Oct -Dec 2010 News

It was good to not be gallivanting all over the world but also a lot more boring at work! Work has now become pretty routine so I am simply going through the motions.
We picked up one of those bargains that sounds too good to be true and then turns out exactly like that. I bought an offroad trailer and tent (not fitted) for the price of a tent alone! The trailer is a bit of a lemon but fortunately Callie assisted and we fixed the problem of the trailer being too low and slightly too small for the tent to fit properly. Rest of the time was spent building a kitchen and slides for the fridge. Many late evenings and weekends went into this and in typical fashion I underestimated how long it takes to make stuff. It is most frustrating to find the correct place to buy stuff and to find the words/names that they use here for stuff.

The weather was pretty strange for this time of year and we only managed to get an opportunity when it wasn’t wet or very windy about 3 days before we left for the holidays to pitch the tent for the first time. It is absolutely HUGE. Much bigger than what I actually wanted because it will simply take that much longer to setup every time and short weekend trips are now not so enticing any more.

A week before the holidays started I lent the Ford to the neighbour’s kids to go surfing and it came back with the 5th gear shot! I know it is a Ford Courier problem but it is still a bit frustrating. I could not find a replacement gearbox or someone to fit it in time for the holidays so I had to take 2 days extra leave to find an alternate vehicle. Shaun assisted and I eventually made quite a good trade for a Nissan Patrol.

The Patrol has 40% more power than the Ford and is absolute luxury compared to it. It towed the trailer without breaking a sweat. It also dawned on me why vehicles have such high km’s here, the top speed is 110km/h and trust me you don’t go over it as you will definitely be caught.

The camping was great at Renmark (250km inland) next to the river Murray which is full for the first time in a decade. The camp setup was very nice and the huge tent which was referred to as the Cathedral by some of the campers came in handy. We were nearly eaten alive by mozzies on the first night and we used about a gallon of anti-mozzi sprays of all denominations. The good old Tabbard Cream from South Africa is the clear winner by a country mile but we ran out soon. The local shops had NO replacement mozzie stuff when they eventually opened. Two days of over 40deg was not so much fun but Shaun implemented a fan with misting nozzles that worked pretty good in the end.

We played some tennis, swam and cycled along the river or simply sat around camp and it was so relaxing. I still had to connect and check all the systems that I support every day but that was not too bad.

Michael made friends very quickly and they were a group of 5 boys and 4 girls that played till 23h00 at night. They were such a pleasant lot together and some are still texting each other now.

2011 was greeted with a street party where Carina joined the young bunch to ensure that they are allowed out and it started with quite a nice fireworks display. Someone on the river fired off some more after the big event and set fire to the bushes next to the camp so the Fire Brigade had a very early kickoff to the year. It was fortunately put out very quickly.

And now it is back to work and the chores of 2011.