In search of Mary Poppins

(And my journey with RA...)

I came back to Australia in December to a broken down Cresta with no engine in it, and my pink caravan Betty stuck in a shed out in Leyburn, three hours west of Brisbane. To top it all off I was, much like the Cresta, very, very sick.

All of my furniture had been packed into a shipping container when I left my house in Maleny last February. It was weird coming home to no home, and even more frustrating having no car.

My main priority in coming back to Australia had been to spend Christmas with my kids and to try and get my health issues sorted. Medicare is a wonderful thing when you have a chronic illness.

After my Route 66 trip ended in Ventura in June last year, I had noticed when I got up the next morning that I had severe pain in both of my feet and my hands. I assumed it was some kind of strain from the big drive. I could barely walk to the bathroom and as I shuffled along, with every step feeling as though I was walking on shards of broken glass, people asked me what was wrong.

“I think I have Hudson Pedalitis”, I replied jokingly. I never for a moment suspected it was anything bad.  

But the pain got worse and worse. And then it started moving around my body. A week later I awoke shrieking in pain as a sensation that I could only describe as like having a blunt drill bit boring into the bones in my feet. The slightest touch caused unbearable pain and even the weight of the blankets was more than I could stand. 

The pain then moved into my shoulders and arms. I found it hard to dress myself and didn’t even have enough strength to pull the sheets up when I slept. My fingers started swelling and bending in strange angles and within weeks I became so crippled that I couldn't stand at all and needed help to get to the toilet. At one point I even needed a wheelchair to get around.
Something was seriously wrong.

After about a month I realized that this was not just muscle strain. I ended up at a Critical Care Clinic and they ran some blood tests and I was quickly referred to a rheumatologist.

“You have Rheumatoid Arthritis”, he said, and I burst into tears. My Rheumatoid Factor was 267, which he told me indicated the more severe form of seropositive RA. He also said mine was obviously a particularly aggressive case because of the sudden onset and debilitating effects it was having on me already.

Having been told by the clinic that RA was suspected, I had looked it up, and nothing I had read about it instilled much confidence in me. The prognosis was not good and I could find no evidence anywhere of anyone ever having cured it.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes”, he said. “Your blood tests are off the charts high, there is no doubt you have RA. But the good news is that at least you don’t have Lupus”.  I think that was his attempt at humour.

So I feel this need now, one year later, to tell my RA story and how it has affected me. RA shattered my confidence. I have always been a fit and health-conscious person. I eat healthy food, preferably organic when I can, and enjoyed exercise and going to the gym. I rowed an hour a day and used to climb cliffs and dance for hours. 

I had always believed that if I looked after myself, and treated my body with respect, that I would be healthy. I felt my body had betrayed me. During the past twelve months I have navigated my way through the five stages of grief as I adjusted to the fact that the bouncy, bubbly, energetic, capable and proudly independent person I had always defined myself as being, was gone. What was left was a tired, sore, sad and frustrated person who needed help to do the most basic of tasks.

So what had I done wrong? It’s hard not to assume that when a savage disease like this hits you. I looked for answers everywhere, and desperately hoped for a natural solution. I went on a super restrictive ant-inflammatory alkalizing diet and hoped I could get by without taking the drugs I had been prescribed: Prednisone and a highly toxic chemotherapy drug called Methotrexate. 

Because RA is an autoimmune disease caused by the immune system attacking and destroying the joints, the drugs they use are given because they suppress the immune system. I don’t know about you, but I kinda like having an immune system!

Anyway, long story short, it takes the specialists a very long time to get the treatments right.  They try the cheapest drugs on you first, watch as you continue to suffer in unbearable pain and immobility before trying the next (more expensive and more effective) drugs. 

I am now on the third tier of this process.  I am not sure if it is the new drugs, the restricted diet, the six months off work I have had under doctors orders (during which I slept a lot - sometimes up to fourteen hours a day!) or the Bikram yoga classes I have been taking five nights a week for the past month, but I am feeling 1000% better. I can walk normally again and my strength is slowly returning.  I accept my limitations and have learned to adjust to life with RA. I still have slight pain if I exert myself too much, but compared to what it was, I feel great! I trust in my body's innate ability to regenerate and heal. I have regained my mojo and now have a renewed sense of purpose and zest for life and a deeper appreciation than ever for noticing and treasuring the good things in my life.

