Journal Entry

7^th March to 1^st May

First off, Robynn’s 80^th birthday party (in Kingaroy) was fantastic. There would have been close to a hundred people there and we caught up with some family members whom we hadn’t seen for a very long time, and of course it was wonderful to be there to celebrate with Robynn.

From Kingaroy we headed towards Brisbane stopping at the Brisbane Gateway Caravan Park for a week. We booked in there solely for the location but were surprised at how nice it was and for being so close to the highway, it is surprisingly quiet. Just across the highway is a company called Alloy Ute Canopies. This is where we had the canopy made and fitted, and we had to take the car back there to have some damage on the gull-wing door assessed. You see, while in WA we had an encounter with a post, and the post won. 😊

Not only was the location good for AUC, but it was a relatively short drive to our storage facility. As mentioned in an earlier post, we have a bit of a weight issue, one of the reasons we came back east was so that we could off-load some unused stuff. We also made the most of our time here and caught up with a few friends, which was lovely.

After we had our business sorted, we started to make our way south to Port Macquarie. First stop, an hour’s drive from the caravan park, was to visit my brother at Kingscliff. We had a lovely few days there, as always. The boys even got a spot of fishing in.

From Kingscliff we headed down to Yamba to catch up with some friends. We met Ross and Julia early in our travels and have kept in touch with them, meeting them whenever we could. We had planned on staying in Yamba for one night but had such a good time, we stayed for three.

Even Hugo got into party mode as he caught up with Muffin. Thank you for being such wonderful hosts.

From there we finally made it to Port Macquarie. Got settled into life in a real house (Mum’s) then two weeks later Peter had a heart attack. He spent a week at Port Macquarie Base Hospital, and when they released him, they did so with three stents in place and a warning that more work might be needed on another artery. What was very reassuring though was that the angiogram showed that the quadruple bypass he had a couple of years ago is doing exactly what it should. The arteries are wide and flowing beautifully.

According to Peter’s surgeon, who accessed his original angiogram from the bypass, three of the arteries bypassed were correct. However, there were two more that were blocked, and the fourth bypass they did was the least blocked artery, and it was the one that they did not bypass which caused the heart attack. Make sense?

The fantastic news is, Peter is doing great, we’ve been out walking, he’s booked in to do heart rehab at the hospital and we’re continuing to eat well. We’ll be seeing his surgeon on the 15^th May and will have a serious decision to make then. There is still one more blocked artery, but it will be a tricky procedure to place a stent in this one. So, depending on how that affects Peter, we must decide whether or not to risk fixing the problem now, or leave it, deal with angina attacks and see what happens.

Our medical emergency competition now stands at Peter 2 – Joanne 2 and we have decided to call it a draw.

As you can imagine, our stay at Port Macquarie was a very relaxed one. But we have commitments back up north, namely we’re booked in to get the gull-wing door replaced on the 29^th of April. So, we have retraced our steps in reverse. Leaving Port Mac, then up to Kingscliff, (we skipped Yamba as Ross and Julia are away) then the Brisbane Gateway CP, and Alloy Ute Canopies, and…another trip to the storage unit. We had planned a camping trip up to Cape York, but for obvious reasons, we won’t be doing that this year. So, 60 kilos of camping gear…to storage you shall go!

We’ll leave here on the 1^st of May which is our official travel anniversary date; First of May 2021 we left Redland Bay after renting the house. On the first of May 2022 we left Port Mac after Peter’s quadruple bypass operation. First of May 2023 we left Levi Adelaide Holiday Park after being there on and off for over a year, and finally making our way towards Western Australia. First of May 2024, we’re leaving Brisbane Gateway CP and going…well, Kingaroy for starters, but it’s still an anniversary.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!