This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Monthly Archives: March 2023


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2016 Travels March

MARCH     PLANNING THE NEXT TRIP

Friend M and I decided that a short trip through South Gippsland would blow the cobwebs – literally – out of Bus.

With the worst of summer over, the garden could be left in the care of our flat tenant, who would water whatever needed it, if there were hot days. In return, she could harvest as much as she wanted from the vegie patch.

There was a little window of time between the mass exodus events of the March long weekend and Easter – neither times that we wanted to be sharing the roads and holiday venues, now that we had the retirees’ luxury of choice about such matters.

We would take Bus and Terios. M and her friend C would stay in cabins, as he had been ill before Xmas, so “roughing it” in her Troopy camper was not a good idea. Thus, we decided to depart from usual practice and book the accommodation ahead of time, so they could be sure of getting cabins.

We, of course, were limited to parks that were dog friendly.

It was intended that our first night’s stay would be with friends at their Woolamai holiday house – a visit that was long overdue. We meant to, then, book two nights at Toora, but between us got the dates mixed up and ended up making online bookings for a day earlier than we wanted. This is what happens when you get two bossy, organizing types trying to work together!

OK. It was easier to scratch Woolamai from the plans, than try to change the booking online. So we ended up arranging two nights at Toora, three at Yarram, and tacked on our “spare” night to make three nights at Sale.

Not a long trip, but it should be a pleasant break that would enable us to catch up with some friends along the way, and visit some places not seen before. Yes – any number of such did exist, close to home! We had driven to Wilsons Promontory many times, over the years, but not explored any more of South Gippsland.

It would also, for John and me, be an experiment in travelling with others. We had done plenty of trips before with M, who we found a very compatible co-traveller, but not with the extra person. As a rule, we preferred not to travel with others, as it can complicate the experience and lead to having to make compromises that lessen our trip enjoyment. For M, it was a chance to do a little travel with C, before she headed off for more remote parts later in the year. After last year’s “adventures”, C had declared there would be no more “remote” travel for him – defining remote as more than 100kms from a hospital!

I wanted to visit and stay at the caravan park at Tarra Valley, that really caters well for doggy guests, with fenced sites and exercise areas and the like. But John vetoed that one on the grounds of uncertainty about TV and internet access. Indulgence for dog would be deprivation for him!

It just remained to cook, process, freeze, dehydrate, the last of the bumper summer crops of tomatoes, zucchini, beans, cucumbers, rhubarb, figs. A last minute discovery of lots of ripe passionfruit hiding on the ground under the vines, quickly got frozen in ice cube trays.

Tomato soup anyone?


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2016 Travels February

FEBRUARY     SOME ADDITIONS TO THE BUS

Last time Bus went to the local Toyota dealer’s for a service, they could not remove the front wheel nuts in order to check things behind the wheels. They did not have a special tool and were reluctant to exert too much force on the lever they did have, in case they stripped or broke the studs.

On the way home from the dealer, John had taken Bus to a truck tyre place and they undid the wheel nuts, to establish that it could be done, and then re-tightened them. Back home, John could not make them budge again with the “normal” gear he had on hand.

We were told at Toyota, and had not known until then, that the wheel nuts on the two front wheels undo in different directions on the two wheels: one clockwise, one anti-clockwise. Something else to remember…

When we first bought our caravan, back in 1997, we had both gone through a steep learning curve, in order to understand how everything worked, and potential issues and pitfalls. For most years of our vanning, we felt knowledgeable and secure in this.

Acquiring Bus was a whole new ball game. A much more complex one too. For the last four years I had haunted online forums that featured Coasters, and motor homing in general. Neither of us liked the sense of not necessarily knowing what was happening with the vehicle or house systems, or about potential hassles.

After this problem with the wheel nuts, we decided it would be wise to buy a “nutcracker” – a special kind of tool that helps undo wheel nuts. More research ensued, then eventually John drove to Kyneton and bought the chosen tool, which cost less than $100. He wanted to inspect it, in person, to make sure it came with the right sized fittings.

Another fact we had discovered was that the outer and inner back wheels have different sized wheel nuts. Suppose there was a reason for that, but I never found out what it was.

Six wheels on Bus, plus a somewhat inaccessible spare. And all this complexity. We’d had six wheels on our Defender and Trakmaster rig, plus a couple of spares. The KISS principle applied there – all the wheels were the same and interchangeable: Defender wheels. We had been spoilt, clearly.

John already had a tension wrench for doing up wheel nuts again.

We hoped we would never have to actually use these tools ourselves. The wheels were a bit too heavy for us to be manhandling them ourselves, these days. The thinking was that if we did have to call out Roadside Assistance to change a wheel, at least we would know that the appropriate tools will be on hand.

Nothing to do with tools….Couey’s latest game…ball in pool

I had been concerned on our previous trips with the rig, that if the Terios got a flat tyre while we were flat towing, we probably wouldn’t realize until unnecessary damage had been done to the tyre. I discovered that there were warning devices available for just such situations. So the next area of research was into tyre pressure monitoring systems – TPMS. John was keen to have these on the Bus wheels as well as on the Terios, so we needed a system that managed ten wheels in total.

John decided to buy a system from a Melbourne based firm, so he was able to go to the outlet and talk it all through with them. This was not going to be a cheap exercise!

He fitted the monitors, which replace the valve cap on each tyre, and then set up the receiver unit in Bus. Another screened gadget to add to the proliferation on the dashboard! And the rats’ nest of leads that all plugged into the extension gadget that in turn plugged into the lighter socket.

The receiver unit, in theory, showed the situation with each wheel in sequence – its pressure and temperature. The unit beeps – loudly we discovered, when a tyre is under the set parameters he entered. Getting the whole thing to work with each wheel registering in its turn, took ages, with John fiddling about outside with wheels and me inside Bus letting him know what was showing on the screen. Each of the ten wheels had to be checked and some pumped up. Good thing he has an air compressor. I kept telling myself it would be worth it.

