February 16, 2024 • 47 mins
We were never really one's to travel to a strict plan. From Sydney’s festivities to an unexpected flight home to family in Perth. This twist in our tale sees Michelle jetting off to tend to our eldest, leaving David to tackle the EO Topo 2024 map set preparations and release. But our adventure doesn't stall there; we're pivoting like the travel pros we are, to keep our Tasmania trip alive, proving that even the best-laid plans need a little flexibility.
What's the gritty reality of behind our perfect Instagram road trip shots? Well, tune in and listen up, because we're going behind the scenes. From the lush Royal National Park to the challenging Enrick River terrain, we share the a peek into our journey, complete with trailer brake issues and toll-dodging escapades through Sydney's backstreets.
Finally, as we board the Spirit of Tasmania, we're sailing into a new chapter. Stay tuned for tales from Tasmania and get the inside scoop on the EO Topo 2024 as we share our mapping release and details. Grab a cuppa, find a cosy spot, and let's hit the road together in this episode of twists, turns, and tales from our Lap of Oz.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back everybody.
(00:00):
Episode 12, I think, of thepodcast series.
So when last we spoke to you wehad just arrived in Sydney and,
you know, after a week or 10 or11 days of travelling across
the Nullarbor and SouthAustralia, victoria and New
South Wales, and we were therefor Christmas.
(00:21):
So we arrived a couple of daysearly.
One of our kids had flown overand we met him at the airport
following day after we arrivedin Sydney and things were
travelling along reasonably well.
We had a nice Christmas, as youdo with family, and then our
child went home as well.
We only had one of them comeover, the younger one, because
(00:44):
the old one was going and doingsome concerts and some functions
and parties and stuff.
And then, you know, a couple ofdays moved along and we got a
phone call, a disturbing phonecall, from Perth and we had a
bit of an issue and our eldesthad a bit of a drama, and so it
happened that kind of passedthat we decided that it was best
(01:05):
for Michelle to head home.
So Michelle headed home forwhat was going to be a few days.
It was really an unsure periodof time how long she was going
to be heading home for.
But you know, she went home fora few days and what I started
to do was think about possiblygenerating the EO Topo 2024 map
set.
So it takes a good couple ofweeks to do the processing of
(01:29):
the data and bits and pieces.
Obviously we collect data andwe do work all throughout the
year, but it does take a goodcouple of weeks to sit down and
actually put it together and runall the processes and programs
and do the road conflation anddata integration and the bits
and pieces that make one of ourmap sets.
So I thought I'd have a look atstarting to do that, because we
(01:52):
hadn't really come up with aschedule of when we're going to
release the 2024 or even whetherwe were going to release the
2024.
We weren't really sure.
We had come off years and yearsof doing bi-annually releases
and then it was just this timethat we decided we should do a.
We're starting to move down thefact of doing one to two
releases a year, so it was agood time to start.
(02:14):
If Michelle was away for a weekor so, I could at least get a
start and see where we're up to.
As it actually happened,michelle was gone for 15 days
before she came back and soduring that 15 days I did manage
to do the whole EO Topo 2024update map set.
(02:36):
As we said in the podcast before, we were trying to incorporate
a lot of road updates inNorthern Queensland and stuff.
We obviously couldn't get there.
We just didn't have the timeand when we discussed how we
came across the bottom and justshot across the Nullivore again,
there wasn't a huge amount ofupdates that we needed to do
through there.
However, we did do a fair few,found a few new roads and bits
(02:58):
and pieces, as we always do, soall of those sorts of things
were rolled up into that update.
Obviously, I was updating allof the main data, so one of the
jobs is to go and collectNAVTITL register and ABS data
and various bits and pieces.
There's data that's collectedfrom all over the place that
(03:20):
goes into the base map data thatbuilds up the EO Topo map set
along with all of our data thatwe've been collecting and
keeping for years, and withinthat two week period just so
happened that, luckily, the dayMichelle flew back was the day
that I released the app updatethat was going to include the
(03:43):
2024 release product.
We had a few dramas for thenext few days, as we always do
after an app and a map update,but really that all went through
fairly seamlessly.
Obviously, during this time wewere planning to be in Tasmania.
We had to adjust our spirit ofTasmania bookings.
(04:05):
We were planning to come downto Tasmania.
What was the date?
We were originally on the 15th,so obviously it was Michelle
flying out.
What day did you fly out, about27th, 28th or something?
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It was a few days after Christmas, no, so we
actually got the phone call onthe 1st of January.
Oh, it was 1st of January sothe year started off pretty
poorly and it was on the phoneto the hospital for a couple of
days and then, when I realised Ihad to go, that was the 4th, so
I flew over on the 4th.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, thank you for fixing my dates.
I'm not a good date collector,nor am I a good name-rememberer,
nor am I a great placename-rememberer, but anyway.
So yeah, michelle headed overon the 4th and, as I say, I was
gone for 16 days, so that cameback on the 20th.
So obviously we're going tomiss our original sailing date
(05:02):
for Spirit of Tasmania.
So we were a bit concernedabout being able to shift that
booking and we spent a bit oftime stuffing around with it.
We rang and we spoke to themand they seemed to be able to
find dates, no problem.
They told us that we could saveon the cancellation fee or the
transfer fee if we did it onlineourselves.
And then Michelle was able towork it out and we were able to
(05:22):
pick a couple of new dates backand forth between us as to the
best dates to come over.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
The key was to try and still keep a six-week trip
here in Tasmania.
So that's what I was aimingtowards and originally I wanted
to make sure that we still didget some summer while we're in
Tasmania, Because the originaltrip was to arrive here early
January and to leave in earlyMarch and part of that trip plan
(05:52):
was to give us a couple ofweeks to actually drive between
Sydney and Geelong and explorethat section.
So by adjusting our dates wewere really able to cut out a
long tour between Sydney andVictoria and we cut that down to
three very short days.
So we made up some time thereand still managed to get our
(06:12):
booking to Tasmania on the 27thof January.
So that's how we've had toadjust that.
And look, the mainland can wait, we can always come back, but
Tasmania, it's quite expensiveto come here.
When you're towing You've gottwo vehicles, your height, your
length, your measurements allpart of the booking availability
(06:33):
.
So one of the keys with yourbooking of Spirit of Tasmania is
if you can stay under the tubeor at the 2.1 height or under.
Much more spots are availableand we are able to do that with
our Land Cruiser.
We don't have much on the roofrack.
We do have the roof rack and wehave two small bags that have
(06:55):
the standard paddle boards on itand the Max Tracks and a couple
of other little pieces.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
The standups are on the ultimate.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And on the camper trailer, the ultimate connected
to the vehicle is under 10meters, and so that's so every
four meters we just have to takethe bikes off.
There's a different price rangeand availability.
So, staying under 10 meters,under 2.1 height, we had no
problem in adjusting ourbookings and in getting the
(07:23):
booking in the first place.
I only booked that about amonth before we left, so in
December.
I booked it in November.
So a lot of people are clear onthat one.
I know that means full sizecaravans, which a lot of people
have.
It's a lot harder so, yeah,booking out a lot earlier.
But I think once you've got abooking, it's not too hard to
(07:45):
change your date.
So have a policy of a threehour time change.
By that I mean you can actuallychange and amend your booking
from three hours beforedeparture, which is incredible.
But what that means is thischanges all the time coming up
in the booking system, so youjust need to keep looking.
If you look one day and itlooks like there's no
availability, just look the nextday, because people are
(08:06):
changing their booking sofrequently.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, so that all happened while I was staying at
the in-laws house and that wasgood to be able to get those
adjustments made to the booking.
It took a bit of pressure offand we could still maintain the
six weeks.
And yeah, as Michelle justexplained, you know, I think,
even though now we're out, weare actually shooting this from
Tasmania.
Now that we're actually here,I'm fairly comfortable or
(08:33):
confident that if we decide tostay a bit longer, that won't
necessarily be a problem.
We should be able to shift thatas well.
So yeah she's happy about that.
We'll just have to see.
It's pretty nice down here.
But back to Sydney, because wewe hadn't actually left yet and
then obviously so Michelle hadcome back.
We just released the 2024product map set.
We've had to do some, someshopping, as you do, you know,
(08:56):
spending lots of at the shops.
How on earth you can spendthree or four or $500 loading up
groceries into a car and acamper trailer is beyond me, but
we seem to be able to do itquite easily and we can sort of
pack a lot of stuff in.
Then we had to obviously getourselves to Geelong, and our
(09:17):
original plan and, as you'veheard from us before, planning
is a thing that happens on thefly most of the time, but our
original planning again whichchanged every time we do make a
plan it does seem to change wasto spend about a week and a bit
travelling between Sydney andGeelong, touring around in the
high country.
Some parts of the alpine wewanted to do down through
(09:45):
Woollengong and Helensberg andsome of those the sea cliffs,
the sea cliff bridge and thingslike that on the way down.
So we thought can we condensethis and still get down with
doing something a bit betterthan just touring down the Hume
Highway in two or three days?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
No one wants to go down the Hume Highway.
No one wants to go down theHume.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Highway if you can avoid it, unless you have to,
unless you're in a hurry.
And whilst we were still in abit of a hurry, what we pulled
out on the Friday from yourfolks house?
No, the Thursday, with asailing date of Saturday night
at 11 o'clock.
So we had Thursday, friday andSaturday to get to the boat.
We had sort of three nights ortwo nights or three nights, and
(10:27):
we had to be there.
So we decided that we'd stillhave a crack at going down the
sea cliffs and Woollengong wayand going through the state
forest.
What was it?
The Royal National?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Park.
The Royal National Park first.
The Royal National Park first.
I can't believe I grew up inSydney for 30 years and I never
actually went there.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Oh, actually, talking about growing up in Sydney,
you're never actually goinganywhere.
Whilst we were staying at NorthTaramara in the Taramara areas
and Ives with the in-laws, wewent cycling and did quite a few
mountain biking treks and somehiking and stuff all through the
national parks and.
Karangai National Park and areasup there and it's such a lovely
(11:11):
place.
