Pausing in Victoria

If you’ve been following our journey from the start, you’ll know that we intended to start from Victoria with a short stay with my eldest brother Ken and his wife Roberta in Melbourne. We discovered, whist in quarantine in Darwin, that if we went there we would most likely be stuck for months in strict lockdown. So we flew to Adelaide and started our adventures by going south and then west.

We finally made our way to Victoria on 26th November 2021, our gamble that lockdown would be lifted in time having paid off. We rolled into Ken’s busy road and parked right outside his house, caravan and all, a fact that is immortalised for the next few years as our rig is right there on Google street view. We planned to be in Melbourne for a couple of months as we had booked to go to Tasmania with Ken and Roberta in February 2022 but, for reasons that will become clear, we ended up staying for five months.

In a change to the usual blog format, because we had a ‘base camp’ so to speak, this and the next few posts will be a little different in that I will group our activities by type rather than following a chronological order. I’m going to start in this post with family and life stuff before getting onto trips in Victoria and our long awaited new Troopy build in later posts.

The 28th November 2021 was a very special day in our family; it was Roberta’s 80th birthday party and we were delighted to be able to join family and friends to celebrate with her. The afternoon party was held at their home on a beautifully warm day, allowing the guests to mingle indoors and out in the garden. It really was a lovely event.

We also got to meet up with cousins on my father’s side of the family at their annual bash out near Ballarat. My Father had an older brother, Ken, who died during WWII and a younger sister, Ailsa, who married his best mate, Sid. They went on to have four boys and it was these and their respective families who attended this pre-Christmas event.

A few weeks later, on another hot day, Ken and Roberta’s children, grandchildren and my youngest brother, John’s, son Tom and his family joined us again to celebrate Christmas. Although this too was a lovely day, I must admit, it was pretty weird having Christmas dinner outdoors in 30 degree heat!

It has been good to connect with my four nieces and one nephew from Ken and Roberta’s blended family. Due to the 21 year age gap between Ken and me and a bit more between Roberta and me, they are all pretty close to my age and have eight kids ranging from seven to 18 years.

*Upper shrine room at Melbourne Buddhist Centre*

While we stayed in Melbourne, I was able to join in with communities that connected me with activities I enjoyed before coming to Australia. I am training for ordination in the Triratna Buddhist Order and throughout our travels, I have continued my study and practice and connected with communities first in Adelaide then Melbourne and plan to link in with those in Sydney and Brisbane too. The Victorian lockdown was helpful in that the usual face-to-face study groups run by the Melbourne Buddhist Centre were held on zoom for a few months so I was able to join in across three timezones. Just as the classes returned to being held at the centre, I was able to go too which was great to meet people in the flesh and meditate together.

For the past few years, I have been active in the Extinction Rebellion (XR) movement, undertaking non-violent direct action to raise awareness about the climate emergency which is already having devastating effects on many parts of the world and all who live there. Before we came to Australia, I had sought out XR Westside, the branch nearest to Ken’s home, and made contact so it was good to meet the group in person and participate in some actions with them.

It’s terrible to see the effects of climate heating so close to home, in particular the unusually intense bush fires that devastated areas in Margaret River we had enjoyed just the week before they struck and then to hear of the floods that overwhelmed Queensland in a way that had never been seen before. But worse than this, having known little about Australian politics and industry before this trip, I was deeply saddened to learn that Australia is a massive polluter and has a government, led by the coal-loving Scott Morrison, that is in bed with the fossil fuel companies and has done nothing to live up to the commitments made in the Paris agreement in 2015. I was pleased to be able to contribute in even a small way to the protests organised by XR and the multitude of organisations sounding the alarm about the climate emergency.

Both of these activities, and pretty much all the other things I wanted to do whilst in Australia, were impacted by a particularly bothersome health issue. I had experienced a bit of discomfort in my right hip prior to our travels but, despite exercises and physiotherapy, it rapidly worsened to the point I was in constant pain and could only walk very short distances. As an Australian citizen, I am entitled to healthcare under the Medicare system which, unlike the NHS in the UK, isn’t completely free at the point of delivery but close to it. Unfortunately, the wait to see a specialist is around a year and maybe two or three after that to have “non-urgent” treatment, which my situation was considered to be. I couldn’t wait that long so in January we chose to seek help in the private system and I saw orthopaedic surgeon, Camdon Fary, at one of Melbourne’s newest hospital buildings.

Having been on the delivery side of healthcare, it was a strange feeling to be on the receiving end and I couldn’t quite separate the two roles. As I sat in the carpeted waiting room on a cloth chair looking at a decorative fretwork partition that looked like a perpetual dust and germ trap, I couldn’t help mentally doing a Matron’s cleaning round and wondering how all these fancy furnishings could possibly meet modern hospital hygiene standards. I shared my wonderings with colleagues with whom I had kitted out a brand new hospital and, like me, wouldn’t have accepted any cloth, carpet and fretwork. Setting my carpet worries aside, a total hip replacement was planned for 28th March, it would have been earlier but for a state wide pause in elective procedures due to rising covid cases.

Clearly it’s not possible to put a monetary value on good health and every penny we spent on this was worth it, but it was, nevertheless, uncomfortable to part with the best part of $27,000. We had been considering selling our caravan and shrinking our lives further into just the Troopy and having this unexpected expense confirmed our plan, the Kimberly had to go before the end of March.

We found a potential buyer after just a couple of weeks, a farmer living mid-way between Melbourne and Sydney. We drove up there following the discovery of a leaking roofltight and feared the worst as it rained heavily during the journey and we arrived with a wet mattress but, in that calm way farmers have about them, he just said, ‘these things happen’ and paid us the agreed amount. He even let us camp in the Troopy in his yard, provided use of their guest bathroom and welcomed us at their diner table after we cooked a meal in his kitchen. Not just a great relief but yet another lovey encounter with kind people on our travels. We had sourced a new roofltight and arranged for it to be sent directly to him, so all was well.

*The evening of Day 0 (note the carpeted floor!)*

The surgery went well, I had just three nights in hospital and was up and around on crutches within 24 hours and in less pain than before the op. The CT scan I had in preparation was turned into a 3D virtual model of the head of the femur (the ball) and the acetabulum (the socket) and a virtual implant aligned into the acetabulum on screen before being turned into an actual plastic model. This is sterilised and used, along with fluoroscopy (real time X-rays) to confirm accurate positioning of the implant during the operation. This model was given to me by the surgeon at my follow-up appointment with the words,’it’s no wonder you were in so much pain!’

Me rehabilitation walks were especially pleasurable when undertaken in the Royal Botanic Gardens, the beauty of the natural world always makes my heart sing and was all the medicine I needed.

Join us next time as we share a few of our short trips in Victoria

Victorian High Country

Next to the Southern Ocean

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