Saturday, May 13, 2006
WELCOME TO OUR STORY
Well here goes, our first entry into Blog World! This is a journal of our journey of the rest of our lives. Let me introduce ourselves, my name is Jude and my partner is Ferg and currently we live in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. We are both avid scuba divers and underwater photographers. I am a textile artist and I am currently enjoying the arts of silk painting and embroidery.
In December 2005 we decided that life was too short and there was so much that we wanted to do. We made the decision to sell our house and all our possessions, buy a 4wd and caravan and set off around Australia. First step was Ferg retiring on 31st January 2006 after 24 years as a Prison Officer. He was not sad to see the back of the place although he will miss the mateship it provided.
We had been talking about this change in lifestyle for several years and
had been researching caravans and 4wd's for sometime. We had attended the Brisbane Caravan Show in June 2005 which opened our eyes to all that was on offer. We started looking for vans locally in February and found 20' Coramal in Lucinda which was a 2 hour drive north. We fell in love with it and Pat and Ray the owners were wonderful. We looked at many other vans after that but could find no better than the Coramal. So in March we decided to buy it and Pat and Ray delivered the van down to Townsville.
At the same time we had been looking at various 4wd vehicles and eventually decided on a new Mitsubishi Pajero GLS. We purchased it from Brisbane and it was freighted up to us. It arrived one week after the van and a day after Cyclone Larry hit the north Queensland coast. We were on tender hooks for awhile thinking both van and car would be blown away before we had actually used them. All ended well for us, unfortunately not so for others further north in Innisfail.
As the Pajero was new we had to clock up some kilometers before we could tow the van. We took of one Sunday morning at 6am and headed west. We drove out to Mingela, Ravenswood and down to the Burdekin Dam. We stopped there for a picnic lunch and dangled our new fishing rods. No luck, so we headed back through Ravenswood and out to Charters Towers. We turned north onto the Lynd Highway then east onto the Hervey's Range Development road. We stopped at Keelbottom Creek for another dangle and caught our first fish which lived to swim the creek another day. All up we clocked up over 650km in the day and had a wonderful time. The Pajero finally got it's Hayman Reece hitch fitted and we were itching to take the van for a run.
Well here goes, our first entry into Blog World! This is a journal of our journey of the rest of our lives. Let me introduce ourselves, my name is Jude and my partner is Ferg and currently we live in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. We are both avid scuba divers and underwater photographers. I am a textile artist and I am currently enjoying the arts of silk painting and embroidery.
In December 2005 we decided that life was too short and there was so much that we wanted to do. We made the decision to sell our house and all our possessions, buy a 4wd and caravan and set off around Australia. First step was Ferg retiring on 31st January 2006 after 24 years as a Prison Officer. He was not sad to see the back of the place although he will miss the mateship it provided.
We had been talking about this change in lifestyle for several years and
had been researching caravans and 4wd's for sometime. We had attended the Brisbane Caravan Show in June 2005 which opened our eyes to all that was on offer. We started looking for vans locally in February and found 20' Coramal in Lucinda which was a 2 hour drive north. We fell in love with it and Pat and Ray the owners were wonderful. We looked at many other vans after that but could find no better than the Coramal. So in March we decided to buy it and Pat and Ray delivered the van down to Townsville.At the same time we had been looking at various 4wd vehicles and eventually decided on a new Mitsubishi Pajero GLS. We purchased it from Brisbane and it was freighted up to us. It arrived one week after the van and a day after Cyclone Larry hit the north Queensland coast. We were on tender hooks for awhile thinking both van and car would be blown away before we had actually used them. All ended well for us, unfortunately not so for others further north in Innisfail.
As the Pajero was new we had to clock up some kilometers before we could tow the van. We took of one Sunday morning at 6am and headed west. We drove out to Mingela, Ravenswood and down to the Burdekin Dam. We stopped there for a picnic lunch and dangled our new fishing rods. No luck, so we headed back through Ravenswood and out to Charters Towers. We turned north onto the Lynd Highway then east onto the Hervey's Range Development road. We stopped at Keelbottom Creek for another dangle and caught our first fish which lived to swim the creek another day. All up we clocked up over 650km in the day and had a wonderful time. The Pajero finally got it's Hayman Reece hitch fitted and we were itching to take the van for a run.