If you do live in Sydney andyou're anywhere near the
northern beaches, there's somereally nice mountain biking and
trekking and stuff in that area.
You don't have to go very farand, having lived in Sydney all
my life originally before wemoved to Perth of course- life
(11:32):
before children.
there's all these areas aroundDuffy's Forest and Terry Hills
and there's all these new walksto Middle Harbour from Bellrose
and all around the foreshore.
You can actually walk fromBondi to Manley now, which is a
humongous distance and a hugewall.
You're not going to do that allin one day, but there are walk
(11:55):
paths and things that haveappeared around the city that
didn't used to be there.
There's some fantastic hikingand trekking and mountain biking
still to be done.
As I say, places in those areasthat I'd never been, and I spent
a few years living in Bellroseand then, just over the hill
from where I was, there wasthese fantastic mountain biking
and walk trails that I didn'teven know existed.
(12:16):
So it's always worth having alook, and I tell you, all these
walk tracks and trails are allon Explorer, os Traveler, and
that's how some of them arefound.
So make sure you open up theapp and have a look, even if
you're at your local home, andyou may find something that you
didn't even know existed, likewe have on several occasions
looking at the bike tracks andwalk tracks nearest.
So, yeah, we went down to theRoyal National Park first and
(12:42):
that was gorgeous drive.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Just going through there I had no idea the drive
was so beautiful.
The road is just fringe withmassive towering trees that
connect to Canopy as you drivethrough and then you pop out at
Stanwell Topps, which mostpeople are aware.
That's a popular place for thehang gliders to go off the cliff
and there's nice views there.
I can't believe it was allcommercialised now and there's a
(13:05):
cafe and they make it hard foryou to pull over if you've got a
caravan or something.
But we did manage to find aspot by the road.
There was a little slot for oneor two people.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
There's about three bus bays or something yeah.
And that's where you've got togo if you're towing something.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And I don't know if anyone's noticed, but there's a
plaque to a guy who lost hislife hang gliding off that cliff
there.
So I have a look for that one.
But driving through that area,the point, as David mentioned
earlier, was to be able to goover the sea cliff bridge and if
you're like anyone, you seethese pictures on Instagram and
it looks gorgeous.
It does from the sky, but Idon't know how people manage to
(13:46):
get some of that footage.
There must have been agestrying to set up your drone.
Drive across.
Be good enough driver thatyou're not going to lose your
drone over the cliff at the edge.
We didn't, we just drove across.
So my view of going off the seacliff bridge is just a road and
a barrier.
It was okay.
We got the footage.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
There was something that we wanted to do anyway, and
going through the National Parkwas great, and it's not a fast
drive, it's not somewhere whereyou want to go when you're
trying to get somewhere in ahurry like we were, whilst we
say we were in a hurry, wedidn't leave first thing in the
morning and we didn't getthrough Sydney in the most
(14:29):
efficient manner.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
That's what I thought you were going to talk about.
We took a wrong turn literallystraight out of my suburb.
We didn't have the tracking onor anything and David turns
right and I wasn't payingattention.
I was probably still on myphone or something we should
have turned left.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
That was the first one.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We were going all the wrong way on difficult roads to
turn around, so we justadjusted our navigation plan and
we ended up because we'retrying to get to the other side
of Sydney, to get onto the RoyalNational Park, and that wasn't
the easiest place to navigate.
Just by the seat of yourparents I did have the navigator
telling us which way to go.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
We're also avoiding the tolls.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In the app you can adjust your height, weight,
length, measurement and alsoavoid tolls.
We had all that in In the end.
David really loved the plan wecame up with because it was
going through roads where heused to work his first job in
1986 or something or other, andit had all changed.
There are roads that youwouldn't normally go on you
would avoid in Sydney as yourmain route if you had to.
(15:35):
It was probably 10 o'clock inthe morning, weekdays and school
holidays.
Road traffic was actually quitefine.
It was just that we were onthese narrow roads in Sydney
that were once too late, thatthey've now squeezed in a third
lane without making anyadjustments.
Yeah, we were on.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Parramatta Road and we were going through Summerhill
and Ashfield.
We went all the way toCamperdown and we had a tour
through Sydney that was probablycompletely unnecessary, driving
down all the little backstreets around the back of the
airport to try and pop out ontothe Pacific Highway, or Princess
?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Highway, princess Highway, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
At the right spot so that we could get into the
National Park.
Wow, what a journey with thetrailer and everything else
going on.
It was an eye-openingexperience and it does really
show how.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, frost Country, bumpkins from Perth.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, it also showed how much they'd really closed in
a lot of the streets.
For me the roads are so narrowand it's because they've kind of
jammed more lanes in, wipingout small parking areas and
making it a lane.
It was quite tight, it wasquite interesting.
But it was good to go back toall these old horns and all
(16:45):
these old places where I used tohang out, even going to
boarding school at Summerhill,so I knew that area pretty well.
But yeah so Sydney was Gettingout of Sydney was the first
challenge.
The National Park, or theNashow, I've heard it called,
was quite a great drive, a bitof a slower trip.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
But we still didn't actually know where we were
going.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
No, we had no idea where we were going to camp.
We just thought let's head thisway, and one of the plans was
to head towards Braidwood.
So we only had Braidwood assort of a target and trying to
work out how we were going toget there.
The navigator and the routingplans took us a decent way.
We got onto the PrincessHighway just near Woollongong
(17:33):
and then we travelled on thehighway for a bit.
But where did we stay that day?
Was that the bridge day?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
That was that beautiful Endrick River Crossing
.
Yeah, the Endrick River Crossing, but that whole area as we came
through there, coming down themountain, it was just
spectacular and we'd seen a fewmarkers on the map as
possibilities.
There's some lookouts andthere's a lot of state forests
and there was tracks left andright, left and right the whole
way, and a few waterfalls.
But it was getting quite latefor us.
(17:59):
We weren't really sure what toexpect at any of these places,
so we were just driving slowlyand we eventually came to this
Endrick River Crossing, one thatwas a free camp right down
below our bridge and the wholearea had been spectacular.
And when we got there it wasn'tthe easiest spot to get into
(18:19):
because we wanted to get righton the river crossing, and how
it works is that it is.
You come in on a dirt track,you go past a big grassy field
where I guess, if you've got along van or you just want an
easy Stop, you can pull overthere.
But we could see this dirtgrassy feeling on all the one on
the right hand side when youcome in.
Anyway, we came in on thistrack field.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It was only a teeny weenie.
There's a little bit of dirt,no, the road down the hill.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
No, I.
Further up the front, when youpull in off the main road, up
where the bridge was, there'sthat whole area that originally
I've fixed.
Originally that's what Ithought what the rest area was.
And then we saw the track,followed the track around and
there is a little, one tinylittle spot for a car, but you
couldn't see the river.
And then we saw a track goingdown a ruttered hill, only Only
(19:07):
what 50 meters.
And then there's this beautifulcauseway causeway.
Yeah, so the causeway used tobe a road that went across the
river and it's obviously beenlong gone, washed out.
Then you can see some pillarsof an old bridge which are later
found out had been built in theearly 1800s, and then the
modern bridge which is abovethat a big concrete highway is
(19:30):
the spanning bridge.
So you do get a little bit ofroad noise there, not much, and
it's pretty much a back roadanyway.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
But it was a pretty speccy campsite it's.
It's been posted on our socialsand so you can check out that
it's endrick river, end RICKriver and it's on the braidwood
road.
Don't all go there, because itwon't be as nice if it's full of
people but.
We remember where the biggestproblem the biggest thing for us
(20:00):
, you know, because we pulled inthere pretty late.
The weather was looking a bitdubious, like it was like it, a
rain.
We'd just come out of heaps ofrains.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
We've seen rains everywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
It was really really hot.
When we got down there and justsetting up camp, we're sweating
.
It was so humid.
It didn't seem like it wasgonna.
We were wondering how manymozzies and how bad it was gonna
be.
But once we'd set up camp andwe'd got it all sorted, we were
camped on the causeway andliterally that was only I don't
know three inches above thewaterline, and Then it started
(20:32):
to bucket down with rain.
And you know, we're on a riverSome way down the river.
The river is flowing.
It had a reasonable flowalready and it's pouring and and
and.
Whilst that was, whilst that waswonderful and a great thing, we
had no idea how much catchmentarea that that river had for the
(20:53):
rain coming down.
We had no idea how much rain wewere having, because just in
that one spot we were out ofservice.
If we climbed up the hill wewould get service.
And so the decision was made weactually hadn't even turned on
our starling subscription,because I basically held it,
chancellor, that, while we're inSydney, because I knew we're
gonna be there for a bit longer,and so I thought, oh, we'd
(21:15):
better go and double check whatthe weather is doing.
So it was dark, it was like sixor seven o'clock and we thought
I better go and drive up thehill To turn on the satellite,
to turn on the starling if wewanted it, and also just to pick
up the weather.
So pick up a weather feed onthe BOEM app and see where what
the rain was really doing is.
So we did that.
We drove up the hill.
Was wasn't very far that we hadto drive, but we drove up the
(21:38):
hill, picked up the weather.
It said that the rain was gonnastop, so that gave us a little
bit of confidence.
We drove back down the hill tonotice that our camper basically
had water running under it, nota huge amount, but it was
running off the sides of the ofthe causeway and running
basically under the camper.
It was not of huge concern butit, you know, the river had
(22:02):
risen probably an inch.
As I said, we were two or threeinches away from the water
level.
That had risen about an inchand water was coming across From
the hillside down and acrossthe causeway.
But you know, we, we made it,we made a judgment call and we
decided that we should be okay,but just to be double safe, one
of the things we did do when webought the car back, and these
are things to think about whenyou, when you in areas when
(22:25):
you're a bit worried was weactually backed the trailer down
so that the so we backed thecar down so that the Hitch for
the camper was directly Lined up.
So the camp was already woundup a bit higher than the than
the Hitch receiver on the carwas, and so we backed the car
down so that so, basically, thetop of the hitch was sitting
(22:48):
right underneath the ball, or inour case, the da35 Pin was
sitting right underneath thehole.
