Canberra to Thornton  - Sunday 8th May 2011

We haven't got far yet. After leaving home on Sunday 8/5/11 we drove straight through to Jenny's at Maitland. Anne drove the Daihatsu and followed me driving the Patrol with the caravan on the back. We talked on the 2-way when necessary and had an uneventful trip.

I had the Patrol and the Caravan slotted into the big shed by the time Jenny and co arrived home from their Sunday arvo work at the Northern Highlands Travel (NHT) Depot in Thornton where they had been putting in some hours. Go to www.nht.com for a look at their operations.

Anne and I have continued sorting. We recovered most of the items that we had flung into the caravan 'to take' while packing up the house and storing most of our belongings in a 20 foot shipping container and leaving our daughter Annie in charge of the rest. Some items are a little bit surplus and will leave them or ship them home. That includes an electronic gadget charger that we were intending to return to the wrong address (wrong daughter?). We are about to install a pole holder on the caravan to move a little bit of underfoot stuff to a more convenient home. A number of repacking and re-allocations of space have us feeling more comfortable about longer term living in the van. We have even washed the cars and the caravan so they all look a bit more presentable - all we had time for before we left was a window wash of the cars.

The shredding of years of O'Connor household confidential papers has come to an end. Some interesting documents went through the shredder despite the occasional impulse to keep this or that bit of 'history'. Suffice it to say that our kids did have shoes and coats and bikes - so all future stories of walking barefoot to school in the blizzard are hereby de-bunked... Oh, that was me and their mum!

With a lot of help from Jenny and Robert we have a new larger iPod and an iPhone with lots of features.The DreamBook (an ebook reader device) continues to be a frustration - I am in conversation with the supplier with some hope of resolution - wish they had packed the 32 SD card when they despatched the unit. I wish that they would also read my letters and not keep going back to square one - check with the manufacturer...

We are watching the weather here and there (and a few there-after places too). Confident that we moved out of Canberra not a moment too soon and aware that the temperatures here are lower than ideal so we are planning to move on to still warmer climes, perhaps later this week?

The week with Jen, Robert and Josh and Jessica has been great. Jess, with me as the chosen accompanying adult, has raised in excess of $185 for Jump Rope for Heart. Anne and I have survived a session of Bowen Therapy. When Robert took Jen to Sydney to catch the flight to Egypt, Josh, Anne and I had a great dinner at Elaine and Bruce's (Robert's parents) while Jess as Miss New Jersey had a Beauty Pageant theme party complete with costume and 'talent'.

 Miss New Jersey

In the day time Anne and I have been catching up on some bits and pieces - still haven't got some stuff done...
 
31 May 2011 - Still here at Maitland. There are and have been inducements. The Maitland caravan, camping and fishing show was over the weekend 28-29 May so we stayed to do some purchasing of replacement items for the van (which now has a pole carrier fitted above the rear bumper with a lot of welding help from the Northern Highlands Travel (NHT) coach manager Phil.

Robert had 2 tonne of fire wood delivered and I was happy to help stow it in the storage area near his pizza oven, provided I got to drive one of these.

The chef and his kids

Anne shortened a pair of her brother Michael’s old chef’s pants to fit Josh and Jess dressed up in her own hospitality clothing to wait tables and do washing up for the final dinner for one of the bus tours.

Robert is away for a few days so we are on shift with the kids - got Josh off to Canberra for a 4 day school camp this morning (5.45am start for us). Two wet days with very heavy showers. Looks like we will push off on Friday and head for Moree.