Not that we are going to check things out anytime soon. Our first stop was to drop off the caravan
which was easy to find and get into.
Whilst we were there I checked out their little camping area and there
are already three other vehicles there.
I really hope no one else turns up during the day as there is the ideal
(read easy) spot for us to pull up in.
Eventually we get going, but the service guys were not looking forward
to moving our water tanks. Being an
on-road caravan it is a lot lower, so harder to get under and apparently newer
caravans have so much more plumbing. I
guess you think there is the shower, toilet, washing machine, hot water system
and sink whereas the old style caravans probably just had the sink. Well that is all our Jayco Dove had.
Anyway, by now we were keen for our morning coffee so we
headed back into the main part of town and found a nice coffee shop so we could
get our hit of caffeine for the day to get us going. I felt so much better after that and was
really ready to tackle school for the day so we headed to the local
library. On walking in the kids spotted
a turtle in a tank so of course was drawn to that. This was great as it allowed me to set up
ready for school as I had pre-packed the bag with everything I needed the night
before. The kids were very lucky though
as the librarian said it was time to feed the turtle so they got to watch that
and she even got the turtle out so they could touch him and see him move along
the floor. Just little things but it
really makes you feel welcome.
 |
| Sharing a milkshake. |
 |
| Getting to meet and touch the turtle. |
We got through three sessions whilst we were there, and
Hamish would have a break and play with the other kids and the toys in between
each session. Jason caught up on a few
of the caravan magazines whilst keeping Kayla out of the way. Not that it was hard as she was more than
happy to play with the toys. As we were
going to leave Hamish was begging to borrow some books but I told him we couldn’t
as we don’t live here. The librarian
must have overheard us and informed me could join up as a temporary
member. This wasn’t just to their
library but to all of SA, so we can borrow a book in Port Lincoln and return it
at any other library in SA, so say Ceduna.
They also gave us a little bag of books suited to Kayla’s age.
Needless to say I was very impressed with this setup and
thought it was a wonderful thing and wished we could have known about it sooner
as we would have joined up as soon as we arrived in SA. As a reward for Hamish doing his school work,
Jason had saved going to pick up our kayak until Hamish had finished so we
could all go. It was interesting seeing
the kayak in the shop and making sure it can fit one child on it with an
adult. They will just be sitting between
the legs but I don’t think they will want to be on it forever anyway. Then we had to try on life jackets and scored
in the sense we could buy one that could safely fit both kids. Jason and I being roughly the same size can
also share one.
Now this wasn’t a cheap venture, with Jason and I using the
money we got for Christmas and it will also form part of Jason’s birthday
present. At least however it will get us
out on the water and can explore in a new way.
I had to laugh too when Jason said he had some money in an account that
he would put towards it. I gave him a
glance and said I didn’t know he had another account, to which he quickly
replied that it was his ‘get away’ account.
It gave us a good laugh as with only $150 in it I don’t think he was
going to get far. I love how we can
laugh and joke with each other, life is way too short to take everything too
seriously.
 |
| Jason's latest toy. |
With the kayak safely on top of the car we headed to
McDonalds for lunch. It was quick and
easy and would entertain the kids for a while.
We are also enjoying their chicken salads at the moment and then get to
polish off all the chips the kids don’t finish.
Finally it was time to go to the Information Centre and see what there
is to do around this area. Luckily there
is heaps and we thought whilst the weather is warm (believe it or not it was 27
that day and going to be 28 the next day) we thought we would do the swim with
Tuna experience. We quickly changed our
minds when we found out it was $100 an adult and $70 for kids over 5. It was one of those things we thought it
would be cool to do but didn’t have a burning desire to blow over $270 doing
it.
So we just picked up lots of brochures on everything that
interested us and took them with us to sit down and plan when we have a
chance. By now we were just wishing we
had our van to retreat to as we were all tired from our early start and just
wanted to be set up for the night. It is
hard when you have the van in for some work as you don’t get it back until late
in the day. We went and checked out the
lookout which was stunning and really put things in perspective. Then we drove around the town and down to the
harbor area. We did call in to see if
the van was done but didn’t stop as we could see it was still up on chocks.
 |
| Looking back down over Port Lincoln. |
The rest of the afternoon was spent down on the waterfront
in the playground and we enjoyed an ice-cream down there. Eventually we just decided to go back to the
van place and luckily the van was finished, however it took Jason a while to
organise the payment and sort it out. By
now the kids were over it and climbing through the car and I think we were all
just tired and starting to get hungry for dinner. Once we were hitched up we had to fill the
water tanks. We started this process but
it was going to be very, very slow based on the pressure. We just wanted to make sure everything was
fine and working too.