So if we did have a problem, itwas the car was already in the
right place to hook up thecamper, uh, to pull it, to pull
it out of it, out of the way.
So that was just something thatyou know, think about those
sorts of things if you're in apossibly dubious situation as to
(23:10):
how you're going to get out asquick as possible.
So we did that.
And then, wow, we took somegreat photos, some great footage
.
We swam there.
It was a wonderful little spot,a nice place to camp if you're
in that area.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So, um, yeah, I suggest you have a look at that
the risk assessment of that wasbecause as soon as the rain
stopped, it literally alldrained away and we'll back to
the concrete base of thecauseway again and, having
checked the weather and you knowmore whether it was coming
through and we could see the waythe clouds were coming through,
um, we could see that it wasn'tgoing to be a place.
It was going to be inundatedquickly.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It was draining quite well and it did, pour again in
the middle of the night just tokeep us on our toes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
We did set up some um measuring sticks and things to
make sure.
Okay, it gets to this point,we're leaving.
If it gets to this point, we'redone.
Yeah, and you know we'recompletely safe and in the
morning we were rewarded withthe most beautiful mist coming
up.
And have a Look at some of thephotos, um on our instagram
account or our facebook, ifyou're following um, because
(24:10):
some of these special places wedo share there and, of course,
you can find them all in the appas places.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So then, so after that great camp, you know, we
got up and we pulled out, andthat was our very first time of
packing up a wet canter, becauseobviously we'd had three or
four spouts of decent rain, um,overnight, and Everything was
soaking wet and we'd never thenew, the new ultimate had never
been in the rain.
It was its first experience.
(24:38):
So it was our first experiencepacking it up wet and hoping
that it was all going to comeout okay At the other end.
And we didn't know, andobviously until we set up camp
the next night which was justout of shoulders or something,
is that what?
Chilton, chilton, chilton, um,but any.
So after we'd left um Enricriver, we did braid wood and
then we were thinking about howwe were going to Get across from
(25:01):
there, because you know, really, we could go down into Victoria
and follow the coast road.
Well, most of the navigationplans that we were asking out
around about the Bradwood areawas taking us back towards
Gulburn and then coming down theHume Highway, which we didn't
want to do that.
So we made it.
We made an executive decisionthat we'd force the auto routers
to go the way that we wanted,by driving to Kuma, knowing the
(25:24):
Kuma was sort of a steppingpoint of going over the Alpine
way or going around the bottomand still going towards Victoria
.
There's main roads going inboth of those directions.
You go west or south from thereand so we made the drive Down
(25:46):
into Kuma.
That was fairly.
We went through.
What was that?
That mountainous area that wewent through?
Was that Dewa?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, as we went past the Dewa National Park.
Yeah that was amazing.
There'd been fires throughthere.
Obviously, people who live inOvereast would know about it,
but for us that we'd only heardabout your stories and when we
actually saw, the extent ofdamage was incredible.
So tons and tons of dead woodMade for beautiful photography.
So, poor David, I kept stoppinglots of Wombats, lots wildlife.
(26:17):
But we knew that you can't gointo the campgrounds at the Dewa
, otherwise we would have comeacross actually to the road from
there.
I wanted to come across fromeast to west at that point, so
we had a look through there,yeah, and then driving to Kuma.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Dewa was a good drive , it was it was, it was gorgeous
, it was very nice.
Yeah, we had a good time inthere.
We saw a lot of the tracks anda lot of the tracks that we've
got published going off to theleft and right and things like
that.
As we're driving through going.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I wish we had time, wish we could, but Seeing places
where I only know the name ofthem and can't visualize it new
Morella and all of that.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, it was like where are these places?
And now we're, now we've got anidea.
And then, yeah, we headed intoKuma.
And what was that?
That must have been.
Was that Saturday?
It must have been.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Would this the next day?
It's day two, that has to havebeen Friday, well they had that
big fair on.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
You know, they had the street fair and a whole lot
of other stuff going on in Kuma.
They had a big market thinggoing on in the middle of town
and car show and a whole lot ofother stuff.
We spent a little bit of timethere grab some fuel and
groceries and punched in theauto router and said which way?
And it gave us two ways twoways across the Alpine ways,
which was one way through threadbow and the other way through
(27:36):
Tumor and so towards to meanyway I don't know we got to
know.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
So we went to Adam in a beer and then we turned up,
and then Said you were the onewith a note and then across, all
the way across to curion.
Well, that's a long way, butthat was the most spectacular
drive.
All the mountain ash had beenburnt through the fires and was
just astounding and goingThrough these twisty, turny,
(28:03):
windy roads.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, yeah, and it was a bit hard going on the car,
but the snowy mountains highwayup from from basically from
Adam, in a be up into the hills.
You know was fantastic.
Yeah, kaianda was the littleplace at the top of the hill
where you turn down on this linkroad so we turned on to this
(28:27):
link road which took us and andlink road is a road.
It's only open if it doesn'tyeah and only some.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
No.
No, it's closed all through thesummer ski season because it
goes, yeah, only open in thesummer.
So it was perfect timing for usto take that route across the
mountain.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well, it takes you up to Mount Selwyn.
So it's obviously not closedfrom in that bit but the bit
past that.
And so we saw things likethree-mile dam and you know the
hills and the, the ups and thedowns and the tumour to power
station and things like that.
We saw all of that one.
But there was it.
There was a few issues for usgoing through there and Another
(29:06):
few lessons learned.
I had just replaced the brakesbefore we left birth on the Land
Cruiser and I'd been havingsuspicions or Issues with the
trailer brakes a little bit.
I wasn't able to get thetrailer brakes set up a hundred
percent exactly the way I likeit, and you know whether that's
that's all just adjustment orplaying around new camper,
trailer, different brakes set up.
(29:27):
It's taking a bit of time toget used to.
Anyway, we're coming around allthese hills and anyone that's
driven up through their linkroad and all those roads.
It's really bloody hilly rightand it's steep down hills and
decent up hills and so I'mcoming down.
You know a fair bit on thebrakes.
I mean I'm using engine braking, putting it down in a second in
(29:50):
the automatic, you know, whichdoes a certain amount, but the
car seems to have a rev range.
It'll take it up to, you know,too fast, even in second gear,
going downhill, and I'm startingto hear this noise as we're
going past some of the some ofthe rock cliffs on the side.
You know you drive past thesethings and I hear this and and
(30:13):
had no idea really what it was.
I suspected that it was goingto be the brakes, and so I was a
bit suspicious about that.
But you know, going down someof these roads there's nowhere
to pull over, mind you, therewas no traffic.
I probably could have juststopped in the middle of the
road, but that's just notsomething I want to do on one of
these Little tight, turny roadswith cars that may or may not
come at you.
So we found a spot to pull overand, wow, the car brakes were
(30:34):
smoking hot.
They were really hot.
The noise was coming from thebrakes.
I can't exactly recall what partit's, thank you.
I can't exactly recall whatpart of it was, but I realized
that I didn't have enoughtrailer brake turned on.
The trailer brakes were cold,it like hadn't done anything,
and so the cars trying to pullup the camper and the and the
(30:56):
and the car, and, yeah, it justgot super hot.
So I spent a bit of timedialing in the right Brake
settings.
I found that if I put myparticular controller into boost
one, which Increases the brakecapacity for the same amount of
foot pressure.
I was able to get brakinghappening and and that made a
huge difference.
So again something, anotherlesson learned.
(31:17):
It always happens when you'rekind of in a bit of a hurry and
you're trying to get throughsomewhere and, as Michelle said,
she wanted To stop for photoseverywhere, which which is great
and lovely and all, but whenyou are on a bit of a timeline,
it sort of adds a bit ofpressure into your head and then
to start charging down thesehills and Jumping on the brakes
and get the car or hot andbothered.
(31:38):
You know you, you've got tostart thinking about it.
It was really steep.
It was a lovely drive.
We went through all of thatarea and when do we pop out?
We popped out at Cancoban.
We just miss Cancoban.
I think we zoomed aroundCancoban, yeah, and then we had
it across to the To Aubrey.
(31:58):
Did we go into all?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
but we did know below would don't go.
So it was the Australia Dayweekend, so this was the Friday
still, you see, and we were abit nervous about where we were
going to get to camp.
Yeah do you remember?
And there's a lot of so manybeautiful camps all through.
The snow is there.
That's just spectacular andit's a shame we didn't have the
(32:19):
time.
There's a lot of nice huts, alot of walking tracks and we
could see people really enjoyingthemselves and the weather was
absolutely Gorgeous.
But we knew we needed to keeptraveling on and I had a plan
that if we got down to AubreyWodonga area we would be able to
find some camps along theriverfront, of course, on
(32:40):
Australia Day, who else?
wouldn't want to do that, Iwonder.
That's right, it was I'mtelling David yes, just keep
going.
I can see all these mountains.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
The reason why there was a show in Cooma was on the
Friday was.
That was the 25th, it wasAustralia Day.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Australia Day right.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
So so this is Saturday the 26th and yeah, we
went past all these greatcampsites on the Murray, because
where we appeared on the Murray, where was that?
Was that in Tintildara orwhatever it's called, I don't
know whatever it's called.
We appeared on the Murray quitelong.
We traveled along it for awhile.
Here we go, and, yeah, therewas a heap of campsites we went
(33:16):
past, but they were all just alittle bit time short.
You know it was lunchtime, youknow one o'clock in the
afternoon, two o'clock in theafternoon.
It didn't actually, you know,make a huge amount of sense for
us to have stopped at that pointin time.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Well, come on tell the truth, it was full of jet
skiers and young people.
Some of them set up along theriver.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Tallengatta and all of that area.
It was full.
Those camps that was, theearlier ones, were okay.
It was time limited.
By the time we got further tothe three and four or four
o'clock time frame we werearound Tallengatta and all of
that area and, yeah, those campswere Chocoblock pool.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
There was jet skiers, water skiers, there was
hundreds of people and there wasmusic and All the things that
we didn't really aspire to.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
So we continued on and we basically got into
Wodonga.
