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.

Many phone calls later, the bank finally delivered the needed records, at a price — a big price. Only consolation the ATO agreed with our figures in the end.

I imagined travelling with seven years of business records and started feeling a bit depressed. Then sometime last year I got this from my bank:

Smart Statements You can now choose to view, download and save up to the last 7 years of your statements online free of charge. View your statements online 24/7 within NAB Internet Banking by selecting “account info” then “View statements”.

Good timing for my travels. My paper files gets lighter by the day.

Now I’ve got to find a way to lighten my load of books.

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.

Most of the carpet came off fine, until I tried to unscrew the eight Phillips head screws holding the raised base that originally held a table long missing in action. The first four unscrewed with ease, the remainder seemed welded to the floor and the base.

WD40 initially held promise, but these screws were rusted solid.

I soon found the source of the moisture, it was the built-in Porta-Potti. Apparently it had not been used for so long that every bit of rubber had perished or turned into a rigid mass. And when I had topped it up with the regulation fluids [not bodily, but recommended by the manufacturer] the water simply bypassed the bottom collector and pooled underneath, and over time found a way to seep out into the lounge area.

Luckily it had not been used as intended yet.

Because of the leak I could not put in the new flooring, because of that, I could not start building the ‘office’, because of that I could not build in filing space and shelving, and for the want of

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.

The site, known as the Plant Camp, is integral to the Burke and Wills story because it tells of the increasingly desperate state of mind of the explorers who were unwell, low on supplies and had to abandon everything but their food after a camel died.

At that stage a party of four, the men struggled on from Plant Camp to Cooper Creek (also known as Cooper’s Creek) in South Australia, only to find their support party had given up on them hours earlier. All but one of the explorers, John King, died.

Melbourne academic Frank Leahy discovered the buried instruments in 2007, after a painstaking search that began more than 20 years earlier. Now Mr Leahy and the Royal Society of Victoria want the Queensland Government to declare the site a heritage area.

Items recovered include rifle and revolver bullets, a spirit bubble used for surveying, buckles from belts or strapping, a canvas and leather sewing kit containing pliers and needles, hinges, latches and a paperweight.

“Reading about Burke and Wills and their paperweight,” writes Paul Oxenham, of Haberfield (in a wry note in the Syndey Morning Herald’s Column 8), “reminded me of the ill-fated expedition led by Franklin to find the north-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

“After his ship was trapped in ice, part of the expedition set out across the ice, dragging a whale boat to be used when they reached open water.

“Unfortunately most of the party died before rescuers found them and their boat, which contained, among other necessities of life, coat button polishers.”

As I prepare for my latest adventure I’m trying to be careful about what I take on board, but I feel sure I’ll also end up with a few ‘essential’ paperweights and coat button polishers of my own …

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.

Most of the mechanicals on Madam Plush are now completed, including, new brakes, new steering balljoints, full service, Aussie-sized seatbelts, new drive belts [including alternator belts, air-conitioning belts, and power steering belts], and I’m just waiting on comparatively minor repairs to the awning and dunny.

No, I can’t tell you how much it has cost to date. I’m too scared to add it all up.

I was looking forward to a highway trip and a basic overnighter sometime this week as a shakeup cruise, but looking at the seven-day forecast I’ve had a sudden change of heart.

Can you blame me?

The nomad’s mantra is ‘save weight’. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

But sometimes a small sacrifice has to be made. Last week I spent half a day cruising the local camping shops for some outdoor furniture to fit under the awning.

In the end I simply gave up. Sure a lot of it is lightweight and compact when folded, but the look got to me. It was aluminum tubing, gaudy Hawaiian cushions, springs and bits that like biting your thumbs. The final straw happened while I was trying to fold up an outdoor lounge chair and squashed my index finger.

Bugger.

I have a new mantra. Comfort first. And as part of it I am taking my original Queen Elizabeth First Class deckchair with me. Made of teak and brass it is wonderfully comfortable [and I just saw one for sale on eBay for $US800 and there's still five days left in the auction].

And something else, it is not all that heavy.

It is getting a fresh coat of linseed oil this week, as is the folding wooden table that came everywhere with me while I travelled with Bluey [my red Kombi].

I’m not even on the the road yet, but already the weather has me grounded.

Tasmania had a typical equinoctial storm early in the month. It was wild enough to wake me, inside my solid sandstone walled bedroom.

In the morning I looked out from the back deck and something about Plush’s roofline bothered me. When I inspected the penthouse later I found that the hatch’s top had been cracked wide open.