Never take what you have for granted. Life can change in an instant.

So, back to Mary Poppins…

I managed to borrow a car and relocate my caravan from out west back to the showgrounds at Maleny where I planned to camp a while until I knew what to do next. Not being in any particular rush, I decided to turn the journey into a bit of a historical treasure hunt.  The roads between the Darling Downs and Maleny take you through some absolutely stunning parts of the countryside. I like to take the little back road just past Gatton that skirts around the Toowoomba range and and winds along Ma Ma Creek with its caravan-friendly speed limit of 40kph and stunning rock cliffs. 

I always make sure I stop in the charming picturesque stuck-in-time country towns like Clifton, Esk and Kilcoy that are filled with historic old buildings that I love so much to grab a bite to eat or a drink and check out the local shops to do my small bit to help the economies of these places.  

The last leg of the journey takes me from Woodford upwards to the Blackall  Ranges where rolling green hills give glimpses through the mist to those “now I am home” Glasshouse Mountains.  

There’s something about that view that never fails to take my breath away. The sight of it always inspires me to start me singing the Carpenters: “I’m on the top of the world, looking down on creation…” at the top of my lungs.

I had recently watched a movie on TV called Saving Mr. Banks about the difficult relationship Walt Disney had with the author of Mary Poppins producing the film version of her semi-autobiographical story. In the flashbacks to her life, there was a scene when she attended a country fair with her parents as a child and I saw the banner “Allora Country Fair” in the background.

I knew there was an Allora in Queensland and that it was not far from Leyburn, so I assumed our Allora must have been named after an English one. Then I heard the Australian accents and realized it was actually set in Queensland!

That was it. I was a woman on a mission. I was going to go to Allora and find Mary Poppins house. Setting off from Leyburn, I made sure I really took my time and made a real road trip adventure out of it. There’s something about country Queensland that has always really appealed to me. Especially after having spent so long in America, it just all felt so very typically Australian - like home. 

The gum trees lining the roads, the paddocks filled with long, dry grass that swayed in the wind. The historic old buildings of the small towns that dot the vast open spaces of not much else in between.

I love the sight of kangaroos nibbling the short fresh shoots of grass along the roadside ( you just have to slow down as they do tend to jump out in front of you unexpectedly!).  I love the way the sun seems to cast a unique sunbaked golden glow that I have only ever noticed when I am on the road in Australia. I passed through fields of blooming sunflowers and sorghum, stopping to take photos of every wondrous part of my journey.

It felt good to be back in the land where I was born, to feel the red brown dirt under my feet, and have the scent of eucalyptus in my nostrils. I felt alive and free and in no rush to be anywhere. I took my time and savoured every moment, sight, smell and sensation.  It was bliss! I even bumped into my good friend Wirruunga with his rainbow coloured bus who had stopped for lunch at a rest area. He was also heading back to Maleny after a big trip way out west - small world!

Pulling into Allora, I stopped at the petrol station to ask for directions to Mary Poppins House. Right at the end of the main street, past the quaint old shop fronts unchanged for over a hundred years, it sat. Just like it was in the movie. In fact, I later found out that the producers of the movie had consulted with the owners of the house to get every feature of the stately old Queenslander home to scale so that the one in the movie is an identical replica of the actual home that P.L Travers lived in back in early 1900’s.

I parked Betty right outside the house and wandered around the little town a bit and then down to the nearby creek and as I did so I imagined the young Helen Goff, as she was known back then, sharing this same walk hand in hand with her beloved father.

I was amazed that I had never heard about this link to such a famous author, that after all these years living here, I had never known that such a famous writer had been born and raised right here in Queensland!

Life is full of surprises and sometimes it just takes a road trip to discover them!