We did go into Wodonga.
We went through Wodonga to pickup the highway, to pick up the
hum.
And that's when we realisedfrom there we realised we were
going to hit the hum.
And we had to do the humBasically to get to Melbourne
the next day or to Geelong thenext day, because the boat was
(34:24):
leaving on the Saturday night,the Saturday evening the.
Saturday night, and so this wasSaturday.
This was Friday night and we'dcome from Coomer all the way to
here, so we decided to try andlook for a camp inland along the
Hume Highway, somewhere awayfrom where all the people are
(34:45):
going to go.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
There's tons of rest areas marked on the maps, but
these rest areas really are justhighway rest areas parking bays
.
There used to be camps.
Some of the older data thatwe've got shows them as being
camps, but the upgrades over theyears to these highways
obliterated all that camping,even in some of the little state
(35:06):
forest areas that you get to,and all these facilities are tar
based and they've goteverything you know the toilets,
and this is all of that.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Whilst they're great for a roadside stop, they're not
so great for camping.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
So we found Chilton was marked.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Well, it was actually the first free camp marker that
we found in the area.
After doing a lookup at Wadongaduring camps within the 50Ks of
that area, using the nearbysearch in the place page, we
found Tuan Campground, which wasjust in a little state forest
(35:41):
in the Chilton.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Mount Pilate National .
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Park Right Chilton Mount Pilate National Park.
It's just a little bit north ofChilton.
We were coming in obviously abit late.
The sun wasn't setting until8.30 or 9 o'clock, this funny
daylight saving time they haveover on this side of the country
where the sun never seems toset.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Messes up my body.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Messes up all of us because we're not used to it.
So we went into Chilton andwhat an awesome little town.
I mean I don't say that wordvery often because I don't
particularly like that word.
It's like a throwback to the50s, 40s and 50s and stuff the
whole town.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
We knew we had to come back and look at this place
, but we had to drive through itbut it was just eye-poppingly
gorgeous.
Yeah, it was so old school.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
And all the current businesses are all working in
these really historic littlebusiness places and stuff.
It was spectacular.
It was a great find you turnonto the cobblestone main street
and there's even like places topipe your horses and God knows
whatever else.
It was a really great place andwe drove through it fairly
quick because we were stilltargeting the National Park
which was just north of town.
(36:55):
So we headed up into theNational Park and we got a
campsite which was perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Well, there was someone in the big, big big
campground and it's a reallytiny little campground and,
honestly, with them there, if wecamped in there as well, it
would have been a little bit.
Both of us would have lost oursense of privacy.
So there's tons of littletracks around and there was a
little bay just across fromthere, so we decided that it
wasn't doing anything wrong tojust pop over there.
(37:21):
It's like a junction of sometracks.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, it was a track junction and there was a bit of
a verge on the side of it, so wejust pulled into there and
we've got a pretty smallfootprint with this, so nothing
goes into the ground other thanthe wheels, the wheels and the
three-mil jack stands.
Anyway.
So we decided to pull in there,just outside the campground
area, and luckily for us we did,because after we'd set up about
(37:44):
three more cars arrived, atleast there, I think Just little
cars with tents and stuff,people, just fairly easy camping
and a little camp, a camper vanthing.
And so luckily we did camp justup the hill a little bit because
we didn't have to deal with allof that happening.
Anyway, we had a great campthere.
That was quite a nice night.
And then we decided we had togo back to Chilton and have a
(38:08):
bit of a tour around town.
So we got out and took somephotos and walked around and
bought some jewellery at thejewellery shop for Michelle and
what a fantastic little place.
It's well worth a stop in thatarea if you're into historical
stuff and sort of a throwback intown, a throwback in time.
Not as much as going to what'sthat place in Victoria, the old
(38:35):
town, ballarat.
It's not like going there, butit was pretty nice.
It was a very nice place to go,very low key, and so then from
there it was basically just atar blast down the Hume Highway.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, but let's comment that Hume Highway.
We were actually quite nervousabout getting into Melbourne
over the other side, to Geelong,when we're first mapping out
this trip, because it's beenyears since we've come to this
part of Australia and ourexperience in the past has been
you can get really congested.
(39:09):
And this Hume Highway gettingto Geelong you just plonked in
the point that we were going tousing the place for the Spirit
of Tasmania Terminal as ourdestination and we just hit
Navigate Go and it was justsmooth sailing the whole way
through.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Oh yeah, it was amazing.
It's been forever since I'vedriven in the outskirts of
Melbourne, where some of thesenew link roads and these outer
hub roads are running around,and when we came down the
highway and there wasn't thatmuch traffic.
Really, even that was theAustralia Day Long Weekend it
(39:46):
was the middle of it it was theSaturday.
But then you get down towhatever that crossroad number
is I can't even remember what itis the M80.
And it's like four lanes ormore in each direction of
traffic.
There was traffic, let me tellyou.
(40:08):
There was traffic, but nothingwas very slow.
We didn't get slowed up toomuch.
Those outer ring roads andstuff, they do seem to allow you
to get around the edges ofMelbourne quite well.
So, yeah, we charged throughthere and we got down to Geelong
.
I can't remember exactly whattime, it was like four or five
o'clock in the afternoon.
(40:29):
Yeah, it was about four or fiveo'clock in the afternoon.
We had a couple of hours tokill.
We had to be at the boat rampat nine o'clock or something and
9.30 for an 11.30 departure or10 o'clock for an 11.30
departure or something.
We were just able to pull up ata little park down there and
watch the people fishing andhave a meal out of the back of
the car while we waited for theferry to leave.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
We could actually see the ferry so for some reason it
doesn't park itself at theterminal before departure.
It was over on the other sideof the bay and the locals doing
fishing were telling us how itall worked and we were able to
see when the boat came acrossand we got some nice footage of
it coming across right in frontof us.
And then we thought, oh well,it's time to go now.
And there was one other caravanthat parked alongside us and
(41:17):
had a check.
He was also going on the sameferry with respect to him.
It was very easy.
It was all just smooth sailing,yeah it was all very easy.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
We went in through the check-in on the boat.
It took a little bit of walls,a bit of marshalling.
Obviously there's a biosecuritycheck, checking your fruit and
veg and all that sort of stuffand then a few sit in an acute
for a little while waiting forthe commercial loads to go in.
All the seemingly hundreds offreight trucks that the trucks
(41:51):
don't, because the trucks havedropped off just the trailers
all at the wharf and they usethese little shuttle trucks,
that sort of like.
What am I thinking of?
I don't know the things thatlift.
Yeah, for forklift, like littleforklifts, and they drive all
these truck with these trailerson.
That takes a little bit of time.
(42:12):
But then, yeah, we drovestraight in Drive under a little
boom thing.
Looks like it's too low thatyou're not going to fit under.
And you do fit under, navigatedour way into the boat and and
the guys who guide you in.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Oh yeah, they guide you in with like a few
millimeters.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
And might you know, turn the wheel sharp here and
then turn it sharp the other wayso that you can get it, so that
the doors will allow you toopen and things like that.
They've got it so well, suss,you know, turn full lock here
and you go about three inchesand then he says, turn full lock
the other way and you go aboutan inch and a half and that
means that the doors can bothopen and the mirrors don't hit
anything can.
Yeah, but they're pretty goodat they're pretty good at their
(42:48):
job, these guys that park thecars in the boat.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I took some footage.
I've made a little clip of thewhole process of going on to the
Very and how will that get done?
So that's on our socials too.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, and so we had a gin, and then we decided to
find our recliner lounges andand we proceeded to try to sleep
our way to Tasmania.
Luckily for us, we were kind ofin the back row of the boat,
was a 28 and 29 or something.
And, yeah, we were right at theglass so we could see out the
(43:22):
back the whole way.
See, not that, not that youcould see much because it was
pitch black and it was nighttime, but certainly as you are going
through the bay and all thatsort of stuff, you could see the
lights all around the place.
It took ages to get throughPort Phillip Bay.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, it's about two hours to get out.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah to get out, just to get out into the thing and
get through the rip there, which?
Was probably the roughest partand then across Bass Strait and
it was a relatively easy sale.
I slept like a log for a fewhours and Michelle didn't.
I saw we each had a differentexperience there, but we we
noise cancelling headphones areperfect noise cancelling
(44:01):
headphones are perfect.
Yes, I would certainlyrecommend that you have a set of
noise cancelling the boatitself was the constant humming,
just like on a plane, while youwere.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Even for that, people were really good in the
reclining area, there was not aproblem at all.
I didn't hear a single personeven cough, although you remind
me that's cause I had my noisecancelling.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yes, you had noise cancelling headphones on.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I was like how good it was, but I just couldn't
sleep.
There was too much light.
They they leave these littlenight lights on and they'll
brighten your eye, and then, ofcourse, I'm looking out the
window.
I would have preferred to nothave the distraction of that,
because I was looking at all thelights and wanting to look at
the ocean and Figure out what Iwas feeling versus what I was
(44:40):
seeing.
So they had lights out the backof the boat.
I could see the wash the wholetime.
There was hardly any swell.
We actually had a very smoothsailing across and and Yep, yeah
, I looked.
The 1130 departure was not myfirst choice, but it actually
worked out really well, becausethe time that you land in
Devonport is all very, all, verypleasant you have.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
All the businesses are open and all that.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, it's about nine .
Whatever you have breakfast onthe boat.
You can look out the window soyou can actually get a proper
night's sleep.
You, by the time you've putyour boat yet You've gone
through the queue and and andgot on to the boat, you know
that you're ready for sleep.
You go straight to bed and wakeup.
So you're not really missingmuch in your Interruption to
(45:26):
sleep, except for, like me, Ididn't sleep.
Yeah sort of bombed out thenext day, but you slept, which
was good.
You're the driver.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I slept, yeah.
So there we are.
We've made it to the spirit ofTasmania.
So our journey of the creationof the EO topo 2024 which which
kind of happened, sort of byaccident, but it was well, well
timed and well positioned andand it's gone out relatively
painlessly that I can say nowthat we're a couple of weeks
(45:56):
past that.
