JULY 2019

For some time now, we had been desultorily talking about our next trip in Bus. It had been quite a while – a couple of years – since we had done any  “proper” travel. That is, not associated with moving house in some way.

Summer had been long and dry, with garden watering a daily task. But the heavens did open somewhat during May, and I recorded almost 80ml of rain for that month. The sprinklers and hoses were put away. A rather mammoth weeding effort had, hopefully, eliminated the lush growth of spear grass in the back gardens. The previous owner’s attempts to reduce weeding by laying weedmat everywhere clearly had not worked, but simply provided a nice trap for grass seeds to grow in.

Over the preceding couple of months, John had seen assorted medicos about his heart and lung issues. Tests showed much reduced lung capacity. Not a surprise. Seems he has bronchiectasis on top of everything else.

Our neighbour friends departed with their caravan, to tour outback NSW and SA for a couple of months. That sparked some action on our front. John took Bus out to have the big chip in windscreen fixed. When it came home, we prepped it ready to travel.

Clean and tidy in Bus before adding all the travel paraphernalia

We had decided to head up through NSW, ultimately looking for some warmer weather, and to spend time in some places we’d only zipped through before. There was my good friend to visit, where he’d retired to in Port Macquarie. John wanted to visit his friend, M’s brother in law, in Maclean.

It looked like a framework for a 6-8 week trip.

In the meantime, it rained – and rained…