“Wenn einer eine Reise tut dann kann er was erzaehlen”

October/November, 2012


“Wenn einer eine Reise tut dann kann er was erzaehlen”

An old German saying which translates to: if somebody goes on a trip, he can tell stories.

Background:

On the 9th of October, the official exchange on my house was scheduled.

many many boxes waiting for their trip to FNQ

that's how it started in the container in Green Point Palace

and now we are nearly ready. And I thought it might not all fit in (silly me)

During the days before I packed my container with the able help of Matt and Kieran. And we made it on time, everything fitted in.

Matt, one of my packing helpers bubble wraps the last bits

and here they are, my helpers for the first hurra, but still a lot to go

that's it, ready to go. Leaving GPP on the 9th of October around 11.00 to my new home, well temporary at the moment.

Being the Spreadsheet freak that I can be, I had calculated the total cubic meter of all my worldly possession as measuring 24.8 cbm. And the container took 33cbm. So it HAD to work.
Some weeks ago, some silly bugger smashed into my good old trusted Merc A160 and the insurance company decided that the repair cost would exceed the value of the car (after all the Merc was 13 years old) hence it was declared a write off.

As a consequence I had to look for a small second hand car and finally bought – reasonably cheaply – a Ford Fiesta. I bought the Ford u.a. with the idea in mind that most car repair impresarios would know this car and spare parts should be available also in parts of the world which are not central to world events. A thought which proved to be a wise foresight!! (details a bit later)

This little car was now my new transport and after packing it with all the left overs from the Palace (my house in Green Point ) I trundled off on the 9th October to drive to Flying Fish Point, which will be my temporary home for a few months or so.

I have done this trip by car once, a few years ago for a Christmas holiday in the tropical north, so I knew approximately, where to go, where to stop and where to find the suitable camp site.

All this with little tent, fold up table and esky in the boot. Camping the old and basic style.

Got to Port Macquarie on the first day, as planned, and found the nice camping site there on the river.

That was after having made a stop in Newcastle to visit my old friend Claire (Gregg’s mother) for a few hours to say good by to her.

This is, sort of, the standard size of the tents these days.

Here a family can sit in comfort andhave dinner in the 'palace'

And this is Jochen's little house for the next few days

My 'home from home' on Port Macquarie on the camping ground. Modest, ain't it?

I noted in my diary on the day:

At about 15.30 I took off (from Newcastle) and drove up to Port Macquarie. I know the tent camp from my last trip. Nice on the river.

At Green Point Palace I felt rather unorganised and somehow dizzy. But eventually everything – I believe at least – was in the car. A sad moment.

Well it was brightened up today when sitting on the camping ground, tent all up and Jochen went on-line to check the account. And there it was, all the money in the bank. Faster than I anticipated. It’s long time – if ever – that my account showed a credit of this magnitude and the loan as well as the STATUS QUO account were on zero. The STATUS QUO account even has 335 Dollar in it which must have been some overpayment, Fine with me. I think I might take a screen shot of that!! This was the really good thing today.

The car makes funny noises and I can just hope that it will make the trip up to FNQ in one piece. Have to check the oil tomorrow before leaving. Have yet to decide, where I am going tomorrow. Maybe some check on “whereis” might be on the cards.Weather is fine. Some rain around Newcastle, but soon after sunny and fine.

After having lunch with Claire I don’t really feel like dinner, maybe I will do a bit of bread later, but wine goes down well.

Well the travel next day was fine and smooth. Had checked the oil and added some for good measure. It seems the little bugger gobbles up a lot of oil. I am not used to this from the Merc, where adding oil was kind of an event once in a decade. The Pacific Highway was fairly empty. Lots of building sites, though, which means changing speed limit every few hundred meters varying between 110 and 40 km/hr It certainly keeps you on your toes.

At about 14.30 I arrived in Byron Bay and found a campsite thanks to TomTom. On the last trip I had gone all the way to Brisbane to visit Ron there. He now lives in Sydney, so this time it was Byron Bay.

