January 2014 – Yep MacKay!

It will be great when we have a different place for our heading of the Month!  It’s been almost a year!!  Hopefully it won’t be long now!

Christmas & New Year celebrations are well & truly done & dusted and yes we are over the 1st half of the 1st month of the year!  Bit scary really!  We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas & New Year!! Although we miss family and friends at this time of the year we had a great time for Christmas anyway.

Tui finished work on the 22nd December for a much needed 4 day break. With all vehicles parked up, the remaining truck drivers and 2 loader drivers converged on 1 Weir Street to have a “few” drinks and celebrate, deciding on Pizza Delivery for tea.  Only 6 of us but it sounded like 60! A much needed blowout for everyone!

A few days of relaxing and drinking followed, with Jude’s rule of no drinking during the week tossed out the window.  It was Christmas after all!  Christmas Day was a blast, just Tui, Jude & Rex, starting with our tradition of Champagne breakfast which seemed to last all day!! Jude played Santa dishing out the pressies. Check out the huge tree!

The boys cooked the barbie while Jude did all the prep work, croissants, mushroom sauce, fresh fruit salad etc.

As we really miss our pool at home Santa was kind and gave us a blow up pool along with super soakers for Rex & Tui.  A very wet day coming up but so much fun!!

We were a bit overwhelmed as Rex gave us a Gas Pizza Oven.  Although Tui is a little concerned about where we are going to put it when we pack up, Jude loves it and highly recommends a purchase to anyone.  Apart from making great Pizza’s, it makes awesome bread and cooks a mean roast superbly.  Yipee no more cooking the Sunday roast inside. Rex reckons she needs to try a Pavlova in it!!

Such a good breakfast and day that we didn’t do the glazed Ham, Salads, Christmas Pudding or Pavlova!  Jude wasn’t too worried as it meant no cooking Boxing Day as it was all done!  The plan was to get up early and go fishing!  The boys had the “Fellows Bulk” boat all ready on Christmas Eve, however as we were all feeling a little tender we decided to wait till later in the afternoon, just before high tide, before heading out.  Besides there was that food to eat that we missed out on Christmas day! Alas not even a bite but it was great to get out on the water, arriving back just on sunset.

We have been looking to upgrade our little Suzuki and Tui found one in Townsville.  Only a short 800kms round trip!!  Anyway we set off late afternoon, arriving in Townsville just before 9pm at a  little Motel on the Strand, The Beach House Motel, where we were greeted by a lovely host, Theresa.  It was great to get away for the night and we sat on our balcony having a couple of drinks, watching the world go by.  Bliss!!

As we couldn’t view the car until 1pm the next day we took a drive out to Bluewater to check out the house that Tui had built over a year earlier.  It was then a stop at “The Coffee Club” for Tui’s favourite, Eggs Benedict, for a late Breakfast/early lunch.  The car was what we were looking for but Tui was concerned at a bit of panel damage.  We decided to go back to MacKay and think about it.  Still have our little old Suzuki!

All too soon the Boys had to go back to work with no break for New Year, hence a very quiet one for us.  Didn’t even see New Year in as we had to get up at 5am.  It was quite handy having family and friends in New Zealand as we could wish everyone “Happy New Year” in NZ time which was 9pm for us.

As mentioned in our November Blog, the boys are still doing “Feedback”.  Once all the Bagasse has been used, we will then be free to set off (for awhile anyway). Still no definite plans, tossing up a couple of things and will continue to update you all.

At the end of the “Cane Crush” a lot of the drivers leave to go to other jobs.  We were expecting Phil to come back for a few weeks but unfortunately his wife is not well.  We wish you all the best Helen and our thoughts are with you both.

A new driver duly arrived.  Unfortunately the poor fella couldn’t back the truck & trailer and only lasted a couple of days!  We are sure Tui has more grey hair after the experience of trying to assist him.

There must be a thing about backing as Axle (loader driver) also had a backing mishap!

Our Mates, Mick & Jen, flew into MacKay and stayed the night with us on their way to pick up their Caravan from Townsville. Great to see them but Jude had a bit of a disastrous night on the cooking front. The menu was to have Bacon & Egg Pie for nibbles (that turned out good), then yummy Topside Roast done in the EcoPot, with salads and fresh bread made in the Pizza oven.  Well it poured with rain (after having no rain for months) that put a halt to the bread.  Then the power adapter on the EcoPot bummed out and the meat was raw!!  It pays to have a back up pie in the freezer!!  Oh well shit happens!!

For those of you, and we have come across quite a few, who say “you are so lucky, we would love to do what you are doing but can’t afford it”, it is easier than you think.  Being a couple who don’t have a lot of money, we enlisted the services of a company called ““. is a Personal Financial Planning Company that have developed strategies, methods and tools designed for application by individuals. The strategy developed for each Member is customised to deliver a real solution that is easy to operate and allows you to get more from what you already have as well as opening up opportunities. Everything is designed to be easy and fun to do and they are extremely great people to work with.  For those of you who are interested check out: http://opeson.com.au or you can find them on Facebook.

Well that’s about it for now!  Take care & remember “laugh more, live longer!”