Family trip to Adelaide September 2013

[Tony0 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tony0]

It has taken a long time but I am finally getting around to posting a trip report from our family road trip to Adelaide in our new (to us) Jimboomba camper trailer.

The plan ...take two weeks to drive to Adelaide with the family put the girls on the plane to fly back to work and school and spend a week by myself driving back via the Darling river.....

Brisbane to Tamworth to stay with my great Aunt for the night - all packed up the day before ready for an early (ish) departure - by the time the dogs escaped and the kids got all their must haves to fill the back seat we left at 10 and arrived after a long haul at Tamworth - thankfully we were invited to stay in the house and we didn't need to try and setup for only the second time in the dark with strong freezing winds.

Next morning most of us were up to a beautiful crisp morning Ms14 needed some encouragement to get up but the offer of a ride on the quad got her up! And we spent the morning feeding the cows and exploring the old farm house and old vehicles..

The rig - 2009 Prado D4D GXL and 2007 Jimboomba staircase


original mud farmhouse


Ms8 getting learning about rabbit traps (she was horrified)

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Cont...

Tamworth to Parkes - Off to visit the Dish and have our first real night in the campertrailer. Was setup with out too much fuss and we settled down to a Bolognese we cooked at home heated on the gas stove. Played some cards with the kids and the retreated to our bed at it was freezing cold. It was nice having a ready made bed that was for sure!!


Canola Fields


The Dish

Parkes to Hay - Left a bit earlier than normal and filled up the prado - not doing too bad just on 12l/100 with trailer in tow and arrived in Hay in the early afternoon and setup on our first gravel site lucky we had strong pegs. Nice afternoon with a cool drink and a chat. Mrs managed to find herself locked in the local supermarket after it had closed and gave the shop assistant a shock but returned unscathed. Nice caravan park - Hay Plains Caravan Park.


Murrumbidgee River just round the corner from the park

Hay to Wentworth

Lunch stop at Weethalle after leaving Hay lots of prickles (travel a little further as there is a much nicer spot less than an hour past here)


onto the hay plains

Wentworth we had a houseboat booked to spend 4 days on the Murray and Darling Rivers - we had some stong winds and some funny moments parking (crash landing) the boat - only had to jump in once to stop us swinging around in the current and hitting a tree.


Home away from home




only happens on holidays



Kids had great fun catching Carp on their $7 fishing sets using sweet corn for bait - all up four days of fishing cost 1 cob of corn and 2 $7 fishing sets that included all the hooks sinkers and soft plastic lures the kids could use.

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Cont..

Wentworth to Nuriootpa - we had thought that we had passed through all our inspection points an our way into Mildura but had not reckoned on the S.A. boarder so lost some fruit an veg - thanks ffully it was all in one box so easy to give up.

Then off to the Barossa for 5 nights - our longest camping in one spot ..we went luxury and booked an ensuite site which was great. It started raining as we pulled in to Nuriootpa so we quickly setup (it was getting easier) and this time deployed the big silver tarp to keep off the rain. Kids disappeared to the playground and we did not see them again until dark when they returned with a new friend that happened to be camping next to us. after two wineries the kids called up the grandparents for an emergency extraction to Adelaide so we met them at the train in Gawler had a picnic at the whispering wall - a parabolic dam wall that allows a whisper to be heard from one side of the wall to the other.



And then we were kid free in the Barossa for 3 nights....





On the last day we had strong winds and it was freezing cold so we packed up and battled the winds and the massive tarp (we must have done alright as a lady came up afterwards and congratulated us on efforts in parking up in the adverse conditions )and headed for Adelaide to spend some time with family, visit the Zoo and generally hang about.

Then Mrs and Ms14 and Ms8 then headed back to Brissie by plane to go back to school and work and I headed for the dirt....

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Cont... time to get dusty

I was looking forward to a few days on dirt roads, some proper bush camping with a fire, no close neighbours and spending some time with Mum and Dad on the road.

With the kids and wife on the plane it was time to pack and prepare for departure the next morning. First job, figure out how best to pack 11 cases of wine into the car and camper - decided to put as much of the wine as I could in the back of the Prado where it would get a softer ride. In it went and was netted and strapped down. There were still a few cases that had to go in the trailer - they survived.

Two more things on the prep list - some netting for the front of the car to keep the bugs out of the radiator - some fly screen and a bunch of zip ties sorted that out. Fill up the tank and clean all the windows...packed hooked up and ready to go.

Now in my house I am usually the one doing the chasing out the door to get people moving so we can get away early, with Dad on the case the shoe was on the other foot, with Dad being the chaser and me being the chased.

Its been a long time since I have spent a bunch of time with my parents alone and it was an interesting experience...Mum and Dad are experienced campers and long distance road travellers having travelled all over the place in a single cab hilux with an aluminium canopy and bed in the back - so it was to be an interesting trip.

First leg of the four day trip home was from Adelaide to Mungo National Park - having left at 7am it was going to be a relatively easy going drive (especially with no kids on board) - With Dad,who is usually the driver, in the passenger seat and me driving things did not start well with a disagreement as to the best way out of Adelaide had before the first round about!!

We made it out of Adelaide and got into the swing of things - except that I had picked up some sort of infection and had to stop for a leak every hour or so....great heading bush with some long distances to cover and I can't make it more than an hour without a stop!!

Made it to Mildura for lunch by the river, stocked up with some fuel and some ice for Dads rum and coke ("all well and good having an electric fridge but where is your ice") and a quick stop at the pharmacy for some medication to sort my problem out.

