Fairly noisy night with traffic until about midnight when it quietened down.
One if the motor homes who were sharing the site seem to have given up during the night and moved on. We got a fairly good sleep later in the night only to be woken at 4:30 by (you guessed it) a cereal box being knocked off the the bench by Em whilst rolling in her bed. Not much sleep to be had after that.
We had breakfast and started to pack up. We were dropping the roof of the van when we noticed it stopped half way down... Up again, and down, stopped again. bugger.
We raised it up and unpacked all the bedding and everything else that was packed under the table and started removing panels to get at the lifting mechanism. The right hand front, where we'd had trouble down in Stanthorpe was ok, over to the winch side. Finally worked out how to access the winch, to find that the lifting cable had got jammed under one of the winds on the winch. Looks like the winch is slightly out of alignment causing the cable to wind up on one side. Looked like one of these winds had collapsed down on a later one jamming it and stopping it from unwinding when we were dropping the roof. A smart rap with the mallet on the cable released the jam, dropped the roof by about an inch with a bang, scaring kerrie who was looking in the door....
Ok, pack the gear back in the van, dropped the roof, successfully this time, and buttoned everything up. Drink a bottle of water as I had been doing a bit of sweating. Hook her up and hit the road about an hour later than we hoped to.
As much as we have been having some little hassles with the van, I'm getting very confident that we now starting to understand the lifting system and how it can go wrong and how to fix it.
Hit the road.
We got into Narabri and decided to take a side trip off to the Australia Telescope Compact Array. We've been here before, but decided that the kids would get a bit from the visit. I've got to say I love this site. When I was in the army I used to get IPS solar condition reports from here to assist in our HF radio communications. The kids enjoyed playing with the simple radio telescope that plays the sounds of electronic noise from the Sun. It's a 1.5 m dish that you can steer around and point at the sun manually. The noise getting louder the closer you are.
There is also a couple of microwave dishes that are placed about 50 meters apart. You can whisper in one and be heard easily from the other. The kids had a ball whispering to us.
We had breakfast and started to pack up. We were dropping the roof of the van when we noticed it stopped half way down... Up again, and down, stopped again. bugger.
We raised it up and unpacked all the bedding and everything else that was packed under the table and started removing panels to get at the lifting mechanism. The right hand front, where we'd had trouble down in Stanthorpe was ok, over to the winch side. Finally worked out how to access the winch, to find that the lifting cable had got jammed under one of the winds on the winch. Looks like the winch is slightly out of alignment causing the cable to wind up on one side. Looked like one of these winds had collapsed down on a later one jamming it and stopping it from unwinding when we were dropping the roof. A smart rap with the mallet on the cable released the jam, dropped the roof by about an inch with a bang, scaring kerrie who was looking in the door....
Ok, pack the gear back in the van, dropped the roof, successfully this time, and buttoned everything up. Drink a bottle of water as I had been doing a bit of sweating. Hook her up and hit the road about an hour later than we hoped to.
As much as we have been having some little hassles with the van, I'm getting very confident that we now starting to understand the lifting system and how it can go wrong and how to fix it.
Hit the road.
We got into Narabri and decided to take a side trip off to the Australia Telescope Compact Array. We've been here before, but decided that the kids would get a bit from the visit. I've got to say I love this site. When I was in the army I used to get IPS solar condition reports from here to assist in our HF radio communications. The kids enjoyed playing with the simple radio telescope that plays the sounds of electronic noise from the Sun. It's a 1.5 m dish that you can steer around and point at the sun manually. The noise getting louder the closer you are.
There is also a couple of microwave dishes that are placed about 50 meters apart. You can whisper in one and be heard easily from the other. The kids had a ball whispering to us.
After spending some time in the visitors centre, watching some historic videos and looking at the telescopes we headed back into Narabri to have lunch and get back onto the Newell Highway and heading south.
Makes me look forward to doing this when my kids are older!
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