Tim and Debra’s awesome adventures

Tim and Debra’s awesome adventures We are travelling on a big lap of Australia. Follow along to see what this married couple gets up to We took delivery of a Ford Ranger at the end of November.

In 2020 Tim (husbie) and I hired a campervan and took off for 2.5 weeks to see how we liked vanlife, how we would cope in such a small space. We tried to ascertain if we wanted to buy a campervan or a caravan and if we were ready to explore this big Country of ours. We did love it, we decided we would like a caravan and after some investigations, and lots of looking and attendance at Caravan and C

amping shows we put in our order. We purchased a T-Rex13 hybrid from Long Haul Trailers & Campers. We took delivery in about September/October 2021, then we quickly ordered a tow car. After I (Deb) spent over a month in hospital after a supposed 4 day visit for a knee reconstruction in April 2022, we decided we should hit the road and do that exploring sooner rather than later. Tim resigned from his job and Debra took 6 months Annual/Long Service leave. Please follow along and see what we get up to. We are not quite grey nomads, husband and wife, no kids with us, and no pets either. But I do have that dodgy knee now, so no climbing mountains for me. Tim is a runner, swimmer, bike rider, (triathlete), so let's see how many different Saturday morning parkrun Australia we can get to on our journey.

Ken Perkins
16/12/2023

Ken Perkins

The abandoned Uranium mine at Mary Kathleen was an amazingly stunning blue.. from there we moved on to Winton via the cr...
22/09/2023

The abandoned Uranium mine at Mary Kathleen was an amazingly stunning blue.. from there we moved on to Winton via the crocodile Dundee pub at McKinley for a drink. At Winton we did the age of Dinosaur’s tour which was a must see/do. At Longreach we did the Stockman’s Hall of fame and the show was a lot of fun. We also went on a sunset boat ride and dinner along the Thompson River.
Next stop was Tambo, and we had to go to the local pub and watch the chicken races. Great fun, if a bit weird. Good for fundraising tho!

Fron Kununurra we headed back into the NT via Katherine and Bitter Springs for a dip. Lots of expensive fuel down the St...
16/09/2023

Fron Kununurra we headed back into the NT via Katherine and Bitter Springs for a dip. Lots of expensive fuel down the Stuart Highwayand nothing much to see, turn left at 3 ways and back into QLD via Camooweal. Currently having a break at Mary Kathleen which is an abandoned Uranium mine…. About to do some exploring!

Ok… bit of catch up to do! . So from Broome we headed to Derby and did a bit of the Gibb River Road down to Tunnel Creek...
16/09/2023

Ok… bit of catch up to do! . So from Broome we headed to Derby and did a bit of the Gibb River Road down to Tunnel Creek and via the Fitzroy crossing to The Bungle Bungles. The Bungles road is apparently worse than the Gibb and we did a bit of Damage to the car. Rather than waiting for insurance we headed back to Brisbane ( leaving the van in Kununurra) while repairs were done. This took about 5 weeks. With the car all straightened out we headed back to Kununurra to be reunited with the van and continue the journey.

In to Broome for 4 nights,..lots of sunsets here… went on a Sunset whale watching tour, came across about 15 whales and...
16/07/2023

In to Broome for 4 nights,..lots of sunsets here… went on a Sunset whale watching tour, came across about 15 whales and had a great time, watched the sunset from Cable Beach with everybody else and with the Camels wandering past.. had a swim here too, just like at the Gold Coast… hundred’s of people swimming and surfing. Had dinner overlooking cable beach. Stayed at a very squishy overflow van park , but had a great time, made some bread, bread rolls, baked a cake and used up some of our honey making honey jumbles.. yum. Visited some rock pools, went in search of snub nosed dolphins… didn’t see any!

Well, we've come to a bit of a standstill really. while we started heading East, we can't really go further east, as th...
07/07/2023

Well, we've come to a bit of a standstill really. while we started heading East, we can't really go further east, as the two roads we need to travel on are currently closed due to inclement weather. We either want to go across the Gibb (tim is very keen, Deb not so much, but she'll go along to get along), or the Fitzroy River crossing. So instead of keeping east, we backtracked a little and headed to Karratha. what a lovely town, it's bigger that I expected, and there are big city shops, so Kmart, Coles and Woolies, so another $100 at woolies, even though we spent $200 at tom price a few days ago.

It's ok, I'll try not to go to the shops again for about a week. One of the reasons I wanted to come here was the Stairway to the Moon https://www.visitbroome.com.au/info/staircase-to-the-moon-dates. this was pretty amazing, we watched at Dampier.

We also visited the Woodside Gas visitor centre, really interesting info around gas exploration then a few walks in the parks to see some amazing rock formations along with Aboriginal Art work, can't post much, as they don't want you taking pics of living beings. We do have some pics, which were hard to find, so zoom in if you are interested, the notes on what we were looking for have also been included for your viewing pleasure. What we found interesting in our travels were these mounds of rocks everywhere. Apparently naturally forming.
from a tourist guide pamphlett: Many thousands of Aboriginal rock engravings, shell middens, stone arrangements and artefact scatters are located in the Dampier Archepelago and Burrup Peninsular. These features are evidence of at least 20000 years of intensive land use of past Aboriginal occupants. some sites date back to the last iceage. One of the densest concentrations of rock engravings in the World.

