Tuesday 18 February—Thursday 10 April
Its Tuesday and we are off, heading north to Tea Gardens. While travelling up Mt White we heard a loud bang from the engine and the truck lost power, so we puttered up to the Mt White Weigh Station where they allowed us to park while we sorted out towing. After many phone calls and explanations and hours (∽4 hours) a flat bed truck arrived, problem, not long enough to carry both truck and 5R. Then a heavy tow truck arrived and after a lot of chatting they decided use this to tow the truck/5R together to Iveco at Beresfield. The heavy tow could only take one passenger so Dean and I travelled in the other truck, and we were dropped off at the servo in Kariong which is about 100 kilometres from Iveco. Reen signed up to UBER and ordered a ride for us.
When we got to Beresfield it was good to see our truck/5R had arrived safely. The mechanics had a look at the issue and it was merely the intercooler hose had come off the turbocharger (nobody knows why). Once this was reconnected and the computer errors cleared we were on our way again. The first order of business was dinner at Service Centre and then on to Tea Gardens.
We arrived at the Tea Gardens Baptist Church at 2100hrs, exhausted, so we parked in the carpark and stopped for the night. Early the next morning we moved the 5R to the back of the church, under the gum trees where we will stay until we leave.
Once we were settled in Reen set up the printer and commenced scanning, labelling and filing photos. There are still two 15 litre crates of photos to be done. Dean was introduced to the ride on tractor mower and spent a couple of hours mowing. We ventured down to Bennetts Beach and had lunch while watching the view, which was quite beautiful even though it was a little overcast.
Each Sunday we headed to Church (such a long walk) and it’s always great to see everyone again and enjoy time of fellowship over lunch at the club. Each Tuesday we shared in the Bible Study group and also had dinner at the club with them. Reen attended the World Day of Prayer meeting and was involved with reading a Bible passage.
We travelled down to Iveco Beresfield again to have a recall issue (computer update) looked at. While in the area we visited Bunnings, BCF and Kings Four Wheel Drive to purchase stuff. When we got back Dean installed the new awning pegs and the weather station to the van.
We visited Karuah, a small town (originally on the main highway) with a great bakery and great views of the Karuah River and Swan Bay which is quite remote with no shops, on the shore of Port Stephens with an interesting mix of old small houses and newer fancier, larger homes.
On Saturday 15 we ventured back to Penrith, for the day, to attend Joel’s 40th Party, it was great to catch up with family, our grandchildren, friends and meet new ones. It was a great venue with great food even though it was quite warm.
I can’t believe that over many days, I have managed to scan/empty the second to last crate of photos, about 1650. They are all labelled and filed and now only one crate to go. I must admit that as they were filed I was quite amazed to see the different holidays we have had through our life together.
Dean has continued to work on websites with the Awake to Israel site going live on 1 March with a few adjustments completed. He has also managed after lots of hours to complete the Tea Gardens Baptist site which went live on 16 March, with again minor changes as people find them. At the moment his next focus is Granville Community Baptist site, which needs updating and refreshing.
We took a drive down to Bombah Point, which is where we first stayed in a cabin at the Ecotourism Village for 10 days back in 2000 (25 years ago). Is was then that we decided we loved the area. We sat and watched the sea at Hole in the Wall, beautiful. We enjoyed the time of exploring but managed to take it a little to far and found out that sand is not good for our truck, as we needed a little help from some passers-by in a 4WD to get us unbogged.
There is always another adventure when travelling and this time it was nature; over the next 11 days we had over 200ml of rain. Each day were were watching the pond (retention basin) at the back of the Church continue to rise, we took photos as it got closer and closer to us. When the wet weather finally stopped the water was about two metres from the van. No we didn’t need our gumboots, quite. It slowly went down over the next week.
Meeting new couples at the church was interesting, we went out for morning tea to the Boatshed and chatted and we also had lunch there with the church secretary and her hubby. The music team, which included Reen (she has been singing each Sunday) and Dean, also met together for a light fellowship lunch, which was delicious. There were some good friendships started among the people.
As is always the case, eventually it is time to move onto the next place and for us this meant heading back to Granville.