The Adventure begins ...

Hello and welcome to our very own blog on the Interweb!

"Our BIG Adventure" is essentially a total lifestyle change for the both of us as we travel (and work) all over rural, regional and remote Australia.

June 2013

ADELAIDE to WALLAROO, SA

Our BIG Adventure started back in June 2013 when we took off to Wallaroo on the Yorke Peninsula for a few days where Deb worked at the Wallaroo Hospital.

Wallaroo Bay where international grain ships dock ...

I went down to Moonta to see if I could find the grave site of my Great, Great, Great Grandfather John Tippett Harris who was born in Cornwall England in 1831 and owned a Drapers Store in the Main Street of Moonta. 

Here is a pic of his grave ...

We also went up to Port Broughton for a couple of nights to have a look around, then back to Adelaide as I was finishing up at BankSA in early July.

July 2013

ADELAIDE to PORT AUGUSTA, SA

In July, we went up to Port Augusta a couple of times as Deb had shifts in the Prison!

Meanwhile, I tracked down the Pichi Richi Railway at Quorn ...

On the way back, I went through Wilmington and up to Hancock's Lookout ...

And on another day, I drove over to Iron Knob to take the self drive tour of the open cut mine ... which is no longer available due to new blasting in the area, but it was an interesting place to visit. Perhaps it would have been nice to know this before driving out all this way to see essentially a ghost town!

Here is my old Magna parked alongside the ore digger "The Marion" with the open cut mine behind.  On the way back, I went around to Port Bonython which is just north of Whyalla and it is a spectacular place.  

The pic below is Port Bonython lighthouse and behind it is Spencer Gulf and looking back towards Adelaide (South) with Port Pirie to the left (East) and Whyalla to the right (West).

On July 10th, I picked up my new car, the truck, the tug ... a 1995 Land Cruiser GLX.

We soon returned to Port Augusta, this time we diverted off the highway to visit Snowtown.  Here is the Land Cruiser in front of the "Big Blade" at Snowtown (not far down the street from the old BankSA building ... body in the barrels!) There are many 'wind farms' in the area and we have seen them before dotted across the ranges, but never realised just how enormous those blades actually are!

We stayed in the Fuller View cabins at Stirling North which is a small township just the Adelaide side of Port Augusta not far from the national rail junction which was great for me as I had a good fix of freight trains by the time we had left!

A great place to visit in Port Augusta was the Matthew Flinders "Red Cliffs" which are at the very top of Spencer Gulf, here in 1802 Matthew Flinders landed from the Investigator in search of an inland sea.

After Port Augusta, we headed back to Oaklands Park, packed up our gear and headed off to Shellharbour (just south of Wollongong NSW) to pick up our new home ... the caravan!

The very last time we left our unit at Oaklands Park ...

ADELAIDE to Shellharbour, NSW

Our journey was via Bordertown, to see Jas, Brad and Cruze) for a few days, then over to Maldon Victoria to see Deb's parents and then it was over to Shellharbour via Gundagai.

When we arrived at Gundagai, we made sure that the dog was still on the Tuckerbox, and yep, he is ... good dog!

The drive from Gundagai took us across the Great Dividing Range and into Moss Vale and then we ventured down the Macquarie Pass.  If you ever travel up this way, you need to experience this piece of road.  It follows the contours of the range, one side is sheer granite walls with the odd waterfall right next to you and the other a dramatic drop off into the rain forest canopy below, the road twists and turns on a very steep descent and some corners are 180 degrees and trucks and buses have to do multiple point turns to get around, it was certainly an experience.  No way was I going to pull the van up through here on the way out ... I hoped!

We soon arrived in Shellharbour, finally found where the van was, we were very excited as we had only seen pictures off the internet and there it was ... our new home.

After we inspected the van and paid the balance, we hitched it up to the Land Cruiser and nervously towed it off to the Shellharbour Caravan Park where we had booked ourselves in for the 1st night before we took it in to be serviced.

