Orange

Dear Family and Friends



We may have started the day by heading towards Parkes but we took a slight detour through Orange to catch up with Mum and Dad. They are both well and as always we have had a lovely couple of days. The weather has been absolutely wonderful. It has rained almost constantly and very heavily since we arrived and seeing their water supply is at drasticly low levels every drop is precious. The silicone you put around the hatch, Justin, has been put to the test and not a drop leaked in.

Dad tells us that the dams that supply Orange (a city of almost 40,000 people) are at 20% capacity and most of that is just mud. And as Mum says if they don't get rain and a lot of it now Orange is in serious trouble come summer. The council are building stormwater drainage areas to make use of this water resource but it doesn't do very much in the overall problem but at least it is something.


Although Orange and the immediate surrounding areas are still in a severe drought situation places further afield are showing signs of significant recent rains. Around the city of Cooma it is very, very dry and the land is still brown and arid and it stays that way till the ACT, but when you leave the ACT and going toward Yass things improve a little. From Boorowa through Cowra and on to Canowindra things begin to look totally different. The first thing you notice is that the dams are full to overflowing. The ground looks rich and fertile rather than the dustbowls we have seen in this area for so long. The local crops of Canola are in various early stages of growing. You can tell which crops were planted first and which were planted last. Later in the summer if you drive through this region it will be a mass of yellow flowers and come harvesting time at night you will see paddocks a blaze of lights as they reap their crops.

Today, our plans are to go to Church and then head off straight after and go on to Parkes and further afield. Because we know this area really well we will travel as far as we can till we stop for the night.

For now love to all

Ken and Lyn

day 1, Yass

Dear family and friends

Yesterday saw our first day of travelling and in some respects itwas quite a boring day. We travelled roads that we use whenever we visit Mum and Dad in Orange. So all in all there was nothing we saw that we haven't seen before. Yet, we managed to cross three borders. Vic to NSW, NSW to ACT and ACT back into NSW.

Our night was spent in Yass' Caravan Park. We arrived right on dark and opened the caravan door to a bit of a mess, but only one breakage. The cupboard with coffee and cups emptied itself at some stage on the floor.

Today we are heading towards Parkes. Our final destination for tonight is yet unkown. So until I blog again Love to all.

Ken and Lyn

The day has arrived

Dear Family and Friends

Well, we can hardly believe it but the day of departure has arrived. At last!!

Yesterday was a busy one with final preparations. Last minute "must do" meaning get last minute shopping, change the spare tyre to a better one, Take more 'Stuff"out of the van and take it to the house. For those who want to know the sewing machine has gone to theshed along with small amount of material, My sewing basket with my embroidery cottons and projects comes so when I get the urge to sew it will simply have to be hand work, which is OK.

This morning began for us at 6.45 but neither of us got much sleep from about 4.00 onwards.

The day has begun with a heavy fog with visibility no more than 100 metres, though as I look out the window now it is lifting, 15 degrees is expected for Bairnsdale so it shall be a lovely day.


We are heading in an easterly direction to begin with. Straight to Cann River, do a left and head towards Cooma, onto Canberra , through the city and on toward Yass and then Booroowa. Weather we make it that far or not is another thing. One way or the other it doesn't matter. We stop when we stop. It will be cold wherever we are and that I'm not looking forward to that.

Time to go, we are ready and raring to go

Love to all

Ken and Lyn

Monday

Dear family and friends,

Monday morning and the start of a new week. Wondering what the week or weeks ahead may hold.

Time to back track a little on my personal health issues. Following the MRI done on Friday 16th at Traralgon I had an appointment for Wed the 21st to get the results. But alas they had not been done and with apologies the Doctor asked me to return on Frid 23rd. Guess what no results still on that occasion, by which time I was a little annoyed but I did hold my anger in and asked the Doc if he would phone me when the results came in rather than have to make another trip back to Sale. I was surprised when he said yes as we had asked the same of Ken's results and he had said no that he wanted to see him in person. So we are back to playing a waiting game.

In the meantime we have spent much of the previous ten days in Sale waiting and wondering how long our wait might be.

