Have-van-will-travel: THE START OF A NEW ERA FOR US

A lot has happened this week in our lives. The bus run was officially handed over to us as owners and we completed our first week picking up and dropping off all of the kids allocated to us as part of the contract.

We actually started earning money again for the first time since leaving full time employment which feels good again.

Monday started off ok and we decided that I would drive for the first few days until we both became accustomed to the roads so this is what I looked like on Day 1.

Not bad huh!!

It was not a pleasant introduction to the run as it had rained over the weekend and although there is about 60km of tarred road there is still 25km of dirt road and it was muddy and slippery.

The rain was fairly heavy and the creeks and rivers were up and running as they had been for the previous couple of weeks and two of those creeks had to be crossed as part of the run.

We picked up the carer, Rose, who travels with us four days per week and looks after our disabled year six passenger and the previous owner who is with us for Monday and Tuesday to complete his part of the contract conditions.

The run starts and finishes at the caravan park where we have the bus kept and below is a description of the run including distance and times.

7:00am we leave the caravan park and travel 41km (this includes 38km of tarred road and 3km of dirt road) to our first pick up of 1 child at Worrara property .
This takes us to the top of the mountain range which is where all of the pickups are carried out, hence the name of the run "Mountain Home School Bus Run". (Nifty huh)
7:35am we back track, across the top of the mountain range for 1km, to our second pickup point at Iventure property for 4 kids and arrive at 7:40am.
This is the first of our contract time windows which we are contracted for and we must leave this point by 7:45am on school days.
7:45am after picking up the kids we head back towards our next pickup point which is 5km East at Pryton property for 1 child
7:50am we leave Pryton and drive 14km East towards our fourth pickup point at Ironbark property where we pick up 3 more school kids.
8:05am we leave for our final pick up which is 6km further East at the Linton Rd turnoff where we pick up 6 school kids at 8.15am
This is our second contract time window which means that we must leave this point at 8:15am.
The road then swings South as we head back to Barraba, in a South Westerly direction for 2km we return to the tar road for the journey home.
19km later we arrive at our first drop off point at St. Josephs Catholic School where the first of our kids disembark.
A further 2km into town and we arrive at the Barraba High school and drop our next set of kids at the bus station outside the school
We then travel 1km further on and arrive at our last drop off point which is the Barraba Primary school for the last of our kids and where our incapacitated passenger is hand over to her school carers.
This is our last contract time window at which we have to be prior to 8:50am each day.
Back through town where we drop off our bus carer at her home and then we return to the caravan park until 3:00pm
A total round trip of 85km for the trip point to point.
3:00pm we commence at St. Josephs and do the pick ups in the same order as we did the drop offs in the morning but then we do the afternoon drop offs in the reverse order to the morning pickups.

On Wednesday Maree decided that she was ready to tackle the mountain as the driver and took over driving the bus for the remainder of the week.

Maree has been driving for many years and has driven many hundreds of thousands of kilometres over her career but this was a step up for her driving a 5 tonne vehicle full of people, 18 including the driver.

In the weeks leading up to our move Maree did the one day drivers licence upgrade course to a light rigid truck licence which is the basic licence required to become an accredited bus driver.

The upgrade also involved driving a manual vehicle in lieu of an automatic so it was a huge change for her to take over the wheel of the bus.

Although apprehensive about getting behind the wheel it is to her credit that she bit the bullet and took over driving the bus.

After the nerves had settled and she started to get used to the roads on the mountain including, the climb up the mountain and navigating some of the steep descents both on and off the tar coming down the mountain, her confidenec built steadily and by Friday she was pretty confident.

Next week we will iron out some of hairy bits on the top of the mountain and by the end of next week Maree will be ready to go solo on the run. A great effort from her this week.

Friday evening sees us at the local watering hole with a couple of well earned drinks and of course the compulsory raffles.

Despite the locals' protests we had no problems in walking up to the table 3 times to collect 3 meat trays and ending a very successful week.

Saturday we stayed at home and washed and cleaned the bus ready for Monday, culled out some more of the stuff that we brought up with us and then in the evening I put together the evening meal.

Moroccan Chicken, new potato, sweet potato, Moroccan cabbage with bacon and onions and of course served with a glass of cold Sauvignon.

Take a look:-