Monday 1460km
A very interesting day. I drove to Cowra where I had seen a very appealing view on my way through earlier in the week and stopped at a park on Binni creek rd. to do a small painting. I was tucked up in the rocks and the trees being very quiet as I painted and suddenly a fox came out of nowhere and landed inside two metres from me. We both stared at each other for a second before he ran off…very cool. I finished up and drove down to the pub for lamb cutlets, salad and chips for a very cheap $5. I saw a bottle-o across the way and decided to stop in for a bottle of Dewar’s before heading off to Canowindra. I drove up the lot and parked, pulled the parking brake and headed in. When I came out, jumpin’ joan was gone! A guy walking up the parking lot asked if that was my van, pointing down the bottom of the lot. I said yes and realized that the parking brake had failed. Amusement turned to despair as I realized she had crashed into a large fence post at the bottom. A mob of coories on the veranda of a pub next to the parking lot were having a laugh and yelling all manner of things at me as I jumped in and pulled joan off of the post. I had a quick look at the damage before driving off to a park for further assessment. After I had time to think about it, I felt really lucky, because if joan would have missed that post by another 10cm, she would have rolled out into two-way traffic on a main arterial road. Despite busting up my drivers-side brake light and signal, the flasher still worked. I couldn’t open the back as the bumper had mashed up into it. Being Easter Monday, the wreckers were closed, as was NRMA, so I decided to head back to Sydney and fix it myself there. This seemed like a great idea until I hit Blackheath in the Blue Mountains when Easter weekend traffic started backing up with all of the holidaying people trying to get back to the city as well. It took 3 hours to do the 40 or so kilometres to Springwood where it finally opened up. I made it into Paddington at 8:30pm and felt very relieved to be home. I had to come back to Sydney for a gig on the weekend anyway, so this will give me a chance to restock, fix and fit joan out with a few extras.
A very interesting day. I drove to Cowra where I had seen a very appealing view on my way through earlier in the week and stopped at a park on Binni creek rd. to do a small painting. I was tucked up in the rocks and the trees being very quiet as I painted and suddenly a fox came out of nowhere and landed inside two metres from me. We both stared at each other for a second before he ran off…very cool. I finished up and drove down to the pub for lamb cutlets, salad and chips for a very cheap $5. I saw a bottle-o across the way and decided to stop in for a bottle of Dewar’s before heading off to Canowindra. I drove up the lot and parked, pulled the parking brake and headed in. When I came out, jumpin’ joan was gone! A guy walking up the parking lot asked if that was my van, pointing down the bottom of the lot. I said yes and realized that the parking brake had failed. Amusement turned to despair as I realized she had crashed into a large fence post at the bottom. A mob of coories on the veranda of a pub next to the parking lot were having a laugh and yelling all manner of things at me as I jumped in and pulled joan off of the post. I had a quick look at the damage before driving off to a park for further assessment. After I had time to think about it, I felt really lucky, because if joan would have missed that post by another 10cm, she would have rolled out into two-way traffic on a main arterial road. Despite busting up my drivers-side brake light and signal, the flasher still worked. I couldn’t open the back as the bumper had mashed up into it. Being Easter Monday, the wreckers were closed, as was NRMA, so I decided to head back to Sydney and fix it myself there. This seemed like a great idea until I hit Blackheath in the Blue Mountains when Easter weekend traffic started backing up with all of the holidaying people trying to get back to the city as well. It took 3 hours to do the 40 or so kilometres to Springwood where it finally opened up. I made it into Paddington at 8:30pm and felt very relieved to be home. I had to come back to Sydney for a gig on the weekend anyway, so this will give me a chance to restock, fix and fit joan out with a few extras.
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ReplyDeletePoor Joan... what a tragic start to the trip! Hopefully that will be the worst of your van troubles.
ReplyDeleteM. Ward is off in the mail to you today but I doubt it will get there before you take off again. Hopefully Moo will forward to you.
Love the paintings!
ReplyDeleteIt is going to be a great show well done!
xxx
marie