From the Tip to the Tip - Day One.

 

We'll deal with day two of our journey tomorrow, that's the one where we woke up, figuring quite wrongly that as we were in the Tropics we would be warm enough in our Sunday best thongs, still not quite sure of where things were put in our rush to get away.

Today though (remember kids this isn't ACTUALLY today, but now several months ago), we will just record that we did get away, and made our first stop the Caloundra Refuse Tip and Recycling Centre where we could make use of the weighbridge at no cost, which as it happens is exactly how much we had allowed in our budget for that item.

To our great satisfaction, fully laden with all our supplies for a month away, and us as well, we tipped the scales at 2420 kg, more than half a ton under our maximum allowable weight, and close to a thousand kilos below some of its commercial counterparts.   

Since we were heading to the very Tip of Australia and had properly commenced our journey at the Caloundra Refuse Tip, with a great deal of smug satisfaction decided we would name this journey "Our Trip from the Tip to the Tip."

Finding some balance.

Where were we?

Ahh yes, we were about to leave for the Tip of Cape York, but that was months ago, and much has happened in the meantime.  We were on a bit of a roll retelling the story as I recall, and had almost convinced everyone that the build diary was a recollection, not a live event, when suddenly the story stopped.

Much has happened in the interim. 

Our Matriarch,  mother to a few, grandmother to many and great grandmother to almost more than we can count, pulled up stumps five years short of her century.   The lead up to this of course was a sad time, in a happy kind of way, sapping energy and the desire to communicate with any beyond a very small circle.

There were lockdowns too, with travel plans abandoned as borders remaining closed, and vaccinations had, machines built and gardens gardened.  

As we speak the van is in a tenuous state of refinishing, the proper job having been delayed somewhat by the above events, but we have two weeks until we need it once again and we haven't documented the last trip yet.   

There's always tomorrow.

A Slight Delay.

 When we last spoke of our build, we were ALMOST ready to leave, but in the face of a fair level of fatigue and the kind of weather that's best suited for pottering around and doing  little tidying up jobs, we chose the latter.

Of course those sorts of jobs have a propensity for expanding to fill all the available time so it was not at all early the next morning when we closed the garage door with an untidy shed full of building detritus and finally hit the road.

As it turns out, in our excitement or perhaps anxiety to get on the road, we actually did't closed the garage door.  Our delightful neighbours phoned when we were not half an hour into our journey to ask if we'd left the house open on purpose. Thankfully they took care of that little oversight for us, and as a tsunami of relief rushed over us, perhaps tinged with just a little nervous anticipation, our journey had properly begun.

Naturally we hadn't departed as early as we would have liked, and traffic on the narrow black scar on our landscape which passes for a highway was heavy and slow moving, so it was well after sunset by the time we had finished setting up for the night, not ideal, but by then working in the dark had become second nature.

Our Trip from Tip to Tip had begun.

The Cape

 

We'll get back to the story in a day or so, but for the benefit of our friends from other parts of the globe,  let's delve into the geography of the country in which we are currently incarcerated.

By most measures, Australia is a fairly big place, and the state of Queensland covers a fairly big chunk of it.  To put that into some sort of confusing perspective, if one was to travel norther from the southern most bit of the "North Coast" (of NSW), one would have to travel 700 kilometres or so until one reached Qld's "South Coast". 

A few hundred kilometres north, you'll find us, tucked away in beautiful downtown Dicky Beach in what is known as Queensland's South East, and we think of those in New South Wales as "Southerners".  

1200 kilometres further north you'll find yourselves in Townsville, officially in "North Queensland" unless of course you are talking to someone who lives in Cairns "Far North Queensland", who call people from Townsville "Southerners".

Sadly for them (the people of Cairns), while they may actually live in the most populous city in the region  (by far) they are actually still 1000 kilometres give or take, south of the tip of Cape York known simply as "The Cape", which is the Northern most part of the Australian Mainland and of course is far enough away for people living there to think of the people living in Cairns as "Southerners".

Not all of that road is sealed.  Some of it was once the stuff of which legends were made, although these days while it does take a certain amount of determination and a tolerance for red dust, there is not a lot to fear for those who take the time to prepare their vehicles properly, and whose dental fillings are secure.

Many of you will have seen this postcard, a copy of which we carry on our boat to put things into some sort of scale.

 

Friday - Wheel Alignment!

 Not many more than twelve hours after we'd picked up the van from its wheel alignment, we'd unpacked, repacked, bolted most things in, got the fridge working and generally only had to throw the mattress in, make the bed, and we'd be right to go!

Kind of.

The truth was that there was an endless list of tiny things that needed attention and not to put too fine a point on it we were a bit too tired to even think about them.   The others, finally freed from the current round of Lockdown arrived well after Lily's bedtime, in no better shape than we were, having endured a similarly exciting fitout and preparation.

And the rain had begun.

The forecast for tomorrow, our first day on the road, was for an expected 50mm of rain along the whole five hundred kilometre stretch that we had planned to travel.  Not willing to even think about what setting up camp for the first time in the rain might be like, while moving the as yet unfitted bits from the bed to who knows where, we turned in for the night, wondering what the morning would bring.  

MONDAY - install frig cupboards, frig and switchboard.

TUESDAY - help Sean with the wiring and reinstate the cabin

WEDNESDAY - install the remaining cupboards

THURSDAY - pack the van full of all we need to get it up to working load

FRIDAY - get a wheel alignment with everything on board

SATURDAY - leave for the Cape!

The day we were supposed to pack!

When the new tyres were fitted, we postponed having a wheel alignment, preferring to wait until the final load was in the van to ensure the best possible result.   Naturally we booked well in advance for the day before we were due to leave.

It did sneak up on us, that appointment.  Despite the daily schedule we had been referring to hourly, with all it's crossed out bits of jobs done, it came as a bit of a shock to discover that the day before we were due to leave was... tomorrow!

Praying for any excuse to give us a few more days, we phoned the nice people at the tyre place looking for a Covid lockdown reprieve.  "We're an essential service" they cheerfully replied, see you at eight in the morning!  Don't forget your mask!"

There wasn't going to be much sleep for anyone in the house that night!

MONDAY - install frig cupboards, frig and switchboard.

TUESDAY - help Sean with the wiring and reinstate the cabin

WEDNESDAY - install the remaining cupboards

THURSDAY - pack the van full of all we need to get it up to working load

FRIDAY - get a wheel alignment with everything on board

SATURDAY - leave for the Cape!

WEDNESDAY - reinstall the cupboards

 

There's a bit of a theme developing in the photos of late.   Every one of them has been taken after what civilised people would call "bedtime".

We are starting to discover that there are indeed twenty-four hours to every day, and the ones known as "daylight hours" are very few indeed, while the "night time" ones seem to come around very quickly.

There's a sort of calm descending on us as we are starting to think that we might make this, or at worst are only going to be a day or two late!  Or is it fatigue?

MONDAY - install frig cupboards, frig and switchboard.

TUESDAY - help Sean with the wiring and reinstate the cabin

WEDNESDAY - install the remaining cupboards

THURSDAY - pack the van full of all we need to get it up to working load

FRIDAY - get a wheel alignment with everything on board

SATURDAY - leave for the Cape!