Off to the Nova Hospital

Day 1

Finally we had our opportunity to take the van down to Nova in Melbourne. Left home about 9am and had a leisurely run down the Hume. We went into Holbrook for lunch and got into Wangaratta about 3pm.

It’s 31C or so, so we wanted a swim but no swimmers… We drove into town to Kmart (despite our little caravan park man assuring us that ‘town’ was closed on Sunday afternoons) and Judy bought yet-another-pair of swimmers, I was happy with wearing my undies, after all there is only about 3 people in the entire place. Back to the caravan park's pool and in for a dip, very pleasant, perhaps bordering on a tad too warm from the solar heating.

Read the papers and played with the pewter for a hour or so, then off to The Vine Hotel for dinner and a glass of wine.

Not having had quite enough to eat, we nipped back into town for an ice-cream from big-Ms.

This is a nice, clean well kept older park, only complaint is that it’s right on the main road between town and the Hume highway, and its just full on noise. Did I mention the train line that runs next to the road? It’s just as busy, with horns blaring as they approach town and engine rumbling up and down the line. 

Day 2

We didn’t expect to find ourselves back here quite so soon! Having left at 7am for the run down to Melbourne, we arrived at Nova Caravans right on 10. Steve was very thorough and appears to be quite knowledgable regarding the types of problems we have experienced and gave the impression that none of them were too big or overly difficult for him to repair. The bad news was that they weren’t going to be able to take the van in until well after Christmas, so we were faced with the prospect of having to turn around and tow it back home.

As it turns out, we left it there for an hour while we went to a dodgy looking car yard down in Essendon to pick up the send hand X5 turbo I had bought on e-buy. The fellow was the ultimate representative from the white-shoe brigade and his story was that he had been forced to buy a new turbo for a car he had sold a few years ago with only 88,000kms on the clock, but it turned out that there was nothing wrong with the old one after all and after having the turbo loafing about the office for 3 years he had decided to get rid of it. Never mind, at $99 it’s cheap enough to send off and get reconditioned. It all sounded pretty lame to me!

Fed and watered, we left Melbourne about 1230 and it was soon apparent that Wangaratta was as going to be as good a place to stop as any, so here we are. Having spend 8 hours and 510k in the car, we were both happy with the choice. 

We had a very nice pizza at Cafe Martini, which is the dining hall for a pub in town, filled up with diesel and went back to get a good nights sleep. Funny how you don't hear the road noise if you're tired enough!

Day 3

I was up early at 6am and hit the pool again for 1/2 an hour. The lovely warm water of Sunday was fading fast due to the all-day clouds and the rain. Took our time to get some breakfast in one of the cafes in town before hitting the road at about 830. Easy run up to Gundagai, where we turned our back on the less than salubrious Shell eatery and the even worse 'dog-on-a-box' offering, and headed into the main street of town itself. It's a really nice town and we all should go in there more often. Had a coffee and a scone as it was too early for lunch and headed home, which is where we are now.

So until next time (Melbourne again, soon I hope) see you later.