I've been back at Billabong a few days a week, which has been great - getting me out of the house and bringing in a little money. Az has been busy doing the last bits and pieces of work before being able to concentrate on getting everything ready for our trip.. which is a ridiculous workload. We had so much time to get everything ready and like most people, the ol' 'we've got plenty of time' statements were thrown around everyday. Now that there's only 4 weeks left, we're both saying 'eeeekkkkkkk'!!
Az is now working full time on getting everything ready for our trip.. which includes getting the yacht, fishing boat and motorbikes ready for sale - very time consuming! He's also been helping my Dad and his Dad build a set of drawers for their respective vehicles.. ours is a work in progress. We had a working bee to get the drawers done - 3 men in a shed, with lots of power tools.. you can just imagine it can't you?!. The drawers look very professional so can't wait until we finish ours.
For our first trip, as I mentioned before, we are heading up to Cape York - in the Troopy. So our lives will be confined to a 4x4 .. for 6 weeks. If Az and I don't kill each other by the end of this trip, we are going to be together forever!! We have worked out that making our drawers around the car fridge is going to leave us very little room to turn over.. once the mattress is in.. I think I need to work off all these Easter eggs that seem to have made themselves very comfortable in areas of my body - they are most unwelcome!
In the few days in Cairns we have before we embark on the Cape York adventure, we are going to be visiting an old friend, Jeska Maunder, who is a Cairns local. Hopefully we'll be able to pick her brain for some local's knowledge.
Since my last post, I've been helping Az out where possible in our preparations for our departure.. most recently as an honorary sailor. We went down to Yamba with the intention of sailing her ('Gypsy Soul'.. love the name!) back to the Gold Coast, where we could put her up for sale with a yacht broker. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties we spent 2 days working on the yacht to get it ready - after crossing the Yamba bar with waves crashing over the bow and realising the autohelm equipment was broken - quite scary! We missed the weather window, and quite disappointed, we left the yacht where it was.. We now have the yacht for sale - so looking forward to seeing someone fall in love with Gypsy Soul and want to use her more than we were able to.
Since this photo was taken, we've done a bit more painting - with the gunnel rail (the rail that goes around the boat) black - as well as around the windows.. and the bow sprint (the long stick at the front of the boat)
Before we left, Aaron had to get our trusty dinghy ready so it wouldn't sink in case of emergency.. this dinghy is seriously tiny! As you can see from the pictures below. I'm not quite sure where Aaron gets the idea that these dinghies are highly sought after....
Can you believe that we both fit in this and it still floats?!! Aaron's very proud of this ..
