Packing tips

I used to ride a bike and packing for a camping trip takes on a perspective all of its own. Though I expect hikers know what I mean. For example, you can pack socks inside shoes, and shoes can go inside other things. You quickly learn to fill every nook and cranny. The following tips don’t go to that extent, but if you have the time and want to minimise space and cost that style of packing may be worth considering.

1. Packing may take longer than expected. It’s also not something you can work at continually. It drove me nuts after too much of it, and I found I needed rest periods to get my sanity back before I could go at it again, and anyway you will have interruptions that eat away at your time. Unless you have experience, plan for thee or four times your initial estimate of how long it might take to pack.
2. Get a supply of small cardboard boxes to help with your packing. Hardware stores often throw them out. Small boxes are really useful for packing delicate items, and they will pack better and safer than simply wrapping you small precious items in paper in a large box. The vegetable markets have some very study boxes used to pack fruit. These boxes can be greasy, but are just the right size for hanging files, from the filing cabinet.
3. Your removalist company will have a supply of butcher’s paper for wrapping crockery and delicate items. Paper is essential. Rolls of paper are unsuitable; get a stack of individual sheets of butcher’s paper. Old newspaper pages are not nearly as good, but of course they will do at a pinch.
4. Pack several boxes at the same time. Something that is a poor fit in one box may fit better in one of the other boxes. Don’t leave any empty spaces in the removalist boxes to prevent things from moving around, but never force anything inside. If there is a risk of things moving around and getting damaged and you don’t have anything to fill the gap in a box, place a few socks in the space, or if it’s a large gap fold up a towel or two and put it into the space.
5. Try to use standard sized boxes; it will keep the removalist people happy. Get them from your removalist company, or pick them up second hand. People who have moved previously might have them available as giveaways.
6. Don’t pack your removalist boxes too heavy. Think about the people carrying them. And think about your own back too. The heavier they are the greater will be the chance of them being dropped and things getting damaged.
7. Delicate items can be placed inside kitchen containers. Sturdy sealable plastic or metal containers and saucepans make great containers for fragile items such as ornaments. Of course, ensure your delicates are suitably wrapped to prevent them from rolling around inside the container, and don’t forget to tape the lid shut unless it’s a click seal plastic container. And when you pack your circular kitchen containers you will have a lot of gaps between them. Those gaps are just calling out for tea towels, socks, underwear, t-shirts etc; firstly, to fill the gaps between them, and also to stop them from being damaged by rubbing against each other.
8. Mark important boxes clearly to make them easy to find. Such things may include perishable items or clothing for the first day back at work. A clear mark might be a splash of red on all sides of the box to make it stand out. The last thing you want is to identify your kitchen items in a week or so after you get to your destination by the number of ants crawling over the box.
9. Boxes full of crockery will travel well if each item is carefully wrapped. Bubble wrap may be best, but butcher’s paper works very well and doesn’t take up as much space, and I’ve had few damages to crockery using butcher’s paper.
10. Pack dinner plates and larger ceramic plates at the bottom of the box on their edges. Plates can be wrapped in groups with each one separated by a sheet of paper. To wrap a group of four plates, place the first one in the centre of the pile of butcher paper, fold one sheet of paper over the top of it, and place the next plate on top of the first, and fold the second layer of paper on top of that one, and continue in this way until the fourth plate has been placed and fold a sheet over on top of it, then finally, wrap the lot up as you would an ordinary parcel. Fill the bottom of the box with these parcels of plates on their edges, and if you don’t have sufficient to fill the bottom, pad it with something to prevent any movement.
11. Wrap cups and other items individually in one full sheet of butcher’s paper. There is no need to tape each item when wrapping them. If the paper wrinkles that can be good as the air gaps will act as a buffer from the other items. Pack the heavy items at the bottom, and place the lighter items on top, leaving no or few gaps.
12. If you don’t have access to boxes designed to carry books, distribute your books between several boxes to spread the weight over many boxes. Paper is very heavy.
13. Buy an industrial type tape dispenser to seal the removalist boxes. They are inexpensive and help seal the boxes well. Your removalist company might have tape giveaways or a cheap supply.
14. Label the boxes appropriately so that the boxes with fragile items don’t get dropped or packed underneath boxes of hardware. Don’t forget to put your name and a contact phone number on each box.
15. Linen and clothing can make excellent padding for breakables, and I found it useful to pack both together.
16. Make sure garden tools are clean, and empty the garden hoses of water well in advance of moving day.
17. Have a look at some of the removalist company web sites for a check list of other tips and tricks. Some of them are quite useful.
    