PS: Vintage Caravan Magazine Issue 28 is currently being printed and will be on sale on the 30th June. Order your copies now at: www.vintagecaravanmagazine.com

Adelaide or bust...

February 2015

There have been some serious gaps in my postings lately with most of my words and energy having been going into Vintage Caravan Magazine. I had originally written this story to go in issue 24, but I opted not to tell such a sad tale of woe and so I left it out.  But let me fill in some gaps by explaining what happened on my last Australian road trip and why you haven't seen me out and about for a while. 

I had it all planned perfectly. I’d spent the previous month planning my big Aussie road trip: Five events in five weeks across four states.  I’d booked where I was staying and when, how many kilometres I would be driving on each of the days. I made arrangements to stop in and meet VCM readers along the way and planned to stay at places I’d been to before where I had I wanted to spend some more time. The van was packed, the car was loaded with magazines and I was excited to be back in Australia and back on the road again. Ah the best made plans…

The Cresta had spent the previous few weeks at the mechanics getting a new alternator, new leads and points and a full service and tune up and as we set off from Maleny she ran like a dream and I was loving life. Cruising down the highway in a classic car with my pink little portable abode bobbing along behind me, it just doesn’t get any better than that!

I’d decided to take the more direct inland route heading down to Adelaide, South Australia and the first drive was a relatively short one to Leyburn; home of the Historic Leyburn Sprints, about three and a half hours away.  Whenever I do a long road trip, I generally break my trip up into alternating short and long drive days so as not to wear myself out.  The next day was going to be a big drive day, so I set off again past Goondwindi with the intention of making it to Gilgandra, New South wales about six hundred kilometres away. With rest stops I figured it would take me around eight hours to get there and I had booked myself a spot at the Gilgandra Caravan Park.

It was hot and sunny and the skies were clear and blue and then the colours changed as the sun began to set and I marveled at the glorious hues that I only ever see in country Australia. Life was good. About forty kilometres out of Narrabri, there was an almighty “BANG” and then the wobble, wobble, wobble in the steering as my front driver’s side tyre exploded. As I removed all my outdoor setting and pink flamingos from the boot of the car, I suddenly realized that I had emptied the boot of the Cresta of everything when my spare fuel tank had leaked last time I had taken her out to let the fuel dry and had forgotten to put the jack back in. D’oh! Luckily, a call to RACQ roadside assistance had me sorted and Luke from NRMA put my spare on and kindly offered to take the busted wheel into the tyre shop to get fixed saying I could pick it up in the morning. It was too late to check into a caravan park by then, so I stayed that night in a park by the river in Narrabri. I was feeling quite content in my cute little pink gypsy abode.  I set about rearranging my itinerary in order to make up for lost time so that I could still make it to the South Australian Caravan and Camping Show.

The next morning I set off the pick up my new tyre, but missed the turnoff, so I pulled over to call Luke to find out where I was supposed to go. I turned the key off but something was terribly wrong. The Cresta was making a horrendous whirring sound from under the bonnet and no matter what I did with the key it wouldn’t stop. Smoke started billowing out from the engine and I panicked. I frantically called Luke again and a nice guy with a truck stopped and disconnected the battery for me.

By the time Luke arrived the starter motor was fried. He towed me to the mechanics and then towed the caravan back to Narrabri Big Sky Caravan Park so I could have somewhere to chill and catch up on work while I waited.  Later that afternoon, I got the call that the car was fixed. Still determined to make it in time, I hooked up and set off again, stopping in at Repco to pick up a new jack and wheel brace, just in case! But to soon became apparent that something was seriously wrong with the Cresta. She was struggling…. big time! I could barely get over sixty kilometres an hour and the further we went down the road, the worse it seemed to get. All of a sudden, the long flat road started to feel like one very long gradual uphill crawl. It took me over three hours to get only one hundred and twenty kilometres down the road to the astronomy capitol of Australia: Coonabarrabran.

