Our Aussie Adventures

This week would have to go down as being one of our most productive thus far during the planning stages. It’s just how we got there that makes it interesting.

In fact, there is a well respected columnist, Lionel Mussell, who writes for the caravan magazine, Caravan World. Lionel often talks about having his friend, Murphy (as in Murphys Law), along with him on his travels. Well, all I can say is that Lionel must have had a pretty good week this week, because I’m sure Murphy was tugging on my coat tails for the whole week. It just seemed like everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Yet here I am, still around to tell you all about it in all its psychedelic glory.

My main concern this week was still the canopy construction, to give us the much needed secure storage space in ‘The Beast’. Having pretty much given up on getting it manufactured locally, it was with almost churlish glee that a work mate mentioned that he might have a ‘contact’, and asked if I would like an introduction? At this late stage in the proceedings, I’d about do a deal direct with the devil if it meant getting a cover on the back of ‘The Beast’.

The introductions made, I was happy to find that the ‘contact’ was actually a couple of brothers, one of whom is a boat builder and aluminium welder, while the other specialises in canvas work, all only a mere few blocks from home. It was like Christmas all over again, and arrangements were rapidly made for me to return with ‘The Beast’ on Wednesday evening, so as the tray could be measured up to enable a quote to be prepared.

Well, Wednesday couldn’t come around quickly enough, and what a busy day that turned out to be. First up was a road worthy inspection, for which I had cashed in the favour of yet another work mate. You see, even though ‘The Beast’ came to me with fresh New South wales registration, and had passed an inspection up there only a couple of weeks ago, to have it transferred into my name in Victoria, Vic Roads in their wisdom require a current Victorian road worthy certificate.

I dutifully turned up at the mechanics at the un-earthly hour of 8:30 in the morning, only to watch his jaw drop to the ground as I rolled up the drive way. Apparently he had heard that ‘The Beast’ was big. He just hadn’t heard quite how big. He stood scratching his head feverishly as he admitted that he didn’t have a hoist big enough to heave ‘The Beast’ skyward as is required of the inspection.

It was now my turn to worry, as I had hoped to head down to Vic Roads during the afternoon to wade through the registration process. Working to the strict timeline I have in place, I couldn’t really afford to put it off. Thankfully, more favours were called in at short notice and I found myself heading for a nearby truck repair business. The boss there gave me his personal attention as he squeezed ‘The Beast’ into his busy schedule, putting my schedule right back on track.

A few short hours later, I had a freshly inked road worthy certificate in my hand, and was on my way down to the local Vic Roads office. Having spoken to them on the phone previously, I went prepared with everything I needed. I had my proof of ownership, my licence, the road worthy and had even received the personalised plates that are to adorn ‘The Beast’ in time. I was sure that nothing else could go wrong, but of course…refer to paragraph 2, and my new mate Murph’.

After a wait of average proportions, for Vic Roads, I was told by the lovely girl behind the counter that an appointment was required for all new registrations. Whilst I was seething on the inside, I calmly, I think, let her know that this was not what had been told to me over the phone. Furthermore, and here I may have let slip a little white lie, I told her that as of FRIDAY we were to be embarking on a 6 month long epic adventure, for which we would require ‘The Beast’ with full Victorian registration. I figure I must have been nice, because she disappeared for a short time, returning to ask as to the suitability of an appointment the next day. Whilst that didn’t particularly suit me, there was no way I was turning it down. And so, for another day, ‘The Beast’ wears the plates of our northern neighbour.

I did have another hard earned win, when on the way home from Vic Roads, I received a phone call about the storage draws I had removed from the Patrol before selling it. Having advertised them online, the guy calling offered me $900.00 for them. It was probably $100 short of what I wanted, and it cost me 2 hours, helping him to fit them when he turned up to collect them, but they’re GONE! There’s another $900 to the travel fund.

I waved him and the draws good bye just in time to head to ‘The Beasts’ dress fitting. I spoke with the ‘contact’ and was delighted with the enthusiasm with which I was met. My every whim can apparently be catered for, and I was promised that I would get a phone call with a quote the very next day. Judging by the luck I have had so far with people getting back to me, I could only hope that this would be the case.

The next day, not wanting to miss my allotted appointment time at Vic Roads, I turned up a good 15 minutes early, again prepared with all of the required documentation. This time, everything went smoothly and ‘The Beast’ is now proudly wearing a brand new set of personalised Victorian registration plates: ?????? (actual registration removed for privacy reasons). Not only that, but I was able to register it as a light vehicle, rather than a truck , which solves a large number of problems, not the least that Bec will not have to go through with getting her truck licence. 