But we've given you an updateon that, that.
We've talked about how we gotto Tasmania and so you know,
from here We'll leave you untilthe next episode when we'll
start our journey aroundTasmania.
So thanks for listening.
Make sure you subscribe to ourchannels, keep an eye on all of
our socials.
(46:16):
Michelle is doing a fair bit ofwork to make sure that we
publish stuff in there every dayor every other couple of days.
So keep an eye out and look outfor things that are going on,
and we'll catch you on the nextepisode.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah.
Welcome back everybody.
(00:00):
Episode 12, I think, of thepodcast series.
So when last we spoke to you wehad just arrived in Sydney and,
you know, after a week or 10 or11 days of travelling across
the Nullarbor and SouthAustralia, victoria and New
South Wales, and we were therefor Christmas.
(00:21):
So we arrived a couple of daysearly.
One of our kids had flown overand we met him at the airport
following day after we arrivedin Sydney and things were
travelling along reasonably well.
We had a nice Christmas, as youdo with family, and then our
child went home as well.
We only had one of them comeover, the younger one, because
(00:44):
the old one was going and doingsome concerts and some functions
and parties and stuff.
And then, you know, a couple ofdays moved along and we got a
phone call, a disturbing phonecall, from Perth and we had a
bit of an issue and our eldesthad a bit of a drama, and so it
happened that kind of passedthat we decided that it was best
(01:05):
for Michelle to head home.
So Michelle headed home forwhat was going to be a few days.
It was really an unsure periodof time how long she was going
to be heading home for.
But you know, she went home fora few days and what I started
to do was think about possiblygenerating the EO Topo 2024 map
set.
So it takes a good couple ofweeks to do the processing of
(01:29):
the data and bits and pieces.
Obviously we collect data andwe do work all throughout the
year, but it does take a goodcouple of weeks to sit down and
actually put it together and runall the processes and programs
and do the road conflation anddata integration and the bits
and pieces that make one of ourmap sets.
So I thought I'd have a look atstarting to do that, because we
(01:52):
hadn't really come up with aschedule of when we're going to
release the 2024 or even whetherwe were going to release the
2024.
We weren't really sure.
We had come off years and yearsof doing bi-annually releases
and then it was just this timethat we decided we should do a.
We're starting to move down thefact of doing one to two
releases a year, so it was agood time to start.
(02:14):
If Michelle was away for a weekor so, I could at least get a
start and see where we're up to.
As it actually happened,michelle was gone for 15 days
before she came back and soduring that 15 days I did manage
to do the whole EO Topo 2024update map set.
(02:36):
As we said in the podcast before, we were trying to incorporate
a lot of road updates inNorthern Queensland and stuff.
We obviously couldn't get there.
We just didn't have the timeand when we discussed how we
came across the bottom and justshot across the Nullivore again,
there wasn't a huge amount ofupdates that we needed to do
through there.
However, we did do a fair few,found a few new roads and bits
(02:58):
and pieces, as we always do, soall of those sorts of things
were rolled up into that update.
Obviously, I was updating allof the main data, so one of the
jobs is to go and collectNAVTITL register and ABS data
and various bits and pieces.
There's data that's collectedfrom all over the place that
(03:20):
goes into the base map data thatbuilds up the EO Topo map set
along with all of our data thatwe've been collecting and
keeping for years, and withinthat two week period just so
happened that, luckily, the dayMichelle flew back was the day
that I released the app updatethat was going to include the
(03:43):
2024 release product.
We had a few dramas for thenext few days, as we always do
after an app and a map update,but really that all went through
fairly seamlessly.
Obviously, during this time wewere planning to be in Tasmania.
We had to adjust our spirit ofTasmania bookings.
(04:05):
We were planning to come downto Tasmania.
What was the date?
We were originally on the 15th,so obviously it was Michelle
flying out.
What day did you fly out, about27th, 28th or something?
I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It was a few days after Christmas, no, so we
actually got the phone call onthe 1st of January.
Oh, it was 1st of January sothe year started off pretty
poorly and it was on the phoneto the hospital for a couple of
days and then, when I realised Ihad to go, that was the 4th, so
I flew over on the 4th.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, thank you for fixing my dates.
I'm not a good date collector,nor am I a good name-rememberer,
nor am I a great placename-rememberer, but anyway.
So yeah, michelle headed overon the 4th and, as I say, I was
gone for 16 days, so that cameback on the 20th.
So obviously we're going tomiss our original sailing date
(05:02):
for Spirit of Tasmania.
So we were a bit concernedabout being able to shift that
booking and we spent a bit oftime stuffing around with it.
We rang and we spoke to themand they seemed to be able to
find dates, no problem.
They told us that we could saveon the cancellation fee or the
transfer fee if we did it onlineourselves.
And then Michelle was able towork it out and we were able to
(05:22):
pick a couple of new dates backand forth between us as to the
best dates to come over.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
The key was to try and still keep a six-week trip
here in Tasmania.
So that's what I was aimingtowards and originally I wanted
to make sure that we still didget some summer while we're in
Tasmania, Because the originaltrip was to arrive here early
January and to leave in earlyMarch and part of that trip plan
(05:52):
was to give us a couple ofweeks to actually drive between
Sydney and Geelong and explorethat section.
So by adjusting our dates wewere really able to cut out a
long tour between Sydney andVictoria and we cut that down to
three very short days.
So we made up some time thereand still managed to get our
(06:12):
booking to Tasmania on the 27thof January.
So that's how we've had toadjust that.
And look, the mainland can wait, we can always come back, but
Tasmania, it's quite expensiveto come here.
When you're towing You've gottwo vehicles, your height, your
length, your measurements allpart of the booking availability
(06:33):
.
So one of the keys with yourbooking of Spirit of Tasmania is
if you can stay under the tubeor at the 2.1 height or under.
Much more spots are availableand we are able to do that with
our Land Cruiser.
We don't have much on the roofrack.
We do have the roof rack and wehave two small bags that have
(06:55):
the standard paddle boards on itand the Max Tracks and a couple
of other little pieces.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
The standups are on the ultimate.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And on the camper trailer, the ultimate connected
to the vehicle is under 10meters, and so that's so every
four meters we just have to takethe bikes off.
There's a different price rangeand availability.
So, staying under 10 meters,under 2.1 height, we had no
problem in adjusting ourbookings and in getting the
(07:23):
booking in the first place.
I only booked that about amonth before we left, so in
December.
I booked it in November.
So a lot of people are clear onthat one.
I know that means full sizecaravans, which a lot of people
have.
It's a lot harder so, yeah,booking out a lot earlier.
But I think once you've got abooking, it's not too hard to
(07:45):
change your date.
So have a policy of a threehour time change.
By that I mean you can actuallychange and amend your booking
from three hours beforedeparture, which is incredible.
But what that means is thischanges all the time coming up
in the booking system, so youjust need to keep looking.
If you look one day and itlooks like there's no
availability, just look the nextday, because people are
(08:06):
changing their booking sofrequently.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, so that all happened while I was staying at
the in-laws house and that wasgood to be able to get those
adjustments made to the booking.
It took a bit of pressure offand we could still maintain the
six weeks.
And yeah, as Michelle justexplained, you know, I think,
even though now we're out, weare actually shooting this from
Tasmania.
Now that we're actually here,I'm fairly comfortable or
(08:33):
confident that if we decide tostay a bit longer, that won't
necessarily be a problem.
We should be able to shift thatas well.
So yeah she's happy about that.
We'll just have to see.
It's pretty nice down here.
But back to Sydney, because wewe hadn't actually left yet and
then obviously so Michelle hadcome back.
We just released the 2024product map set.
We've had to do some, someshopping, as you do, you know,
(08:56):
spending lots of at the shops.
How on earth you can spendthree or four or $500 loading up
groceries into a car and acamper trailer is beyond me, but
we seem to be able to do itquite easily and we can sort of
pack a lot of stuff in.
Then we had to obviously getourselves to Geelong, and our
(09:17):
original plan and, as you'veheard from us before, planning
is a thing that happens on thefly most of the time, but our
original planning again whichchanged every time we do make a
plan it does seem to change wasto spend about a week and a bit
travelling between Sydney andGeelong, touring around in the
high country.
Some parts of the alpine wewanted to do down through
(09:45):
Woollengong and Helensberg andsome of those the sea cliffs,
the sea cliff bridge and thingslike that on the way down.
So we thought can we condensethis and still get down with
doing something a bit betterthan just touring down the Hume
Highway in two or three days?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
No one wants to go down the Hume Highway.
No one wants to go down theHume.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Highway if you can avoid it, unless you have to,
unless you're in a hurry.
And whilst we were still in abit of a hurry, what we pulled
out on the Friday from yourfolks house?
No, the Thursday, with asailing date of Saturday night
at 11 o'clock.
So we had Thursday, friday andSaturday to get to the boat.
We had sort of three nights ortwo nights or three nights, and
(10:27):
we had to be there.
So we decided that we'd stillhave a crack at going down the
sea cliffs and Woollengong wayand going through the state
forest.
What was it?
The Royal National?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Park.
The Royal National Park first.
The Royal National Park first.
I can't believe I grew up inSydney for 30 years and I never
actually went there.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Oh, actually, talking about growing up in Sydney,
you're never actually goinganywhere.
Whilst we were staying at NorthTaramara in the Taramara areas
and Ives with the in-laws, wewent cycling and did quite a few
mountain biking treks and somehiking and stuff all through the
national parks and.
Karangai National Park and areasup there and it's such a lovely
(11:11):
place.
If you do live in Sydney andyou're anywhere near the
northern beaches, there's somereally nice mountain biking and
trekking and stuff in that area.
You don't have to go very farand, having lived in Sydney all
my life originally before wemoved to Perth of course- life
(11:32):
before children.
there's all these areas aroundDuffy's Forest and Terry Hills
and there's all these new walksto Middle Harbour from Bellrose
and all around the foreshore.
You can actually walk fromBondi to Manley now, which is a
humongous distance and a hugewall.