Of course I couldn’t see the water indicators going up so
panicked a bit but then eventually it did move up. Meanwhile we decided to take the owner up on
his offer to fill them up using his other tanks that had more pressure. Whilst doing it we did notice the tank at the
back was dripping, so he got under there and fixed it up straight away for
us. Also we were on more level ground
there so the water indicators worked better.
It is hard as you want to ensure quality work is done on your van as
this is our home and safety when towing.
So whilst we were a little on edge, the guy was fantastic and there
really wasn’t anything to worry about.
Finally with full tanks we moved the two hundred or so
metres to where we were going to camp for the night or maybe two nights if we
felt like it. The ground wasn’t level
and as it was around 6:30pm we were over it and in a bit of a rush to set
up. So when we went to unhitch we hadn’t
thought to put out our wheel chocks so the van rolled a little bit back giving
us a scare. Luckily we did have the van’s
hand break on so that kicked in. Then it
was a matter of trying to get it level and digging out a bit of ground at the
front so the front legs could go down.
Eventually, we had finished and decided to crack a beer as
we certainly had earned it. We also
walked over to meet our neighbours and have a chat. I had spoken to them in the morning and they
seemed really lovely. They were so nice
and asked if we had it down pat now, to which I admitted our little blunder of
not putting out the wheel chocks. It
made me feel at ease when he leaned over and said ‘we have done it too’, so it
was nice to get the reassurance that we all have those days and really in the
scheme of things is nothing major. So we
had a great chat to them whilst the kids played in the dirt and we heard all
about their travels and that they are also heading west.
It was so nice to meet some really friendly people in a
free/cheap camp, finally our luck just might be changing. Eventually though it was time to clean our
grubby kids and feed them some dinner, so I took them back for a shower and put
on a movie for them. As we hadn’t gotten
anything out to defrost that morning, it was sandwiches and two minute noodles
for dinner. Not the most nutritional
dinner but it suited our enthusiasm levels and was quick and easy. Jason even told me that the guy had offered
to take him fishing for squid the next evening if we were still here. You will have no idea how excited this made
us as we have been saying for the last two weeks how we would love to know how
to catch one, but also what to do with it once you have caught it. So we went to bed that night feeling really
good and enjoying this free camping.
We woke up to another beautiful day in Port Lincoln, though
apparently it was quite cold outside last night. Well I guessed this based on the condensation
dripping off the van, but at least we were nice and warm inside and didn’t miss
the heater. We just layer up at night
now, kind of getting use to this colder weather but that doesn’t mean we like
it. We had to finish off Hamish’s last
day of school for the week so we did a few more school sessions before packing
up to go back to the library to finish another two.
In the meantime we noticed a bit of a gurgle noise when the
pump was sucking water from our back tank so we got the guys to look at
it. An easy fix and something to do with
the air filler and that he would come back and fix it up that afternoon as he
had to go out to another job that morning.
He also explained everything a bit better for us and it all started to
really sink in and make sense so we felt more comfortable about the change.
The library sessions were hard today as Hamish just wanted
to play with all the toys and look at the Ben 10 dvds that he could hire
out. Eventually we managed to convince
him to sit down and complete two lessons and just as we were packing up another
family arrived. They noticed that I had
the laptop plugged in and charging as our invertor for the car was still
broken. We ended up chatting and they
themselves were another family travelling on the road but were at the end of
their trip and heading home. As we
talked more I found that we had so much in common and it was great to talk to
someone going through the same. Mind you
they were doing it with four beautiful children who Kayla and Hamish just loved
playing with. Normally Kayla shies away
and doesn’t really play with other kids but she just loved running around with
their youngest daughter.
Thankfully the library is very relaxed and love seeing all
the kids playing. I had to keep
reminding Hamish to use his inside voice but that would only last for a
minute. They were staying at a different
caravan park to the one we had already booked and I was half tempted to see if
we could change our booking to the one they were at, however they weren’t
staying long as they were just wanting to get home. I think of all the things we don’t do now
because we have already done it somewhere else, so fast forward another four or
so months down the track we will probably be the same.
Once we pulled ourselves away from the library we ducked to
the shops to grab some items for lunch and then quickly returned to the library
as Jason had left his phone there.
