My wife and I have been away for the last few weeks , we took the caravan down to New South Wales , the main idea was to have a good look around the New England Tableland area , didn't work out quite how we planed but it was a good trip anyway
First stop was in Toowoomba to visit friends , had dinner with them that night and went on the next day , next stop was Glen Innes , nice area , quite high and quite cold at night , I love walking around the town and looking at all the old architecture , the town is full of old Federation style buildings and houses , nice place to visit but I couldn't live there as my sinuses went wild from all the smoke from all the fire places in the houses , also visited Emmaville , Deepwater and Tenterfield , I quite like the Tenterfield area , I hunted around there several times many years ago ,
We spent a few days in a small place called Ashford and visited the Pindari Dam and the National park , had intended to stay a few days more and do some kayaking and fishing but got a call from my mate Michael , we had intended to go visit for a few days much later in the week but his phone call changed our minds , he said " Dave I know you intend to visit in a few days so when you call into the house and see it's burnt down don't panic as we're all Okay , " my reaction was , " Shit ! " then your Bullshiting me " he assured me he wasn't ,
I rang him back the next day and told him that we would be down the next day to give him and his wife a hand to sort some stuff out and make the new house some what liveable , he was in the process of building a new house on his cattle property but his timetable for completion was around 2017 as he didn't intend to have any more work done until cattle prices went up and he needed something to claim to reduce his tax bill , he's had to seriously rethink his time table now
The new house will be magnificent , it's huge , it can be seen from anywhere in the valley , I think it's cost him about $800,000 so far and it's just a shell , no inside linings at all , no plumbing and no power , he's in the process of painting it him self as he was quoted around $120,000 just to paint it
Mate was alone in the old house when it went up , his wife was away at a reunion and the kids away at uni and boarding school , his smoke alarm must of taken some time to wake him as when he finally woke and stood up the smoke was thick from his waist up ,
He'd had a few drinks and he's bloody hard to wake when he's been drinking , he opened the bedroom window and climbed through , by the time he'd turned around the open window had caused the place to act like a blast furnace and he couldn't even get close enough to close the window
Seems it was a electrical fault , they lost every thing in the house except the filing cabinet , that was at the other end of the house and the rural fire brigade of which the mate is a member arrived with in 20 minutes which is a bloody good effort given the distance they had to come
Any way we spent a week there helping out here and there , doing small jobs that needed doing and also helping with mustering and calving , did get time to go hunting at first light a few times , got a very nice pig , ,
Michaels neighbours on the other cattle properties and the people from town have been great , calling in and asking if they needed gear and trying to give them stuff , they basically had what they stood up in , well Michael did , his wife was slightly better off as she had three changes of clothes with her at her reunion , mate has long been a believer in buying the best quality available and keeping it for years , and as such his clothes bill alone of what he lost reached $12,000 and rising
We worked it out once , I spend around $150 on a pair of boots and have to replace them every two to three years , he spends $500 and plans on having them for 20 to 25 years , he spends $100 on a shirt and is still wearing it 20 years later , I spend $25 on my fishing shirts that I wear every where every day and get about 2 years out of them , I spend $20 on a pair of cargo pants and get a year out of them and he spends $120 on Wrangler jeans and is still wearing them 10 years later , of course there are some thing we can't compare , he will spend a couple of thousand dollars on a suit that will last him the rest of his life [ Barring fire ] and I won't wear a suit to save my life , and won't wear a tie for any reason , and the only time I ever tucked in my shirt is when I was shooting IPSC and has to because it got in the way of my drawing my gun
But the neighbours were fantastic , one of the neighbours went and made up a hot shower unit for Michael and his wife , Michael supplied the steel and the neighbour put it all together , also another one for the crapper but that one isn't finished yet , they are on skids so they can be moved around
While down that way we also went and spent a day at Copeton dam , lovely place and famous for it's Murray cod fishing , of course we arrived just a few days into the closed season , also spent a day at Tamworth , a lovely old town and home to the biggest country music festival in Australia
We spent a few days in Dubbo a place that just doesn't thrill me at all , my wife wanted to look at the Western Plains Zoo , Have to admit I enjoyed checking out the Meerkats and the siamang monkeys , they were extremely entertaining ,
While there I discovered that when the zookeeper gives a lecture and then asks are there any questions , asking how they taste is not a good idea
Couldn't sleep at Dubbo , Van Park was on the main road west and the trucks went through all night , all we could hear we them hitting the Jacobs
