Another day another dollar

Thinking of the caption for the post is usually the hardest bit. In fact I often just say a point then try to back it up in the post below. Today’s caption is silly because I seem to every day find another thing to spend dollars on without earning any more.

Steven (Cassie’s dad) and I went to go get firewood on Saturday morning. As it was a bit of a damp and frosty morning, I decided to go ahead of our meet up time, primarily to give me a chance to rewind on the winch cable from the other night, but secondarily to serve as a backup in case Steven’s car couldn’t pull the firewood up the slippery hills.

Ironic that the tree trunk protector was used to ‘skull drag’ the tree trunks out of the bush to their eventual demise.

 

One tonne of firewood. Made accelerating difficult. Once at speed, it was great, but taking off from a tee intersection up hill is a little bit embarrassing. There is no point flogging it, you just need to be patient. It did confirm our need to be very weight conscious with our fit out. I’m trying to budget for no more than 200KG of fit out and belongings. This includes the 60KG of water and fridge.

The only partial exception to this will be the items on the roof. This will include the rack itself, spare tyre, jack, shovel, spares, tools, straps etc. but we do want to keep an eye on it - especially on the roof.

We went and purchased some insulation for the back of the car. The secondary reason for purchasing it today was to take off the interior panels to see if it would be easy to pop the dent back out. The visibility of the dent on the car is much more pronounced due to the way the mud misses it.

Turns out it was not that easy, the steel panels are TOUGH! I’m inclined to get a quote for it’s removal, but I can’t help but carry a degree of arrogance that it shouldn’t cost more then $100 cash to repair but I can see the crooks trying to rip me off.

The insulation will go behind the panels to stop some heat loss and reduce cabin noise. We got a polyester one so it shouldn't rot if it ever gets wet.

Today we fixed the drivers seat, it seemed that one or two of the springs on the left hand side had broken which had resulted in the sagging and eventual tear of the seam. This tear did facilitate the installation of two new springs which now make it indefinably better.

I’m selling a few items on eBay that were thrown out from a client’s site. I’d say I’ll get nearly $400 in proceeds which will go well towards our adventure. Not bad for ‘rubbish’

When we consider the expense and effort we’re going to for this trip, we sometimes get a smack in the face which urges us along. Watching ‘Grand Design’s’ on ABC tonight, a 30-40 year old couple were preparing the final stages of their house plans. For those unfamiliar with the Grand Design’s show, is the presenter follows a project from concept, through planning, build and ultimately the finished product. They even come back a few years later to follow up.

Tonight’s show was interviewing the husband as he was describing the project, he admitted that he had an illness and was going in for ‘investigative surgery' the very next day.

Switch to a few nice sunset scenes as the presenter advises that husband died 6 months later with stomach cancer. How quick we can demise. He was an IT consultant with his own business so naturally the story is instantly relatable. With less than 6 months to live, he still wouldn’t have got to do the trip that we want to do. As you can imagine, the speed at which life can change really means we MUST do things we want to. I suggest you read the very first twomagadan blog post to see the motivation and eternal struggle between investing for the future and living for now.

I even commented that upon news of the gentleman’s illness that in all the episodes we have watched, there has never been any great tragedy like death or a break up. Well, I certainly ate my words once it was revealed that he died.