Wednesday, 14th April .....

We’ve been home for two days so it’s time we were off again. We’ve started to refine our packing and have a few more clothes and food for a longer trip. I’m keen to spend a few days at Narawntapu National Park which is about 50Km from Deloraine. It’s lunchtime before we’re ready to drive out. I know that it will take us another hour to have lunch at home so I suggest we go anyway and stop somewhere along the road for a picnic.

Five or six kilometres out, Marilyn realises she has forgotten the bread. It’s just as well she remembers now as we are able to stop at ETC at Elizabeth Town. Any later, and we would have had to make a lengthy detour to stock up. Parramatta Creek is the choice for a lunchtime stop, before turning off the highway at Sassafras to head for Narawntapu.

This is the first park in Tasmania to be given an aboriginal name. It is on the coast not far from Port Sorell. We have a beautiful site among mangroves and casuarina trees. There are lots of animals and birds around and the place comes alive at dusk.

Camped across from us are two middle-aged women with a Corolla and tent. They seem to be pretty well organized and know what they are doing. We’ve only managed to say hello to them as they are keeping pretty much to themselves

Not far from them is Mike who is traveling alone in a Jayco Heritage van pulled by a Territory. He has recently retired from the Public Service and we had an interesting chat about his time as State Director of Disability Services.

Marilyn and I did a fantastic walk today, through a ti tree forest and coastal heath, then across some sand dunes on to a beautiful deserted beach. The round trip took about 90 minutes.

Tomorrow, we have to go up to Launceston for the day but will leave the van here and come back to it tomorrow evening.

I’ve just finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest so, for a change of pace, I’ve started The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins. I’ve read a few of his books and articles and find his explanations of evolution fascinating. Mike recommended The Book Thief so I’ve added that to my list.

Second shake-down trip .....

Home for a day and we’re off again to Ross. This time, we have a powered site beside Roger and Shirley from Sarina in Queensland. They have a camper trailer which folds out and a very well organized flat-tray Navara with everything they will need for a long trip. They’ve also been on the road for fourteen months and in Tasmania for four months. They say they’ve just scratched the surface.
Every day we realise something else we’ve forgotten. This time Marilyn didn’t have a bread knife to slice the beautiful little loaf we bought at the local bakery so I had substantial sandwiches for my lunch, hacked from the loaf with a table knife.

That evening, we had a great meal at the Man o’ Ross Hotel and, because the night was a little cool, we tried out our diesel heater. It’s a wonderful thing and we find it works well if we turn it on for 40 minutes, then leave it off for an hour before turning it on again for another 40 minute. The control is beside Marilyn’s bed so she takes full advantage of the convenience.

It’s a cool and overcast day so we’re spending most of the time inside, catching up on our journals. We’ve had a good walk and have discovered parts of Ross we’ve never seen before. We plan to head back to Deloraine tomorrow ready for the beginning of a new week. I have a meeting on Monday for the official hand-over of Giant Steps’ new multi-purpose hall. That will be the culmination of many months of planning and negotiation.

The first trip .....

April 3rd - fed up looking at the van not being used and bored with taking it out for some backing practice - decide we will pack it up and get away for a couple of days. Marilyn wants to do some cooking first and has a couple of her past students calling at about 2 o’clock to see the van but we plan to be away by 3. Fat chance!

With one thing and another, it’s 5.30 before we drive out, only to stop after 100m because I forgot the mirrors! We end up at a free parking area at Latrobe just 41 Km away, but it was a great place to make sure we know how to deal with batteries and toilet and awning and so on.

We finished up being at Latrobe for four days. On the first morning, we were called over to look at a platypus looking for his breakfast in a few inches of water in a filthy roadside ditch. Otherwise, it was an uneventful stay. We met Frank and Jan from Geraldton. They have been on the road for 14 months with a 21-foot van pulled by an Iveco utility packed to the rafters. Their dalmatian, Murdoch, travels with them.

