Back to Brisbane

April 4

We had to return to Brisbane for a couple of weeks to pickup a few things that had arrived at Olivia’s, including a pair of folding Solar panels to increase our battery capabilities and a new ground mat for the awning area; and to drop off a few things we had decided were surplus (like too many saucepans!).  Keith also had to visit his doctor and surgeon and we needed to get the dogs vaccinated and Tess spayed.  This was always a planned return after a few weeks of caravan use to get all the processes right.

Last week we stayed at the Pine Rivers Showgrounds at Lawnton (above) and today moved to the Ipswich Showgrounds (below)  We couldn’t have come to Ipswich for the whole time as they have a 7 day limit.  Pine Rivers was very easy to access now having new traffic signals at the driveway, thanks to the construction of a new railway bridge opposite.  Plenty of space, all usual facilities and $140 a week.

We also had to resolve our battery problems and did this while at Lawnton.  Taking the battery to a specialist in Brendale (Austar batteries) it turned out the battery fitted to the van as we bought it was not even a deep cycle battery but just an ordinary sealed h/d unit which was also down to about 60% capacity.  This was duly replaced with 2 brand new 110AH AGM batteries for which we knew we had enough space in the existing area in the front boot. The other problem we had was cross related sensing between the mains charger and the solar charger so we also picked up a switch box so that these could be individually switched and isolated.  This problem is basically that each charger can see the circuitry of the other and sets up a fault condition in both units whether they are charging or not. Also bought a couple of bus bars to tidy up the “ratsnest” of wiring from multiple input and output circuits.

Ipswich Showgrounds:

Our first visit to the Ipswich Showgrounds, I am sure we will be back many times!

While at Ipswich Frances borrowed Zoe’s Sewing Machine (again) and made us some draught skirts for the bottom of the van ready for the colder weather: