All things spiritual

I apologise to all of you who are not into spirituality for this post, but there are some who may find this interesting.

For a year or so now Rosy and I have had this feeling that the universe has been conspiring to have us try out this lifestyle. We don't know why, but we went with what we felt. I mean if you don't try these things you end up with a lot of regrets. Anyway, a dear friend of mine sent me a dvd, which I received yesterday. It wasn't on a subject matter that I thought was relevant to Rosy and I, but it did have something very interesting to say. It's about the four great services of myth. And that the individual or community has a living connection with
1/ Nature
2/ The tribe
3/The Cosmos
4/Sense of personal identity

Well you can't get more involved with nature than staying on the beach in a little area of forest, being mindful of what resources you utilise.

And you can't get more involved in a tribe than other caravaners and people who stay in caravan parks. They are so friendly and help each other at the drop of a hat. Everyone is full of stories. Sitting around their campfires, reminising about the one that got away.

Rosy and I have be working with our own unconscious content for a number of years now. Yes we do believe there is something bigger than the individual. In the dvd the speaker quoted,
Yes, the world is bigger than "I" am.
Yes, the world is more powerful than "I" am.
Now spend the next 8 or 9 decades getting used to it.

And last of all, Rosy and I are discovering ourselves and who we are meant to be - not what our parents and society thought we should be. Our own sense of personal identity. Mainly through dream analysis and lots of communicating with each other.

So as you can see the similarities to our current lifestyle fit into the four great services of myth. We had never known that this theory existed and it sort of explains what has been guiding the both of us in our endevours. Interesting hey?

Angel on the beach.

Every day, after we have had breakfast in bed (around 8:30am) it is time to go to the beach and take Angel for her morning constitutional. She is such a different dog on the beach and now has no problem with going up to any dog and saying "Hey" (as they unceremoniously sniff each others butts). The walks we use to have in Engadine were very different and full of anxiety. It seems that all the fuss is about Angel going where she wants to go, and if she can't go there she whines and barks. It brings a tear to my eye to have anxiety free walks. She is reminisant of a toddler who just wants to go and explore, while the mother is worried about he/she is getting up to. When Rosy calls Angel to have a drink of water, she comes over bregrudgingly, just like a kid would say "Oh Mum..I've had a drink can I go now." After a week of this we just ignore what she does on the beach now, and she seems to be all the better for it.

Rosy and I started to notice that Angel was giving the ocean a wide berth so we have been getting her use to it, enticing her with food treats. Although it looked like Angel was just copying what Rosy did, with not getting her feet wet with her shoes on. Just today Angel was getting into the surf and running along. She even went over to the pond and ran into it. We saw her go in and suddenly she disappeared. She mustn't have noticed the sandy bottom dropping away from her. We were wondering if she knew how to swim and suddenly we see this little white head bop up and down (doing dog paddle) until she got to a place where she could stand up. It didn't bother Angel and she still ventured into the ocean after this event.

Just as a treat we have put a video on the blog of Angel on the beach. If you want to watch it and have speakers, be sure to turn the audio on. Just double click the thumbnail image on the right. The video will give you some idea of how Angel goes for a walk now. Let us know what you think of the video through the comments section.

Yesterday, Angel met up with a rather large Golden Retriever. This dog was so cute. It would run into the surf and then lie down in the water, waiting for Angel to make a move. Then this dog would run out and roll all over the sand. Then the whole process would begin again. We get to talking a bit with other dog owners and mostly they say what a well behaved dog Angel is. What the!!!!!

I feel so happy that Angel has found her Nervana. And the great news is that she spends the rest of the day outside the van, behaving herself.

Well, I must away now, even though I don't have anything to do. I think I will just BE, for a while.

Survival week 1

Well, we survived our first week of caravan life and haven't been voted off the island (c/park) yet.

As first time caravaners we are constantly learning things our new home. Firstly, we learned (or should I say reconfirmed) that the NSW Government will take any opportunity to squeeze money from people. We bought our caravan second hand caravan through a dealer and were well aware that we would have to pay stamp duty to transfer the registration from the previous owner to us. What we didn't know was that the poor dealer is also hit for stamp duty they take over the registration of the caravan even though they are merely acting as a seller. However, I'm sure this gets passed onto the buyer so we would end up paying stamp duty twice. So not only did Morris and friends collect $800+ in stamp duty from us for this caravan they also collected $300+ from the dealer for the same caravan. I won't even go into how repetitious the rego transfer form was.

