Whyalla to Yowie Bay - 9 to 12 October

Waikerie

The drive from Whyalla was mostly along the Mighty Murray River, Australia's largest river 2,508 kms long.

There are normally many excellent free camps where you can enjoy being camped on the waters edge looking out over this great river.

The recent weather changed all this with the river being in flood between November 2022 and February 2023 and then again in July and August this year.

Most of the really good camps have been destroyed and are being restored. We like to camp in Mildura at the Buronga Discovery Caravan Park, but this is totally closed due to these floods since February!

In Waikerie the council has opened a temporary free RV park at their painted silos. This was quite an amazing place to camp with the silos just there.

They are illuminated all night

Lake Benanee

We've stopped at this site many times before, but not stayed overnight, so we thought we would this trip.

We've been here when the lake was dry, but after all the rain this year it's very full and a lovely place to camp.

Darlington Point

This is a very small quaint town on the Murrumbidgee River. The pub there offers free camping or a fee of $10 if you use their toilets / showers. We elected to pay the $10 and use their toilets. Big spenders aren't we?

This is the best laid out free pub camp we've ever seen, and much better than some paid camp sites. They offer drive-through gravel sites which are well spaced with plenty of room between them and treed for privacy.

We enjoyed a great pub dinner there as well taking half of it back with us for lunch the next day.

All this for no cost if you wanted

We went via Junee so we could go to the Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory, a favourite of ours.

Inside the Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory

It all started in 1998 when they bought an old flour mill that had been abandoned for 30 years to make licorice. It's certainly grown since then and makes the best licorice and chocolate.  Of course we had mornos  there, and spent quite a bit of time stocking up on goodies for Rod and Robyn, Mel, and of course us.

Gunning

Our last night was at Gunning Showground, a free camp that we've used a lot either leaving or coming back to Sydney. It's just the right distance from home. Staying here for a night allows us to drive the last 238 kms home with ease and avoid the rush hour traffic in Sydney, as well as the school zones!  To get the caravan into it's parking spot at home, we need to reverse down the street.  So we have to make sure we get home before school pickup, as the parents (generally the Mums) come racing from the school into our street and then are faced with our reversing issues.

Trip Trivia

There are so many things you need for a long trip, and trying to find a home for everything is hard with such limited space.  We try to keep to a rule that most things need to have more than one use, and if anything new goes in, something else must come out.  This year we invested in a roof rack basket for the car, and a waterproof bag which sits inside.  This was such a great idea we wonder why we'd never done it before.  It kept inside the boot of the car tidy and with only the absolute essentials:  Beer, the Waeco for the beer, camping table, chairs, and of course 'Bailey's mat'.  It reminds us of our great travelling mate, but mostly because it's padded, and the perfect size to lay on underneath the car or van if anything needs doing, and it stops the table from being scratched.

Until we put the van and car through a drive through car wash in Wudinna SA, the bag and bikes were absolutely covered in bugs. 

There must have been excess flying around this year, because everyone's cars and vans looked the same.

Highlights of this trip were:

Meeting up with Chuck and Sue in Darwin. It was certainly different and lots of fun sharing our adventures. We've not done long distance travelling with friends before.

Catching up with Merv and Jen in Darwin. Many laughs were had with this lovely couple.

Lake Argyle Resort with Alexis flying in for 4 nights with us.

The 4 of us (and our caravans) camping at Alexis' house in Broome. Now that was really special, and we all had a great time.

Goombaragin - always special.

Pender Bay Escape. We expected this to be special and it certainly lived up to our expectations. It was really fantastic and we'll definitely be back.

Ningaloo Station as always, but made extra special having Rod and Robyn join us all there.

Lowlights of this trip were:

The constant wind in WA and SA coming home. We definitely had more wind that on previous trips.

The cold weather once we left the tropics. It was bitterly cold down south due to the westerly winds direct from Antarctica.

Our roads being in poor condition. Normally it's only Queensland roads that are bad. But most roads were suffering due to the amount of rain damage. WA roads were the best as always.

And one last note: 

When you spend so many hours in the car together we talk about all sorts of things, and often we don't talk at all.  But each trip there's always one topic that constantly comes up.  What was the conversation of 2023? 

I bet you couldn't guess it was the DC to DC charger.  Yep, many hours were spent discussing this vital piece of equipment and how it was performing.  Not just the charger, but the phone app and the best way to read the info from the gizmo inside the van. So what is a DC to DC charger?  It takes 12 volts from the car and correctly charges a 12 volt battery in the caravan. Was a DC to DC charger more interesting that the tyre conversation of 2021?  I'll let you decide :) Jayne 

As this is our last entry, you may find the trip stats interesting.