Grey Nomads Travel: On the road with “The Blue Arsed Fly”: Part 1

Bruce and Elaine Hathway are retirees who spend 3 months of every year travelling in their caravan.  Bruce spent years in the Navy, and enjoys telling these stories of their travels with his naval flavour hence his title “The Blue Arsed Fly”. We’re going to hear from them weekly for a while as they travel round Australia with their caravan… so sit back and enjoy… and don’t forget to reply so they know you are reading!  

The first day on the road started at 6 AM in Melbourne, we were up, showered, fed and waiting for the missus to pack the van with her last minute things that she thought of and will never bloody use. Thank God the van’s got an en-suite or the toilet would have come with us.

‘Have we got everything,’ she asks me.

Keeping my voice on an even keel I answer cool calm and collected, ‘Yes dear, now GET IN THE BLOODY CAR.’

We have to leave by 0800 because the daughter in law wants the 22 month old grandson to see us go with the caravan.

‘Look son Up Pa and Um Ma (his pronunciation of Grand Pa and Grand Ma) are leaving on their holiday in the caravan.’ The son can’t stop smiling as he now has the house to themselves (other than the sister still at home), the bloody oldies are out of the way, for 8 weeks at least.

This time there are no mishaps like the last time we went away in the van. We hadn’t moved 10 metres when the van jumped off the tow ball and hit the road bending the sway bar at a 45 degree angle that wasn’t repaired to we hit Dubbo going north. No this time we were away incident free, around the corner we went into Stud Rd and low and behold and shiver me timbers an accident blocking Stud Rd. There was no way the van could get past the accident but fortunately there was room to do a left hand drive through the back streets of Wantirna.

‘Go right,’ the wife says and amazingly we end up back on Stud Rd going in the right direction, I knew I’d done the right thing and invited the missus along for the ride. So we head north, up through Yea, across to Seymour and stop at the wife’s aunt’s place in Shepparton around noontime. I get out, knock on the door and the aunt comes to the door.

’What the hell are you doing here,’ she calls out behind the locked security door.

‘We’re here for a visit and a free cup of tea,’ I reply hopefully.

‘Bugger it I forgot you were coming up and I’m about to go out for lunch,’ she replies.

‘There goes a free lunch,’ I think to myself.

So ten minutes later and after many apologises and kisses to the missus and me thinking ‘Bloody Alzheimer’s has kicked in again,’ we’re on the road for our first nights stop at Yarrawonga. We stop at the Yarrawonga Caravan Park, on the Murray, two hundred metres from the main drag, not a bad place to stay, has plenty of powered sites and disabled facilities. I set up and then go into town to get a starter pack for the internet from Telstra, it costs $30 for a month’s access. Then over to the supermarket for the essential vittles, to the garage to fill the bottomless pit with diesel and then back to the van.

Whenever we go away we always, always go via Yarrawonga, as I have no parents, (I was found under a blackberry bush by itinerant fruit pickers from Uzbekistan and sold to and elderly couple who barracked for Collingwood, so you see I was doomed from the start). Well that’s not really true but my parents are no longer with us so every chance I get we always visits the mates parents in Yarrawonga who are my second parents. These are the people who tried to talk me out of joining the navy and like a dutiful son I ignored their advice. So after freeloading, um I mean partaking in a lovely home cooked roast pork and roast vegies I was a contented little ex sailor.

The next day we left early heading north up the Hume to Brisbane, we had an appointment with a mob who would install an electric lift on the van so the wife being disabled wouldn’t have to walk up and down the steps into the van. We got as far as Gundagai where we stopped at the “Dog on the Tuckerbox” for a pit stop and something to gnaw on. Just north of there we were suddenly detoured off the Hume to Cootamundra as an accident further up had blocked the highway. So after a 130 km detour we got back to the Hume and as we joined it at the Cootamundra turnoff that was where the accident was, 3 trucks and two cars and it looked a nasty accident too.

So after three days we reached Brisbane and the next day went to the factory and were told no worries should take two hours tops and seven hours later we drove out with a brand new electric lift on the van and so far everything’s Jake. Expected the missus wants to go to a material shop in Maroochydore 100 k’s to the north. She had seen this shop in a Stiches magazine and twice before we had been up this way and luckily couldn’t find it as we were travelling south coming home. But this time I couldn’t get out of it so I had to take her to the shop, I did manage to get lost but unfortunately there was an information centre in Maroochydore and I had no excuse so we found the shop and came out lighter in the wallet.

Next week we’re on the way to Kangaroo Island.