It had to happen while I waiting for a replacement I had ordered anyway. The original was jammed shut and the insect screen had been holed too many times to repair.

Rain was forecast so I set up a bucket system to hopefully collect any wayward drops of water.

I checked the hatch order [part of a bigger order — including new legs for the awning, the originals simply did not exist, and new seals for the Thetford toilet] but the suppliers were still waiting for the parts to arrive.

Things seemed secure enough until a week later. Another storm came through and in the morning the roof profile looked different again. This time the whole top of the vent had been thrashed. A bigger collecting bucket system was put in place.

It worked, sort of. But the following night another storm front came through and the violent wind sprayed the rain around the upper level like an internal shower on high pressure.

There’s now a brand new hatch in place, and thankfully it passed with flying colours when the heavens opened just hours after I got the bus home.

While I’m still in the midst of getting rid of stuff, I have also, for about two years, been accumulating stuff specifically for going on the road.

It might sound contradictory, but the process has saved me money, and put a lot of my existing stuff into perspective.

I once again have my camping mindset. Packing for those trips I always sought out stuff that was lightweight, compact, absolutely essential, and where possible capable of playing two or more roles.

Some small examples — a sleeping bag storage bag that doubled as a pillow when stuffed with clothes; a walking pole that converted to a monopod with a twist; and the ultimate — my Swiss Army knife which I still use everyday.

On this new adventure I’ll be taking a few home comforts, including the amazing double act of my iPod and Pal radio and speaker system.

The Pal features the audio technology of the amazing Henry Kloss who invented the phenomenal AR [Acoustic Research] speakers. I still have very fond memories of my set of AR7 speakers and the crisp highs and solid bass notes.

I’ve now got the same sound quality emanating from a little box about a tenth the size, with a bonus AM/FM radio and a direct connection for my iPod. Fully-charged the battery gives about 22 hours of playtime.

Hooked up to my iPod I get another level of sound quality and the ability to pick and chose my music. The tiny iPod has 902 songs on it at the moment and is only about a third full.

Oh, and did I mention the amazing battery life?

Stuff. It’s everywhere. Stuff. Stuff. Stuff.

I’m sick of bloody stuff. And I have to get rid of it all before I hit the road.

For starters there’s more than 2,000 books, some of them shown above, being sorted on the lounge floor. There’s more, many more, on bookshelves in the office, the bedroom and in the kitchen.

Downstairs there’s a room full of tools, garden equipment, and gear — for sea kayaks, camping, skiing, bicycling, rafting, scuba diving [including underwater cameras and lights] and bushwalking.

I’ll be sad to see a lot of it go, but at least I will have the memories of many momentous adventures across Australia, in Africa, India, Japan and Europe.

And, talking of memories, another room has six filing cabinets containing thousands of colour transparencies documenting those adventures.

They weigh a tonne, literally, and my attempts to find a useful future for them constantly gets thwarted. A State library was going to take them, but had its budget cut; a Sydney photo-agency reneged at the last minute ["We simply can't handle an influx of 90,000 photographs"] and I can’t afford to digitise them, which would be the perfect solution. Bugger.

For about six years now all my photography has been digital, and thousands of photographs are backed up on a couple of hard drives, each barely the size of a paperback thriller. I like that.

Madam Plush had a fairly schizophrenic interior when I took delivery recently.

The old consists of fine Japanese carpentry used for an elegant lounge, a kitchen bench with a sink and lovely wood and brass door knobs, and a toilet. The wall and door surfaces look enamelled and everything is solid.

There are some touches that might be a bit overdone for a Western eye, but having travelled through Japan, I appreciate the gestures like tasseled curtains and ornate ceiling lights, they have a way of softening the clean lines of the woodwork.

And with typical Japanese ingenuity for small spaces they’ve tucked in a surprising amount of storage nooks.

Upstairs, in the ‘penthouse’, the walls and floor are carpeted. There’s a popup and a small skylight, and if it weren’t for my buggered knees it would make a fine bedroom.

It will now be transformed into an storage attic which frees up more room below.

As it is the lounge is easily converted to a near king-size bed.

I’ve decided to restore the Japanese section as best I can, and everyone who has climbed onboard for a sticky beak has been impressed.

The front of the bus behind the driver’s seat had a strange open cupboard built with chipboard, already swelling from spills on its untreated surfaces, which housed a 110-litre 12/24v fridge and a small gas cooker.

Needless to say it is no more. Instead there is a big open space which will hopefully soon become my office.

This Road Warrior cannot afford to stop working yet, and thankfully technology has come to the rescue in more ways than one. Power, size and cost being the major benefits.