2012 Trip Starts May 17th, 2012 Top Foreword The first leg of my trip will be from my home in Mornington Victoria to Hervey Bay in Queensland and will take about a week. Total distance:2431km I'm using my little Mercedes Sprinter motorhome for the trip and you will find I refer to him as 'Yemmy' - it comes from his number plate that is YEM 471. The trip will take me into outback Western Queensland, up to the tip of Cape York, across the top to Darwin, down through the Centre to Adelaide and back home by the end of September. I hope you will travel with me through this diary. Feel free to comment by email: lionel@caravanning-oz.com Yemmy ready to start the trip - he's had his service and oil-change and is all primed for our next adventure. Clich for the date 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 June 5 Go to June 2012 May 17th - Day one of my 2012 adventure I left homme at about 10.30 - a bit later than I'd hoped but who cared. I was off and the open road beckoned. I was aiming for Genoa as a night stop as there a great free stop there and would put me in easy reach of Roy and Narooma tomorrow. Stopping along the way for plently of photos for the diary and also for the new book I'm writing delayed me a bit more so I finished up diving in the dark for a bit in twisty hilly country but I arrived at the campground by just after 6pm having covered about 500km. It was a glorious day with bright sun in a cloudless blue sky and it felt great to be on the road again. It was surprising that there was good Internet reception at Genoa but I was too tired to make sense of this page so I put it off till next day and went to bed and read my Kindle. Here are some of the pics I took L to R from the top. I took the ridge road from Lang Lang to Drouin despite Tom (Tom Tom GPS) telling me otherwise and the views on each side of the road are fantastic. I didn't go in the Musical Village this time although it's worth as visit.The Latrobe Valley has a number of power stations like this one. Lake Gutheridge at Sale is a gem usually passed by travellers although it's only a stone's throw from the Main Street. The Nicholson River is just one of the lovely rivers feeding the Gippsland Lakes.The views of Lakes Entrance are great but you have to heading West to use the lookouts. 1 I'll do better with spacing and labelling I promise - just a bit rusty at the moment! ( Return to top) May 18th It was cold at Genoa where I overnighted - 4.5C in the van this morning. It continued cold as I drove through thick fog interspersed with bright sunshine. As I passed a sign that said Bega Valley Scenic Lookout I couldn't see my nose in front of my face - never ming the Bega Valley. It was a shame as it's lovely country through there. I arrived here at Narooma about 11am and friend Roy was waiting for me. I'd drained my water talk on the way as I'd filled up from a hose that had been in the sun and I forgot to let it run till the bad taste had gone and so I refilled it here at East's Big Four. The lady in the office was kind and knocked $10 off the bill as I was on my own - you can be luchy sometimes. We drove up to Batemans Bay for lunch at the Soldiers Club and on the way back called in to Roy's friends who own an Avondale caravan imported from the UK. They love it and I'm not surprised as it is easily the best designed van I've seen and I've seen many vans. Beside being so very practical it's also very light - it only weighs about 1,300kg and it's a 20' tandem. Tonight we dined at an Italian restaurant owned by friends of Roy's - venison in a lovely sauce followed by magnificent ice cream concoction and then rounded off with liqueur coffees. Did I mention the red wine? Whistling Duck Cab Sav in honour of Yemmy's new duck or goose decals! Yemmy's overnighter at Genoa - It was cold - 4.5 degrees in the van this morning This is where he is tonight - East's Big 4 park at Narooma. They were kind and knocked off $10 because I'm on my own. These were all pictures of Narooma - Roy calls it the Jewel of the South Coast asd I can see why It was a really great day and I'll be sorry to leave in the morning - but I must if I hope to be in Maryborough, Qld., by Wednesday of next week ( Return to top) May 19th Disaster struck today with the pictures! The selector for manual or automatic got moved to manual and all the pics were out of focus. Murphy? I'll put a couple in to show what might have been! Great day weatherwise and when I got to Nowra I gaveAlan and Deirdrie a ring as I knew they were at Shoalhaven Heads. Yes - the kettle was on and a short detour saw me visiting them for a while. I then took Tom's advice and used a lovely scenic drive before getting back to the main road. I ignored him though when he wanted me to turn off and head for the Hume Freeway. I wanted a couple of pics of the wondrerful view towards Wollongong - not knowing they would be useless. Finally I got on to the M7 and was soon at Richmond without having to go through Sydney. The free overnight parking at the Richmond Club isn't quite free as you have to fork out a princely $4 and join the Club but it's a great facility