Darwin to Melbourne 2023
Helen
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| Decision 2023 | Tasmania 2023 |
Departure day arrived and we were ready… well, we thought we were. Jen drove us to the airport and off we went. The original flight from CNX-SIN was good and we had a nice surprise when we were given a meal. We had a great chat with a lady seated in our row who was heading to Australia to get on a boat and sail around the coast. The landing in Singapore’s Changi airport was a bit sketchy, it was raining and you could feel the plane when it skidded on touch down. The duffle was checked through so we were able to head straight to the Aerotel Singapore and check in. Our room was nicer than expected, we had read mixed reviews online, so it was a pleasant surprise and nice to escape the bustle of the airport. In the evening we braved the terminal for a walk to stretch our legs and search out something for dinner.
Back in our hotel, we found an Australian news channel and saw there was a large fire by Tennant Creek. People were being warned to stay away from the area. That was supposed to be one of our stops but it was a few days away so we decided not to worry too much. We were up early for breakies and caught our next flight to DRW. This flight we were treated to an exit row, another nice surprise. The flight was smooth and we landed in Darwin with no skidding!
Darwin is a smaller airport and we weren’t at a gate so we had to go down the stairs to the tarmac and walk over to the terminal. It was really hot so we were happy that the air con in the arrival area was going full blast. We waited for the duffle, which was one of the last bags on the belt, and headed over to Let’s Go Motorhomes Darwin branch. To be honest, this was a disappointing experience. It was obvious that the person showing us the van didn’t really want to be there. We had made the appointment weeks in advance and arrived on time only to have them rush us through the process and get numerous comments about them closing. It was also clear that the van we were given was one of the older ones in the fleet with over 90,000km’s, scratches and small dents. Things just continued to get worse when the van’s interior wasn’t clean, the freezer wasn’t defrosted, broken and dirty dishes in the cupboards and the awning “needed two people and a good thump” to go back in. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any options so decided we’d find a way to make everything work. On a positive note there were fully reflective window covers for the front windshield, drivers, passenger and back windows so we had a lot of privacy. The side windows in the living area had screens that we could open for airflow or close for privacy, could even have them set at half and half.
We headed off to The Oasis Tourist Park just on the outskirts of Darwin, where we had booked in for 2 nights to give ourselves a chance to get organized. We checked into the park and started to get the van set up, unpacking and arranging everything that we could. Took the opportunity to do a little cleaning because that’s how we roll. We christened the van as Skippy… or Skippy OG… we felt this was a fitting name since we planned on listening to some books about a beer can called Skippy. The next day we went for brunch before heading over to the Darwin Aviation Museum, which was actually pretty cool. The main attraction was a B-52 Bomber but they also had other fighter planes, tanks, jeeps and explained lots of history. We had no idea that Darwin was bombed in 1942. There was also a display about Cyclone Tracy in 1975. We wandered around for several hours before heading to the local Woolies to stock up on groceries and wine, of course, before heading back to the site. The campground was great, with nice amenities and good sized sites. Only negative was having to get our neighbor to move his Ute every time we returned after being out so that we could get into our site. We were still tired and didn’t feel ready to head out, so we decided to extend our stay for 2 more nights.
We made plans for the next day, choosing a walk through the Waterfront Precinct and the Darwin Military Museum. Not able to get parking at the waterfront, we managed to find a spot by the Darwin Oval. We took the opportunity to stretch our legs as it was really nice to walk through the park and along the shore. There was a great breeze so we were able to wander around for a couple of hours before heading over to have lunch at another park by the museum. Our fridge managed to freeze the carrots but we noticed a pasture with some horses after lunch, so we stopped to give them a treat. The military complex was huge, a mix of indoor and outdoor displays. It didn’t have such a great breeze so it was too hot to see all the outdoor displays but we did manage to see some really neat stuff.
We gave ourselves a day to relax, do laundry, stock up on groceries and rearrange the van a bit now that we had a sense for the space. Gotta say between the sun, heat and wind it’s probably the quickest our laundry dried the whole trip! A quick stop at a local $$ store to pick up a few small things for the van and the empty parking lot resulted in an opportunity to give me a chance to get used to driving the van. The owners and staff at Oasis were great. They asked us about next stops and spent some time going over our route with us. We were advised that there were more fires in the area so skip Litchfield and Tennant Creek, better to just head over to Wongaling. Probably for the best since we saw a fire not far from the park the day before. We had a new plan of 5 days to Wongaling with some days being 5+ hours of driving. On our last night we had to move and ended up in a quiet corner away from the lights so we sat out and watched the stars, which were great. We were glad we spent the extra time in Darwin, we heard mixed things so weren’t sure what to expect but we enjoyed our time there.
