Thanks for allowing me to become a member. I look forward to positive interaction, advice / info' if needed and friendly banter. Recently retired and heading off in caravan late April / early May via Roma, Carnarvon Gorge, Longreach, Cloncurry > various NT stops, then down to Broome (a bit of detecting along the way) to see son and family who we haven't seen for three & half years..
have to find the right caravan 1st ... currently on the search. have owned and towed a caravan about 7 years ago but was only live in when working in QLD gas fields.
Long time ago (1973) had an 18ft fibreglass Chesney which we bought in old home town Tamworth and headed off to Dampier for work (2nd time) ... not long been married...
Across the old Nullabor... bulldust, more corrugations than you can imagine stopped at Ivy Tanks and saw the Cobb and Co coach on its anticlockwise trip around Australia... continued on.
Of course I taped up all the windows and the fridge vent and the door and all that I thought needed taping ... BUT... I forgot to tape up the gas vent in the floor....
Just crawling along on our XY 250 CI falcon and after buying a boomerang and giving the local indigenous people (in the middle of nowhere) some fruit as they came out from behind the trees, we continued on our way.
Got to Eucla just on dark, looking forward to a shower and a feed and sleep we got out of the car only to find the ground moving ... a mice plague like you couldn't imagine... of course my young wife opened the caravan door to jump in real quick... only to find we had been towing a virtual vacuum cleaner across the old Nullabor... the open gas trap was sucking in the bulldust just like a vacuum cleaner. I was not popular and have never lived that down all these years. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep that night trying to get some semblance of clean.
The rest of the trip via Esperance, Albany, round to Busselton Bunbury Perth and on up to Dampier ... another couple hundred of rough road , corrugations and bulldust up the "highway". Got lots of great photos including of the Cobb & Co coach in front of the Ivy Tanks "servo" ()
So we are looking forward to the bitumen most of the way this time except when we want to venture off. Lots of new major roadworks in line for the Kimberly in next few years.
Thought I would share that story with you in my intro, hope it put a smile on your face. It does ours now after all these years.
Welcome to GN's Humpo,
I also started doing the Nullabor when it was all bull-dust and potholes in the early 60's. Camped on Tarpaulin beside the vehicle - we had to ensure that we only walked away from vehicle right when travelling west and left when travelling east - owing to the proliferation of holes to Hell along the cliff face.
No photo's of course - only rich people used cameras then, even then they were 620 Box Brownie's.
I'm sure you will enjoy the modern travel and the bounty of "Rest-stops".
__________________
Possum; AKA:- Ali El-Aziz Mohamed Gundawiathan
Sent from my imperial66 typewriter using carrier pigeon, message sticks and smoke signals.
Nice intro Humpo a good read. I first crossed the Nullabor later than you or Possum3 in 1975, if memory serves there was about 200 miles of unsealed dirt left so i got it easy. Still took all day to get to Eucla and i think there used to be a big concrete whale out the front, I'd crossed on an orange 1973 Kawasaki H1B triple during summer and remember seeing caravan wreckage on the sides of the track. The old halfway house was an awesome sight yes?
... currently on the search. have owned and towed a caravan about 7 years ago but was only live in when working in QLD gas fields.
