COOKING MEDICINE

So now that Jaimie's an official full-time junkie, our fridge must now accommodate not just our vegetables (and beer + wine) but also Jaimies stash, all £1400 of it! Which is fine except for when our beloved van fridge decides on a drastic change of style, as if being cool 'is just sooo last season' and given that its now almost summer being hot is far more appropriate. NO FRIDGE, NO! Well the down side is we lost all but one of the doses which need to kept between 2 and 8c, the up is that fridgey has now seen the error of its ways and is again going with the whole cool thing again.  Fingers crossed.

WEATHER UPDATE: So I guess a little information on the weather is probably necessary at this juncture, well IT'S HOT! A damn site hotter than Melbourne, hot enough for bananas to be growing and mangoes to be $10 for a whole tray! And for our poor old A.C cooling system in the van to be so feebly outmatched that when it does conjure even a wheeze of cool air the temperature inside the van ensures that by the time the traitorous gust hits your face it's little more than a short lived clammy mist, really less of a refreshing fanning of cool, clean air and more like sitting uncomfortably close to a pubs in-house, senile drunk who won't stop muttering bitter nothings until your pretty sure you don't actually mind the smell of the ale but you can never look at a packet of Benson and Hedges or dry roasted peanuts again for fear of your nostrils fleeing north in sheer terror and penetrating your brain.

Note: Although nakedness whist driving can relieve some of the heat, sun lotion is still, if not more necessary inside the vehicle. Lesson learnt.

SWANSEA TO NEWCASTLE

Convinced that if we don't get north quick Melbourne might somehow get a hold of us, drag us back and hold onto us for another six months!! we put almost a thousand k's behind us, waving as we pass Canberra and Sydney and stopping only briefly through the town of Swansea so our in-house 'original' south Welshy could have a pic, well we had to really didn't we?! Before Swansea we ditch the Hume (inland highway) for the pacific (coastal) and the journey is stupendous, sandwiched by the ocean and a a series of intricate lakes and islands with the road seemingly cut not through, but over the top of the hillsides.

That night we stop in Newcastle in a bizarre camp site or rather a bizarre location for a camp site. On an island adjacent to the largest industrial docklands I have ever seen, which for all their vulgar industrial'ness' create a stunning back drop to the night sky as we find our site. Opting tonight for a more tradition camping ground as it's Tuesday which means.. injection time and 'wacky Wednesday'. No driving on a Wednesday so time to check out Newcastle, which we get to by  shuttle ferry, which crosses the river every half hour, weaving between humongous container ships which pass regularly, loading up day and night on Australia's natural resources and taking them to China to be buried for future use (when the rest of the world is completely dry no doubt)!

Newcastle is nice enough but we see just about all it has to offer in a day and not being overly keen to hang around the white van, leather skinned, 'ow look at my fancy yawning and how it extends and erects effortlessly at the touch of a silky button' (yeah well shame it only erects your awning ey pops!), crew much longer.. come Thursday we bust a groove north toward Byron Bay and the Gold Coast.  

GOODBYE MELBOURNE!

 Monday. After waiting for a last minute once-over at the garage we don't hit the road till 3.33 in the afternoon, well naturally.

Desperate to put distance between us and Melbourne we make it 300km north and into New South Wales. Stopping just over the border on the outskirts of a town called Wodonga. We ignore the signs for the 'Holiday World' tourist park and take a little track off towards the lake, parking up about a meter from the waters edge just before the sun disappeared over the hazy purple horizon. Sooooo good to be out of Melbourne!

The next morning we hit the road early before any yacht club members have the opportunity to tell us to piss off. After a good couple of hours we stop for coffee in a random little town called Holbrook, not fully aware of just how random.. Turns out this twee town that time forgot, little more than a small farming community surviving in-part from the highway which runs through it has a SUBMARINE.. from Scotland, and the town itself is named after its captain. I know! 'What the **** is a 100m WW2 submarine doing in a small farming community 400k from the nearest seaport?! Well as it transpires - during the second world war the towns people had decided to rename the town as they felt it was somewhat inappropriate. I didn't quite understand why personally, GERMANTON seems like a perfectly sound name. So Holbrook it was to be, which then led Commander Holbrook and his wife to the town who then went on to donate the money to bring the sub itself, why not!

AND WERE OFF....ALMOST

Move out of house – check! Service van – check! Shed all unwanted items (return to charity

shop) and return borrowed or stolen things – check! Research route – check! (kind of). Spend last

weekend with friends having fun with intermittent sewing of mosquito net and awning for van

sweat shop styley, Storm pinning, Jaimie sewing... CHECK!!

A little sad to say goodbye to our favourite Melbourne peeps... but not too sad as we'll be back for festivals and new year in December!!!

.............................

.............................

.....................................

....................................