Author: Mrs A
Location: Canowindra, Bathurst and Sydney
Tuesday: Everyone awoke feeling a little dusty after our impromptu celebration on Monday night, but life on a farm must go on, however foggy the heads! Jo somehow found time to show Mark and I around the old house that sits on the property, the central parts still pretty sound after nearly 100 years standing. Jo and Alan have some exciting plans for a new home, office and guest quarters on the site, with building hopefully starting next year.
Mr A and I drove into sleepy Canowindra to send off the last of our eBay sales, a couple of Christmas gifts to the UK, and return our tyre-pressure monitoring kit back to the factory for testing. Despite fully reinstalling the monitors from scratch in the morning, they still failed to show all our wheels on the system.
We were more or less the only people on the streets – it’s amazing how the handful of clothes, craft and trinket shops survive with such light traffic.
Alan, Jo, Mark and I finished off the day by heading into the nearby small town of Cowra, hoping to eat dinner at the Indian restaurant there. Mr A and I had dined there last year, finding the food delicious, and definitely up there with our favourite meals. Sadly, on arrival we found the restaurant in darkness, the phone number seemingly disconnected. What a shame. We opted for the local pub instead, The Oxley, which was buzzing and provided some tasty dinners.
Wednesday: We awoke knowing we had a challenging task ahead of us – to decide what items to take out from the caravan and back to Sydney with us. We were now leaving the caravan until February so had to think about all eventualities. Finally we had packed our bags, done a final tidy up and took the Zone to its undercover storage place. The Zone looked dwarfed by the barn, and we feel sure it’ll be protected from the elements, settled amongst fabulous views over the coming weeks.
We farewelled Jo and Alan and drove to our next destination, Bathurst. There we stopped the night with friend David and his two boys, Felix and Rory, enjoying steak and salad and a good night’s sleep. This is where the Cruiser will spend the next few weeks while we are in New Zealand.
Thursday: David dropped us at Bathurst station and Mr A and I began our slow journey back to Sydney. Boarding a coach to Lithgow at 10am, we finally reached our next accomodation in Matraville around 4.30pm. A long hard slog!
It was great to see Miss Tassie though, and soon our patient and generous flat mates Jenny and David arrived home from work for dinner and a catch up.
We’re definitely clocking up the favours, and feel very fortunate for the strong friendships we have built up over the past 20 years in Australia which are allowing us to enjoy the lifestyle we have chosen.
Friday: After a very sedentary few days, we were determined to get out for a walk. It’s a gorgeous temperature here at the moment, mid 20s, and perfect for a stroll. We walked down to South Maroubra Beach and back, clocking up over 12km – very pretty scenery.
The afternoon was spent doing a little Christmas shopping and a visit to my ENT surgeon (iSGS followers – I had my first awake steroid injection into my stenosis!).
Saturday: A hair cut was in order for me – I decided to get quite a bit chopped off and it’s now the shortest its been in several years – thank you Toni for fitting me in and doing a great job as usual! 
Jenny and David had invited a bunch of their friends over for Christmas drinks and nibbles in the evening, so Mr A and I helped prepare the apartment for visitors, starting with quality testing the beverages – a glass of French Champagne before the guests arrived.
A fun evening proceeded – delicious food and drink accompanied by much laughter and interesting conversations. Fabulous!
What a whirlwind of a seven weeks we have had since arriving back in Australia from the USA! Our goal was to get the house rented again before the Christmas lull, and set ourselves up to be free and funded to travel for the next few years. We decided that meant renting our place longer term and unfurnished, to prevent further deterioration of our contents and allow us to access our things from storage if we needed to either stop travelling and rent, our swap over clothes and gear.
This photo says it all, lots of laughs and drinks, and great food (eventually!). Our friends were so generous with the their time and support. We couldn’t contemplate what we are doing without their help and it is much appreciated.
Of course heading home means a chance to see the dentist and get all essential check ups done…and to have a few doses of general anaesthetic drugs too – in Mrs A’s case at least – Mr A is a finely tuned machine…ah-hem….
We have learnt a lot from our first two experiences as landlords. We wanted to apply that knowledge now and do things a little differently. So we found a new agent, thanks to a great recommendation from friends, and had a much better experience through the marketing and sales process, culminating in a signed agreement within three weeks. Well done Jacquelynn and Jessica of Ray White Freshwater!
