The Big Lap - Gympie to Rockhampton

Firstly, I need to apologise to anyone reading via Feedly. I'm posting using the Blogger App and it won't let me type a complete title and then keeps closing halfway through a post. I'm saving a draft after every sentence, which is a little frustrating. After publishing my post I have to go into my blog post and do a quick edit to add a few little bits, which creates a duplicate.  Sorry for cluttering things up.   Now to today....

Yesterday I forgot to show you an example of the woodcarvings that are right through the caravan park at Gympie. They are rather clever. 

We woke up to a grey day and even had a few spots of rain while packing up. Despite riding along wet road on quite a few occasions, we were blessed with fine weather wherever we were. The morning had a minimum of 14 and it quickly reached the mid 20s, which was rather pleasant. 

Morning tea was at Gin Gin, which is really well geared up for travellers with a nice park in the middle of the Main Street.

We travelled through large areas of sugar cane, but didn't see any cane trains as yet. 

A bonus was catching up with some Bathurst friends who are on holidays up this way. It is funny how we happen to run into them when we are both travelling. Nice to see a familiar face from home. 

We were intrigued by the trivia questions on the side of the road in Fatigue Zones. 

Some, like this one were fairly easy, but some were tricky. What is the name of a group of toads?  Did you know that it is a Knot?  Well, we do now.

We enjoy playing Spotto as we ride along. It isn't something I played as a kid, but Mick's family did. BP service stations used to have cards for the kids which had a list of things that they had to spot as they travelled. Mick and I have our standard list which includes windmill, dog in the back of a ute, yellow car and an emu.   We the add as we go along and depending on where we go. This time we've looked for a Mustang, a kombi van, a big thing on the back of a truck, a vehicle on historic plates, dairy cows and more that I can't think of just now. 

We are still looking for an emu, bottle tree, boat tree, came, goanna, cane train and snake. I'm hoping we don't see the latter. 

We had lunch at a nice rest area beside the Boyne River near Gladstone.  I had relatives near Mundubbera whose property adjoined this River and we had a few holidays there when I was a kid, so I've swum in this River several times. 

Anyway, there were heaps of caravans at the rest area free camping. Today we have seen several such spots, all well used. With so many caravans being self sufficient you can see why they are popular, as they have been lovely spots. 

Finally, we arrived at Rockhampton. We will be staying here for a couple of nights, playing the tourist, as we have good motorcycling friends here.  We first met going to Tassie in 2006 and always enjoy catching up with them. 

The Big Lap - Maclean to Gympie

This morning we got ourselves up and about a bit earlier, which was good.

Our caravan park was just over the road from the Clarence River, which was looking lovely.

The weather this morning was definitely warmer than home, but it was still very dewy. 

The old opening bridge across the Clarence River will soon have a new bridge beside it. 

We were wondering how far those pylons will have to be driven in. 

Once again we couldn't get over the improvements to the highway.  It made travelling easy, but you do miss seeing the small towns along the way. 

The steam from the Broadwater sugar a Mill looked stunning against the blue sky. We were watching the weather as showers were forecast for late morning, but fortunately we didn't get any.

We made a little detour into Kingscliff for morning tea with Mick's aunt and uncle and then it was back to the motorway.

I missed the actual Welcome to Queensland sign, so this will have to do.  

We were amazed at the constant traffic.  At some places it was four lanes going both directions and was at a standstill. There was heavy traffic for the entire day.

I did get the Sunshine Coast sign.

Our destination for the day was Gympie, just under 500kms.  We are settled in the only caravan park in town, but it is nice and central. We went for a shorty walk and the houses are starting to look like Queensland.

The weather is starting to feel like Queensland too. We were in tee shirts until about seven o'clock tonight. Rather pleasant. We enjoyed a barbecue and salad tea that we cooked, so we are starting to get ourselves organised. 

So, taday want terribly exciting, just driving on the motorway, but now that we are getting away from the real touristy section it should be a bit more interesting.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

The Big Lap - Bateau Bay to Maclean

We had a leisurely start today, enjoying the sunrise over the ocean, followed by breakfast at the surf club. Rather pleasant, but not how we will start most of our days.

Our campsite had bush behind us and the ocean out the front. Very hard to take.  We think we may just come back to this spot with the caravan for a long weekend, as it is rather lovely. 

Today was a fairly brain dead day travelling up the Pacific Highway. We both came this way a fair bit as kids but haven't been on some of it for nearly twenty years. Boy has it changed. The Hexham Bridge always was a sign that you are getting towards the coast. 

We enjoyed seeing all the different cloud formations as we rode along. 

We had a nice break at Buladelah for coffee and a ginger nut. Ginger nuts are great, as they always travel well, especially those from NSW. Did you know that Arnotts ginger nuts are different in each state, despite all being made at the one factory. We always try to get some wherever we go. 

We had fun looking for the really tall mid north coast gum trees, but it was hard to get a decent photo. There was quite a bit of roadworks along the way but the traffic flowed really well, with only one close call that we saw all day. We had a quick bite for lunch, but other than that kept travelling. 

I was surprised that I managed to get a decent photo of the Big Banana as we went past. 

By now time was marching on and we still had a bit of a way to go till we reached our destination for the night. 

We do not intend to finish our day this late again, but it worked today. We ate out at the pub, as we were too late to organise ourselves to go to the supermarket. 

We ended up doing five hundred and eighty four kms for the day, which wasn't bad considering we didn't start till well after nine in the morning and we only sit on around 90 kmh.

Hopefully we will get into our regular routine tomorrow and get on the road by eight. We should be well and truly in Queensland by tomorrow night, but we don't know where. That's the fun of it. 