From there we went up through Gilgandra , Coonabarabran , Narrabri , and Moree , the hot artesian spa at Moree is great , with in 5 minutes all my arthritic aches and pains had gone and didn't come back for a few days , [ note to self , get a hot water spar ] even helped with my chronic back pain to a fair degree , we then went on to Goondiwindi , nice quite little van park away from the main traffic centre
From there on to home , the car started over heating very slightly from Moree on but only on long up hill stretches but it went down to normal with in seconds once we weren't climbing any more ,
I knew there was a very slight weep in the heater hoses where I blocked off the heater hoses after the heat exchange unit spring a leak , most properly because it's never been used , car heaters aren't a big thing in the tropics , the airconditioner is never off but the heater never gets used at all ,
Any way I had been topping up the coolant reservoir every so often and that only amounted to about a cup full every few days or so , actually I think it worked out to about a cup full every 1000 km , so it wasn't much , but after Kilkivan [ less than a hour from home ] it started getting very hot every so often and then only 20 km from home we got stopped with road works for 20 minutes and the car got seriously hot even though I ended up turning it off after I realised we weren't going anywhere for a while , just after that I stopped in the shade to let it cool off for a while and added more water to the reservoir , ,
Yesterday I decided to loop back the heater hosed on them selves rather than just block them off and when I did that I discovered that there is a pin hole leak in the heater hose that was getting progressively worse as I watched , that may be the reason for the over heating , I don't know but it just seems like it was getting too hot too quick like the thermostat had crapped it's self , I've ordered a new thermostat and that will be in in a few days , had a look and there is no way I can get to it my self , my hands are just too large , my glove size is XX large and the space is made for Small , will have to bite the bullet and pay to have the thermostat replaced , looked it up and the standard time to replace is one hour
But all in all not a bad holiday , didn't get to do many of the things we had intended to do but will do it next time , had intended to spend a few days around Deepwater fishing and kayaking on the Severn River and the same on the Gwydir river at Bingara where the mate lives but just didn't get time , had intended to do some walking around Bingara taking pictures of all the Art Deco buildings but didn't get a chance for that either , maybe next time
Any way no pictures on this post as there are too many but here is my my Photo bucket page
http://s172.photobucket.com/user/dawall ... t=3&page=1
There are several pages , the pictures aren't labeled as mostly I can't remember where I took a lot of the pictures and the ones I can are basically self explanatory
David
First stop was in Toowoomba to visit friends , had dinner with them that night and went on the next day , next stop was Glen Innes , nice area , quite high and quite cold at night , I love walking around the town and looking at all the old architecture , the town is full of old Federation style buildings and houses , nice place to visit but I couldn't live there as my sinuses went wild from all the smoke from all the fire places in the houses , also visited Emmaville , Deepwater and Tenterfield , I quite like the Tenterfield area , I hunted around there several times many years ago ,
We spent a few days in a small place called Ashford and visited the Pindari Dam and the National park , had intended to stay a few days more and do some kayaking and fishing but got a call from my mate Michael , we had intended to go visit for a few days much later in the week but his phone call changed our minds , he said " Dave I know you intend to visit in a few days so when you call into the house and see it's burnt down don't panic as we're all Okay , " my reaction was , " Shit ! " then your Bullshiting me " he assured me he wasn't ,
I rang him back the next day and told him that we would be down the next day to give him and his wife a hand to sort some stuff out and make the new house some what liveable , he was in the process of building a new house on his cattle property but his timetable for completion was around 2017 as he didn't intend to have any more work done until cattle prices went up and he needed something to claim to reduce his tax bill , he's had to seriously rethink his time table now
The new house will be magnificent , it's huge , it can be seen from anywhere in the valley , I think it's cost him about $800,000 so far and it's just a shell , no inside linings at all , no plumbing and no power , he's in the process of painting it him self as he was quoted around $120,000 just to paint it
Mate was alone in the old house when it went up , his wife was away at a reunion and the kids away at uni and boarding school , his smoke alarm must of taken some time to wake him as when he finally woke and stood up the smoke was thick from his waist up ,
He'd had a few drinks and he's bloody hard to wake when he's been drinking , he opened the bedroom window and climbed through , by the time he'd turned around the open window had caused the place to act like a blast furnace and he couldn't even get close enough to close the window
Seems it was a electrical fault , they lost every thing in the house except the filing cabinet , that was at the other end of the house and the rural fire brigade of which the mate is a member arrived with in 20 minutes which is a bloody good effort given the distance they had to come
