Getting Ready

6th July

Starting to get real now. Only 5 weeks to go and still haven't booked a single Caravan park.

Plan at this stage is to go straight through to Broken Hill for a night and then make it up from there.....

Its going to be a long long time in the car no matter which way I look at it.... Still, it beats being at work.

Changed our mind already

13th July

Decided less than a week later that we are going through Balranald, Hay, West Wyalong, Parkes Goondiwindi, Rockhampton etc. Who knows after that.... Just as likely to change our mind anyway.

Regardless, it is a very very long time in the car with the 3 kids!

Almost....

4th August

Went through the final stages of getting ready over the weekend.
Only 5 working days to go!
One of the things that became very apparent over the last few days, is that we haven't really taken into account the weather. Our 1st couple of stops were intended to be "free camps" as we were only going to arrive very late and leave again at dawn. These are basically public parking areas on the side of the road with long drop dunnies and some running water for washing hands. They usually have a maximum of 48 hours stay, are free, and are perfect for stopping at on a long trip.
After taking this photo below this morning, and seeing the minimums over the weekend, i am seriously considering caravan parks with electricity for the heater. Brrrrrr

We are off - no turning back!

11th August 2014

This is it. The van is packed, the kids are busting to get moving (probably so they can stop in 30 minutes time to go to the loo !).

All final checks that everything is packed and the van is secure, and off we go. The car feels like it is struggling a bit on some of the hills between Mt Barker and Murray Bridge, but I quickly realised that overdrive wasn't designed for towing up hills.... and yes I did know that already, just had a brain fade.

After travelling for what seemed like hours, it was announced that I needed to stop for a loo break.... at Tailem Bend..... (stay calm Barry ). 

Next stop we got "all the way" to Lameroo (170 Km away). Decided it would be a good place to divert the kids attention away for a while from their ipads and into a bit of a history lesson. The town has done a great job of making a couple of bridges and other displays using artefacts from its foundation days such as railway pegs, old spanners, rabbit traps etc .

Off we started again, only to stop 35 minutes later for one of those cheesy tourist photos at the Victorian border (see pic below). Had to do it!

Next stop was at Ouyen. The sole reason for stopping here was to try the Vanilla Slice that was supposedly announced as the "Best Ever" by Jeff Kennet...... Meh... not convinced. Tasted like a vanilla slice to me. It was great however to be able to just open up the van and get stuff out for lunch instead of having it packed in the bottom of an esky floating in icy water.

We started trundling along and became a bit wary that because we had to divert around the Tooleybuc bridge for repairs via Nyah, it was going to be cold and just that bit too far to get to Balranald, so we stopped at a little town on the river banks called Wood Wood..... because we could could ! Was chatting to the owner of the van park a little later, only to find the bridge was only closed between 9am - 3:30 pm....... Grrrrr. Either way, this was a lovely quiet little spot - albeit old and undergoing lots of repairs - and we got to see a rather amazing houseboat pull up which gave us yet another great photo opportunity

So all in all, what was touted as a 452km , 5 hour and 20 minute journey ended up taking us over 7 & 1/2 hours..... 

Wood Wood to (not as far as we had planned!)

12th August 2014

Woke up this morning to a rather bitey -3 degrees.... yes that is a minus sign before the numeral!

We had to be at the Tooleybuc bridge by 8:30 to avoid having to detour an extra hour via Nyah, so it was all systems go this morning. My hands were literally freezing onto anything metal which made packing up 3 times harder than it needed to be - even the tap wouldnt turn on ( see picture below!).

surprisingly enough, it still took just over an hour to pack up, including the kids having breakfast, but we did manage to get across the bridge which is one of only two surviving Murray River bridges with Allan truss spans, or Allan-designed lift spans (the other being the Swan Hill-Murray River Road Bridge).  The Tooleybuc bridge also provides the only gateway between the states of Victoria and NSW. - Add that to your Trivial Pursuit book of knowledge.!

This crossing was about 7 minutes away from where we set off, so it felt a bit stupid stopping the car to get out already (mirrors were still iced up) and have a closer look, but it was something important for the kids to see at least.