Concerned about setting off into the impending darkness and out of civilization again, I pulled over and it was at that moment that she decided to completely give up and die. I couldn’t get her to start again. Disheartened beyond belief, I called RACQ again and they sent a tow truck out. “This motor’s stuffed”, the tow truck driver said. I told him what had happened and he gave me a look like only a true blue country bloke can when he comes across a woman traveling solo in a pink car and caravan from the 1960s. “Well whadidya keep driving it for then?” he scowled.

“I’m supposed to be in Adelaide tomorrow for a big caravan show…” I replied defiantly.

At that stage I knew I was doomed. There was no way I was going to make it to the show now. Because the driver determined that the repairs would take more than twenty-four hours, RACQ said they would arrange for it and the van to be towed back to Queensland.  They would also pay for my accommodation and transport back.  If you take nothing else from this story, let it be this: No matter where in the world you live, if you want to go on caravan adventures, make sure you have top level roadside assistance cover and make sure you tell them you want extra cover for your caravan or trailer! What I would have done without them I have no idea…

A very kind VCM’er from somewhere near Sydney, on hearing my plight kindly offered me his Landcruiser so that I could continue on my journey and so I set off once again. We managed to get the Cresta started and going and he offered to drive her very gently back to his place and assess the damage and possibly get her fixed. I would be heading back via Sydney after Adelaide and Phillip Island anyway, so that sounded like a good plan. Off into the land of no mobile phone reception I drove towards Dubbo with the intention of pushing through to Mildura that night and on to Adelaide the next day. I was still hopeful that I could make it; albeit a day or so late.  At the very least I would make it to the next event; the vintage caravan display at the Clipsal 500 V8 Supercars race and was looking forward to a week on the beach at the Adelaide Shores Caravan Park in the meantime.

As I arrived in Dubbo, the texts came in. Cresta had only made it about thirty kilometres down the road before she had let out an almighty bang and last groan and was now officially and completely 100% dead. I had no choice - I had to turn back. I called RACQ again and stopped in at the NRMA office to fax the recovery forms off. On the way back to the car, I bumped into an avid VCM fan named Kris who had spotted Betty parked on the main street and had left me a note on the windscreen. “I just have to tell you, you and your magazine have been such an inspiration to us!” she told me, and I burst into tears and hugged her hard.  What a blessing it was to hear such words of encouragement while I was having such a hard time of it!
Admitting defeat, I back tracked to Coonabarrabran, gave Mitchell back his car, said a sad goodbye to the Cresta and went back to Queensland, feeling sad and deflated.

After a couple of days recovering, a new resolve dawned on me and I asked my son if I could borrow the black Commodore that I had given him for his 18th birthday and try it one more time.  I felt like I’d let so many people down who said how much they had hoped to see me at the Caravan show but I still had time to make it to the next event; the Clipsal 500, also in Adelaide. Even though it had been less than ideal, I had loved being back out on the road again and I wanted to be back out there. I hooked up the van again and set off once again. I was back on the road, I now had air conditioning and a pumping stereo system and I felt awesome! Life was good!

About fifty kilometres before Narrabri and the car’s temperature suddenly hit the roof and alarms went off, I pulled over, let her cool off and checked the radiator. It seemed to have water in it and the fans were working OK, but I topped the water up just a little anyway and set off again. All was going well and I watched the temperature gauge anxiously.  It was fine, it was fine, it was fine… and then it was not! The engine made an almighty BANG followed by a clunk, clunk, clunk clunk and I pulled over again. I opened the bonnet and smoke was billowing out from the engine. This was not good. I was forty kilometres outside of Narrabri; the exact same spot where the Cresta tyre had exploded. What are the odds?

I called RACQ and my old mate Luke came to the rescue once more. I rolled back into the Narrabri Big Sky Caravan Park with the Commodore on the flat bed and Betty bobbing along behind and they could not believe their eyes, or my bad luck.  By then, neither could I.  For whatever reason I may never understand, I was slowly coming to the realization that this trip just wasn’t meant to be. I shed some tears, but I accepted my fate and felt thankful for small mercies. I was safe, I had good people around me to help, and road trips are what road trips are; unpredictable snippets of time where things quite often don’t go as planned, but the unplanned detours along the way and the amazing characters you meet as a consequence are usually what makes the whole adventure so worthwhile. 

