Living on the road with no fixed address, what does one do when the government announces a ‘stay at home’ mandate? We can stay in Delvy – we have been for over 12 months now – but Delvy wouldn’t be welcome to keep travelling around rural and coastal towns of Australia throughout this coronavirus pandemic. And neither would we want to intrude or possibly burden small communities as we all endeavour to practice social distancing to help stop the spread.
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| Heading south on the Bruce Highway between Bowen and Proserpine |
Where to go?
Working as a relief hotel manager provides fixed accommodation for a certain period, but now that the tourism and hospitality industries are shut down or working at minimum capacity due to the coronavirus and its management in no need of a break, there is little to no opportunity for employment in the distant future. What shall we do? Return to family in the southern states and potentially put them at risk as well as crowd them in? While it would be nice to be close to family, not a good idea, plus, it’s coming into winter. Go to a State forest or National Park for a while? Not allowed. Pay exorbitant nightly fees at a caravan park? Not sustainable.
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| Delvy's new parking spot for awhile |
New home
Thankfully, we have wonderful, generous friends who have offered us a refuge on their spacious central coast Queensland property for as long as we need. So Delvy now has a ‘home’, and the bonus is we have the use of a rustic shack, complete with large balcony and airplane hangar, a water tank, solar power, a resident possum and a lone white horse over the fence. How lucky we are. 😊
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| Welcome to Heathrow! You'll find us at T2. |
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| Horse, aka Kyoto |
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| Possum |
Just like Delvy, the shack, or T2 as it is officially called, is completely off the grid. All of our power needs are drawn from solar panels, which need to be managed effectively to keep the necessary charge in the batteries. In T2 we have the luxury of 240-volt power during high sunlight hours, usually from 8am to 4 pm depending on cloud cover. Electronic devices can be charged, and we can do a load of washing. Yes, we have a washing machine! So exciting. Only a short 15-minute cycle but beats washing by hand.
Today’s project was fixing the califont LPG water heater, for instant hot water, and I am pleased to report it was an instant success. So, now we have hot running water when needed, which means a hot shower for when the weather gets a little cooler. And when the new battery arrives (the existing one has lived its life), we will be able to run a small fridge that will give us extra space for our fortnightly shop.
To fill in the days we have been cleaning and resurrecting the shack to be liveable. A bit of gardening/weeding and whipper snipping in the cooler hours of the morning or afternoon is making the place tidier. I have some vegetable seeds ready to plant once the soil is prepared in the garden beds but I am yet work out how to keep the native animals out.
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| T2 and Hangar 3 |
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| Delvy and T2 |
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| Office and kitchen |
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| Preparing the vegetable garden |
How long we are here for is anybody’s guess but we have all we need and are content.
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| View from the balconyof T2 |
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| Pretty driveway flowers, Ipomoea |
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