There’s nothing like living in a small space (a caravan) to refocus the mind about what you really need to live comfortably! We (Ok lets be honest here, Mrs A played the lead role in this activity) decided on a long list of things we wanted to sell or give away. When we looked at the cost of storage (a tortuous process in itself to find that out!), we quickly realised it made no sense to store things that weren’t really valuable. So it was time to “let go” of furniture we had had for some time, and sell it while it had at least some residual value. There were also things that we felt we wouldn’t need in this next phase of our travels.
We had a few things to sort out. Our first step as always was a review meeting with our financial planner. As usual he provided us with a really high quality assessment of where our investments stand, and what strategies we should use to maximise them going forward. We came away feeling confident that the life plan we have for the next few years (travelling both in Australia and internationally), is affordable now we have set up the house to provide a predicable income supplement to Mr A’s super.
Sadly Tassie can’t be with us on every part of our travels, but she is being so very well looked after in feline foster care with all the warm spots and cuddles she needs.
Two weeks today we will pull out of our driveway unsure as to when we will be back. We have rented the house out again, but this time unfurnished, as we want to continue to travel for at least a year and more likely longer, and offering the place unfurnished means longer more stable rental income. Well thats the plan anyway. We’ve locked in our first tenant with the help of Ray White Real Estate, who will manage the rental while we are away.
So as well as finalising the packing we are organising the multitude of things that you need to change if you will no longer have a permanent address. Of course this has been so much easier now almost everyone can transact with you without sending mail, except the RTA of course, bless them. Oh and CIL, the specialist caravan insurer who would have a huge percentage of their customers of no fixed abode! Some companies are still struggling with the digital transition it seems.
This week was also about medical visits. I had a few tests and saw a doctor about my sore foot – he believes my issues are not neuroma after all, but torn ligaments around my toe – something that can take about 18 months to heal, but can be helped with an orthotic insert. Excellent! I had been fearing surgery was my next step (so to say!).
And I was in hospital for an operation on my airway. I’m starting a new procedure with a new surgeon and hope my idiopathic subglottic stenosis can be kept at bay so more unhindered fun can be had in the great outdoors in the coming months.
There will be a few eBay/GumTree sales coming up too – a few household items, plus our packrafts and Mr A’s single kayak. So lots of work ahead.
Miss Tassie has been enjoying having a wide choice of sunny spots to stretch out in, and has settled in nicely to being back in the house for the time being.
This area has been a gathering place for various Aboriginal tribes, the abundance of seafood in the many lakes and estuaries seems to have been the big draw card. The boards talked respectfully of tapping into the knowledge of the traditional owners to help manage this beautiful stretch of coast. It really does look like the councils here actually have a coherent plan. There were no out of place developments spoiling views. The public areas all neat and scenic.
The cycleway seems to be another success judging by the amount of use it was getting on a weekday. It was a community project started in the 60s and stretches from the south of Narooma through to the next town to the north, Dalmeny. Over 600,000 volunteer hours where contributed by the locals. All inspired by the town mayor with a vision, not of feathering his nest from developers dollars, as seems to frequently the case, but to link the two communities and inspire them to work together. The end result, a 12 kilometre stretch of some of the best coastal riding we’ve ever experienced. It was heartening to see it so well used by local cyclists of advanced years – more advanced than me even.
On the way back we stopped by a boat ramp as we saw a crowd had gathered, and there were more seals being fed fish scraps, and then massive stingrays 2 metres across were amongst them. The rays even came up onto the concrete ramp for a pat (or a fish titbit I suspect). Narooma is like one big sealife show – fantastic.
We finished the day with a stroll from our campsite out onto Handkerchief beach a few hundred metres away. The storms over the last few days are still making themselves felt with a powerful swell. 
However, we have rebooked on our Montague Island trip tomorrow, so hopefully the sea has calmed a little more overnight, or we are in for a very rough ride.
Casting doubts aside we drew away and headed through reasonable (for Sydney) morning traffic. Tassie was a little restless (for new readers she’s our other family member – the Burmese camping cat), but some serious brushing from Mrs A sorted her out.
So here’s the plan in summary.
It is truly a beautiful coastline and we look forward to exploring some more over the coming weeks.
