d1 – 3wk shakedown

Day One of the Three Week ShakeDown Trip.

The start of our three week trip heading down the east coast of Queensland.
We’re not sure quite yet where we’re going to end up, but the first night we will be staying at Rollingstone, a small seaside hamlet north of Townsville.

Innisfail:

On the way down the coast, we stopped at Innisfail to get some groceries that we hadn’t been able to get before we left.

We parked the bus about a block away, and I walked to Coles while the tall one took Mabi the dog for a walk to stretch her legs, have a nice big drink, and to attend to the necessities of nature.

I got the groceries and went to the park across the road to meet back up with them both.
It was super humid!
Another drink, a toilet break for the humans, and we were back on the road.

I sat buckled up in the back with Mabi for about 20mins, to try and get her to lie down for a while as we drove, but the most she manages is about 3 minutes, and then pops back up to standing.
(I’m a little worried about how exhausting this will be for her.)

The aircon in the bus cab doesn’t seem to be as cool as usual today, which is making for a much warmer drive.
I guess because it’s so humid.

Cardwell:

About an hour later we stopped at Cardwell for the traditional ‘pie by the sea’.
Their eftpos was broken, but luckily I had some cash!

We aren’t going to take Mabi down to the beach here – as much as she’s itching to go! –  as it’s very well known to be croc-country, and it would sure spoil the holiday if she became lunch for an oversized saltwater lizard!

As we ate our pies, I was looking toward the sea and noticed something hanging under the bus.
Me: “gawd I hope that’s a stick…”
She: “where”?
Me: “hanging from under the bus!”

So with that, I headed over to the bus and glamorously shimmied underneath.
What I found was the remnants of some type of rubber belt…. Eeek!

We quietly sat and ate our lunch, not yet ready to discuss the predicament.

After lunch, the tall one went and opened the bonnet to have a look around – as you do!
As she was poking around under there, a lovely young French bloke came and asked her if she needed help.
Yaaaay!

He took the belt back to his motorhome and looked it up and the came back and told us in his gorgeous broken English, what kind of belt it was.
While it didn’t fix the issue, it at least gave us something to work with; and after a bit of googling (also as ya do!) we decided to call racq, the roadside assist folks.

While we were waiting, another guy came along and poked his head under the bonnet and declared it was the airconditioner compressor belt.
This was one of the options we had googled it as being, and if he was correct, that would explain the warmer than usual air-con!!

The tall one is currently on the phone as the racq has called her back, and they’re waffling about towing it somewhere!
That doesnt really work for us, being that it’s our home right now, and we have a dog with us, so most motels etc won’t be keen for us to stay.

If we can still travel without the belt, we’d rather keep going until we get to Rollingstone as planned, and worry about it then.

Ohhh lordyyy… watch this space!

Later:

After chatting to a mechanic during the racq call, we were advised to keep going – so we did!

I went to sit in the back with Mabi again for a while, and it was getting hotter by the minute, and as we were starting to get a little worried about her, we stopped under some trees near Ingham and dragged the battery fan out from under the dinette seat, and hooked one up to blow directly on her as we drove.

It did the job for the rest of the trip, and we finally arrived at Rollingstone Tasman Holiday Park around 3pm, and found they’d allocated a spot for us right on the beachfront!

On check-in, we were also warned about the local croc who lives in the creek that runs along one of the boundaries of the park, and were told that he’s pretty aggressive at the moment as it’s mating season – and that we should steer clear of that area.

“There has also been some crocs on the beach, so don’t go swimming.”

Ummm – yeah matey – you do not need to tell us that twice!

It was suuuuper humid, so once we’d parked up and got the awning rolled out to give us a bit of shade, we each took turns going for a swim to cool off our core temperatures a bit, whilst the other one wandered around in the shade with Mabi.

Back to the bus and we decided not to put up the dog fencing tonight as we’d originally planned, as there is some thought that a storm might roll through in the early hours of tomorrow morning, and we don’t want to be trying to wrangle with it in the wee small hours, if the wind does get any wilder than it’s been this afternoon.

A relaxing afternoon of reading and pottering about, and a walk along the beach for all three of us at low tide as the sun was heading down, saw us coming back with a palm leaf base full of dog poop, as I’d somehow forgotten to clip the poop-bags back on the lead when I’d moved it from inside the house, back into the bus!

Later – as is tradition for our first night on the road when we go away – we had a charcuterie platter.
Flippin deeeelishusss!

To cap off a beautiful first evening, we got to watch a golden full moon, rise from what looked like the depths of the sea.
Thoroughly stunning!

What a fabulous way to finish off the day, and a great reminder to us that this is what truely matters; the moments we share together, and celebrating in gratitude how incredibly fortunate we are…

Until next time – happy travels, and make the moments matter.

stopped at Cardwell for a pie, where we noticed a belt underneath the bus, that had been thrown from somewhere in the engine bay. eeeek!!

 

the beautiful view from our site at Rollingstone Holiday Park

 

one little black dog was very happy to be back walking along a beach

 

our post swim set-up, with the fencing still in the bag
too hot to be putting anything fancy out!

 

watching the world go by…

 

#gratitude for this glorious moon-rise and for the memories we’re making together

 

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