April 2014

Funerals are never easy but despite the sadness Joanne's Dad was sent off with style with many past and present friends and family attending. With 88 years under his belt, it was as you can imagine, interesting to hear of a life lived well from the four eulogies that it took to cover it. Our eldest daughter Dianne came over from Perth so it as nice to catch up with her as well.

A few days later we headed back towards Pinnaroo taking a couple of lazy days to travel back. We stopped for the night at the RV Friendly Site in Bridgewater using the portable solar panels for the first time (they performed very well) and in the morning it was eggs, bacon and mushrooms beside the river for breakfast.

RV Site Bridgewater

Turning off the Calder Highway we took some back roads and enjoyed the quiet roads and quaint towns, eventually stopping under grey skies in Hopetoun where we snagged a nice spot on the shore of Lake Coorong.

Lake Coorong

Grey Skies but power, water, grass a nice views.

Back at work and we have been harvesting potato's again, same old stuff with no real excitement, but today was going to be different. We had finished the spuds that had been planted for seed and so it was time to take the grading table to the maintenance shed some 20 km away. After pulling it all apart and connecting it to the tractor we headed off at 20km/h with Joanne ahead in the ute as the wide load pilot, and all was going well until we got to the railway line.

Before we left I asked the boss if the legs at the front (which sit only a few inches above the ground) would make it over the railway line especially with a large and heavy generator in the front. He replied that he thought so and that things would be okay, "just take it easy as you go over the tracks" he said. Approaching the track I stopped at the stop sign and selected a low gear just in case. Looking up and down the track showed it was clear and so off we went. I got over the first rail okay and then as I got to it - bang! the legs hit the second track. Figuring that as I had got over the first rail I should be able to get back over it and off the track so I slowly reversed but - bang! Ut-oh, now I was stuck between the tracks.

Grader legs stuck

One of the legs stuck between the tracks

Joanne left the ute up the road a bit and walked back to me and we began inspecting the problem and figuring out how to get out of the mess we found ourselves in, and of course a car turned up with a man and his kids and their camera's. Oh great! So there I am with the rig stuck on the railway track talking to the boss on the radio when the guy with the camera says "there's a train coming!". - WHAT!!! I look up and can see the headlights of a train no more than a kilometre away. I jumped off the tractor and began to move to wards the train waving my arms and hoping to get the attention of the driver (all the time there's a movie running in my mind and the movie is showing the train going past me and cleaning up the tractor and grader as it goes). Then just as I begin to wonder if the driver had seen me I hear the pitch of the trains engine begin change and eventually the driver pulled the wheat train up next to me where I was able to explain the problem to him.

Grader on track

Stuck on the track.

The sign says LOOK FOR TRAINS and I found one!

The driver and his mate got off the train and had a look at the problem, telling us that they were on their way to GrainFlow in Pinnaroo (where we worked last wheat season) to load up. Vince our friend and workmate turned up in the Company truck on his way to the Riverland with some of the large green bins he had just picked up from a nearby pivot and stopped to see what was going on.

Vince and I discussed the problem and agreed that if we could raise the front of the grader with the jack out of the truck I could maybe drive off the jack and over the track at the same time. Back in the tractor I pulled the grader forward to the track and Vince placed the jack under the front near the drawbar and jacked it up so that the legs were high enough to clear the track, the train driver watching with interest as he did so. So with everything in place and everyone clear of it all I drove forward, off the jack and clear of the track just as we had planned.

Clear of the track we had another chat with the train crew, giving them the bosses name and number and then Joanne and I went on our way while they waited for the track inspector to arrive to check for any damage.

Joanne and I delivered the first part of the grader and returned for the second, easily clearing the railway track this time and successfully delivering it all to the maintenance shed. We met Simon (the boss) at the shed and he was surprised at how calm we were, though we might not have been if the train driver had not seen the large red thing on the track and me in my bright yellow hi-vis vest coming towards him.

So with only a few days left in April and as we celebrate our second anniversary on the road, we are wondering what else may happen :-)

Mark Twain once said "...years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do that by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - and so we will.