Secondly, we learned that the caravan is quite watertight even with the 4 seasons roof hatch open in rain mode position (this leaves the roof hatch open just a bit to let air flow through). Late yesterday, there was a torrential downpoor while we were out so we crossed our fingers and hoped that we wouldn't come back to puddles of water. The only soggy things we found when we got back were the 2 towels hanging over the back bumper bar.

And lastly, we moved the caravan to be in a more level position today. We would have done this last week however no sooner had we got here, than another couple came in straight after us and parked where we needed to move to. It didn't matter as they left today so we have the whole area to ourselves (at least for today). Stephen did a fantastic job of backing the van up hill and relocating us down into just the right spot. I must say a big "thank you" to the person or magazine, I can't remember which, who suggested to getting walkie talkies to help with directing someone who is backing a caravan. It made the job so much easier. It takes a bit of practice not only to do the backing, but to give clear directions (not really my strong suit) AND operate the w/t but we got there in the end.

Now we are happily balanced in our new spot and will put up our awning tomorrow. That'll be another learning exercise (the guy from the dealership spent more time showing us how to put up the awning than anything else on the caravan and there were about 100 instructions to remember). We'll tackle that tomorrow - today we'll just enjoy where we are.

"Shitter's Full" (National Lampoon Christmas Vacation)

One of the reaons Rosy and I picked this carvan was the open space it had for the things we wanted to do in it (get your mind out of the gutter). We decided not to get a caravan with an ensuit because it reduces the amount of space available in the van, they take a lot of cleaning, and they wanted an extra $10,000 for a metre square floor space taken up by the shower and toilet.

So, we decided to get a "g'zunder", a neat little toilet that stores in the van and we can use in the middle of the night, rather than having to walk to the amenities in the cool night air (sorry for the subject matter).

Anyway, today we had to find out what to do with the contents of said toilet. It was surprising how clean and easy it was, so don't be afraid to look at this type of option for your next camping holiday. They all operate with detachable cartridges that you can carry to the "dump" and empty out. All in all it has worked quite well and if you didn't know there was a toilet in the van, you would never know.

Every day I learn something new.

We've been in our c/van at Bonny Hills nearly 4 days now and I just love being here. It's a great spot to slip into our new nomadic lifestyle and get used to living in our new mobile home. I must admit I was a bit nervous about driving the c/van from Pt Mac down to here but it really wasn't as difficult as I thought. 2 things I've discovered about towing the van I will share with you: 1) when Navman says turn in 600m don't wait until the next time they say turn to put your foot on the brake as there's no way the c/van will slow down in time; 2) if the c/van salesman says "No, you won't need driving mirrors if you have a Landcruiser", don't believe him.

That discovered, we made it here safely and found a shady spot all to ourselves where we could unhitch the van. This proved to be the next challenge. As it was our first time out with the c/van (apart from the little park at Settlement Pt) we chose a site we could drive through. However, the site had a bit of a slant to it. Stephen did a great job doing all the winding to level the van while I watched little bubbles move around in the spirit level (much less strenuous). Then suddenly, we heard a clunk and saw that one of our front stabiliser legs had buckled. Aggh!!~! It looked like we were going to have to make Bonny Hills our permanent home as there was no way we could raise or lower the leg to move the van. Thankfully, with the help of a mallot, a hammer and much persistence, Stephen was able to bash it into back into shape so the leg can be raised again. We'll get the leg replaced when we move away from here around Nov.

The c/van is now starting to look like a little home sweet mobile home. We've been sorting through all the bags of clothes and stuff we brought up from Sydney. I'm REALLY surprised we've managed to find spots for just about everything we brought, however, we now have a box in the back of the car full of "nice to have's but no room to keep" which will go back into storage when we come back down to Syd in Nov.

We're definitely getting into the swing of this holidaying by the beach lifestyle. Relaxed breakfasts followed by long walks along the beach. Angel loves it too!

