The first day of school

So the schooling issue has resulted in a story that gives everyone quite a laugh. There are 3 options for families travelling Australia. You can home school, where YOU set the curriculum as long as you meet the Key Learning Areas. You can enrol in Distance Education, where the children have a teacher who sets work which is sent back and forth. Or you can keep the children enrolled in their current school and have the school set work.

My preference was for Option 1 as I felt it allowed me to tie in with where we were going and what we were doing. Its seems to be what most people do. Ummm... Education Dept said "NO!!" The man on the phone actually HUNG UP on me when I asked about it. I was so confused as to why we couldn't do it. Apparently one must have a HOUSE in Victoria to home school. We don't qualify as we have a bus, not a house! Sheesh!! I've since discovered that I could have registered with the Queensland Ed Dept.

So then I tried Option 2. I asked the Primary School officer at Distance Ed if we could enrol and she said the children would have to do 4 hours of school PER DAY. I asked if we could do a restricted curriculum in light of the Museums and Art Galleries and the other learning they would be getting. Ummmm.... Education Dept says "NO!! They must do FOUR hours a day - normal schools do 6 hours afterall!" So apparently Queensland distance Ed have a restricted curriculum for travellers that we could have done too. If only I'd thought to ring Queensland!

So we were left with Option 3, which was the children's Principal's first choice and which I warmed to quite quickly. The children have an allocated teacher and class, but will be marked as absent all year. They will be concentrating on Literacy and Numeracy and spending about an hour a day on schoolwork.

I haven't yet collected all the resources, so we are making it up a bit as we go. I felt it was important for the kids to start school when their friends did though. So here it is. First day of school:

We had our Bruny Island boat tour booked for 11am, so they chose to do their one hour first thing in the morning. In their pyjamas! Angus worked on Handwriting and Lexie started a review of the Treetops activity we did. Then they both did some worksheets from a fab set of books I bought about a boy travelling Australia. Today was day 2, and we concentrated on Numeracy using iPad apps and journal writing. We had a big driving day, so the kids did their hour while we were cooking dinner! We are all LOVING this flexibility!!

Angus turns 8!!

Not quite the birthday we had in mind. He was rather upset that he wouldn’t be spending the day on Bertha – we all were. But I tried to make as special as I could:

We started the day in a little unit in Snug under puff balls and a colourful Birthday garland. Angus got the traditional family 8 year old present – his own iPod. I thought the excitement might not have been as great, having received his iPad mini for Christmas. Apparently not!

After some Birthday calls from his 2 Nannas, we then packed up and caught the ferry to Bruny Island.

He spent the afternoon continuing his goal to build the best sandcastle in the world and finished with his chosen dinner – macaroni and cheese “Hilly’s way”.

I’m so glad I packed the cake tins and birthday cake decorations in Bertha. Sigh… we finished off with another little bought Birthday cake. We’ve decided we are having another celebration when we get back on board!

Starting to struggle

Sigh… we’re finding it a bit tough at the moment. Everyone wants to be back at home – on Bertha where we belong. Particularly our youngest family member. Angus is my little neat freak and he is finding it hard moving around so frequently. He very much likes “everything in its place” and moving every 2 days means that nothing has a place.

Don’t misunderstand me. We are all still having fun and seeing SO much of Tassie. We are very fortunate to be in this position and loving life. But we are all finding it a little frustrating too. We left Duncan’s favourite cup at the last caravan park and Lexie really misses Bertha the bus. She misses Bertha herself. Angus misses knowing where stuff is and Duncan and I miss the cookware and knives that we specifically packed so we wouldn’t have to deal with the crappy stuff at caravan parks!!

Bertha’s engine has been removed and is in the process of being changed over. We have continued our travels, but paying for accommodation on top of sight seeing and the prospect of paying for the new engine is slightly freaking me out. Tonight we are saving over $100 by staying in a caravan and annex rather than a family unit. We’ve decided its not worth it – the gas wouldn’t work, there was ONE saucepan and we are living in a caravan – the thing that Duncan didn’t want to do! We had budgeted for a disaster on the trip (jokingly mentioning a new engine – hah!) and I just have to bite the bullet and pay a bit more so we are all comfortable. We have got our camping gear and pretty much any other part of the year/trip we could be camping. But its effing freezing here at night. I just can’t do it!! I’m currently cold and right now I’m in an enclosed annex with carpet and curtains, fully dressed and wearing a fleece jacket.

So we have been busy sight traveling and sight seeing. Since the last update, we’ve been to:

Hobart – staying in Battery Point and going to the Salamanca Markets

Hobart Airport – LOL. It was the Australia Day weekend so there was NO accommodation anywhere picturesque or exciting. It gave us a good chill-out day. The kids hung out watching telly and playing on screens and just relaxing. We very much need those regularly at the moment. Dunc got to go to a pub and catch up with someone from his work.

Snug – A caravan park on the beach! Bliss. The kids got to swim and Angus got to dig and wallow in sand.

