Sherwood House-sit Part 2

Well, it has been an interesting 2 weeks. The first week we settled in to the house and got into a routine fairly quickly. The weather was good - fine warmish days and cool nights. We now have the fire going at night, so it is nice and warm inside. We were looking forward to having Steve and Kerry (fellow Koggers) staying here from the Saturday for a few days. The idea being they could camp up here in their van and use it as a base to tour the local area. Unfortunately Mother Nature stepped in and put the kybosh on that idea.  It started to rain on Saturday morning and did not stop till the following Thursday.  Steve and Kerry rocked up late on Saturday afternoon, having taken a bit of an un-intended detour of about 100 kms up the Kempsey / Armidale Rd (blame the GPS??? ) so by the time they arrived they were more than ready for a drink.  By now the rain was really getting heavy.  We had a BBQ tea and ate inside.  The following photos will give you some idea of the weather conditions and road closures that soon followed.  Needless to say both Steve, Kerry and our selves were not going anywhere now as all the roads out  were  underwater.

Luckily the house is situated on the top of a hill, so we were not concerned about the house going under. We were supposed to receive our Woolies order on the Wednesday though, but they rang and said they could not get through.  Bugger! and we were running short of food and  booze.  But we stretched what we had with help from S&K and we managed.  Kempsey copped some water through it, but luckily the levee held.  It was a close run thing as it came up to about 10cms from the top. The Pacific Highway was closed for about 10kms north and south so even if you could make it to Kempsey there was know where to go from there. S&K reckon that it was their fault because every time they took the van out it rained. We had a similar problem with our first Kedron. That's why we ended up calling it Rainbird. So the current van is Bigbird, and our totem bird is the Wedge-tail Eagle.  When ever we see one on our travels, we know we are doing the right thing and going in the right direction. We currently have a pair that often fly over the house so we know we are in the right place. (weird eh??)
The roads finally opened on Friday, so we took a quick trip into town and did a bit of shopping. S&K left that afternoon as Steve was starting a new job on Monday. They were a lovely couple and were great company for us during what could have been an otherwise boring week huddling from the rain. (Cabin fever!!)

Sherwood House-sit

We arrived at our new house-sit on the Sunday, and set up the van near the shed whilst Bruce & Joy continued to pack and prepare their  van for the big trip to the Cape.  We arrived earlier than expected so they could show us the ropes and get away 2 days earlier. It is a beautiful house set on 116 acres of land about 16 kms west of Kempsey in NSW.  They run about 40 head of cattle on the property as well as 2 Shetland Ponies, Princess and her daughter Merrylegs(who knows).  They are all easy to look after, just checking their water and that they are still there is all that is  required of us.We have been here 3 weeks and they are all present and correct.

When B & J  left we moved the van up next  to the house to unload and clean. We have finished cleaning the  outside of the van including polishing the aluminium panels with Purple,it has come up a treat if I do say so myself . We have some fellow KOGGERS coming to stay for a few days next Saturday so we get to have happy hour with some new faces and hopefully do a bit of a tour around the local roads and  sights.