The start of our walkabouts adventure

While our presence in Australia appears to have solved the drought problem (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-5028…) the last two days have been frustrating. We had hoped to have been on our way several days ago. We’d hoped to have Big Bertha on Friday but it didn’t happen.

On Sunday we made a trip to an enormous DIY type warehouse that sold everything, literally everything. We made a list of things we would need for Bertha, a couple of camping chairs, a camping table .... repairing stuff, kitchen stuff, emergency stuff, eating and cleaning stuff .... quite a list.

On Monday we hung around awaiting the call to pick up Bertha but received a call to say that the part still hadn’t arrived. While the engineers had cut a hole for the new part, so that it will be fitted as soon as it arrives, the work still needs to be approved by the gas inspector.

Today we were told that the part had arrived and was being fitted, but we still had to hope that the inspector would have a chance to inspect it and approve it. Today is Melbourne Cup day so we just hope that no one involved is a horse racing fan.

So that we didn’t spend our time kicking our heals we decided to head for the Gold Coast and look around or lay on the beach. On the way we would drop into IKEA to buy Bun an orthopaedic pillow for her neck. On our way we received a call that the van was finished and approved, no beach today

When we arrived to collect Bertha she was wired up to the mains with the a/c working and was beautifully cold inside. When she had been sold to the dealer, she contained “everything needed” and this was in a pile in a garage. We were told that we could take anything we wanted. Cutlery, cleaning materials, fuses, spare fan belts, picnic chairs,and table, toaster, kettle ... and so forth. We loaded it all on board.

Bertha comes with about 3kg of keys! I don’t know how many sets there are. There are a number of storage spaces each accessible from outside and each with their own door that has a lock or two. Why each lock isn’t suited the same, I don’t know. Tomorrow we will sort them all.

We were shown how to sort the toilet, the gas, the fridge, the cooker .... information overload. Then we moved Bertha and were shown the awning. Time to go home.

We travelled 20yds to the fuel station and filled Bertha up I was using my hone for satnav and it sat happily on the dashboard until about 400yds down the road and I’d turned onto the motorway. The remaining 50 miles (plus detours from missed turnings etc) was miserable with respect to directions, but Bertha behaved well.

She’s parked up, locked up and will be sorted out tomorrow. Will we leave Brisbane tomorrow or Thursday? No plan yet.Read more