We awoke early this morning, at about 8:00AM not just to the rumbling of trucks on the nearby expressway, but also to an oppressive heat which had enveloped the van overnight. It was sensational. This is the sort of weather we are hoping to experience plenty of.

It was with a bit of anxiousness that we arose however, as late last night we realized that our fridge seemed to have gone the way of the heater in a ways. That is, whilst it is designed specifically to keep food within it cool, the temperature gauge indicated it was doing everything but. A quick look at it last night found that there seemed to be bits missing, and no indication that those pieces had ever been installed. I am hoping it is merely the absence of these bits that are causing the lack of cooling efficiency.

Upon checking it this morning, the temperature had at least dropped to a scarcely acceptable level, although the thermostat was set to deep freeze. Being that we have been running it on gas overnight, and the omitted parts are related to the gas operation, I am partially confident an easy fix ought to be realized if we can find some place with the required spare parts in stock.

In any case, after a big days drive yesterday, we were well rewarded with an easy drive today. We left the rest area at about 9:40AM, a whopping 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Yes, you read about it here first, but we were running early today! That puts our latest ETA back in Melbourne at 7:25PM on the 11^th of October.

As for our drive today, we arrived at our chosen caravan park by 10:00AM, the time we had in fact aimed to be leaving our overnight stop. 20 minutes on the road and that was it for the day. So essentially, we are now an entire day ahead of schedule!

We are camping in Brunswick Heads, about a 20 minute drive north of Byron Bay. The caravan park is perched right on the banks of Brunswick River, and if we strain just a tinsy little bit, we could say we have a river view right from our van.

With everything hooked up, and the park amenities explored, I returned to the problem of the inadequate cooling being provided by the fridge. A call to the company, revealed that we will in all likely hood have to have an entire new vent put in, a job that involves cutting into the van wall, and is beyond my capabilities on the side of the road, with only the meager set of tools I have brought with me. I would have thrown a few others in if I knew that I was going to have to perform major surgery on the van.

Thankfully, there is a caravan repair company located just south of Brisbane, who can see us on Wednesday, when we were due to be driving through Brisbane anyway. The operative words there are ‘driving through’. That day we gained this morning, I think we have just lost by now having to stop in Brisbane, and at this point in time, we are still keeping our fingers crossed that it will actually only be the single day. We could be holed up there for longer yet if it’s a bigger problem than what we think or if the parts aren’t available.

There was no use dwelling on the subject though. We knew there would be issues such as this that would crop up from time to time. I had hoped that they wouldn’t rear their ugly heads so soon, but there is naught that we can do about it, but roll with the punches.

My ire about the fridge having dissipated (sort of), we made our way towards Byron Bay for a look at what all the rage is about. As it turns out, not much. Byron Bay is the eastern most point of the Australian mainland, so it was a must visit destination for that reason. There was nothing else that endeared the place to us however.

The main street is full of tourist agencies, selling all manner of activities ranging from mild to wild, and funky new age hippie joints selling second hand hemp underwear and those much maligned activated almonds. As we strolled around, we mingled with a range of backpackers, tourists and downright bums. Those that were wearing more that the pre-requisite pair of tiny little shorts were adorned in a mixture of flowing linen wraps and fisherman pants. And none of these garments appeared to be sexually discriminative, worn by both males and females alike. Admittedly, they all probably looked on agahast as I strode down the main street, possibly wondering who’d let a cowboy through the front gates! We did happen to see another normalish looking couple sneaking around a back street, as were we. So surprised we were to come across each other, we gasped a quick hello, then continued heading in our opposing directions. As a young surfer or beach bum, Byron Bay may well be the epitome of cool, for us on the other hand, it felt like being stuck unwillingly in an episode of  ‘Jersey Shores’. It certainly was not to our liking.

Eastern most point of the Australian mainland (or thereabouts).

Being that it is the eastern most part of Australia, we drove up towards the point on which the Byron Bay Lighthouse sits. The roads we experienced yesterday were like multilane freeways in comparison to this. There was one bend in particular for which I was overjoyed that ‘The Beast’ has been converted to right hand drive, because I wouldn’t want to have been seeing what Bec was seeing out of her side window. I’m sure that there were mere millimeters between us and a sheer drop into nothingness. I’m not sure about Bec, but I had my eyes tightly closed and I was in the drivers seat. Once at the top, I baulked at the $7.00 fee to drive right up to the lighthouse, so after a natty little 3 or 4 point turn, we descended back to a lower vantage point, from which we were able to get some fantastic pics of the beacon.

View of the light station, and didn’t cost us a cent!

Leaving Byron Bay with nothing more than a few supplies for dinner and another drink for ‘The Beast’, we vowed never to return and commented on how delighted we were that we had chosen not to stay right in town like originally planned. Credit for that must be given to Bec, who looked at a brochure the other day and said that Broken Head looked like a nice place to stay. Not being able to find Broken Head on a map, I figured she meant Brunswick Heads, and the rest as they say is history.

It has worked out for the best however, and on the way back to the caravan, we stopped in at the actual township of Brunswick Heads, where there is a dedicated dog friendly beach. This is both a blessing and a curse. Alvin and Bethany both love the beach. It’s the other dogs that they don’t love so much, and it can be a bit of a handful to control them both, especially when you have other, unleashed dogs running about. For the most part they weren’t too bad, only trying to savage one or two of the other canines.

Beach Bums.

Back at the van, we kicked back with a frosty beverage (or 4 in my case), and lamented the fact that the fridge issues have persisted during the day and may well be terminal. Time will tell.

As for tomorrow, we have a grand day of absolutely nothing planned, but be sure to tune in. It’s days like those that generally become the most entertaining.

Until next time, stay safe, have fun and don’t forget to write.