In my diary I wrote:

Got up at 7.00 and made breakfast, real with coffee and some bread. Left Port Macquarie at about 9.30 towards Byron Bay. Before I left I filled the remaining oil and the noise got much better. This little car consumes a lot of oil as it seems. Anyway, on the way up, the noise came again, in particular audible in low gear. Went to petrol station and filled her up and put another 1 litre of oil in. Solved the problem by the sounds of it.

Drive up was fine, though many building sites on the way, which means constantly changing between 40 and 110. But I made it, after a small little break on the way – got tired – I arrived in Byron at about 15.00

Somehow TomTom seems to have old maps,(despite the fact that I had updated them on-line just before starting the trip) some of their directions were non-sensical, so largely drove following the signage. At 15.30 I got a camping ground, tent was put up in the wind and basics established. So now at 16.15 sitting in the shade under a tree, the first glass of wine is out and the computer is on service.

At some stage during the day I was considering going into a motel for convenience reasons. But it’s far more expensive than the camping ground. I have to get used to the ‘cheap life’ In a few days I’ll be back to a real bed which will be $100 a week, cheaper than the camping grounds which tend to be $36 for one night. Today I paid with some of my change, of which I had over $40 in my little box.

Very soon I will consider a walk to the beach and then maybe a shower. I start to feel a bit grubby. What I also realise is that my fingernails are getting a bit brittle, they easily break or split. Would have to be some result of diet or so. Well Ute will teach me a few lessons as fas as that is concerned.

One thing I could not find today in the morning was the charger for the phone. I guess I will have to empty the entire car to find the bag or box where it is. Bloody stupid.

Yes the Byron Bay camp site was rather windy, which makes it difficult to put up the tent. But I managed.

Now the next day was planned to be the trip to Bundaberg. Nearly 600 km but given the roads it was doable. Well the little car decided otherwise.

Just outside of Maryborough – around 100 km south of Bundaberg – suddenly big smoke plums came out of the exhaust pipe and the acceleration got very sluggish. Jochen’s ‘expert’ diagnosis: a blown cylinder. Wbbled my way into the next service station, got the number for the mobile mechanic and then drove the car to his workshop, not far away.

My layman’s diagnostic was confirmed, the third cylinder was blown. That means a re-conditioned motor needs to be ordered (comes from Brisbane) and the car needs to be fitted with the replacement motor.

So I had to move into the next best Motel and entertain myself for 5 or 6 days (silly weekend in-between) in, what is not exactly the navel of the world – Maryborough.

The 'charming' motel on the outskirts of Maryborough

'Cage' number 8 is where Jochen lives (for an entire week as it worked out)

The charming Westside shopping centre (well three shops) Calling it a 'village' makes it so much more 'cosy'

And the cruel thing of it all is the fact that my motel and the car repair shop are outside the town centre, which is some 50 minutes walk away.

Mind you, I did the walk once and decided that what I had been advised to be the ‘centre’ was not really much better then the motel where I am at the very moment. The ‘centre’ is marked by mainly three things, a ultra large Bunnings, an ALDI shop (nice) and the MCC (yes highlighted in red letters)

As every Aussie with basic knowledge of sport and geography knows, the MCC is the holy grail of cricket in Melbourne, the Melbourne Cricket Club. Here in Maryborough it stands for Maryborough City Church. I guess they have the holy thing in common!

However, what they don’t have in Maryborough is pipe tobacco!! It is the absolute pits. It is punishment beyond believe having to smoke cigarette tobacco in a pipe. It does not work, it’s awful. The tobacco burns far to fast etc.

And yes, that's the 'other' Inn, not very far from my lodgement quarters. I somehow was able to resist to move into Ned Kelly's dungon

Looks inviting, doesn't it?
Well I give a shit about the car, staying in the worldly town of Maryborough is ok, BUT no pipe tobacco – that’s real punishment.

