After our visit to the Residency Museum we went to the bakery for a pie. We then walked to a Bushland Garden, which is partway up the hill. There wasn’t very much in flower, but it was a pleasant place to be and we enjoyed walking back down to the main street a different way and seeing different parts of the town.

I rather fell in love with this little stone house, and only afterwards noticed that it is for sale. Possibly a lot of work needed…

We bought two new gas cylinders and the boy at the hardware shop obligingly put them in for us and connected them up. I bought some crisps and we headed up to Mt Brown to catch the evening light.

I was a bit worried about coming back down the steep road as I haven’t worked out how to drive the Winnie in manual. However, I kept the speed slow and it stayed in 2nd gear, so I was using the brake, plus low gear in coming down. Not nearly so scary as I had feared.

After initially parking in a spot with no view we moved into a better spot and after walking around and taking some photos we had our drink (of diet coke) and nibbles, whilst enjoying being in such a beautiful place. There are views on three sides from the top position, with a viewing platform.

We had an interesting experience, as well as enjoying the changing light towards sunset. A young couple arrived with a photographer who was using a drone to take photos and perhaps videos of them walking around. The couple were dressed in evening clothes and it must have been very cold indeed for the young woman with bare shoulders and arms. The drone appeared to be vaguely menacing as they walked along with it hovering above.

I used my A6000 at first, then got out the A7RII with my new (used) A mount 24-70mm 2.8 lens. This is the lens I should have had to photograph my niece’s wedding a few weeks ago. It is the Zeiss lens, and the rich colours and interesting flare effects are just lovely, I’m very glad to have it. Secondhand, it was $1350 – I got $550 for my FE 24-70, and $800 for the FE 16-35mm lens, which has been largely unused since I bought it. I already had the “3” adapter, which allows almost all of the lens functions. I still have the 35mm F2.8 FE lens if I want absolutely all of the functions.

When we got home I worked out how to get the TV going, there was a little switch next to the arial plug, and once lit up, we had no problems with reception. We watch the news, then had another episode of the Durrels, this time on the TV as for some reason the HDMI input also worked.

I put the water heater on, and when I had a shower about an hour later the water was really very hot, I had to add lots of cold. I soaped up, then used the shower to rinse. Then we switched off the gas for safety overnight. In the morning, the water heater initially started, then kept switch off and trying to relight. I switched it off completely, then tried the other gas cylinder. Still no joy. I decided we probably needed to check on the gas flow, so put some eggs on to boil. I found I could only use one burner at a time, the flow was very weak, and the water took more than half an hour to get hot, but was still far from boiling. I then used the frying pan to cook the eggs for our breakfast.

This morning, I have rung Parkland RV to ask if it can be checked out, and they said they will get back to me with a date when it can be seen by their gas specialist.

So, it was a slightly less satisfying morning after having such a good experience with the hot water system the night before.

However, we feel very happy overall with the Winnie, with the slide out it feels very spacious inside and we love having the comfort. It feels very solid and well built. Even emptying the toilet cassette at the dump point was interesting for us, learning how to do it. I enjoy the driving and we used heating and the windscreen wipers with no problems.

On the way home we had one stop to let people past, then went to the Maundering Bakery for a pie and hot drink for our lunch. We have used the special RV parking area before with the caravan and it is well located, just across the road from the Bakery.

Somewhat embarrassingly, I have just been testing the hot water system/stove top. I was using a method of turning on the gas, then winding it back slightly. That was enough to slow the flow of gas considerably. I experimented with not turning it back at all after turning on and was able to switch on the water heater in one go and get all three gas burners working on the stove top at the same time. I left the heater on long enough to get the water hot. I sent a text to Bruce at Parkland RV to let him know.