Week 01

This year, our major trip will be to Tasmania; the state that is often overlooked and is sometimes completely missing from maps of Australia.  Even though it's the smallest state, it has a great deal to offer with forests that cover almost half the island – an area of 3.3 million hectares or nearly 13,000 square miles.  Approximately 40 percent of Tasmania is protected in World Heritage wilderness areas, in national parks or in other reserves.

We will be travelling as far as Melbourne in convoy with our friends Peter & Pam.  After a number of weeks in finding places to stay on our way south, we find that 48 hours before departure one of the National Parks we had planned to camp in south of Port Macquarie is closed due to bushfires.  For our overseas friends, we have had a rather short and very dry winter, and bushfires seemed to have started early this year.  While these fires are in NSW, we hope that the destructive fires in Tasmania late last year and early this year won't be repeated.  Maybe we'll get to see how they are recovering.

Day 01 

Brisbane-> Glenreagh <Map>

Today: 348kms  Total: 348kms

We set off bright if not terribly early.  Nothing special today as most of the journey was down the Pacific Highway.  The first new country was after we left Grafton heading down the back road to Coffs Harbour.  It was nice getting off the highway with its heavy vehicles and end-of-school-holiday traffic.

Glenreagh Recreation Ground

We found a very nice showground-type area with a couple of power outlets and hot showers.  The only small niggle was that the hot showers were about 500m away from the power.  As we sat and discussed the day's drive, we could hear a helicopter water-bombing a fire on the other side of a close line of hills.  There was quite a lot of smoke but we couldn't actually see any flames. Although the internet was a bit slow, we managed to confirm that while the actual campsite we wanted to visit tomorrow was still closed, they had opened up two nearby campsites at Crowdy Bay National Park, so tomorrow's camping was looking OK.

Day 02 

Glenreagh -> Diamond Head Campsite <Map>

Today: 236kms  Total: 584kms

Less than 300kms to do today.  We took the back road into Coffs Harbour to refuel, then back on the 'highway' with more heavy traffic and roadworks.  We exited the highway and took the coastal route from Port Macquarie through to Laurieton, then onto the dirt for the last 10kms or so into Diamond Head campsite in Crowdy Bay Nat. Pk..  The site caretaker confirmed that while the fires were under control, the road into Kylie's Campground (our hoped-for campsite) was still closed by the Rural Fire Service.

We were quite happy to stay at Diamond Head and set up camp in an area nearly deserted of campers, but with plenty of kangaroos.  This campsite should have been full to overflowing at the end of the school holidays, but earlier the previous week the authorities has evacuated all campers when bushfires threatened.  Fortunately, the fires didn't reach this area.

Locals inspecting Pete's car and van

Lots of kangaroos in the area, with one particularly aggressive male searching out females throughout the afternoon.  We kept hearing a loud grunting and thought it was the male, but to our surprise it turned out that's what 'Not tonight, Skippy!' sounds like from a female kangaroo.

To get the stiffness out of bodies, we went for a stroll on Dunbogan Beach - what a highly inappropriate name for a lovely place.

Two Beach Cuties

Diamond Head, but not the one in Hawaii

Day 03 

Diamond Head Campsite -> Sydney <Map>

Today: 358kms  Total: 942kms

Another reasonable trip after a rather cold start.  We were cool enough that we turned the newly installed heater on as the temperature headed towards 9°C overnight.  It certainly works as advertised,  but I think I may have a look at the fuel pump mounting as it seems to reverberate through the caravan when it's running.

As the Pacific Highway is now dual carriageway all the way from Pt Macquarie to Sydney, the trip was quite uneventful.  We stopped for a late lunch just before crossing the Hawkesbury River,  as there are no rest areas between here and our respective destinations for today.  Suitably fortified, we set off into Sydney afternoon peak hour traffic with two caravans in convoy.  For those of you suffering from low blood pressure, I could highly recommend this as a way to get the old systolic pressure back up.

