A trip to Katherine

Last weekend, we headed down to Katherine, overnighting on Saturday night in Paul's dad's front yard. So it wasn't true camping, but the first "whole family" sleep-in. Good thing we had the fans going, though!

The trip down and back went smoothly, and take off is only slightly slower sans trailer. Fuel economy is pretty good, considering it's over a tonne of trailer tracking along behind - the Navara averages about 12.5L/100km normally, and we got 13.9L/100km for the round trip of 621km.

In the mean time, a brand spanking new set of nested cookware has arrived, which turns out to be also suitable for an induction stove, and Paul has been working on a rack for the trailer using aluminium diamond mesh.

All the food supplies have now been bought for this weekend to head down to Douglas-Daly this weekend, hopefully avoiding the expected 300mm over the weekend from the potential Cyclone Errol. So it could be a wet one this weekend! We shan't be going hungry or thirsty, as per usual, and it's a good opportunity to plan a bit of the Finke and the Cape York trips.

No slip ups.

Here's a small but simple mod: strips of non slip tape to clamber up the big step and up onto the bed. We did it for the dogs first, actually, their little paws were slipping and now they've lost their jumping mojo! No doubt, they will get it back soon.

One more weekend, and we've got a trip down to Katherine and see how 6+ hours of highway travelling with a trailer is on fuel economy. Nothing very exciting though, just camping in the front yard of Paul's dad's place!

Here's one we prepared a little earlier!

Today was the day we put up ALL of the canvas. There's ACRES of it! The destructions say to wet it all over three times to ensure full waterproofing. We got one in, and then it rained, of course. We'll probably have to leave it up for the rest of the wet season now!

Here's the awning on the offside.

And on the kitchen side - it's much bigger.

The view from above! The down side - far too much for birds and bats to aim at.

Side awnings

From the inside, with the kitchen out.

With the canvas up and flyscreen showing.

Oh joy! A fan!

Now THAT'S a fan - I wonder if he can stay like that all night?

Now to figure out where to pack things...

It's HERE!

No thanks to the freight company, who didn't know where their trucks were, when the trailer would leave Brisbane, when it would arrive in Darwin or even cared that we had to give them far too much for that privilege.

But it arrived on Tuesday 01.03.11 safe and sound, and was promptly taken to the Motor Vehicle Registry to get registered and compliance checked. They foolishly forgot to charge us for Stamp Duty, and we forgot to tell them!

Upon arrival at home, the boys gave it a full check over, walking all over the top, and into every nook and cranny.

The kitchen is just simply awesome.

Here's the overnight set up - this literally takes about a minute to fold out after unclipping 8 latches.

And the boys giving it their seal of approval.

Now...the wait to use it properly. It's a busy month, and it's still hot and wet, but the Douglas-Daly Tourist Park is going to be graced by our presence for a long weekend at the end of the month. We're not certain that it can come quickly enough!