4 MONTHS ON THE ROAD IS NOT LONG ENOUGH!

On 13^th May 2013 my wife and I left on a 4 month “odyssey” we had started planning to undertake 6 months earlier after she had finally retired from her lifelong “underpaid and overworked love” – teaching mathematics.

We have owned Tvans since 2002 and had undertaken many short trips into Northern SA, Western NSW, NT and South West Queensland, however time had always been our enemy, eg 3 weeks to travel the Anne Beadell and Connie Sue Highways and get back in time to return to work! Getting to the start point and returning had always eaten into our trip time. Not good

Clean again. In Darwin

We took delivery of our latest unit, a Mk3 Murranji in Jan 2012 and had been to Wyperfeld NP a couple of times – if you haven’t been there, go in Spring, the wild flowers are great, the wild life is active and the temperatures are friendly. I have always been surprised that very few people know that there is fair dinkum desert in Victoria, the major difference is that most of the country is grey rather than red, orange or yellow.

Frill neck lizard

Blue Tongue Lizard

A couple of locals at Wyperfeld NP

We have always preferred to bush camp or stay in National Parks – fewer people and those you meet are more interesting to speak with, so we headed North to Griffith and Cocoparra NP and mud!! We escaped to Gundabooka NP just outside Bourke. Our 1^st red dust and 1.9 degrees at 7.00am!!! Queensland is ”always warm” so we escaped NSW and headed to Charleville into a dreaded caravan park and rain! Not a good start

Moon rise at first camp – Cocoparra NP

We headed further North! Longreach looks good. Magnificent, at last we are wearing shorts and T shirts, 24 degrees, the locals knew we were “Mexicans”, they were wearing long pants, long sleeve shirts and vests!! The nights were freezing, but we didn’t care, it was sunny. We had intended to restock the next day and keep moving. No one told us the next day was show day. Everything was closed, so we went for a day trip to Illfracomb. Not exactly a metropolis, the pub is the main building, but its history is interesting as is the display of old vehicles used on surrounding properties and it was a good way to escape the show “crowd