Kangaroos at our campsite

Every lunch break on the road...

...has a top restaurant view like this (Ulladulla)

Kangaroos at the new campsite

Seti spies his first Kangaroos

Campsite at Kioloa Beach

"I'm over gardening and housekeeping.... almost"

My portable herb garden - a manageable size

Kangaroo Valley camp aspect

The Brenda and Roy pond

My husband Roy always said "I like a little gardening."  Meaning, he liked as little as possible.

I used to like it, but my back doesn't.

So while I've been happy to give away a permanent house and garden, it doesn't mean I can't do a little cultivation.

So we now have a travelling herb garden - rocket, chives and coriander, as suggested by our friend Ann.
I'll be using it in our dinner tonight.

How green is their valley!

Descending from NSW's Southern Highlands into Kangaroo Valley

Kangaroo Valley bridge

a Mediaeval flavour 

A quaint village where nothing much happens

Nothing much happening - and loving it. Time for our first beer at the village pub.

On Cloud 9

 

At Richmond for a few days.

We woke up this morning to a hissing, rasping noise.

We discovered a balloon taking off from a field right in front of our van. It had 'Cloud 9' written on the side  and that pretty much sums up our mood.

The sight reminded us of Egypt and balloon flights over Luxor and of Roy's book 'The Smiting Texts' where the hero, controversial Egyptologist Anson Hunter, describes such a flight...

THE SUN ROSE over the Nile, yellow and steaming, only minutes before their golden balloon lifted into the sky like a second sun.

Anson, Kalila, the SCA woman, Saneya, and the Americans took off in a field not far from the Ramesseum, with a couple of guards along, AK47s cradled in their arms, all crowding a wicker basket that their Egyptian captain assured them could hold up to twelve passengers.

They climbed into a cloudless sky. Anson expected a sensation of losing his stomach. Instead, the ascent was smooth and steady, yet all the more breathtaking.

The captain, who stood in the middle, drowned out their excited murmurs by releasing a blast from the balloon’s gas jet burners. A flame of dragon’s breath seared up into the belly of the balloon, lifting them higher. When the burners were silent, they could suddenly hear roosters down below and a dog barking. Anson saw a dog go between close-walled houses in a village huddled next to the Ramesseum. The untidy roofs were strewn with dry palm leaves.

They gained altitude and he had the feeling that their balloon, in the shape of a giant light bulb, was like a golden idea of Egypt rising in his mind, a bubble containing memories of the past and his dreams of finding a link with his father that had buoyed him since he was a child.

They left the acid-green swathe of vegetation that edged the Nile, drifting in a current of air. Below them, the Ramesseum mortuary temple shrank to the size of a child’s toy blocks and the seated twin statues of Memnon appeared like children perched on stools.

Kalila pointed to the north-west, to the curving bay of cliffs of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari and beyond that the Valley of the Kings, a golden valley cobwebbed with paths like keloid scars, running to and from the buried treasure houses of the dead.

Anson scanned the caramel-coloured hills that were rapidly turning golden as the sun rose higher. This spread of cliffs and desert below their basket hid the dream of immortality of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs, each tomb a private heaven of riches, comforts and splendour.

Was there one place that began it all, the magic of its gold giving birth to heaven? His father’s eye had roamed all over Egypt. Where could he have made such a discovery?

Is it here? Am I looking down on heaven, hidden below?

Probably not, he decided, but it was a heavenly view.

The dragon roared, spewing gas flame up into the cavern of the balloon.

They were looking down on the greatest necropolis of all, yet it looked as innocuous as a wrinkled blanket.

We are drifting, not just in a balloon, but in our progress, the thought occurred to him.

I am halfway through this tour and still I have no real answers.

When they finished, they landed and hit ground, with no more than the slightest bump, at the edge of a sugar-cane field.

Anson felt as if had come down to earth. The sun was staring now.

 
Excerpt from The Smiting Texts (Amazon Kindle)

This Richmond site is as cheap as chips at $10 a night! (Just a stopover before heading to the Southern Highlands.)

Big propellor miltary aircraft from Richmond air base thrum overhead now and then - Roy loves the sound of them.