The rest of Thursday came and went, and no phone call about the canopy. I was seething. To be fair, I really need to disassociate myself from the notion that the world revolves around me. Little hiccups like this may well be easier to bear then. As it turns out, the ‘contact’ was busy with preparations for his daughters wedding on Friday and his own departure on an overseas trip on Saturday, and hence he forgot to call. I think that qualifies as a perfectly reasonable excuse, especially since he did get back to me amid his own bustle on Saturday with a quote that was most satisfactory.

I will be meeting up with him upon his return from overseas, to have the work completed. You have no idea how much of a burden that was to be lifted from my shoulders. It really was getting to the point of adjourning the trip till another time, had we not got the canopy sorted. ‘The Beast’ just would have been totally unsuitable without a cover on the back.

Saturday saw me heading over to Utesafe, in Campbellfield. The guys there specialise in custom made tool boxes and having looked around at much cheaper options, I had found none that suited my purposes. So I bit the bullet and ordered one from them. The boxes they put out are built to a price, I must admit. The good thing is, it’s not a cheap price, and they are by far the best of all the tool boxes I have looked at. I was also lucky enough that one of the boxes out of their standard range was the perfect size for the back of ‘The Beast’. All I had to do was drop in and pick it up. Surely a 5 minute job, without the presence of my bad luck again.

Being a Saturday, the usual admin staff weren’t working, so I was looked after by Andrew, who had come in on the weekend, to revel in the quietness, to allow him to get caught up. An issue with the EFTPOS machine saw us bewildered as 45 minutes slid by before it was rectified. Not exactly how I had planned to spend my morning.

By the time I got home, I had little time to start what I had planned to spend all day doing. Thus, the remainder of Saturday, and most of the day Sunday were spent playing auto electrician as I began working on the installation of an auxiliary battery system to power up all of our accessories whilst we’re on the road. Of course, this is taking much longer than I had anticipated, but I figure for the sake of not lighting up ‘The Beast’ like a bon fire on Guy Fawkes night, I want to make sure I do it well, and do it once.

As I said in the beginning, a very productive week we’ve had, despite the adventures along the way. Not to mention that both Bec and I have had enormous weights lifted from us this week. For, if trying to organise the canopy was fast becoming my achilles heel, Becs was the thought of having to do her truck licence testing.

Oh, and by the way Lionel, you can have Murphy back. We don’t need him!

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

The laughter and tears came from me making enquiries about getting ‘The Beast’ re-registered in Victoria. Having bought it in Sydney, it still has the New South Wales registration on it. This needs to be changed to Victorian. Because of the overall mass of ‘The Beast’, it needs to be registered as a truck, rather than a car, necessitating the special truck licence to drive it. I had hoped, for Becs sake, that Vic Roads might assist us by administratively registering it at just under the 4.5T truck mass, making it a car for registration purposes. Unfortunately, they won’t do this. Hence the laughter and tears, when I told Bec that she would need to be getting her truck licence. Not only that, but this all needs to be done in the next couple of weeks. At the moment, the driver training centre we use offers one day courses for a light rigid, but from the start of March, this will be increasing to a four day course. It is hard enough for Bec to get one day off of work, let alone four. So, as for everything else, it will be a last minute rush to the gates.

She was not happy to say the least, but to her credit, she has sucked it up and started to study the ‘truck and bus handbook’ from Vic Roads. We even got her out in ‘The Beast’ beginning to learn the intricacies and oddities of driving a vehicle which is about 3 times as big as what she is used to. I did tell her, and she admitted after going for her first drive, it is really just like driving a big car. Thankfully, she can actually do her test in our truck, just so long as I get it registered in Victoria first. So that’s yet another job for this coming week.

BEC. Master of ‘The Beast’.

I also managed to hook up the van and go for a short test run this week. It was only across to Campbellfield to get the annex looked at, but it gave me a chance to check it all out as a complete rig. Naturally ‘The Beast’ handled it with aplomb. It barely felt the extra weight of the van, cruising along as if nothing was there. Driving was easy, with no noticeable swaying from the van and the swanky swing up towing mirrors mean that we don’t even have to worry about messing around with clip on or strap on towing mirrors. And it all looks fantastic. I just need to play around with the weight distribution bars a little. Having expected the rear end of ‘The Beast’ to sag a little with the van hooked up, I set the tow bar up a little to high. The expected sag in the suspension was next to non-existent however, so the front of the van sat up rather high, with a correspondingly low hanging rear end that threatened to take the top off of any speed humps we encountered.

