ATGANI at large

You can run, so we tried to, after we left Bald Rock.  Instead of returning to the main drag, we took the road less travelled, with Lesley at the wheel.  The Mount Lindesay highway was the only all-weather route between Brisbane and Sydney until the 1950’s (that cannot be true, I hear you cry) and was therefore, the setting for Tank Traps to slow the potential Japanese land advance.  Basic but ingenious, they were (fortunately) never put to the test. …

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It’s almost impossible to approach Tenterfield without adding Peter Allen’s Saddler to the town’s name.  This led to an enervating discussion in the car about what rubbish lyrics that song has.  I opined that traveller and saddler were, at best, a false rhyme.  Even Jimmy Webb remains slightly ashamed of his effort: “and I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time, and the Wichita lineman, is still on the line”.  And what about “ride…

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Ah Tamworth.  The Country & Western music capital of Australia.  Scene of the terrifying but true tale of Trevor’s tortured testicle (Entrapment – Bill Kearns).  This Easter’s C&W festival sees the 50th handing out of the Golden Guitars.  The last couple of festivals have been duds (thanks Covid) but there are high hopes for this year.  Tamworth’s population of about 60,000 doubles in a good year.  Our CityLights caravan park has almost 250 sites and they’ve all been booked out…

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Long before midday on April Fool’s Day, ATGANI finally did hit the road and with no intention of coming back for at least a year.  We head north to Brisbane via New England to be there for Easter and, mostly, Mardi’s 95th birthday on Easter Monday.  After that, we’ll turn left and head across the great southern land, probably via Broken Hill, Coffin Bay and Kalgoorlie to arrive in Exmouth by June 10 – the only fixed date in our…

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The problems are decreasing rapidly, and the number of “people in the street” is increasing just as quickly. Many of them are fascinating in various idiosyncratic ways, so I thought it was worth recording a few as we go, before we forget them – or they get replaced by other curiosities. We met our first real “chatter” (maybe bogan?) at Umina – within 5 minutes of cheerful chatting, with stubby in hand, singlet boardies and tatts, we were informed that…

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Now that travels have begun, we are regularly checking apps and websites to see how other people have rated what we might be about to experience – mostly trying to avoid absolute duds. WikiCamps appears to be the travellers’ bible and the reviews there are sensible and useful for the most part. Elsewhere (eg Google reviews), just about everything (pubs, campsites, restaurants, museums, galleries, coffee shops, tourist attractions, tours etc etc) gets rated by someone somewhere. We find many of…

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The Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, in fact.  Great fun and very well put together.  They’ve used a clever system of moats and dykes to separate the animals from their humans which works brilliantly. We opted to hire bikes and ride around, not realizing that it was so relatively small!  If we’d walked the whole thing it would have only been 5km or so but we’d done our usual amount of prior research (zero!).  In our heads, we thought…

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And there is no shortage of opportunities or people to do some teaching. As you may know, ATGANI stands for All The Gear And No Idea, but I’m thinking about re-naming it EDIALD, for Every Day Is A Learning Day. Lots of the learning involves additional “gear”. For example, we really do need some awning tighteners and at least 3 awning battens. We need a cover (preferably dayglo) to put over our tow hitch when camping. We can’t survive without…

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Commitments, orders, promises, to-do lists all mean little to our friendly suppliers. Even more annoying, they are pleasant, even eager-to-please but without the vaguest notion of actually getting stuff done. World class inefficiency. I could write a long list of the dozens of things which have not been done, but two will suffice. First, the washing machine. It has still not been delivered, let alone installed despite being on the order sheet 12 months ago (there’s a worldwide shortage, of…

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And right now, it’s euphoria! ATGANI is in our possession, if not our control! ATGANI has safely travelled 100km on highways and byways; has successfully reversed into position; has had 2 sleeps in a caravan park; has welcomed its first visitors, has opened its first champagne and had its first sausage sizzle. (Everyone knows that there is no event, from the opening of parliament to the opening of an envelope, that cannot be improved by the addition of a sausage…

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