Category: Caravanning Hints

Caravanning Hints7 Comments

Getting It Up

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After deciding that this year we will slow down a little and stay longer in each location an annexe seemed like a good addition to our van. Thus with the Jeep filled with annexe paraphernalia we headed off to the coast for a few days to test the annexe out and make sure that it really performed as we’d hoped. With over bubbling excitement we started putting up our new annexe for the very first time and well, stuffed it up completely. According to the DVD getting the height of the caravan’s awning is the key to attaching the annexe … Continue reading Getting It Up

Caravanning Hints2 Comments

Easyburn Flatpack Fireplace

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We have a mate who talks to dogs. They follow him about as though he is the pied piper, so much so that he is now known at happy hours as Daz The Dog Whisperer. Any way DTDW bought an Easyburn flat pack fireplace and with a flick of a match and a puff of smoke he had us humans flocking to his campfire too. It’s a beauty! It is so good in fact that we ordered one online from the manufacturer http://www.easyburn.com.au in Wauchope in NSW. It weighs 7kg and all of the pieces (6 sides and 2 floor … Continue reading Easyburn Flatpack Fireplace

Caravanning Hints3 Comments

Packing a Caravan

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When Packing a caravan, the heaviest items should always travel down low and preferably over the wheels. This explains why our wine cellar is located underneath one of the cafe seats and the other cafe seat holds the espresso machine. Pots and pans are on the opposite side below the stove and sink. Food – As well as overhead cupboards we have a small slide out pantry under the sink for the heavy food items, bottles and cans, but being foodies, I’m yet to find one of these that actually works well. My way around this is to use the … Continue reading Packing a Caravan

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Hairdressing

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One of my biggest concerns upon retirement was hairdressing. After having spent a lifetime of donating the majority of my salary to my local hairdresser so that I could look decently coifed for business I realised that I needed to reduce the cost. With the help of friends I found a hairdresser who would trim my hair at a much more reasonable price. Another friend offered to teach me how to colour my hair.  The cost of this lesson was a long lunch and a bottle of champagne before we started! While the boys embarked on a second bottle, we … Continue reading Hairdressing

Caravanning Hints5 Comments

A Chilling Issue

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We’re sitting on the dry banks of the Campaspe River at Ayson’s Reserve outside Elmore in Victoria. It’s summer and it’s hot, damned hot. Even the cockies have stopped their screeching. We loll about under our mates’ awning drinking cold beer and pondering this camping life. “How cold is the beer?” Any true blue Aussie would ask. Well the boys are playing with the remote thermometer and so far have checked our van fridge, Richie’s van fridge and Brian’s Techni Ice fridge. Richie’s Waeco will be next. I’m sure that by tonight we’ll have scientific proof as to which fridge is … Continue reading A Chilling Issue

Caravanning Hints3 Comments

Trip Planning

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Half the fun of a long trip is in the planning and especially on a wet Boxing Day at home. We use a combination of sources once we’ve decided on a destination or direction. I keep an ongoing spreadsheet of places that sound interesting that we’ve heard or read about. I also mark them as Favourites in WikiCamps so that they stand out on the screen and are easily searchable once we’re on the road. Then with the aid of maps, WikiCamps, the internet and the latest Camps Australia Wide we build the route that we’d like to take. We … Continue reading Trip Planning

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Mental Telepathy

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The quarantine officer at the SA border was so helpful. He even gave us a quarantine guide booklet listing the do’s and don’ts for each state. After much discussion and cooking of the vegetables that shouldn’t cross the border, we reach the WA border quarantine point. I think we must have read the booklet in reverse because we had all of our fruit and vegetables confiscated except for one measley carrot (the one that somehow missed last night’s stir fry) and an unopened bag of lettuce leaves. Poor Woody is frantically unlocking hatches and Eskies for inspection while choking on … Continue reading Mental Telepathy

Caravanning Hints2 Comments

One Advantage of Owning a Caravan That the Salesman Won’t Tell You About

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We’re home again after a three week trip and I decide to bake some biscuits for a picnic that we will be going on. It’s an easy recipe and I soon toss them in the oven to bake for 15 minutes. Will I have a quick shower? No I might get distracted, how about catching up with the newspaper on the couch? Great idea I tell myself and settle in. After 12 minutes I peer through the oven door and little seems to have happened. They certainly aren’t brown and cracked on top like the recipe says. Oh, well just … Continue reading One Advantage of Owning a Caravan That the Salesman Won’t Tell You About

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Free Camping

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Free Camping Explained Free camping is a misused expression. Free refers to freedom, not free of charge. Usually it is a camp ground in the bush and often beside a river or beach. That being said, small towns often provide a short stay area for caravanners who are passing through. These towns have seen the potential for stopping the tourists when they are on their way to somewhere else. Also under the banner of free camp I should mention roadside overnight rest areas. Cost wise, free camps maybe free of charge or a gold coin donation to a local body … Continue reading Free Camping

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Why Do Some People Always Complain?

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So often people complain about the cost of fuel or caravan parks in remote areas without sparing a thought for the difficulty in providing the things that we take for granted on the East coast. We recently stayed at remote Nullarbor Road house 295km from Ceduna and 905km from Norseman. The water there is artesian that must be pumped from seventy metres below and then desalinated. They use 11,000 litres per day. Then there’s the electricity. It comes from three diesel generators out in the paddock and kindly located far enough away that you and I don’t have our precious … Continue reading Why Do Some People Always Complain?