You're not going to do that allin one day, but there are walk
(11:55):
paths and things that haveappeared around the city that
didn't used to be there.
There's some fantastic hikingand trekking and mountain biking
still to be done.
As I say, places in those areasthat I'd never been, and I spent
a few years living in Bellroseand then, just over the hill
from where I was, there wasthese fantastic mountain biking
and walk trails that I didn'teven know existed.
(12:16):
So it's always worth having alook, and I tell you, all these
walk tracks and trails are allon Explorer, os Traveler, and
that's how some of them arefound.
So make sure you open up theapp and have a look, even if
you're at your local home, andyou may find something that you
didn't even know existed, likewe have on several occasions
looking at the bike tracks andwalk tracks nearest.
So, yeah, we went down to theRoyal National Park first and
(12:42):
that was gorgeous drive.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Just going through there I had no idea the drive
was so beautiful.
The road is just fringe withmassive towering trees that
connect to Canopy as you drivethrough and then you pop out at
Stanwell Topps, which mostpeople are aware.
That's a popular place for thehang gliders to go off the cliff
and there's nice views there.
I can't believe it was allcommercialised now and there's a
(13:05):
cafe and they make it hard foryou to pull over if you've got a
caravan or something.
But we did manage to find aspot by the road.
There was a little slot for oneor two people.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
There's about three bus bays or something yeah.
And that's where you've got togo if you're towing something.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And I don't know if anyone's noticed, but there's a
plaque to a guy who lost hislife hang gliding off that cliff
there.
So I have a look for that one.
But driving through that area,the point, as David mentioned
earlier, was to be able to goover the sea cliff bridge and if
you're like anyone, you seethese pictures on Instagram and
it looks gorgeous.
It does from the sky, but Idon't know how people manage to
(13:46):
get some of that footage.
There must have been agestrying to set up your drone.
Drive across.
Be good enough driver thatyou're not going to lose your
drone over the cliff at the edge.
We didn't, we just drove across.
So my view of going off the seacliff bridge is just a road and
a barrier.
It was okay.
We got the footage.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
There was something that we wanted to do anyway, and
going through the National Parkwas great, and it's not a fast
drive, it's not somewhere whereyou want to go when you're
trying to get somewhere in ahurry like we were, whilst we
say we were in a hurry, wedidn't leave first thing in the
morning and we didn't getthrough Sydney in the most
(14:29):
efficient manner.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
That's what I thought you were going to talk about.
We took a wrong turn literallystraight out of my suburb.
We didn't have the tracking onor anything and David turns
right and I wasn't payingattention.
I was probably still on myphone or something we should
have turned left.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
That was the first one.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We were going all the wrong way on difficult roads to
turn around, so we justadjusted our navigation plan and
we ended up because we'retrying to get to the other side
of Sydney, to get onto the RoyalNational Park, and that wasn't
the easiest place to navigate.
Just by the seat of yourparents I did have the navigator
telling us which way to go.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
We're also avoiding the tolls.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In the app you can adjust your height, weight,
length, measurement and alsoavoid tolls.
We had all that in In the end.
David really loved the plan wecame up with because it was
going through roads where heused to work his first job in
1986 or something or other, andit had all changed.
There are roads that youwouldn't normally go on you
would avoid in Sydney as yourmain route if you had to.
(15:35):
It was probably 10 o'clock inthe morning, weekdays and school
holidays.
Road traffic was actually quitefine.
It was just that we were onthese narrow roads in Sydney
that were once too late, thatthey've now squeezed in a third
lane without making anyadjustments.
Yeah, we were on.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Parramatta Road and we were going through Summerhill
and Ashfield.
We went all the way toCamperdown and we had a tour
through Sydney that was probablycompletely unnecessary, driving
down all the little backstreets around the back of the
airport to try and pop out ontothe Pacific Highway, or Princess
?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Highway, princess Highway, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
At the right spot so that we could get into the
National Park.
Wow, what a journey with thetrailer and everything else
going on.
It was an eye-openingexperience and it does really
show how.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, frost Country, bumpkins from Perth.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, it also showed how much they'd really closed in
a lot of the streets.
For me the roads are so narrowand it's because they've kind of
jammed more lanes in, wipingout small parking areas and
making it a lane.
It was quite tight, it wasquite interesting.
But it was good to go back toall these old horns and all
(16:45):
these old places where I used tohang out, even going to
boarding school at Summerhill,so I knew that area pretty well.
But yeah so Sydney was Gettingout of Sydney was the first
challenge.
The National Park, or theNashow, I've heard it called,
was quite a great drive, a bitof a slower trip.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
But we still didn't actually know where we were
going.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
No, we had no idea where we were going to camp.
We just thought let's head thisway, and one of the plans was
to head towards Braidwood.
So we only had Braidwood assort of a target and trying to
work out how we were going toget there.
The navigator and the routingplans took us a decent way.
We got onto the PrincessHighway just near Woollongong
(17:33):
and then we travelled on thehighway for a bit.
But where did we stay that day?
Was that the bridge day?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
That was that beautiful Endrick River Crossing
.
Yeah, the Endrick River Crossing, but that whole area as we came
through there, coming down themountain, it was just
spectacular and we'd seen a fewmarkers on the map as
possibilities.
There's some lookouts andthere's a lot of state forests
and there was tracks left andright, left and right the whole
way, and a few waterfalls.
But it was getting quite latefor us.
(17:59):
We weren't really sure what toexpect at any of these places,
so we were just driving slowlyand we eventually came to this
Endrick River Crossing, one thatwas a free camp right down
below our bridge and the wholearea had been spectacular.
And when we got there it wasn'tthe easiest spot to get into
(18:19):
because we wanted to get righton the river crossing, and how
it works is that it is.
You come in on a dirt track,you go past a big grassy field
where I guess, if you've got along van or you just want an
easy Stop, you can pull overthere.
But we could see this dirtgrassy feeling on all the one on
the right hand side when youcome in.
Anyway, we came in on thistrack field.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It was only a teeny weenie.
There's a little bit of dirt,no, the road down the hill.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
No, I.
Further up the front, when youpull in off the main road, up
where the bridge was, there'sthat whole area that originally
I've fixed.
Originally that's what Ithought what the rest area was.
And then we saw the track,followed the track around and
there is a little, one tinylittle spot for a car, but you
couldn't see the river.
And then we saw a track goingdown a ruttered hill, only Only
(19:07):
what 50 meters.
And then there's this beautifulcauseway causeway.
Yeah, so the causeway used tobe a road that went across the
river and it's obviously beenlong gone, washed out.
Then you can see some pillarsof an old bridge which are later
found out had been built in theearly 1800s, and then the
modern bridge which is abovethat a big concrete highway is
(19:30):
the spanning bridge.
So you do get a little bit ofroad noise there, not much, and
it's pretty much a back roadanyway.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
But it was a pretty speccy campsite it's.
It's been posted on our socialsand so you can check out that
it's endrick river, end RICKriver and it's on the braidwood
road.
Don't all go there, because itwon't be as nice if it's full of
people but.
We remember where the biggestproblem the biggest thing for us
(20:00):
, you know, because we pulled inthere pretty late.
The weather was looking a bitdubious, like it was like it, a
rain.
We'd just come out of heaps ofrains.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
We've seen rains everywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
It was really really hot.
When we got down there and justsetting up camp, we're sweating
.
It was so humid.
It didn't seem like it wasgonna.
We were wondering how manymozzies and how bad it was gonna
be.
But once we'd set up camp andwe'd got it all sorted, we were
camped on the causeway andliterally that was only I don't
know three inches above thewaterline, and Then it started
(20:32):
to bucket down with rain.
And you know, we're on a riverSome way down the river.
The river is flowing.
It had a reasonable flowalready and it's pouring and and
and.
Whilst that was, whilst that waswonderful and a great thing, we
had no idea how much catchmentarea that that river had for the
(20:53):
rain coming down.
We had no idea how much rain wewere having, because just in
that one spot we were out ofservice.
If we climbed up the hill wewould get service.
And so the decision was made weactually hadn't even turned on
our starling subscription,because I basically held it,
chancellor, that, while we're inSydney, because I knew we're
gonna be there for a bit longer,and so I thought, oh, we'd
(21:15):
better go and double check whatthe weather is doing.
So it was dark, it was like sixor seven o'clock and we thought
I better go and drive up thehill To turn on the satellite,
to turn on the starling if wewanted it, and also just to pick
up the weather.
So pick up a weather feed onthe BOEM app and see where what
the rain was really doing is.
So we did that.
We drove up the hill.
Was wasn't very far that we hadto drive, but we drove up the
(21:38):
hill, picked up the weather.
It said that the rain was gonnastop, so that gave us a little
bit of confidence.
We drove back down the hill tonotice that our camper basically
had water running under it, nota huge amount, but it was
running off the sides of the ofthe causeway and running
basically under the camper.
It was not of huge concern butit, you know, the river had
(22:02):
risen probably an inch.
As I said, we were two or threeinches away from the water
level.
That had risen about an inchand water was coming across From
the hillside down and acrossthe causeway.
But you know, we, we made it,we made a judgment call and we
decided that we should be okay,but just to be double safe, one
of the things we did do when webought the car back, and these
are things to think about whenyou, when you in areas when
(22:25):
you're a bit worried was weactually backed the trailer down
so that the so we backed thecar down so that the Hitch for
the camper was directly Lined up.
So the camp was already woundup a bit higher than the than
the Hitch receiver on the carwas, and so we backed the car
down so that so, basically, thetop of the hitch was sitting
(22:48):
right underneath the ball, or inour case, the da35 Pin was
sitting right underneath thehole.
So if we did have a problem, itwas the car was already in the
right place to hook up thecamper, uh, to pull it, to pull
it out of it, out of the way.
So that was just something thatyou know, think about those
sorts of things if you're in apossibly dubious situation as to
(23:10):
how you're going to get out asquick as possible.
So we did that.
And then, wow, we took somegreat photos, some great footage
.
We swam there.