The day after the installation, John took me out to Bus to demonstrate the unit again. It beeped. One front tyre on Bus was down to 12psi. John worked out that he had not screwed the monitor unit on properly and it had leaked air overnight. That was remedied.

We did no further testing before our next trip. Mistake….


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2016 Travels January

JANUARY       OUR TRAVELS TO DATE

Some recent visitors were surprised by our travels map, which hangs on a wall at home, and exclaimed at the extent of the places we have been, In Australia, to date.

We started recording the roads and tracks travelled on this map, over twenty years ago. It shows the routes we had taken, since we started adventuring together, in 1991.

Of course, some of the roads had been travelled multiple times. We have, for example, crossed the Nullarbor five times. And, hopefully, will do so again. Some favourite places have been revisited more than once, such as the Kimberley and the Qld Gulf country.

There is still a quiet sense of achievement when we return from a trip, and I am able to record a “new” black line on our map.

As the year began, I was wondering where our travels this year would take us?


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2015 Travels November

NOVEMBER 2015     NEARLY AS GOOD AS NEW

Bus was trundled off to a local panel beater. John had previously checked out his work and pronounced it satisfactory.

Some time before, the passenger’s side front corner of Bus had an altercation with the corner of a brick retaining wall beside its parking area. The wall corner lurks beneath a bushy mass of grevillea, and there is not much room for error, on either side. When we originally built the parking bay for our caravan, a flat area had to be cut out of the sloping block, and the width of the cut was limited by the location of pipes to the house.

The result of John’s misjudgement was a scrape on the shiny metal surface of the bumper corner, and a bit of a ding in the Bus body behind that. Fortunately, vital parts like lights were not affected.

Slightly dinged front corner

As well, some of the dreaded Coaster rust had appeared under one of the back door windows. That had to go. The front corner would be fixed at the same time.

Bus was away for a few days. We were in no rush – better to have the job done thoroughly.

We were most impressed with the repairs. The man took photos of the work on the rust as it was done. He cut the rusted section out and replaced it. Even knowing it had been done, we could not tell by looking at it that there was ever anything wrong. Same with the front scrape, though the mark on the bumper remained as a bit of a tell-tale.

 Repaired front corner. Bush hiding the ambushing fence corner in foreground.

So – a very pleasing outcome, and at a very reasonable price.

No sign of rust under window now

After Bus was collected, we drove home, loaded up the dog, and went for a drive through the hills, to Monbulk – just to make sure the cranking batteries were fully charged after sitting for a while at the workshop without the isolation switch in play.

To remind Couey that travel is good, we returned via Lilydale Lake and took her for a walk and a swim in the outlet creek. Back at home, I opened vents and windows to remove perfume of wet dog!

Next day, Bus was washed thoroughly with the pressure hose. We would not be likely to take it out again until summer is over, next year. The onset of hot weather ties us to garden watering and we do not like to be away during the fire season.

We had discussed taking Bus on a trip to Adelaide, this month, because John wanted to go there to watch his grandsons compete for the ACT in swimming championships. Decided that he would drive his car over, alone, stay in a caravan park cabin, and I would remain holding the fort – or at least the garden hose – at home.

So we put on the covering tarps to protect Bus from the elements and all the stuff that falls from the neighbours’ trees.


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2015 Travels September

SEPTEMBER      HAPPENINGS – SOME CHEERFUL, SOME NOT…

A few days after our return from NSW, the Practice Nurse pronounced my leg ulcers all healed up! I could even resume water aerobics in a couple of weeks. Travel had been good for me.

Springtime at home

Friend M had continued her adventuring in WA, after the Kimberley cruise. Whilst waiting for the second lot of repairs to the Troopy, in Kununurra, she met up with friends travelling up that way. One lady with a 4WD motorhome had room for an extra on their trip along the Gibb River Road, so M joined her. They managed to drown the Mercedes in a creek crossing that was deeper than it looked, while exploring a station track, so travelled to Derby with the retrieval truck. I wondered if she was a vehicle jinx on this trip! Fortunately, the damage was not too  great and they returned to Kununurra, where M picked up the Troopy again. She then spent some months travelling in WA with those friends.

In early September an email from M told me that she’d had an incident at Morgan. They had stopped for a meal break at the pleasant riverside park, where we’d often stopped on our travels. She slipped walking down the grassy slope from the toilet block and sat down heavily – on her foot, which went crack and crunch. In much pain by the time they reached there for the night, the Mildura hospital decided it wasn’t broken, and despite discomfort she did, after a day’s rest, manage to drive home. Subsequent checks revealed a couple of hairline fractures to the ankle bone and two badly torn ligaments/tendons. I finally found someone who is worse than me on crutches! She was very happy when she eventually graduated to a moon boot, just in time to embark on a cruise to places like New Caledonia, with one of the ladies she sometimes travels with. On the second day out, they contracted the norovirus that was sweeping the ship and spent most of the rest of the cruise locked in a cabin, being fed bananas and boiled rice. Don’t think this was one of her better years.

John, who had been showing increasing interest in the idea of a cruise, decided then and there that he wasn’t paying good money just to get sick – it seemed that this virus was affecting a lot of the cruise ships operating in Australia this year. I wasn’t particularly interested in cruising – except for the Kimberley coast – so was quite happy that he dropped the idea.

Woodworking with grandson

A toothache that had been occasional whilst we were away gradually became more of a regular event. I parted company with a molar – not too many of those left, now…

John had yet another round of surgery to remove skin cancers on leg and a hand. The latter became infected and prevented him from bowling for several weeks. The man was not happy.