Explore our family’s history through 25+ years of Christmas cards and letters:
1990s
- 1999: both card & letter for this year are missing
Pandora: 2012—2015
Brad and Nyssa owned Pandora, a black oriental, and gave her to us in 2013.
Sadly, she was always somewhat unwell and died of leukaemia in 2015.
Iveco log
A listing of the various bits’n’pieces we’ve done to our truck—or it’s done to us!
[listing compiled bottom-up]
August 2025: heading out to Cassilis on the first leg of a planned 3+ month trip and we started overheating again (shades of last October!) This time is obviously different as the fan is definitely working and when we stop there’s coolant everywhere under the bonnet. We limp into Cassilis, call the NRMA and Iveco; and the truck is towed to Mudgee to be repaired (thankfully under warranty). Was two separate coolant hoses with breaks/splits.
May 2025: a secondary impact of being towed in February was that the four rear tyres had been flat-spotted—seemingly the tow operator had not immediately released the electric park-brake. Result was nasty vibration when driving. Had the tyre shop rotate the outers relative to the inners, which has reduced the nastiness significantly!
February 2025: under-bonnet “explosion” while towing up Mt White on the M1, resulting in sitting off the road (in the weigh station) for several hours and having the truck/5R towed to Beresfield (Newcastle Iveco). Ended up being merely the turbo intercooler hose parting company with it’s mounting, so fixed quickly under warranty—took them longer to clear the computer error codes than to fix the problem!
November 2024: front passenger tyre severely scrubbed out, replaced tyre and had wheel alignment. Advice from the alignment shop is that front tyre pressure needs to be higher rather than lower, i.e. use the “full load” rated recommendation at all times.
October 2024: In to Iveco Sydney to look at overheating issues; found to be worn wiring insulation, repaired under warranty
May 2024: purchased a new mirror (from Iveco) and fitted it ourselves; seems from the price ($470) that it should’ve been gold-plated!
early-2024: we (I 🙁) drove too close to the edge of the road and clipped a power pole with the passenger-side mirror—the pole didn’t feel a thing but the mirror pretty much exploded on the spot! We went back the next day and retrieved the pieces and it mostly went back together OK; except for the temperature sensor which was (weirdly) in that mirror and without which the AC refused to work!
October-November 2023: toolbox fitted and repairs (from May) completed
September 2023: ordered a large white toolbox from Tools In a Box
23 May 2023: while we were on the way to collect grandkids from school at Regents Park a woman driver doesn’t give way when merging and damages the undertray boxes on the driver’s side, and a few other bits.
April 2023: back up to Newcastle Iveco to fit the side steps (which had somehow been “lost” from the original quote) and a reversing camera
12 December 2022: collected our new truck from Travelhome thanks to a ride up from Granville with our friends Richard and Heather
September—November 2022: build-out of the tray and other bits’n’pieces including UHF radio and internal “house” battery for the fridge, etc. See the full story of the rest of the build.
August 2022: a bit earlier than expected, our truck was ready—not for us to take but for the tray and hitch, etc to be fitted by Travelhome. For this to happen we had to finalise payment.
May 2022: signed a contract with Newcastle Commercial Vehicles for an Iveco Daily 50C21 dual cab-chassis, with all option packages PLUS bullbar and sidesteps. Delivery was projected to be some six months or so
2021/early 2022: lots of research and comparisons about what vehicle to by for our (at the time hypothetical) fifth wheeler; there’s more of a story about that part of it here…
2 years; and still on the road
24 May 2025 marks the two year point for us living full-time in our van (Reen says I have to get used to referring to it as a 5R!). As we did twelve months ago, we’re reflecting on how things are going; including lessons we’ve learned, things we really like/enjoy and things that irk us a little.
I guess that for me, the key thing that stands out from our second year is that our life is not anything like what I had imagined it would be before we started. I’d thought that perhaps our first year was a bit “out of the ordinary” and that everything would become more normal (whatever “normal” actually is). And perhaps that’s what has actually happened—and it’s my expectations that need to change to include regular “visits” back to wherever the grandkids are (Sydney at the moment!!).
