Motorhome Travels - Perth 2006

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02/01/2006

Happy New Year!

Finally, this will be the year we see the North West.

We took the motorhome to my niece Anita's house and parked it beside the other Bedford - this made staying the night simple and avoided and drinking and driving issues.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze getting both buses on their lawn and I am sure that the neighbours thought that the world had gone mad and a camping ground had sprung up over night.

You can see from this photo that Hobohome has new front signage. The big 'Hobohome' sign sometimes attracted some unwanted attention. The new sign reads "Hobohome, On Tour". The word Hobohome is now much smaller.

Our plans to get back on the road are now well advanced. We have storage arranged and have started packing up the house.

We will be taking a trip to NZ before we set off - unplanned and a bit of a financial burden, but it will be nice to catch up with friends and family before we take to the road again.

We have a bit of an route planned, but it is quite complex. The weather changes in the North West are very extreme. There are months of the year that the wind, the temperature, the rainfall or the humidity makes some parts of the West very unpleasant - research and careful planning are required.

 

Quick Updates  -

- The ramps have now been used a few times, while they flex quite a bit more, they seem fine (and so easy to handle)

- The clutch has been changed on the motorhome - it feels exactly the same and the parts that came out look fine. The consensus is that there was nothing wrong with it, and it is just a different feel from the old Bedford clutch. We will carry the old clutch plate as a spare (and at least I now know how to change it).

- The new curtains are now in the motorhome and they look great.

- I am in the process of learning how cascading style sheets work - once I have mastered this, a new website design will be produced.

- I have updated the Travels page with a less confusing map showing our track since leaving Sydney in 2003.

 

09/02/2006

To New Zealand and back!

We arrived in Dunedin to a warm welcome - in fact it was so warm and humid as to be quite unpleasant. Not the Dunedin I remember.

It was great to catch up with friends and family down there - (Zo, Dad stamp of approval given :-). There was lots to be achieved and so little time - but it had to be done. The reward was a week in Auckland with John and Glenda (of www.still-nohurry.com fame). I really looks like they will be on the road before us! (and perhaps their web site will soon follow), good luck guys.

We are now back in Perth and are now only days away from moving out of the house, the motorhome is performing an entirely new function as a moving van as we place all of our household items in storage.

I have some concerns about the cooling system in the motorhome and will be carrying out some tests tomorrow to attempt to determine the cause. We may have to look at additional ways to provide additional cooling (electric thermo fans perhaps?).

There will be very few things I am going to miss about living in a house - but one thing I will miss for sure is broadband Internet access. If only there were some economical wireless replacement with full Australian coverage - (sigh).

Well, with a bit of luck our next update will be more interesting - we should actually be back in the motorhome and on the road again (spoken, NOT sung). Many thinks to everyone who has written and wished us well - we too look forward to the next chapter!

23/02/2006

It's done! We have moved out of the house and are now living back in the motorhome. Just as we found when looking for storage space near Sydney some years ago, the closer the storage is to civilisation the more expensive it is. Once again we decided to store our furniture and household items a long way from the house. We hired a huge furniture moving trailer and borrowed a car with a tow bar, and packed all of our 'house-bound-life' into a small storage unit. The next time we buy furniture, I will be looking for something much lighter.

The great news is that the motorhome does not have a cooling problem! Using a thermocouple and my multi-meter I took comparative water temperature readings. I came to the conclusion that the sensor for the buses temperature gauge was faulty. I replaced this (just $21.50) and all is now fine. I hope all of our problems are that easy and cheap to resolve!

We have now travelled just over 3,500 km on the new Isuzu engine and it is running really well. We are averaging 4.6km/l of diesel compared to 3.6km/l with the old Bedford engine. We feel that with careful driving out of the city we may be able to get this up to 5km/l.

We are parked up at a beach north of Perth as I write this update. We have a long list of tasks to complete before we can finally head out of the city. The stove in the motorhome has been misbehaving for some time and the serviceman who looked at it suggested that it should be retired. Some (unbudgeted) $1,200 later we have a new stove ready to be fitted this Saturday and plumbed on Sunday. Our washing machine has decided that this is unfair and has stopped working in sympathy. The main motor has burned out and it is just a few weeks out of warrantee (typical) - I have been talking to the service agents in Perth - they are less than helpful (when I first spoke to them they were only vaguely aware that they were the WA service agents). I am now attempting to talk directly to the importer in Sydney.

Tivoli (our Burmese cat) seems to be very happy to be back in the motorhome. She is not however enjoying the extreme weather we have had in the last few days. Moving from an air-conditioned house into a motorhome in 42 degree heat is a tough transition for anyone - fur coat clad or otherwise. Fortunately this has now settled down to a more reasonable low thirties and the sea breeze here at the beach is very pleasant.

 

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