Around Australia in 7 weeks

I forgot to put our blog on...

http://crazycamperleeing.blogspot.com

have some photos/journal thing happening, havent quite caught up as broadband connectivity pretty limited in a lot of area of WA and NT.

Hi Crazycamperleeing

7 weeks is incredibly fast around this country. Glad you enjoyed yourself, and I agree about Australia being a beautiful place.

Cheers

But did you see much!!!! 448.98 Ks every day on average. Feel sorry for you!!!

Gee Crazy, last year we did almost 22,000 on a sort of three quarter lap. We moved a lot faster on the last half to get home in time, and once on the Eyre Highway and across the nullarbor it had all been done before, so it was just straight home. We averaged 148 kms per day over 148 days (five months).

Motherhen

Hi crazycomperleeing, glad you had a great time, we have a lot of time on our hands being retired but we still haven't done the trip around oz, you have done it and good on you. At least you know what it is all about.

Cheers

Deanna.

Good on ya for getting out there and doing it. Yes it is very fast and you would have missed a heap but we all don't have the time to be able to do it in 8-12months. Some of us and i assume you work for a living and can only have limited holidays or funds. I am heading to Tassie at the end of the year. Every body says you need 8 weeks to see it well, i only have 3 weeks so will do my best to see as much as i can. The reason I'm not going longer is because the kids only have 6 weeks holidays.

Excellent
Who cares how long it took you, it was your trip not theirs.
Everyone is different and I am sure things we seen on our way around may not be of interest to everyone else and vica versa. Basically we are all different animals. We often saw people arriving at a van park (eg: Broome) and taking three days to actually leave the park, not that there is anything wrong with that, as I stated we all do things differently. As long as they are enjoying themselves is all that matters.
Hope your are planning your next family adventure.

My two bobs worth, don't go in full van, 5 km per litre is no fun and we are going back to a decent off road trailer for the next one. See the tray outback campers made in Albury, we are going to put one on a trailer with a few mods and put the kids in a rooftop tent next time.

my thoughts only, but would also welcome any feedback from other fellow travellers

stay safe and keep getting out there

Hi Crazycamperleeing,
Congratulations you have achieved a lot for your family, it is like other people said sometimes time is limited but you have given your children a taste of Australia and they would have learnt so much.
I am a school teacher and I wish more parents would give their children just a taste of camping let alone what you have done, so many children just dont get to experience any sort of camping ( unless they are in my class I take them camping in tents every year) So CONGRATULATIONS your children will remember it forever, they might not remember it all but they will remember some of it but you have created family memories that you will all cherish forever.
Barb

i notice you say "kids" eh, did you have DVD players, we worship them ...
You know there is an option of not towing anything, carry a very basic tenting setup and stay at accomodation, sure when you get home you have forked out a fair whack for accom but the points in favor are .....
Faster "legal" speed .... Less fuel comsumption ..... access to showers and toilets ...... access to a POOL for the kids, settles them down for the next 2 solid days of driving ......... you and the missus can have some privacy with the occasional splurge on a twin room accom .... access to parking in ANY car park (no trailer) .....
Add it up, tent for 2 nights max and then stay at good accom then 2 more tents and a stay, what $2000 max, how much did the Jayco cost ??? how much fuel do you save ?? and you do get a bit further in daylight hours and see more ...
Other option is to save the "tenting" to the nice nights (rain free) and nice spots and accom on the bad nights ....
Yep we have 3 kids and it seems to be working for us, tryed the camper and NEVER again unless we have endless time or going very remote, caravans just dont appeal to me when time is the constraint, try finding someware to park to go shopping at Woolies with a van on :-)

Australia is indeed a beautiful place and I'm off exploring whenever I can but I have to say road trips exploring overseas are also fantastic fun. Can't read the signs, nutty road rules, everything back to front....the Internet and gps systems make it so easy to just hop in a car almost anywhere and have a blast. There is always something good to see or experience. Mike

Hi,
Suprizingly we didnt do much night driving. Generally hit the road at 8am and went through till 5. Stopping along the way for sight seeing.

This was our 'taste test' trip. So the kids could get an idea of the wonders this country has and we could see where we would like to come back to.

Unfortunately we couldnt get more time off work so we made do with what we had. We went Brisbane - Perth in 10ish days then spent the majority of the time in WA. The across to Katherine, down to Uluru and did the 14 hour drives to get home in 3 days.

Yes, was tired of sitting in the car, but would do it again in a heartbeat!
Cant wait until we can retire and have years and years to do it :)

Found our Mitsubishi 380 handled the dirt roads well (no mechanical probs at all) and we even got it onto cable beach in Broome..... 4wd not necessary hee hee

Rock and Rolll Crazycamperleeing,
I thought we crammed it in. We did Melbourne to Broken Hill, Cobar (Blew a Brake line), Bourke, Cunamulla, Charlieville, Longreach, Emerald, InJune, Rolleston, Crows Nest, Brisbane, Chinchilla, Miles (Bad Fuel), Roma, St George, Cunamulla, Cobar, Hillston, Griffith and back home.

Two and a half weeks on the Road, 6,300klms. I called it the Readers Digest version of the Outback. We had time constraints, and thought what the heck.

We now have some places we would like to go back to, like Broken Hill, Longreach and Griffith to name a few. I might add it rained for most of the first week and a half. What a great experience for your kids.

The wild flowers out at the moment are absolutley beautiful. We were told by some season travellers that what we were seeing is a once in a life time experience. We would have missed it all if we had waited until we could afford to take a couple of months off to do the trip.

Some of us don't have the time to puddle our way around on holidays.

Happy Days

John