Any way we spent a week there helping out here and there , doing small jobs that needed doing and also helping with mustering and calving , did get time to go hunting at first light a few times , got a very nice pig , ,
Michaels neighbours on the other cattle properties and the people from town have been great , calling in and asking if they needed gear and trying to give them stuff , they basically had what they stood up in , well Michael did , his wife was slightly better off as she had three changes of clothes with her at her reunion , mate has long been a believer in buying the best quality available and keeping it for years , and as such his clothes bill alone of what he lost reached $12,000 and rising
We worked it out once , I spend around $150 on a pair of boots and have to replace them every two to three years , he spends $500 and plans on having them for 20 to 25 years , he spends $100 on a shirt and is still wearing it 20 years later , I spend $25 on my fishing shirts that I wear every where every day and get about 2 years out of them , I spend $20 on a pair of cargo pants and get a year out of them and he spends $120 on Wrangler jeans and is still wearing them 10 years later , of course there are some thing we can't compare , he will spend a couple of thousand dollars on a suit that will last him the rest of his life [ Barring fire ] and I won't wear a suit to save my life , and won't wear a tie for any reason , and the only time I ever tucked in my shirt is when I was shooting IPSC and has to because it got in the way of my drawing my gun
But the neighbours were fantastic , one of the neighbours went and made up a hot shower unit for Michael and his wife , Michael supplied the steel and the neighbour put it all together , also another one for the crapper but that one isn't finished yet , they are on skids so they can be moved around
While down that way we also went and spent a day at Copeton dam , lovely place and famous for it's Murray cod fishing , of course we arrived just a few days into the closed season , also spent a day at Tamworth , a lovely old town and home to the biggest country music festival in Australia
We spent a few days in Dubbo a place that just doesn't thrill me at all , my wife wanted to look at the Western Plains Zoo , Have to admit I enjoyed checking out the Meerkats and the siamang monkeys , they were extremely entertaining ,
While there I discovered that when the zookeeper gives a lecture and then asks are there any questions , asking how they taste is not a good idea
Couldn't sleep at Dubbo , Van Park was on the main road west and the trucks went through all night , all we could hear we them hitting the Jacobs
From there we went up through Gilgandra , Coonabarabran , Narrabri , and Moree , the hot artesian spa at Moree is great , with in 5 minutes all my arthritic aches and pains had gone and didn't come back for a few days , [ note to self , get a hot water spar ] even helped with my chronic back pain to a fair degree , we then went on to Goondiwindi , nice quite little van park away from the main traffic centre
From there on to home , the car started over heating very slightly from Moree on but only on long up hill stretches but it went down to normal with in seconds once we weren't climbing any more ,
I knew there was a very slight weep in the heater hoses where I blocked off the heater hoses after the heat exchange unit spring a leak , most properly because it's never been used , car heaters aren't a big thing in the tropics , the airconditioner is never off but the heater never gets used at all ,
Any way I had been topping up the coolant reservoir every so often and that only amounted to about a cup full every few days or so , actually I think it worked out to about a cup full every 1000 km , so it wasn't much , but after Kilkivan [ less than a hour from home ] it started getting very hot every so often and then only 20 km from home we got stopped with road works for 20 minutes and the car got seriously hot even though I ended up turning it off after I realised we weren't going anywhere for a while , just after that I stopped in the shade to let it cool off for a while and added more water to the reservoir , ,
Yesterday I decided to loop back the heater hosed on them selves rather than just block them off and when I did that I discovered that there is a pin hole leak in the heater hose that was getting progressively worse as I watched , that may be the reason for the over heating , I don't know but it just seems like it was getting too hot too quick like the thermostat had crapped it's self , I've ordered a new thermostat and that will be in in a few days , had a look and there is no way I can get to it my self , my hands are just too large , my glove size is XX large and the space is made for Small , will have to bite the bullet and pay to have the thermostat replaced , looked it up and the standard time to replace is one hour
But all in all not a bad holiday , didn't get to do many of the things we had intended to do but will do it next time , had intended to spend a few days around Deepwater fishing and kayaking on the Severn River and the same on the Gwydir river at Bingara where the mate lives but just didn't get time , had intended to do some walking around Bingara taking pictures of all the Art Deco buildings but didn't get a chance for that either , maybe next time
Any way no pictures on this post as there are too many but here is my my Photo bucket page
http://s172.photobucket.com/user/dawall ... t=3&page=1
There are several pages , the pictures aren't labeled as mostly I can't remember where I took a lot of the pictures and the ones I can are basically self explanatory
David