Our 2017 Trip - A New Adventure

Whilst we always knew we would be selling our caravan I was so choked up as it drove off down the road to a new life with a new family.  We made sure the boys weren’t with us that day, we both thought they would find it too hard.  While we hadn’t used Cool George a lot since the big trip it still felt like we had lost a part of us, but we assumed this would pass in time.  After all we had both had the vast majority of our lives without a caravan surely we could return to this state.

Half a year on we were still missing Cool George and the adventure that caravaning had brought to our family.  We knew we couldn’t keep a caravan as big as George at our home and now that we were more experienced we also realised that unless we were doing such a big adventure we didn’t need a caravan that big either.  And so it started, a tiny seed of an idea that took a hold in our brains and grew.  In March 2017 we bought a second hand 14 foot Jayco Swan Camper trailer.  When asked what we should call our new caravan the boys immediately said Cool George 2, although David and I called it our escape pod and all of us often call her Swannie.  George 2 was perfect.  It filled the void that had developed in our lives and could still fit in the driveway of our house.  Our new caravan came home to our house and we began dreaming of our new adventures.

Our new baby, smaller, lighter, easier to store, easier to tow and an outback model meaning this one can go places George 1 couldn’t.

 

We immediately began planning some shakedown trips – off we went to Pambula on the NSW coast for the Easter long weekend.  Oh we were so confident in our caravanning abilities now.  We filled our new baby with the essentials and happily towed her off down to the sea.  OK so maybe caravanning is a bit like a muscle, when you don’t do it for some time you get out of practice.  Sure enough we arrived at our powered site and whilst we had been oh so smart to connect the power and prechill the fridge, we had both forgotten to pick up the power cord from the front lawn.  Fortunately Pambula/Merimbula are well supplied with hardware shops.

We checked out how our new baby survived in the cold – this time taking her to Cowra for the June long weekend.  Again we were so clever, we bought the kids new big sleeping bags and remembered to swap out the summer weight doona planning to put in the winter weight doona for David and I.  Helps though if you remember to bring said doona and don’t leave it sitting near the front door. But none of this mattered, we had our new baby and with it we could plan more amazing travels.

   

Whilst we love our home and family and friends, we were so happy travelling, we were the best our family could be facing new challenges and tackling new adventures. And so the idea for our next trip began to evolve.  I had moved from being permanent public servant to a contractor, David had not taken leave in 2016 due to family commitments. So an idea developed, what if at the end of my contract we took all his leave and went to Uluru.  We hadn’t been there with the kids and having created travel focused kids, they kept suggesting that we should go there one day.  But you cant drive straight across Australia, so we would have to go up or down, or around.  And so the idea for a seven week caravanning holiday to Uluru via central Queensland, Boodjamulla National Park, and then straight down the middle came into being. 

The date of our departure was decided by the end of my original contract (although I had subsequently been asked to stay on and was happy to do so but as long as we could still have our family adventure) and the end of the soccer season.  We couldn’t take a quarter of the team and the coach away before the end of the season.  So on Saturday the 16 of September we took our George 2 on the road (hoping that we had neither forgotten anything serious nor that we had massively overpacked like we had with our first caravan).

Our first two stops were all about family again.  We headed straight up the highway to visit David’s sister and her kids in Newcastle.  We didn’t even pop our new baby up, instead staying with them.  After a weekend in Newcastle it was off to Yamba again to see David’s Aunt and Uncle.

Yamba

The lovely waterside location of the Blue Dolphin Holiday Resort

We stayed just the 2 nights in a different caravan park which was located in the centre of Yamba on the water, the Blue Dolphin.  The views were great and the facilities excellent although it was a bit more pricey than we had expected even considering it was Queensland school holidays.

We met David’s Aunt and Uncle at the Yamba Sports and Leisure Club.  The food was fairly ordinary, but the kids activities were brilliant.  There was the usual small play area for little kids, but this club also had bowling, rock wall climbing and minigolf.  The boys were in club heaven.

Roma

The Big Rig at night

 We set of the next day and had a quick overnight stop at Goondiwindi (we were going to take the boys on the cotton tour but it was booked out so settled for a brekkie in town and a peruse of the main street).  We then drove up to Roma – with only 7 weeks up our sleeves this trip is much more about the driving and then spending a bit of time at specific destinations, less about the delightful meandering exploration of our first trip.  We only stayed the one night in Roma but we stayed in the Big Rig Van Park so we could take in the Big Rig Show.

OK, it seems that the boys have lost their posing for photo muscles, hopefully their smiles will improve with practice

 

The Big Rig Show was only 30 odd minutes and told the story of the discovery of oil and gas in the nearby region and the impact on the development of Roma.  It did this through a movie played on a large back screen and then lighting of a typical oil drilling camp, and with the inclusion of a small and then the big rig.  The Big Rig Website so eloquently says: 

"All in all, you will depart with a fair understanding of oil drilling activated in the Roma area, particularly during the oil boom era of the late 1920's".

I think this is entirely accurate (especially as we were only promised a fair understanding).  However, in this understanding we also came to learn that they only found gas (and some oil) trying to find water.  They didn't know what to do with the gas in the first instance (in fact they just let it escape from the drill site for 5 years before deciding to use it to power lights in Roma - the gas ran out 11 days after they finished building the street lights).  One of the next attempts to drill for gas, they left some of the equipment too close to the drill site and set the gas on fire - apparently it was so bright that it looked like daylight 24/7 until they brought in someone from overseas to cap the escaping gas.  

Overall though we had an enjoyable and educational evening and for the grand price of $20 per family it was good value.

 

 

Yep you can see here where they set the gas alight and it turned night into day.  It was so famous that this image is from a postcard from back then.