Some reflections on the move

Now that the shift is over, well mostly, I can reflect on the various experiences. I hope my experience will help you avoid some of the traps that caught me.

Here are a few things that might be useful to do months before you pack. These things all take time, but they are worthy of consideration.

Trash or treasure
Have a look around the house and work out your valuables from the junk. Transporting stuff to your new home that will get thrown away after a few months might as well be thrown out before you go. It can take a lot of time going through stuff. Make a realistic assessment of all your stuff. Start doing this early. Try for three to six months early. You’ll need a long time because you don’t want to get rid of good stuff.

Garage sale
You should consider having a garage sale. I’m not keen on them but I’ve heard of them working for others. The best garage sale ever I went to was organised by the street residents, and about a third of all homes in the street had stalls. It was great just wandering up and down. They may have got more people there because everyone was close by with less need for driving around.

ebay sales
I found ebay worked remarkably well for me, but of course these sales take time with photographs and the write-ups you have to do, and because of that should be organised many months before moving day. Ebay got rid of some large items that would have caused me a problem, and included an old rusty car with a blown up engine. I also had a rusted out trailer which also sold. Why anyone wanted them I don’t know, but they brought in a bit of cash when I would otherwise have had to pay someone to take them away. Ebay was also useful for getting rid of some left over mild steel that I had (recycle merchants won’t pay for steel unless you have a truck load, so you might as well sell it; they will pay for copper and aluminium etc), a motorcycle and cement mixer were also sold, along with various other stuff. It didn’t all sell, but most did.

Damage and insurance
Think about insurance if you are doing your own move. If you are being moved by your employer the chances are high that you will be covered by the company insurer, but check.

Take photographs of your valuables to help with that insurance claim you hope will never have to be made. Digital cameras make this so easy. Just think about it. If you get your furniture to your destination and find your antique dresser has been gouged by some mishap you are certain occurred during transit or storage you’d be disappointed and angry if the insurance assessor knocked back your claim. An accident could happen during transit, and some employee not wanting to upset their boss by their incompetence may have kept quiet about the incident and rubbed some dirt or stain into the fresh scratch to cover it up. The insurance assessor might reasonably assume it was you who had damaged the item before the move. A few suitably date proven photographs before and after may help with your claim. And if you are going to do this do it well otherwise don’t bother. As well as a distance shots of the items, get your camera close up and cover all surfaces, and have good lighting on the subject.

The previous owner

K, the previous owner dropped by. She promised to pick up some gym equipment that had been left behind in the carport. She also spoke about arranging to finish some carpentry work on our wardrobes. The stuff in the carport was no problem at all. We had left a ton of stuff in Melbourne. That was not an issue to us. However, the wardrobe situation was troublesome.

Despite promising that work on the wardrobes would be finished before we moved into the house the work had not been completed. The mirrored doors had been fitted, and while the wardrobes were new, which was nice, it would have been better had the job been completed. Some of the railings were missing from the inside, and the drawers needed fascias to be fitted to improve their appearance. Wardrobes are pointless if you can’t hang your clothes in them.

Cruise control

The lack of sophistication in technology
My new ute has cruise control fitted. I found cruse control takes a bit of getting used to if you’ve never experienced it. I had it set during the recent trip to Melbourne, and then forgot to switch it off when approaching a service station where I wanted to stop. I approached the entrance rather quicker than expected. As I said, it takes a bit of getting used to. While I find the device great to use, they feel weird. It’s like relinquishing control. Well, I guess this is true to an extent, but the thing is that the controller doesn’t control the car’s speed in the same way that I would.

