Long weekend in Esperance

After 3 weeks back in to the grind of work, and a lot of extra hours unpaid, we took Friday off work and headed off to the beach in the caravan.

Friday in Esperance was just stunning - hardly any wind and just beautiful as you can see from the piccies



Chip was in his element - though he is always confused at Ozzie beaches as there are no sticks to rummage and find!

The caravan park recommended an awesome fish n chip shop up in the town and boy I would have to say the fish was the nicest I have ever had - unfortunately Mal can't remember what sort of fish it was!  We took them down the beach with a bottle of wine, and thanks to Chip ate a load of sand as well.


It was good to be back out in the van, we do miss the nomad lifestyle and the feeling like your on holiday all the time - especially happy hours...



We woke up this morning to a cryptic note stuck on our caravan door. and another one on the car door.  We think it was probably a couple of kids who came in a van yesterday - suspect mum and dad write the notes and they run round putting them on people cars/vans for inspiration???


they might have thought because the van is so old, that we were too!!

Luckily Esperance got a tanker full of diesel this morning as they had run out yesterday and our tank was looking very sad - though how bad would it have been to have been stuck there for another day or two???

OMG its 2014 already!

Where did 2013 go?

Can't believe my last post on here was July....that 6 months flew by...

We are still in good ole Kalgoorlie - this place does have a certain charm to it, even though if you asked us if we 'like' living here we would probably say no - strange people aren't we.

We have made the decision to stay at least another 12 months then reassess what we are doing.  After being in the acting Manager role of the Maternity Ward, I applied and gained the Clinical Nurse Manager of Maternity role.  Its a very busy, demanding job but I have surprised myself by loving the challenge of it and there are certainly many challenges ahead this year.  There hasn't been a permanent manager in the role for the last 2 years after an unfortunate 6 week stint from a newly hired manager worked out very badly - my aim is to make the Unit a great place to work so that I am fighting off midwives with a stick who want to come and work here instead of begging all and sundry to come and work here! Wish me luck :)

Here is an article that went in to the local paper the week I came back from holiday in to the role

We went 'home' for 6 weeks over Christmas/New Year and had a great time at Waitarere catching up with the kids, family and friends.  We took little Chip with us and despite some hassles getting him from Customs on arrival in NZ, he had a fabulous time catching up with all his human brothers and sisters.

I brought Mal a kontiki (the predator) for Xmas so fishing was a high priority at every opportunity.  He managed a few good catches and it was great to have a reason to get down the beach more often.  Here are some piccies of his catches

We spent a fair bit of time doing 'home' stuff around our property at Waitarere Beach - it was actually fun to feel like doing that again and finding some muscles that have been resting!  We achieved everything on our list so left feeling very pleased with ourselves.

The weather while we were there was a mixture of windy, rainy and absolutely stunning - Murphys law that the week we left the weather certainly looked like it was finally stabilising in to summer.  Here are some piccies of the beach

So life is now settling in to work, work, work....we do plan on taking regular breaks in the caravan this year to replenish our batteries and we have a few holidays in the planning stage overseas as well.

Hope everyone had a fabulous Xmas and all the best for 2014!

Maiden Voyage of the Van...and ahh the beach

We finally took off for the weekend to Esperance in the new van - all of us hanging out for some time at the beach once again... and surprisingly we have all come back in one piece...even the van, LOL.

We had a friend of Mals from work come and do the wheel bearings on the van during the week and he checked out the brakes for us too so we knew that they were all good.  Mal had to rewire the external lights on the van as the old ones just weren't working....as usual once he got in to the job he realised how easy it was - ah Mal!!!  Now he can add 'auto' to his title of electrician!!!  We haven't got round to getting the gas tested yet, but since we were staying in the caravan park it didn't matter anyway, and we made sure we tucked in our faithful heater which kept the van lovely and snuggly.

Esperance is a good 4.5 hour drive from Kalgoorlie....its a very long and boring drive..but when your feet are on the sand and your looking out at the gorgeous aqua blue sea and listening to those waves, it all seems to feel worth it...needless to say Chippie just loved it and had the time of his life finding sticks and digging in the sand once again.