So another claim to fame for Dampier is "Red Dog" go watch the movie if you haven't. We did last night.

We came here from Karijini National Park - see previous post. the most direct route is via the Rio Tinto access road, which requires the driver to obtain a permit by doing some online assessment - thanks Tim for ticking that box, and not being sick on the day.

We saw quite a few of their trains fully laden, some stationary, and some moving to their destinations. I hear they can be 200 carriages long, and go for about 4 km. they were pretty long.

We've also seen some really long road trains, I think Tim counted 72 wheels on one - see pic.

Just so much history here.

Headed further into Karijini National park to the overflow campground which was supposedly fully booked but many vacant ...
04/07/2023

Headed further into Karijini National park to the overflow campground which was supposedly fully booked but many vacant spots available at Dales campground. A nice short walk to Fortescue Falls and then up Dales Gorge. Next day was a drive to Weano Gorge, the last 10km were heavily corrugated. An amazing swim in Handrail Pool and Kermit’s Pool. Wetsuit on as it was rather refreshing. Back to Tom Price for a fuel top up and up to Hammersley Gorge for another swim…..30 km of lovely dirt road.. very dusty but nice and fast.. Another free camp at Buddhas overnighter.. heaps of space available.

A significant milestone for our travels… we started driving east! Plenty more snorkelling on the Ningaloo reef, swimming...
01/07/2023

A significant milestone for our travels… we started driving east! Plenty more snorkelling on the Ningaloo reef, swimming with turtles and sea snakes. Caught up with Glenn and Lauraine in Exmouth. Also had dinner with Adam and Amanda who we have been bumping into since the Ayre peninsular in South Australia. Need to pack your food away carefully in Exmouth caravan park as there are Emus on the prowl. Baked some yummy bread and banana muffins on the Webber. Currently camped in Karijini National park for a few days to do some exploring.. found a great free camp last night just outside the park… a fire helped with the very cold night… almost put the heater on this morning!

So for the past week we have been camped at various camp spots along the Ningaloo Reef around the Cape Range National Pa...
22/06/2023

So for the past week we have been camped at various camp spots along the Ningaloo Reef around the Cape Range National Park. Another really rough road to get in and no Telstra reception for the past week. Some great camp spots along the beach and really had to watch high tide at Winderabandi. Some very ordinary weather at North Lafroy and really struggled with power with no Sun. Have seen dingo’s today, swam with Turtles, spotted whales from the beach and came across a rather large stingray at Winderabandi. A creek crossing at Yardie Creek which turned out to be nothing at all and finally back onto bitumen. A quick dash into Exmouth for some much needed fuel to keep us going for another week.

Spent the morning at Monkey Mia for the dolphin feeding.. the Emu’s were hanging around trying to get in on the action.....
11/06/2023

Spent the morning at Monkey Mia for the dolphin feeding.. the Emu’s were hanging around trying to get in on the action.. fantastic spot with calm turquoise waters. Fuel stop in Denham and a visit to the museum at the Information Centre… A great display to learn about the battle between the HMAS Sydney and the German boat the Kormoran.. both boats were lost with about 600 (entire crew) losing their lives from the Sydney……..about 300 from the Kormoran were rescued (80 lost) Both boats lie in about 2500m deep water off the coast. More Emu’s wandering around Denham and a visit to Shell Beach on the way to Carnarvon.. The water here is twice as salty as the open water due to the way the tides are pushed over a natural sea grass barrier and the evaporation.

Epic 7 hour round trip to Steep Point, Australia’s westernmost mainland point. Why.. well you just can go is far and not...
09/06/2023

Epic 7 hour round trip to Steep Point, Australia’s westernmost mainland point. Why.. well you just can go is far and not do it. The drive was on the most horrible bone shattering corrogated road (in parts)… about 160 km from where we camped each way, down to 10kph in spots. Tyres down to 25 psi and 4WD engaged for a lot of single lane sandy tracks. Rattled the two latches open on the canopy window (will remember lock these in future) and almost rattled off the 4 bolts holding the canopy window to the hinges. Rattled the fuel cap open and shook the lid off the fridge. Been there… done that…as they say!

A couple of very windy and rainy days. Camped at Sandy Cape and Coronation Beach on the way up to Geraldton. 30+ knot w...
08/06/2023

A couple of very windy and rainy days. Camped at Sandy Cape and Coronation Beach on the way up to Geraldton. 30+ knot winds overnight and driving rain. Coronation beach is apparently one of the best windsurfing spots in the world.. we can see why. An overnight at Kalbarri for the Skywalk and Natures Window at Kalbarri National park…and a quick trip down a couple of gorges to see the Murchison River at water level. Deb’s birthday this week.. so a couple of really nice lunches and dinners (Some not so special also)

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