That's exciting BR. DH had a BT50 as his work car for a while. I loved it. It was so cheap to run and drove beautifully but was such a bugger to park.
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That's exciting BR. DH had a BT50 as his work car for a while. I loved it. It was so cheap to run and drove beautifully but was such a bugger to park.
Dh found that out tinks he backed into a car his second day in it luckily it was just the number plate! He is getting parking assist now he found a kit on eBay.
Hello fellow campers!! DH, me and our two LO's are gearing up for a fun camping adventure!! We are actually going to be moving - but taking an interim holiday between houses and camping as we travel up the coast!! Its going from planning stages to actually taking action stages this month!! Sorting out all the little details etc!! We have storage for all of our things that will be going to the new house, we have a new tent on lay buy- porta fridge, we have camping beds, pantry, still need to find a cooker type thing and some kind of sink and a few other little tid bits i saw on the must have lists!!
Our biggest issues at the moment are the animals. Our doggie is all up to date with her needles etc but she is still young and hasn't been camping before, so we will be learning as we go with her and what she is able to do (and what we are able to do with her there too) and a question.. has anyone ever taken a cat camping LOL?? Although i am serious... we don't know what to do with her while we travel lol! I don't want to have to get rid of her, the kids love her, but where we are moving to is about 12 hours from where we are so its a bit silly to have her in a cattery either at the old place or the new town for like two months. My thought is to maybe get family to look after her, but that will still mean that we have to go straight to where the family is and not have our travel adventure on the way. Do caravan parks etc allow cats if they have their correct paperwork????? Somehow I think not!! lol
Other than kitty though, everything is slowly falling into place!! I am stoked to have found this thread and you lovely experienced ladies i can pick your brains about!! We haven't done camping with the kids yet (3 and 5yo) so it will be interesting!!!! With our set up we are hoping to occasionally have a powered site at a caravan park to make use of the amenities and washing machines and then some off road bush camping were we rough it power free.
What are some good lights to have with kids around.. so not the old fashioned gas lanterns.. is there a battery version????? Something that you can maybe charge to light up in the tent when we arn't connected to power??
We just did a weekend 60 kms from Esperance WA, Quagi beach.
If you ever get the chance to do WA, DO IT! It is absolutely amazing & there are camping area's everywhere! You might pay $5 a night in some places depending on amenities. But all the camping area's are just bays on the beach. Sometimes you'll get a lean too, and often there are composting toilets. This one though actually had flushing toilets! And we were right at the top of the dunes. Right on the beach, away from other campers. Just can't get over the unspoilt beauty of these places.
There aren't really these sort of camp grounds on the eastern side. Not along the coast anyway. Its all caravan parks, or inland. I just want to do more & more of this amazing state! There's no comparison.
Starbright, you can get rechargeable lanterns and they work really well. They're a bit slow to get to full light capacity but once they are there, they work a treat. Not sure about your cat although I'm sure there will be plenty of understanding people along the way, especially if she's in an enclosure. We camp often with our dogs - it's somewhat restrictive if you want to be looking around the area because you can't usually leave the dogs on site but otherwise it's fun.
Clover - All I want to say is ohhhhhhhhhhh.....! We're going to WA next April and we're really looking forward to exploring!
Starbright, we got a wind up lantern for $15 from Kmart. There are heaps of little round battery lights you can get with magnetic backs & hooks on them, so you can hang them.
I use a butane gas stove, they're only about $15 from bunnings. I want to get a bigger, better one eventually though. I have a little wire toaster I got at a camping shop, that I put over the stove for toast, or toasties.
PacRakMG - the beaches here are amazing. And the salt lakes are a pretty cool sight too. Where are you planning to see? I'm down south, so have only done the Southern area's. And only a few, there are so many. I'll do the northern end when the kids are a bit older I think. Maybe next Christmas holidays or something. Trying to decide where to go for Christmas this year at the moment. Somewhere that won't be packed out...
