On wearing out shoe leather.

 

There's probably no more archaic expression these days than "wearing out shoe leather", when one considers what shoes are made of, and how little wearing out they get while seated in front of a computer searching the world for bits for one's new vehicle, but wearing out "bum denim" doesn't imply the actual effort that goes into the task. 

There we were, deposit paid on our "new" van in a yard not much more than a hundred kilometres away. For some reason which is quite unfathomable now but is probably a bit related to being in a bit of shock after so suddenly completing the purchase after such a protracted search, making arrangements to pick it up a week from the day we agreed to buy it.

With the optimism that comes with every new project, we figured it would take twelve to fourteen weeks to do a reasonable job of transforming delivery vehicle into camper.  

The fact that we had only five until the time we were due to leave for Cape York did not even begin to sink in until much, much later.

(Jean-Claude for short.)

 

We'd inspected this damned van (damned, because through no fault of its own, by now we had had enough of our fruitless search and were becoming rather impatient if not entirely without hope)  on our way out to Warwick a week or so before.  

We sort of snuck in to the yard, and snuck out again before we could be harangued by someone intent on making us its owners before the sun went down.  It WAS clean, very clean and very tidy with astonishingly low kilometres for its age, had legitimate trail of paper, a complete service history and being the absolute base model for its year, although it had nothing in the way of creature comforts.  It was priced at an eye watering fifty percent more than its insurance value, wasn't four wheel drive, had a dodgy after-market cruise control and it seemed on that first inspection that we could probably do better if we could just wait a little longer.

A week later which seemed an interminable amount of time in our state of mind, it was still there, surely a sign of just how over-priced it was.

So without blinking, or so much as a mechanical inspection, we paid our deposit and returned to our base to ponder what we had done.

We finally had our blank canvas onto which we could paint a host of new adventures.

Yeah…nahh.

We could and arguably should have strung the report of our May road trip out for quite a while, with photos of pretty faced wallabies and red dragon flies, campfires and dice games and empty bottles and rock chasms and moss and crystal clear creeks.   Of course there are also photos of country towns and historic sheds and vast open spaces on empty roads, and good times had by all.  A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then however, and besides, during every one of those several thousand kilometres travelled our minds and conversation were somewhat distracted. 

For two years we'd been looking for a van with a particular set of features: Short wheel base, automatic, cruise control, four wheel drive with diff lock, reasonable kilometres.  How hard could that be?

"These go forever" they'd say, as we peered into an obviously well-used, gloomy dashboard showing more than half a million kilometres on the dashboard, "and well worth the money" at barely less than the new price.

We even thought we'd found one for an hour or two.  Quite tidy it was, although it had a mess of modifications to its electrical system and there was something not quite right with its service records. 

The dealer was archetypal dodgy, answering questions just a little too quickly, but when he couldn't tell us what the strange ant-like creatures were that seemed to be moving in every crevice, we quietly stopped our conversation without breaking eye contact, and gently backed away.

It's their fault!

Almost exactly ten years ago, Warwick and Julie introduced themselves to us, completely unaware of the inspiration they would provide.  They were in a little camping car, we on our boat, all of us somewhere in France.  

At that time, about to turn seventy they were working their way through what they called their mid-life crises.  I hope I am not causing offence in relating part of our conversation (heavily paraphrased) but the gist of it was as follows: They were reaching a dangerous age.  Some were suggesting they should perhaps slow down a bit, become more sedentary perhaps, after all that they were only a twisted ankle away from a forced radical change to their peripatetic lives.

They in turn, had given this advice a good deal of consideration, and acknowledged that their advisors were quite correct. 

It was quite clear to them that the slightest mishap at their age could severely curtail future travel.  They therefore decided that rather than slowing down, they needed to speed up in the hope of getting more of the things seen that needed to be seen before that fateful calamity occurred. So they did.

