The Journey Begins!!!

The Journey Begins!

We arrived at our daughters place in Woollahra, Sydney on the evening of 20^th April 2014. Really tired but glad to be on the first stage of our planned adventure.

The 22^nd of April saw us busily registering with the Australian Road traffic people, getting driving licences and then travelling to Heartland Ford at Chullora. Our brand spanking new Ford Ranger XLT was waiting for us! We went through the car with the salesman, jumped in it and drove to our daughters. The following day, we loaded up our 3 suitcases and off we went, bound for Coffs Harbour and our new caravan.

After 200km, we stopped for a fish and chip lunch and a break, Helen then jumped in the Ute and off we went, after 50 metres, we broke down!!!!!

Over the next 3 hours we made countless phone calls to a largely unhelpful Ford dealer, cutting a long story short, we had to join the NRMA (like the AA) which cost us $380, the tow truck arrived and a very pleasant guy took us to Mid Coast Ford in Forster, a lovely little town, right on the coast. The garage guys were waiting for us and we unloaded the car, had a chat about what the fault might be and then they took us to a nearby motel where we had a good meal and long sleep. The following morning, early, the garage rang us and had fixed the car. Technical stuff, I had agreed with the tow truck driver that the pipe had come off the turbocharger and true enough, it had! The Sydney garage had not given it a proper pre delivery inspection and there was not enough oil in the car too! After a quick oil change, road test etc we were on our way, more expense!!!!!

We arrived at Watson’s caravans, Coffs harbour around 2 pm and saw our “baby” waiting for us! Nothing could have prepared us for the next 2 hours! Checking out all the systems, getting more and more inundated with instructions on how this and that works. We had to have special tow bars fitted to the Ute (more expense!), finally waving goodbye to the staff, firing the ute up and heading out on the highway!!!! Our first campsite is at Sawtell, a beach location, very pretty.





On the first morning, we were visited by a very large monitor lizard, around 4 feet long! Richard nearly had a heart attack!!!



We have spent the last 2 days (yesterday was Anzac day) visiting various shopping establishments, provisioning the van and buying bedding and crockery. Luckily, 4 of our 7 boxes had arrived at the caravan dealers, so we have got a lot of our stuff.

Today we are trying out our washing machine in the van and then off to explore. We are happy!