Darwin to Wongaling
Up early the next day, we hit the road. Paul was happy with the 130km speed limit and decent highway. It was good enough that I was able to give Paul a short break on the long days. Our first stop was at Daly Waters Hi-Way Inn where we had a massive, all day breakfast that was so good, it will forever live in infamy and all future breakfasts will henceforth be compared to it. Considering it was only $13 each, we were given a free beverage for staying and it fed us for 3 meals, it was a pretty good deal. The campsite was nice as well, a grass field next to a pasture and it was very quiet. Barkly Homestead was next. It was a dirt lot with electrical hookups, crazy flies and a non-existent kitchen. Our neighboring camper was helpful in showing us how to use the adapter for the water hook-up which we promptly forgot to take with us the next morning probably because we were distracted by the flies! There were a couple of “firenados” along the highway and could see a lot of the smoke from the restricted areas.
We crossed from the Northern Territories (NT) into Queensland just before Camooweal and had a quick lunch in a well set up rest stop. Needed to make a detour at Bunnings in Mount Isa to get a replacement adapter before arriving for a night at the Cloncurry Caravan Park Oasis. It was a nice little park with a refreshing pool, if you take Arlo the human fish child out of the equation. He liked to do depth charges right in front of you while his parents whined “Arlooooo…” from the other side of the pool. We had a nice visit with a couple from Canberra who recommended we stop at Richmond for the Kronosaurus Korner dinosaur museum. Next morning, we took a look, reshuffled a couple of stops to give ourselves a chance to check it out. The museum was neat and they are still finding fossils in the area. We found a great butcher shop and realized that tenderloin steak was cheap in comparison to Canada! It was a quiet night at Lakeview Caravan Park which had a nice set up for the amenities and a lake walk. The past two days felt like we were driving through the Canadian Prairies and Paul made numerous references to Mad Max. Then it was a rotten, fly filled night at Big 4 Charter Towers, a pit stop in Townsville for groceries and we were in Wongaling!!! We had stopped at numerous small towns along the way for breaks or to make lunch and it reinforced our decision to drive through quickly. A lot of the towns were struggling and some places are going through a rough time. Paul was a champion with the driving, it was a long 5 days but he got us there.
At Wongaling, we stayed at Bali Hai, where we stopped twice in 2017. New owners had taken over the park but they were really friendly and the “no kids allowed” was nice. It was cloudy and rainy the day we arrived, so we only did a short beach walk. The next day was also cloudy and windy so we just hung around, did some laundry and started making some plans for heading down to Melbourne. Our neighbors, Collum and Sharon, were “grey nomads” and we ended up having some great chats with them at the site and in the camp kitchen. We are forever in Sharon’s debt for telling us about Dan Murphy’s (get a free membership for discounts) and clean skins! Apparently businesses get special orders from the wineries and any leftovers from the bottling are sold in bulk. It gets bottled with a label that just shows the type of wine and region with prices starting around $3. Good wine is cheap to begin with but this was just a bonus.
Unfortunately, things kind of went to shit that night when during some heavy rain we discovered that Skippy OG had two unadvertised indoor water features. It started with a leak from the air conditioner onto the bed and into the upper cabinets. When we got up to grab a towel, we found out the sliding door didn’t seal properly and the rain was pouring in. After a sleepless night, Let’s Go Motorhomes in Darwin was our first contact and they were rotten to deal with. Nothing but excuses, “all vans leak” and no one can fix it, they didn’t even look at the video or photos we sent. After a lot of back and forth, we were put in touch with Let’s Go Motorhomes in Cairns, who were pretty good and helped us arrange an appointment in 2 days in Townsville. Bali Hai offered to let us park under the entryway if it rained again and didn’t charge us to use the dryer to get everything dried out. Luckily the rain moved on and our remaining time was sunny so we were able to open windows and doors to help get things dried out. On our last day here, we went for a drive down to South Mission Beach so we could hike to Morgan’s Lookout, Turtle Bay and Kennedy Bay. We enjoyed it last time and were able to see turtles at the lookout. 5 years changed things and by the time we thought to check the map for the lookout, we were already past it. We decided to keep going and ended up in Kennedy Bay which we had to ourselves. It was a beautiful day, a good hike and we were able to relax.