For Reen (and related a bit to my comments above), her overriding impression from our second year is that she’s still been struggling somewhat with her overall health; recovery from her second knee replacement at the start of the year and then the nasty bout of meningitis and it’s slow recovery (she’s not as young as she used to be 😉). She has just had her six-month review with the neurologist—they’re very happy with how she’s going and cleared her to drive again.
Overall, we have actually had a fair proportion of our second year “out there” travelling, see our trip summaries for 2024 and 2025.
Review of last year’s lessons
The things we listed last year were:
- Driving in our truck is just like, well, riding in a truck
- This combo is big, really BIG!
- Plan, plan, plan and plan some more; but expect change
- Any cupboard door that can open will open
- Live small and live tidy
- Live a little slower
So, how do they hold up 12 months on? #1 is still there, but we don’t seem to notice it quite so much. Similarly for #2, I don’t think anything’s any smaller than it was, but we’re more attuned to the overall size (and see below also). While we’re on a roll of changes to our expectations and perceptions, #3 is still valid as per the opening couple of paragraphs of this post. For #4, I don’t think we’ve had any real “breakouts” this year as we’ve learned to secure cupboard doors better and changed a few packing/storage locations. #5 and #6 are still 100% valid for us (more related to #5 below) and we continue to stand by them as principles.
New things we’ve learned this year
Maybe the “learning curve” has flattened somewhat, but we could only come up with a couple of things from the last 12 months that stand out to us as things we’ve learned:
- Practice makes perfect (or at least a whole lot better) when it comes to hitching, manoeuvring and parking our rig. Reen’s barometer on this is how cranky I get and she’s happy that things have significantly improved. She has certainly learned a lot about how big the van is and how to effectively direct me into some quite difficult spaces.
- All our stuff weighs A LOT! As mentioned last year, everything we own is now in the truck and 5R (see, I remembered!). We’d made some effort to understand the overall weight of this when we’d packed up, but I knew there were certainly a few holes/gaps in our calculations, without really being able to quantify that. In October 2024 we finally put the rig onto a weighbridge with the result that the combo weight was OK (just), but the van was a bit over. Consequently we undertook some urgent transfer of heavy stuff out of the van into the box on the truck and had a good think about what we could dispose of completely. The engineer in me is *still* looking for some degree of quantification of that—without necessarily re-weighing—so watch this space 😐.
Cool stuff this year
One of the the things we’ve both become more interested in over this last year—possibly because of how much more directly it impacts us—is the weather. We’ve had an internal/external thermometer for a while, but used our “secret Santa” gift monies from last Christmas to buy more fully-featured weather station. It took a little fiddling and ingenuity to mount it to the 5R in a way that could be removed to travel, but we’re both enjoying keeping an eye on how things are going in our immediate environment (as I write, we’ve had 78mm of rain yesterday and another 68mm today, hopefully that’s about it for a while!).
Our second notable change for the year addresses one of our whinges from last year, that of the dreaded “dunny duty”. As the incurable romantics that we are, for our 46th wedding anniversary our gift to each other was a new composting toilet 😍. There’s still an element of “jury still out” on this as it’s only been a couple of weeks, but current indications are very promising (after a somewhat dodgy start1).
Ongoing annoyances
At the end of year 2, there are (still) a handful of things that we reckon could be a little better; some relate to design/build decisions and some are more the outcomes of general wear and tear.
- Solar panel and battery capacity: 2 years in we are of the view that our 5R would benefit from extra batteries (at least one, though most recommendations are that they need to be paired, so it would be 2 extra) and the companion solar panels to charge them. This is sorta on the “to-do” list for when we get “a round tuit” 😉
- Overall mains power design: One of the key design/build decisions we made was to be fully electric; meaning (for example) that we forwent diesel heating in favour of reverse-cycle AC and installed an induction cooktop instead of gas. At the time we didn’t fully appreciate the downstream ramifications of this, especially in relation to how the mains input, battery charger and inverter are configured. The impact of this is that we’re limited to 2400W (on a 10A cct) or 3600W (15A) at any one time. The 2400W limit in particular can be reached *very* quickly with the base load of ~250 (NAS, TV, electric recliners, phone chargers, etc) + AC heating (~700) + cooktop (1200) + microwave/air fryer (800). We cope by staging cooking with the AC off; it’s all doable but hardly convenient. Don’t really have a solution for this one as yet, but we’re keeping our eyes open for better answers.
