We had a couple of really heavy down pours during the night, and woke up to more drizzle.
There were a few breaks in the weather during the morning where we got up to the park and jumping pillow.
Although the weather is crap, this caravan park in Merimbula is great and in a great position, overlooking the surf beach and the Pacific Ocean.
Barb made an appointment with a Merimbula Physio for her neck this morning and yesterday Ross had organized to get his car serviced at the Eden Nissan dealership. Whilst Barb was at the Physio, Ross and Poo Poo Head headed to McDonalds for breaky.
Macca’s is a great place to get a morning coffee because it always comes with the morning paper. You can enjoy reasonably good coffee and read the paper for as long as you like without feeling like your intruding, or overstaying your visa.
With the Poo Poo Head combination of eating breakfast and getting into the playground, Ross can almost read the entire Herald Sun un-hindered.
Because we didn’t plan on being this far south so soon, Ross had to change his car service plans which were going to be at Moruya Nissan when we stayed in Moruya heads next week.
Yesterday as we drove through Moruya we drove straight past the Nissan front door so we stopped at Moruya Nissan on the way through just on the off chance they might be able to do the service there and then.
The best they could do was today (Thursday) at lunchtime. A call to Bega Nissan in the hope we could keep going south and they couldn’t do anything until next week. Next week !!! go figure. The applicable factory service is a filter and oil change padded out with some “inspections” tyre kicking and tinkering, all up about 15min worth of actual work, and Bega Nissan needed at least 4 days notice.
Both Bega and Moruya Nissan quoted the factory fixed price service fee of $390.00
Lucky for Ross Bega Nissan didn’t want Ross’s money so he rang Eden Nissan. The guys there couldn’t have been more obliging. He even said on the phone the recommended $390.00 price was over the top and it would be $290.00 tops … it turned out to be $235.00
We started to head off to Eden this morning before lunch to have a look about on the way south. We headed out to the Physio recommend tourist attraction, Oaklands at Pambula. Oaklands is a nursery, art gallery, café, trail rides and animal nursery which is posted as the best animal nursery in Australia.
After walking into the non descript nursery/café area we seen what appeared to be a hand panted sign directing to the animal nursery. We walked around the fence to what was a muddy greasy track leading out the back of the nursery to a busted down all shed.
Now to paint the picture, it’s raining, and Ross is in his thongs and we walk don this track watched by about a dozen men all sitting around under the roofline behind the nursery. There isn’t anyone else around.
The animal nursery was not quiet the best in Australia. Although Ross doesn’t claim to have visited every animal nursery in Australia it was abundantly clear these people hadn’t seen any other animal nursery if they think theirs is the best.
It was crap and consisted of a pony, a pig, 5 chooks, a goat and 40 rabbits; oh yeah … plus half a dozen feral looking cats. One of the rabbits looked like it had mixo. Ross suggested that his beagle bonnie, sitting in the back yard at home, equated to a better animal nursery.
Part of the place included a large kind of junk/second hand/antique shop. There was a lot of stock, some of which was quite nice but really expensive. Even the junk was pricey. On the way out we notice a large tin with a sign that read “If you enjoyed looking, a gold coin donation would be appreciated”. Maybe Myer or Coles should try that one on.
Off the Eden and lunch at yet another bakery. Ross dropped the car at Nissan and the Nissan guys dropped him back to town with the promise to ring and come pick us up when they were done.
We spent half the time avoiding the intermittent rain until we found the whaling museum where we spent a good hour and a half. The Poo Poo Head really enjoyed the museum and was happy looking around and watching the video presentations for the entire time.
The loudspeaker announce the museum was closed and everyone made their way out. The curator closed everything up and turned out all the lights ….. then a 5 minutes later …. Barb and Poo Poo ead appeared from the darken bowels of the museum.
We headed back in to the main street when the Nissan guy called right on cue and within 5 minutes was outside the shop waiting for us.
The forecast continues to be rain, so we will stay here for a couple more days and reassess what will do from that point. There is only so much resistance we can put up to this continued rain.
On their own Ross and Barb could wait out the bad weather with late mornings, frequent coffee shops, long lunches, the movies, shopping, reading etc; but it’s a lot harder on the Poo Poo Head, and not overly fair on him. Being forced inside for long period is like tying his shoe laces together.
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