Heathcote – Upon Closer Inspection

Day 1 Friday 24/11/2023 Home to Heathcote, Overcast 18 – 25 storm expected at 7:30pm

Two days ago, an aerial guy replaced the cable that runs from the aerial through the wall to the inside of the van. After trying everything to get TV channels Woody had noticed the broken cable on the roof. All it took was a phone call and a half-hour repair to get TV reception again.

I’m quite sure most people would have noticed this problem long before we did

We’re up early this morning to get the caravan to the repairer. After the fiasco at Maffra when the awning almost blew onto the roof and snapped one of the awning ‘foot’ latches we need to get both awning ‘feet’ replaced.

The job takes no more than 5 minutes, is free of charge and we’re on the road and expecting a slow trip through peak traffic. We grit our teeth and take Eastlink before peeling off into Heidelberg, a suburb that is rapidly becoming unrecognisable due to new freeway works. Perhaps everyone else is avoiding this route. We have a brilliant run and pick up the Hume Freeway before 9:00am. We’re out of the city and off to our caravan club Xmas Muster.

Heading northeast it’s a quick run through Wallan, Kilmore, and Tooborac to Heathcote. It’s dry up here and the hills are already a summery cream colour. We’ve chosen not to free camp because of the rather depressing weather forecast. We pull into the Queens Meadow Caravan Park to be greeted by the cheeky Irish owner who gives us an amusing tongue-lashing for arriving 1 day and 1 hour early. Check-in time is 11:00. She seems to think we’re a mad bunch because our mates arrived a day earlier than expected as well.

It’s warm with intermittent rain. Picture this, the lawn which is always peppered with roo poo in this park is, after closer inspection, awash with snails…and there we are a bunch of old farts looking like emus doubled over muttering “ooh yeah, snails”. You’d reckon we’d never seen a snail before. There’s a family opposite us, two brothers and their wives who’ve spent most of the day on the lunatic soup, now they’re back and forth to the loo. Woody and Toothless’ Missus (aka Madam Secretary) are keeping count. We have an early happy hour and mini spring rolls in the spacious camp kitchen and retreat early as the sky blackens.

Woody’s brother, Woody the Elder rings, he’s on his way down to Melbourne in his son’s campervan and will spend a few days camping with us. Dinner is egg skirt dumplings, not escargot.

It rains so heavily that we turn the TV off! Because we can’t hear it!