Getting To This Point, Our Current Situation And The Plan For This Trip

We are finally making the opportunity to get away for a trip, albeit, just three weeks. It has been a long time between blogs and trips. I did not do any blog during 2022 but we did get away on four short trips though. The first was following a few days holiday in late January at Toowoon Bay with the family when we continued on from there to Stroud and Gloucester and to Old Bar. In May of last year we had about five days in the Southern Highlands. In July we had about 10 days going along the Golden Highway to Denman, and out to Coolah, down to Mudgee and to Orange. Denman was a cool town. We stayed at the Royal Hotel Campground which had gone to a lot of trouble to create caravan sites and excellent facilities for people to camp on for free with the expectation that the people would patronise the hotel. We did exactly that and had a great meal and top night. In December we had a week in Forster. I guess I am not that hard done by. Here are some pics of lovely spots we got to enjoy in 2022. Firstly some Stroud photos:
There was alot of history at Dungog as well.
On a drive out from Gloucester we stopped for lunch at this great spot.
Took this vieo as well. We dropped into the Drip on the way to Mudgee. It is really worth visiting.
Our big trips have been put on hold for the moment as Linda’s parents are very aged and in need of her help. But we also wanted to be available for our pregnant daughter to give her what help we could. We must have done a great job because at the end of 2022 she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, our first granddaughter. We are totally smitten by her.
In May our daughter goes back to work and hence the need for us to be back home as baby sitting duties will begin. So three weeks is all we have got. I am so busting to take off for a long trip back to WA or to Cape York but it is going to have to wait. The two main destinations for this trip are Lake Eyre and the Flinders Ranges which are close to one another. Linda’s sister Jan and bro-n-law Ross are joining us in their van. They have not been to Lake Eyre and as I wanted to return to the Flinders it made sense to go to Lake Eyre with them as well. When Linda and I went there back in 2012 we did not get to William Creek so we should do that this time. Linda and I have been to the Flinders on three occasions previously and this time I want to complete a couple of walks that I did not get to do before. One is the walk up Rawnsley Bluff that looks into Wilpena Pound and the other walk is the long, main Wilpena Pound walk. Rawnsley Bluff is a massive climb which is not just a walk, but involves a fair bit of hand over foot stuff.
Two secondary destinations on the way are the old copper mining town of Burra, SA, and the abandoned town of Farina Downs also in SA. The plan is to get away on Easter Monday. I am getting the chance to work a couple of public holidays to help pay for the fuel. I have a few jobs to do in preparation. Firstly I had to replace my jerry can holders which had rusted to bits. I will make sure I keep the fish oil up to the new ones so that doesn't happen again. Then I got my mate John to help me replace the O rings in my Trailer Mate jack. Some of the sealant had gotten old on the four seasons hatch in the lounge/dining room of the van and was leaking again so I fixed that with Sikaflex which is an awesome product. Regular readers of my blog will know the problems I have had with leaks. The good part about that is I know the best way to fix them. So now the excitement juices will start flowing as I get things done and pack etc. Bring it on. I feel those juices starting now.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rawnsley Park Station, Wilpena Pound & Blinman

Image
On Monday the 17th April, we left Hawker to head for Rawnsley Park Station in the heart of the Flinders Ranges. There was no rush as we could not check in to the van park till 11am and we only had about 35km to drive. So we had a relaxed drive and stopped off on the way to snap a photo of the some beautiful ranges. Rawnsley Station sits at the base of Rawnsley Bluff. This bluff forms the southern part of Wilpena Pound. The Station is beautifully situated with Rawnsley Bluff on its northern edge, The Chase Range on its eastern side and The Elder Range on its southern side. The whole place, here at Rawnsley Park, Wilpena Pound, up to Blinman, Arkaroola and through Bunyeroo Valley and Branchina Gorge is just spectacular. It is right up there as one of my top three places in Australia. It is that good and I hope to demonstrate to you in this post why that is so. We walked through the door of the Rawnsley Park Office about 10:58am. We did not waist anytime setting up and having a bite of...
Read more

Cobar

Image
On Saturday the 29th April we left Broken Hill for Cobar. We had been to Broken Hill a few times before so we did not need to do any sightseeing. The trip was 450km so it was our biggest days drive on this trip. There is an alternative to pushing right through to Cobar and that is to stay at Wilcannia in a van park that is about 3km out of town which would be OK. But we wanted to push on through to give us an extra day in Cobar. I have never had a look at the mine or anything else there so that was on the agenda. It is amazing how many wild goats there are by the road between Broken Hill and Cobar. The must be millions. Fortunately they are not like sheep and they mostly do not go onto the road as you are approaching. They appear to have a degree more intelligence to know it wouldn’t be wise to run out in front of a vehicle. Otherwise you would have to crawl along at and very slow speed. Having said that I saw about a dozen dead all in one spot at the side of this road once. The van pa...
Read more

Hawker

Image
We arrived at Hawker on Saturday the 15th April and pulled into the van park. There is not much in the way of free camps in the area. There are some farm stays but we were happy to be in the van park there. It is a nice little town. Initially we were planning on a single night there and then moving on toward Maree and seeing Lake Eyre. However we found out that the Oodnadatta Track was closed because of rain that had come down from Cyclone Isla. There was no certainty as to when the road was going to open. So I rang Willow Springs Homestead near Wilpena Pound to make a booking but found they could not fit us in. I was a bit disappointed as I was looking forward to going to Willow Springs for a change. But we had a good fallback position which was to stay at Rawnsley Park Station. We have stayed there a couple of times before and it is a beautiful property. Even at Rawnsley there were only two powered sites available from the Monday. So I made a booking for the Monday to Thursday and de...
Read more