From Mildura we headed towards Wentworth turning off just before and hitting the dirt - it was at this time I deployed my home made stone guard for the camper.

The guard was made of shade cloth, some poles from an old dome tent and some electrical conduit. The poles were threaded through pockets in the shade cloth and set under tension in an arc in front of the trailer with the top and bottom held apart by lengths of electrical conduit - it was light packed up to nothing when not needed but I was not sure it would last the distance.



Stone Guard on & window covered in corflute (pradopoint tip)



Road into Mungo



Amazing landscape


Not so friendly local


You would have expected a beach on the other side of this white dune.

[iantz Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close iantz]

Looks like a great trip mate. I hope there's another installment? We love putting the camper on the back and heading off with the two teenage boys. God knows how much longer they'll want to do it with us! Whether we hit the dirt, the bitumen, or end up deep in a national park for a few days, we always have a ball and they're some of our best memories. That's what it's all about. Glad to see you had some time with your parents too. God knows we all take them for granted until it's too late...

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Cont..Mungo National Park to Kinchega National Park

Hi Guys couple more instalments to go ..

We hade an easy trip into Mungo National Park ( apart from 10 comfort stops) - collected some firewood before we got to the park and setup in the camping area a couple of km from the visitor centre - where there were hot showers and flush toilets. We setup camp with lots of instructions for M&D and quite a few comparisons between their setup and the camper trailer. We had a couple of rum & cokes (with ice) and went of to watch the sunset against the Walls of China - great landscape (see pics in previous post).

Back to camp in the dark after dodging a couple of roos - some dinner and bed with a plan to go around lake mungo and peel off towards the top and head for Kinchega.

M&D got the made up bed and I took the self inflating mattress on the floor - surprisingly comfortable.

We all had breakfast, got our selves organised to pack up and have showers at the visitors centre before heading around the lake. The pack up up went pretty smoothly but we had a bit of trouble getting the camper cover to zip on with all the dust.

With the cover finally on and everything packed up we went to hitch up and head off........only one problem .......NO CAR KEYS!!!

After a quick look around I remembered that I had put them in the pocket of the camper for safe keeping - they were safe alright - inside the camper trailer we had just battled to zip up!!!

Thankfully I could unzip the cover at one end and after a bit of a struggle managed to weed my hand in and find the keys without undoing the whole camper.


at the visitor centre in Mungo National Park



More Mungo landscape



corflute to cover the window to protect from stones flicked up by the camper - (I didn't use the awning once the whole three weeks away)


We followed the trail around Lake Mungo with camper in tow with the intention of peeling off and heading towards Pooncarie - but thisd id not happen - there are some roads that join up but they are all signposted as authorised access only and I was not sure that there would not be a gate at the end so Orado and Camper did the complete circuit and we headed for Kinchega National Park along top hut road.

All the roads were good gravel roads and easy going ...some of the grids had good dips on them that required slowing down on but it was easy going.

We stopped in Pooncarie for lunch (some more ice) and then headed into the thriving metropolis of Menindee - picked up some supplies and headed off to find a camp spot by the Darling River.

$7 a night got us a spot by the river with no-one close and we settled in with a fire, some nibbles and a couple of drinks.



At the registration point - it was very apparent that National Parks don't visit often - the pipe for registration envelopes was full and people had been placing their registration envelopes complete with cash in an open box next to the pipe. ( could have paid for the trip right there) - It is a bit of a testament to the honesty of most ravelling folk that the box had so many full envelopes in it. We dutifully added ours to the collection.





Seeing the kids weren't there I gave their $7 fishing set a go and landed myself a yellowbelly



Next day it was off to Trilby Station along the western side of the Darling River - word for Menindee was that the eastern side was very rough

It was a great drive along the dirt roads - lots of Emus, a few kangaroos and more goats. The emus and goats seemed pretty suicidal. It was very hot with lots of flies and no real access to the river so lunch was an inside the car affair.





Campsite at Trilby station was great - caught a couple more fish and some yabbies



the stoneguard by this stage was a little worse for wear - held together by zip ties, string and a piece of VB can - but it was doing the job

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Cont...last leg

Liz at Trilby Station had warned us that the next day they were expecting strong winds and 41 degrees - so we packed up early - made doubly sure that the fire was out and headed for the shower block for breakfast and a wash before heading off for Bourke.



Again the road was good - with a few corrugated bits but nothing really - I had installed a plastic guard for the watertank under the trailer to protect the plastic outlet elbows and aside from the drawbar being bead blasted we sustained not damage. I did lower the tyre pressures on the trailer and the Prado.



Going back to blacktop pressure in Bourke



Stoneguard died in the line of duty - it worked really well and we did not get any rock strikes in the back door in 800km of dirt roads.

After a coffee, pumping up the tyres and removing the stoneguard it was off on the road for home.

Dad was getting a bit jumpy cause I had not filled up since Mildura, I put him pout of his misery and filled up in Walgett.

I had smelled home and was rearing to keeping going but by the time we got to Inverell we had all had it and the fact that we were getting short with each other was a good sign it was time to find somewhere for the night - so while more ice was procured I found us a caravan park for the night.

I sure was strange having neighbours basically on top of you again - the bush is so much nicer ( I just have to convince the wife and kids of that fact).


It was then off the next morning to drop Mum and Dad at their place near Lismore and then off to Brisbane to unpack and clean up after three weeks away.



A bit of dust made it in





A little bit of bead blasting..

All in all it was a great trip - my only regret was not taking the kids out of school so they could do the second leg as that was where the real camping was and where we had the best weather.

Tony