On the way to Townsville we stopped at Lucinda for fish and chips, which were delicious but they didn’t have malt vinegar… sacriledge 😱! They eventually found a bottle of white vinegar on the store shelf which helped but that was so unexpected. We decided that a walk on the beach and through the green space would give us a chance to recover and a nice break in the day. We booked a site at Crystal Creek Caravan Park where we had a great experience with Rod and his wife Elisabeth. There were some small issues with Skippy and Rod helped Paul get everything sorted before coming to our site to hang out for a pre-dinner beer and a visit. Turns out Rod does metal work and he asked Paul to take a look at the electrics on his forge. Unfortunately Paul couldn’t figure out exactly what was going wrong but was able to give him some suggestions to try. Next day we were off to Jayco Townsville for the van repair.
We stayed down by Soroptomist and Jezzine Park at Tasman Holiday Park Rowes Bay this time. We wanted easier access to The Strand for walks and restaurants since we didn’t know how long the repair would take. Ask me about the “buddy bench”, I sat there for a few minutes but no “buddy” showed up. The next morning, we took Skippy into Jayco for the repair and walked over to the nearest market for some coffee and settled in to wait. We were pleasantly surprised when we got a call a couple of hours later. Apparently all the bolts were loose on the air con unit and the sliding door wasn’t seated properly. They reseated the door, fixed the AC bolts and sealed everything up, even fixed the water fill door for us. We got some groceries, had our first Dan Murphy’s shop for some “nectar of the god’s” or wine… whatever floats your boat… before heading back to the campground. It was like a weight off our shoulders having it dealt with and we had a much needed rest day. Since we had booked in for 2 nights we took the opportunity to head into town the next afternoon to see a movie we had been waiting for. We did some evening walks along The Strand pathways which were enjoyable. We saw our first random pop up coffee trailer so made sure to stop on our way out. For whatever reason, the coffee is always good so we started watching for them to take advantage whenever possible.
Ayr to Melbourne
Next up, a two night stop by Ayr at the Alva Beach Tourist Park for some beach walking, crab herding, sand flies and an LFC game. It was under new ownership since our last visit in 2017 and didn’t have the same vibe but we had a chance to reset, much needed after the drive and stress of water leaks. Then off to 3 nights in Bowen at The Tropical Beach Caravan Park. We got a nasty windshield chip on the way because really, why not 🤦♀️. Note: if the repair guy stands on milk crates and yells to his buddy to bring out a Bic lighter, just leave, it won’t be a good repair. Aside from the bad windshield repair, we had a really nice stay in Bowen. We did several beach walks to where Don River entered the bay, a long walk along the Cape Edgecumbe walking track to Horseshoe Bay, enjoyed the sunny days and turtles popping up along the shore. We also met some friendly people on either side of us when we moved up to the beachfront site for 2 nights and had a great time visiting. Mark from Scotland told us about how he was attacked by the infamous Australian Magpies and let Paul drive his electric scooter.
After this, we got into a routine. We had a good stay at Hydeaway Bay Caravan Park where we had some long beach walks and a nice evening around the campfire. Hiked up and over the large hill to Dingo Bay but no dingos were sighted, probably a good thing. Met a retired military member who actually knew Les Hiddens aka Bush Tucker Man and learned a lesson not to leave the towels and chairs out if it looks like it might rain. Hint: it does and everything will be wet. Cape Hillsborough Nature Park was next, we stayed on the upper level so no sand flies this time. Arthur’s Point was closed but we were able to still get a nice walk climbing up the pathway, over and down to Beachcomber Cove, coming back along the beach. A two night stop, due to a late night footy game, at Barra Crab Caravan Park by Clairview where we managed to sneak in a couple of shorter beach walks. We were advised to stop here instead of Airlie as it was quieter and not so many sandflies. There was a quick stop at the Capricorn Caves where we had a good tour before heading for an overnight at Keppel Sands Caravan Park. We had a lovely walk up the bluff and then down the beach and back through town. The amenities were fairly limited, but the campground was really nice and we both wished we had spent longer here. At this point, Paul had noticed the cushioning in the van was shot, probably why he wasn’t sleeping great. The side I slept on was in better shape so we thought we’d do a test and switched. Paul did the driving and we figured he needed to be well rested.
