“Camps Australia Wide” (the caravaner’s bible) promised us lots of potential free camping sites along the Murrumbidgee river after Hay. With this in mind we departed Trentham Cliffs caravan park heading across the Hay plain. Our caravan pace meant that we stopped for our morning coffee somewhere out in the middle of the Hay plain. The land was flat as far as the eye could see and the sun shone brightly; travelling was good. Soon after Hay we started to look for the spot we had selected – Burrabogie Reserve. The distance passed with no sighting but then we saw a big sign for Burrabogie, but it did not look right. With the van parked by the gate Greg walked in to investigate. This turned out to be the station homestead. In one of the workshops ... read more

http://www.travelblog.org/Admin/Blog/gmap-entry.php?map_id=60524 The trip is over and we are safely back home. We hope you enjoyed our Travel Blog as much as we enjoyed writing it and reading your comments. Just to clarify the ‘Where is Friday lunch’ title. Greg has firmly entrenched in his psyche the tradition of Friday lunch. He has a group of like-minded friends and colleagues who have met regularly for many years. So he wouldn’t feel left out or even get forgotten, Friday lunches were always noted in some fashion and an email sent to the group. Some of our Friday lunches were shared with less than desirable guests. Many flies, many times. The setting depended on where we were. We always tried for a water front location. This was not always possible and when it was may have included crocodile infested ... read more

http://www.travelblog.org/Admin/Blog/gmap-entry.php?diary_id=60524 Arriving just on lunchtime, we indulged ourselves by dining at the Indonesian Restaurant in Burra. A beautiful chicken curry and spicy king prawns were all we really needed. The banana lemon honey fritter and coconut pandan fritters in a spicy palm sugar sauce tempted us further. And meant another hot afternoon walk was required to offset this indulgence. Of course we didn’t rush into this. An extended and very informative chat with the host of the AGL wind farm information centre was followed by a tasting at the Apple Cidery and then a walk/drive through the old mine site and round the town. With limited time we have come to the conclusion we should visit Burra again … another caravan trip! This was our final night of the trip so we celebrated with steak and ... read more

Streaky Bay was one of those places full of unusual events that had you wondering what could possibly happen next. Upon arrival there was no power in the caravan park. ETSA was installing an underground cable so the power was to be off until 3pm. It was after 5 when it finally returned. As we drove slowly around the park to find our site a van, without any car, suddenly started rolling across the road in front of us, finally gently crashing into the caravan opposite. People ran from everywhere to help. A lady in the stationary van got quite a shock when her van got a sudden jolt. The collision knocked it off it’s stabilisers. The owners of the runaway van were on their first trip and this was their first caravan park. They unhitched ... read more

Approaching Norseman we scored another passing manoeuvre. This time Joan managed to capture the evidence. This makes five vehicles passed in 14,000 km. Joan suspects this will be our last, but Greg lives in hope. The Nullarbor has a reputation so when we stopped at Norseman we decided to get the 4WD wheels balanced as we had noticed a vibration at 70kph. It seems that the Wolf Creek Crater road had also caused us to throw off some wheel weights. We crossed the Nullarbor in two very long days, both days starting at 5:30am. Initially we planned to stop at Cocklebiddy but the cave has been closed to the public so that killed that plan. Joan was delighted – Greg much less so. The last time we crossed the Nullarbor we saw vast areas of beautifully ... read more