We hit the road, Saturday 1st June 2024. I finished work on the Friday and we plan to be away for around 4 months. We have a trip planned that will take us back to the Simpson Dessert, visit the Flinders Ranges for the first time, go bashing at the Big Red Bash Birdsville and Mundi Mundi Bash at Broken Hill and back to Birdsville for the famous Birdsville Races. We will be travelling with beautiful friends and no doubt we will get up to some crazy antics. It’s so exciting.
Out first night was spent in Yeppoon with great friends Andy and Brian at their place and on Sunday we mooched a big favour from another friend, John who graciously finished our air conditioner for us. We had installed it but it needed to be vacuumed out and the gas released into it. This was a lucky break for us as we had 2 others organised to do the job in the previous weeks but neither came to fruition.
With this done we headed south and camped at Calliope River. I had always wanted to camp there but being so close to Rockhampton, we had always pushed on. It didn’t disappoint, it was lovely.
We are heading to Hervey Bay to join our travel buddies, but wanted to catch up with friends along the way. Today’s stop was Gin Gin at the rest area. It was pretty full by the time we got there but we found a spot, De Trucksta being a lot shorter than De Busta sure makes it much easier. We met a few people who were interested in our rig, it sure draws a lot of attention.
Next morning we headed to Moore Park Beach and caught up with friends Gary and Meryl, sitting around the camp fire in their back yard. We also took advantage of catching up with other friends who were camping here, Patsy and Rodney. A lovely 2 days and a gorgeous spot and beach.
It was time to head onto Hervey Bay and get ourselves organised for our big trip, spending the week bustling about, fine tuning and loading. Our friends, Gaily and Gilly hosted us for the week at their beautiful home in Hervey Bay. The day before departure we fuelled up and then got the truck weighed, fully loaded, and believe me we have enough food and booze on board to start our own shop! Even though we know we have an enormous pay load of 20t, we wanted to check that we were within the limits, on the front axle in particular. Thumbs up, we passed with flying colours.
D day arrived and we headed off yesterday morning with our friends Gilly and Gaily from their beautiful “Love Shack”. Our first stop is Warra and we had a great night camped out the back of the beautiful old pub, enjoying the camp fire and stories from the locals before heading back to the warmth of De Trucksta. It was 2deg overnight.
I am trying something new as of today, I found PolarSteps. I don’t know how it works as yet but am hoping it will produce a map of our travels. If all works out I will post that as well.
Stay tuned for more of our adventure………