Meg and I have been doing a few miles lately, mainly between Clare, Adelaide and Brinkworth. Last Saturday night we were in Adelaide again, moving household items around and helping Raph out.

When I do a bit of driving, I usually take the numbers into account to pass the time and check on the performance of the vehicle, but also because I’ve gotten into the habit. (When I travelled Australian and Europe I posted heaps of data about trips at robstravels.com on the statistics page.)

The tanks in the Patrol were low and as we’d headed to Adelaide, I had been hoping that the bio diesel at Tarlee was still considerably cheaper. A while ago when diesel was $1.82 in Adelaide we’d filled up there for $1.67 – saving about $15 on a tank! But this trip we checked the price on the way through and it was $1.85. With a dwindling tank, I’d resigned myself to high prices in Adelaide.

The Patrol took 108 litres to fill both tanks which was $198.00 at the pump! This was after about 900km of both open road, dirt road, firewood collecting around the property and around town driving. I think that 12 L/100km is pretty good for a heavy 4.2 litre turbo diesel and varied driving.

So with the prices set to go continually higher, maybe next time I’ll crack $200 for a tank? How long before it is $300 per tank? … and how much will this affect how much we travel? So many questions…

Our recent trip away gave us a fair amount of time to chat and think about where we are going. It was about 6000km of travel in a bit more than two weeks and that adds up when you are sitting beside each other and cruising along.

Meg and I talked about some plans for The Journey and got some motivation and inspiration along the way.

The latest plans for the house are for a large living area including kitchen, dining, lounge with a large amount of decking out over the hill. The position of the house (proposed, at the moment) has this room perched over the start of a gully between two hillsides with the decking joining the hills together.

Other rooms will be self contained with walkways joining them together.

We think that we can start with the larger living area, a bedroom and a laundry/bathroom/wet area room, so three buildings in total. Then, as funds and energy return, we can expand into other bedrooms and guestrooms as well as an office.

Besides the house, there is heaps to do including; a garden shed, another tank for gravity fed rainwater to the shed, winter vegies and a garden revamp, a chook house, some more fencing for stock and some stock of some sort.

This is beyond the immediate day to day requirements of work, exercise, producing vegies, fuel (cutting wood for the fire) and living and enjoying our part of the world.

Talking of dreams and ideas, I’ve been watching a show called “Grand Designs” on the ABC occasionally and picking up a lot of ideas and processes about building. This week a couple is building with straw bale (even though it was shot in 1999) and I am interested to catch it.

You can also check it out online at their web site:
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/grand-designs/

Meg and I have travelled around the East Coast of Australia, meeting up with heaps of family members over the last two weeks.

This included Kongorong near Mount Gambier (you can’t go wrong!), the Great Ocean Road into Victoria, Moe and Gippsland, inland and north into New South Wales and Bombala, Batemans Bay, Armidale, Drake, Casino, Lismore and Glenn Innes as well as a half-day trip into Queensland. Our two day return from Armidale took us through Broken Hill and back to Clare.

Rather than a quick post here, Meg will write up a page in the next little while and it will be listed under “Pages” on the menu.

But here is a quick pic from a night of camping in the mountains of South East New South Wales. Quasimodo (the trip mascot) took a while to get out of bed after a night chatting with Sue and Chris from Berry

The climate in South Australia tends to hot, dry summers with daytime temperatures constantly over 30 degrees. The last week has been particularly hot with New Years Eve reaching 42 degrees.

Meg and I were in Adelaide, after catching up with Dave and Cindy and were checking out some used cars with an idea of replacing Meg’s trusty little Holden Nova with a small four wheel drive.

The combination of heat, traffic and dealing with used car salesmen had tensions raised and I’d noticed a slight vibration in the Patrol as we drove between lots. After a brief stop at Tea Tree Plaza I had even visually checked all of the tyres before heading off.

The vibration increased and I coasted to try to resolve the problem as potential causes ran through my head; wheel balance suddenly out, a blocked fuel injector, fuel pump problems, air conditioner – the list was beginning to mount when BANG! The right hand rear tyre blew!