What I have to say, though, the country people around here are very pleasant and friendly (that is until they get thoroughly pissed as I experienced on my first night in the salubrious Tavern, which is part of my motel) then they can get a bit – shall we say – irritating.

As a consequence I have spent most of my time so far in my room, both doors on either side opened, nice breeze coming through, giving light and sunshine to look at.

That's the place where to have real fun! Spent one night, the first night, there. After that it was my cage which offered enough entertainment.

And here is where Jochen got his white wine for dinner. Mind you it's the only camel I have seen around here.

The TV screen in my room is gigantic. Never seen such a huge screen. Unfortunately it does not at all improve the programs shown on it. But if you watch shit, you might as well watch it on a gigantic screen.

And it’s the first time that I can also access more than just the 3 commercial and 2 non-commercial channels, i.e. channels 7,9,10 SBS and ABC. Here I have access to all the ‘derivative’ channels as well, like Go, One, ABC2,3,news.

And would you believe it, on one of those extra channels, they are still showing M.A.S.H. How I missed that show, which we saw for about 10 or so years in the 80ties/90ties I think it’s the only show on TV where I actually know all the names of the main characters as well as the actors names. Never happened to me before and very unlikely to ever happen to me again. So that’s one of my highlights in Maryborough!! (but no pipe tobacco!!!!!)

Today (Monday – 5 days after arrival) I went to the repair shop to inquire about my car. They have received the motor and are working on it, so it seems that tomorrow, Tuesday, I might be able to pick it up later in the afternoon and continue my trip on Wednesday.

Had a lengthy chat with the office girl there, nice woman. She hails from Zimbabwe and came to Australia via the UK in the late 90ties. We talked a lot about Africa, interesting conversation with a person who has made this kind of experience. And we found quite a few parallels between Zimbabwe Africans and my Ugandan friends.

Given that it is still around 1600 km to go, I will at least need two more days, if not three to get to Flying Fish Point So it will be by about Friday. Just one week later than planned.

The container has arrived today as I was told. Well it has to wait for me now, before I can unpack it on the weekend, shuffling the things from the container into a storage shed. And then we shall see.

Well at least I should be able to access most of my stuff which I need or want – most boxes nicely numbered and with content entered into spreadsheet.

It’s now Tuesday 16th October. Last night I ventured into the realm of, to me, new technology, trying to heat up a ready made frozen meal in the microwave in my room. I have never in my life owned a contraption of this nature – why – Now here I was, trying to introduce some kind of variety into my daily meals – normally consisting of bread and cheese and cold meat – and I needed to heat the thing up with this microwave.

First of all it took me about 10 minutes to work out that the thing was switched off at the PowerPoint. Then I had to work out the gazillions of buttons and their use. There are quite a few buttons which denote specific culinary delights such as spaghetti, Pizza and the likes, but rice with chicken and veg, refined with sweet chilly sauce was not on the button menu.

The pack said, I should cook it for 8-9 minutes on high. Well I worked out, how to set the 8-9 minutes as 8:88 (that is 8 minutes and 88 seconds) It came to that magic number because the 8 button also showed 215 degree C which seemed nice high. But as you, the technically well educated reader, would know, microwaves are fast buggers. And they also decide very fast that all is lost – in the programming stakes – if you don’t really do it fast. So my tentative attempts of programming this little bugger in the right way were a few times cut short to zilch, because it took me too long to work out which button to press next.

Well it will please you no end that I can tell you, eventually I made it and had a nice hot dinner!