Thankfully it was exactly where he thought it was but the poor lady
sitting on the couch it was tucked into got a bit of a shock when it started to
ring. We enjoyed our tasty lunch back in
the van before packing up to go and take our new kayak for its maiden
voyage. Unfortunately we couldn’t find
the sunscreen. It isn’t a big deal but
at the price of sunscreen it feels like you just threw away a $20 note on the
ground. I am sure it is somewhere,
probably more likely than not it is in our car if I just got in and gave it a
clean out.
The guy who sold us the kayak had told us about a little man
made beach down near the marina that was quite sheltered so we headed down
there. The stuff we have to take when
going to the beach is unbelievable but at least we could load it all into the
kayak and walk it down all at once.
Hamish was a bit worried about it and wasn’t keen at all to go on it at
first, meanwhile Kayla was straight over there and happy to put on the life
jacket. She got a little worried when
Jason was pushing it out and he wasn’t in the kayak but as soon as he hopped in
she was happy. Apparently even saying ‘I
will do it’ to paddling!
 |
| Kayla and Jason off for a paddle. |
 |
| Then it was Hamish and my turn. |
After a little while they came back and this time Hamish was
keen to go so we all swapped over the life jackets and this time Hamish and I
went out. Thankfully someone had given
us the tip to head into the wind to start with as that way if you get tired you
have the easy paddle back. Hamish and I
paddled a bit up the canal, looking at some of the big homes and what seemed
like even bigger boats. I was mindful
though that the big fishing trawlers use this canal to get into the marina so
tried to keep to the shoreline in case one came along. It was easy to do and another great form of
exercise to work off those happy hours.
 |
| Enjoying the warmth whilst we could. |
We were also blessed with another beautiful day and it even
reached 28 degrees. I don’t know how we
are going to survive this two day heat way.
The temperature is meant to drop back down tomorrow and the wind that
really hasn’t fully gone away, picked back up again. By the time we packed everything up and
loaded it all back into the car it was already 5:30pm. At least the drive back to the caravan was
short but it was still another late dinner by the time I got the kids removed
of all sand (showered) and cooked dinner.
We also noticed that the kind caravan repair guy had come back and fixed
the air filler issue whilst we were out during the day.
Jason got talking to our neighbours again and this time also
meant the other guy staying there.
Apparently he didn’t understand why we would want to move to a caravan
park as he is full on into free camping and stayed in all the free camps coming
down here. Don’t get me wrong free
camping is great for the budget and there are some beautiful spots, but caravan
parks are great too. For one we don’t
have to watch our water usage or ensure we drain the battery too much and we
can just plug our laptop into the power point without thinking twice. Not to mention there is a higher chance of
running into another family and the playgrounds.
Still we had enjoyed our stay there and at only $5 a night
it is a bargain for its location. That
night our new friends from the library had mentioned how windy it was at their
caravan park, but where we were was so sheltered and I couldn’t even tell it
was windy. So we got another good night
sleep but were wondering what the caravan park we were moving to the next day
was going to be like.
It was 7:30am by the time we even woke up the next morning but
I really wasn’t in any rush as there was no use getting to the caravan park
before 10am in case someone was in our site we had been allocated. Even though it is Saturday, I still want to
try and do a school lesson on each of the days off so then we are a little bit
ahead and on the days we are travelling the pressure is off. Still for some reason we were all packed up
and ready to go at 9:30am so decided to try our luck with the caravan
park.
We said a quick goodbye to our fellow travellers who gave us
the tip to be careful as we hadn’t put on the hayman reese bars. He said that apparently in some states it is
illegal to drive around town without them on, if the caravan is set up to have
them on. This was interesting to know as
we hadn’t bothered putting them on as we were just driving 11km and knew there
were some right hand turns around tight roundabouts. We were told on our towing course that they
are better left off when driving around town and put them on for highway
driving. He wasn’t haven’t a go at us,
just passing on something he was told as he then informed us he leaves his off
also when towing around town and pulls them off before parking the van (so like
us now). He also said he was told to
unplug the caravan breaks before trying to reverse a caravan into a site.
You learn heaps from fellow travellers but you also need to
do your own research to see if it is the best for your own setup. As everyone has different make caravans,
different ages and some tips can be old and no longer necessary or just way out
there. Still it is all food for thought.
 |
| The owner of Makybe Diva was from Port Lincoln. |
No comments:
Post a Comment