So, in stifling dry 42 degree heat, I jacked up the car and changed the tyre.

All hope of looking at cars was gone as we drove on and out of Adelaide. I was hot, soaking wet and frustrated, worried that the cause of one blowout might also be the cause of another. We cruised slowly home and discussed potential cars for Meg.

The heat had also affected the vegie garden and my grand plan of irrigating a garden from our shower, sink and washing machine runoff seems to have hit a snag. The pumpkins that had been stretching out across the ground were crispy, the zucchini turned light brown and had a crinkly sound in the breeze and all of the young fruit was shrivelled.

Some of the fruit trees were withered and the grass was crunchy underfoot.

All of this happened in one day. I had watered the previous morning, knowing that I wouldn’t return until the following night and hoping that it would be enough, but dry winds and temperatures over 40 degrees are powerful.

It got me thinking again of our fire prevention and protection plans and I looked over the paddock that the cows have now reduced to stubble, glad that we’d worked hard to reduce this fire risk.

The next few months will be stressful as the temperatures continue to soar and we wait for rain in March or April.

It had been another big weekend of travel to Adelaide, as well as going out for Raph’s birthday, so when we headed back to Clare on Sunday we were a bit behind the eight ball already.

 The plan for the toilet had evolved a number of times and Raph and I set to work, digging out the floor.

Considering that the bin sits under the floor of the toilet and needs access to be replaced, locating the toilet on a hill would mean less digging, and I’m all for less digging after the saga of the trench.

We dug into the hill before working out where the footings would go and digging them.

 Darkness had fallen and lights were rigged to get the footings done. I wanted to allow them some time overnight as I didn’t want to lose any “Raph time” waiting for them to set. Meg helped as we worked to get down deep enough before mixing concrete and setting them in place.

Raph came up with the brilliant idea of making a frame with the correct dimensions to slot into the footings, ensuring that they would be properly spaced and aligned and that any wildlife wouldn’t knock them over before they were set.

We mixed the pre-mix concrete bags, but it was soon apparent that we needed more. Slight dodginess allowed us to mix the leftover “scalps” that was the base of the shed (under the concrete) with straight concrete at an ad hoc ratio and pour it over the top of the pre-mix to seal the deal.

It was heading for 10pm when the lights went out at the worksite and we retired to the van for the night.

Raph and I measured and cut the timber as well as some other jobs in the morning before the assembly started.

With surprisingly few mistakes, the framework took shape throughout the day and we got ready to put the floor in.

Things really accelerated on Tuesday with joists cut and fixed early before cutting and fitting the flooring and working on the platform for the pedestal.

Raph clad the outside on Wednesday as I had committed to a server build and backup restore with some clients in Clare and Thursday seemed to have come a little too early as we still had heaps to do.

I’d visited a client in Clare in the morning and when I returned, Raph had made the front wall and installed the door! Great stuff. We put the clear roof on the toilet and dashed into Clare around lunchtime to buy the seal for the flue on the wood heater.

Time was tight as we returned in misty rain. Meg was finishing work early as we had some tasks to do in Adelaide in the afternoon and we had to get the fire in before Raph was returned home in the same trip.

Despite the rain, we quickly measured up and Raph took the plunge with the grinder into the new roof of the shed. It was all going well until the final piece of the flue didn’t fit.

I rang Meg as we were now late to pick her up and she started walking to Adelaide (well, in the direction of Adelaide anyway).

Despite my insistence to the contrary, we had installed the flue upside down including fixing it to the roof and filling all gaps with slimy high temperature silicon.

Raph finally convinced me and we swapped the flue direction and bolted it all together before racing into town.

Meg had walked a couple of kilometres in this half hour and we met her at the caravan park. She hadn’t wasted her time though, and had rescheduled the pickup of the sewer vent that we were also to pick up on the trip.

A hectic return trip to Adelaide later and Thursday was over.

The last job on the toilet was to install the pedestal, liquid hose and “poo tube” into the bin and Meg and I completed this on Saturday morning with more blatant use of the grinder and tubes of silicon.

Without the exhaust vent in place, I decided that I could “commission” the toilet before I headed off for the weekend.

