Archive for category Caravanning

Diet update

Well I managed to stick with Kel’s crazy diet plan and ended up shedding 7.8kg over the 3 weeks. Not too surprising when it only has about 800 calories a day on it.
Now I’m going to have a couple of weeks of eating normally and then give the super low calorie diet another 3 week stint.

The travel plans are a bit up in the air at the moment. Looks like we’ll be cutting Tom Price and reinstating Kalgoorlie.  Looks like we’ll cut Alice Springs/Uluru and Olgas, but will probably get down as far as the devils marbles.  There wasn’t much ‘sit and relax’ time and cutting out a week of Alice Springs area will help.  That area really needs to be explored properly over a longer time frame anyway.  The rest of the trip has been done, just not published yet until I sort out the middle bit a bit better.

*sigh* Then, as the current car is at 160000 kms and has reached the end of the lease I made the mistake of starting to research what the next car would be.   So now ‘I want it now!’ and am seeing whether I can get a new lease car started up and delivered by 1/6.   The Rexton would do the trip just fine and has already had plenty done to it in preparation.  Despite being a bit of an unknown quantity when we got it the Rexton has performed extremely well.  It’s got the same power as the replacement, drives well, is very comfortable and has enough toys to keep everybody entertained, is quite capable off road, etc.  But, she’s getting on a bit, has the wading depth of a small puddle and spare parts are dicey.  The notion of getting stuck out there and waiting on spare parts really doesn’t excite me.  Last time I had to get a windscreen it took 2 months to arrive as a special order, lucky the one in it at the time just had a big crack and not smashed.  I’m still waiting on replacement hinges and odd parts for the cargo bay… These sort of delay would seriously stuff up our plans.  So in theory a new, less exotic vehicle would have a much greater chance of getting back on the road quickly.

Getting it in my hands by 1/6 would give me 1 month to get it hardened up and prepared for the trip. Underbody protection, suspension lift, bullbars, Wiring to suit all the cameras, braking system, dual battery system, CB, tow bar, storage, fridge mount! As well as run it in … really don’t think I’ve got time to swap vehicles at this late stage, but we’ll see.

As far as the van goes it STILL needs the 2 cameras mounted on it.  1 hasn’t arrived yet.  I’ve still got to sort out a small box/shield at the front to protect the jerry cans.  Might be able to get away with a stone deflector…

Probably this weekend we’ll be stripping out the van and having a trial packing run.  This weekend is also the last caravan show before we go.  Last chance to buy some useless crap!  We’re going anyway though to see if there’s any deals to be had and no doubt some gadget I have to have.  There’s no big purchases left to make …

Tags: , ,

Balnarring 11/2/2011 – 13/2/2011

Ahhhh, Balnarring. All of 30kms from home. Yet it still qualifies as a weekend away. It worked out really well since Blake had an important engagement on the Saturday that he was still able to attend.

Balnarring is located due South of Frankston and is easily found by following Coolart Rd.

Read the rest of this entry »

Creswick – 21/1 – 26/1/2011

Well I’m posting this from Creswick. We’re the last ones left – that doesn’t happen often.
It’s Australia day today and the world was washed clean here after some gentle rain overnight.

We had 9 vans here for this rally and we took up sites 41-52 … we pretty much had the run of the place. We we’re a short distance to the amenities, but exercise never hurt anybody … unless you count slipping over while sprinting in the rain whilst busting for a wee…

Attendees at this rally were Tony & Lynne, Billy & Diedre, Alan & Sandy, Lloyd, Kitty & Lucky, Dave, Char & Jarmie, Fred & Rita, Brenda & Ian, Sue, Max & Sam and Anthony, Kellie, Blake, Hannah & Poppie. Since we were close to home for a few members we also had drop-ins from Jan & Pete, Judith & Peter, Danielle, Robert, Taylor, Shaolin & Damon.

The weather was lovely without being too hot from Friday, when most had arrived, until Sunday, when most left. There’s not much evidence of the floods here. The caravan park dodged a bullet … despite being on the banks of the creek the only casualty was the spa. Had the water gone only a smidgen higher then it would have encroached on the park proper, starting with the managers house. The lake behind the park is overfull, but the water is contained. Apparently they trained here for the 1956 Olympic diving as the lake is over 30m deep. There’s still a massive diving board here, but the water is currently too murky to even think about jumping in.