Bruny Island – we are currently here. It is absolutely GORGEOUS! The beaches are that stunning blue/green of the Whitsunday Islands. Tomorrow we have a boat cruise booked. A 3 hour tour. (you can imagine Dunc and I singing the theme to Gilligan’s Island. The kids are sick of hearing it. Lexie is now wishing that boat tours were not 3 hours – 2 or 4 would be better!)

Today is Angus’ birthday, but that deserves a post all of its very own. Tomorrow is also a big day – the first day of school! Their friends start back at BLPS, so they need to start their 1 hour a day. LOL. I have it all planned…

Bertha's blues

Hi folks, Dunc here just giving you all a bit of a technical update on Bertha's issues.

From the get go I will warn you that this will be a bit technical about engine stuff, so, if you smile and nod at a mechanic when he starts talking about engine bits to you, then you might like to skip this post and come back in a couple of days. I really won't be offended if you do, as this post is more for those who want to understand what stopped poor Bertha in her tracks.

When we bought Bertha, we were led to understand that she was only 770,000kms old - and for an engine of this type that is quite young. After we overheated coming into Queenstown, we knew something was wrong as she was losing oil and water.  We had "Speed" a local mechanic come out and check her over but without a full workshop he was not able to shed much light on the health of the engine. He recommended we watch for anything unusual and stop immediately if anything went funny. We were hoping to limp our way to Burnie and I was extremely watchful for anything that could result in further damage to the engine.

Sadly, our journey was very short lived and we made it to just past the Queenstown airport before the temperature rose sharply again and I shut our poor Bertha down.  We then made the decision to have her towed to Hobart. (Apparently the tow truck driver has pulled a few coaches out of Queenstown as it is a very nasty drive in!!!)

Once in Hobart the new mechanic had a fair idea of what the problem would be and had a look at the inspection panels on the side of the block. His thoughts were confirmed as far as a cracked sleeve. This crack in the air intake of the sleeve is quite common for a 2 cycle Diesel engine and a relatively easy fix, so we would be back on the road in 4 or 5 days. This was pretty good news, so we set about preparing for the arrival of Hilly & Pop and enjoying all of what Hobart had to offer while the mechanic got down to pulling the engine apart.

We then got the call that our poorly Bertha had bigger problems. The mechanic had drained the engine and taken the sump off to gain access to the bottom of the conrod to aid in the removal of the piston and sleeve and he found loose copper shavings in there. 

This is very bad sign in an engine, as this indicates serious wear on a bearing and this warranted further investigation. He removed one of the main bearings (this one holds the cranks shaft in) and found that the bearing that should be a very firm fit was rattling around like a marble in a tin cup. The mechanic advised that this was terminal and a new engine was required for Bertha.

He also found that the crankshaft itself has some major wear on it which is also a very bad spot to have any wear.

The kind of wear we are seeing in Bertha is something you'd see from an engine that has done 2 or 3 times the work we were told she had done. People have commented that we were ripped off by the guy who sold her to us, and asked why the 2 mechanics who have looked her over didn't pick up on this. The old owner did one "lap" of Australia which is only about 40 000km. He might not have had any idea either! The mechanics would not have identified the problem unless they took the engine apart. Potentially it might have shown up at our scheduled oil change in Melbourne in February, but right now there is no-one to 'blame'. 

Our mechanic started trying to source a new motor for us from Detroit on the mainland but the price got extremely high and they started looking locally and they eventually spoke to a guy called Colin, the Tassie guru of 2 stroke Detroit engines. When this guy breaks wind it smells like diesel fumes and he has a near perfect match for our Bertha as a "long engine" meaning it is built to a point and then needs to be completed to the spec of the purchaser which would have been Austral spec in our case. These engines can be used in boats and trucks and it needs to be made into a bus engine.

Our old engine will be taken to Launceston and he will put the 2 side by side and unbolt from the old and bolt onto the new. This will recreate the engine as perfectly as possible. He will then start it up in his workshop and tweak it to ensure it's running well and then it will be shipped back to our mechanic in Hobart for fitting. 

It will be a long drawn out process as Colin is apparently quite the perfectionist and will definitely have the engine purring like a kitten when it gets back to us. From start to finish this whole process will take 2 weeks (or thereabouts) and I think most of the diesel mechanics in Tassie will know of Bertha's plight by the time she is back on the road. 

We have been supported by the friendliest bunch of people you could imagine. I must say that Speed in Queenstown needs a special mention here as he came out on his Saturday morning to have a look at the engine just to help a bloke out. He even checked up on us on Saturday afternoon to see how we were going. Top bloke!!

I will now return you to your normal viewing :-)

‘Bad News in Good Company’. Or ‘Bertha needs a heart transplant – thank goodness Mum and Dad are here to console me’.

So we were hanging out for Hilly and Pop to visit. The intention was for them to stay in the spare beds in Bertha, while we parked at the best caravan park in Australia, which has a farm with animals to feed. Mum and Dad were coming to check out MONA (the Museum of Old and New Art) with me so I could spend a whole day with them there before going back with Duncan and the children.

