Service with a smile

2015 A rocky start to a Western Victoria tour As we head along Eastlink tollway we remark that the car feels like it is dragging the caravan and we don’t normally notice much difference when the van is on. It is then that we see the electric braking system flashing a warning. As we’d only had the van serviced three weeks earlier we turn off the tollway to the service centre in Dandenong. Yes, they tell us the brakes are locked on and the problem is not theirs but with the braking system and that would have to be checked … Continue reading Service with a smile

Noosa and Tewantin

Jul 2017, Sunshine Coast, Qld Tewantin is agreeable to the eye with plenty of trees and people in a hurry. But then this is the town that drives the holiday resort town of Noosa Heads. Tewantin is the business end with solid old Queenslanders, wandering gardens. Accountants, lawyers and supermarkets. Noosa is the pretty face with luxury homes, sparkling white apartment blocks and hotels of gleaming glass, fronting a small but lovely stretch of sand contained by the National Park and the Noosa River. Dress shops and restaurants, canals and crowds. Something must feed this hungry monolith and it’s Tewantin. … Continue reading Noosa and Tewantin

Watching the weather

‘Keeping a weather eye out’ is a must when caravanning. You are more exposed to the elements and often in unfamiliar weather patterns and conditions. Caravanners from Victoria and South Australia tend to be more conditioned to bushfires than they are to tropical cyclones. In Melbourne it’s simple, the weather comes from the west. We watch Perth and we know that we’ll get the same thing but a little milder in a couple of days and we’ll get Adelaide’s weather tomorrow. On the east coast it seems to come from every direction leaving us totally confused about what to expect. … Continue reading Watching the weather

The Great Dim Sim Challenge

Victorians and South Australians for that matter love nothing better than good food. Farm gate stalls and gourmet food trails set their little hearts racing. On the road our mob are forever debating the merits of their favourite dim sims. Be it the huge juicy dim sim from Tai Wah in Mentone, the peppery cabbage flavour of the South Melbourne Market dim sim, the delicate balance of the Jimmy Wong from Footscray or the tasty recipe from the sadly long defunct Tai Ping at St. Kilda Junction (a demise that still brings tears to my eyes) that is now served … Continue reading The Great Dim Sim Challenge

Power problems

May 2014, Lake Boga, Vic Woody checks the battery charger and discovers that it isn’t being charged by the caravan park mains power. This is interesting because not only ours but three other vans were having power problems when we first hooked up here. On top of that the park is having new electrical cabling put in. Something is amiss. We pop into Swan Hill for some new fuses but they don’t fix our problem so we may have to rule out free camping on the way home. Eventually we get enough charge from the car via our Anderson plug … Continue reading Power problems