As far as Creswick goes, we didn’t find too much to do. Relaxing and having a chat is good. There’s plenty of history to be found though. We can recommend the local take-away which was quick and capable. Pizza’s, fish and chips, etc … they’ve got you covered. Creswick used to have a population of 40,000 with over a hundred pubs. Considering there’s only 2 pubs left out of those hundred and neither pub is capable of providing dinner for large groups … like 2 or more people … If those are the best 2 pubs remaining then it’s easy to see why the population has dropped to 3,000.

Managed to get the family out on Saturday/Sunday to do a few Geocaches. These never fail to turn up the most interestng places to discover. Old mines, unmarked walking trails, secluded billabongs, the locals secret swimming spot … the caches around here had all that and more.

I snuck off on Sunday night about 11:30 to head home for work on the Monday. The traffic was certainly better at that time. I was home by 1:15. Back up to Creswick on Tuesday night to find only our solitary van left on the grass. A rare quiet night in the van before heading home again about 11am Wednesday.

All up, a great weekend away in a Jayco.

Tags:

Bit of an update

Feels like ages since I wrote something in here, and it has been.

There’s been a bit going on.

We went to the caravan show at Sandown and bought a few things including a generator.

We went to Rawson for the weekend and had a good look around up there including Walhalla.

I got a new chainsaw.

I got a new weight distribution hitch setup for the van.  Makes it much better to tow.  Still haven’t passed a weighbridge to see what it all weighs yet.  Anybody ever seen a weighbridge open?

We went to Ballarat overnight in the van with Xanthe & Travis to see Powderfinger.  It was cold, wet and muddy, but Powderfinger were great.

I got some LED lights for the inside of the van.  Instead of 30W per fitting they are now 4.8W.  Six times the battery life and the LEDs won’t need replacing ever.  Still need to find some replacements for the outside.

Still haven’t decided on the camera setup yet.

Set a target GO date for the big trip, 9/7/2011.  All things going according to plan sees us back at the end of October.  Gotta get cracking on the planning a bit more.  Most of WA is done, VIC/SA keeps changing.  NT keeps growing.  QLD/NSW/VIC for the way back is also just about done.

Started back into my walks to get used to the long distances needed.  Got my eye on some lightweight camping gear.  Will need to try that out down at the prom once I get it.  Got some already, but need plenty more.

Got a rap abseiling course to do shortly too.  Will try and get Blake to do it with me. 😉

And a refresher on the first aid.

The plan is slowly coming together.

Toora – August 13-15, 2010

Toora is always cold, wet and windy.   

Didn’t notice the weather that much on Friday night as the park has a great “Nomads club room” complete with pool table, table tennis, foosball and other games.   

It also has the all-important TV to watch the Friday night game and the even more important coonara to keep us warm well into the wee hours. The lights went out at 11pm, but a few stayers persistently hung around trying to get to the bottom of the muscat cask … unsuccessfully.

We fluked it and got a great day on Saturday.  Not too cold, too wet or windy.

There’s a bit of a hill and lookout at the back of the park, so Poppie and I climbed up the top to check it out after brekky.  

The dominating feature around the Toora skyline is the local windfarm. There’s quite a few of them scattered about the place.  Did I mention Toora is windy?  

Headed off for a bit of a look around after brekky to try and find some of the local geocaches and see what else was on offer.  There’s a big hill just out of town, overlooking all the surroundings.  We stopped there to find the first cache of the day and Alan, Sandy, Dave and Char turned up while having an explore too.   

Blake and Hannah at Agnes falls

We all decided to continue on for a bit and check out Agnes Falls … one of the tallest in Victoria.  

Managed to snap this one of Blake and Hannah at the falls pretending that they can stand each other.  

The walk to the falls and subsequent fruitless search of the area had made us hungry and thirsty. As if by magic, Sue called up to say that lunch was at the Toora pub … see you shortly.

Lunch was great … no complaints heard, and there was plenty to choose from on the menu.  

Back to the park for the AGM at 3pm and then a lazy afternoon reading and watching TV. We were going to go over to the rec room again that night, but Blake and Hannah wanted to watch a movie and have a quiet one.

Blake said that, “We’d all been sociable enough last night to last the whole weekend!”, so popcorn and movies it was.

A reasonably early start to Sunday (for me anyway) saw us on the road about 11ish. It was supposed to be cold, wet and windy all the way home so I had anticipated a slow trip, but we made good time as the weather was co-operating.

Managed to get a couple more geocaches on the way back, including Kel being first to find one of them.

Tags: , , ,