Becky Wilde’s – Stumbling Across Australia

Hi Guys, welcome to our travel edition

“Stumbling Across Australia”.

This edition will encompass the first couple of weeks of our leaving home in Geelong Victoria. To be honest, this was neither exciting nor extraordinary.

Just before leaving our house, we had our travelling home checked for weight, to ensure it fit in as a legal travelling setup. As it turned out, despite all our calculations and preparatory vehicle upgrades, we were still overweight. Not a lot, thank goodness, but enough for us to take some steps to Improve our setup.

Hubby took some drastic steps to improve our situation. He removed the weighty drawer setup from the rear of the tub (bed) of the Ute and removed the rear seats. We were around 80kg overweight overall, but 150kg overweight over the rear axle of the Ute. Some redistribution of weight was in order and the removal of the drawer system and rear seats allowed for both the reduction of the weight and redistribution of it also to meet compliance. Phew!!

Most of this was done in the 2 days after leaving the house, and my lovely sister put us up for a couple of days while the alterations were done and to do a final catch up.

After leaving her house we set a path north heading for hubbies’ parents’ house, on the Murray River in South Australia. Just to remind you, this is early August in southern Australia… Winter is hitting hard at this time of year. It wasn’t the first time we had camped in winter, but this was cold.

We camped at a familiar campsite for us, a small-town Lions Club run campground in Brim, Victoria.

Good thing we had a diesel heater in the caravan. That thing was cranked all night long. That allowed us to sleep snugly, but getting up in the morning was interesting. Our kitchen is outside, and that morning coffee meant getting out and making it! I think we had a low of around 2 degrees C.

The next couple of nights were at Rob’s mums house, and the weather continues to improve as we go further north, leaving Victoria.

Leaving Hubbies parents meant we were finally on our way and on our own. We did a long drive targeting to get beyond Port Augusta, into a roadside rest area for the night. Now these roadside rest stops are often frequented by trucks, and this one was no different. One had pulled up not long after us around dusk. By morning we got up to find three more of these large 3 x 40ft trailer road trains parked near us.

It was still cold enough to use the diesel heater and get up with a jacket, but as we were entering the interior of the continent, the skies were more blue, and looked like it would improve as we entered the Outback.

This week we will leave you here and pick up next week with more of our adventure Stumbling Across Australia.

Stay Safe, Sane, Happy and Healthy.

Love,

Becky Wilde, XXOO