And so the trip begins......

OMG- I just can not believe that we left home 4 weeks ago! Where has that time gone- it has just flown!

For those of you that don't know, Anthony and I are on another long caravan trip. 'And where have they gone this year?', do I hear you say. Funnily enough, it is the same place that we spent a couple of months last year whilst doing our bigger-than-Ben-Hur Cape York trip.

On our trip last year, we really wanted to find a place to “hide” for the mid year school holidays. Being Queensland, the weather around mid year is normally fantastic so everyone wants to be a part of it and go on holidays with their whole family for the 2 or 3 weeks of the mid year school holidays. This time last year we were just heading South having made it to the top of Australia, Cape York. Heading South we were passing an awful lot of cars, 4WD's and caravans and thought 'this is only going to get worst during the school holidays'. Not being ones to book that far ahead (if we like somewhere, we just stay until we feel the need to move on!), we sort of figured that all the road side stops AND caravan parks will be 100% full and we would never be able to get in anywhere, even if we wanted to.

It was about this time that Anthony read in one of his online magazines that there was a place, south of the Atherton Tablelands, that was looking for grey nomads to call in and help them out for a week or so. We called the phone number on the ad and spoke to a lovely lady, who we now know- Michelle, and she said to come and pop in and see if you like the place.

We arrived about 2 weeks later and instead of staying for 2 to 3 weeks, we ended up stayed for 2 months. We just loved the place and the Jonsson family that own and run the station. At the time they also had about 8 back packers there, who were all staying for 3 months to get a 2^nd year on their visas, who were also great fun and fantastic people. How could we leave- we were just having way too much fun!!

Around the middle of August though, I said to Anthony that I really didn't want to be here for my birthday. Whenever they found out it was someone's birthday they would have a huge celebration and I just didn't feel comfortable doing that here. So we left Jervoise a day or so before my birthday, but it really was a lot harder that I thought it would be. Everyone came out and waved us off. The kids, who were at school when we left, said their very sad goodbyes the night before. But everyone, including us, were very sad to be saying goodbye. We did promise though, to stay in touch (which we have) and that we would come back next year (if we were invited). And here we are.....

We drove out of Adelaide on Sunday 22^nd May and headed through the Barossa to Barmera. We stayed the night at a friend's house, Andy, where we had a beautiful meal with Andy's neighbor joining us. We then headed East the following day to Balranald. It's Monday morning and it was a big day- we drove out of South Australia at 10.30am (AEST), then we stopped, had a coffee and filled up with diesel in Mildura, Victoria, to only cross the border into New South Wales at 12.15pm (AEST). Phew, I was buggered. 3 states in under 2 hours. Good thing Anthony was driving!!

This is our "Caravan Park set up". Very comfortable.

We arrived in Balranald around mid afternoon. We checked out the Visitor Information Centre, which, like a lot of them in small rural towns, was very interesting, and also the adjoining free RV camping area. It was very basic so we decided to stay at the local Caravan Park (see picture above). We found a lovely spot and had relaxing afternoon, as it was a glorious autumn day.

The next morning, Anthony needed to put the heater on in the van as it was freezing. Thank goodness we did stay in the caravan park, as we were already hooked up the their electricity. If we had stayed in the RV park, Anthony would have had to get the generator out and start it up before putting the reverse cycle air-conditioner on! Way too hard- he probably would have had us on the road at 6.30am instead!! Yay! for caravan parks on cold nights and mornings, is all I can say!!

After leaving Balranald, we headed across the Hay plains. There really is nothing out here and it is a flat as a tack. There also was not much wind so we had a brilliant drive. We passed through Hay, Gunbar, Goolgowrie, Weethalle and North Yalgogrin- all brilliant Aussie names! We stopped mid afternoon again at a free roadside stop just near North Yalgogrin (see picture below). Had a beautiful curry with rice for 'lunner' (lunch & dinner- eaten about 3.30 pm)- there certainly is no slumming on our caravan trips!!

This is our "rural set up". 

Added bonus: always try to get a nice view from the windows!

On Wednesday we drove through to Parkes. We were both quite impressed with Parkes as it was a lot bigger than we thought it would be. We checked into the caravan park, then went for a walk into town. Anthony had noticed that there were 2 “Telstra Air” places in along the main street, so we took our computers, phones and tablets with us to get all the awaiting updates downloaded for free- and quickly as it's using Telstra's latest and greatest free Wi-Fi. We also realised on Tuesday that we had missed taping the final Blacklist program on Channel 7. Anthony sat on the bench under the “Telstra Air” sign and downloaded the program from our media server at home (as we were still taping it at home), while I went grocery shopping and had a quick look at the shops along the main drag. We then walked back to the caravan and watched it- and it was bloody fantastic!!

Overnight was again freezing but we must have overdone it a bit yesterday as we both slept in until 10.30 am!!! I got up and rushed over to the caravan park's office and paid for another day as your normal check out time is 10.00 am. It had also rained quite a bit overnight and it started raining again soon after we got up. I needed to post a letter so we decided to drive into town as we would have got saturated if we walked. I also wanted to pop into the Vinnie's store that I saw yesterday, as I realised that I did not bring any “dagy” clothes with me to do “dagy” jobs at Jervoise. I picked up 2 pairs of jeans (one of which was a Sportscraft pair) and 2 men's long sleeve business shirts (they will protected me from the sun and they are light) for $12.00- B-A-R-G-A-I-N!!

The fella at the caravan park office had mentioned that the CSIRO Parkes Satellite Observatory was on the way out of town so we decided to go there as we left. We arrived just after it opened at 8.30 am and had the place to ourselves for the first 45 minutes or so. Anthony loved every aspect of the place, but I loved the display they had which was full of photos taken by the general public about space, the stars and the sky. It was brilliant, especially one fantastic photo taken by a 12 year old!!

CSIRO Parkes Satellite Dish

We also stopped at The Dish cafe and had some morning tea before we hit the road again. We shared some scones with fig jam which had just been cooked and were delicious!! We also bought 2 of their beef and red wine pies to heat up and have for 'lunner' later in the day. And they were exceptional- I can see why they have won so many 'Best Pie' competitions!

After leaving Parkes we headed to Dubbo then on to Coonamble. By now the rainy weather had caught up to us again and it ended up being a cold and wet afternoon. We decided to get up early the following morning and head straight for the Dirranbandi Caravan Park as they offered free washing machines and I had a pile of washing to do. We knew the weather was improving, so we were aiming to get there by midday.

Check out the emu made with spare parts, like a car for his body.

The electricity poles behind him gives you some idea of how tall he is!!

We normally always have an eagle eye looking out for roadside stops so we can have a coffee around mid morning, but this particular road did not have any. The road was really, really bad though. They had huge sections with bumps so bad that you started to bounce along the road but with a caravan following, we got such a rhythm going I thought we were going to crash. It was really scary! Anyway we got to Dirranbandi at midday and I did 3 loads of washing (2 in their free machines and one in our caravan washing machine) and they were all done and hanging on the line by 1.20 pm.

Check out the bumps on the road!!

After being on the road for a week, we had a relaxing afternoon complete with a lovely G&T! Well, we were in Queensland after all!!

The next installment should be in your e-mail in boxes soon!!