Since ending our trip I have had a few emails about what to take and budget and others may find my answers helpful (or not). Below is some info on fridge slides, what we took, if we liked our trailer and our budget.   On the Fridge Slide.......   Yes a fridge slide is a definite for a happy trip! (you know what they say, 'happy wife is happy life...). Being able to get into the fridge easily

  Well the holiday proper has come to an end as such and now we just need to get up to Darwin, and return to reality (I'm sure it will be with a big thud). After disembarking from the Spirit we powered on through flat brown land to Dubbo, then the next day continued on into Brisbane. We spent a week in Brissy catching up with friends and family, stupidly going to a shopping centre the week before

  After a week of rain we woke to a lovely sunny day and headed on past Hobart and up to Richmond, one of Tassie's many 'historic towns'. Again we spent a bit of time admiring the pretty old buildings and pretending that it is viable for us to buy one. Spent a couple of hours exploring the Richmond Goal (Australia's oldest goal), then headed out towards Port Arthur, via the scenic route. We had

Sitting by a fire at Cradle Mountina National Park and I have finally got around to putting up some new pics.  It is currently 5 degrees outside and today we walked up a lookout in 10 degrees and pouring rain. Find out how Use Messenger in your Hotmail inbox

  After a day rained in at Balfour, we decided to head on, and the next morning packed up between rain squalls. Just as we were driving off, the rain got much harder and then we had a nice little patch of hail. Well now, that's fun. We followed the Western Explorer Road down to Strahan, and for the most part it is a narrow winding gravel road, that meant we sat on about 40km/hr the whole way,

  We decided to spread our journey into another country and headed overseas to Tasmania. A relatively painless trip through Melbourne's traffic got us to the ferry nice and early, where we then sat in the car line up for one and half hours, only to be shunted into the caravan line and be the last to board.  After arriving in Devonport we refuelled, refooded and spent a bit of time at the

  We pulled into Adelaide and stayed with Graeme and Tash, extending our stay as they insisted on showing off their great cooking skills and feeding us lots of yummy food. We failed to do any sightseeing other than from their couch, but enjoyed our stay.   Next stop was Coonawarra for another two nights to sample a few tasty reds and just for a change, kick back with some cheese and wine.

  Across the Nullarbor we go! Wow, that's one long boring road. The highlight being seeing how many times we could pass the same car and van (5 times in one day). Really not a lot out there and we didn't see any camels or emus along here even thought there were plenty of warning sign saying they were out there. We pulled into the Whale World centre, but balked at paying $12 each to walk out and

  After finally leaving Exmouth we powered on south, bypassing much of the coast. On our way down we pulled into and had speedy drive through tours of Coral Bay, Geraldton, Leeman, Jurien Bay, Green Head and Cervantes to check out the coast and beaches. This just confirmed that we were missing a lot of nice places. Coral Bay has been added to the 'next time list' and Geraldton is nice and looks

  After the wheels fell off, literally, our 2 night stay at Ningaloo National Park, became a 2 week stay in Exmouth. Eventually the camel that was carrying our new axel from Melbourne made it into Exmouth and the wheels were put back on Tvan and now we are ready to ride.   We passed our time here by hanging out at the beach, swimming, snorkelling and fishing. Fortunately the weather improved

    After a quick stop in Broome to restock, recharge and change over the HF antennae, we continued south, with no real plan. When we left we had wanted to do Cape York, Kimberly and Tassie, and hadn't really thought about the Kimberly to Tassie bit, so we are kind of just drifting along for a while. But we are not wanting to rush it too much as the weather down south is cold and wet and

    We spent another couple of days in Broome doing random jobs like the shopping, a much needed wheel alignment, sorting out a replacement HF(Barrett) ariel which is not working, and telling Virgin AGAIN, that my account is closed and to stop charging me a late fee on the previous late fees that have charged incorrectly. These jobs took several days as we had to spend a bit of time down

  Obviously we eventually dragged ourselves away from the Home Valley pool (although we did stop by after packing up for a final dip), and swung by G Hill to send a few emails and make a few calls. G Hill, as I have decided it is called, is a random rise west of Home Valley that has Telstra Next G reception. This is the only mobile phone reception for miles around and as such there is an assortment

  Spent Monday morning getting the broken sway bar replaced, then all the usual errands required when you hit a town (paying bills and buying food tend to be it really), then we spent the arvo again hanging by the pool as it was the coolest place in town. Not only is it the coolest temperature wise, but the crowd of Grey Nomads also made the pool a pretty 'hip' place to be. Now I'm not just being

  After a few little issues with our hitch we managed to pull out of Darwin on Sunday arvo. We had to buy a new jockey wheel as our new hitch sat a little lower and we had trouble getting the wheel down, then we spent a bit of time utilising Maccas free Wi Fi to send a few emails and finally update our blog (I know I am a bit slack). While I love anything free, I think I would enjoy the free

  We popped into Borroloola to refuel and check out the museum. Lesson one; just because it's a small town doesn't mean that there is only one servo. We filled up at the first servo we saw, then drove through town and found another servo that was 20c/L cheaper! Damn! We spent a bit of time checking out the museum at the old police station. Again, very interesting.   We spent 2 days getting

  Wow how time flies! Somehow, while doing nothing I seem to have very little time to update the blog. We spent a couple of lovely relaxing days at Chilli Beach, soaking up the Vit D and occasionally walking along the beach to tick the exercise box. We then packed up and continued south, spending the night near The Bend at Coen. Now in my last entry I mention the very special smell of fermented

  We spent 4 days on TI, enjoying doing a whole lot of nothing and beer drinking. We were there for the Qld Music Festival launch, which was a free concert by The Black Arm Band accompanied by the Qld Youth Orchestra and started with an hour of local musicians. It was all pretty cool and relaxing. Matt gave us a tour of the island and his 'work' boat although we aren't too convinced that there

  Yay, we finally got our car back and hopefully in full working order. Steve and the crew at Weipa Service Centre worked hard to get us back on the road, despite still not yet getting warranty approval from Nissan, or the bolts that were ment to be air freighted up on Wednesday (although I'm sure the replacements they 'found' will be good enough...). We got our car back in our hot little hands

  Well as the title suggests, we are still in Weipa. Still waiting for our shiny new clutch to arrive. No thanks to Nissan who decided that before sending it they want pictures of the old clutch to prove that it is dead. Hmmm could of have told us this last week idiots!!!! Actually you could of have told us full stop. We only found out that they were holding the clutch in Cairns when we rang them

Tues 9th – Fri 19th  Hanging out in Mackay. Had planned a few day stop in Mackay to sort out a few additions to the car and to have the TVan brakes serviced; we planned to leave Saturday. We lined the TVan ceiling, washed and re-water-proofed the canvas and Phil fitted new LED lights and an extra outside12V plug and we were all set to go.  Unfortunately, 4pm Friday arvo the car broke down.

Wednesday 3rd June 2009-06-2009 – LEAVING DAY Well like all good adventures, our departure was delayed. Luckily it was only a delay of several hours, and not by days, weeks or even months. We spent the morning packing up TVan (I was sure we already had everything in...) and then on our way out of town finished off a few little errands, and finally headed to the radio shop to get the HF radio installed