It was good to be able to give the van a go living in it, we could pull out the awning for the first time and make sure it was all okay, and give it a good clean too.  As usual there are things that we want to add to make it easier to live in but thankfully the bed turned out okay as its only a double and Mal was worried it was going to be uncomfortable - but we all had a really good sleep last night.  Considering its so much smaller than the previous van and doesn't have the luxury of hot water and an en-suite, its really quite livable.

Our next adventure will be free camping somewhere along the coastline....so we have a few things to get sorted to make that happen over the next wee while.  Here are some photos of our weekend away

The Caravan Reno Completed

Well we have finally finished the internal redo of the caravan - what a journey!  Its unbelievable to look at the before and after photos and realise just how much we have done.  I love it,  Mal's not totally convinced (he keeps saying he likes brand new) but I think it feels new as its so fresh and clean.  I bet you once we are out in her relaxing by the beach he will be sold, especially when she is so much easier to tow and move around than the monster Jayco we had.

We ended up having to replace a panel of wood internally as it was leaking on the wall behind the sink - we finally found where it was coming from and bogged it all up.  Otherwise no other major problems at all.

Mal has done a lot of work getting the electrics all sorted internally and replacing the old cruddy fittings with brand new ones.  He has to get the outside electrics fully sorted now and we have a guy from Mals work coming to do the wheel bearings and check the brakes out for us.  All thats left then is to organise to have the gas tested and she is totally done.  We are aiming to take her out on her maiden voyage in a couple of weeks for a long weekend and head to Esperance....ahh the beach....we plan on staying in the motorcamp we were in when we were there last so we can plug in so won't have to worry about the gas or sorting out our free camping stuff straight away.

Have a look at the photos below of before and after shots - click on them to make them bigger

 

Stage four of the Caravan Reno

We have both been pretty busy over the last few weeks….Mal finishing off the painting and spray painting and my new sewing machine has been well and truly broken in…the caravan is starting to look very cosy indeed!!!

I have recovered all the old seating, made an upholstered headboard for the bed (when we find one) and made a division curtain for the bedroom and I have yet to make a little curtain for the door window – I got 20 metres of upholstery material when we were in Perth and I will be using up every little bit of it.  I am really pleased with how they have all turned out.

We put up the blinds that we brought from Bunnings while we were in Perth and they look really good too.

Today I spent the day laying the carpet tiles in the bedroom area and the floor plank tiles in the kitchen area – wow they look really awesome!!

One of the guys from Mal’s work has made a new kitchen benchtop for us which looks fantastic too so we can’t wait to get that on.

We have yet to sort out the new handles for the cupboard doors and we have to fit the splashbacks on the kitchen before we can put the benchtop in. 

Unfortunately I found out today that we have 3 leaks in the caravan (thanks to it finally raining) so we will have to sort out where they are coming from…pretty good timing really as I would hate to have had everything sorted and then found out we had a leak!!!Here are some piccies of our progress…

Stage Three of the Caravan Reno

We had another Sunday off together so got stuck in to the caravan again today - on to the fun stuff now...top coat!!

We thought we were going to be in for a cooler day to paint in the van with the forecast telling us it was going to be cloudy with a chance of a storm...typical Kalgoorlie turned out brilliant blue sky and sunny - so by mid avo the van was like a little torture chamber again.

We did however get one good coat on and some parts second coated but we have run out of paint so back to Bunnings for us again.  Here are some piccies of progress so far....we are really pleased with how she is looking so far...

looking in to the bedroom - you might be able to see the door colour..only one coat on them so far

looking from the bedroom...we are putting stainless steel splashbacks below the kitchen windows

the bedroom again

the dinette area

bedroom

cupboard doors..only one coat on them so far

We have some excitement happening in Kalgoorlie this week...Ewan McGregor and a few other actors are going to be around town filming the Son of a Gun movie...they wanted extras however some of us have to work for a living......

Kalgoorlie-Boulder Pure Gold shared a link via SON OF A GUN - Film.

Friday

Not long now... we can't wait to welcome Ewan and the rest of the cast to Kalgoorlie Boulder!

http://instagram.com/p/XrItfAwy0F/

instagram.com

mcgregor_ewan's photo on Instagram

I am going to start recovering the cushions and headboard for the van this week - get to take my brand new sewing machine out of its box.....