Since we bought the new van we have done much cleaning and feel now it is our little home. We have needed to do a clean out as we realised we were overweight and thus need to lighten the load. We figure that there are many people out their with way to much stuff in their vans and we were one of them. We have taken out as many heavy things as we could, including spare water and fuel which we really won't need till we get into the outback. At present we have ready access and therefore don't need to carry those things just yet. Some of the heavy things we had in the boot of the van we have now moved into the car, such as a rather heavy toolkit of Kens which he has to clean out some time soon and leave out the items he has doubled up on. My sewing machine will probably have to go also so we are both making sacrifices We have rather a heavy picnic table which used to get left in the van when we were travelling but we have now moved it into the car. There are plenty of lightweight tables out there but the reason we take this one is that we can adjust each leg individually if we are on unlevel ground, something which the newer and lighter ones can't do.

This new van has two water tanks where as our other van had only one. Plus, our new van has a front load wasing machine added after purchase of the van which means we have to take into account the 5o kgs that it weighs. I love my washing machine, it is such a bonus having and it means no more laundrys and no more $ coins to feed into the washers at an alarming rate.

Back to the weight issue, we have been told by more than one person that NSW is the worst state for stopping people about the weight of their vans. Once we are ready to go we will have the van go over the weighbridge and have that docket on hand if need be.

We are both getting itchy feet and just want to go. It is highly likely that we might set of on Wed regardles of phone call or not from Doctor and come back if there is any major issue that has to be addressed straight away.

We get such a lovely welcome when we come back to Justin's and Lee's place. Natalya and Lachlan run at us with open arms and give us the loveliest of hugs. And at meal time it's so lovely to hear them thank God for our return.

Justin and Lee have now bought a tractor for their farm and it arrived in Bairnsdale on Friday.

The tractor is registered so Justin was able to drive it all of the way out to their farm with a friend following so there were no mishaps along the way. We all went out on Sat arvo while Justin, Ken and then Lee had a go of driving it. It will save them so much time when it comes to moving dirt and trees and whatever else he needs to do. It's the beginning of their dream to live out of town on their own parcel of land.

Wonderful news, the specialist has rung to say I have a clean bill of health and doesn't need to see me again. So that means all systems go. We have a couple of things tomorrow to finish doing and we plan to leave on Wed morning.

We've just had a lovely meal with Pam and Colin, Sam and Irene tonight so we are tired and ready for bed.

Love to all.

Ken and Lyn

Further delays

Dear Family and friends.

The saga of delayed holiday plans continues.

Last Monday I went to see the specialist thinking I would get the all clear and we would be off and away. Ken didn't come with me, he stayed behind thinking I would be in and out in no time and when I got back we would be off and away. I got a positive result on the bowel CT and the nurse was right when she said I need not spend my weekend worrying about the result. But..... the radiographer has picked up something totally separate from the bowel problem. There is a problem with my Common Bile Duct being not quite right. It may be the reason for the double positive on the bowel cancer screen sample. So, as a result I am having an M.R.I. done tomorrow at Traralgon, then I see the specialist next Wed to hear the results.

In the meantime while we wait I can spend my time cleaning our new van. Yes!!!
I did say new van, well second hand, but new for us. It is a Coromal, 22ft with a combination shower and toilet. It has a cafe style table, plus a long couch. It has a full oven and a front load washing machine which will save us heaps of money on washing expenses. We will take some photos and post them on the blog over the next few days.

We have been doing a clean out as we put things away as we realise we had too much weight on board so today, Thursday, we took a heap of stuff back to Bairnsdale to put in the shed. We will continue to weed out as much as we can to keep the weight down.


We have had some very heavy rain here at Sale over the time we have been here and it is getting quite soggy underfoot, though I must say it is lovely to lay in bed listening to the rain on the roof.

That's about it for the moment.

Love to all and God bless

Ken and Lyn.