It’s strange as they try to accelerate up hill as well as down hill. That’s truly bizarre. As you near the crest of a hill, I would be inclined to ease off on the throttle and let the car coast, but not cruise control. With it switched on the car keeps gunning it up and over the top. They can also be very nasty when you find yourself accelerating into blind corners. Some of the bends on the highway can be tight, and leaving the cruise control set at 100 kph on a bend can put the wind up you. Sure you can put your foot on the brake, or disable the device, but I wonder if manufacturers could improve upon the technology. Here are a few ideas.

Manufacturers might link cruise control devices to the steering. That wouldn’t be difficult with a few micro switches. Perhaps they should also have an inclinator built into the device to monitor whether the vehicle is travelling up or down hill.

There is little point in accelerating down hill; it’s a waist of fuel, but that’s what they do. As soon as the car gets over the top of the hill, the throttle doesn’t ease off to allow gravity to speed the car, but no, its full speed ahead. Similarly, if an uphill grade immediately follows a downhill grade the device should detect the change and maintain the higher speed (within reason) in anticipation of the load of the hill on the engine, rather than waiting until a reduction in speed to be detected before throttling up.

It wouldn’t be too hard. The current speed is known. An inbuilt timer could come into play with this. The logic might operate like the following: If the device has detected a down hill grade by the angle of the vehicle against horizontal, it should register that it’s going down hill. If it then registers an up hill grade it should maintain the current throttle opening. And if the designers were really on the ball they could design the device to note the rate of deceleration and open the throttle an amount to anticipate loss of speed. Of course, if at the bottom of the hill there is no subsequent up hill run, the device would detect this by registering horizontal for a prolonged period of time. It would be up to manufacturers (or users) to program the device as to what point the road surface is considered level. If the vehicle has been driving horizontally continually for maybe 10 seconds or so without a change in the inclination it could resume normal operation at your predetermined speed. It could also operate in a kind of inverse way at the top of hills. As the top of the hill is approaching, rather than the vehicle continuing to accelerate over the crest and accelerate down hill as they do, the device should detect the change, maintain current throttle opening or back off on the throttle, allowing gravity to accelerate the vehicle, and similarly if the road remains level for 10 seconds or so the device should return to normal operation.

Similarly, an intelligence should be built into cruise control devices such that when driving on level ground if the steering wheel is turned more than a certain amount from centre, the current speed is maintained or reduced until the steering has returned to the straight ahead position before the device returns to normal operation. It wouldn’t be too difficult for manufacturers to determine the maximum amount that the steering wheel can be turned, at different speeds, to determine whether it’s safe or not. Depending upon how tight the corner is, the device could maintain whatever speed you were travelling, decrease the speed or disable cruise control until the steering was straight again. And if manufacturers were really clever the could program to adjust for cornering on sloping road surfaces.

I know I’ve gone on about this, but these devices do seem to be lacking.


Cruise control is on, but the brain is off
I expect modern commercial vehicles have cruise control devices fitted in addition to automobiles. On the highway more and more I noticed trucks as well as cars drifting past each other at what seems like half a mile per hour faster than the other. Can’t these people step on the accelerator for a few seconds?

Do you want me to exceed the speed limit? Sure I do, if you are so anxious to overtake. If you are unhappy to drive 1 mph slower than me and stay behind me, than 1 mph faster and be in front then you should darn well step on the accelerator and get on with it. You are annoying me, and making everyone else behind you angry by holding them up with you antics.

I was watching S in the ute as we were driving down the Hume Highway, no doubt with the cruise control set. I was also watching the behaviour of the truck drivers we encountered. She was driving ahead of me and we were both aiming to sit on 100 kph. Many times while on the freeway I’d see a semi coming up behind me, creeping slowly closer by the minute. Eventually the semi would pull out and overtake, which is okay. But on more than one occasion they would do this on the approach to an uphill grade. They would pull out and overtake, and as the hill made its presence felt on the truck it would loose speed. But the cruise control of the ute would keep the car’s speed at a steady 100. Eventually, the semi would slow and pull into the lane behind the ute, and in front of me.

