Mondays!!

Mon 27 July… What a frustrating day, nearly enough for the Navigator to have a tantrum! We had an early start to get the van to the garage, the other side of Coffs, for 8am. Then it took us an hour to walk into town. As we were up early we didn’t have time for breakfast so we had it in town al fresco in the shopping centre. Very nice except for the chai which is, as we know it, black Turkish tea ( served in a small glass in Turkey) Australian chai comes looking like milky thin porridge which has to be strained and a small tub of honey on the side. Absolutely disgusting taste but that’s how they were taught to make it the waitress said. A while later we met up with Vanessa and the boys after they had driven into town, then we got the phone call. The garage wouldn’t be able to fix the van as the parts hadn’t arrived. That was no good to us as we have to be somewhere else tomorrow. When we collected the van they tried to make us pay for the spares as they had ordered them especially. “Not our problem” we said after a bit of English tell ‘em how it is, we have our van back, still crook but didn’t pay anything. We still needed a new tyre which had arrived at the tyre shop, but the fitters had gone to lunch------“come back in an hour” Got it done eventually. By now the Navigator has a face like a smacked arse and was only appeased by a couple of beers in Coffs Harbour Yacht Club which has million dollar views from its’ deck. In the meantime Vanessa and the boys went off to watch pet porpoise show with dolphins, sea lions and penguins, which was good value as there was a lot of interaction with the animals, and they all received a big fishy smacker from the sea lion and the dolphin, and she has photos to prove it! At least they had a good day.