- The large “lounge” slide-out: Reasonably early in the piece, we had a bit of an issue with our larger slide-out where it jammed and broke a vertical joining rod. Nobody’s ever seen that before and there was certainly no obvious reason for it. Anyhow, all fixed under warranty, but ever since has not operated 100% smoothly—both in and out movements have some weird “jumps” accompanied by not-nice gear grinding noises as the slide seems to drop a little (and therefore doesn’t seem to sit completely straight, especially when in). I reckon a couple of rollers under the inside edge *may* help, but haven’t had time to research/discuss this any further.
- Overall truck mechanical issues: While our Iveco has generally been overall fit-for-purpose and reliable, there have been a couple of “weird” issues that have left us feeling a little as if we’re waiting for the next shoe to drop! Fortunately thus far, all have been covered by warranty; but we are still a little apprehensive.
Overall then, is this still our perfect home?
As I concluded last year, I think it’s as close as we can reasonably expect. Sure, there are annoyances, but that’s just life. Overall, I (we) love it!
Road sign rant!
[This has annoyed me for years, but I’ve only just realised that I have to get the ranting over-and-done-with before the new bypass road is completed and opened and these signs are no more!]
The picture above depicts my “favourite” love-to-hate example of completely and utterly incorrect use of language on a road sign. It is one of about six or so instances of the same sign on the southward-bound approach to the Hunter River bridge at Hexham, on the outskirts of Newcastle.
My issue with this sign is the use of the word “both”. Essentially ALL online sources2 note that “both” means two out of two things in a group (of two). In this case then, where there are two lanes on the road in question, this sign is instructing drivers to use those two lanes simultaneously. In the vast majority of use-cases and for the majority of drivers, this action would be illegal!
The reasonable and grammatically correct alternate would be “either”, which is defined to mean one or the other of two things within a group of two.
But of course, if they had actually written that, I’d have no reason to whinge!
How was YOUR year?
At church last Sunday—the last one of 2024—the preacher suggested that it was appropriate to reflect on our year and invited us to rate it our of ten. He suggested a few example ratings to get us started:
- 8 or 9 out of 10: it’s been a really good year, with personal, family or business successes;
- 5 out of 10: it’s been “just another year”, nothing especially either good or bad;
- 1 or 2 out of 10: it’s been a particularly tough or difficult year, either personally or within your family or work environment.
This got me thinking: I certainly have no argument with looking back or reflecting on the year just past. Where I have a bit or a problem though, is arriving at an overall rating for the year. For me, perhaps even both of us, 2024 has been a *very* mixed bag—parts of it definitely rated an 8 or a 9, but other parts would be just a 2 or 3. I suppose that it all averages out at a 5 or so, but that number obviously doesn’t really give the true picture of the year.
2024 had some fantastic times for us, with perhaps the real highlight being finally able to get some serious time on the road, including a month with our friends along the Kidman Way. The counterbalance was of course towards the latter part of the year when Reen was seriously ill, in hospital for about a month and then extended recovery time at home (although she’s reminded me that witnessing the miracle of her totally unexpected and near-complete recovery has to rate pretty darn high 😀 ).
Perhaps, on reflection, the most valuable take-away from the exercise for me was that how we feel about what has happened to us depends very much on how we choose to feel about it. Great trips seeing wonderful parts of our country with good friends can become ho-hum if we let ourselves trivialise them, but equally there can be moments to treasure in even the rainiest, most closed-in day in the dullest location. Serious illness is never what anyone would consider a “good time” but you can choose to let yourself see the miracles when they happen. And don’t make the mistake of “averaging it all out”, that merely turns all the colour of you life into a dull, boring, average grey!
[I originally started this post in early January, but became side-tracked and took a while to finish it off!]
Dunny-Dos and Dunny-Don'ts
One of the most discussed and most disliked, but also least understood aspects of van living is the dreaded dunny-duty; managing the van’s internal toilet. There are a bucket load3 of blog posts and YouTube videos out there on this matter; sadly most of them are skewed, usually by either a manufacturer affiliation4 or by the usage pattern of the poster5.
