Even On The Road There’s Necessary Housekeeping

Living on the road is not all fun and games! There are the necessary housekeeping chores that keep things challenging.

This last fortnight has been such a necessary pause in my gypsy wanderings.

After I left the Kai Iwi Estate, south of Glen Innes, I had to tackle that gnarly hill I climbed to camp in the horse paddock.

Being my first steep descent, I have to admit I was a little anxious….. but much to my delight it was a breeze. I put my Ute in 4LLc (Part Time 4WD with centre diff locked and a 50:50 torque split between the front and rear axles and LOW range gearing engaged), slotted it into first gear and slowly descended that hill. It was a great learning curve (pun intended).

After a proud moment following the descent, I turned left onto the highway and headed to Glen Innes, where I took another left turn and headed further inland to the west.

Within a kilometre out of Glen Innes, I come across a sign advising that there was currently a cyclist race in effect and the race was taking the same road and same direction I was heading in.

Well, I knew that was going to be a nuisance but I truly had no idea of how much so at the time.

I managed to pass the first two cyclists with no issue. The third and fourth where a little more tricky as I couldn’t see if any on-coming traffic was nearby, so had to crawl very slowly behind the bike riders, until I could get a clear run to swerve around them.

All good, until I caught up with the front runners of the race. Here, there was a group of six cyclists followed by a police escort, two cars following behind, a large truck next in line and then about ten cars behind the truck, then me. Behind me another twenty odd cars, some like me, towing caravans.

This road we were travelling has some serious uphill climbs, one decent descent and many, many curves and bends.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be pedal pushing a bicycle up some of those hills.

For the next 40 kilometres we all crawled, at the same speed that these cyclists were travelling at. Some of those hills saw us moving at walking speed.

We were at the mercy of the race front-runners.

I was surprised that the police car wouldn’t allow any traffic to pass the riders when we come upon an overtaking lane, even with the bike riders in the left hand lane.

It made for a slow and frustrating trip but finally, I arrived in Inverell, where I was booked into the Sapphire City Caravan park; a cute and tidy park.

I had a site directly across from the gorgeous swimming pool, camp kitchen and amenities block.

I was originally booked in here for a week but as it was time to complete some necessary housekeeping items, I extended my stay for a second week.

My first necessary chore was to get my car serviced. Hard to believe it’s been twelve months since I drove her off the new car lot. I feel it especially important to get the services done on time being that she is towing full-time.

I also needed to get a medical prescription filled from my doctor. This script is not one that can be filled at any chemist, so I organised for the medication to be dispensed from Brisbane and express post to me. This took a week, hence why I needed to extend my stay.

The last reason for staying longer was due to my divorce hearing, which was to be heard in the Family Court in Brisbane, so I decided to stay in case I needed to make a mad dash back to the city if there was anything to sign or further documentation needed to be provided. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case and my divorce was granted without a hitch.

For the first time in over 21 years, I was free — no longer the wife of a text-book narcissist. Happy, happy days.

Now that the housekeeping was completed, I was ready to head off and my plan was to go north, back into Queensland and then west to the desert.

But……….

The weather said NO!

There was a large rain-band hovering over the entire state of Queensland and it was dropping a year’s worth of rain over the state in a few days. Almost every major highway and many backroads were closed due to flooding.

The rain then began to descend upon Northern New South Wales — the worst of the rain on the day I was leaving Inverell — of course!

I managed to hitch up yesterday morning in a break of downpours but it rained the entire journey to my next destination and then bucketed down while I unhitched and set up. I was soon impersonating a drowned rat by the time I had finished.

So, where am I now?

At an unexpected little patch of gorgeous countryside and I’ll let you know exactly where that is in my next update.

One thing I will share here is that as I went to unhitch and set up at my new destination, I realised how truly lucky I was that day.

Why?

Because the last thing I did before leaving Inverell was lock my caravan door, push the step under the van and attempt to put the dust cover on the door vent. This is always a little tricky and I needed two hands.

I placed the keyring, with ALL the keys for the caravan, on top of the step I had just pushed under the van.

And, you guessed it!!!

I inserted the door dust cover, jumped in the car and hit the road.

It wasn’t until I took off the door dust cover and went to pull out the step, that I discovered the forgotten keys.

How they travelled all the way just sitting loose on top of the step, has me beat. I climbed some steep hills, drove a couple of small descents, cruised through two floodways that had water running across the road and then drove a very steep climb up to the place I am now settled at.

And those keys, somehow, journeyed the entire obstacle course, sitting unrestrained on that step.

Let me tell you, I sent a gratitude prayer to the universe for that major feat!

Until my next update, stay safe, stay happy.