Day 2 Sunday 16/6/19, Geelong to Mitre, cool… the weather that is. We have a good night’s sleep. The diesel heater warms the van and the birds are singing. We bid our farewells to our hosts The Truckers and hit … Continue reading Up the Guts – Day 2
Day 1 Saturday 15/6/19, Home to Geelong, weather cold. It feels odd leaving home in the afternoon but being a Saturday there are few trucks on the road. The traffic though is reasonable heavy. As we all live in different parts of Melbourne we meet at The Prado’s son’s (For ease I’ll call our hosts ‘The Truckers’ as they have a trucking business) farm at 3:00pm and find that there is plenty of room to park our vans out the back with power, such a luxury. The Truckers are wonderful hosts and have a large shed with a cosy woodfire. … Continue reading Up the Guts – Day 1, On the road again
The car has been serviced for our trip north up the Stuart Highway to Darwin and so has the van. Our diesel heater problem has been resolved and it was only a split hose. How can such a tiny thing cause such discomfort? We have four new tyres on the car and another four on the van. Whoa, that was expensive. On a more personal side we’ve had our winter flu shots and had the boobs and bowels and barnacles scanned. We’ve now got almost everything loaded and frankly it would be a damned sight easier just to move onto … Continue reading Up the Guts – Counting Down
After much discussion and a long lunch (any excuse) the plan is agreed upon and finalised for our trip up the Stuart Highway to Darwin. We will make short 300km days (we’re not getting any younger) and steadily head through South Australia and north up the Stuart checking out a few of the interesting sights that one normally rushes past. The Prado’s will peel off at Tennant Creek for the East Coast, Toothless and his missus Madam Secretary will peel off at Katherine and head for Broome and Eighty Mile Beach, we’ll continue ever upwards to Darwin and Kakadu. The plan is … Continue reading Up the Guts – The Final Plan
Planning a caravanning trip is exciting, where to go, what to see, how far to drive each day without doing yourself in and then there’s the really important stuff: “Where can we empty the toilet?” Or “How many days can we go without emptying the toilet? Oh shit!” Then there’s, “Where can we fill the water tanks?” And “Where is the next supermarket?” Or even “Do they have supermarkets out there?” At least Wikicamps makes finding dump points easy. All of the above depends on whether there are towns where you are going. Then there are the grog shops to … Continue reading Up the Guts – Getting down to the nitty gritty
As we start planning our trip up the Stuart to Darwin our mate VeeWee takes ill and drops out in favour of some heavy-duty medical treatment. We all wring our hands in anguish and worry like crazy but she’s been doing well, has bought a new motorhome and whilst still undergoing treatment is already working on next year’s trip plans. The Prado’s ask for a later June start to the trip as they have another overseas jaunt planned. Afterall the world cruise industry would sink without their patronage. Continue reading Up the Guts – Hiccups
My blog posts are rarely in chronological order, just snippets from our diaries. This time though I’ll take you through a winter trip, from the preparation and planning to the trip itself. About a year ago on a freezing cold afternoon, around a warm fire our travelling mate VeeWee suggested that we should do the Red Centre again. What a jolly good idea. For us it meant another chance to visit Darwin as we’d missed it by a mere 300kms when I broke my ankle back in 2015. There were four vans and if we planned things carefully and arrived … Continue reading A Winter Sojourn – In the beginning
Are you absolutely stuffed after a long day of driving? Then why not pick up a chook. Costing somewhere between $7 and $10 there’s nothing better than a hot roast chook picked up from a supermarket as you’re passing through town. It serves as an easy dinner on a day of long driving and hopefully with enough left over for a quick sandwich for next day’s lunch. Toss a bag of coleslaw into your trolley and dinner’s done. Yep, that’ll make hubby reckon that he’s married the kitchen goddess of the scrub. Continue reading All hail the humble chook!
June 2016, Theresa Creek Dam, near Clermont, Qld Just another day in paradise… Continue reading Just another day
We’re always intrigued with place name pronunciation and the plethora of towns whose names we’ve mispronounced over the years. When camped at Whorouly we constantly had to keep repeating the name of the town just to get it right…woh-row-lee, who-row-lee. Here’s a list of a few that we Melburnians get wrong: Town Name Pronounced as Melbourne’s version Newcastle Newcassel. Newcarsel Bulahdelah Bulladeela Bewladeela Forster Foster Forster Launceston Lonceston Lawnceston Kilkivan killkeevn What? Oh the place with the good butcher Toowoomba t’woombu Too woomba Canowindra Canoundra Canna windra Quirindi Corindi … Continue reading Where’d you say you’re from?