Eventually, the top of the hill would be reached and the semi would gradually gain speed and catch up to the ute again and pull out into the other lane and overtake it, and that’s okay. But just as often by the time it had caught up, changed lanes to overtake, it was on another uphill grade and quickly lost ground again and have to pull back behind the ute and wait for the cycle to begin again. This is annoying, and I found it to be stupid, stupid behaviour.

After a while I would watch the type of semi that passed me and if I noticed the truck looked like some sleek, new, high powered, monster I would stay behind it even if it did slow a little, because generally they just kept on going and faded into the distance. But so often the drivers of older, slower, trucks attempted the same kind of thing. I quickly learned that if these twits wanted to play silly buggers by passing a quicker vehicle (in this case, me in my brand new, empty truck) then when that hill came along I’m going to pass them without hesitation.

Here are two things to consider when driving:

1. Know the limitations of your vehicle, and drive accordingly
2. If it seems apparent that another vehicle is travelling faster than you, don’t overtake it, because they are only going to overtake you further down the highway.

Melbourne to Canberra

We managed to get everything into the campervan (with a few things in the car) on Sunday morning, and headed back to Canberra. This was our last trip!

Of all those trips I’d spent on the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Canberra over a period of almost a year, this one was now the last. I’d grown fond of the drive, listening to all those audio books, and I became familiar with a lot of the landmarks along the way. There are some wonderful landscapes on that trip, if you take the time to look around.

It’s good to see some road works going on in NSW, and hopefully there will soon be more freeway sections of the road coming into the Hume Highway. In fact, it doesn’t seem so long ago that going through Albury was a 60 kph slow zone through the Albury city streets. Now the new bypass speeds you through Albury. Wodonga has been bypassed for so long I can’t remember. Albury was such a nuisance with so many left and right turns as you twisted through the centre of town hitting traffic light after light. One disappointment for me with the Albury bypass was the discovery of a roadhouse on the northern end just outside Albury that sold great fish and chips. Of course, it was a truck stop, which is often a sign of good food on the highway. Well, the freeway has bypassed that service centre. But the smooth-as-glass road surface of the Albury bypass is brilliant.

Of course, the more freeway sections that are added the more small towns will be bypassed, which may affect the viability of some of them. Of all of the small towns, Holbrook is one that caught my eye despite my never having stopped there for long, except once for some chips late one night. Holbrook is submarine town. I don’t know how far Holbrook is from the sea, but to have a full size submarine in the town centre is no mean feat. And I don’t think the river system in Australia stretches as far as Holbrook. Alas, the old subs must have arrived in sections by truck, unless there is an artesian basin running under Holbrook. Perhaps, I’ll get back that way for a weekend drive sometime and check out the sub. What a bizarre thing for the city council to do.

Another fabulous section of the Hume Highway, as far as engineering achievements is concerned, is on the northern outskirts of Melbourne, just south of Craigieburn. I used to get badly lost before the freeway section was completed if I missed a road sign or detour sign on the way into Melbourne. It seemed such a hodgepodge of roads through an industrial area of town. Not only has this section of the road been made top class, but there are a number of wonderful roadside sculptures that are worth more than a glance, and they look stunning at night the way they have been lit up, and look here for more. Look out for the speed traps that are in this new section, and also in the final run up to Melbourne; there are no warning signs. You just get caught.

Our last pickup

S got sleepy on the way down and wanted to stretch out in the camper. I had to stop in a parking bay just north of Albury because I was flaking out too, but had a lousy rest. There were so many trucks whizzing by in such close proximity that they forced me back on the road behind the wheel in search of a better spot. We drove on and found a quieter rest spot just south of Glenrowan.

