Crossing borders

We were supposed to have a couple of weeks at home between the coast and heading south for a wedding in NSW, but the flooding changed our plans. We ended up staying with Mum and Dad for ten days and just visiting our place (which didn't have any damage). 

We would have left a bit sooner but one of the cargo door hinges cracked so we were waiting for a replacement to be delivered.

A few hours after the courier arrived we had the hinges installed and left in the late afternoon for Nobby.

The next stop was after a monumental crossing of the Qld/NSW border... something that once seemed so routine and then became a no-go for so long! We camped on the weir outside Bonshaw.

We then had a few days in Ashford while Dazz worked.

An overnight stop at Glenriddle Reserve brought with it a broken toilet slide mechanism... Dazz managed a temporary fix from the back of the truck and we were able to pick up a new one the next day in Tamworth. 

Once the temporary fix was in place we were able to sit back and enjoy the beauty.

The prompt for our trip was a wedding in the Hunter Valley, and I think we scrubbed up okay!

We then had a couple of days in Swansea, visiting friends. Sunsets on Lake Macquarie are always beautiful.

We stayed in a different area of the Lane Cove caravan park in Sydney and had views over the bush to Chatswood.

In between visits with friends we had a day in the city. We took the train and then had a lovely walk from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay via Barangaroo.

At a lunch stop in Holbrook we discovered a submarine...

... and then we were across another border into Victoria. The camp was on Paraolas Bend on the Ovens River.

The unexpected and the much-anticipated

We took the van away at Christmas to stay with family and thought we'd spend a few days at Jimna on our way home. On our way in there was a bang and a scrape and a lean. After coming to a hasty stop we discovered a hub had snapped! Dazz climbed the hill to get some phone reception and RACQ organised a tow truck. We knew Bushtracker wouldn't be open for another two weeks, so we unloaded the fridge and freezer and tried to pack everything we thought we might need for the next month into the car before the tow truck arrived.

We stayed in the container on our block (our guest accomodation) for three and a half weeks, and discovered that it's quite a nice place for a holiday! The day we went out to pick up the van from the repairs we discovered that in the process of grading the road they took the gravel off a couple of places and the rain turned it to a bog hole.

Our kind neighbours allowed us to leave the van at their place until the road dried out enough to get it home. We had enough time to finish up some work, re-pack the van and get it back up the hill before the next rain, and then we were off for our much anticipated trip to Cotton Tree.

I had marking during the first two weeks and Dazz had work the whole time, but we still enjoyed the change of scene, swims, long walks and the sunsets by the water. 

The sand bar constantly changes with the tide and this year there was a large expanse that was underwater at high tide. The retreating water made amazing patterns in the sand, which we enjoyed on our low-tide walks (along with someone's very artistic sandcastle).

The weather was quite windy for much of our time there, and of course we didn't escape the deluge that hit the south east corner of Qld. There were some nice cloud photos between downpours, and our afternoon/evening view changed to the view down our street from the annex.

We didn't have any flooding in our part of the caravan park, but some of the local roads and parks were inundated. The river mouth and beach were a mess, and the lovely big sand bar was washed out to sea.

And of course the dirty flood water was the end of Dazz's afternoon swims...