Next morning I looked at my raw eggs in the fridge – which I had taken from Green Point - and thought about whether it might be possible to boil these into hard boiled eggs conditions. My line of thought was placing some water into the now empty food container and put the eggs in their and ‘boil’ the lot for, shall we say, 5 minutes. Somehow I could not muster enough courage to do it, fearing that the little hot machine might explode and fly through the room like a lost raven.That in turn means, that those 6 nice eggs – which have been partially cooled since I am in Maryborough, might have to go the way of all earthly things. (like my salmon fillets which started to exude some unpleasant odour after having been in the esky for a few days)

Further discussions with the repair shop on Monday revealed that the transport company, which was meant to bring the motor from Brisbane to Marybloodyborough had lost track of one of the boxes and those things needed to be ordered again from Ford. Hence the end of the repair was extended to Wednesday or Thursday (17/18 of October)

Eventually on Thursday 18th October in the morning, the car was ready at about 11.00 ($1500 for the lot, a bit more than quoted but so be it.) I checked out, placed my stuff in front of the room and got my car. On that day I managed to Drive to Rockhampton.

In my diary I wrote

Anyway, have breakfast and the papers. Call the repair shop. They have the final part and expect the car to be ready by about 11.00 Well at least some good news at last. I pack up my stuff after breakfast and tell the girls to do my room last, so I keep my stuff inside. Walk to the repair shop at about 11.00 and get the car at 11.30 $1500.00 all up. A bit more expensive than originally quoted, but what the heck. Get in the car, pick up my stuff and drive to the town centre again. This time with some instruction from Diana (the girl in the repair shop) Find a tobacconist and at last I can get some Irish blend and some new pipe cleaners.

Leave Maryborough at 12.20 and head towards Rockhampton. The drive is ok, nothing special. Lots of building sites which means changing speed limits every 5 minutes.

Reach Rockhampton at about 16.30 and find a nice camping ground on the river, just across from the town centre. Put up the tent and settle in. Take the care and drive to bottle shop to get two white wine, then a bit of shopping for the breakfast box at Woollies. Expensive but so be it.

Sun goes down fairly quickly at 18.00 Get myself set up next to the tent. And here I am sitting now. I’ll do some dinner in a moment. And then, I think, I am in for an early night.

To Innisfail it is still around 1000 km so I probably won’t make it before Sunday around lunch. I shall see how things work tomorrow as far as driving is concerned. Bu usually 400 km is what I can do in a day.

Called Tony to let him know. He will be working in Cairns over the weekend and will be back on Monday afternoon. But there is a guy staying in my room. So I’ll take Dominic’s room for the time being. We shall see how things develop. Probably will see Max fairly soon as he is feeding the cat.

Now some dinner. Once the sun is really down, it’s very dark around here. My wonderful solar light serves its purpose quite well. Just have to see that I get it re-charged tomorrow.

Go to bed at 22.00 for a good night sleep.

Got up fairly early and made a real coffee in the stove top contraption, wonderful.

The original destination was Mackay which was around 250 km to go. Since I had left fairly early and the drive was smooth, I got there at about 13.00 well and truly too early to stop. So it’s off to Bowen, the Mango capital of the world. Remember the big Mango on the outskirts which I saw on my trip a few years back (in 2008)

In my diary I wrote:

Arrive here at 15.00 and the campsite is just on the ocean. Nice place, a bit windy which makes putting up the tent a bit difficult, but we get there.

There is a large harbour just opposite the camping ground. Do some banking, transferring $5000 to Fiona. She has to get another 375 or there abouts for interest, but the bloody bank limits my transfers to $5000.00 unless it’s B’pay.

Checked the TomTom for km to Innisfail. It’s about 500 and I might make it tomorrow. We shall see. Would be good to get up there asap. Had enough of driving around and camp sites. Well the sites are not bad but the camping is a bit tiresome.

Soon I shall do myself some simple dinner. Got some new cheese from Woollies, but still have to eat the old stuff. In particular the Leberwurst which Ken gave me. I think I might have an early night tonight.

Next day, Saturday 20th October I get up again fairly early and have nice breakfast. TomTom tells me it’s about 500 km to Innisfail. Well I shall see how I feel about it and how the trip works

The diary says:

Got up at about 7.00 and made my breakfast, nice with some coffee. I just realised that they have a fridge, freezer here. Silly I have not seen that the night before, could have put all my freezer elements here. But what the heck, soon I’ll have the fridge etc in Flying Fish Point.

