Good evening people!

Week one of our trip has come to an end already, and it has been an eventful, fun filled blast.

It has been a bit more work than it said on the tin, but its all been worth it.

The van has kind of been ok, although we have been given permission to replace the toaster after it has twice tripped the power, and two of the four main power sockets (240v) are not working. With no expense spared we can spend up to $25 on said toaster.

We are trying to coordinate electrical repairs but we’ll see how that plays out.

To be fair, the van has held up well to qute a lot of travel, including roads we should have not have gone down (more of that in tomorow’s post) and it cruises surprisngly well at 95 or so k’s per hour. Its not so good at cornering at speed, funnily enough, and speed bumps are also a bit of a disaster.

So in summary:-

1600 k’s travelled, Swan Hill, Wagga Wagga, Kiama.

Day 1 – Adelaide to Swan Hill completed (506 km’s). Included travelling via the National Highway, Mallee Highway and across to Swan Hill via Chinkapook in the latter stages. It was a lot of driving in a very noisy van, but the kids did really well. The majority of the land travelled was noticeably farmland, especially in the Mallee area, so it was fairly characterless with minimal amounts of nature. Chinkapook was interesting, as it felt fairly remote, and roads constantly split into one lane then two, which you definitely don’t see much of in Adelaide.

We did see a couple of dust storms around the Mallee area too, which was interesting, and probably a sad reminder of drought-based conditions in areas that are people are trying to farm.

Day 2 – Swan Hill to Wagga Wagga

Noticeable for a lot more natural habit and more nature as a result.

Jimi was navigating for this leg and did a great job, also doubling up as official tour photographer with a speciality for creek-crossings and overhead nature shots (loads of Eagles flying round the place).

Similar to Swan Hill, but we checked in fairly late in the day, but to another great campsite.

Day 3 – Wagga Wagga to Canberra

Ok. So the common theme so far is cold nights. Another one encountered in Wagga and now we are off to Canberra, where it looks like we are heading into zero degrees. Maybe we understimated these temperatures a bit!

The trip from Wagga Wagga to Canberra was good, and very noticeable for the green-up in the scener and much less farmland. Very picturesque indeed. This time we covered around 250 K’s, but we did stop a couple of times.

The first stop was for the iconic (allegedly) Tuckerbox Dog thingy. Well, whatever the relevance, it was a chance to stretch the legs and have a quick feed.

We did encounter some quirky cafe service at this stop, when we ordered an egg and bacon roll (Mazzy), only to be reminded breakfast was no longer being served (despite massive flashing logo’s advertising it). We then switched to pumpkin soup, to be told ‘sorry – no Pumpkin Soup’. So we then switched to Minestrone. Guess what …. no minestrone either!

We were then reminded all soups were sold out. Noting that this was about 12:30 only. Good luck to those hungry souls in the queue behind us.

Anyhow, we quickly polished off whatever morsels were in stock and headed back on the road coz Steppenwolf was ready to go!

Destination Alivio Caravan Park, which was a bit of a super-luxurious Caravan Park, includng an onsite restaurant and bar and not a bogun in sight.

Days 4 5 and 6 – also Canberra.

Canberra was a lot of fun (see other posts), and it also incuded having to stop for thermals and an extra quilt. And gloves and beanies ….. and a lot of that was for sleeping in.

The temperatures inside our van were showing as between five and six degrees celcius which definitely caught us by surprise, but since we are heading into the Blue Mountains we had to prepare for a longer spell of cold weather, of which there were no shortage of outdoorsy type shops.

The Canberra summary reads like:-

Museum (twice – kids loved it)

War Memorial

Parliament House (old and new)

Kids meet TV star from RTN

Questacon

Picnic in the library carpark

Tidbinbilla.

The War Memorial was extra interesting as it explained how closely the Aussies fought alongside the Brits. So Grandad would have doubtless fought alongside, and made good friends with Aussies who were engaged with the battles around Ypres.

This image is from the Ypres section at the War museum.

It’s also worth noting that Tidbinbilla was the surprise package in all this, as it was very impressive, and also accessed through some of Canberra’s pristine countryside.

Day 7 – Canberra to Kiama

Canberra was great, and we were sad to see it go, but we were all looking forward to a couple of days of a warmer climate as well as catching up with Mand (not necessarily in that order Mand!)

On the way to Kiama, we went via Kangaroo Vally and Fitzroy Falls, both of which were eventful and a bit on the hair raising side of things.

End of day 7, that’s one week in, roughly 1600 K’s under our belt. Warmer clothes and van-life well and truly embraced.

Keep reading the blog for more details on each days adventures.