27 May to 8 June and back on the BIG island :D

Hi all
We had two quietish days at the Blue Wren Tea Gardens at West Ulverstone before leaving and lining up for the ferry on Sunday 28th may.  We arrived early in the line and then went and had a lovely coffee at 'Fifteen Tables' just up Murray street from the terminal.  We were through the checking process and lined up for 1 1/2 hours before being permitted to drive on to the ferry.
We were warned that there was going to be lots of rain and rough seas on the crossing with a 30knot wind.  Well - they weren't wrong.  We had our cabin [which was cabin 7 right at the front of the ferry] and I went to bed at about 10pm and then I rocked and I rolled (and I think I counted every wave we crested) until at 3.32am we arrived at the Port Philip Bay heads - the rocking stopped and we travelled at a sedate pace - but alas, there was no sleep for me.  So up, showered, bags packed and then in search of coffee.  Very thankful when the pantry opened at about 5am. [The staff member in the Pantry suggested that next trip we request a cabin towards the middle or back of the ferry as the ups and downs weren't as bad] Everyone was woken at 5.45am and breakfast was ready to be served to those who wanted it, and then we all waited to be called to access our vehicles.  6.35am we were driving off the Spirit of Tasmania 1 and back onto the BIG island.  By 7.50am we had made it to the Shell Service Centre on the Hume Fwy (M31) and were awaiting our hot breakfast, and then we travelled to Casey's Weir at Benalla.  The windscreen on the car kept fogging up as it was COLDER in Victoria then what it was in Ulverstone 😕The phone was telling me it was -1C degree and we had had +4C degrees in Ulverstone.
We arrived at Benalla at 10.30 am and Darryl and I went for a nap as neither of us had had sleep overnight.  We slept for just over 3 hours and then we got ourselves organised.
We had a couple of COLD nights out by the weir where we awoke to find ice on our hatches and VERY cold water dripping onto our heads.  On our second night at the weir we were visited by fellow ACC members Marion and Bob from the Sydney City Slickers.  Was so very good to see them.
On the Thursday 1st June we travelled into Benalla and checked into the Gateway Lifestyle Van Park and prepared for the ACC Border Hoppers Muster.  We met some lovely people from around the Wagga area and also some from northern Victoria.  We said our farewells to them all on Sunday morning at 9am and headed for Wagga to meet with family for lunch.  We arrived in Wagga at 12.30pm and set up outside Jenny and Peter's home and had a nice lunch before having Lyn and Charlotte arrive.  Was lovely to see Meghan, Jason and Jaden also and to get messages from Pauline and Kayla.  Had a great dinner that night with Nanna Fulmer also.
Off the next morning and travelled to Condobolin to see Ian, Wendy and Holly.  We didn't rush as we knew they were at work, but had a lovely evening with the family.
Tuesday morning we were off again, up through Narromine to Gilgandra and up to Coonabarabran.  Between Gilgandra and Coonabarabran the engine, in the car, began to 'miss' beats. 😟 so we stopped at Coonabarabran Caravan Park and contacted our mechanic Paul.
We got a fuel additive yesterday morning (thinking that we had picked up some dirty fuel at Gilgandra) and continued on our way.  We had hiccups along the way but once we got new fuel at Bellata, the car didn't miss a beat UNTIL we were nearing Pittsworth (just south of Toowoomba).  We limped it to Beckies Place and had to wait until this morning to contact Paul again and he referred us to Diesel Care in Toowoomba.  They were great - we took the car straight to them and we picked it up again at 2.30pm.  We have a new fuel filter and a secondary fuel filter as well and fingers crossed the injectors have not been affected.
So our plans are now to help care for the children whilst Beckie is doing her teaching prac [high school English and Science] before we have to take the van to the Gold Coast to get the damage [from our incident in February] repaired.  The repairers will need the van for a week.