Hi Everyone,
We are currently on the road and looking for pointers on how to attack NT! PLus other pointers for a year on the road
Brief intro: We are a
young family with a 20 month old. We have packed up the house and are off. My wife is a midwife and the bread winner! Due to the demand to for nurses/midwives at hospitals outside the citys there is plenty of work out there, and they also provide us with accommodation! We have done quite a few other contracts but this time I will be full time dad. We have done a good chunk of the eastern half of Qld, including
cape york solo. Lived (~8months each) in
Cairns and Biloela, worked (<2months) in
Ayr,
Roma,
Emerald,
Innisfail and currently we are in
Gladstone till early March.
We will be relying on the work to guide us around, rough plan is couple of months in qld, 2-3 months NT then remainder WA. With surprises in between!
Equip: We have a 2005 100 series landcruiser 1HZ (winch, uhf, awning, 2" lift, muddies) and 6man tent, esky, gas cooker.... As the bulk of our stays will be in hospital accomm we can get by with a tent for short trips away and stays to the next stop.
Question time
First is we were planning to work through NT but the jobs arent there at the moment (off to a good start!), we may stay in qld longer -
Longreach or Mt isa would get us west. So we are thinking it might be best to spend a few weeks to holiday NT then head over to WA for the rest of the year working. So, what would be some rough pointers for us and routes. We want to head to Alice then north to
darwin (to avoid the wet) then we'll be at the top of WA to carry on working down to
perth. We did want to go to
birdsville and outthe desert but I think going solo and with a
young daughter it would be to risky,
Plenty highway might be better.
Is 2 weeks enough to see NT (assuming starting at the
NT/Qld border)? We'd love more of course but the $$ will control that. I may even have to put the boots on and get working! What are the main sights and time roug time frames. I have plenty of searching explroz to do I know!!
Sub questions
If we do have to have longer stays in some
places, is a camper trailer the way to go. The wife isnt a fan of the setup that could be involved as on the way up she spotted a pop out type caravan at a
rest stop while we were on the park benchs (i was ok with that). Plus we wanted avoid towing as the cruiser is turboless, and also the 4wding aspects.
Im thinking campers are the way to go $wise plus weight and better 4wding, please throw any opinions at me! And i assume setup would be on par with a tent, but more luxurious.
Sub 2
EOTracks and spot and other GPS gizmos
I have seen HEMA now have an App for mobiles, what are some pros cons for GPS gear. As we wont be going super remote, we wont need the flashest gear but I want to have some good maps (currenly paper) that are easy to use and not to complicated (i can get that later) Also link phone to laptop to plan routes and review after etc. Also Id like to keep track of where we have been. Can EOtracks been turned off when are staying in town and switched on when we hit the dirt? Also we have a blog setup for family and friends to know what were up to (some still dont get it and think we're mad!!) and Id like a GPS link to show on a map.
Ok thats our rough story and plan. Any suggestions, advice, opinions welcome! or any things we can change or could have done better