The Big Lap - Bathurst to Bateau Bay

Today was the start it our big adventure.

We got away at 10.20am, after the fog lifted and the temperature snuck above freezing.  We both commented that it didn't feel real as yet. 

Today's riding wil probably be the most difficult for Mick, firstly riding through the Blue Mountains.....

The negotiating the joys of Sydney traffic. 

Finally we hit the freeway and crossed the Hawkesbury River. 

Our day was an easy one, just travelling to Bateau Bay to catch up with a mate we haven't seen for a while. We found a caravan park nearby at Shelly Beach.  What a beautiful spot. 

The park fronts the beach, the tide was out and there are some of the most interesting rock formations and pools we have seen.

You can see why it is called Shelly Beach. 

So much life in the pools. 

Check out the starfish. 

The rock formations were so varied, from craggy.....

To flagstones....

To crocodile skin.

We really enjoyed our wander and then enjoyed catching up with our mate for dinner.

A nice way to end the day and, yes, we now feel like we are on our way. 

It was interesting getting ourselves set up for our first night in our camper after more than twelve months. I'm sure it won't take us long to get back into the routine. 

By the way, the weather was only in the high teens when we got here and is quite chilly now. 

A Cover for my Green Machine - Or How my Seam Ripper Became my Best Friend.

I have an iPad which is affectionately called "The Green Machine" due to its protective cover (it is lime green - even though it looks more yellow here.)

However, for some time I've wanted to make a pretty, padded cover for it.

Three years ago...I bought some cute fox fabric down at Braidwood at the quilt weekend.

Two weeks ago....I trawled through Pinterest, didn't find what I was looking for so sat down and wrote a pattern, complete with measurements.

I bought a zip and found some fabrics in the stash to co-ordinate with my foxes and some stripes for the inside.

On Sunday.....I didn't read my pattern properly and made a right balls up of things!

Lesson one - Read your pattern right through and don't think you know better than what it says....even if you only wrote it yourself!

My notes had the fabric too big, or so I thought...so I cut it smaller.  Had I read my pattern, I was going to quilt it and had allowed for shrinkage and to trim back. Oh!.....  OK, no quilting.

I made the back of the cover no worries and then repeated the process for the front........forgetting to add the pocket before sewing the horizontal seam with the orange peeper and ironing on the wadding.......The wadding stuck really well - better than I think it has ever stuck before.  Grrr! @#$%

I virtually had to tear back the wadding, before unpicking the middle section of the seam to insert the bottom of the pocket fabric.......then I looked at the finished seam and I had sewn the pocket on top of the orange peeper border rather than underneath it.  Snarl! @#$%

I unpicked the seam again and sewed the pocket in the correct place.  Phew!

Miraculously, there were no issues with sewing on the pocket flap.

Then it was time for the zipper.  I put pretty little fabric tabs at the ends.........

Then I went to put my Green Machine in its cover.......It didn't fit! Grrr! @#$%  Snarl! @#$%

Due to the thickness of the original protective cover I should have made the case about an inch larger.  It would fit in the cover, I thought, but not through the zip opening.  At this stage it would have been a mammoth task to refit the zip. Not happy Jan!

What now? Try and salvage it or just call it a dud and use it as a big zippy pouch?

Solution - get out my friend, the seam ripper, and unpick and remove the exposed section of the tabs at the ends of the zip.  Fortunately, the zip had not been cut short, so all structural seams were still in place.

The zip opened a bit further and the Green Machine fits......just.... Phew!

Yes, it would have been better a little larger, but it is nice and snug.  

I haven't put a fastener on the pocket flap as I only want to store the SD card reader attachment and it won't fall out.

I may write up the pattern again, tweaking it a bit, and then have another go at making a cover. At least I have one I can use for now.

Mick's Dream

Mick has had a dream since he was a kid.

He's always loved to travel and really wanted to travel around Australia.

Back in early 1983, he, his brother and two mates headed off on that adventure in an old school bus they had decked out, planning to work their way around this great land.

......Then I wrecked it.......

Mick came home for Christmas at the end of 1984, we met, he stayed, having only made it half way around.

Move forward to 2001 and we were doing most of our travelling on "Sophia" the Moto Guzzi with our camping gear in our little trailer.  We started talking about riding around Australia.

Mick ordered his ideal bike for the trip and I accrued my holidays.  We were planning to leave in August 2002.

......Then I wrecked it..........again........

I had the opportunity to change jobs, so we did lots of soul searching. In the end we gave up the trip and I moved to a new employer.

We didn't seem to dwell on it too much at the time, as we were busy with other things and it wasn't long until we started to plan to realise another of Mick's childhood dreams - go to the Isle of Man TT.

......I didn't wreck that one...... and we have been back three more times since.

Last year, now that we are now settled here, we planned two things - buy a caravan and have another go at travelling around Australia.

You see, I've just clocked up fifteen years at my "new job" and have some long service leave due.

...... I'm not going to wreck it again......

Are we going to take our lovely, new, plush caravan?  No way!

This has to be done on a motorcycle.  We are taking "Snubby", the bike Mick bought for the purpose, albeit she looks a little different and our trailer has grown somewhat.  We can take the van later.  We only have a relatively short time, so it will be a whistle stop tour, but we just want to say that we have done it.

The plan?  What plan?

Head north to Townsville, turn left, turn right at The Three Ways, go up to Darwin, then back across to the Kimberley and follow the coast all the rest of the way around.  Other than that, we'll make it up as we go along. We do know that we have to be about half way around half way into our holiday.  I suppose that is a start?

From Charters Towers to half way down the west coast will all be new to us.

We set out tomorrow.

The bike is as good as packed, the house minder organised and we are ready to go.

We can't wait.

See you on the road.