Just one good lotto win ! And we are off
Jac & Baz's 6 month trek
- Thread starter jacbaz
- Start date
Hard to believe it is almost 12 months since we left ...
And just under 12 months since we're due to leave!
What's next on the cards? Any future plans/trips in the works?
Well @Smergen ... we are currently on the hunt for an offroad camper trailer to tackle Cape York, the Savannah Way and Arnhem Land hopefully next year taking about 8 weeks to do this.
Have tossed up getting an offroad van, but 'the cubby' does us for the majority of our trips at the moment. So the plan is to buy a camper, use this for certain trips and the cubby for others, and then in a few years sell both and get a bigger van for the touring/work plan. If only there was a perfect option to cover everything!
Anyway, if anyone knows of a good offroad camper trailer on the market - soft floor or hard floor - let us know!!!
Have tossed up getting an offroad van, but 'the cubby' does us for the majority of our trips at the moment. So the plan is to buy a camper, use this for certain trips and the cubby for others, and then in a few years sell both and get a bigger van for the touring/work plan. If only there was a perfect option to cover everything!
Anyway, if anyone knows of a good offroad camper trailer on the market - soft floor or hard floor - let us know!!!
Have seen plenty of vans on the Savannah Way and there are a lot of secluded overnights stops along it - always ask about the road conditions prior to going though as when there's been a decent wet the wash outs can swollow a whole vehicle (maybe check with Hell's Gates RH or Ringrose Transport in Mt Isa - they're probably the more reliable ones to ask). It's odd up there how and when the roads are maintained too, QLD side does it more or less straight after the wet and the NT side was doing it a month or two before the wet with a quick run in the grader just after the wet meaning the road is horrible for a majority of the dry. I'd be comfortable taking our Starcraft along there - you just need to drive to the conditions (having said that I'd probably leave the van at Hells Gates RH to go into kingfisher camp & Pungalina).
Just starting to revisit a few threads that I've bookmarked for inspiration for the big trip and came across this post of yours @jacbaz. It seems you might have been the source, subconciously at least, of our "Plan to not plan" motto. And if our trip turns out a quarter as awesome as yours, we'll be very very happy campers.
We think about our trip ALL the time ... We had a ball! I really liked the idea of not planning and just seeing where we ended up. Pretty easy finding sites etc except for Cape Range National Park and Cape Leveque where we needed to book. Thoroughly recommend Osprey Bay camp area at Ningaloo (Cape Range) - we had site 9 and this site was amazing ... should be some photos in our post!
We're doing the cape in July this year (now for 6 weeks) in the camper trailer - we've done a couple of test runs and although the cubby is quicker to set up, the camper is still fun and relatively easy to use. I think I'm looking forward to this, although everything I read seems to talk about how busy it is everywhere ... anyway, we'll attempt the 'no booking' idea again and see how we go!
Early next year, we're thinking of Flinders Ranges / SA and then we'll need to have a serious discussion about what's next! In the meantime, we hope to catch up with the down under crew again!
I hope you guys have an amazing time and make lots of wonderful memories ... We're not jealous at all !!!
G'day @jacbaz, we are heading for the cape in June but probably arrive there around end of July as we have family in Cairns and will spend a bit of time there. We were at the Gold Coast camping show today and I was picking up brochures about Nth Qld and the cape and the guy on the stand told me it was a bad time to go as all the national parks get booked out between June and August due to southern nomads doing bulk bookings as they are unsure of when they will arrive so they book a week or two for spots to ensure they can get in. Qld National Parks require pre booking of all camping (a real PITA) and he said that as a trip from down south cost so much that a loss of fees for unused camping sites was a small amount in the overall cost. Hopefully, both you and I will miss the worst of it and maybe run into each other somewhere up there.
Looks like it may be free camping for us then!!! ... we're actually leaving at the end of July and are missing the school holidays so hopefully we may be okay - would be great to catch up if our paths happen to cross!
Just discussing cassowary's (and where we saw them) with Baz and went through this post .... seems like so long ago but such great memories ... would love to be experiencing this again
We're experiencing it for you guys... Your trip provides so much inspiration...
Absolutely... It's everything we'd hope it would be and quite a bit more.