Hi Folks
The first month of this year has absolutely flown by. We can’t believe its February already. But in one respect we are glad January has come and gone (except the fact ive had to turn another year older). Mother nature really gave our great country a workout in January, devastating bushfires in the south, cyclones to west and catastrophic tornado’s, floods and storms along the north-east coast thanks to cyclone Oswald. Some roads are still cut off as I type this and the cleanup is only just starting to happen! I truly feel for those worst affected and really admire the efforts of the volunteers, police, fire, SES and all who give their time to help out!
For us, we have been sitting idle for the last 6 weeks back in northern NSW. We have spent christmas, new years and Australia Day with family which has been great! but we do admit the “cabin fever” has set in and we are yearning to get back on the road!
For those who have missed the news, we are expecting our 3rd child in June so we need to get a wriggle on so we can see the final parts of southern Oz that we have missed or wish to revisit. We only have 5 months to do it before we will need to become idle once again for the birth.
In the time we have been off the road over these past holidays we have had a chance to give the Jayco Eagle a service, installed 2x80w solar panels to the roof, installed a 12v fan behind the fridge to help with efficiency during hot/humid weather. A few other little jobs and mods were done too ( I like to fiddle and make improvements here and there).
We now have a planned route for this next stage of our travel (see map). You may look at it and think it looks kind of strange and perhaps a bit chaotic. It’s a weird route simply because we like to take a new route each time instead of travelling the same roads/highways all the time. As this is another trip back down south we have chosen the inland option and will be driving the Great Ocean Road for a second time once we get down to Victoria. From there we spend our time in South Australia, visit the Barossa Valley and get back over to the Eyre Peninsula for another visit. We will then head north to Marla and down to the Flinders Ranges via the Oodnadatta Track then to Innamincka, Camerons Corner and back to northern NSW via the northern highways! A lot of ground to cover in such a short amount of time.
We are looking forward to doing a lot more “Budget Camping” this time around. Our camper is set up for long-term bush camping with respect to power, LPG and water- so we will take advantage of places we find along the way for an opportunity to save some $$$.
Another note I must mention is Cooper (5), started Kindergarten this year. We have enrolled him in Distance Education (DE) and will be doing his school year via correspondence. We have found an excellent DE school who can cater for our “on the move” lifestyle and is flexible enough to allow the delivery of his schooling to fit in with us. This additional element to our journey will sure test our routines and hopefully it is something we can make work- we never said it will be easy, we just hope we can balance our travel with his schooling, time will tell!
We made his first day of school “official” with a photo!
Anyhow, we are set to leave in the next few days. The camper is being re-packed and we have started to seriously look at places and accommodation options for the first few weeks back on the road! Thanks for sticking with us on our travels, we hope you continue to enjoy our articles, photos and blog posts.
Till next time
Anth, Jane, Cooper & leo
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