're at the showground at Ungarie, pronounce variously as Hungary without the H or ung-gahr-ri. This area functions as the showground, the racing track, the footy oval, the athletics field, the netball courts & the local sale yards. As with many country towns, the footy oval is the best kept piece of grass for miles around. We are here on our own, in the dark, & it's free! The dogs have done at least 2 laps of the oval with me & are both suitably pooped. Meanwhile, Julie is doing really well at figuring out how to use the kitchen, mapping out meals to use up the stuff that will go off first, & planning only a day or so in advance. We're actually relaxing. Angel has taken to playing in the shower cubicle, & Kelly is, well, just Kelly. Actually, earlier today, I put both of them over the fence onto the oval area. Kelly quickly figured out that he had to run up to the open gateway to get out again. Angel, to my surprise, partially caught on, but just didn't take it far enough to get to the gate.

Wednesday, day 5. Early morning (like about 4am), Julie was outside & decided to let Angel out for a pee. Angel promptly went under the bus & disappeared for about half an hour! We were both frantically searching the area with torches, when she just re-appeared. I figured out much later, in daylight, that she had gone directly away from the bus & had then walked down into a drainage ditch where we couldn't see her. To her credit, she did eventually come back when she got cold enough.

I think I put too many coffee grounds down the dunny yesterday, so it is looking a little full. I wandered around the toilet block & found a sewerage inspection point that we could use to dump the black tank into. So we carefully locked down as much of the bus as was necessary & took it over there, unscrewed the inspection point & dumped the tanks. The dunny is at least draining out slowly now, rather than just sitting there looking at us. So I went into town looking for some Drano. Took the "other" road over (or rather through) the creek in the Sierra. From the cafe, I was referred to the hardware shop, which looks like any other white shed in a side street, & was warned that the guy might be out to lunch. Which he was, so I went back a couple of hours later & the shop was still closed. It looks like he may be closed for the whole week, which is OK, because we can get some in a bigger town tomorrow on the way to wherever we finish up.

Julie got a scare today when she went for a shower & I took the dogs for a short walk, as I do several times a day to make sure that Angel pees outside. I heard her shouting for me from about 20m away & rushed back to find that the shower cubicle door had locked shut & she was stuck inside. She had all sorts of nightmare thoughts about being stuck in there, naked & cold, for ages. Memories of the film Psycho. She had at least figured out that she could turn the hot water on every now & then to keep warm! Later on, she cooked some cinnamon bread & the bus smells like what home used to, way back when Mum used to cook. And we had a nice surprise tonight when what looked like most of the town turned out for footy training on the oval. We had a front row parking spot.

Thursday, day 6. We packed up & hit the road again. At first, we drove north, looking to cut across towards Forbes. We were fine until the sealed road opened out into a wide dirt road that had the appearance of being pretty sloppy in places. It's a pity I didn't take a picture & the webcam didn't catch one either, because that would have told the story. Not being particularly happy with the concept of pushing the beast out of a bog, we unhitched the Sierra & turned around. Just as we were finishing, a car came along & we got some very good local advice, with the end result that we went back into Ungarie & from there back to West Wyalong & onto the Newell Highway to Forbes. By this time, it was raining & it continued until we got to Eugowra. We checked out the brand new dump point in town & went straight out to the showground, which once again is just perfect for our needs. It has wide open spaces for me to walk the dogs, or for the dogs to go for a run themselves, & no-one else around. And it has nice country scenery.

On that subject, some good news on Angel. She has now figured out that when we go for a walk, she can follow me. And when we let her out unrestrained, she can fossick around within about a 50m radius & then return to the "home base". At one point, she was outside & was contentedly sitting beside the back wheel. For those who know D&S (Dumb & Stupid), you will agree that this is a major improvement.

Meanwhile, I finally got hold of some Drano & dosed the dunny. After it had drained out a bit, I looked in & spotted a blockage, which I managed to extract using a kebab skewer (no, I did NOT re-use the skewer!). It seems that a ball of "whatever" had formed up just out of reach of the teeth in the macerator. Once it was out, the dunny worked perfectly again. Yay! Update: In fact, it now seems to be working even better than it used to.

Friday, day 7. The sun was shining when we woke up, so we put on a load of washing. Of course, even before it had finished, the sun was gone & the clouds were back, but we have put the collapsible line out under the awning with the breeze blowing through. Here's hoping that at least something dries. Since then, we have come up with another reason for a vehicle this size. When it started to rain, we brought the whole clothesline inside & put it into the driving area, since we aren't driving anywhere in the next day or two. Hey, you do whatever it takes, right?

Saturday, day 8. We went down to the pub last night for dinner & had a fascinating conversation with a couple of locals who also got married in Vegas. We also chatted with one of the kids who rode their bikes through the showground the day before, & he told us that there would be a large birthday party next to us tonight. As I caught the local trotting trainer taking his horse for a run on the track, he also mentioned that there would be a party here tonight. Could be interesting! Today's main activity has been a short drive into town. And moving the bus, so that we could take on fresh water. Having moved it that far, we then figured we would move it a little further & get off the soggy ground onto a firmer surface. That's why the TravelCam view moved today.

And I have updated the Bus Stops page today, to include the last 2 trips we have taken. The map is starting to fill in nicely.

Update: And what a party it was. Julie went over there after it started rockin' & got talking to Russell, the father of Breanna, the birthday girl. The end result was that I went over there with the camera & took a heap of pictures for them.