Next day we had another issue with Skippy when the engine light came on just as we got on the highway. We pulled over and called Let’s Go Motorhomes, this time in Brisbane. They were good to deal with, told us it was okay to drive to Rockhampton and arranged an appointment with a mechanic. The mechanic couldn’t sort it as they couldn’t dump the codes without a special tool, so we ended up at the Renault dealer and had Dave, their mechanic, work on it. He was great, had it sorted in an hour (broken vacuum hose) and we were on our way. We asked Let’s Go Motorhomes if they had any extra foam or what we could do with the cushions but we’re told, nothing they can do, get an air mattress. So we stopped at a store on the way out of Rockhampton for some padding. With all the problems we’d had and still irked about the treatment from the Darwin office we were seriously questioning our future bookings. We decided to focus on enjoying the trip and crossed our fingers in hopes that we were finished with the van issues!!!! After the repair we didn’t have much driving time so we stopped at a site next to the highway called Bushchook’s Travellers Village which was nice. The owner was super friendly, cheers for Liverpool, spent time in Canada and the kitchen was one of the best setups we had seen to date. We sat outside that night, even though it was cold, and watched the stars.
Next we headed to the old stomping grounds of Moore Park Beach in the Bundaberg area where we had stayed twice in 2017. We spent a morning dealing with a hacked credit card which wasn’t great but at least it wasn’t a van issue. Paul grabbed us some nice latte’s from the local pop-up coffee trailer to brighten the day. Of course we had to stop at Alowishus Delicious cafe for a coffee on the way out. Paul still gets the Happy Birthday free coffee emails every year since we first visited in 2017! Next up was Kingfisher Caravan Park in Tin Can Bay and Beachmere Caravan Park where we stayed our first ever night in Australia. We had great beach walks, our first real bogan experience and a nice night stroll in the fog where we avoided the “sea devils”. Hit up a new place for our next night and stopped in Miami, where we stayed at The Ocean Beach Tourist Park. We walked along the beach, went along the pathway into town and found a good coffee shop. It was much nicer than we were expecting and while busy, it wasn’t crazy.
Our next stop at Iluka ended up being one of our favorites. The actual campground, Iluka Beach Caravan Park was good, really nice people. Our site wasn’t the nicest but it was just one night. After setting up, we headed straight for Iluka Beach and enjoyed one of our best walks ever. We accessed the beach by walking through town and a park. It was empty, except for us, the kangaroos and birds. We walked along the beach to the bluffs and up to the viewpoint which was really nice. As we were headed back, we decided to treat ourselves to a meal out at the highly rated Chez Basho Boatshed Cafe. We were lucky to snag a table! As we got closer to the restaurant, a couple of groups stopped us, disappointed they couldn’t get in. But for just the two of us, it was no problem at all. We enjoyed an amazing meal, before moving outside to finish our wine so they could have the table for a large group. We still had a lovely spot to sit and watch the sunset – the perfect ending to a day where we’d already walked over 13 kilometers and had a wonderful time.
We headed to Woolgoolga where we had two nights at the Woolgoolga Lakeside Caravan Park so we could catch the footie game. Notice a trend here? Paul had been having back pain on and off for just over a week. At first he thought he just tweaked it by lifting up the water jugs but it seemed to be getting worse. Unfortunately it was the weekend so no clinics were open and Paul didn’t think it was enough for a hospital visit so he decided to take it easy. This campground was okay, busy, but we didn’t have anyone really close which was nice. We did some laundry, had a short beach walk and walked over to the park at 11pm to get a better signal for the game. It was really windy and the BBQ areas weren’t sheltered so it was tricky to keep everything cooking, but we managed. There was a caravan by the BBQ that had a sticker saying “Old Fart and a Tart” which was quite funny to see, not sure who was which.
On the way to Bonny Hills we decided to stop in at Coffs Harbour Hospital. Paul’s back had gotten worse and we needed to get him checked out. All and all, it was pretty impressive. Paul was triaged in about 15 minutes, waited a bit then called back to see a physio. They couldn’t find anything so the doctor did some blood work and x-rays. The good news was that nothing showed up so the doctor determined it was sleeping in the van on bad cushions and going for such long walks after being sedentary for a while. It was surprisingly reasonable considering everything that was done and only took about 5 hours. Paul was released, told to be cautious and we headed out. We got to Bonny Hills late but had called and let them know we needed a late check in, so everything was waiting for us.
