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Monday 1st – Wednesday 31st January 2018
Now as most of you know our plans have drastically changed since our car problem started and as we wait for the new engine to arrive from Ford to fix our beast we fill our time in as best as possible. Our two months trip to Tasmania had to be cancelled as we could not guarantee a date our car would be ready to tow, so with nothing in mind we filled our time in as best we could.
First off was a lunching with our friends Steve and Shelly to start the new year in a festive mood, with a glass of bubbles to toast 2018 at the Oyster Bar at Circular Quay to a ferry ride to nowhere and ending up at Barangaroo, a new entertainment area, where we dined on Korean food and finished at Darling Harbour before they caught the ferry home and we wandered back to the apartment in town.
Another adventure was a trip to Fort Dennison, also known as ”Pinchgut” it’s funny how many years Geoff and I said we were going to go but it took us this long to play tourist in our own town and head to this spot by ferry. We then did a tour with a National Parks guide who took us around the Fort and unlocked doors to enter the areas where the canons were kept and also the basement area for the gunpowder storage. Also climbing up to the parapet for the best Sydney Harbour view one could attain.
Having a loan car we traversed our time between Sydney and Carole's my sister’s house at the central coast where the van was permanently parked outside her door. The plus side of this was seeing everyone whom we had missed, lunching with our friends from our old home at Mariners Cove, and having heaps of family time including plenty of sister time for us to play up. Geoff even got to do some work and was long distance driving for Brad Garlick Ford. This is when we stayed with Shelly and Steve as both the boys would be delivering cars and Shelly and I would be packing up their apartment as they prepared to move house.
Finally the day arrived that we got our car back with its new engine and it was time to do a few long drives to bed the engine in before we could tow the van. We spent our days driving around the central coast, up to Newcastle beaches to do long walks and back down to Sydney to clock up some kilometres.
Australia day was just around the corner and what better way to celebrate than being again on the harbour with friends and this time on one of those big glass boats with wonderful views to be able to see things like the Ferry race, the jets flying over, the tall ships and navy vessels all decorated with flags and bunting. With good food and good company it was a wonderful way to finish our time in Sydney.
Our 2 weeks turned into 6 and finally we were ready to start heading north again and continue our journey. With the school holidays finished, supplies bought and the car roadworthy again we drove slowly up to Forster for our first stop at a lovely park right near the marina and in walking distance to town.
Unfortunately we did encounter a mishap with the engine warning light appearing as we were parking the van so we immediately rang the closest Ford dealer to book it in so we could just make sure it was ok for us to keep travelling. As the first booking was not till the following week it meant our stay in Forster was going to be a bit longer than we had planned. Lucky for us we were flexible.
