To celebrate the miraculous recovery of Cheeky Monkey from open heart surgery we got up early and tooled north along the coast road to Bermagui. Bermie was made famous back in the 30's 40's by the American western writer, Zane Grey. He loved to come here and go big game fishing.

Anyway, we motored leisurely northwards at 50mph and the usual line of impatient drivers appeared in our rear vision mirror - take no notice of them CM seemed to imply, you can never force a lady to move quicker than she wants to.

CM is particularly accommodating for my dog - 'Big Boy'. The walk through between the drivers and passengers seat seems to have been reserved by the dog. I can drive with one hand on the wheel and pat him on the head at the same time - not bad for a person not particularly fond of dogs - especially big dogs.... a bloody rottweiler for goodness sake!

Anyway, we stopped at a secret surf location halfway between my place and Bermie where I unleashed the hound from hell.




















After terrorising the only other two people on the beach he had a crap. Very inconvenient because he had run up the beach a good kilometre or so which necessitated me having to chase him and dispose of said crap. Remember plastic bag next time.

There has been a serious hiatus in reporting on Cheeky Monkey's adventures ever since my neighbour down the road complained bitterly that he couldn't see the road because of all the greyish smoke CM was blowing. Damn, I guess I had better take it into Ernie I thought.

Four months later, after 3 various rego payments, assorted birthdays, Christmas, Uni fees, I was able to accumulate enough small change (without the Chancellor of the Exchequer knowing) to get Cheeky Monkey out of hock. Ouch! near engine rebuilds aint cheap.

Oh dear! It's registration time for Cheeky Monkey, and to make matters worse we have to transfer the registration from Queensland to New South Wales - it's the same country by the way but it seems different turf, different rules and additional fees.

QLD roads and traffic authority insist on a safety check before the seller can sell. Fair enough, but don't you think that would be good enough for the NSW roads and traffic authority? No.

Not suprisingly 'Cheeky' only needed some minor replacement but when we were told that we would need an engineers certificate saying that the pop top was safe, we were more than concerned. The nearest registered engineer was over 100kms away in a place called Berridale, made all the more difficult because 'Cheeky' would need to negotiate the long climb up Brown Mountain. 'Cheeky' was starting to show signs of wear and tear on one of her cylinders - a greyish telltale plume of smoke was beginning to appear - a bit like a dormant volcano suddenly getting the hots.

Anyway, we managed to get up the Brown, meet with the Engineer, get a tick on the sheet ($198 later) and all was well. Rego went smoothly after that but 'Cheeky' wasn't running smoothly, anything but.

A howling north easter makes beach life nearby pretty much untenable - along the far south coast of NSW. When this sea-breeze, more like a sea gale, blows,its off to Kianninny Bay just south of Tathra for a bit of respite from the wind.

Now that ' The Rani ' has finished her secondary schooling, and waits for the much dreaded UAI (University Academic Index) result, much work has been happening around the place. 'The Rani' has even helped polish 'Cheeky Monkey' - hope it lasts!

Cheeky Monkey on the road again, after a gruelling 3 months living in the HSC bunker where all normal life stopped for the period leading up to the exams.
To celebrate the end of this stressful period we took off to the Mumbulla Creek falls, actually not far from where we live - bliss!



 

Cheeky Monkey's revenge - Smoke gets in your wires

On my way home from Bega, not long ago, I turned on the car radio and instead of soothing music I ended up with smoke pouring from the cassette deck - this looked serious. Feeling underneath the dash I noticed that the wires leading into the ignition were starting to get red hot. Time to make a dash for Ernie's. Ernie is the gun VW mechanic in the region and fortunately for us his workshop is only 20kms from here. I hope that our relationship is not a regular occurrence.

Three weeks and a couple of hundred dollars later things were fixed - I have learned my lesson and regret having referred to Cheeky as an overgrown sardine can!

Early morning mist - Picnic Point


One of the things about camping out is that generally you can't sleep and therefore you are up earlier and more often than normal. Having said that, you do get to see some unusual sights.

'Dear Leader' suggested one afternoon that we should go and camp at Picnic Point, a cove not far from home in the Mimosa Rocks National park. Oh good, I thought! She must like this camping thing. After I had packed the car, made sure we had something to eat, remembered the bedding, chased up more water etc etc we set off. This time, not wanting to be humiliated with tent putting up, I took an older tent that I had successfully camped out in before. Sleeping in 'Cheeky Monkey' is fine - for one person only! I don't remember 'dearly beloved' snoring as much when we camped before we were married. Anyway, the sound resonates through what is not much more than an oversize tin sardine can (sorry Cheeky) and I needed to take my six man tent to have a quiet nights sleep.

During the night I got a bit lonely and tried to get back into Cheeky, however 'dearly beloved' had taken umbrage against my snoring comments, had locked the door of the Kombi and pretended not to hear me desperately entreating her to let me into the warmth of the van.

The upside of being an outcast was that as the sun came up I was treated to a most unusual sight - the cold air coming off the land and meeting up with the warmer ocean - amazing stuff!