Stage 1 – 7 Sept
Well, folks, we’re here in soggy old NSW!!!! At the moment we’re staying at the Newcastle Heights Motel in Charlestown, Newcastle, and it’s absolutely tipping it down – has been for the last 5 days.
We arrived last Friday after an exhausting flight – 2 babies who seemed to have some arrangement going – first one would start yelling, and then after it stopped, the other one would get going. Our seats were sooo uncomfortable, and the guy in front of Jeff had what appeared to be a broken seat and was fidgeting the whole flight. I don’t think we’ll be flying Emirates again once we return to the UK.
When we originally started to book our flight, back in July I asked the young lady at TravelBag for flights with an airline that allowed 2 bags per person. She came up with Emirates and Air New Zealand – and recommended Emirates. I checked the Emirates website, just to make sure and sure enough, it said 2 bags, 32kg each. I thought at the time that this was remarkably generous, but there it was in black and white under “Baggage Allowance” on their website. It also said 1 bag of 7kg as cabin baggage. As our trip was for a year, I duly packed our bags with all the bits and pieces I thought we would need – craft stuff, fishing gear, clothes etc etc. We wanted both our laptops and I had put them in one bag – totalling 6.8kg. The afternoon before we were due to leave, I thought I would check to see if I would be allowed to take a handbag in addition. I eventually got through to Emirates and spoke to a very pleasant lady who said that she was sorry, but the allowance was 1 bag of 7kg per passenger.
“Oh OK”, says me. “Your Hold Baggage allowance is very generous, so we should manage alright.”
“I’m sorry, what do you mean?” said pleasant lady. “Well, 2 bags of 32kg each” said I. “Oh no – the allowance is 1 bag of 20Kg” she said. Well I pointed out what it said on their website, but she insisted. Anyway – I finally said that I thought the wording on their site was very misleading – apparently the greater baggage allowance was for flights to the Americas.
So there I was, the day before we were due to leave, trying to rearrange 4 bags into 2!!!! Out went most of our clothes, shoes, the fishing gear, books, Jeff’s spare cord and rope etc. We had to take most of our craft stuff with us as this would be difficult to buy in Oz, but clothes and shoes etc could be easily replaced. We had intended to have a nice relaxed afternoon, making a few final phone calls – HAH!!!
Thursday midday our neighbour, Pete, took us down to Heathrow in plenty of time for our flight at 10.15pm. We like to get to the airport in plenty of time so that we can allow for any delays on the road – and as I’d booked in online we checked in our 2(!!) bags, and had a little wander around, a bite to eat and a sit down before boarding. 
The flight to Dubai was OK, but the Dubai to Sydney leg was not. The seats were really uncomfortable and there were a couple of babies near us who seemed to take it in turns to bellow.
Anyway, we arrived safe and sound, got our car and headed to Aunties Jo’s. All OK there, but she delayed us leaving (deliberately, we reckon <BG>) and we eventually left for Newcastle on the Tuesday – about midday ‘cos herself had to play tennis that morning!!!!! On the previous couple of days we did check out a couple of dealers but all too expensive. Anyway we got to Newcastle OK, found a motel and spent the Wednesday and Thursday looking for our motorhome. Still no luck – all too expensive. Friday Jeff went down to Sydney on the train to see what he could find at the Camper market in Kings Cross – they were all backpackers campers – all too small. But he made some useful contacts. I spent a lovely day with my Cavalier-owning mate, Julie, who lives nearby. Yup – I’ve had my first OzCavalier-fix and found a new friend – a sweet little Black and Tan friend!!!
It’s been absolutely chucking it down for the last five days and I’m getting really cheesed off with it. To cap it all, somehow Jeff accidently left the passenger window half open and the car was facing just the right direction for the rain to flood my seat and create a paddling pool in the footwell. Loads of stuff got soaked including (we thought) our TomTom!!!! It wouldn’t work afterwards, but we have just discovered that the ciggy lighter in the replacement car is buggered. Our original car was not really usable and luckily right next door to our motel was the Newcastle office of our hire company. So they swopped our Mitsubishi for a Ford – and hopefully we won’t lose our deposit.
Tomorrow we will be seeing a private sale Toyota Coaster motorhome which looks promising – then hopefully we can get under way once all the formalities have been sorted.
Right – that’s yer lot for now.