Took off at 8.45 towards Townsville and, may be further. The ride is fine, hardly any building sites in this part of the Bruce Highway, which makes for a faster drive. Long stretches allow 110 km

Had been talking to Tony and advised him that I would come either Saturday or Sunday. The drive to Innisfail is 430 km, so I might make it. Well at the end, the drive was fine and I made it to Flying Fish Point at around 15.30

The wellcome sign on the road to.... well it says it

But before you get to Flying Fish Point (which I now abbreviate as FFP) you have to go through this locality. I am still trying to work out, what exactly is described as a 'locality' as opposed to village

And the 'locals' greet you with enthusiasm, some of them seem to ask

"What the hell are you doing here"???
Went to the tobacconist in Innisfail and they still had Mac Barens. What a treat. Also got 6 bottles of wine, Mac Williams Riesling for $5.00 a bottle not too bad.

In Flying Fish Point is Tim who currently rents the room behind the bath, so I move myself into Dominic’s room.

My new view with swimming pool to enjoy and cool down.

And here the top window overlooking the pool that is my current temporary place of living

A little bit of an 'overview view' of the area, Innisfail. On the river which flows into the ocean just next to us. (it's called the Johnston River)

Did some washing of t-shirts, pants and towels. Dry fairly quickly next morning all dry and I have some fresh stuff to dress.Tony is in Cairns and supposed to come back on Monday afternoon. However, he turns up this night, Saturday, but I am already in bed. First thought it was Tim who returned, but then I saw the BMW and knew it had to be Tony.

Tim left to see his family, I had some TV to watch, with no program it’s just a matter of trying to see what channel offers what. Caught up with a bit of MASH. Max came by to feed the cat. Had a brief talk. The night got really nice cool which was good to sleep. Eventually in a real bed again, which is not bad.

Max (he is the guy) and Buster are visiting for a little drink

But now I have to wait until Monday to get to my container, since I don’t have a key as yet. So Monday will be unpacking day. Can’t wait to see how things made it up to here. Hope the packing was alright and not too many things have been thrown around the place. Brought the camping table up into the room to use as table for computer. Have not yet installed the PC. Have to see, may be do that early next week. All in all the laptop works alright.

Have to see that I answer some e-mails, in particular from Moses and also Jahim. Johnny seems in a bad state with his dry cleaning catching up with his body. Poor bugger, but what can I do? I have to try and convey to the boys that despite my selling the house, money is not endless. I guess everybody thinks that I you sold your house you have plenty of money sitting around. Heavens, not in my case.

I can just hope that I will find a source of income soon. Have to do something about that, get my arse into gear again.

Going to the container on Monday 22nd October and start unpacking the first stuff. Basically things which I can carry myself. Start ‘planning’ the filling of the shed. I will try to stack up things in such a way that I can access those things more easily which I want to get at.

Must say that most if not all the stuff made the trip quite well. Nothing seems to have shifted or been damaged. So the boys did not a bad job in packing the lot.

Tuesday night Tony comes back and we go to the container on Wednesday to unpack the heavy stuff. All the furniture goes into the very back, All the boxes on one side. The large folding table goes on the desk opposite the boxes and serves very well as good storage space for all the pictures. I really have to see that I sell some of those!

Anyway, finally on Thursday25th October the last bits have been shifted from the container to the shed and the container can be picked up again, just in time.

During the next few days I try to sort out the various bank issues, settling credit accounts, closing some accounts etc. Limitations on the bank account don’t make things easier. Was trying to sort out the stuff with Westpac in Innisfail, but they don’t have any access to my accounts – despite St George being part of Westpac. So I need to go to St George in Cairns next week.

