Back to Brisbane (Lawnton Show grounds) 27/4—28/4/2011

Well here we are back in Brisbane again, this time to pickup our Trailermate Jack which was promised to be ready by 27th.  I even rang and checked.  So we turned up for it, only to find it sitting against the wall in reception where I left it 3 weeks ago.  We got a lame excuse about  being busy and the receptionist just said “well I  didn't say what time it would be ready”.   So we had to come back in a couple of hours to pick it up.  I really despair of crap customer service, especially in a lot of the caravan repairs and parts industry.  Our next task was an appointment with Dr Paul Belt, my other skin and Plastic Surgeon on the Thursday morning.  He just wanted to check out his last load of slice and dice from my face.  He was happy with everything, so off we went back to Lawnton for the night. There was another couple at Lawnton who had stayed for some while waiting on delivery of their new van.  So they unpacked all the goods from old van into a trailer so as to go and pick up the new van, only to discover that Franklin had put the tow hitch on the BOTTOM of the A frame instead off the top. (Who woulda thunk it??!!).  So he had go back again the next day to get it fixed.  Major welding job.  For his sake, I hope they did it properly.

Yippee!  Tomorrow we start heading South.

Standown Park Vets retreat (Caravan Park) 18/4/—26/4/2011

Standown Park is on Tin Can Bay Road half way between Gympie and Tin Can Bay/Cooloola Cove Qld.  It was primarily set up as a Veterans Retreat by Rod and his lovely wife Pam about 7 yrs. ago(?)  It has gone from a house in the middle of a paddock, with a shed as gathering area, toilet and showers, to a well laid out and maintained Caravan & Camping ground for Vets and over 50s.  They and their family and volunteers have done a fantastic  job.  The best part of staying at Standown is that it is nice and quiet.  Especially as it was Easter W/E and all the usual idiots were out and about on the roads. They have a community campfire each night and everybody is welcome to join in from around 4pm onwards.  As usual the rain tried to put a dampener on the weekend, but in between showers and sun it turned out OK.  The grounds were a bit soggy because they have had a huge amount of rain in the last few months (as have most of QLD) so they had to close off the main unpowered camping area because it was very soft and boggy.

We had a lazy Easter weekend, so on Monday I decided to go into Gympie and march in the Anzac day parade.  I ran into an old navy mate from my Minesweeper days, Rod Clarey,  so we decided to march together.  It was about 600 metres march followed by a ceremony near the War memorial in Gympie.  There was the usual long winded speeches by local pollies and then the Last Post was played.

KOG.Kilkivan 15/4/2011-17/4/2011

We arrived at Rob & Jewels (Kedron owners) property at Kilkivan on the Friday ,there was already about 12 Kedrons on site. A few people we had not seen for a while,and some new faces. After we set up we did the usual walk around and greet and catch up with the “gossip” Friday night we spent a quite night with Rosco  & Chris, whilst the rest of the group went to the Kilkivan Bowls Club for tea. On Sat. morning there was a mystery drive which ended up at the old Copper mine chimney and remains of smelter.It was part of Kilkivans history dating back to the 1800s.We then found a great spot on the nearby creek and had a sausage sizzle BBQ for lunch,kindly supplied by Rob & Jewel via the Kilkivan butchers shop.

After a slow drive back to where we were camped, we started preparing for tea. The idea being every couple would prepare a meal for tea either using Camp oven and fire or anyway they wanted. Once the fire was going it was interesting to watch different methods of Camp Oven cooking, anything from roasts to stews to scones. When all was ready at about 6pm we all put our meals on the back or Robs trayback ute and then it was instant “Buffet”. The selection of food was wonderful and certainly showed some hidden talents. Our contributions was Hearty Beef & Beer casserole and Dry marinated spicy chicken wings. Off course all washed down with several fine wines and a superb Muscat (thanks for sharing Debbie) We finally retired to bed about 11pm. (late for us) whilst some hardy soles played on for a while. A thoroughly enjoyable night was had by all. Good company, good food and good wine .What more could you ask for?

Sunday morning saw a few sore heads,but the main thing everybody had a great time Sat. night.

Quiet a few packed up and left Sunday as they had to  go back to work on Monday.(Bugger!!).Sunday was a quite day for the few of us that were left.So we decided to go down to the Kilkivan Markets for Breakfast They are a very small local market held every Sunday consisting off about 5 stalls( I did say it was small)We ordered break fast from the only food stall and waited and waited and waited.along with everybody else. In the end after about an hour we gave up, got our money back and went to The Left Bank Cafe in town and had a lovely brekky in front of us about 10 mins. after arrival.

On Monday we headed of to Standown Park for the Easter/Anzac long weekend.

Lismore to Lawnton, Lowood to Lawnton

Heading back to Brisbane (Lawnton S/G) via Lismore. We spent 2 days in Lismore where we had to get some repairs done on the Cruiser (split steering boot). It must have got hit by a rock somewhere along the road.  Stayed in Lismore Tourist C/P.  It had about 8 tourist sites and the rest of the park was permanents. At least it was cheap ($20 for powered site).  Lismore is a large country town that looks like it is growing fairly quickly. We replaced our footstools there as well, so we are doing our small bit to help the country's economy.
We had an appointment with Dr. D my Dermo on Fri Pm at the other side of the city .They organised DVA transport for us and away we went.  He discovered?? a small dark black mole at the top of my chest, even Lea missed it in her regular checks.  He said it looked like a Melanoma so he chopped it out to send away for testing. Normally that takes about a week, so we set off for Lowood on the way to meet some Kedron friends at Boondooma Dam.  On Monday morning we got a phone call from Dr.Ds. surgery telling me that the tests had come back as stage 2 Melanoma and we were to come back to Brisbane to have it further excised at 3pm.that afternoon. So we did a very quick pack up ready to head back to Brisbane.That is when the trailermate jack decided to sh#t itself.  Luckily a bloke nearby had a hydraulic jack to help us hitch up and we hit the road back to Lawnton Show-grounds.  With the operation he cut 2cm deep, 2cm across and about 8cm long.  Luckily he did all internal stitches(it seemed like about a hundred of them) and no outside stitches, only temporary steristrips which come off after about a week.It was all pretty scary at the time ,but now I am clear for another 4 months.
We went to Kedron Caravans to see if they knew anyone who could fix the Trailermate jack, as without it we could not unhitch.  Glen sent us to Aussie Escape caravan repairs just up the road. We already had the service kit, but they said it could not be done till after Easter (bugger!!)  We left it there and went back to Kedron and Glen Gall, bless his soul, gave us a loaner till the other one was repaired.  Thank goodness for  that as we would have been really stuck.  I was in enough pain as it was, without the extra stress of that.