Clover - We're probably flying into Perth, hoping to explore the city and then go to places like Margaret River and Fremantle. I'd love to get to Esperence but it will be time permitting. We have two weeks. We were originally going to spend one of these weeks crossing the Nullabor and driving back to Melb but we've decided against it and would rather use that week to explore WA further. We'll be traveling with my parents, brother, aunt and and uncle and none of us have been there before so there will be lots of opinions on what we see, I'm sure!
I'm right in the middle of Perth & Esperance. And I reckon you could easily take a week to get between the two :lol: My parents are between me & Esperance & that's why I've been that way more. I usually go with them, or friends. Hopetoun is so pretty, but I love the whole area between Hopetoun & Esperance. A lot of area's are 4wd only, but there are still plenty of area's that aren't.
I've done the Nullarbor 3 times now & its so worth it. The first time we did motels, the second time we returned my pop's caravan, & were with my parents. The third time we tented it. Just myself & the kids. If you can't do it this time, make sure you do it some time. We pulled off to a little place called Fowlers Bay in SA. The whole place runs on natural energy. And the sand dunes that are taking over a pretty cool :lol: Then there's the Great Australian Bight, the Murray River, the Nullarbor itself... I'd never really travelled til I drove over here. Or camped. Now I can't get enough. I'd drive home over flying any day (I have 5 of us to fly though, lol, petrol works out cheaper ;))
Sounds beautiful!
We do want to drive the Nullabor but when we only have two weeks in total for our trip, we don't want to feel rushed. But it's definitely on our to-do list. I'll have to do some googling of the places you mentioned, thanks!
I'd rather drive than fly too lol. We're lucky enough that this trip is being paid for by mum - it's a significant birthday for her and she wants us to all be together so flights are sorted. There's no way we'd pay for flights over driving there otherwise!
Anyone any opinions on camping over Christmas (will be with my mum and dad and their camper trailer) - Dad is looking at Barwon Heads or Anglesea (I like the Bellarine - but have never camped and is just I know round their better and have been to Barwon Heads a few times). Something like 20-26th December. We don't want to be too far from Melbourne, and want lots of options of things to do if weather not great.
No idea wysiwyg - maybe just start ringing around. That might make the decision for you. We tried a few places a couple of months back for this Christmas and everywhere was booked out.
We snuck off to Adelaide last weekend. Nice trip, stayed at Adelaide Shores for the third time. All good other than the wind! Hit a headwind going over, filled up three times! Night before we came home, the brakes failed on the car so DH spent six hours getting that sorted. Then wanted to drive home. So we left just before 2pm and got home at midnight. Where he clipped the gate on our driveway with the caravan, smashing the window, gouging the side (not badly) and smashing the side light. Excellent. Ended up being a pricey trip! Had to rush to get the damage sorted because we need the caravan this weekend!
Ah well. Can only laugh.
Oh no PRMG hope it's all sorted before you need it again this weekend! You really do have to laugh don't you! We couldn't find our campsite it was free with tank water and it was on the moss and we found signs but could never find the site, we had to turn the van in the bush and lost a mirror in the process and when we decided to go to a caravan park Mildura was booked out so we drove to Swan Hill which took over 2 hours but we had a ball and can't wait to go out again!
I agree with wanting spots over Christmas you need to book now, bellarine was beautiful and so is Tourqay, Anglesea etc all close to the beach for summer but very popular. We booked our summer holiday in July so we didn't miss out.
I love Swan Hill, BR! Where did you stay? Bugger about the mirror though!
We just got home from Echuca. DH had a job there and he expected to be working all Friday and Sat but it ended up bring only a few hours across both days! There was some sort of festival on which was great - all the old steam engines and the like were on display. Last night they had a paddle steamer sail and a fireworks show. We got tickets and went, it was great. Poor DD2 was petrified by the paddle steamer whistle and she was less than impressed with the sound of the fireworks too but DD1 was in absolute heaven. It was a pretty cool thing to do.
