September – October 2017
Troopie arrives home from America
With Janet flying back and forth to Perth,
much of her time in Qld was spent working in the garden while I was doing
chores around the house. When one is
away for 2 ½ years, with house / dog sitters in the house, there are lots of
things that just need attention everywhere – Not surprising really, considering
no real maintenance had been done on the house in so long. So between the garden needing attention, and
pavers and pool pumps and fish ponds and 101 other things all needing some
TLC.
An
Adventure in an Aquaduck
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| Surfers Paradise Aquaduck |
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| Charlie climbing on board |
At the end of September we had good friends
Tabatha Stamp and her son Charlie come up to stay for a week. Charlie was to compete in the National
Scooter Titles being held on the Gold Coast, and they had planned and booked this
trip weeks ahead. Then the day before
they came up, he fell of his scooter while practicing and broke his arm !! As the flights were all booked, they came
anyway, but Charlie was SO disappointed and just had to be a spectator.
On one day when Tab went off on her own,
Janet & I took Charlie down into Surfers Paradise, and we went for a tour
on the Aquaduck, the amphibious bus that goes on land and water.
After exploring part of the central Surfers
and having a bite to eat, we finally boarded the Aquaduck and set off around
the streets of Surfers, having all the major landmarks pointed out. Then it was off down a boat ramp and with a
big splash, we were off across the Broadwater – Charlie loved it. Once out in the middle, he and other kids
aboard were allowed to drive the Aquaduck, and afterwards were presented with a
Certificate. We then carried on past
some of the swanky yachts and hotels, and cruised past big waterside mansions
with their
Pics of an Aquaduck day around Surfers Paradise ! :- https://goo.gl/photos/KTHoi3bMAPnZN2336
Troopie arrives home from America !
On the 29th September, Janet
drove me to Brisbane Port to collect Troopie.
The container had landed from the ship a few days earlier, but the paperwork at the port moves slowly !! I was
quite apprehensive because, although I had incurred no problems when I bought
the Elise back into Australia 5 years earlier, times and procedures had
changed, with far more rigorous documentation and inspection requirements now
in place. Whereas last time I had
literally driver the Elise off the docks with no customs inspections at all,
now I had a camper that was stuffed with all my personal equipment including my
bicycle, and which had been all over the place, including Africa. I had also heard all sorts of horror stories
from European Overlanders who had brought their vehicles to Australia, of
having to unload absolutely everything for inspection, as well as having to
have the vehicle cleaned and fumigated at considerable expense as well as time
delay.
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| Anyone in there ? |
We arrived at the office at 7.30 am as
instructed. Having been kitted out with
Hi-Vis vests, we wandered over to a container standing all by itself – Was she
already being quarantined ???? The agent
came over and opened up the container – And there was Troopie, seeing daylight
for the first time in a couple of months, and surprisingly clean and all in
good shape. The guy brought over a ramp,
then started undoing the strapping and removing the wooden blocking and bracing
that had been used to keep the vehicle in place in the container. Would she start ? Or would she suffer the ignominy of having to
be pushed out ? Well over 2 months since
I had dropped her off in Seattle, so I wasn’t sure whether the battery would
still have enough charge…………
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| Troopie sees daylight ! |
The guy squeezed in, turned the key,
and…..she sluggishly turned over a few times – Not looking good. Then suddenly she caught, and with a belch of
black smoke to clear her lungs, she was running !! Amazing.
He slowly backed her out into the Queensland sunshine. After a quick visual check that everything
seemed OK on the outside, I was instructed to drive her over to a big warehouse
and open her up for inspection. Uh oh
!! By now it was 8 o’clock – Only 30
minutes had passed since we arrived !
I drove into the warehouse where there was
lots of other equipment and a number of other vehicles sitting around awaiting
inspection – Not looking good. Then the
agent came over and said that there was a Customs / Quarantine guy there now,
and he could inspect my
vehicle immediately if I was ready. Looking better ! The official asked if I had an inventory of
everything on board, plus my vehicle import permit. While I opened up the back, he opened the
bonnet and checked the VIN number and made sure there were no flies in the
radiator. 2 minutes later he came round
the back, and looking down the 4 pages of inventory, he picked one item in the
middle, and pointed to it. “This frying
pan – Is it clean ?”. “Yes, spotless”, I
answered, but nervous that he would want to see it, which would have taken me 30
minutes or more to unbolt and unstrap the bicycle and remove all sorts of stuff
in order to get to the frying pan that was packed away in the cupboards.
