Preparing for our 2017 Road Trip

With less than a month to go, preparations for our next road trip are well underway, a few upgrades/mods to the caravan have been completed as well as a service, I even stripped, cleaned and re-greased the stabilizer jacks, what an improvement - they now work as smoothly as I expect them too.

We depart on the 3rd June and trundle up to Poona, we then spend a week on Fraser Island, up the coast to Midge Point. here we turn inland (West) to Mt Isa then to the Stuart Highway and down to Alice Springs, we leave the caravan at Kulgera and head East towards the Simpson Desert. 

Old Andado

Molly's place

We will be caretakers at Old Andado (it is a heritage listed station) for about three weeks then spend two nights at Dalhousie Springs back to Kulgera to hook up the caravan and on to Coober Pedy for a few days. then to the Flinders Rangers for five days and on to the Barossa Valley for a few days then on to Broken Hill to do some research on the family tree as Kathleen's mum was born there. our final stop will be at Mildura for a few days and we should arrive home towards the end of September. We will cover some 10,000 Km without side trips

Our Planned Trip

The map does not include Broken Hill, I intend to post as we go, however it all depends on the time available.

Until Next Time: Turn your dreams into reality!

More Trip Planning

We have done some trip planning with the help of Memory Map and Camps to decide where to stay and what we think we should visit. She who must be obeyed has decreed that we will spend a day in Coober Pedy as for the first three days we will be doing 540 Km per day. I think we should take a trundle to Oodnadatta and have lunch at the Pink Road House, they make a great burger, I had stayed there after crossing the Simpson Desert in 2009,  it's only 200 Km each way!

From Coober Pedy its a two day 700 Km trip to Alice Springs, although we visited in 2009 we have a few places we did nit get to so want to visit Emily & Jessie Gaps, Stanley Chasm and Simpson Gap. 35 Km from Alice Springs we pass the Tropic of Capricorn and our next night stop will be the Devils Marbles with a late departure to the next day to Tenant Creek for lunch and on to the Banka Banka Cattle Station for the night. Depending on how we feel we will either stop at Daily Waters Pub or drive on to Katherine where we will spend two days visiting the Cutta Cutta Caves, Hot Springs, Edith Falls and The Gorge.

We will spend the next two nights in the Kakadu National Park at Jabiru visiting the Mirrai Lookout, Maguk, Yellow Water Billabong, Maguk Gorge and Jim Jim Falls, then on to Virginia where we will stay for four nights while we visit Darwin, as we will be there on a Sunday we will be able to visit the  Mindil Beach Sunset Market and the other attractions.

That is what our aim is for the first 18 days, sounds a bit ambitious, but as we only have two months to complete the trip this is what we will have to do to keep to the time line.

Next weekend we are taking the caravan to Corinella for the long weekend, it's about 135 Km a two hour drive from home just before Philip Island for a relaxing weekend.

Until next time............Life's an echo

Trip Planning

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4