I sat there and looked up through the clear roof into the canopy of the trees and considered what we had achieved with a smile on my face.

Meg and I had driven to Adelaide on Friday night to get an early start on what we expected to be a busy Saturday. This plan was negated somewhat by catching up with Dave and Cindy for drinks on Friday night but it was great to catch up with them and chat at the British in North Adelaide.

Despite slightly sore heads, we had picked up Raph and checked out the salvage yard before a lunch catch up with Tracy and Christian.

I’d left Meg with them and returned to the salvage yard to cut the deal on the timber with Raph.

The negotiations were a bit dodgy, but with the incentive of cash and a bit of “I’ll just check with the boss” we managed to get about 200 linear metres of permapine of various dimensions in 3 metre lengths, enough to make the floor of the toilet and a solid wood door at a very reasonable price.

Raph and I picked up the sink and carpet from their Dad’s place (thanks Peter!) and added them to the already heavy trailer before picking up Meg and heading to the hardware to spend one of the gift vouchers on assorted bits and pieces. With the shopping done, we eventually hit the road for home with a full car and trailer after 5pm.

After a slow Sunday start at the folks place (at which we were house sitting), Meg, Raph and I headed out to The Journey and started work.

The concrete floor of the shed was finished and looked pretty good. I’m glad that we decided to get it done professionally as Raph and I would still be working out the cement/gravel/sand mix and how to put in the reo, let alone the hours of mixing and laying while learning how to smooth it out to get a good finish!

We had a great barbie lunch, even though it was freezing cold with a strong, biting wind.

Meg worked on the pond and her rock wall while Raph and I started to dig… and dig… and dig. The trench for the power to the shed had to be 30 metres long and 600mm deep and we had until Thursday to finish it.

Meg set up the second pond and after a little coaxing, we finally got the solar pump working in the overcast conditions, pumping up into the higher pond to make it overflow into the lower pond again. Hopefully this will clean the water and help us work out if we still have fish – I’m sure they’re in there somewhere.

Meg was disappointed that the concreters had just dumped the excess mix on the ground and also on some of her rocks that she wanted to use for the rock wall near the tank, so Raph and I did our best “strongman” impersonations with the sledgehammer and broke it up. I think that we’d better get used to tradesmen dumping excess, offcuts etc as it seems to be the way they work.

Meg placed it in the drain at the bottom of the drive as more fill for the coming wet conditions while Raph and I got back to the trench.

With the promise of Goon and chilli, we redoubled our efforts and dug until sunset.

Life has changed.

Six months ago I was running a bike shop in Adelaide, working six or more days a week and long hours every day. I was struggling with my rehab program from yet another break in my leg and was slowly getting worn down.

Quitting was a revelation. Thanks to Meg, I now had time to sort myself out and get my life back in order. Some might not have seen too many problems with what I was doing, but to me I had been working myself into the ground for no real reason or benefit. I wasn’t living life, I was enduring it!

 Meg and I both bought mountain bikes and I set some goals for myself. I had an appointment with my surgeon scheduled for August and wanted to walk out of his office with surgery scheduled to remove the bulk of metal from around my knee. Regular riding and the renewed interest in going to the gym with Mick combined with my healthier lifestyle helped me to achieve this goal.

I started eating better and with the huge help of Raph we transformed the overgrown garden to a manageable vegie patch and built and paved a pergola and barbecue area.

Working on simple outdoor activities like growing vegies got me thinking about where we should be and how we should be living and I started watching some real estate sites and gauging locations, prices and features within 150km from Adelaide.

 Life started coming together and after talking with the folks we agreed to look at a property outside Clare.

It was interesting country with rolling hills, deep valleys and suspect fencing. Over a hundred acres sounds like a lot to me, but as Meg suggested, we don’t have to use it all.

Some startling features stood out apart from the massive views over the Blyth plains. Power was already on the block and there was a bore with a new submersible pump that was reported to have good quality water.

 Of course, the downside was the price was over my upper limit for a block of land but Meg and I both felt that this was worth the stretch. We were both amazed by the possibilities that the place offered for our lifestyle somewhere in the future.