I hope this isn't regarded as idle chit chat but just wanted to let my ExplorOz friends know that I am on a (very short, one week) trip away from
home with my caravan...and on a big learning curve!
John, my best friend and husband of nearly 44 years died suddenly in mid November and until mid February I thought I would have to sell the van and find something smaller to tow. It is a 21 ft Jayco outback caravan with a big slide out and is less than two years old, and we fitted it out with everything including auto
satellite TV.
My brother in law and sister have given me a few lessons with hitching up and towing, reversing etc and lots of support and encouragement, and on Wednesday we set out together from
Ulladulla, traveling via Turpentine and
Braidwood roads to Oallen Ford road,
Nerriga to
Goulburn, where we joined the Hume Highway. We stopped overnight in
Jugiong which has a
great camp (donations requested) and then yesterday drove on to Yackandandah in Victoria for four nights for the annual Folk festival weekend. I had towed our van but only for short periods, maybe 50 kms at a time.
John and I have been coming here to Yackandandah most years for nearly a decade for the festival,and this time it was to be the beginning of a long trip back to Western Australia, specifically
Pardoo Station in the
Pilbara where we were planning to stay and fish for three months from May.We discovered it last year and stayed a month after we discovered wonderful fishing and put our tinny in Pardoo creek every day. I plan to return there maybe next year as my sister and brother in law are intending to go north to NT and then down the west coast.
By then I will be an old hand as we are talking of doing some shorter trips this year to give me the experience I need mainly in hitching and unhitching, putting out the awning and all the other outside jobs that
John used to do. Some are quite physically challenging for me as I am not a big or tall person,, but I have bought myself a trail-a-mate jack/jockey wheel and a heavy duty axle stand to assist me, and have managed to everything alone, apart from reversing onto the van and reverse
parking it into the position at
home in the yard where another person is needed, at least for the moment!
Making the decision to keep the van and continue traveling have helped me so much in coping with Johns death but I will miss him forever and life will never be the same. Please don't put off doing what you love and tell those you love how you feel as you never know what the future holds.
regards,
Heather