Lee and Azzie - The Life I Want Tour: Day 4

Wow, well this is nothing if not a learning curve lol.

So yesterday I free camped at a lovely river side camping ground in Avoca. I opted travelling via my favorite place in Victoria, Halls Gap in the Grampians. It was a great choice as there was not much traffic between Cavendish and Ararat, where I stopped to have a second key made for the Pajero. Once that was completed, I then traveled onto Avoca and picked out a nice level bit of ground. It was quite warm so once the van was set I thought I would drop down the awning. Therein was the problem. One of the nuts was cross-threaded and it would not budge. I remember the fellow who completed my handover when I bought the van had trouble with it and as I hadn't tried it thus far...I was buggered.

After much swearing and frustration, I put Azzie in the stinking hot van and jumped in the car to find some cold water for us both. By the time I got back I realised that the other few people in the reserve had left and I was the only one there. This presented me with a couple of considerations....one being I wasn't in the shade and needed to move the van, and the other, me alone all night...I needed to hook the van on and leave it like that all night.

So, despite my fatigue, I hooked it up and moved to a shady spot in a position to capture as much breeze as possible. Once satisfied with my second position, I then thought ...I need a drink lol. Fortunately a group of locals had gathered for a Tai-Chi class, so I wandered past them and asked if they could keep and eye out on my van while I walked to the nearest (and only open) pub.

I was hot, sweaty and irritated at the non usage of the awning. So I decided then and there to travel the 45 minutes back to Ballarat to where I bought the van from.

Azzie went for a lovely walk when it was dark (this is her favorite time, well she is a cat and they do hunt at night if let out). I then suddenly realised I had no hot water, and that I hadn't actually tried to use hot water in the previous days. I dragged out the AVAN pouch containing all the relevant paperwork for all the appliances and decided to leave it rather than stuff around with the gas while the car was attached. This too would be rectified the next day at Ballarat.

So today I arrived at Jayco Ballarat at around lunchtime. They remembered me and were more than happy to help me out. So in the space of 20 minutes everything was sorted. Yayyyy. I then drove over to my friend Jenny's place and spent a few hours chatting and catching up with her. I decided to spend the night at Creswick with power to recool the fridge as I had stupidly put it on the wrong setting the previous day and so no refrigeration...doh me. (lesson one lolll)

I arrived at the park at Creswick and it is so quiet and clean. Very impressed with it. Lesson two was when I successfully used the ramps on one side of the van to level it....and then promptly realised I had forgotten to chock the opposite side when the van rolled forward once I took it off the towball....lol. Wow I will not be doing that again hahaha.

I pulled down the awning, turned everything on and am now about to hit the laundry and showers. I am stuffed from the days adventures. Too tired to attend a lovely picnic with some friends here, but that is okay as I will probably be winding my way back through this area in a couple of months, so will catch up then.

So that is the latest update from Lee and Azzie's crazy adventure.