Well we're on our way again!  For those whom we missed catching up prior to our departure I apologise, but time just seemed to run away from us towards the end.

We left Shepparton yesterday bright and early,  planning to travel as far as we felt like much the same planning as last year you'll note! However our first stop is of course Gosford to see Pete and Dawn and to spend a couple of days with them.

Last night we stayed at a roadside stop called Chowne VC Rest Stop on the Hume Freeway 20 kilometres east of Goulburn. It seemed like a good idea at the time and indeed we were quite happy there tucking into our soup which I had brought from home.  It was cold, like really cold and we decided to retire early whilst we still had the warmth of our soup inside. We went to bed with our two hot water bottles, a blanket, a doona and my present for Dawn her "toes to her nose" flannel  quilt. We were quite cosy!

We slept reasonably well and when we awoke at 6am we decided to get up and get going as by then we were cold again and the hot water bottles were more like cold compresses.  However ..... at that point things started to unravel a little!

Do you recall seeing the RACV ad with the very friendly RACV man approaching the caravan and being offered a hot cuppa in return for his kindly assistance.  Well that was us except that we couldn't even offer a cuppa, I did however shake his hand (without taking off my gloves which I had put in the van without telling Ian for fear of suffering his derisive comments!) and tell him how very pleased I was to see him.

For some as yet unidentified reason our van battery (newly installed two days before we left had failed and also for some unaccountable reason the car battery had drained too!) NOT HAPPY JAN -------.

However I was actually not stressed which I know is hard to believe and just accepted philosophically that all would be resolved and thank God we weren't at Funny Dunny Park which no self respecting RACV or NRMA man or whatever they have in Queensland would find. The NRMA man set us right and we travelled on the rest of the journey to Pete and Dawn's without complications.

So here we are and today we went out and bought ourselves a very clever jump starter !  Of course we won't need it but there is always the thought of Funny Dunny Park again ..........

I wondered what I would write for our first blog but there you are it just came to me!  I will not ponder again for fear of another disaster.

Until our next stop which will be in Armidale keep safe and think of us!