OUR FIRST WEEK ON THE ROAD

Sally's favourite spot in the carvavan amongst many others

Dick is finished work and is celebrating with a welcome cup of tea in his mug  a present from the girls at work  

Daniel and Adam at our "farewell" dinner

Daniel and Min

Hayley and Adrian

Merv and Woody entertaining us all at Christmas in July

Yippee Dick's caught his first "on the road" fish.  Having yummy fish cakes for dinner tomorrow

Jane and Lorraine enjoyng a wine or three!!!!

We had a lovely farewell dinner with the family and friends at our favourite thai restaurant in Milperra on the Thursday night before we left on our road trip.  It was a bit emotional saying final farewells to the kids but we'll all keep in touch.
We set off on our trip early Friday morning, 1st July.  It was a lovely sunny day when we left, but the weather turned a bit grim along the way.  We had to stop a few times as the caravan was swaying which was a big worry and quite scary to be experiencig.  Dick rearranged a few of the heavier items inside the van to see if it made any difference.  We covinced ourselves it was the weight from all the alcohol we were carrying, as we'd generously been given more supplies by our wonderful friends to add to the stock we already had. We finally got to Budgewoi and set up before it bucketed down with rain which it did for most of the remainder of the day. Oh well, it could have been worse.  At least we 'd set up and were inside nice and warm and snug.  We went out for an Italian meal that night as it was our wedding anniversary.  It's called "Little Italy" and is above Budgewoi Pub.  We  had a lovely meal there and d idn't have far to walk home.

The next night we were invited to a Christmas in July under the camp kitchen at the caravan park.  It went from 5-9pm. They had gone to a lot of trouble to set up the tables with festive cloths and decorations  throughout the area.  Santa visited us all with handfuls of yummy chocolates. We were entertained by a duo called Woody and Merv - two talented funny musicians that took requests but didn't know any Rolling Stones songs. We soon forgave them as we really enjoyed their music.They cracked many jokes throughout the night and when asked if they had any groupies, they replied "no at our age, we have carers". Corny but funny.

Dick  spent many hours pondering the problem of the caravan swaying and finally decided it was due to the tool box and bike rack that he'd spent many hours designing and making. So Sunday was spent taking if off the back of the van and rearranging everything in the back of the car and tool box and front box of the caravan.  Fortunately we still had the original one stored in the shed at Jeff ad Kate's. Now it's now restored to it's original  state and the bike will have to travel inside the van until  we get a bike rack for the top of the car.  Hopefully, our trip up to Laurieton next Friday won't have any sway at all!!

The park is fairly quiet considering it's school holidays. They have kids club activities at the camp kitchen twice a day.  They have been laying rabbit bait, so we have to be careful of Sally off her lead.  The park is plagued with rabbits  that  mainly come out at night.  During the day there are loads of ducks and black swans roaming around and swimming on the lake. We've got  an uninterrupted view of the lake from our kitchen window.

We've been checking out a few of the other caravan parks in the area.   They are all really good, but we decided to stay here for another week.  We're making a rough plan of where we want to go.  After 2 weeks at Laurieton we're going to Yamba to try out a new caravan park Yamba Waters that now takes dogs.  Quite a few more now take dogs from 1st July this year.   We'll probably head up to Tweed Heads after our 2 weeks at Laurieton, but it's very flexible.

So that's our first week completed.  We're enjoying lots of gorgeous walks along the beach each morning and Sally loves the freedom of being off her lead and chasing seagulls.  It looks like I might need a cookbook of 101 ways with fish!!!!

Take care everyone and thanks for logging on to share our adventures. 

Love for now Marian and Richard/Dick