I’m so embarrassed that I haven’t updated the blog for over 2 weeks. My sincere apologies. I can’t even say, in my defence, that I have been especially busy though life has been a bit hectic, so let me try and summarise the last fortnight.
Since I last wrote we have had some major changes at home with my daughter and her family moving out. They (all 5 of them) have been living in our house since returning from the USA about a year ago. I wont say that it’s been easy because it hasn’t but it hasn’t been as hard as you’d imagine either as they have all tried their best to make things as easy as they can be given that we went from having 2 people in the house to having 7, including three rowdy grandsons. That move has now been completed and it has fallen to us to try and reconstruct the house and return it to a semblance of tidiness.
Natalie and Leith didn’t bring much back with them from the States, but my shed has been crammed with 16 boxes of their possessions most of which they have not been able to use as the inside of the house has been “pretty” cluttered already. Their departure has enabled us to not only reclaim all the space but to also institute a thorough clean-out of the house, sheds and garages for two reasons. Firstly because they desperately need it and secondly because we may be making some changes to our living arrangements also.
It’s fair to say that we have been “hooked” by the nomad lifestyle. Even though our trip was cut short by mechanical misadventure, our time on the road was well and truly enough to make us want to do lots more travelling so we are looking at the possibilities. First we have to get some clarity on the Minibago and I should know something about that in the next few days. My lack of updates on that front stem solely from the fact that I have had none since we left Queensland on the 22nd of July. Suffice it to say I am more than a little disenchanted with the haulage company whose job it was to bring the van home. We agreed to their quote on the 22nd and the van arrived here in Wollongong on Tuesday, TWENTY FIVE DAYS LATER. Numerous reasons were given as to why it was taking that long but none seemed valid to me, but, as the matter was in the hands of NRMA Premium Care there was nothing that I could do about it.
Now that the van is home and at my mechanic’s shop, I have contacted NRMA and let them know in no uncertain terms that I am totally dissatisfied with the lack of service that I received from the haulage company. I have nothing but praise for NRMA, they have been amazing but 25 days to bring the van from Carmila to Wollongong, a distance of just 1700kms is completely unacceptable. That averages out to around 70km per day! NRMA are investigating as they also believe that I haven’t been well served and I am also guessing that they’re not happy to be forking out $2300 for the “work” either.
What irks the most is that, had we got the van home quickly and had it fixed, we could have had more holiday. Helena goes back to work on 1 September so that time has now been wasted waiting for the haulage company. As I said to the NRMA guy, had I known that this was going to happen I could have had one of my speedway mates take me up there in a truck with a car trailer and we could have done the job ourselves for a fraction of the cost and had the whole thing done in 3 or 4 DAYS.
I am hoping to hear from my mechanic in the next day or so and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be an easy and not to expensive fix. In the mean time, however, we have been looking at how we went, anaylising the trip and thinking about what we need to do to make the process even better next time we hit the road. The obvious improvement we could make would be to get a better motorhome, one with more room inside, a kitchen and a bathroom. But since something of that order starts at around $70k, that’s not going to happen any time soon. I’ve seen a few small vans with some innovative kitchen solutions and it would be pretty cheap and easy to build a similar set-up in the back of our van so that could happen.
The other solution is a caravan, something which I haven’t really considered since I don’t like towing that much and am absolutely rubbish at reversing even a small box trailer. However, we have done some looking and it is a cheaper and more elegant solution to the problem. A van that would meet our requirements would require that we upgrade to a bigger car as well, though, so that gets added to the “con” column on the spreadsheet. Nevertheless, a caravan with a bathroom facility and decent room inside can be had for around $15k so it is certainly doable.
So, one of the reasons that we are doing a thorough clean-up on the house is with a view to possibly down-sizing, achieving a smaller (or zero) mortgage and allowing us to buy a better travelling solution as well. Suffice it to say that we enjoyed living on the road so much that we want to do lots more of it. Watch this space.
On the motorcycling front I got the bike out and did the lap yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was pretty rusty but it never fails to excite. As a note to the lead picture, it is interesting that motorists around my way at least seem to have adapted pretty well to the new filtering laws and I haven’t had any problems at all. I also not that the brain-dead idea of allowing pit-to-bike communication in MotoGp has reared its stupid head again. When will DORNA learn that we don’t WANT MotoGp to be like Formula One?
Personally, I have been troubled with greatly increased pain in my leg of late. Suffice it to say that I have had X-Rays which revealed nothing untoward and an ultrasound as well (results on Friday) and I am hopeful that they will find out what is wrong and fix it. I don’t appreciate getting around like I’m a cripple.
Till next time.
jeffb says
Welcome back-both to the Loop and your blog! Your thoughts sound great to me- Is your van motor big enough to tow a small pop up type van? Might get the best of both? Jeff
Phil Hall says
The van could tow a caravan but it isn;t very economical anyway and would be even less so. At this stage we have to wait and find out of the van is repairable before we make up our minds. 🙂