More to come later. Bye for now and hope you enjoy reading our blog.
Bye for now, Rosy.

Arrival at Bonny Hills

Just 20 minutes south of Port Macquaire we found a lovely little caravan park at Bonny Hills, overlooking Rainbow Beach (see picture).

Rosy and I had a good look around to find a good location (that we could drive through, rather than reverse in) and that had good Internet connectivity.

I hd a couple of hiccups with the uncoupling and levelling, but this is a pretty big learning curve. We have walkie talkies to communicate with each other when manouvering the caravan around objects and when reversing. A workmate of Rosy's suggested it to her as a means of saving the marriage when driving caravans. It also saves on disturbing other visitors. Rosy did a great job in placement of the van, even after doing a little bit of reversing.

We had our first night in the van and other problem solving situations arose, but then in the grand scheme of things they are not that big a problem. I am sure we will get them worked out over time. The important thing is that we have the desktop computer and notebook operating as this is our entertainment centre and my tools for Internet work.

It's a beautiful day today so we went for a walk along the beach. We passed most of the people and Rosy let Angel off the leash. She shot out of the barriers like a greyhound and went and sussed out every person, dog and pebble. We ended up putting her back on the long lead after it took us a few minutes to get her attention back. That's enough Coke for her. Surprisingly, the stay Angel had in the dog kennel, while we set up things, has given her a better temperament. She hasn't gone off the deep end with any other dog, so far. Also, we have neighbours with two cavalier king charles spaniels (both female) and they all get on so well with each other.

Bonny Hills Caravan Park is only small, with room for about 20 carvans. As long as the hoons stay away over school holidays we will most probably stay here until Cathies wedding in November.

Stephen

We're On Our Way - Ah Ha, Ah Ha.

Well, we arrive in Port Macquarie in one piece and found a nice little caravan park at Settlement Point on the northern outskirts of the town. We got a cabin for a few nights and it overlooks the Hastings River. We were greeted with the most glorious sunset. The park owner is a nice guy and very obliging and vague, which seems to suit us down to the ground seeing we didn't know what to expect with the caravan.

The day finally arrived to collect our van. We were a little late, but it didn't seem to matter because Barry from Watson's Caravans put an electric brake pack in my hands and directed me to an auto mechanic he had booked. It took the best part of the morning for the gadget to be fitted to Herc (short for Hercules, the name we call our Landcruiser). Then in the afternoon we went back to Watsons and they started to show us the ins and outs of the van and how to operate everything. What a brain override that was. Luckily Rosy had a pen and paper handy to jot most things down.

They got to the stage where it was time to hitch the van to Herc and they asked us to unlock the existing tow bar ball. We looked at each other puzzled. What lock? What key? We had no idea what they were talking about and we definitely didn't have a key to unlock the device. No matter, I asked if there was a locksmith in town, of which there was, so off we went. Although the van people were a bit concerned as they weren't quite sure that the locksmith would be able to take the lock off. Apparently, caravaners use them to stop people from stealing their Hayman Reece apparatus, which cost about $1000 a piece. Anyway, we get to the locksmith and they say they will try to unpick the lock. After about an hour they decide that isn't going to work so they then decide to drill through the lock. That didn't work wither. Then they try drilling through the bolt. Hey presto! One busted lock.

It's now 4:30pm and Watson's shut at 5pm. I don't know. these people who live out in the country and have other lives. Well, you can imagine how quickly they showed us how to hitch and unhitch the van, and a very quick lesson on how to reverse it. I have to say though, they were really good with detailing the van, adding quite a few things to it for no extra cost. As it was the Hayman Reece sway bar, the electric brake were thrown in. They basically got the unit in working order before they let us out the gate.

Then it was time to drive out. I had asked Rosy if she wanted the honours, but guess what, she didn't want to do it. So off we go. I have to say, it was remarkably easy. Not at all how I had imagined it. The power of Herc made it feel like i wasn't towing anything at all, and because the twin axles are at the back of the van, it basically followed the tyre marks of Herc. We were going through round-a-bouts and corners and speed humps with very little effort. Wahoo!!!

We have decided to settle in a place called Bonny Hills, about 30 minutes south of Port Macquarie. It is right on the beach and we are looking forward to getting there and setting everything up.