April, 2024

I recently read an article by someone complaining about the boredom of retirement and no longer having the chance to learn new things. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that this really got my goat up!

One of the big surprises of retirement and spending time on the road has been the things that we’ve learned. Not just about caravans and towing. We had to learn that very quickly, and we are still learning eleven years or so after buying our first van. But other stuff too.

Stuff like, navigation and geography, weather and climate, geology, biology, history, agriculture, arts, and culture to name a few.

Navigation, geography & topography, I guess they’re all a part of planning and grey nomads certainly know their geography.

Take one campfire, add a bunch of caravanners and a beer or two, toss in the odd glass of wine. What do you get? A Gaggle of Geographical Gymnasts.

Sitting around any campfire anywhere at Happy Hour and the talk will nostalgically lead to places people have been and the good times they’ve had. It goes something like this:

“We were in Maryborough.”

“Which one Queensland or Victoria?”

“Queensland.”

In that instant all minds have done a quick zig zag up a mental map of the country and they’re now all focussed on Maryborough, Queensland. You know, just north of Brisbane.

Then another story starts…

”…Remember that night in Carnarvon, Bill? It was pouring with rain.”

“WA or the Gorge?”

“WA, we were going up the coast to Broome.”

“I’ve always preferred Broome to Port Douglas.  What do you reckon?””

By this stage, they’ve all drawn another bunch of lines across their mental maps of the country. Truth be known they’re only caravanning to keep dementia at bay.

We once found ourselves descending from a ridge of the Great Dividing Range. Tall gums stretched heavenward from the valley floor somewhere below, to our left there was a perpendicular drop. The road was barely wide enough for one car and on our right fern draped cliffs stretched upwards. The road ahead? Well, it should have been marked as unsuitable for caravans, or if it was, we missed the sign! Our poor old brakes were as hot as hell when we finally made it to the bottom with our hearts in our mouths. Never, ever trust just one map source. The more the better and even then, you’re bound to find yourself in a sticky situation. And where did we end up that night? Well only an hour or so later we were camped up on top of the Range again, at Ebor, and as a heavy fog descended, we had a hot cuppa with a lady who was into chook shows.

On yet another adventure we were heading up to Kenilworth north of the Glasshouse Mountains and up in the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. We were with El & Elle Prado and Muggins Me, the navigator, decided to go a shorter way than the circuitous route around the foot of the mountains to the Bruce Highway. After a half hour of climbing, with Elle shouting through the CB to avoid Postman’s Track, and the poor old Jeep coming to an almost vertical dead stop with exhaustion. We finally arrived in Maleny on the top of the range, quivering with adrenalin and vowing never to do that again. Whose idea was it to go to Kenilworth anyway? Yeah, I know, probably mine! And it was worth it for the donuts.

After leaving Tom Price, WA and taking the road to Karijini National Park. We soon met up with a large piece of equipment being transported to one of the outlying mines. There are more mines in the Pilbara than you can shake a stick at.

A warning voice came over the CB, “5 metres at the blade, 4 on the wheels”.

After we passed the monster, the escort vehicle guy came back on the radio and said “See that mountain over there, it’s called Mt Bruce. Do ya know why it is called Mt Bruce?… After the explorer’s missus, she used to say ‘Mount me Bruce’!” They don’t teach geography like that in schools.

Of course, we’re not the only ones with crazy ideas. The first time that we camped in Bourke (in Outback New South Wales, where one is considered to be out in the bush when one is ‘out the back of Bourke’. There was a young English biker bloke named Adam camped in a tent beside our mate VeeWee. His motorbike had broken down and if that was not bad enough it was only the first day of his 3-week trip. He had only just joined the NRMA (motoring association) and had to wait 2 more days before he could log his first call. He was hoping for a lift to the nearest repairer down in Cobar, 160kms south. Worst of all though was his trip plan. He was intending to travel from Sydney to Bourke (tick) across the Simpson Desert to Oodnadatta, up to Alice Springs, down to the Flinders Ranges, and back to Sydney. All in 3 weeks. At the rate that we travel Sydney to Bourke would take us 3 weeks, but then we’d probably get sidetracked…which leads us on to Gemology & Mineralogy…