We both snuggled up for a while, and got on our way shortly after 8.00am, arriving in Melbourne for breakfast in Volumes at about 11.00am. Since we had the camper on the ute I had intended to drive to a caravan park that wasn’t too far from Warrandyte. We were planning on staying there for the night and spend the next day packing the campervan, and then back to Canberra. We were on the verge of heading off to the camping site, in drizzly rain, when S casually mentioned the motel we stayed in last time. We had almost driven past it. But it was too tempting, and I drove in and booked another room with a spa bath for fun, and then loafed around.

Canberra to Melbourne

We’re off to Melbourne again, yet again. The campervan had been sitting on the ute since it had been loaded. Of course, everything had been emptied from it, and now it’s going back to Melbourne. Our task on this trip was to fill the campervan with everything from Fort Knox self storage. The camper will become a removalist van. With the extra height that it has we’ll be able to get more inside than we could by loading the ute by itself.

The furniture arrives

I’m surprised neither of us got sick from our experience of that weekend working on a cold and damp night.

Our furniture arrived today. I rang Wridgways in the morning to find out what was happening; I wanted to get a delivery date. They said they’d been trying to contact me all day yesterday. That’s probably true, as I wasn’t at work. Though I was surprised when they said they didn’t know where to deliver our stuff. Almost every box had my address on it. I wonder why they didn’t try me on my mobile.

The truck arrived just before 11.00am and they were gone by 3.00pm, and afterwards the house looked like a warehouse inside and out by the time they had finished. There was stuff everywhere. Boxes had been stacked two or three deep and two high. S fed the men up on pies and beer. This is probably always a good thing to do. It may have led to them leaving lots of large plastic bags to cover our stuff that was left on the front veranda. These people work hard and a little kindness can go a long way. The veranda tends to get wet in the rain and the plastic covers were welcome. The Canberra Wridgways people were excellent (good on you, guys); unlike our Melbourne experience with Wridgways.

A few damages were evident. I have two wooden crates. I spotted one of the crates had been stored on its side. I hope it wasn’t the one I had marked ‘stereo and computer’. Some of the removalist boxes were badly squashed. While they were unloading and before everything had been removed I had a look inside the truck to see how things had been packed. Some boxes were squashed in sideways. I spotted one upside down.

We have an old copper which got damaged, and was squashed out of shape in the shift. I think I spotted the location on the truck where the copper had been packed. I noticed an almost perfectly circular space between several cartons on the truck. It was probably the copper that had been rammed into the gap, deforming the boxes into the shape of a circle, and damaging the copper in the process by squashing its sides. That’s not particularly clever packing.

Anyway, it was darn nice to be able to sit in an actual lounge chair, and turn the telly on. Normality had begun. That is, amidst the chaos of stacks and stacks of removalist boxes.

Melbourne to Canberra

We had another very slow trip back to Canberra, with lots of breaks. I was particularly aware of how things were packed in the truck and was very tentative in driving over rough sections of the road. Parts of the Hume Highway are not as pleasant to drive on as you’d expect for a major highway. So, I slowed at those sections, and I didn’t care how much I held up the traffic. This highway badly needs an overhaul. Even parts of the Victorian side of the highway, which is freeway for the whole length of it, is beginning to break up with the heavy traffic; probably truck usage more than anything.

A fog began to develop when we were somewhere near Glenrowan and it didn’t let up until we reached Gundagai. I wonder if it was from the Murray River system. It was quite eerie. The headlights seemed to shine in the wrong directions, with low beam being the best. It got so thick at times that we had to drive slowly.

I recall listening to a news broadcast many years ago. A couple of motorists driving in Germany had succumbed to an accident on a highway. They were driving on the same road but in opposite directions in a very heavy fog. It was so foggy that both drivers were having trouble seeing the road ahead. To alleviate the problem it seems that both drivers had preferred to lean out the window and drive by keeping the painted line on the road surface in sight. They encountered each other suddenly, not in a vehicle collision, but when their heads impacted as they drove past each other. They should have stopped if the conditions were so bad. It sounds like a tall story, but it was reported on ABC Radio news.