Baby sitting

Dear Family and Friends

I neglected to tell you that we were asked to babysit, Toby, that is. Craig, Michelle. Brea and Caitlin plus both boyfriends had planned a week at Merimbula. The person they had arranged to come and stay was unable to come so they rang us on the Saturday night to ask if we were in a position to come and look after Toby. So we said YES!!! LUV to. I think it was the Friday that we had called to say hello to Toby and as usual he got excited to see us. We had a lovely week with him. We also had Natalya and Lachlan stay with us for two nights as it was during their school holidays and it gave Justin a chance to do his own work. Toby was happy to see them also. Dale, a friend, came out to see us and Toby, bringing with him the usual bag of goodies that Toby has come to expect, from Dale. The McDonalds leftovers!!!. Toby sat beside Dale on the couch for ages, he was so happy to see him, and I think Dale was equally happy to see Toby.

It never fails to make us laugh when Toby backs up to a chair, or a lap and sits down lifting both back legs off the ground and at the same time leaving his front legs on the gound. He will sit this way for ages just to be near you. It's a big dog version of sitting on your lap. Toby does the same thing whenever Dallas or Leanne and Tim come home. He plonks himself on the couch between them and sits their for ages. Ken found a web site just recently where Great Dane dog owners have sent in pictures of their pet dogs and there are more than one picture of Danes sitting on couches and on the lap of their owners. He becomes too heavy and in the long run you have to stand up to get him off because he gets too heavy.

The week went by all too quickly and before we new it Craig, Michelle and the crew all arrived home and it was time for us to make our farewell.

Oh how mixed up Toby must be. He lives with us, makes friends with our family members and our visitors like Dale. We go away for a holiday and Dale comes and feeds him. After a while we come back and all is back to normal. Then we take him out and leave him with the Ryan household and we disappear. We're gone for a while and Toby settles in and grows to love his new family. They treat him really well and he feels loved and wanted. He's allowed to sleep inside, sometimes even in the girls rooms. Perhaps he wonders where we are and why we haven't come back to get him. Then one day we come back and he gets excited thinking his holiday with these nice people is over and he will come home with us. But no we go and leave him behind. We visit a couple of times and then one day we come and move into his new home and his new family, who he loves very much disappear and leave us to look after Toby. Perhaps he wonders where his new family are. Then after a little while his new family comes home and they are excited to see him and he is excited to see them.

Then we load up the van and say our goodbyes and leave.

Soooooooooooooo confusing.

Today is Sunday and we went to Worship at the Salvos. We arrived at 10.00am but the service had started at 9.30am so we missed half of the service. We caught up with some people we knew from when we were officers at Bairnsdale.

This afternoon we spent doing housework, both inside and out. Ken has polished the outside of the van and it looks good, I did the inside and it looks good too. Just in case we sell it on Tuesday and if we don't we have a lovely clean van to set off in.

That's it for now

Love to all

Ken and Lyn

Lousy week

Dear family and friends.

Well I have had an awful week and boy am I glad its over. I'm sure to have a better one next week. It can't get any worse and so that means it's got to be better. The reason being the first dose of medicines didn't do a good enough job of cleaning me out so I had to go on a second round of medications all designed to do the same thing and clean me right out. After that lot I had to have a CT Colonograhy. Good news the nurse said not to spend the weekend worrying as everything looked good so when I see the specialist on Monday I should get the all clear.

That means we can begin to think ahead and plan to finally set off on our way. We are going to Melbourne on Tuesday to see the van we are interested in. Ken has spoken to them a couple of times and the outside work is all done except for the windows and that will be done when we come back at Christmas. They have replaced one complete side of the van, they have put on a new awning and he tells Ken he took a door off a brand new van to put on ours as the door was scratched and it needed replacing also. They have put a new 240 volt element in the fridge because the other one wasn't working effectively. We are keen to see it now that everything has been done so we are hoping everything will fall into place and it will be ours soon.

I will get Ken to put some photos on the blog. Some of them will be aerial shots of Justin and Lee's property. They are the ones that Ken took when John took him up in his plane. There are some of the kids on their bikes riding around. And I'm not sure what else. Hope you find them interesting.

That's all for now
Love to you all Ken and Lyn