We need to get ready for the next trip so I put the renovation project on hold.
We have to address the question of what to put back in the Motley, a problem we haven't had to face before. I guess we'll get used to the new routine in time. Other people have to do it all the time.
I tried to connect to the internet from the back terrace without success. I planned to drive up to the water tower again but stopped at the top of the hill just up Gotha Street and had a good connection. It worked well for ten minutes and then went pear shaped. As a test to see if the problem was with the server, I tried to connect to www.telstra.com and got a "Could not connect to www.telstra.com because the domain www.telstra.com is unknown." This isn't a definitive test but if Telstra can't find their our website, something is wrong.
I still believe that the problem is with Telstra but I need to do some more testing before I can definitely come to this conclusion. It could, I suppose be some intermittent problem in the Minimax modem but this seems highly unlikely.
When I got home I tried to connect from the back terrace again and had no problem. I managed 1.3 Mbytes of transfers in 13 minutes. I am still very puzzled by the great variability of the performance. When I get connected to a site, I seem to get pretty fast downloads but there seems to be some difficulty in finding the site. Sometimes goop.org is there in a flash and sometimes it isn't there at all.
In the afternoon,we took the opportunity of a free day to go on an adventure up Ironbark Creek. This is one of the tourist drives around Barraba and is reputed to traverse the most beautiful part of the area.
On the way to Woodsreef we saw a sign to Adams Lookout so we stopped and took in the view of Barraba from some way up the slope to the north-east.
As we drove up the Ironbark Creek, we passed a sign pointing out an ironbark forest which is the home of the rare Regent Honeyeater. We drove on to the top of the hill a few kilometres west of Bundarra,This area is 900 m high and is characterised by granite outcrops much like those around Tenterfield (which isn't far away in geological terms).
We saw lots of birds including a very, very big Sulphur-crested Cockatoo which landed on a fence post and raised his striking yellow crest to us as if to say "g'day".
We also saw a Wallaroo which fled behind a rock when I disturbed him while I was taking his photo. We watched a mob of Eastern Grey Kangaroos cross the road and escape into the bush. We stopped for a trio of Black-striped Wallabies which we standing on the road. As we rolled quietly and slowly towards them, two of them took off into the bush, the third simply hopped to the grass verge and watched us approach. His nerve gave out when we were just a few metres away.
Later, a red fox ran along the grass verge beside us for a good hundred metres before ducking under the fence.
Before breakfast, I did a signal strength survey by walking up the hill and back to the house with the mobile phone. I got three bars every time I went to the top of the hill but the signal on the back terrace varied from one to two bars. Later on I checked the signal strength in town and it was only one bar.
I did get to do what I needed sitting on the front lawn which is generally better than the back terrace. The locals must think I'm very strange because I have devised a black hood to put over my head and the iBook when I'm sitting in a camp chair so that I can see the screen clearly in the sunlight.
In preparation for the upcoming trip, I emptied the Motley's black water tank and washed the truck and the car.
I spent the afternoon marking some Self-containment Certification Scheme examination papers which had arrived in the mail.
I know washing the car is supposed to be the best rainmaking device there is but the rain held off until the evening when we were surrounded by thunderstorms. This eventually caused a blackout which sent us to bed early. The power came back on at eleven o'clock with all the lights and the TV getting us out of bed again.
The fridge didn't cope well with the blackout. The temperature in the freezer rose from -18 °C to -5 °C in just two hours. I had planned to leave some frozen food in the fridge while we are away because the fridge has a vacation mode which keeps the freezer operating without the fridge compartment. I guess it would be as well to take all the food in the Motley and not risk coming back to a freezer full of rotten meat.
I did another signal strength survey, this time in the car, and discovered the areas of the town where there is four bar signal. I wasn't able to find the base station which I now suspect is on one of the hills to the east the town. I had thought that the water tower was the site but I lost signal rapidly when I went a little way down the hill to the west of the water tower.
I parked in a four bar area and connected. Everything went well for a bit and then I stared to get no response from the sites I was connected to. The modem was still doing ack and nack so I don't think the Minimax or the 1X service are to blame for this problem. It might be that the Telstra server on the 1X network is overloaded or unreliable in some way. Perhaps I should try and talk to a technical guru at Telstra.
In the afternoon, I started to re-pack the Motley. I did all my clothes, the tools and such, and all the non-perishable food.
While I was putting stuff away in the Motley, I noticed that one of the bolts holding the water filters up had come loose so I had to do my contortionist trick and get half my body inside the cupboard so that I could fix it. The aches and pains this engendered put paid to any more work for the day. I arrange for Keith to come with his slasher to deal with the growth in the back paddock. It looks a lot better and the neighbours are well pleased. There was talk of a fire hazard and I suppose that is a concern here. I still haven't got used to living in the country.
I loaded all the perishable food, the crockery and the cutlery into the Motley. Jean loaded her other clothes and I helped her to pack her travelling case.
I had got an extra lot of medication so that she can have two lots, one in her hand luggage and one in her hold luggage so that if one gets lost she won't have the worry of trying to getting more pills in San Francisco.
Jean wanted to do one more aquarobics class before we leave so we have another day in Barraba.
I spent the best part of the day loading stuff and searching for things we had forgotten I emptied the fridge, cleaned it, and switched it off.
In the evening we went to the RSL with John and Vicki for dinner and a farewell chat.