Farewelling my brother in Dicky Beach it was an easy 1 hour drive to Brisbane. It’s a place we have always enjoyed visiting and we had ample tasks to occupy our time while we waited a week for our flight back to Canada to spend a month with our kids and friends there. There would be a few sights in Brisbane, a bit of vehicle maintenance, the need to seek a vehicle storage solution while we were away and, finally, a wonderful opportunity to catch up with nieces, nephews, a cousin and one of my oldest childhood friends.

Vehicle first. Our regular readers may remember the big jolt when we hit a thick tree root on the very last few kilometres of the Cape York track. It was enough to shake our camera and we really felt it in the van.

No obvious damage at the time but, later, in Rockhampton during a routine tire rotation, the technician noticed the front wheel which took the impact had a little bit of “play” in it. Very driveable, he assured us, but, based on his further inspection, said it was likely a fractured nylon piece in the tie-rod and the tie rod would need to be replaced. The Mercedes dealer in Rockhampton had the part and, while he confirmed it was almost certainly the cause of the issue, lamented that they could not do the job for two weeks ( not our first such service challenge on this trip ). We would have to do it when we got to Brisbane and had more time.

A good thing as it turned out. A local European parts specialist here in Brisbane supplied the exact same ( German-made ) part, directed us to a specialist suspension shop for the install and finally over to Bob Jane Tires for the wheel alignment. All wrapped up in the course of a half day’s running around, with great service from all involved and at a fraction of the cost ( and delay ) we would have experienced at Mercedes Benz in Rockhampton. Nice to have it all sorted out.

Now on to family. My niece, Shannon ( and her family ) and nephew, Caleb ( and his ) both live in Brisbane – both have moved since we last saw them and both have had beautiful additions to their young families. On the few occasions we do pass through Brisbane we usually have little time for any meaningful visits so it was wonderful to spend a couple of relaxing days with both, to get to know their newest young ones and catch up on the goings-on in their worlds. Likewise with my long-time friend, Tim ( and his wife Ros ). For once we had time to do more then just catch up for a quick coffee or beer as we blew through town. Great to reminisce and also do a little exploring together around some of the parts of Brisbane we’d not seen before. 

One last task while in town was to find secure storage for the vehicle while we would be away. After some crazy quotes from a few places we managed to find a good option in a gated commercial facility not too far from Brisbane airport. Pleased with that and now able to travel with some additional peace of mind ( a condition of our Carnet – the vehicle temporary import permit – was that the vehicle be secured, not on a public street, and not be driven by anyone else while we were out of the country ). Check, check and check !

With our daughter’s delivery date known ( she was going to be induced ) we could now schedule our planned departure so as to ( hopefully ) coincide as closely as possible with the expected delivery. Vehicle dropped at the storage centre and bags packed we Uber’d to Brisbane airport for the 13 hour flight to Vancouver and then on to Kelowna.

So with all that excitement and lots of eagerly anticipated baby-time coming up in the next few weeks, we’ll take a summer “pause” on the OneEndlessRoad blog and get back at it just before returning to Brisbane in September.

To all our regular readers, thanks for tagging along with us, and to all our local friends and family, we look forward to catching up while we are back !

Till next month…….