I’ve promised myself that I would make time to read the three Stieg Larsen books when I retired and luckily I’ve found electronic copies on the internet. My Bebook has been returned to the manufacturer for repairs but I am using the little netbook in the meantime. It means I can’t sit out in the sun to read but that’s OK.

Delivered at last .....

The weekend that we received the phone call that the dream machine was ready, we flew to Melbourne to check everything was as it should be. It was also the weekend before the opening of the Caulfield Caravan Show - hundreds of vans on display in the one huge venue. And, of course, it was the weekend of Melbourne’s most damaging hailstorm on record. Every van at the show was damaged but ours, which was in the dealer’s yard a few kilometres away, was undamaged.

The arrangements for picking up the ‘van in Dandenong brought their own dramas. Getting a booking on the Spirit of Tasmania was not as simple as we thought and we had to pay a bit more than we anticipated. However, by this stage we were so anxious to take delivery and start to plan our adventures, we didn’t count the cost.

We were booked on the boat on Tuesday, 9th March and could not return until the following Tuesday, 16th. That gave us the chance to have a few days in Albury to see Karen and Tony, have the car fitted with the appropriate gear and take part in a Tow-ed course.

We are great fans of the Victorian Government’s cheap fares for Seniors. $3.40 bought us day tickets for unlimited travel on metro trains and trams. It was only about $26 for a return ticket to Albury.

It was great to see Karen, Tony and Montana. Samara is studying at Wollongong University so we missed her this time but we had lots to talk about. Their house in Baranduda Range is a delight with a wonderful ambience and nooks and crannies everywhere. When we were there, the carpets had been ripped up and were being replaced so Karen had booked us into a motel in town. Perhaps she thought we were too precious to put up with a little bit of untidiness. Anyway, we enjoyed the visit and want to get back there as soon as we are on the mainland.

The Tow-ed course was a hard day’s work. It was about 35 degrees, we were on a tarmac carpark and it was difficult to concentrate on the instructions. The techniques are very helpful but it will take years before we have the experience and confidence to deal with all eventualities. Still, we now have our certificates to prove that we know what we are doing.

So, back to Devonport on the Spirit and the pleasure of seeing the ‘van sitting outside the house ready for our first trip.

Retirement at last .....

The actual retirement was a bit of a fizzer. The end of the year is such a busy time in schools that we didn’t expect much of a fuss. Marilyn’s farewell function was low-key but Giant Steps made a real effort to thank me for the ten years I have been Principal. We had dinner with the Board and received great gifts.

The new Principal asked me to stay on for a few weeks to support her taking over and tie up the loose ends of the building program sand some other issues. I agreed to be available until Easter and we moved into a school house that was available for the period.

It was certainly an anti-climax to retire but still be around and our decision to have a Christmas and New Year cruise on the Diamond Princess gave some focus to the holiday break.

We were pretty busy during January, helping to get the new term under way and moving some of our possessions into a storage shed in preparation for the big trip. February was spent in organizing doctors’ appointments to make sure we had dealt with any potential health issues, and there were frequent demands on my time from the school. One more pleasant task was to fly to Melbourne to collect a new bus for the school. We took the chance to see Jersey Boys which was fantastic.

The dream realised ......

One nugget I gleaned from the internet was the existence of Scenic Caravans in Dandenong. They specialise in custom-built vans and provide reclining leather chairs when requested. The beauty of going down this track is that the chairs are an integral part of the design and the van is engineered to accommodate them.

At the time, they were advertising a second-hand van with recliners so I emailed them to make some enquiries. A couple of days later I received a phone call from Dave Hamilton who is the designer of their vans and chief salesman. Five minutes with him changed my thinking to the possibility of a new van. The deal was their “Show Special’ - 19-foot caravan with centre-door, air conditioning, shower and toilet, queen-size bed, a washing machine, and leather recliner chairs, at a terrific price - just a wee bit more than we were considering for a second-hand one. Who could resist? Certainly not Marilyn!