Sue and I were staying with her brother's family, while Peter and Pam were at a caravan park a couple of kilometres away.  Peter did a fantastic job of sticking like glue to the back of our van while fighting off multiple attacks of Sydney traffic!

WARNING!  ARACHNOPHOBES SHOULD NOT look at the next photo! Press Page Down twice instead.

Just a small Sydney critter on our tail lights trying to find a way in.

Non-Arachnophobes may want to click on the photo to get a better view.

Day 04 

Sydney

Today: 0kms  Total: 942kms

A lay day catching up with friends and family, and refilling the van's water tanks in preparation to another two nights away from caravan parks on our next leg to Melbourne.  Probably a good thing to avoid anything strenuous as Sydney was aiming for a maximum temperature of 37° today!

Day 05

Sydney

Today: 220 Total: 1162

Another rest day in Sydney catching up with friends and relations.

Day 06

Sydney -> Canberra <Map>

Today: 307 Total: 1469

Today was going to be a nice relaxing drive down the Hume Highway to our next free camping overnight destination. We met up with Peter and Pam in the suburbs and proceeded to the M7 Motorway to exit the Sydney traffic as soon as possible.

Our plan was to look at the well reviewed free camp at Gunning, a few kms off the Sydney/Melbourne highway. We got there and found that, even at 1pm, other must have had the same idea and there was no real place to park two caravans.

Plan B was then to proceed about 45kms south to Gundaroo where there was a free camp at the local showgrounds. As we approached Gundaroo (population 315), we noticed a large number of vehicles lining the main street. It turned out we had arrived on the one day a year that they were having a music festival to raise funds for a worthy local cause. There was no way we would be able to fit next to the bouncy castles, merry-go-rounds and pony rides.

On to Plan C, which was to continue south to Canberra to find somewhere for the night. What could possibly go wrong? We arrived at a caravan park that we had stayed at a few years ago and went into reception to find that Canberra was in the last few days of Floriade, a very famous annual Spring flower and garden show. Of course, everything was full!  We were unable to get a normal powered site, but instead were put in their overflow area that turned out to be a far better and less cramped location.

Day 7

Canberra -> Holbrook <Map>

Today: 276 Total: 1745

Hopefully, we should now be back on track after rejoining the Hume Hwy at Yass.  Not a lot to say about driving on a major highway except that the countryside started to get greener the further south we travelled.  Today's overnight stop was planned for a nice spot on the banks of the Murray River near Corowa west of Albury, but increasing dark clouds on the southern horizon began to put that in doubt.  Nothing like being bogged and stuck in mud after a downpour at a campsite, and the weather forecast was not very encouraging.  At our afternoon tea stop we started discussing Plan B for the second day in a row.  We set off again but any chance of Plan B being carried out was rudely shattered when Peter called up on the radio and said, "Chris, pull over; your van door's come off!".

Sure enough, when we stopped there was a big hole in the side of the van where the door had been.  The door panels were about 300m back up the road in the bushes.  We were so glad that they hadn't fallen the other way and hit Peter and Pam behind us!  We retrieved the panels, put them into Peter's van, and slowly motored into Holbrook; fortunately only about 1km away.  We checked into the only caravan park in town and were met with very welcome offers of help and advice from Trevor, the park owner.  He opened up his workshop and asked what we needed.  Thanks so  much, Trevor.

Most of the hinges had been ripped away, but we were able to make very temporary repairs by screwing the outer door to the inner screen door, and then bodging what remained of the hinges to the frame.  As the outer handle was somewhere on the verge of the highway, we could only open the door from the inside, so one of us had to remain in the van at all times!  We completed all this in increasing rain, but finally had a water- and weather-proof van again, at least for the night.  This was just a bit of a concern as temperatures were getting down to below 5°.  At this point we were starting to wonder what travel gods we had upset.

Continue to Week 2