This morning we head off to Kangaroo Valley, Southern Highlands.

"Yes, but what's your home address?" (The RTA response to Grey Nomads)

Had a funny incident at the Roads and Traffic Authority in Forster.

We dutifully went to the RTA to advise of our change of address.

We told a shaven-headed bureaucrat with a beard who said, tapping on his computer keyboard: "What's the new address?"

We gave him our postal box number in Penrith South.

"We can't accept a postal address," he said. "What's your home address?"

"We don't have a home."

"You're homeless," he said disbelievingly, eyeing my Prada Miu Miu eye-glasses.

"Yes and no. We've sold our home and now don't have one any more."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, we now have a Winnebago Diversion motorhome and travel all over Australia"


"I can't put a postal address for your license on our computers," he told us. "What if the police stop you? They'll want a home address."

"So we have to buy a home so we can show the police an address?" I said.

"Look, if you're not going to take this seriously then I can't help you," he said. "Don't' you have somebody else's address you can give?"

"Is that legal?" I said, shocked, "giving someone else's address for your license?"

He looked dogged.

"Think about it," my husband Roy said patiently.  "We can't be Robinson Crusoe here. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of grey nomads who don't have homes anymore. Maybe you should change your system."

"That's the law," the bureaucrat said. "If you're not happy with the system, tell your local member of parliament."

"And who would our local member be?" Roy said. "We don't have a local anything anymore."

Now the RTA guy was giving us death glares.

"Well, you just wait until the police stop you," he said.

"Obviously the system can't cope with us," I said.

The RTA man couldn't.

So we shrugged and left.


FINAL PHOTOS OF TUNCURRY.  (NEXT STOP KANGAROO VALLEY, SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS.)

Forster-Tuncurry bridge in our Silvery Nomad

Silver Reflections of Forster-Tuncurry bridge

It feels wonderfully strange living in The Silvery Nomad

The Silvery Nomad gets a lot of attention

It feels wonderfully strange to wake up in the morning at the edge of a lake

Roy is not quite up to swimming in the heated pool yet after his op, as you can see, but it didn't stop me! Delicious.

It's so easy to set up camp and also to pack away for a bit of sightseeing or a quick trip into a town (Forster) for shopping.

Roy remarked that "it still feels strange living and sleeping in our Silvery Nomad, but only in the same way that waking up in a boat cabin on the Nile feels strange.  Wonderfully strange."

But strange is what we have chosen. If it felt normal, it wouldn't be such fun or stimulating to the mind and the senses.

So quick and easy to set up or pack away for sightseeing or a trip to town

We are 'over' normal everyday living.

Normal everyday living really means every day is pretty much the same.

That's not to say we lack normal creature comforts.

A read-made double bed that winds down automatically at night at the push of a button.

We actually sleep on top. You can still sit below and watch TV with the bed down.

We have a lovely club lounge to relax in. A shady verandah under our wind-out awning where we can sit and enjoy a G&T.  

We have everything that opens and shuts here.

The club lounge. Members only.

Also a heated pool. Lakeside barbecues. Fishing spots just metres away. Perfect TV reception in our van... we brought videos along to watch, but we haven't been bored enough to watch them yet.

Even a bar - very seventies retro

The Merc Diversion gets a lot of attention. A group of about 15 Probus members, partying at a lakeside barbecue nearby, were having bets the other night on how much our Winnebago Diversion costs - with bets ranging from $80,000 to $200,000!


Finally, one of them couldn't resist coming over the next morning to settle the bet.  

The bottom range was a bit low and the top range a bit high, so nobody won the bet!

The Great Lakes, Tuncurry-Forster, NSW - more silvery reflections

Lovely lakeside campsite for a bit of fishing and relaxation

View from inside the van, across the lake

View from the man-cave

Just a three hour drive from the Central Coast, we arrived at The Great Lakes, where we'll stay for a week or two.

We have pelicans on parade in front of our van.  

Tuncurry is an aboriginal word meaning 'place with plenty of fish'.  Here's hoping. 

This new lifestyle is very easy to take! Here's our current address. Like the sound of it?