I’m just back from a vanlife diaries gathering near Newcastle, NSW. I travelled through smoke almost the entire way on the highway and thought it was bad until I came back the inland way. The birds could barely fly the wind was so strong and I could barely see for smoke from Tamworth to Uralla NSW. It was pretty scary. The vanlife gathering was my second this month and I have found a wonderful community of gentle, thoughtful, artistic people. A lovely ‘clan’ to be a part of. During the weekend I spent a few hours, and cups of tea, with a lovely young film maker from “Happen Films” and perhaps we will see the outcome of that in a few months. There are not many films or documentaries about women in their 60’s + living a full-time van life in Australia so I was happy to say my bit about living full time in less than 8 sqm. A few pics from the Vanlife Diaries weekend camps in October - click on any photo to see larger ands to scroll through them all. At the Byron gathering three of us went exploring with cameras. At the most recent gathering near Newcastle there were about twelve of us wandering with cameras. Van dwelling and photography seem to go hand in hand 😊📷 Here are photos from my cameras taken over the weekend. Here’s a YouTube clip I made of my journey to the Byron Bay Area gathering. Back on the block in Hillgrove after a full weekend. A fair bit has happened. The ‘shack’ is 1/2 built. Two windows and a door fitted. 1/2 the floor is down and today, 29th October, I helped Marty with the tank stand. It’s ready now for the 5,000l tank I’ve ordered. The Magpies are friendly and love the little bit of water I leave for them. My new stainless stove works very well - hot enough to use the Atomic on and I’ve even baked a cake in the folding oven that I bought with the stove. The 2nd hand door needed painting so I took a bit of the tin cladding to Bunnings and bought a colour I thought worked well. I’ll use this colour to paint the outside window frames and the floor too. I enjoyed working on the tank stand a little bit, drilling, running the nails through a soap bar and even hammering in one or two. I’m a good T.A. 😀 Even though the trees and shrubs are doing well the winds had made a mess of the green plastic tree guards, even blowing some away completely so I made hare/rabbit proof tree guards with steel gutter guard for them, gave them a couple of good drinks and wished them luck! Tips and tricks in the van.... my tricks anyway 😊 What to do when the piston gives up - use a bulldog clip. Always make sure the fat bit is to the top. Mine were fitted upside down and so dried out. Now I need to replace a few of them. Inexpensive air cooler - a wet cloth hanging under the Max X Air. Air in or out. Don't wast the left over pea, potato and smoked ham soup...
add an egg and some flour and make breakfast fritters. Ta Ta for now, Clare 🦊
3 Comments
Bron
30/10/2019 01:19:57 pm
Wow your place is looking good Clare, really coming along and the plants look like their doing well.
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Helen Ruby
30/10/2019 04:46:12 pm
Great to see your life is all that you hoped it would be and the van is proving to be wonderful and practical as you planned it on paper.
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