Darwin 2012 - Adelaide to Woomera

Well, we left Adelaide at around 8am, which is a good time to get going. Traffic was heavy out of Adelaide and we tried, whilst moving, to take some photos of some roadside art on the way. Not much luck though for good shots without stopping so we may try to do this on the way back.

We cant travel for a day without some form of issue. Today, dads caravan mirror, the drivers side unit, came loose and then flew off whilst we were doing about 90Km/h. Another stessful moment for dad, who proceeded to pull over so I could run back and retrieve it.

Since there was a truck following, dad got some descriptive words leveled at him over the CB whilst I went back to see how the mirror fared. As would be expected, it was destroyed, so out came the backup mirrors ;)

The rest of the trip was really good, and once we took the turn north, traffic dropped off. We got a great view of the country side, since last time we had a dust storm hit us outside of Pimba and up until Port Augusta this time there was low level cloud. We also managed to see quite a few Emu on the side of the road which we didn't see last time. We hope to get some photos tomorrow.

Woomera caravan park has not changed, and was nearly empty when we came in, but it's a nice quiet park with suitable amenities. We spent some of the evening, after tea, at the caravan park "pub" ;)

Even the Cinema here is open tonight. Very tempting.

Below are some photos taken with the iPhone during the day and after that is the latest fuel economy graphs form mum and dads LTR petrol 4x2 Colorado. I plan to keep this updated during the trip as well.

 

 

Tomorrow we drive to Cadney Park station.

 

Port Lincoln, Port Augusta, Renmark and Swan Hill – Our last leg home

Well, as i hinted at in the last post, the trip home has been a bit of a fizzer. The weather from Ceduna to Melbourne has been fairly consistently cold, windy with some rain. We have has some sunny periods but all in al not a real trip back unfortunately.

We had intended to see more of the towns we passed through but instead decided to push onwards towards home, and therefore ended our trip a few day early.

Port Lincoln

The trip from Ceduna to Port Lincoln was interrupted a few times throughout the day when we stopped at some of the towns. We pulled into Streaky bay for morning tea and then again at Murphy's Haystacks for a bit of sight seeing. This was in between rain storms but they were still quite impressive. We had intended to visit some sea caves and a seal colony but as it was raining and the road out to these two attractions was dirt we passed. We also pulled into Venus bay for lunch. This was going to be our stop for the night but we had decided to push on to Port Lincoln.

The park in Port Lincoln was great, well kept and clean with a massive camp kitchen complete with a plasma TV so the girls got some soapies in for the evening. We had a great site overlooking the bay, as all the sites seems to be as the perk was terraced. The main township was a bit of a drive, as was the main marina but all in all we would definitely return here at some point. The park had two jetties which we could fish off and when we did we were able to see both a dolphin pass by and a seal hang around hoping for a free feed i would guess. We stopped fishing when the seal turned up

Port Augusta

We travelled up from Port Lincoln to Port Augusta, stopping in at Tumby Bay and Whyalla. The weather was Ok for the trip through.

Without booking we tried to stop for the night at the Port Augusta Big4 but yet again, this must be a great park as it was full. That’s two trips we have found ourselves staying at the top tourist oh well, its not that bad a park for an overnight stop.

 

Renmark

The trip from Port Augusta was a good one, we did get rain and it was freezing but the scenery up through the hills was great and we stopped in for lunch at the Peterborough rail museum, Steamtown. The guided tour was most informative and highly recommended.

We stopped for the night at the Renmark Big4 right on the river and it was great, again a well maintained park that could easily cater for a full park, which it was not whilst we were there From the moment we arrived Caitlyn had a full flock of ducks following her and one point even had a pair of swans chasing her.

Swan Hill

The trip across to Swan Hill was interesting to say the least. Rather than pass through Mildura as we though we might, TOM TOM decided to take us the scenic route and took us on the single lane country roads. I have to say though, this was well worth it and we saw some great country side. If we had had any traffic, which we did not, i am sure my story might be slightly different

We stayed the night at the caravan park right on the river in Swan Hill as we have done before and it was good for an overnighter but it really is getting too cold to be out in the van.

We made a quick dash for home the next day after swan hill. The trip is over and we managed to travel 10855km. We all enjoyed it, even if it got a bit cold and cramped for the last week. Now begins the big clean up of the van and preparations for the next big adventure.

Thanks to all those that have been following us and my apologies for the light updates in the last week or so.

Mildura and Nuttbush Retreat

Well as the photos below mention, we have finally started our trip to Denham and back. We traveled from Melbourne to Mildura on the first day, staying for the night at the Big4 Mildura Deakin Holiday Park. Although it was just for an overnights stay the park is well kept, clean and quiet.

We made the trip up quite well, stopping only for fuel and lunch. When we arrived at the park we had two of our neighbors come straight over to inform dad that something was not right with his camper. A weird, concerning, sound was coming from one of his wheels. Upon inspection we found the wheel bearing dust cover had come loose and was floating around under his hub cap. We were lucky this was all it was but we will keep an eye on this over he next few days. Due to this we inspected all the wheels again on both my van and dads and found no further issues.

The customary first nights tea of slow cooked silverside was eaten by all then after a few quite drinks it was off to bed.

After an early start on day 2, 8:30am, we headed off to Port Augusta. Our first stop for the day was at Renmark where we went to a local bakery for brunch. We all had an assortment of pies, sausage rolls and a chilli kransky that was done up like a sausage roll. After a stroll down to the river and around the block it was back into the car as we still had a fair distance to travel for the day. One point for next time is that the Renmark Big4 looks to be nice park and will be the subject of a return visit in the future.

The second stop for the day was for fuel at Burra. Not much to say here.

We arrived at our stop for the night, Nuttbush Retreat, just out of Port Augusta as you head for Ceduna. The park is quite basic but the amenities are good and it's a quite enough park. We had our first barbecue for dinner, but we were left cooking in the dark due to the time we got in and set up camp.

The weather has been about 18deg with some rain in Mildura in the morning. The commodore has been running on mostly LPG with about 22 L/100KM. Although this might seem high, I am towing a caravan up some quite hilly roads at an average of 90KM/Hr.

Edit 10/6/11

As promised, here are two more photos i wanted to post, Bianca and Caitlyn enjoying the scenery