Wednesday 9 May 2012

Camping with a crawler!

Kids are grubby enough at the best of times and the amount of washing they generate in an environment with easy access to a washing machine is bad enough, let alone when on the road and your washing machine is a bucket on the roof of the car! A crawler just adds a whole new dimension to washing when living on the road. I never want to hurry the kids through developmental milestones, however I'll be one happy mumma when Matilda starts walking! I've always prided myself on whites being white and clothes stain free, but I'm finding that a massive undertaking these days. I've pretty well resigned myself to the fact that Matilda's pants will all be dark at the knees and her tops slightly stained around the neckline. Fortunately I've made some headway getting some nasty stains out of the sleeves of some of her tops. I have to fold the sleeves in on themselves a little before giving a really good rub and they come up pretty well. I'm using a home made washing powder, mostly for environmental reasons. I do much of the washing close to waterways and don't want to contaminate them with anything nasty.
My recipe is: 1 bar of Velvet Pure soap or Sard soap, finely grated 2 cups/500g of Borax (can have environmental impact, but in these levels is considered minimal) 2 cups/500g of Lectric Soda Powder (not the crystals!) Mix together well. Use 2 tbsp per normal sized load. Add a couple of drops of Eucalyptus Oil as a softener. White vinegar also acts as a softener as well as an antibacterial. For tough stains, I use a bar of soap rubbed into the stain and worked in a little to help with removal, though this takes a little more work to rinse out. This is Matilda helping me on washing day (which is most days, really!).

Tuesday 8 May 2012

No more gremlins.

After sleepless nights with the fridge cutting out it turns out the setup you have been sold and recommended isn't quite upto sustained use. Sure it might be adequate for a long weekend but living from it is different.
After the fridge giving me errors I sent an email to Evakool and got some amazing tech support from Brodie. Turns out the wiring I had installed was not thick enough and I was getting to much voltage drop. After changing the wiring and leaving the fridge close to battery there hasn't been any dramas. We drove from moruya NSW to just past the QLD border overnight as it was cold in moruya and we had hoped for better weather.
After arriving at rocky hole camp spot the sun was out and the solar was going off it's cracker.
With the advice from Brodie at Evakool the gremlins have been laid to rest.
It just goes to show that sometimes the best gear isn't always the right gear and all you need is 6b&s all round. Shorter wire lengths and some decent bloody sun.

Stookie can now go fishing in peace.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Moruya Heads, NSW

Sunrise



Sunrise over the beach is a spectacular sight here. Lil couldn't sleep and decided to go for a walk on the beach with the camera and take some pictures of the sun rising. The weather here has been a bit windy in the afternoons but nice before lunchtime.

Sunset over our camp



Moruya Heads Campsite

The Moruya Heads campsite is right next to the Moruya airport on North Head Road. There are four flights a day which land commercial passengers (Rex airlines) and is quite busy with smaller aircraft throughout the day. A skydiving operator has flights daily as well. It has very basic facilities with bore water taps placed throughout the area and a large concrete drinking water tank which was filled by a water truck during our stay. There are newish pit toilets and older flush toilets which, according to the caretaker, are more popular...I know which I'd rather use having seen them both! There are also cold water showers and a large skip onsite for your rubbish. Firewood is available for sale for $10 for a recycle box full from one of the 'permanents'.
Fishing is excellent with salmon, flathead and sand crabs able to be caught from the rocks and some success from the beach. There are plenty of boat launching points along the river and a jetty on South Head Road. Another camper had been fishing in his boat off Jimmy's Island and caught plenty of Snapper, Flathead, Moa and Pigfish. He offered us some fresh fish for dinner and we were quick to take him up on the offer. We'd never had Moa or Pigfish before, so Lil had the (unenviable?!) task of filleting her first fish and cooking them in the camp oven. Turns out they're pretty tasty fish ;)
About 25km north of Moruya is the pretty little town of Mogo, which has some kitschy shops and is also home to the Mogo Zoo. The Zoo has won several NSW Tourism Awards and is well worth a visit with big cats, primates, African mammals, reptiles and other animals.
Every Saturday there is a decent sized local market held in the Rotary Park on the banks of the river. You can buy some local produce as well as arts and crafts and other goods. The town itself is pretty well serviced by supermarkets and other speciality

Gremlins

The electrics on the CT have been driving me barmy.
I have wired up 2 x 80w Solar panels to keep the 120AH battery charged. With the nice clear days you would expect it would be a bother with 160w of solar power but its not proving to cut it at the moment.
The EvaKool fridge will run all day until the lights and music go on at night then it gives me a LOW VOLTAGE error and switches off.........
When I check the battery its got 12.4v with no loads on it and the battery indicator is full.
I plug the battery into the car and charge it off the alternator for 20 min and it seems to come good but its driving me insane. I think I need a multimeter to check what's going where and how much is getting sucked out the battery.
The fridge prefers being the only device hooked up to the the battery and dislikes anything sharing the juice.
But, the $299 cheap 3 way fridge is going like a good thing and is not proving to be any problems running on gas and 12v.

Surf Fishing

I've been fishing of the breakwall on the Heads and last night caught 2 Salmon. The only issue was how do you get them over the wall..........? After watching another guy lift it out with the incoming wave it certainly seems there is a knack to it....!!
Well I couldn't for the life of me get these fish over the wall as they where a bit large and in the end the line snapped.
I went back this morning for another go and the wall was mobbed with keen anglers looking to get some fish before work.
I caught a Flathead and threw it back as it wasn't big enough, but at least I got the bugger over the wall... ;)

Stookie