Well we got to see MONA at least! Having been towed the day before they were due to arrive, staying on Bertha was out of the question.

We got the sad and horrible news that dear Bertha needs a heart transplant. Her engine is significantly older than we thought. The odometer reads 700 000km, which is great for that engine. They should go 1.7 million to 2 million kilometres easily. Which apparently she HAS done. It appears that the odo has been clocked once or twice. If only it had an extra digit… I shall get Duncan to write the next entry with technical details for those that are interested. I’ll just leave it with this: the engine is stuffed and we need a new one. That’s do-able. There’s a perfect re-conditioned one in Launceston which can be put in. It just costs a lot of money and might take a little longer than the 2 weeks we have left before we are due back on the Spirit of Tasmania. Fortunately that trip is flexible. When I know what date to change it to, I can ring and alter our trip back. In the meantime we are now officially and actually homeless hobos! We intend to move from caravan park to caravan park and still see the sights we were going to. Just call us ‘Trailer Trash’!

Having Mum and Dad here has been a wonderful distraction from our bad news. The children were so excited to see Hilly and Pop. Angus was literally jumping up and down at the airport and their reaction when they saw them through the doors was just beautiful.

They landed in the afternoon and and we spent that evening just chilling out in our caravan park house and catching up and worrying about Bertha. Not at all what I had expected. It was Dad’s birthday and the intention was to bake him a cake and celebrate in style. We got to celebrate with bought cake a day or two late instead.

 We spent a lovely few days ‘holidaying in Hobart’. We went to Richmond and checked out ZooDoo and had an absolute ball. Mum nearly had her cardigan eaten by a deer and we all nearly got eaten by a friendly camel. 

We checked out the Richmond Bridge and the Gaol and then had our days at MONA. 

Mum and Dad and I went one day while Dunc took the kids to Cadburys and the Museum. And then Dunc and I took the kids to MONA while Mum and Dad wandered Hobart.

 

We moved from our little caravan house into a hotel in the centre of Hobart at Battery Point, the start of many moves. I can see I will be working the phones hard finding beds for us over the next few weeks.

We all walked from battery point to Salamanca place and the Tasmanian Museum and I think Pop is happy to be headed home where he can rest a bit! Its been lovely having them here and we will miss them now they have gone back to Melbourne.

Bye Bye for now, Bertha.

After the tow truck took Bertha, we headed off towards Hobart. It was 5.30 by the time we left the pullout near Queenstown and we were pushing it to get to the accommodation I had booked at Bronte Park in time for dinner. We drove Baby Bertha along the road that the tow truck driver would be taking Big Bertha and Duncan was INCREDIBLY relieved not to be driving it himself. They have crazy roads here!! The towie had to get a heap of truckie mates to close down the main road into Queenstown so he could drive on both sides of the road up the hill to get out. We weren’t there to see that as we were already on our way up and down the eleventy billion other hills to Bronte Park.

When we got to the chalet, we were offered a house for the same rate as we were quoted for a family hotel room. Dunc and I were a bit concerned when the children literally jumped up and down and chanted “A house! A house! A house!” Perhaps uprooting them and moving into a bus has traumatised them somewhat?? We were reassured when they didn’t really like the house at all and wanted to share the room closest to us. They also took one look at the telly and FINALLY realised that they hadn’t watched anything in about 2 weeks. We had been wondering when they might notice a few days earlier. Took them long enough!

We had made it in time for our meal to be cooked fresh and not reheated in the microwave. The manager took one look at Dunc’s Middy's T-Shirt and asked him if he was an electrician. “No” “You don’t work in IT do you?!” “Ummm…weeeeellllll” was the awkward reply from Dunc. End result was free drinks all round while Dunc sorted some Excel files for him. Then they kept coming up with more work and really, Dunc can keep himself in beer for the rest of our trip this way!

We left Bronte Park in the morning and drove back towards Queenstown 30km to see ‘The Wall’. It’s an amazing artwork – 100m of carvings telling the story of Tasmania from the original inhabitants to the miners, the piners, the hydo-scheme workers and the incredible animals. The artist has self funded the whole thing, including the building which houses it. I assumed he had a Govt grant of some sort, but its all his own money. We spent a good hour there, and the children were enthralled the whole time. If you ever get to Tasmania, you should check this out.

From there we headed to the Salmon Ponds on our way to a caravan park in Hobart. We had a delicious lunch and spent another hour or so wandering the grounds and feeding the incredibly fat fish. We walked out along the river and had an amazingly close encounter with a wild platypus. I had just read the sign which said that no one ever sees them, but you can see their burrows, and there it was! Swimming right at our feet. We were positively mesmerised!!

 We arrived at our Hobart caravan park very excited at having seen a real live platypus so close up. Add to that the excitement of Hilly and Pop arriving the next day, and you can imagine how hard it was to get the children to bed that night…