While this is not necessarily bad, it does seem to lead to incomplete and often misleading information.
As we live in our van full-time and are now coming up towards 2 years experience, we have learnt/developed a slightly different viewpoint.
I should also note that we use a Dometic cassette toilet—essentially similar to other brands I’m told—although we’re watching developments in the composting toilet space with great interest.
Therefore, without further ado, here’s a short list of dos and don’ts for using/managing your internal van toilet.
Dunny-Dos6
- DO read the manufacturer’s doco – despite any previous comment it’s a great place to start if you’re new to this and will help you avoid the most common mistakes.
- DO procure a second cassette – while expensive it will seem totally worthwhile the first time that it saves you a traipse across town in the rain (or even 40+ degree heat) to a dump point.
- DO spend some time working out the correct balance (for your specific case) between cost and cleanliness/smell of chemicals to use in your toilet. Our observation is that vendors all err on the side of safety, i.e. over treatment, while some online posters err7 the other way.
- DO remember, without being silly about it (see below), that every thing you “do” somewhere else is something you won’t need to empty!
Dunny-Don’ts8
- DON’T limit your use of your toilet – we see so many comments about “#1s only, no #2’s” etc; to my mind this is insanely ridiculous – why impose crazy limitations on yourself/family for the sake of (maybe) one extra usage day between empties?
- DON’T ever ignore the warning lights on your toilet – ours has two: a yellow that indicates notionally 3/4 full and a red that denotes “full”. “Full” is really, really full, any anything else in is too much9.
- DON’T travel with your cassette full if you can possibly avoid it; while they do seal fairly well, our wonderful Aussie roads will tend to unseal it after a little while. If you have a second cassette, two partly-full cassettes will likely travel better than one very full one (don’t forget to secure the second one from sliding/bouncing around!).
Tracking the CARDIS: Part 2
This is Part 2 of the story about trying to get (near) real-time location tracking of the CARDIS up and working; see the start of the story here!
To recap where we got to with Part 1: the Teltonika router can generate an HTTP POST with a JSON payload, the idea being to send that to this website (which is running WordPress) to be read/process by a specific WP plugin.
The plugin I’d initially found to use is called Trackserver, developed by Martijn Grendelman. It was/is the only one I could find that had anything like the appropriate functionality.
However, sadly, while Trackserver has built-in input filters for a huge variety of message formats, JSON isn’t one of them. Neither could I either find info about or deduce from looking at the plugin’s code any other format that I could produce from the Teltonika.
There WAS the option to code my own specific input format filter; however I fairly quickly realised that my coding skills had not aged well—PHP has progressed fairly significantly over the last 10-15 years and I definitely haven’t kept up 🙁
So, where does that leave us?
First, any further development/configuration of the Teltonika has been put on hold for the time being, along with any use of Trackserver. I *may* resume this at some point in the future, but I’m not holding my breath!
Second, I’ve taken “Option 2″—leveraging the commercial Ruhavik system into an iframe within a post. I do feel as if this is a bit of a cop-out, but it’s the best I can do right now.
2025 Adventures
#1: — Granville/Camden/Granville
#2: — Granville/Tea Gardens/Granville
#3: — Granville/Tea Gardens/Granville (again)
#4: — Granville/Singleton/Tea Gardens/Granville
#5: — Granville/Tea Gardens/Bonny Hills/Morriset
#6: — Morisset/Tumby Bay (SA)/Granville (Part 2)
Images of 2025
Silos, tanks & walls
In the relatively short time that we have been travelling to date (end 2024), we’ve been astounded and enthralled by the variety, scope and beauty of the paintings adorning the grain silos, water (and other) tanks and pretty much any blank wall throughout our Australian country towns. As a bonus, lots of towns also have sculptures, ranging from the traditional to the quirky; but all a joy to discover and view.
Often there’s one or more placards or storyboards nearby giving background and details of who, what and why also.
The album below is a work in progress and will continue to grow as we travel, so come-on back every-so-often to check it out.
Enjoy…