Got to Goolgowi a few hours later and pulled up close the local park where we set ourselves up for lunch. despite still being only 13 degrees, the sun was out and was a great stop where the kids exerted a small fraction of their built up energy on the playground with what appeared to be the most expensive and strongest roof I have ever seen

I was in the mood for driving afterwards and set off at full steam ahead...... which turns out to be about 85km/h to save chewing through too much petrol.

We decided that West Wyalong was going to be our destination for today. It seems it is either going to be a slower than expected trip, or a 330km per tank of fuel trip. I like the first option better.

After setting up, we went to the local shops and had a look through the town, then just came back and chillaxed for a while - with a beer of course.

Travel time today (incl lunch stop) - 7 hours. Distance travelled - 450 km

(ice - therefore tap NBG!)

West Wyalong to Dubbo

13th August

After being told my many people that the Dubbo Zoo was well worth the visit, that became our destination today. However I had to try and get myself into the mode that I am constantly telling the kids.... "It is the Journey, not the Destination".

Because our total distance to travel today was just a little over 350Km, we were in no hurry and had a pleasantly slow, albeit freezing cold again, start to our morning. So after travelling for just over an hour, I pulled into a side street and announced we were going into the McFeeters Motor Museum. This is a MUST for any motoring enthusiast (which i am not by the way). The lovely couple that run it also own about 40 of the many cars on display, which are all in immaculate condition, and are all still driven today in many different car clubs and shows.

360 degree view of cars

We found a park just down the road next to a lake where we could dive the van onto the lawn and setup for lunch while the kids played on the climbing equipment - another fantastic sunny day.

An hour or so later, we trundled off again, ths time stopping at Parkes to visit "The Dish". Despite the kids having enough energy to run a power turbine in their legs, we made (well tried) to get them settled and to actually be interactively involved.... which they finally did. Tyler and Dylan set off with Tracy on a Scavenger Hunt, whilst I took Kayla into a series of 3 x 10 minute 3D videos of space and Mars - quite cool really.

The kids were seemingly interested in the fact that this Dish was actually used in a movie of the same name.... until I realised their excitement was more focussed on the remote possibility of getting to watch TV. I personally dont think it really mattered what they watched.... as long as it was TV!

After close to 2 hours looking around, we set off again. Whilst I was motoring along at super high speeds again and being overtaken by every triple semi trailer in Australia, Tracy researched all the van parks at Dubbo and tried filtering out all the negative comments from the facts and we chose our resting place for the next 2 nights. Tomorrow is going to be a big one with a trip planned ( well Tracy has planned it all anyway) to the Western Plains Zoo, which is a 6km open access zoo that requires a 2 day pass just to see everything. We have.... ( ok, Tracy has).... decided we will drive the car around to stop the kids tiring too quickly and hopefully spending a little more time at each exhibit, rather than burning hours walking. This suits my fitness aspirations at the moment too.

Dubbo to nowhere

14th - 15th August 2014

Today we travelled the huge distance of 18km. 3km each way to the Western plains Zoo and two laps through the zoo itself. This place is huge. run by the Taronga Zoo group, you have the choice of walking through, hiring a bike, hiring an electric golf cart or driving your own car through. We chose the latter so that we could make choices as we went along and not have to apply for a new credit card to pay for this day.
As it turned out, we walked straight into an information session on the Black Rhino, which was then followed with 5 minutes breaks between talks on Meerkats, Giraffes, Hippos, Elephants, Tigers and the Apes. Was fascinating to actually learn about the habits of animals, instead of just trying pick out the similarities between them and our children (that's a joke for those unknowing of my sense of humour).

Reality says though, that it is still a zoo and I am sure pictures look the same as the last time everyone was at a zoo, but I am going to rattle on regardless.

The Rhinos are fascinating - the biggest laugh was had at my expense when we found out they could run nearly as fast as me towing the caravan up the highway! will be keeping an eye out for that on the next leg!

Apparently the African elephant kept here is the only one in captivity (I think he said in the world, but cant remember - maybe in Australia..)
The kids chose to climb all over the statues as their energy levels rose at the same ratio as their attention spans diminished.

We checked out the giraffes and hippo show next

By this time the kids were as hungry as the Hippo, so we made a deal with them that if they did a quick dance for the camera, we would feed them - This is the result! (Dylan is the one on the left)

Of course, I ate way too much for lunch again....