Fortunately, the fog was not so heavy on the Hume, but it was a lovely experience to see it. This trip must have taken around 12 hours, including breaks. S was desperate for sleep. Every time I had to stop for a nap, she could only rest in a sitting position in the ute. There was more room to stretch out in the truck so we swapped and she got a good rest for a few hours. I noticed while in the ute, that as comfortable as the car is to drive, you just can’t get into a decent position for sleeping.

Home at last. A short rest, and then realising our time was short in which to return the truck to the rental company, we almost threw everything out (and it still took about 2-3 hours to unpack). We rushed to fill the tank, and get the truck back to Fyshwick by 5.00pm. Actually, filling the tank was an interesting experience that I shared with my credit card.

With fuel prices seeming to be in an upward spiral it becomes annoying to watch the dollar indicator spinning around ever faster as you fill the petrol tank at the end of the week. When I stopped the truck to fill the fuel tank, and saw the size of the tank you quickly understand that paying for fuel in a truck takes on a whole new meaning that motorists never experience. Actually, it was an experience in more ways than one. With a truck, the nozzle goes straight into the tank. There are no bends in the filler as cars have, and refuelling stations have diesel bowsers specially made for filling truck tanks. High speed bowsers. Now if you want to see the dollar indicator spin, fill a truck tank at one of these bowsers.

Actually, filling the tank was the single worst experience of driving the truck. The bowser nozzles were generally messy; soaked in diesel spillages. And it stinks, and stays on your hands and clothes. I suspect some people with diesel engines in their cars go there to avoid lining up in the queues at the regular bowsers, and of course the high speed bowser pumps mega volumes of fuel out like you wouldn’t believe. Of course, it blows back, spills, and before you know it these people are stuffing things up for everyone else.

It felt really peculiar getting back into the EXA, after driving the truck for so long. The car was so low to the ground that it felt weird, and it was a bit rough being an older vehicle that it felt like I was driving a truck; compared to the rental truck which felt like driving a car. Home again. An Indian takeaway, and then bed.

Finally cleared out from Warrandyte

We rose, not so early on Sunday morning, and got back to Warrandyte for more packing. We quickly realised that there was no way all our stuff was going to come with us. So, we loaded the hardware and things that wouldn’t come, and took it to our storage at Fort Knox.

We had an amazingly large amount of stuff (three trolleys full), and an amazingly large amount fitted into the space we had. Some of it was balanced precariously. We’ll have to make another trip later.

After a while we both became very casual when crossing the road with approaching traffic. Hey, this is our street; keep your speed down: See, we’re not rushing out of your way. Actually, you could hear the traffic coming a long way off because of the wet road. The wet weather made things miserable. But, gradually things came together.

As I was loading the truck I had a curiously large number of motorists toot at me and calling out unintelligible things as they drove past. Were they feeling sorry for me, seeing me packing in the dark, or telling me to get off the road? Maybe they thought I was up to no good, and robbing one of the houses on the street. No idea. It was bizarre.

I squeezed our boxes into every nook and cranny, and almost packed them to the ceiling at the front of the truck. It was very loaded well.

I had to ring the rental company and apologise for not returning the truck on time. It was due back in Canberra at 5.00pm and here it was 4.00pm with us still packing in Melbourne. We needed another day.

S had collected a lot of magazines over the years, and wondered if Melody would have liked them. Passing them on would have been a way of getting rid of them. No, she wasn’t interested. Fortunately, it was rubbish night in Warrandyte, and the neighbours’ bins became very useful. Every bin in the close vicinity began to bulge as we filled them with our magazines and other rubbish.