and I'll get photos in the morning. I went over to the club and had a lovely pork roast in the bistro for just $14. Ulladulla - lovely name Ulladulla again View from the top of Mt Ouselly ( Return to top) May 20th There were only two shower/toilets at Richmond so I didn't bother using them this morning but made do with a good wash - it was pretty darn cold anyway! I took some pics and hopefully they will be better than yesterday's effort. It was a nice day for travelling - mostly on 110k/ph motorways so the km sped by very quickly. Around mid-morning I realised I wasn't far from ACC friends Ian and Cheryl Sherwood so I found their phone number and gave them a buzz. Ian was delighted when I asked if the kettle was on and said come on down. They live at Swan Bay and I stayed with them a few years back. It was great catching up and the bonus was that Ian found my missing hearing aid under the fire extenguiser! I thought I'd looked there but obviously didn't. I'd intended overnighting in the Coopernook State Forest but hadn't printed out the directions. I couldn't find it without firing up the computer so settled for a trip out to the coast to look at Harrington and then a bit further north I found a nice spacious rest area. It's a bit near the road but the noise isn't bothering me. The 'Wanderest" provides hardstanding parking for RVs for just the $4 joining fee that. There's power if you want it for a small fee and there are showers and toilets (just two) Yemmy's spot for the night There's heaps of room in this great facility - well done the Richmond Club Every where I go I see lovely autumn colours - this was in the RV park The beautiful wide Hawkesbury River The F3 Freeway crosses the Hawkesbuy on this huge bridge ( Return to top) May 21st The day started with a pleasant conversation with Jeff - a fellow camper from Tasmania. He remembered reading, 'Pigs Go Camping' a blog I wrote for Caravan World On-line. I was surprised when I woke up to discover a Vanette had parked right next to me. I had thought of staying at Woody Head National Park. It's nice and has beach access - Vi and I stayed there a few times in the past. When I found they wanted $21 for an unpowered place to park I quickly changed my mind. What is it that makes NSW so greedy when it comes to visiting their National Parks - I thought they belonged to the people but I'm begining to think it's just a source of Government revenue! I'm now camped in a rest area at New Italy - an interesting place with quite a story to tell of the Italian Settlers who came here and made a new life for themselves. I deviated from the highway to re-visit the lovely little 'Scottish' town of McLean and just had to go up to the lookout for the glorious views. My small gifs don't do the views justice but I have the full resolution copies on file. Clockwise from top left: Yemmy had a neighbor this morning, oyster farming in the lovely Nambucca River, ditto. Indian Temple at Woolgoolga, the Big Banana at Coffs. views from the lookout at McLean and reflections in the beautiful Clarance River. (Return to top) May 22nd What started as a nice day quickly turned sour. Yemmy wouldn't come out of Park unless over-riding the solenoid with a screwdriver and when he did he would only go in a low gear - about 30k/ph max.I rang the NRMA and told them the problem. There was a communications breakdown as the service man came with just a ute and explained he'd have to go back for the truck. When he arrived back poor Yemmy was winched up on the the tilt truck and we took him to an automatic transmission place in Ballina. The two fellows there were quite helpful but their diagnostics showed that the module was at fault. We put in a new module in November so they said to take it to a Mercedes dealer and try to get a new one on Warranty. They had reset some codes so Yemmy was driveable again. They only charged me $30 for their time plus some trannie oil and a tail-light globe. The Mercedes dealer was more than 100km away on the Gold Coast so I set off with some trepidation hoping to get there OK. The dealership turned out to be just for cars and they sent me to a place in Southport who said they were too busy to look at it this week! What to do? I decided to try to get the Hervey Bay and then try to sort it out after the Apex 40 turn. My friend Ray was a mechanic and owns a Mercedes so he may be able to help - I stay with them at Pialba next week. I didn't have access to the camera while Yemmy was on the truck so couldn't get shots of him up there. I did get some pics of the New Italy complex before I hit the road this morning. There's only 200km to go to reach Hervey Bay tomorrow so fingers crossed! The first four pictures were all taken at New Italy. The story is that a group of Italians were duped into sailing for New Zealand to start a new life but they were dogged with disaster - a bit like me today. Some died at sea and conditions in New Zealand were bad so they came on to Australia and made a new life for themselves here at what became known as New Italy. I guess everyone knows the last picture is of one of the three Glasshouse Mountains.