Missing bits for the solar installation, including the four new AGM batteries have finally arrived and been fitted.
The inverter and charger are wired up in the boot, the Morningstar solar charger is installed and showing all is well with the battery bank fully charged.
Only trouble is the existing 12v wiring seems to have decided to do things its own way and when you switch on the pump the kitchen light comes on!
Have left the bus overnight so they can get an early start. As usual, it has taken nearly double the time they initially indicated. Luckily the labour was costed into the quote.
About eight years ago I was in a minor dispute with the Tax Office and they requested bank statements for the previous five years.
Not a problem I tell the accountant, they’re in a box in the basement storeroom and I’ll send them to you by the end of the month.
It was not to be. A wild storm, a blocked drain, and the storeroom was flooded. By the time I realised what had happened, about three days later, the documents were a solid brick of sodden paper.
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When friends and family ask me why I am heading off next month, to live and travel on the road, I refer them to this quote by G.K. Chesterton:
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
At times I felt like I was living that nursery rhyme.
Take Madam Plush’s makeover, for example. It started with ripping out the existing carpet in the back lounge, a weary, stained excuse for a floorcovering.
As I lifted the first corner I noticed a big damp patch and had no clue as to its origin.
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In April 1861, the explorers Robert Burke and William Wills — sick, starving and desperate to survive — abandoned their surveying instruments and other ‘non-essential’ items in outback Queensland and continued south on their ill-fated journey.
Almost 150 years later, in a discovery being proclaimed as the holy grail for Burke and Wills enthusiasts, a Melbourne academic claims he has found some of the equipment buried in a creek bed hundreds of kilometres inland from Brisbane.
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Can’t win some days. The solar installers are still waiting for four 100Ah AGM batteries that were ordered from the “North Island’ nearly two weeks ago.
If they don’t arrive today they probably will not get here for another week thanks to the Easter break.
There’s one month exactly to go for a rather special birthday, and that’s the day I plan to hit the road.
Today was a good one in terms of getting the bus ready for the big adventure … the solar panels are finally in place. Unfortunately, Easter gets in the way and the final wiring will only be done next week.
There are 420W of solar panels up there, and 150W are angled to get the early morning sun, an advantage of having the ‘penthouse’. Am almost tempted to add more to the penthouse pop-up … that should ensure a kickstart to any day.
Next time the price of diesel goes up too high, I’m investing in one of these.
There’s something basic about cooking on a naked flame outdoors, and many years of camping has reinforced that primeval urge.
And that’s where I’ll be doing most of my cooking when I hit the road again.
Besides the sheer pleasure, there’s another valid reason — kitchen grease and grime.
Just last week, while checking out my ‘bricks and mortar’ kitchen and trying to decide what to take with me I thought I’d top up my rice and pasta containers.
As I took them down one by one, I saw how each of them was covered in a fine layer of grease — and that’s in a kitchen with a three-speed fan extractor with carbon filters directly over the stove!
Imagine the same scenario in the bus. As it came, there was no extractor, just a nearby window. I could see myself cooking there with a sidewind blowing straight at me, needing to close it and then watching a fine mist settle on everything inside.
Sure the weather is not always going to suit my outdoor endeavours, but neither will I be layered in grease.
Hollywood could not have scripted it better.
