And Away from Work

Away from work, things were fine for the most part. I had still not had my immigration issues resolved and those dragged on until the end of 2000 or thereabouts. Never mind all that now.

Claudia and I were reveling in the Australian life-style. For me it was close to what I had experienced growing up in Africa. Wide open spaces, wildlife and places to explore and be alone. There were so many things to do outdoors that one just never knew exactly what to do each weekend. In Brisbane we had fairly easy access to the coast to the North or to the South. So depending on the weather and our mood, we would head off to the Sunshine Coast or the Gold Coast. We found little places that became favourites -Bribie island and Maleney among others. We built up a collection of camping equipment that meant that there were no restrictions on where we went. The only thing that we needed to worry about was the time to do it all. We had a collection of 'liberated' milk crates that each had specific items in them - cooking, food, camping, car spares, tools etc another plastic box held bed linen. We had a couple of cool-boxes - "eskkies"- as they are known, which we would fill with fresh ice every two days when we went away and that kept the milk and butter fresh/solid. With everything organised in that fashion, we were able to leave on a Friday night after work having only spent a few extra minutes in the morning throwing all the crates into the back of Helga.
Helga was a 1983 Nissan Patrol seven seater with a 3.3l naturally aspirated diesel and a four speed box. She was a part of the family. Claudia was never comfortable driving her, which was unfortunate as she is a brilliant driver and would have enjoyed some of our tougher trips even more if she felt that she had contributed a bit to the driving. The truth was that Helga had done over 300 000kms and while mechanically everything was fine, she did need a delicate touch - double-de-clutching to help the gearbox and assist the braking for example. Her steering was also very vague. Helga was very special and was spoken of as if she was human, she was part of our toast when-ever we opened a bottle of wine. We developed this relationship with her because of the places we went with her. We had a book of little-known tracks in Queensland and we followed the ones we could. This meant that some days we could drive for hours through bush or forest and not see another vehicle. Being nice to Helga, I am sure, meant that she was less likely to suffer some catastrophic failure that left us stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It is true. Helga was special and I still think about her.