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.