Finally an update to our Blavel – we have been so busy since our last post….
On Wed 1st July we left Auckland on our flight to Brisbane. It was an early 0630 start to the day and an uneventful trip to the airport from our motel. We were both excited and nervous about check in due to the amount of excess baggage (34kg) we were carrying but all went well although the AirNZ check in person was quite surprised that we were so accepting of the $340 excess baggage bill. We had done some sums and up to about 50kg it is easier and costs about the same to simply take as excess as opposed to shipping as cargo.
The flight to Brisbane had its departure delayed by some 20 minutes or so but was very relaxing with movies and some bubbly to celebrate and after some 3 hours were on Aussie soil and waiting patiently at the baggage claim area. All our bags and boxes showed up and to our surprise we were waived through agriculture and customs with nothing even being x-rayed.
Then it was out the exit doors and to our surprise there was our darling daughter Lisa waiting for us. She had made a special secret trip down from MacKay to pick us up and spend the next 5 days with us so it was a fantastic welcome to Oz.
So off we all went to find our truck that Lisa had brought to the airport and there it was – the Shitter…well it was pretty much what we expected but it had this very large roof rack on top so it looked like we were about to head off on Safari – LOL… Lisa did the driving and soon we were at Kangaroo Point and settled into our apartment for the week.
Our next priority was a visit to check out the caravan to make sure it was what we had ordered. We were expecting problems as we had not had any confirmation from the supplier as to the final configuration. So Lisa set up the Navman and off we went to Burpengary, about 40 mins north of Brisbane.
Well to our surprise the van was exactly as we had ordered it so after sorting out a pickup time and date it was back to Brisbane to do some essential shopping, shopping and more shopping…(BTW, shopping is highly over rated – we have enough retail therapy to last a lifetime) We did however have an exciting moment when the roof rack of the truck hit the roof of the under cover parking area but we just kept going and managed to get in and out without hitting any sprinklers, pipes, signs and various other items that were close to the height of our truck.
The next few days were spent with more shopping and sorting out internet access and an Aussie phone number, cleaning the truck, removing the roof rack so that we can sell it on Ebay and getting the drivers door lock fixed and new keys cut as the key and lock in the vehicle were absolutely stuffed and it was a relief to get it fixed as when it failed it was not possible to open the doors or start it.
On Wed the 8th we left Brisbane and headed north to pick up the van. This was a complex process as we had to be trained on all the electrical and gas systems and which appliances ran on what and how to switch things around depending on if connected to mains power or running off gas and battery.
We also found out one of our bank transfers had not gone through so we had to make a frustrating trip to the bank to get proof that the payment was in the system. Also an auto electrician was working on the vehicle to install the electric brake controller so after some 5 hours we pulled out with van in tow headed north to Bribie Island.