Having told my tale of woe to Bob Taylor (aka: Mr Olympic) who was down in Adelaide keeping me filled in on all that I was missing, he put me in touch with Narrabri locals Allan and Gabbie Pym who came by to visit me at the caravan park in their classic Monaro. We went back to their place to check out their car collection that included and old PA Vauxhall and 1964 Sunliner like my "Betty". Allan was working on his EH Holden and the caravan had been painted to match – very cool! We then went back to the caravan park ordered a pizza delivery and had a few drinks and chats outside my caravan. It turns out that the Burns who own the fabulous green Sunliner and Zephyr that were on the cover of issue 22 had also broken down in Narrabri some months before and met up with the Pyms too, so I sent them a text to let them know where I was. Small world. I crawled into the van and slept soundly with the saying: “It matters not how far you travel in life, but those you meet along the way” in my mind. I was thankful for my wonderful vintage caravanning family. I had made some new friends and I still had my beautiful portable home Betty.  Things could be worse...

The next day Luke the NRMA guy hooked Betty on to the back of the tow truck that had the Commodore on it and drove me all the way back to Queensland. By the time we got back, the inside of my van looked like a cyclone had hit, she’d been bumped around so much.

The Commodore got a new water pump but I was nervous about what else could possibly go wrong.  At close to 200,000 km on the clock, I was told that the next things to go would be the radiator, alternator and fuel pump. Not willing to risk another breakdown, I opted to preemptively replace them all.  By now I had missed both of the Adelaide shows, but I had still had time to get to Phillip Island, Victoria, for the Phillip Island Classics and complete the rest of my trip.
So I bravely decided to give it a third shot, hooked up the van and set off yet again.

I stopped at the post office on my way out and when I walked back to the car I noticed that the van seemed to be sitting up unusually high in the front end, even with the weight distribution bars on. Something was not right… I took a closer look and noticed that the bolts that hold the caravan onto the chassis had pulled clear through the floor and there was nothing holding her on to the chassis at all in the front half. The badly made chassis that had only been put on two years ago was only made out of 2mm thick steel and now had a 50mm bend in the middle of it and resembled a banana!.Had I driven a few more hundred kilometres down the road, the results could have been catastrophic. I thanked the caravan angels profusely for drawing my attention to this potential horror before it was too late and turned back once again.

Betty was lifted off her old chassis and a brand new 4mm thick steel one was fitted. This process took about a week. While I was waiting for the caravan to be fixed, my daughter called and asked if I wanted to go to the Gold Coast with her so we could chill on the beach. After all I had been through, that seemed like a great idea. So I picked her up and we headed to the coast. Being the weekend traffic was a nightmare and it was stop, start all the way from Southport. Just as we approached the Southport bridge, the car in front of me stopped suddenly. I hit the brakes and managed to pull up just in time, but the car behind me did not. BANG! We were slammed into from behind, which then pushed us into the car in front. Ouch!

The car that hit us was completely smashed in and was a total write off but, because of my tow bar, we appeared to have made it without barely a scratch. A lucky break, or at least that’s what I thought…

The tow truck driver said that even though the Commodore appeared uninjured, the fact that the back door made a funny “clunk” sound when I close it and now had a gap at the top and sat tight at the bottom meant that my chassis was bent and that the car would be written off. When the insurance company assessed it they agreed that at $11,000 to repair the damage and the fact that the car would be permanently recorded as having been involved in a major collision, they had no choice but to write it off as well.

They towed it away and it was then that I finally admitted defeat. Three strikes, I was out.

I now had no functioning car and my gypsy dreams of that big Aussie Road Trip were well and truly shattered.

