tasmania or BUST!!!
01.April.2007
Graham and Troy said good-bye's to family and
friends in the USA, and gave big hugs to Mocha at
the Santa Rosa Airport. From there we shuttled to
the San Francisco International Airport. After a
smooth departure from SFO to LAX, we arrived at 9pm
and waited at our departing gate until 1am with no
plane - only to find the flight from LA to Fiji was
cancelled (scheduled for 11pm) due to mechanical
problems, with 400 angry customers creating mayhem
at the departure lounge. We overnighted in LA
(Hilton comp by Air Paciifc) then flew from LA to
Fiji the next day, missing our connection in Fiji.
We had to overnight again (6 hours in Fiji - with
very little sleep - yahoo!) and then onward from
Fiji to Sydney! Got through customs no problems in
Sydney, then on to Adelaide. We lost over 24 hours
in flight time alone. Arrived finally in South
Australia and picked up the 1963 Rover P4 car near
the Adelaide airport, then drove to Murray Bridge
where Graham's mum, Nell, lives. After visiting for
4 days, we drove 800 miles to Melbourne and at the
last 25 miles the Rover overheated due a corroded
head gasket... we barely made the ferry to
Tasmania. The ferry crossing is about 12 hours
overnight. Meanwhile, Troy was designing a website
for a client in the US and doing updates every few
days... It was crazy!!! The laptop we used decided
it would not charge on 240V, so we had no
computer/internet. We limped another slow 200 miles
from the north of Tasmania to the south to Hobart
with the radiator overheating and filling it with
water every 40 miles or so. Made it to our friend
Mike's house in Franklin near where we bought the
land and stayed at his house for about 2 weeks,
living with what we had in 2 suitcases while we
searched for an apartment, looked for a 4x4 truck
(called "ute" in AUS), and checked up on the
process of buildings plans for the local council,
before our boxes arrived from the US...