Despite packing carefully and stacking the various boxes as high as possible so that there would be the maximum amount of floor space for our plant pots it became apparent that there would be insufficient space for them all. Drastic measures needed to be adopted: Large pot plants were placed next to one another on the floor, with tiny pots located in the gaps between the larger ones. Now came the tricky bit. Another layer of pot plants was placed on top of the first layer. That’s not something you would think of doing if you valued the pots or the plants in them. It was desperation. Then came all the last minute things, and before the truck doors were closed things were literally being thrown inside. Brooms, strips of wood and other stuff that I can’t recall, were literally thrown inside on top of everything else. There was no choice really. We finally left at about 10.00pm

Clearing out of Warrandyte

This was another trip to Melbourne. I had this grand plan of having an early night the day before, and then hitting the road during the early hours of the morning. As much as you might try, it’s almost impossible to break the circadian cycle. Our planning for this trip involved being in bed shortly after getting home from work, getting up at about 2.00am to drive the truck through the night to arrive in Melbourne in daylight. In this way we would be fresh enough to make the drive and get on with our work without much need for rest. We planned to have breakfast at Volumes, one of the local Eltham eateries, and then get to work. But it’s difficult to sleep when you don’t need rest, and the best I did was doze on Friday evening.

I got up about midnight after a very patchy rest. S didn’t sleep at all. We headed off, S in the ute and me in the truck. S had cruise control set on the ute which made it difficult for me to keep up with her. She could go up and down hills at a constant speed, whereas I found that difficult in the truck. Inevitably, we drove for a bit, got tired and had to stop along the way, just south of the Victorian border. S later had to stop again for a rest, while I kept going. It was drizzly on the way down the Hume Highway. It was a miserable dirty night.

I went straight to Fort Knox self storage while S was napping somewhere on the Hume Highway. I wish I had a camera with me when I opened the door to our storage. It was a sight to behold. I don’t know how I got everything inside. I set to work packing everything into the truck. The rain was clearing, and S arrived just as I was loading the desk. Loading took much longer than expected, and I was running out of energy.

S spent the rest of the day cleaning out the garage at Warrandyte. I forgot how much stuff we still had lying around the place. Of course, Melody had moved into our old house by this time. I began by loading the campervan onto the ute. I was tentative about doing this.

Loading the camper took me ages, but the repaired jacks worked just fine, and fortunately the anchors I had fitted to the ute were in the correct positions, which was a great relief. I was also dreading connecting the trailer extension lead, expecting to see problems with the electrics. The last thing I wanted was an electrical problem, but it was perfect.

I began loading a few boxes onto the truck that S had packed. It took so long. I don’t know how many times I’d walked up and down that driveway. It was tiring. There were so many little things to go into the truck that carrying everything down the long driveway and then walking back up that long, steep, drudge, time after time was painfully slow and sapped energy. We decided to borrow one of the trolleys from Fort Knox to see if it would help. The trolleys were heavy duty things, and would probably support the load of just about anything you might care to put on them. They were on casters and really so easy to manoeuvre.

It was a failed experiment, and we returned the trolley after using it only once. The trolley was a bit like the ones you see in railway stations or airports, hooked together to carry luggage, and pulled behind those funny little motorised vehicles, and about the same size as those trolleys too. I didn’t realise how heavy the trolley was, and it took quite an effort to push it up our drive. We got it loaded up with some of our boxes, but it took both of us all our energy to stop the thing from careering out of control as we took it down the driveway, because of the weight. The casters also made steering difficult as it tended to follow every variation in the driveway, rather than straight. The drizzle and wet drive didn’t help. What a flop of an idea.

There was nothing for it but to return the trolley and carry on loading the truck by carrying each box down the drive one or two at a time. Had I known the campervan would have gone on the ute without trouble I would have loaded it last and used the ute to ferry everything down the drive to the truck. But I didn’t want to have trouble and be trying to fix problems in the dark. The lesser of two evils. Though, it would have been a great time saver.

Eventually the day started to lose its light, and a continual drizzle settled in. There was a lamp in the back of the truck, but it was very bright and dazzling on the eyes, and would have flattened the battery quickly. So, I didn’t use it. There was a street light about a 100m away which shone into the back of the truck somewhat, and I found that car headlights shone into the truck as they drove down the street, and both provided adequate lighting for packing; funny about that. It’s interesting how your eyes cope with poor lighting conditions. The drizzle continued, and we gradually got drenched carrying the boxes to the truck.