It was a wonderful little spot,a nice place to camp if you're
in that area.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So, um, yeah, I suggest you have a look at that
the risk assessment of that wasbecause as soon as the rain
stopped, it literally alldrained away and we'll back to
the concrete base of thecauseway again and, having
checked the weather and you knowmore whether it was coming
through and we could see the waythe clouds were coming through,
um, we could see that it wasn'tgoing to be a place.
It was going to be inundatedquickly.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It was draining quite well and it did, pour again in
the middle of the night just tokeep us on our toes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
We did set up some um measuring sticks and things to
make sure.
Okay, it gets to this point,we're leaving.
If it gets to this point, we'redone.
Yeah, and you know we'recompletely safe and in the
morning we were rewarded withthe most beautiful mist coming
up.
And have a Look at some of thephotos, um on our instagram
account or our facebook, ifyou're following um, because
(24:10):
some of these special places wedo share there and, of course,
you can find them all in the appas places.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So then, so after that great camp, you know, we
got up and we pulled out, andthat was our very first time of
packing up a wet canter, becauseobviously we'd had three or
four spouts of decent rain, um,overnight, and Everything was
soaking wet and we'd never thenew, the new ultimate had never
been in the rain.
It was its first experience.
(24:38):
So it was our first experiencepacking it up wet and hoping
that it was all going to comeout okay At the other end.
And we didn't know, andobviously until we set up camp
the next night which was justout of shoulders or something,
is that what?
Chilton, chilton, chilton, um,but any.
So after we'd left um Enricriver, we did braid wood and
then we were thinking about howwe were going to Get across from
(25:01):
there, because you know, really, we could go down into Victoria
and follow the coast road.
Well, most of the navigationplans that we were asking out
around about the Bradwood areawas taking us back towards
Gulburn and then coming down theHume Highway, which we didn't
want to do that.
So we made it.
We made an executive decisionthat we'd force the auto routers
to go the way that we wanted,by driving to Kuma, knowing the
(25:24):
Kuma was sort of a steppingpoint of going over the Alpine
way or going around the bottomand still going towards Victoria
.
There's main roads going inboth of those directions.
You go west or south from thereand so we made the drive Down
(25:46):
into Kuma.
That was fairly.
We went through.
What was that?
That mountainous area that wewent through?
Was that Dewa?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, as we went past the Dewa National Park.
Yeah that was amazing.
There'd been fires throughthere.
Obviously, people who live inOvereast would know about it,
but for us that we'd only heardabout your stories and when we
actually saw, the extent ofdamage was incredible.
So tons and tons of dead woodMade for beautiful photography.
So, poor David, I kept stoppinglots of Wombats, lots wildlife.
(26:17):
But we knew that you can't gointo the campgrounds at the Dewa
, otherwise we would have comeacross actually to the road from
there.
I wanted to come across fromeast to west at that point, so
we had a look through there,yeah, and then driving to Kuma.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Dewa was a good drive , it was it was, it was gorgeous
, it was very nice.
Yeah, we had a good time inthere.
We saw a lot of the tracks anda lot of the tracks that we've
got published going off to theleft and right and things like
that.
As we're driving through going.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
I wish we had time, wish we could, but Seeing places
where I only know the name ofthem and can't visualize it new
Morella and all of that.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah, it was like where are these places?
And now we're, now we've got anidea.
And then, yeah, we headed intoKuma.
And what was that?
That must have been.
Was that Saturday?
It must have been.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Would this the next day?
It's day two, that has to havebeen Friday, well they had that
big fair on.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
You know, they had the street fair and a whole lot
of other stuff going on in Kuma.
They had a big market thinggoing on in the middle of town
and car show and a whole lot ofother stuff.
We spent a little bit of timethere grab some fuel and
groceries and punched in theauto router and said which way?
And it gave us two ways twoways across the Alpine ways,
which was one way through threadbow and the other way through
(27:36):
Tumor and so towards to meanyway I don't know we got to
know.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
So we went to Adam in a beer and then we turned up,
and then Said you were the onewith a note and then across, all
the way across to curion.
Well, that's a long way, butthat was the most spectacular
drive.
All the mountain ash had beenburnt through the fires and was
just astounding and goingThrough these twisty, turny,
(28:03):
windy roads.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, yeah, and it was a bit hard going on the car,
but the snowy mountains highwayup from from basically from
Adam, in a be up into the hills.
You know was fantastic.
Yeah, kaianda was the littleplace at the top of the hill
where you turn down on this linkroad so we turned on to this
(28:27):
link road which took us and andlink road is a road.
It's only open if it doesn'tyeah and only some.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
No.
No, it's closed all through thesummer ski season because it
goes, yeah, only open in thesummer.
So it was perfect timing for usto take that route across the
mountain.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well, it takes you up to Mount Selwyn.
So it's obviously not closedfrom in that bit but the bit
past that.
And so we saw things likethree-mile dam and you know the
hills and the, the ups and thedowns and the tumour to power
station and things like that.
We saw all of that one.
But there was it.
There was a few issues for usgoing through there and Another
(29:06):
few lessons learned.
I had just replaced the brakesbefore we left birth on the Land
Cruiser and I'd been havingsuspicions or Issues with the
trailer brakes a little bit.
I wasn't able to get thetrailer brakes set up a hundred
percent exactly the way I likeit, and you know whether that's
that's all just adjustment orplaying around new camper,
trailer, different brakes set up.
(29:27):
It's taking a bit of time toget used to.
Anyway, we're coming around allthese hills and anyone that's
driven up through their linkroad and all those roads.
It's really bloody hilly rightand it's steep down hills and
decent up hills and so I'mcoming down.
You know a fair bit on thebrakes.
I mean I'm using engine braking, putting it down in a second in
(29:50):
the automatic, you know, whichdoes a certain amount, but the
car seems to have a rev range.
It'll take it up to, you know,too fast, even in second gear,
going downhill, and I'm startingto hear this noise as we're
going past some of the some ofthe rock cliffs on the side.
You know you drive past thesethings and I hear this and and
(30:13):
had no idea really what it was.
I suspected that it was goingto be the brakes, and so I was a
bit suspicious about that.
But you know, going down someof these roads there's nowhere
to pull over, mind you, therewas no traffic.
I probably could have juststopped in the middle of the
road, but that's just notsomething I want to do on one of
these Little tight, turny roadswith cars that may or may not
come at you.
So we found a spot to pull overand, wow, the car brakes were
(30:34):
smoking hot.
They were really hot.
The noise was coming from thebrakes.
I can't exactly recall what partit's, thank you.
I can't exactly recall whatpart of it was, but I realized
that I didn't have enoughtrailer brake turned on.
The trailer brakes were cold,it like hadn't done anything,
and so the cars trying to pullup the camper and the and the
(30:56):
and the car, and, yeah, it justgot super hot.
So I spent a bit of timedialing in the right Brake
settings.
I found that if I put myparticular controller into boost
one, which Increases the brakecapacity for the same amount of
foot pressure.
I was able to get brakinghappening and and that made a
huge difference.
So again something, anotherlesson learned.
(31:17):
It always happens when you'rekind of in a bit of a hurry and
you're trying to get throughsomewhere and, as Michelle said,
she wanted To stop for photoseverywhere, which which is great
and lovely and all, but whenyou are on a bit of a timeline,
it sort of adds a bit ofpressure into your head and then
to start charging down thesehills and Jumping on the brakes
and get the car or hot andbothered.
(31:38):
You know you, you've got tostart thinking about it.
It was really steep.
It was a lovely drive.
We went through all of thatarea and when do we pop out?
We popped out at Cancoban.
We just miss Cancoban.
I think we zoomed aroundCancoban, yeah, and then we had
it across to the To Aubrey.
(31:58):
Did we go into all?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
but we did know below would don't go.
So it was the Australia Dayweekend, so this was the Friday
still, you see, and we were abit nervous about where we were
going to get to camp.
Yeah do you remember?
And there's a lot of so manybeautiful camps all through.
The snow is there.
That's just spectacular andit's a shame we didn't have the
(32:19):
time.
There's a lot of nice huts, alot of walking tracks and we
could see people really enjoyingthemselves and the weather was
absolutely Gorgeous.
But we knew we needed to keeptraveling on and I had a plan
that if we got down to AubreyWodonga area we would be able to
find some camps along theriverfront, of course, on
(32:40):
Australia Day, who else?
wouldn't want to do that, Iwonder.
That's right, it was I'mtelling David yes, just keep
going.
I can see all these mountains.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
The reason why there was a show in Cooma was on the
Friday was.
That was the 25th, it wasAustralia Day.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Australia Day right.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
So so this is Saturday the 26th and yeah, we
went past all these greatcampsites on the Murray, because
where we appeared on the Murray, where was that?
Was that in Tintildara orwhatever it's called, I don't
know whatever it's called.
We appeared on the Murray quitelong.
We traveled along it for awhile.
Here we go, and, yeah, therewas a heap of campsites we went
(33:16):
past, but they were all just alittle bit time short.
You know it was lunchtime, youknow one o'clock in the
afternoon, two o'clock in theafternoon.
It didn't actually, you know,make a huge amount of sense for
us to have stopped at that pointin time.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Well, come on tell the truth, it was full of jet
skiers and young people.
Some of them set up along theriver.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Tallengatta and all of that area.
It was full.
Those camps that was, theearlier ones, were okay.
It was time limited.
By the time we got further tothe three and four or four
o'clock time frame we werearound Tallengatta and all of
that area and, yeah, those campswere Chocoblock pool.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
There was jet skiers, water skiers, there was
hundreds of people and there wasmusic and All the things that
we didn't really aspire to.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
So we continued on and we basically got into
Wodonga.
We did go into Wodonga.
We went through Wodonga to pickup the highway, to pick up the
hum.
And that's when we realisedfrom there we realised we were
going to hit the hum.
And we had to do the humBasically to get to Melbourne
the next day or to Geelong thenext day, because the boat was
(34:24):
leaving on the Saturday night,the Saturday evening the.
Saturday night, and so this wasSaturday.
