The new tailshaft arrived at the Mitsubishi dealer on the next day as we had hoped, but we didn't expect it to arrive on the spare parts counter damaged... and of course, no-one knows how or where in transit that it got damaged, but some monkey has dropped it and obviously damaged it, and some other monkey has accepted it off the truck to sell to us. Grr... Anyway... after a few deep breaths and some discussion with the parts manager, he made a few calls and got ...

Hello again!! Update time! Before leaving Atherton, we went for a drive, on a rainy day, to Hypipamee Crater. We decided it was a better option than sitting around the caravan park! On arriving at the Hypipamee National Park, we noted how beautiful the rainforest was. We love coming to these areas, and take our time to really appreciate the clean air and beautiful surroundings. Upon starting the loop walk to the Hypipamee Crater along the pathway, we took n...

After 8 days at Sapphire without sunshine we were more than excited when the sun pushed aside the clouds and dried us out again. We had a dry-out-day at Sapphire and did a bit of research into the state of the roads along our intended route. We found that the roads from Muttaburra to Hughenden that we wanted to travel were now closed because of the rain, so it was back to the original plan of heading through Clermont and on to Charters Towers. There was still som...

Well, we managed to escape the smelly house and returned to the caravan park for a few days, long enough to figure out where we want to go from here and spend a couple more days with Kathy's parents. As it happens, the day we departed the house it rained. Not too big of a deal, we thought. We parked next to Bob and Chris at the caravan park and set up the camper between showers, which it seems we are getting quite used to doing.... That was last Wednesday, a week...

There's not much to tell since our last entry, we're still in the gemfields of Queensland, but it's time for another update, so here goes. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at finding some shiny rocks in the designated fossicking areas and in the river, we went with Kathy's parents to one of the many local fossicking businesses to at least try and find some form of sapphire or zircon, so we would know what it looked like when (if...) we came across it. We ...