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| Emerging from her cacoon ! |
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| Safely home after 2 1/2 years |
“OK” the Customs guy said, signed the form,
handed it to me, and said “You can go now” !!!! It wasn’t even 8.15 – The whole process
hadn’t taken 45 minutes from the time we arrived !! What a relief ! We handed back our Hi-Viz vest, signed a
couple more bits of paper, and were off !
A quick tank of diesel (my tanks were almost empty for shipping) and I
was off down the freeway to home. That
was SO easy !! Happy chappy !!
Few more pics of the day here :- https://goo.gl/photos/D1bBru84ZVUFmt768
Invaded
by birds !!
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| Pale-headed rosellas have a bath |
One afternoon in mid October, Janet was
already on duty back in Perth again, and I was sitting on the couch in the
living room having a cup of tea, with the sliding doors to the garden wide open
on a lovely sunny Queensland day. Suddenly
lots of squawking in the garden and two of our favourite pale-headed rosella
parrots were playing in the bird bath and having a lovely (and very noisy)
time. These pale-headed ones are much
rarer than the common rainbow lorikeets, and when they do come, they are
normally quite shy and easily scared away, so it was a real pleasure to have
them playing right out in front of me for 5 minutes or so.
A couple of days later I heard a commotion
outside in the garden, and on inspection there were some of the noisy rainbow
lorikeets enjoying a feed of honey water I had put outside for them, and they
had been joined by a couple of honey eaters, and they were noisily squabbling
over the food !
Finally, the next day, I heard more noise
in the garden, this time the very distinctive call of our local magpies, who
make a delightful warbling noise, and are nothing like English magpies. A couple were sitting out in the garden, so I
took some of
Trooper’s food from the fridge and fed them. They were so tame, within a couple of minutes
they were taking the food from my hand !
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| He walked right in the door !! |
After a while I went back inside, and I
think I was sitting there reading a book, when a magpie warble sounded very
close. I looked up, and there was one right at the door - And two seconds later he just strolled
right in, across the Persian carpet, and jumped up on the Kuwaiti chest,
demanding more food ! I couldn’t
believe it ! He was in there for
several
minutes, feeding from my hand, before he decided he had had enough,
jumped down off the chest and strolled back out of the door into the garden and
flew away !! I was stunned – I knew
these maggies can be quite bold, but I would never have thought one would just
walk in through the door and demand to be fed !! A fun little adventure with the local
wildlife !!
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| Standing on the Kuwaiti chest ! |
Pics of the birds are here :- https://goo.gl/photos/x9B88jVPF54qnDRYA
Another Lotus run in the Queensland
countryside.
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| Driving through the Qld countryside |
In late October, Janet still away in Perth,
the Lotus Club organized a Sunday run out into the country, with lunch at an
outback pub planned. The weather was
fine so I decided to give my new Lotus Europa an airing, and joined a number of
other friends from the club, meeting at about 9 am in Beaudesert, and about an
hour from my house.
As is usual on these kind of runs, we
stopped after another hour or so for morning tea and a chance to catch up with
everyone for a chat, and then drove on
for another hour or so along the winding roads through the countryside until we
came to our lunch stop.
There were a good mix of old and new Lotus’
there, and it was not only a very pleasant day roaming the countryside, but
also a very good meal at the pub. As I
mentioned previously, cooking is not my favourite activity when I am on my own,
so any opportunity to eat out is always very much enjoyed and appreciated
! A very pleasant day, and exactly the
reason why I enjoy being a member of the Lotus Club. And the more I drive my Lotus Europa, the
more I enjoy it – Especially the excellent air conditioner that makes the car
totally usable on a day to day basis during the hot and humid Queensland summer
!
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