One day I hope to be able to afford to rebuild the Cresta engine and in hindsight I should have bought the Commodore off the insurance company and pulled out that newly fixed up supercharged V6 engine to put it in the Cresta as I had always dreamed of doing one day… but by then I was so defeated and exhausted and broken that I just knew I had to do some letting go…

Besides, in a few weeks I would be off to New Zealand for Beach Hop, then back to America for my next big adventure – a ten thousand kilometre across-America road trip in a 1953 Hudson Hornet with the Vintage Caravan Magazine subscriber prize giveaway caravan on the back, taking in all of Route 66 with my fellow Sisters on the Fly.
I am pleased to say that trip was a bit more successful. Life is still good…

You can read all about that adventure in issue 26 of Vintage Caravan Magazine!

www.vintagecaravanmagazine.com

Bringing Betty Home...

Maleny - Jervis Bay, NSW Return (2,400kms in 3 days!)

The 1963 Sunliner I bought six months ago has been sitting in storage in NSW and with a quote of $4,000 to have it transported back to Queensland, and a rusted out chassis, an alternative means of bringing her home was needed.

Funny how often what I am doing with my vans echoes the restoration tips in Vintage Caravan Magazine lately! (The last one was on transporting your vintage caravan - Thanks for the great advice Richard)

So, with the loan of a car trailer and blankets and pillows piled into the back of the Commodore, we set off from Maleny at about 2pm on Monday.  I did the first half of the drive and Noddy took over from there doing the long hard stretch through Sydney into the wee hours of the morning.

We arrived at Jervis Bay at 4am local time (3am QLD time - why oh why don't we have daylight savings time here too???) and pulled up in the carpark right on the bay overlooking the ocean and crashed out for some well-earned zzzz's.

We awoke at 9am and admired our prime real estate position (wow, did we really sleep that long in a public carpark taking up around 6 bays with the car trailer without anyone moving us on? Awesome!) 

Some locals turned up and told us that 30 whales had been spotted coming into Jervis Bay so I grabbed the camera and we walked down the rocks to check it out.  There was no sign of the whales, but there were dolphins swimming around and I was trying very hard to take photos of them when I took one step too many and ended up tumbling 3 metres down a rock wall and straight into the ocean and oyster laden rocks, ouch!!!!  The ambulances were called and it was all very dramatic but I was, apart from plenty of nasty bruises and cuts, surprisingly relatively injury free - I have always been quite convinced I am unbreakable! 

Here is a blurry photo of one of the dolphins that I managed to get off the memory card.  The camera and my i-phone that was in my pocket were destroyed in the fall unfortunately.

And a few nice pics of Jervis Bay that I took at the same time:

The pic I took just before I fell showing what I tumbled down and into!

Once it had been determined that my painfully bruised and swollen leg was not broken, we set off to pick up the Sunliner from Ray's Hot Rod workshop in Huskisson and the caravan was forklifted onto the car trailer backwards as the extended draw bar was very heavy and the boys decided it would be better going on the back of the trailer instead of at the front.

Some gruesome shots of my oyster cut hands taken with Noddy's phone while I watched them loading the van:

Van all loaded, we hit the road again with Noddy taking the first half while I iced my leg and bemoaned my injuries and Sydney traffic.  We stopped at a rest stop along the way and met a lovely couple Cheryl and Andy who were free camping on their way to Tasmania who loved the Sunliner and so I gave them a copy of the magazine to enjoy on their travels. After he had done around 7 hours straight driving, we stopped for some dinner in Kempsey and I took over the wheel from there to Nigel and Linda's Glen Villa Resort caravan park in Byron Bay.  We arrived there at 2am and didn't want to wake them so we slept outside and surprised them in the morning and had a bite to eat with them at the very funky Bay leaf Cafe (mmmmm.. lots of vegetables and real fruit juice was much appreciated after a couple of days of service station pies!)

Then it was off again back home to Maleny, dropping the newly christened "Betty Page Turner" (a name that is the result of combining two pinup goddesses; Bettie Page and Lana Turner that seemed appropriate for a portable magazine office!) down at Beerwah where she will be getting a makeover in time for the next big trip to Victoria in 3 weeks for her debut at the Camperdown Cruise Rockabilly Festival... fingers crossed!

We made it!

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