The Deni ute muster was on too do there were crazies on the road and speed cameras everywhere. I wanted to go to the muster but it's pretty pricey and DH really doesn't want to go (even though he's just bought a ute complete with roof top fog lights - he'd fit right in lol).
Question:
Does anyone know where you can get your caravan weighed? Can you just go to a truck weigh bridge or is there somewhere else specifically for caravans? Our van is only 1050 tare and my territory tows her easily, but we 're not sure that the ute will. And as the ute is on diesel and 4wd it would be handy if it could tow the van.
We survived & had a great time :) and we know she doesn't leak & pretty sturdy in the wind lol. We went down to Edithburgh Caravan Park which is a nice spot on the Yorke Penninsular here in SA. It was pretty quiet because of the time of year and a nice park. DH works FIFO so we are planning to head off the next two times he's home and then an extended 1-2 week trip to Vic in January when we head over for his sisters wedding.
We were pretty happy with everything we took/have packed into the camper and she's all pretty much set to go apart from clothes & food and the kids odds & ends - I actually had fair bit of cupboard space spare but I'm sure won't take me long to fill them.
Pac - I'm pretty sure a truck weigh station will weigh a caravan, what kind of ute does your DH have? What is the Adelaide Shores park like, I've heard rave reviews about it and friends of ours have hinted about us going there with them in December but it's only 20mins from home about 45-60mins for them and if I've got to pack everything I prefer to go somewhere a little bit further away.
Phoenix, it's an older model triton. We know it has a 1500 capacity so towing the van fully loaded will be questionable (and by weighing it I think we're hoping to be pleasantly surprised and find all our crap doesn't weigh what it should lol).
As far as Adelaide Shores goes, we've stayed there three times now and still aren't tired of the place. A lot of people we've come across staying there live locally - within 30 mins.
The pros: It's got it's own beach gate. A walkway that goes along the beach to Glenelg one way and then up to Henley the other (possibly further). A water play park was officially opened a couple of days ago. Two pools, two jumping pillows, clean toilet blocks, playground, games room, toddler games room. The grounds are immaculate. It just goes on and on. We find that everywhere we go, we end up comparing it back to Adelaide Shores.
The cons: The only thing I didn't like about it this time was the wind was horrendous. And I found that in other caravan parks, the staff are always around to offer tips or advice but here you don't really see anyone. Lots of tents were lost and a few awnings were broken and I wonder if that would have happened if there had been ground staff telling people to prepare (we spoke to one lady camping and she said she's been there during five different Septembers and lost her tent each time).
If you haven't been there before and you can go, Big4 do a visitor thing where for a fee ($10 I think), you can use all the facilities etc for the day. Maybe do that? I definitely think it's worth staying there though.
Where are you off to in Vic?
All that Tare, GVM etc etc confuses me lol. DH wants to modify drawbar to carry his dirt bike so figure that is going to effect our overall carrying/towing limits. We have an older diesel patrol but I'm not getting involved lol
DH is a country Vic boy & is a keen bush camper - he had to sweet talk this city girl to give it a go & he's lucky I like it, though he had to buy me a portaloo before I agreed to go lol
Not sure where we'll end up going, his family is in the gippsland and there is talk of heading to Dargo with one of his brothers or maybe Yanakie where his cousin has a permanent van. I've been Dargo in winter before & Yanakie a couple times.
We haven't been to those places in Gippsland. It's lovely down there though.
We're thinking Nagambie for our next trip. Not too far for a weekend and we haven't been there before. DH wants to hire a boat, but it makes me nervous with DD2. I love boats and have been on them all my life but DD2 is a restless little thing and I don't know how she'll go.
I've started up a new Instagram account specifically for our caravanning adventures . Thought it might be a bit of fun looking back.
Phoenix we LOVE moonta bay CP!!! SA doesn't have much free/bush camping but we often take our van away for a couple dats here and there. We just went down to port Elliot it was great for the kids and we saw a whale from the CP!