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The Tagalong tours Gibb River rd Tour 2017

Home to Coober Pedy

Well the Tagalong tours trip for 2017 has started. We left Friday after we cracked the frost of the car and headed to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills for our first overnight stop. We decided on staying in a cabin for the first night and the van park at Hahndorf was pretty good. There is a historic truck get together in Hahndorf for the weekend which provided a lot of interest. Morris, Bedford, International and Kenworth well represented in the line-up. 

It is blood cold tonight and I suspect a frost in the morning.

Morning has broken and yep you guessed it frost -1 deg. Breakfast in a nice little place called the Hauss which provided a great start for the day. And what a great day it turned out to be as we headed from Hahndorf through to Pimba, well that was the plan but we chickened out.

With potential overnight temps of around 0 to -3 and no power at Pimba we though another night of comfort would be of benefit. So we pulled into Port Pirie for the night and the “comforts” of a cabin. Tomorrow it’s on to Coober Pedy for a couple of nights and met up with the rest of the crew.

We stayed at Stuart Range Caravan Park and nothing much has changed there. Still can’t get a sensible site numbering system as well as trying to shoe horn 2 vans on one site or that’s how it looked to us. Absolute confusion. We have decided any future sojourns up way we are staying someplace else. Gaz, Shaz, Rob and Judy turned up early afternoon so it was a quiet afternoon setting and talking. 

Cold again tonight but we are in the roof top tent so will see what tomorrow brings.

Not to early a rise this morning and whilst it was really cold the accommodation was not bad we are pretty happy with the setup, albeit, the ladder up and down for our early morning sojourns to the dunny are not that enjoyable. Today was a fairly lazy day. Rob and Judy haven’t been here before so they are off exploring while for us it was just some housekeeping and bit of last minute shopping and out to the breakaways for the sunset.

Headed out about 16.15 to the breakaways for the sunset so we were a little early but gave a chance to have a good look around and be it a good position for the sunset display, apparent quite a few others had the same idea and it was pretty busy but none the less spectacular. Pizza for our last meal at Coober Pedy before a relatively early night. Tomorrow we head for the Alice.

Breakaways

 Coober Pedy to Alice Springs

Well we are now in new territory for Di and I we haven’t been past Coober Pedy heading north. So we were up early and on the road by 08.30. Pretty quiet on the road considering there are a heap of people heading for the Finke Desert Rally and so we made good time to Marla for our first stop. Bit of morning tea and stretch and on the road again heading for the NT boarder. 20 km down the road our plans came to a screaming halt. The Mazda engine just stopped, no warning just a tell-tale orange engine light say “got you now sucker”. We try to maintain the car as best we can and I have confidence in our mechanic but the technical gremlins of modern cars get you every time, especial when everything is going so well. I have an EDMS setup in the car which gives you the error codes from the cars black box. Apparently the camshaft positioning sensor just packed it in consequently engine stops. After about 30 min of trouble shooting and trying things it was clear we weren’t going anyplace under our own steam. Rob towed us back to Marla minus trailer while Gaz and Shaz stood guard over the trailer on the side of the road (no mobile service to ring RACV) then returned to pick up trailer and bring it into Marla.

News is not good car Mazda is going nowhere seems it’s probably terminal. We loaded Wendy and most of her gear into Gaz and Robs wheels and they have continued on while we wait for the “mechanic” to give us some news with the hope of an easy fix and catch up. No luck there though pretty sure either timing belt has malfunction or something has come loose in that area either way we are going nowhere in a hurry. Next day was spent looking for options and solutions. I’m glad we sent the others on so they could continue with the trip. In the end we arranged transport for the Mazda back to Bendigo, stored the camper as Rob will bring it back for us and organised transport back to home. Which is a whole other story but consisted of 14hrs on a bus from Marla to Adelaide, 2 nights in Adelaide, flight to Melbourne and bus Melbourne to home. 12 months or more of planning for us anyway down the drain. So no Gibb river blog and we are home a week after we started our 6 week trip.

Glenelg

Tag along tours fleet

So the Tagalong tours fleet now covers most bases.

On Road

Off Road

Update on the camper

 Well we made a few mods to the camper trailer and had a bit of a dry run to Avoca. Added a Darche roof top tent. Looks pretty good and very functional. Bit hard to get a good appreciation but seems a good option. Required a few mods to the bar work but has a fair bit of space and remained dry after we had a fair bit of rain. Very happy with our mods. Looking forward to getting on the road.

Tewantin to Broken Bay

Tewantin

From Hervey Bay we made the short trip down to Tewantin - Noosa to catch up with Brad and the grand kids. Well 3 nights ended up 5 nights as our travel plans are pretty fluid and it was good to catch up with the kids. 
So it was the usual stuff dinner out one night to celebrate Max (Gillies Young Guns facebook page) being sponsored by a major fishing tackle importer and Darcey's successful production at school. A trip to Eummundi markets and a bit of fishing with Max, Gaz and Myself( 14 whiting with Max getting a PB of 40 cm) and that about sums up the week really. We are still getting plenty of rain as we have for most of the trip thus far, hopefully we will get a bit of a break soon. Our next leg will be to Broken Heads in NSW just south of Byron Bay.

Visitor to our caravan site

Broken Bay well broken something
The trip from Tewantin to Broken Bay wasn't the best. It rained steadily for most of the trip down. Di and I have not been to Byron Bay and I guess we wanted to see what all the hype was about Broken Bay was a little further on so we thought that would be a good base. Once past the Gold Coast we had a few roadworks but made good time all the same. The small caravan park had been recommended to us and whilst it wasn't too bad the 50% hike in site fees from the previous week ($37 a night) was just gob smacking. $60 a night was a bit rich plus a 3 night minimum and to top it off the sites had such a slope and so small it made levelling impossible. Gary couldn't even get his car on his site. The staff were less than helpful so all in all this put rather a dampener on it. And while we tried to set up it poured, didn't help the temperament I can tell you. Weather for our 3 day stay 
wasn't the best and too cold for a dip. We managed a trip to the macadamia nut castle, a look around Byron Bay and out to the Crystal Castle helped pass the time. 
Macadamia nut castle hasn't changed much over the years and was good for lunch. Byron Bay well we've seen it now not sure what all the hype is about. 
The Crystal Castle was the star really. It is a place of worship for Buddhists and has to be seen to be believed.  

Gibb River road and the Kimberly's

And so the next journey is getting close. Leaving home for Adelaide, on to Pimba, Coober Pedy, Alice Springs. Turning west after Alice its on to Tillmouth Well, Tanami Desert, Wolf Creek, Fitzroy Crossing then on to Derby. We then will head east along the Gibb River Rd and all its splender of Kimberly's to Kununarra, Katherine and the then south to home. It has been a really wet, wet season up North which means the Kimberly will be spectacular.