Hooked up and ready to go (for a test run).

Of course, we also had Valentines Day to celebrate this week. Now being the kind and sensitive bloke I am, who wholly supports the notion that Valentines Day is a day of love and sharing your feelings, rather than just a way for retailers to fill their shelves with overpriced flowers, chocolates, cards and tacky lacy lingerie (I still haven’t worn that frilly G-string again from last year!), I made sure to get Bec a card at least. She was happy with that, saying that “card” and “car” sounded similar, so it was a fair swap of gifts. I reminded her that ‘The Beast’ is actually a truck, and that she could have had something that sounded like “truck”. But really, what were we ever going to do with a duck! (Oh, come on now, what did you think I was going to say?)

Valentines Day gift?

We also took another day out of our planning schedule to spend it with some dear friends, who had invited us over to their place in South Morang. There’s 6 of us, who spent some quality dining time together on a cruise a few years back and we catch up all too infrequently these days, but have a grand time when we do. We enjoyed a fantastic lunch and afternoon tea (Thanks Liz for the lemon meringue cheesecake), reminiscing about past travels, and dreaming of future ones.

Finally for this week, I have updated ‘The Rig’ pages with some more information on ‘The Beast’ and I am in the process of setting up our E-mail accounts. Mine is already live, and I can now be reached at marcus@myramblingtales.com so update your address books, although my other E-mail accounts are still active and will be checked regularly. Rebeccas new mailbox will be up and running in the next few days I hope and her address will be rebecca@myramblingtales.com.

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

It seems to be at the moment, that for everything we apparently get sorted, a half a dozen other things pop up that need doing. In response to that, the anxiety levels have been rising to fever pitch, and then only yesterday I realised that it is only about 2 months to go until take off.

I’m  sure you would have read by now that the new car/truck, ‘The Beast’ has arrived, so I won’t dwell on that today, apart from mentioning that it is in the process of being fitted out ready for our travels. Even this is proving more difficult than I could have imagined though, as it seems that there are companies out there that just don’t want to earn a buck. I find it extremely disappointing when you make enquiries about work that needs doing, only to waste a week (or more in some cases) waiting for a reply. It hasn’t even been just one company. It has been several. Customer service is pathetic to say the least. So as it stands, I still don’t have a doggie proof cage and canopy fitted yet and at the rate I am going, the only places that seem interested in doing the work are up in Toowoomba. Did I hear someone say “road trip”. It may well be on the cards, so stay tuned.

Other problems to have reared their ugly heads this week include Bec deciding that she is unhappy with the placement of the fridge in ‘the beast’, causing a lot of head scratching to resolve the issue. I was personally delighted with it, as it gave us easy access to cold food and drinks while on the move, and also made a perfect armrest. Bec however sits a little lower than I, and so feels rather constricted by it being right next to her.  The currently favoured solution is a new, albeit smaller fridge, mounted in the rear footwell, rather than between the front seats. As a bonus, the centre console will be re-fitted, giving us much needed extra storage.

Next, finding a suitable tool box for the rear tub has been somewhat more difficult than expected. The plan is to use a large toolbox as storage and to fit an auxiliary battery into. Being that I can’t begin work on the wiring for this battery until the tool box is fitted, I’m somewhat stuck until I get one. I have measured up and know the exact size that I need. Unfortunately, finding one that meets my expectations in all four dimensions (that is height, width, depth and price!) is near on impossible. The search continues.

Then, the actual trip planning pretty much got put on hold this week, what, with everything else going on, there just wasn’t any time. I am quite satisfied with how that is progressing however, although I do believe I ought to be starting to look at booking the caravan parks at a few of the more popular and busy places we intend to stop.

We took a breather and enjoyed a great day out, on Saturday, taking in the sights and sounds of the annual Whittlesea Country Music Festival. A fresh format this year saw it being held as a free one day event, with a morning market in the main street, with live music being played throughout, followed by an evening concert at the cricket grounds. A few of our favourite performers, along with a mixture of new talent and seasoned artists put on a fantastic show, and we can only hope that the festival grows over the coming years, back into the week long event of the past.

Finally, to all our readers out there in web-land, who are following the trials and tribulations of our trip preparation, I want to say a big thank you. I don’t think 3 followers could quite be considered ‘going viral’ though! So don’t forget, as you’re reading this you can press on the ‘follow’ link on the page and have my diatribe delivered hot off the presses, directly to your E-mail.

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