We saw our first whales at Seal Rocks. The campground had set up a nice porch area by the kitchen, which was designated as a “happy hour” meet-up spot. We headed over after a nice beach walk. Paul saw a whale breaching and pointed it out. We sat there for a couple of hours, saw several whales breaching and lots of spouts but weren’t able to get photos. I bonded with a kookaburra who was fascinated with its reflection in my glasses. I did have a funny interaction in the kitchen when a young lady, I’m guessing around 10 years old, asked me to do her dishes. Apparently her Mom usually does them but I respectfully declined. We also learned a valuable lesson and started using satellite views to see parking areas. Many places say they have parking but it’s end up being covered and the van can’t go in.
We continued south, meeting some Calgary friends, Slaven and Alex, who were visiting family in Sydney. We stayed at Lane Cove so it was easy to get transit into the main areas. We met for lunch, walked the small market and spent the afternoon in a nice pub catching up. Unfortunately we weren’t able to meet up with Jarah, who we met in Nepal and lives in Sydney. Next day we headed to Decathlon on the way out so Paul could finally replace his sandals and had some lunch at a DinTaiFung location. The original in Taipei is still the best.
Our time on the mainland was coming to an end. We had stopped in a couple of places that didn’t really rate a mention but did see a koala in Mallacoota. We had several days in Kiama, where we stayed at Kendall’s Beach Holiday Park. Paul wasn’t sick this time, so we had some great walks along the shore towards the lighthouse and blowhole, then along the pathway south to the little blowhole and Marsden Head. We were invited to a family dinner in the camp kitchen one night, which gave us a chance to visit with some interesting people. Ended up with a group of unsupervised teenagers beside us on our last night, who got a bit rowdy. We had a good laugh at how slow they were moving the next morning. We stopped in at Surfside where we met a really nice older guy who shared some interesting stories. Once you got past the pond, there was a decent beach walk with lots of people fishing.
We did 3 nights in Beachcombers Holiday Park at Potato Point, another favorite place. We ate in the kitchen one night and shared a table with a nice couple who turned out to have lived in Calgary. Went for long beach walks where we could see whales from the beach and saw lots of blue bottles washed ashore… lucky for us that we didn’t touch them. Someone got splashed when we were walking along the rocks but I’ll let you figure out who that was! We decided to extend for an extra night and ended up moving over to an unpowered site, still on the beach though! It was a little chilly and overcast so it was nice when we were invited to a family celebration around the fire pit. Everyone was really nice and we were given loads of information about Tasmania, they even passed on some maps!!
We stopped at Eden, saw the whaling industry information point but no whales were around. The reception area had a huge parrot that was very welcoming. We did some laundry and there was an older gentleman who popped out of his trailer every time we walked by, keeping me entertained with stories about his life when he came into the kitchen. NowaNowa a quirky little campground just off the highway was next. Booked two nights here and had some great conversations sitting in the kitchen area. We walked over to see the trestle bridge and the following day, walked through a park and over to the wetlands for something different then our beach walks. At Seaspray we did a nice long walk along the beach and made it back just before a massive thunderstorm hit. The thunder and lightning were pretty epic. Can’t confirm if the beach is actually 90 Miles as we only did 8k! Then it was off to Wilson’s Prom for our last few nights. A bit of a rough start wen we realized our version of premium site was quite different from the campground’s. After a quick chat, we were able to move to a better site and had really nice neighbours who had the same van. We did get warned that there was a large family reunion going on and being close to the playground meant there would be a lot of noise. There wasn’t and it seemed we lucked out with all the kids getting along and just having fun. We went for a walk down past Fairy Cove to Tongue Point. The trail was busy, but as soon as we got past the cove, we had it to ourselves. The next day we spent getting packed, doing laundry and got ready for the drive to Melbourne and dropping off the van.
We drove into Melbourne, had one last stop at Decathlon to get a fleece for Tassie and New Zealand, before heading to the campground. We booked a place close to the van drop at Airport Tourist Village which ended up being a decent little place with friendly staff. The fact it was walking distance to a highly rated Thai restaurant had no bearing on the decision to stay. We finished packing, cleaned out the van and finished the laundry. Leks Thai restaurant was great and we enjoyed our meal. Dealing with Carol at Let’s Go Motorhomes Melbourne for the drop off was great. We told her about our experiences with Darwin and how we felt they used us to bring the older model down to a registered province so they could sell it. She apologized for our treatment, said she’d make sure that it was dealt with, she even checked and told us our next rental was much newer. Next stop Tasmania!
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