Blue Arsed Fly: Getting ready to travel…

In this instalment our Grey Nomads, Bruce and Elaine, get ready to travel around Southern Western Australia.

Well maties it’s that time of year again when I browbeat, oops, I mean convinced mother that we should go touring again.

Rather timidly, I suggested southern WA as a destination. This was because the last two times we’ve tried WA has ended up in disaster.

In 2006 we were pushed off the road coming south from Exmouth by a bloody B double furniture van and both car and caravan turned turtle. Both car and van a right off and I spent 5 days in Carnarvon hospital.

In 2010 it was a burst appendix in Kununurra and a week in the hospital. After that I swore I’d never go further north than Perth.

So I am tempting that bitch called fate again because we are going as far north as Geraldton before turning right and heading to the west, to as far as we can go on bitumen and that is Laverton.

Now it might surprise you that there were no incidents this time, one reason is that I store the caravan somewhere else and I don’t have to try and squirm past the house and fence. Before we go I always get the van serviced where I store the van, this time it cost around $800 dollars as the springs on the van had to be replaced as they were worn. Coupled with the $2000 dollars to get the front struts replaced on the Disco and the wallet was a great deal lighter. But I want everything ship shape and Bristol fighter ok before we leave.

I was very prepared to do battle with the wife regarding what she wanted to take, but blow me down with a force nine gale, she actually took only 4 boxes of knitting paraphernalia, one large bag of God knows what, several knitting books, 21 novels to read, another knitting bag, one laptop and a very much relieved husband that there was no bloody sewing machine coming with us.

I on the other hand, being a seasoned grey nomad, took clothes, a laptop and read the books I always carry in the van and only when we are on the road.

Now did I say there were no disasters, well there were a couple of small hiccups…

This time I was going to get in early and get the van out of storage four days before we left. So on Saturday I turn up at the storage place to find out the storage area is closed on the weekends and they have a very large guard dog roaming the area.

Fair dinkum boyos, this dog is so big you could saddle it and ride it like a pony, no thought of trying to jump the fence as the gates were locked anyway…

Now they said “We always tell everyone who stores a van here that the storage area is closed w/e’s and you need to organise for the van to be moved so you can pick it up Saturday morning, we always tell people that,” it was stressed to me.

Now being a humble ex matelot and a gunnery sailor at that, I must have either missed that message, didn’t read it in the blurb or the Alzheimer’s must have kicked in or all three happened. So I go home swearing a little about why does God hate me and She is a perverse Bit… I mean She is perverse (luckily I’m almost an atheist).

So instead of 4 days to get ready I would have only 2 days but, what the hell, it should be enough. Come Monday, I’m back early and pick up the van and park it on the nature strip, digging a bloody big hole so I can get the jockey wheel on.

Now this time after I connected the power up properly, I ensured I switched the power on and checked that the fridge was going, it wasn’t. But I had taken my anti senility pills that morning and realised I had to switch on the transformer which I did and the fridge started to hum.

After that everything went smoothly and on the day we left before 0800 so that the grandson could see us leave. But just before we left, I discovered the internal lights weren’t on, there was power to the van, so what was wrong?

As we were practically going past the caravan service place, I dropped in and told the fella what was wrong, “Oh he said did you check the battery safe switch is on.” I thought “What the hell is the battery safe switch” and he went out, opened the boot and on the electronic gizmo that looks after the battery, pointed to a minute switch which was off and switched it on and so we now had lights in the van. Painless you might say and I learnt another thing about the van I didn’t know before, maybe I should write a book!