S was buggered, and so was I to tell the truth. And, we went off in search of a place to stay, and called in at the Eltham Gateway motel. We’d both passed this place thousands of times while we’d lived at Warrandyte. It was funny to be staying there now. We must have been a sight; both of us wet, grubby, and untidy. We had been working hard and it would have been difficult to tell whether the dampness on us was sweat or rain drops; probably both. I was wearing t-shirt and jeans and when we arrived at the motel, it seemed a rather pleasantly mild evening. Everyone else was rugged up in coats and shivering; it’s all relative, I guess.

The spa bath after the day’s effort was irresistible, and we had a lovely meal at the motel restaurant, and a real bed. Our furniture hadn’t arrived in Canberra as yet and we’d been sleeping on a blow up mattress. The bed in the motel seemed luxury. I felt as though we were on holiday.

Canberra to Melbourne

It was time for another trip to Melbourne. We picked up a truck from Sargent Rentals at Fyshwick this time. This truck was manual rather than automatic as was the previous one. It took quite a bit of getting used to. I didn’t get off to a great start, as I was selecting the wrong gears and was a bit unsteady on the road because of my fumbling with the gear shift. It’s not that I don’t know how to drive a manual. It was just a matter of getting used to the truck and I didn’t realize first gear would be so low. At least I’d gained some experience in driving a vehicle this size a few days ago.

We loaded the truck with our empty cartons, a change of clothing, and some tools ready for the trip, and of course, the repaired campervan jacks.

The campervan jacks had become seized preventing me from bringing the campervan back to Canberra, and was presently stuck in Melbourne on our old property. This was a setback that had hopefully now been resolved. I took the two jacks to my trusty Belconnen mechanic a few days earlier to see if he could repair them. I guess I could have bought new jacks, but in the vicinity of $1800 I’ll try the repair first. And it worked. When I picked them up from the garage I was more than a little curious to find out how they were un-seized. Apparently, the mechanic had difficulty with them.

The solution ended up along the lines of securing one end of the jack to the hydraulic hoist of the type used raise cars into the air for service, and then securing the other end to the floor. The jacks were heated with an oxy acetylene flame, and pressure applied to the mechanism by turning the jack handle, while at the same time applying pressure by raising the hoist. I squirmed a bit when being told, but hey, if it works. Innovative!

I was so pleased they had been repaired. It wasn’t just the cost of the replacement jacks that concerned me. According to the web site I found, and thankfully they are still available, I may have had issues if I bought new ones. My campervan must be more than 30 years old. I bought it second hand and in one of the drawers was an old book of matches. The photograph on the book of matches was that of Prince Charles and Diana at their wedding. That’s getting back a few years. Anyway, according to the web site, you buy four camper legs, as they call them, in a set (I only need two), and you buy them with accompanying brackets. The brackets are fitted to the campervan, and the legs hook into the brackets when in use. Well, my campervan already has brackets fitted, neatly tailored into the aluminium sheeting and the structure of the unit. What’s the bet the new legs wouldn’t fit the existing brackets, and replacing the brackets would be a major ordeal. Not the sort of work you’d want to attempt interstate.

Anyway, our two cats will have a huge helping of food to tide them over for the weekend, and here goes another trip down the Hume Highway.

A large cheque deposit

I used the Virgin card to deposit the settlement cheques. I remain incensed by this mistake, but felt relieved once it was deposited. Banking the cheque though the Post Office was a breeze.

The new washing machine arrived. I tried it out and put too much detergent in the machine. I couldn't help thinking of images of the three stooges TV show, with soap suds oozing from every orifice, of the machine that is.

A $90,000 loose end tidied up

The Virgin card arrived in the post this afternoon. At last I can correct that dumb mistake that occurred during settlement and deposit the $90,000 cheque. But I wonder what it has cost me in increased interest repayments.

S called in at the Belconnen solicitor’s office to pick up the cheque. She was treated in an offhand manner by the staff at the office. That was at William Heague, Belconnen. She was amused to note, that when they spotted her title (Dr) their manner changed markedly.