This was Friday night and we'dcome from Coomer all the way to
here, so we decided to try andlook for a camp inland along the
Hume Highway, somewhere awayfrom where all the people are
(34:45):
going to go.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
There's tons of rest areas marked on the maps, but
these rest areas really are justhighway rest areas parking bays
.
There used to be camps.
Some of the older data thatwe've got shows them as being
camps, but the upgrades over theyears to these highways
obliterated all that camping,even in some of the little state
(35:06):
forest areas that you get to,and all these facilities are tar
based and they've goteverything you know the toilets,
and this is all of that.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Whilst they're great for a roadside stop, they're not
so great for camping.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
So we found Chilton was marked.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Well, it was actually the first free camp marker that
we found in the area.
After doing a lookup at Wadongaduring camps within the 50Ks of
that area, using the nearbysearch in the place page, we
found Tuan Campground, which wasjust in a little state forest
(35:41):
in the Chilton.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Mount Pilate National .
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Park Right Chilton Mount Pilate National Park.
It's just a little bit north ofChilton.
We were coming in obviously abit late.
The sun wasn't setting until8.30 or 9 o'clock, this funny
daylight saving time they haveover on this side of the country
where the sun never seems toset.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Messes up my body.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Messes up all of us because we're not used to it.
So we went into Chilton andwhat an awesome little town.
I mean I don't say that wordvery often because I don't
particularly like that word.
It's like a throwback to the50s, 40s and 50s and stuff the
whole town.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
We knew we had to come back and look at this place
, but we had to drive through itbut it was just eye-poppingly
gorgeous.
Yeah, it was so old school.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
And all the current businesses are all working in
these really historic littlebusiness places and stuff.
It was spectacular.
It was a great find you turnonto the cobblestone main street
and there's even like places topipe your horses and God knows
whatever else.
It was a really great place andwe drove through it fairly
quick because we were stilltargeting the National Park
which was just north of town.
(36:55):
So we headed up into theNational Park and we got a
campsite which was perfect.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Well, there was someone in the big, big big
campground and it's a reallytiny little campground and,
honestly, with them there, if wecamped in there as well, it
would have been a little bit.
Both of us would have lost oursense of privacy.
So there's tons of littletracks around and there was a
little bay just across fromthere, so we decided that it
wasn't doing anything wrong tojust pop over there.
(37:21):
It's like a junction of sometracks.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, it was a track junction and there was a bit of
a verge on the side of it, so wejust pulled into there and
we've got a pretty smallfootprint with this, so nothing
goes into the ground other thanthe wheels, the wheels and the
three-mil jack stands.
Anyway.
So we decided to pull in there,just outside the campground
area, and luckily for us we did,because after we'd set up about
(37:44):
three more cars arrived, atleast there, I think Just little
cars with tents and stuff,people, just fairly easy camping
and a little camp, a camper vanthing.
And so luckily we did camp justup the hill a little bit because
we didn't have to deal with allof that happening.
Anyway, we had a great campthere.
That was quite a nice night.
And then we decided we had togo back to Chilton and have a
(38:08):
bit of a tour around town.
So we got out and took somephotos and walked around and
bought some jewellery at thejewellery shop for Michelle and
what a fantastic little place.
It's well worth a stop in thatarea if you're into historical
stuff and sort of a throwback intown, a throwback in time.
Not as much as going to what'sthat place in Victoria, the old
(38:35):
town, ballarat.
It's not like going there, butit was pretty nice.
It was a very nice place to go,very low key, and so then from
there it was basically just atar blast down the Hume Highway.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, but let's comment that Hume Highway.
We were actually quite nervousabout getting into Melbourne
over the other side, to Geelong,when we're first mapping out
this trip, because it's beenyears since we've come to this
part of Australia and ourexperience in the past has been
you can get really congested.
(39:09):
And this Hume Highway gettingto Geelong you just plonked in
the point that we were going tousing the place for the Spirit
of Tasmania Terminal as ourdestination and we just hit
Navigate Go and it was justsmooth sailing the whole way
through.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Oh yeah, it was amazing.
It's been forever since I'vedriven in the outskirts of
Melbourne, where some of thesenew link roads and these outer
hub roads are running around,and when we came down the
highway and there wasn't thatmuch traffic.
Really, even that was theAustralia Day Long Weekend it
(39:46):
was the middle of it it was theSaturday.
But then you get down towhatever that crossroad number
is I can't even remember what itis the M80.
And it's like four lanes ormore in each direction of
traffic.
There was traffic, let me tellyou.
(40:08):
There was traffic, but nothingwas very slow.
We didn't get slowed up toomuch.
Those outer ring roads andstuff, they do seem to allow you
to get around the edges ofMelbourne quite well.
So, yeah, we charged throughthere and we got down to Geelong
.
I can't remember exactly whattime, it was like four or five
o'clock in the afternoon.
(40:29):
Yeah, it was about four or fiveo'clock in the afternoon.
We had a couple of hours tokill.
We had to be at the boat rampat nine o'clock or something and
9.30 for an 11.30 departure or10 o'clock for an 11.30
departure or something.
We were just able to pull up ata little park down there and
watch the people fishing andhave a meal out of the back of
the car while we waited for theferry to leave.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
We could actually see the ferry so for some reason it
doesn't park itself at theterminal before departure.
It was over on the other sideof the bay and the locals doing
fishing were telling us how itall worked and we were able to
see when the boat came acrossand we got some nice footage of
it coming across right in frontof us.
And then we thought, oh well,it's time to go now.
And there was one other caravanthat parked alongside us and
(41:17):
had a check.
He was also going on the sameferry with respect to him.
It was very easy.
It was all just smooth sailing,yeah it was all very easy.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
We went in through the check-in on the boat.
It took a little bit of walls,a bit of marshalling.
Obviously there's a biosecuritycheck, checking your fruit and
veg and all that sort of stuffand then a few sit in an acute
for a little while waiting forthe commercial loads to go in.
All the seemingly hundreds offreight trucks that the trucks
(41:51):
don't, because the trucks havedropped off just the trailers
all at the wharf and they usethese little shuttle trucks,
that sort of like.
What am I thinking of?
I don't know the things thatlift.
Yeah, for forklift, like littleforklifts, and they drive all
these truck with these trailerson.
That takes a little bit of time.
(42:12):
But then, yeah, we drovestraight in Drive under a little
boom thing.
Looks like it's too low thatyou're not going to fit under.
And you do fit under, navigatedour way into the boat and and
the guys who guide you in.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Oh yeah, they guide you in with like a few
millimeters.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
And might you know, turn the wheel sharp here and
then turn it sharp the other wayso that you can get it, so that
the doors will allow you toopen and things like that.
They've got it so well, suss,you know, turn full lock here
and you go about three inchesand then he says, turn full lock
the other way and you go aboutan inch and a half and that
means that the doors can bothopen and the mirrors don't hit
anything can.
Yeah, but they're pretty goodat they're pretty good at their
(42:48):
job, these guys that park thecars in the boat.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I took some footage.
I've made a little clip of thewhole process of going on to the
Very and how will that get done?
So that's on our socials too.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, and so we had a gin, and then we decided to
find our recliner lounges andand we proceeded to try to sleep
our way to Tasmania.
Luckily for us, we were kind ofin the back row of the boat,
was a 28 and 29 or something.
And, yeah, we were right at theglass so we could see out the
(43:22):
back the whole way.
See, not that, not that youcould see much because it was
pitch black and it was nighttime, but certainly as you are going
through the bay and all thatsort of stuff, you could see the
lights all around the place.
It took ages to get throughPort Phillip Bay.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, it's about two hours to get out.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah to get out, just to get out into the thing and
get through the rip there, which?
Was probably the roughest partand then across Bass Strait and
it was a relatively easy sale.
I slept like a log for a fewhours and Michelle didn't.
I saw we each had a differentexperience there, but we we
noise cancelling headphones areperfect noise cancelling
(44:01):
headphones are perfect.
Yes, I would certainlyrecommend that you have a set of
noise cancelling the boatitself was the constant humming,
just like on a plane, while youwere.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Even for that, people were really good in the
reclining area, there was not aproblem at all.
I didn't hear a single personeven cough, although you remind
me that's cause I had my noisecancelling.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yes, you had noise cancelling headphones on.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
I was like how good it was, but I just couldn't
sleep.
There was too much light.
They they leave these littlenight lights on and they'll
brighten your eye, and then, ofcourse, I'm looking out the
window.
I would have preferred to nothave the distraction of that,
because I was looking at all thelights and wanting to look at
the ocean and Figure out what Iwas feeling versus what I was
(44:40):
seeing.
So they had lights out the backof the boat.
I could see the wash the wholetime.
There was hardly any swell.
We actually had a very smoothsailing across and and Yep, yeah
, I looked.
The 1130 departure was not myfirst choice, but it actually
worked out really well, becausethe time that you land in
Devonport is all very, all, verypleasant you have.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
All the businesses are open and all that.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, it's about nine .
Whatever you have breakfast onthe boat.
You can look out the window soyou can actually get a proper
night's sleep.
You, by the time you've putyour boat yet You've gone
through the queue and and andgot on to the boat, you know
that you're ready for sleep.
You go straight to bed and wakeup.
So you're not really missingmuch in your Interruption to
(45:26):
sleep, except for, like me, Ididn't sleep.
Yeah sort of bombed out thenext day, but you slept, which
was good.
You're the driver.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
I slept, yeah.
So there we are.
We've made it to the spirit ofTasmania.
So our journey of the creationof the EO topo 2024 which which
kind of happened, sort of byaccident, but it was well, well
timed and well positioned andand it's gone out relatively
painlessly that I can say nowthat we're a couple of weeks
(45:56):
past that.
But we've given you an updateon that, that.
We've talked about how we gotto Tasmania and so you know,
from here We'll leave you untilthe next episode when we'll
start our journey aroundTasmania.
So thanks for listening.
Make sure you subscribe to ourchannels, keep an eye on all of
our socials.
(46:16):
Michelle is doing a fair bit ofwork to make sure that we
publish stuff in there every dayor every other couple of days.
So keep an eye out and look outfor things that are going on,
and we'll catch you on the nextepisode.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah.
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