We arranged a trip to Dandenong to have a look and July 19th saw us on the train with high hopes that we were about to realise our dream. There was a little thought nagging at me that it seemed too good to be true but my pessimism was misplaced - all the vans we saw were fantastic and Dave could not have been more helpful.

The deal was done and, after listing the few extras we couldn’t live without and choosing the colours, we handed over a cheque for $1000 and went home to wait for November 19th, the notional completion date.

November came and went and it was not until March that we finally took delivery. That was our choice as we knew we wouldn’t be ready to set off until then.

Searching for the dream caravan .....

I don’t remember when Marilyn made the suggestion that maybe we should look at getting a caravan and tour around. It was certainly some time in 2008 because, when we changed our car in September of that year, we picked one which could pull a ‘van comfortably. Previous to this, she had been talking about getting a small, modern, minimalist apartment somewhere, and now this had morphed into a small, modern minimalist caravan which we could take anywhere in Australia.

I found this suggestion very exciting. I dreaded the idea of an apartment or a small cottage because I know that we would find it difficult to afford anything that would satisfy both of us, and, with all of our somewhat diminished superannuation going into the purchase of the residence, we would be dependent on the pension for day-to-day living. Not much chance of luxury cruises then!

Typically, we hadn’t let grass grow under our feet and had checked out the caravan dealer in Launceston to see what he had. At the beginning, we thought a 16-foot van might be enough. In my mind, I thought one weighing about 1500 Kg would be the optimum for us. Of course, as we looked more seriously, we expanded our ideas to encompass shower and toilet, etc.

The choice of second hand vans in Tasmania is quite limited so, after visiting all the options in the state, we took a trip to Victoria to look at some pre-owned Jayco Discovery ‘vans in Geelong. In fact, we visited several dealerships in that area but didn’t find anything which caught our attention.

Of course, I had scoured the internet, and made lists of possibilities but each of them lacked one feature or another.

Marilyn’s sister, Anne, and her husband, Alan, have been traveling in a caravan for about 7 years so their advice was welcome. It was interesting that they had almost given up travelling because they found the standard caravan seating too uncomfortable. At home they have reclining chairs; in the caravan, they didn't have the same comfort. Alan was even considering trading-in his van and buying one with comfortable seats so they could travel for a few years longer.

Things were becoming clearer. I was getting a better picture of the ultimate ‘van. My internet searching focused on finding a van with recliner chairs - rare as hens’ teeth and, in many cases, a bit dodgy. I had been warned that a lot of ‘van owners had decided to do their own installation of recliners without any regard for the structural integrity of the body. When they started to hear creaks and groans, they quickly put their ‘van up for sale before anything serious went wrong.

In the beginning .....

The decision was made early in 2009 that Marilyn and I were both ready to retire. By the end of the year we would have given almost 10 years to our jobs and perhaps it was time to move on to the next stage of our lives. It is fair to say that Marilyn was the one who needed to be convinced that retirement could be an attractive option. She was convinced that I would have no trouble keeping myself busy but, in her mind, she ‘had no staying-at-home skills’ and would likely go mad with boredom. Her only plans for retirement were to become a hospital visitor and that certainly wouldn’t fulfil her in the long term.

Apart from my Rotary involvement, neither of us had any particular interests outside of work. Marilyn’s job as coordinator of the girls’ Boarding House at LCGS had been very demanding and took up all her energies, leaving nothing left for the normal interests of those in the 60+ age group (whatever those interests might be!).

We were on a cruise during Christmas and New Year when the first suggestions came from Marilyn that this might be her last year. She came to the realisation that, if we wanted to enjoy more cruises and other adventures while we were still reasonably fit, we shouldn’t leave it any longer. Of course, I was delighted. I’d been worried about Marilyn’s health for a while, especially considering the stress under which she worked constantly. Now there was light at the end of the tunnel and something to look forward to. So, the decision was made … the problem now was to plan the sort of retirement we could afford but which would let us do the sorts of things we enjoyed - particularly traveling.