First camp for 2012, 27-29 April

Well, a lot has happened since "the doomed trip" to Central Australia last year, much of which the text has been written up but not blogged. Suffice to say, we didn't get to Lake Eyre as we bent the chassis of the Navara before getting to the Oodnadatta Track, and then on the way home, the turbo decided to blow up 70km south of Barrow Creek, of Peter Falconio infamy. So it with great disappointment that most of that trip hasn't been posted up. I may be ready now! In the mean time, we are now the proud owners of a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and loving it! We have had to wait patiently for the wet season to be over to go camping, and this last weekend of April was finally upon us. We decided to go to and got away on Friday afternoon. Mound Bundy Station is just south of Adelaide River township, only a little over an hour from Darwin. We arrived to a nice grassy and shady site along the river, with only one other unpowered site taken. There were plenty of wallabies to drive the boys nuts, and they were a little taken aback by the free roaming friendly horses on the property. Dinner was our first proper taste test of the Happy Camper Gourmet lamb shanks in mint gravy - highly recommended! We had a bit of a disrupted night's sleep with the boys settling in to the new sights and smells, but the weather was a delightfully cool 16 degrees. After a breakfast of bacon and eggs we went for a walk along the river. There were few spots where the river could actually be spotted with thick vegetation going down to the waterline, and there were plenty of wallabies crossing our path, making for very excitable beagles. Back to camp for a lunch of bratwurst hotdogs, and then we went for an afternoon drive of the local area, doing the loop road from Adelaide River to the Douglas-Daly tourist drive. We did another walk in the afternoon to check the newly erected safari camping accomodation, then it was bikkies and cheese time. With the sun going down, the temperature dropped accordingly, and we felt this justified setting up a fire. A leisurely Sunday pancake breakfast signaled the inevitable pack up, and we were away by around 11.30 to enable an unhurried unpack once home.

Sunday 10.07.11 Katherine to Hiway Inn near Daly Waters to Churchill's Head Repeater Station, north of Tennant Creek

Odometer 113067. We departed Jim's at 8.35am, the fuelled up and grabbed some groceries. 56.54l @ $1.559/l ($88.14). Departed Katherine at 9.20am.

We stopped at the Hiway Inn for lunch as we couldn't resist the barra burgers, and were on our way again at about 1pm, arriving at the Churchill's Head microwave repeater station around 5pm. This was Steve and Lucy's first stay here and they were suitably impressed with the view. The day's handy hint is not to walk through waist deep grass in trackie dacks or flannie jammies unless you want grass seeds in the crotch.

FINALLY! Saturday 09.07.11 Darwin to Katherine

Odometer 112753. Left home 15.20 bound for the 314km trip to Katherine, 8 days later than expected, thank you Westpac for delays in sending replacement credit cards, and numerous other minor setbacks. We arrived at 7.05pm, setting up the camper in the front yard of Paul's Dad's place, then went over to brother Andrew's place for a lamb roast. Beautiful! This was our 5th wedding anniversary as well, so we opened up a bottle of French red just for the occasion.

Almost zero night's sleep courtesy of neighbours partying all night, and still going strong at 7am. Coffee would be a good thing.

Devil's Marbles planned for the night's stop, but more likely it will be the repeater station north of Tennant Creek.

A week to go!

In theory. We planned to leave for the Lake Eyre trip on 1st July, but there's still a lot to do. We've had a few little hiccups, like Paul doing his knee that put him out of action for a bit, having to replace the trailer wheels and spare because they were 20mm out on each side from the car's wheels (they actually were the Navara offset, and we discovered what is actually on the car ISN'T), and buying a new starter battery. Better now than later, though.

So, what's been done:

• Replaced the custom aluminium canopy with the old well body and ARB fibreglass canopy. Rachel was a bit sorry to see it go, as it made the car look fairly unique, but once we saw the cracks in the struts we realised we HAD to remove it as it wouldn't cope with the corrugations we're going to face. Upon removal, the cracks were all the way through, and that part of the canopy wasn't attached to the chassis at all.
• Redo all the wiring.
• Replaced shock absorbers.
• Put the sliding drawers back into the well body. Shame we've accidentally thrown out some critical bits, so more home made manufacturing is required.
• Added the dual rear carrier.

Still to do:

• Mouse-proof the camper with eleventy seven more press studs.
• Fit deep cycle battery.
• Make a new cover for the drawers.
• Shop for meat and veggies.
• Pack.
• Service the car.

And THEN we'll be off!

Day Tripping for Betty's Birthday

What better thing to do on Betty Windsor's birthday than to go on a day trip and a picnic?

The mission: to identify more campsites.

We left Darwin at around 8.30am, meeting Steve and Lucy en route to just north of Emerald Springs, which turns out to be about the next ridge over from Depot Creek. As it was the last day of the long weekend, it turned out that an awful lot of people knew of this place before we did, and a steady stream of vehicles were coming out as we were going in.

The track was in good condition, only needing 4wd on a few occasions. Just as well, because after spending the weekend removing the custom canopy to replace it with the old well body, we had forgotten to put a spare wheel in. Oops. We had also taken two cameras and two camera phones, and inexplicably didn't take any pics. We justified it on the basis that the scenery wasn't that spectacular after all, and we'd seen similar countryside before.

The biggest campsite appeared to be of the Stuart Highway about 40 minutes in on a sandy bank of the Douglas River. There were still about half a dozen cars there, so as nice as it was, it may be a little too popular. As this was kind of the end of the road, we turned back to go down another track, and decided that spot was perfect for a picnic right next to the river, and as a potential camp site. The water was freezing, and with a cold breeze blowing it was cool weather for anyone's standards, let alone for Darwin!

After lunch, there was more fact finding to be done. There was another site not far from the original "sandy beach camp", as we'd named it, running down a ridge line that was really only big enough for one tent, and definitely not suitable for a trailer unless we wanted to back it down.

A fourth site was promising, if not a little narrow for more than one vehicle, and we then headed down a lesser used track that went for about 10km and through a gate that was most probably the Douglas Daly Research Farm. Whilst it wasn't locked, we decided not to go through as we hadn't received permission.

As it was now mid afternoon, we decided to head back, and check out the first of the sites we had seen on the way it that still had people there. This was a fairly large cleared site, perfect for a number of vehicles and room to move a trailer or two, had logs already set around a fire pit and was situated right on the edge of a ridge line and looking over a valley.

We locked the position into the GPS and started the uneventful two hours back home. Mission accomplished.