The diary says:

Jochen, vergieb ihnen, denn sie wissen nicht was sie tun

Was talking to one of the tellers about my problem with the limit on the website and she tells me that it was not St George but Citibank which put in this limit. Why they would put in the limit if I want to pay INTO my account beats me and – also the girl from St. George. I go online in the bank and demonstrate the problem to her.

Meanwhile another girl in the bank goes on-line and now seems to have found the solution. It is in fact St George which put the limit on certain Bpayees and for Citibank it’s supposed to be $15.000,00

As far as transferring money overseas to my account in Germany, the limit is supposed to be $50.000. At the moment I can’t quite believe that given the fact that I was not able to transfer more than $5.000 when I tried it with Fiona’s account. But they can’t do anything in the bank as far as Citibank is concerned. Why I can’t go to the counter and they transfer the total amount, beats me. Once upon a time before internet banking, that was all possible. I just like to know how those Schiebers and movers get away with shuffling millions from one to another account. Basically what it shows is, that the bank staff would not have a clue about their websites. Funny it’s a bit like the ATO staff when I telephone my BAS info through. They have never worked their own bank site on-line.

Well eventually I get through all this in a day by day way and fill the account in Germany. Important here is to transfer OZ dollars to Germany rather than Euros because the exchange rate they offer me in Australia is 0.74 whilst in Germany I get things changed at 0.80 When you transfer some $30.000 that makes an 1800 Euro difference.

In Innisfail I open a P.O.Box (1599) for me and start re-directing my mail from Green Point to here.
Slowly but steadily I settle in and get used to things tropical.

Nature welcomes me with open arms and beautiful flowers and flowering trees

I don't nkow what they are called, but they look interesting

And these are just next to the steps

And the little flying monsters can be very colourful as well

Wallabies are also around and feed on the grass in the backyard.
The auto electrician in Innisfail sorts out the squeaking noise but can’t find anything wrong with the starter motor. Under normal and short term drives, everything works fine. It’s only after longer trips, that the bloody thing sometimes needs a few trials to start or – at one time – does not start at all.

I describe that event in my diary thus

Wednesday did a trip to Milla Milla Falls. Did not remember that it was over 50 km, but a nice drive.

On the parking ground at the falls, the car refused to start. Similar to what it did in Cairns, but this time it refused well and truly. Stood there for a while with bonnet open and tried hundred times to no avail. Telephone somehow only allowed for emergency calls, how wonderful. Talked to a German couple who just went to the falls when I came back. Thought I might ask them to give me a lift to Innisfail.

A few American ladies got out of a camper next to me and we briefly talked. After about 1 hour a pickup truck arrived. A farmer near by had received a call from the American lady and she obviously had asked him to help me. We tried the battery cable start help and it worked!. So it seems the battery was flat, strange. The guy refused to accept any money, very kind and helpful. Could not thank the American woman, because they were not around anymore. All in all a disaster averted and I got home in one piece.

And now it’s election time in the USA. It’s an interesting race and the pundits give both candidates a good chance. Well it won’t come as a surprise that my leanings are towards Obama, rather than the right wing idiot Romney. Well he is not as much an idiot – IQ wise – as George W Bush was but non the less. Well we all now know, that Obama made it for a second term. We shall see how that pans out. But it was a very welcome result.

And yes, today, Sunday 2nd December 2012 things are starting to feel like ‘Alltag’ here. I am getting to know the place a bit better – Innisfail that is – I know where some shops are which are of interest to me. Bought a new pair of sandals – dirt cheap at Kmart – but they seem ok. Saw a Birkenstock shop in Cairns but I somehow doubt that I will buy new sandals there. They are simply too expensive right now. The little TV in my room works after Tony attached the main antenna via split cable to it.

Considering seriously a trip to Sydney, main reason being a visit to the dentist. It’s really needed. We shall see.

Moonshine over the ocean. Here a bit difficult to appreciate through the photo, in reality a wonderful view.

A new life begins.