Well, this is where my learning curve went vertical! 

The tow mirrors we bought off Deb's Aunty and Uncle were not wide enough to see past the van, I knew I had to allow for extra width of the van in the lanes, but could not see behind me to change lanes (at least it was only Highway 1 in peak hour!), so I slowly drifted across the lanes hoping the indicators on the van worked.  

We nervously got to the park, checked in and asked for an easy "Drive Through" level site for the night so I did not have to unhook the van.  We were reassured that the site allocated to us would be fine for novices such as us so we drove in ... slowly!

There were not too many other vans in the park ... thankfully!  We get to the site and it has a concrete slab, just metres from the beach and our spirits were high.  As I pulled the van onto the concrete, I soon noticed that there was a significant drop off the edge onto the path and there would be no way we could stay here as the van was no where near level and the truck and van together were too long for the site as the two had to be unhitched for this site!!

After I expressed my concerns to Deb (she reckons I cracked the shits!) I then tried to back the truck back onto the slab and successfully grounded the tow ball and van hitch into the concrete edge and then when I tried to move forward, I now realised I was in serious trouble. By this time, I was attracting the attention of nearby vanners and Deb had left me to sit on the railings and watch the sea surf.  I exited the truck, went back to the office and explained my situation and they kindly offered another site in the park where I could drive onto it and straight out of it in the morning!! 

We calmly cruised over to this site, unpacked the truck, settled into the van (still attached to the truck) and started to make a list of the things we wanted to get done to the van over the next couple of days when it was being serviced.

We woke early in the morning and went for a walk around the park's edge which fronts the Tasman Sea and along the beach (below) before we could drop the van off for servicing at "Keep On Travelling" caravan service and repairs in nearby Oak Flats.

As we left the park, we both decided that we cannot ever return here again, well not until we have mastered the art of caravan parking ... or ever!?

To assist us in our travels, we mounted Deb's "NavMan" (or NavBitch as it is now referred to as) in the truck and it has proven to be a most frustrating device as it lead us on a wild goose chase through Bendigo getting over here and constantly insisted that we make turns off the Hume Highway where there were no roads, sometimes there might have been a paddock, but we put our trust in it anyway... until ...

Driving to Oak Flat with the van in tow, we were confident that as it was only a short distance from where we had been overnight, we could not get into too much trouble.  NavBitch guided us into the industrial suburb of Oak Flats and into the street we had plotted, but no one told NavBitch that the street name had been changed and it is now not only the wrong street, but a dead end street too, the street we wanted was the next one!!

I pulled over as best I could and Deb got out of the truck to survey the limited options available to either reverse back out onto a main road, or to navigate a multi point turn at the end of the street to turn around.  We decided that it was easier to call Dave (the owner of Keep on Travelling) and get him to drive around and save us!  While the distress call went out to Dave, I had to move along as I was blocking a council depot driveway and it was then I decided to give it a go, that was to try to turn around.  Deb was very brave in putting herself in between the back of the van and the parked cars in the street as I fumbled at the wheel into a driveway, back out across the street and into another driveway.  Thankfully I managed to successfully maneuver the rig without damaging anything (especially Deb!) and then we promptly left the scene, drove around the corner and arrived at Daves just as he was leaving to come over and rescue us.

As the van was booked in for a 2 day service and then it was to be the weekend, we took the opportunity to head up to Sydney and see my great ol' mate Ian for a few days.

Dave and his team (especially his wife Ness) were truly awesome and very very understanding that we were first time vanners and needed things to be fixed and compliant and he took the time to show and explain to us many things that we thought were simply above and beyond.  He had the van for over a week and when we picked it up, we were thoroughly impressed (more on this and on the modifications later).

In July, 

We travelled ... 3,164 kilometres

Lowest fuel price was ... $1.375 at Klemzig, SA

Highest fuel price was ...$1.569 at Yass, NSW