While in the town of Warwick a few months ago, how could we not think of them?  Surrounded by autumn colours (a rarity in our State), we were filled with a sort of urgency, only  too aware that we were in a delightfully colourful part of our lives, but that the leaves will inevitably start to shrivel (some would observe that is already happening).  

We decided there and then that we would stop dithering around looking for the perfect van, and just get on with it as soon as we returned home.

Wishing you a speedy recovery Julie and hoping to be inspired by your adventures for a long time to come!

The Day We Met

Make yourself at home (somewhere in south west Queensland)

 

We are incredibly grateful for the opportunities we've had during the past decade and more.  We've mostly been free to travel without the constraints of having to plan our movements beyond the next few minutes.  Life on a boat, or a car with a tent gives unlimited flexibility, notwithstanding the need for water or the merest semblance of a road to guide one on one's way.  To travel without living from a suitcase, whether because one is carrying nought, or because one is travelling in the comfort of one's home, is to really travel.

There we were in the month of May (and a bit of June) in once familiar territory without the benefit of boat or tent, reminding ourselves of earlier times when we carried our stuff in bags, this time with our movements constrained by bookings made almost a year before.  

Our accomodation though mostly not at the absolute budget end of the spectrum, (admittedly this was mostly because we didn't actually confirm our reservations until way too late and our choice was limited at best), invariably provided a number of constants as though each place had been working from a manual.

Just as the larger, more salubrious hotel chains strive for a consistency between each location, these lesser places were also not without a host of comforting reminders that these were not the sorts of places where no man had been before.  

Though always serviceably clean, sometimes in a "could do better" kind of way, there were reminders that this was not home: The dog-ears on the breakfast menus flying in the face of one-use-only Covid rules, the bit of sticky tape to hold the battery covers on the tv remotes, the shower roses that were at exactly the wrong height, and our favourite; that lingering smell that is always there, always the same, a mix of the faintest whiff of forbidden tobacco smoke lingering in the chenille bedspread and a furtive attempt to conceal it by rubbing it with what we can only guess was one of those cardboard car air fresheners that's invariably shaped like a pineapple.

Camping without our tent. sometime in May

 

A year ago we made a reservation at Carnarvon Gorge for a week in May with a bunch of our mates who would all be in their tents or caravans.   

According to our plan, we would have our van by then, but in case our plan should go the way our plans often do, we booked one of those hut/cabin/tent things with its own ensuite, the kind that cost about the same per night as a week in a luxury hotel, as a contingency.

So certain were we of realising our plan, that we quite deliberately burnt our bridges, and sold our camping setup, including tent, battery, solar panel and refrigerator.   We WOULD have a van by then wouldn't we?

Well no actually as things turned out.  

Vans are very thin on the ground in this neck of the woods, their value inflating at a greater rate than BitCoin, so there we were, tentless, with a commitment to spend more on that week of sub-luxury than we'd received for our entire camping inventory.

In the depths of the Gorge, we had time to ponder our lot… Were we really sad to be at the far end of the camping ground?  

Sad to be so far away from our mates, dry and warm, but without the joy of walking to the amenities block in the damp chill of the wee small hours, far from that smell of campfire smoke permeating everything we owned, completely without risk of finding spiders in our boots, with insect screens keeping admittedly a better class of mosquito far from where they could do us ill?

No one could accuse us of not knowing what we were missing!

THIS IS A TEST SUBSCRIPTION FEED

Thank you to the three of you who have agreed to be my guinea pigs!  There is only supposed to be one person in this room at the moment, but here you are!

Well you may not have agreed exactly, but when I set up the feed you were already there, so I'm guessing you subscribed while I wasn't watching!

If you've received this in the old format, I do apologise - I published this before deleting the old setup, so carry on, there's nothing to see here until I get this sorted.    The new feed should kick off at 5:00am GMT, which is still a few hours from now, so I will wait with breath held!

This is a test to see if the feed sends out photographs - if it doesn't I'll drop it back to "headlines" rather than the full story.

I hope that I don't inadvertently add you again, not sure how to cope with that if I do, but let me know anyway.