The House(s) of Fran_mart

 So on 5 July we finished packing the car and headed on in the dark and the rain at about 0630.  Daylight arrived somewhere after Genoa.  I think we were close to Drummer (about 45km) before we saw another car. We each guessed the number of caravans we would see at Cann River.  Frances voted for 10, allowing for school holiday travelers while I was influenced - unwisely - by the foul weather and went for 2.  The park was well occupied, with Frances estimating about 15 occupied sites.  From Cann onwards the traffic coming towards us was quite steady: certainly more than there has been for the past 2 or 3 trips.  I think a certain amount of sanity returning to fuel prices has got people on the road again. I have entered up the fuel purchased at Bairnsdale and was struck by the similarity of consumption this trip and last.  There is a notable difference between the consumption on the legs Bairnsdale - Mallacoota - Bairnsdale  (about 6.8 l/100km)...

 The start of the drive was not pleasant with 8/8ths cloud and drizzle to about Bruthen. A Forest Kingfisher has been reported many times in the last 2 weeks from MacLeod's Morass in Bairnsdale so we invested some time in checking the are out.  There were a few other folk also looking but no one got lucky until just after we left .  It reads as though this guy drove up, ticked the bird and left!  We put in a bit over 90 minutes but didn't see it although it was good seeing all the Dotterels out from the boardwalk.  One of the observers the previous day noted that " S pent 4 hours patiently waiting with a group of people trying to search for the bird to then have it perch in a tree next to the road and then fly to the power lines."   C'est la twitch.  We enjoyed the break and will likely do it again.  The Red-kneed Dotterel was an East Gippsland tick (taking me to 261 species for the Shire, 13th on the eBird list for the Shire and only 66 spe...

 A friend who is hoping to get out of hospital soon suggested that people's prayers might help.  That made me think of the tree I drove past every day in Dar es Salaam. People put all sorts of items up on this Baobab to get their message through to the spirits that were in the tree.  I added to the collection as a friend back in Australia was having some health problems.  As I was putting my message up an old chap appeared explaining that he looked after the tree and would appreciate a little "chakula" - Kiswahili for food, but he was actually after shillings which were duly provided.   A nice illustration of religion in Tanzania.  40% are Christian; 40 % Islamic; and 100% believe in witchcraft.  Here is another snap of the site, with a witchcraft ceremony in progress. The red cloaks are the traditional attire of witches.  We went to a performance of Macbeth at an amateur dramatic society.  Half the performance was in Kiswahili and there...

 Thanks to the activities of the Mango Musso and Bibi we have become a little wary of being able to travel back and forth between 'coota and 505 so decided we needed to have decent clothes washing facilities available in 505.  This meant getting a washing machine and a dryer.  Bosch is our go-to brand and we have found Appliances online good to deal with in the past.  So an order was placed. On the day of delivery we got an advice about a 2 hour window when they would be arriving.  It turned out they actually started heading towards us about an hour earlier than that, and had a map of where the truck was so I watched as they drove from Box Hill towards us.  There was a little confusion at the end but they made it.   The installation process was fascinating to watch.  It took them perhaps half an hour and was done in a very calm and organised way.  I suspect that had we tried to do it it ourselves it would have taken 3 to 4 hours and inv...

 We decided to avoid driving on the Easter weekend, and to give ourselves a gap between driving days so headed for Melbourne at 0624 on 12 April.  Thanks to swapping back to normal time it was reasonably daylight by then, albeit rather cool (~7 o C).  Genoa Rd was in quite good condition with a major pothole filled in and many unnecessary signs removed.  We didn't see another car on that stretch.  In fact by the time we got to Orbost (150km) we had only crossed with 10 vehicles, overtaken 2 and been passed by 1.  The weather started to get ungood as we got towards Orbost.  As Frances took over occasional sprinkles of rain began and continued through her 2 hour spell to Rosedale.  We stopped to refill with diesel at a Mobil station in Bairnsdale where the price was only horrendous (309.9 c/l)) - in that town prices varied between that and 315.9c/l. The pumps for 95 octane were flagged 'Empty'.  There was a bit less traffic around, but not as d...

 Mainly white.