Camping Caravanning / caravan – Page 2

Both Ian and I are hoarders and we had to declutter our home so we could get a house and dog sitter, this was a major task, which was achieved to an acceptable level. After months of planning for our trip around Australia in our caravan – do we need to have an itinerary or not? do we pre book caravan parks or not? when asking many people this question we came to the conclusion that we needed to know the general direction we were going and just set off. I bought a couple of maps of Australia, a guide to free camping book and joined Wiki Camps, I was set. The day finally arrived.

D-day, Ian was still packing, Kookie our dog was miserable because she knew we were going, I felt awful for her but excited we were finally leaving. I kept saying “come on Ian time to go”!…. he was madly still collecting stuff to go….next thing I know he’s collecting CD’s from our massive collection….”time to go HONEY”, pushing him out the door, it was 1pm. I felt we just had to leave, if we put if off till the morning, there would be more stuff in the car.

The first leg of the trip was Perth to Kalgoorlie 593.1km. We had agreed that we would both do the driving 50:50, we wouldn’t drive in the dark and we would average about 4 -4.5hrs driving a day- Ian started the first leg. I took over about 2.5hrs in, I was surprised how much heavier the caravan felt – I found it hard to navigate the length of the car and van together with the width – I hated it when a huge triple trucks passed on the other side of the road – it felt like a gust of wind pushing me into the bush. Three weeks now into travelling I have mastered both the length and width – when trucks are passing I find if I keep closer to the bush kerb there is not so much movement of our vehicle.

Fat cat has joined us for out trip, he is a constant reminder of our grandchildren and they keep track of where he is on our journey. Finally on the road, we had just filled the car up and put air in the tyres….. now set to go and the phone rings – its Ian’s brother he has been admitted to hospital, we just look at each other, are we doomed! Lucky for us he was in a small regional hospital on our way… so we popped in to check he was ok and he was and we set off again… its now about 4:30 pm – we had decided that we would not drive, in the dark so we continued until the sun had set – our first roadside stop was a place called Doodlakine, near Kelliberberrin, we drove in and stopped. It was pitch black now…. I thought “what will we have for dinner”? – the easiest thing was tuna sandwiches and a cuppa – I had filled up two thermos flasks with hot water so didn’t need the gas stove. I made the drinks and sandwiches in the caravan and we ate in the car – that’s because there was too much in the caravan. We were tired and decided that we would just go to bed and we did, it was about 7:30pm – can you believe in bed by 7:30pm – I lay listening to all the trucks driving past and thought what the hell am I doing – and fell asleep. I awoke suddenly thinking it must be about 0600hrs, I touched my phone to see the time…. I just about died, it was 11pm, I’d been asleep for a few hours, now what!!! I think I heard every sound there was to hear and finally fell asleep. We awoke about 0700hrs, it was a beautiful sunny day, the trees were chiming with the sounds of the birds and we saw a big truck parked behind us…. I went for a short walk, took some photos and then we started driving.

Day 2. We had a leisurely[ drive to Kalgoorlie, via Southern Cross and Coolgardie – we were booked into the Big 4 Prospector Holiday Park our home for the next 10 days: It all felt very exciting, we now had time to sort out the caravan and find homes for everything and get into some sort of routine.

Lessons for me from our first day:

The caravan needs to be clear so we can sit and eat at the table: I needed to plan our meals better: Make sure that we stop for a walk during the day & change drivers more regularly. Don’t forget to drink water!!

April, we decided to take the caravan to our property in Northampton and live in it for three weeks as a practice for us travelling around Australia. I was supposed to write this blog post then, but alas was too busy working and trying to get our property ready to go on the market, so it never got done, it’s now in retrospect.

Geraldton is a 6-hour drive north of Perth, it’s a coastal city and often known to be windy. Town beach is great for walking or just sitting and watching the ocean. The shopping is not too bad, there are some lovely little boutique shops and arcades to explore and there is an array of jewellery shops. The esplanade, or boardwalk is also a great place for walking and people watching – and you can get the best Jaffels from the “Jaffle Shack”.

If you like Cathedrals, then pop in and see St Francis Xavier, it has the most eclectic decor for a Cathedral – it was not to my taste. There are many old churches around Geraldton and Northampton that are worth seeing and taking photos…. if that’s your thing.

As for us, our main aim was to live in the caravan for three weeks, eating, sleeping, cooking and generally living in close proximity to each other and most importantly get the annex up without too many arguments – lucky for me I worked so had an escape – but on my days off I’d come back to the van – Ian however had to at least sleep every night in the van. We took our dog Kookie as well, and she slept every night in the van as well – it was really to see if we could manage her – but each morning we would let her out and she had a 5-acre block to run on and she loved that freedom…… this would not be the same if we were travelling around the country. It was this trip that cemented that we could not take Kookie with us around Australia in the caravan – she really would find it limiting.

The annex went up, the wrong way, but we learned from this experience for the next time – sadly I did not cook in the van, it was much easier to use the house kitchen.

This trip was a great experience as we worked out how much diesel the car would take towing the van….and being patient when driving at 100km/per/hour when cars were lining up behind us. Ian got used to sleeping in the van and that was the main achievement – 5 months on the road, you have to know that you can sleep in the bed. We also weighted the car and caravan to see if we met the 3-ton limit which we did, and that included my hobby sewing machine… I have to be able to do my crafting, otherwise how will I stay sane.

We went home and prepared for our pending around Austral trip.