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Tales of the travels, trials and triumphs as we explore Australia in a converted bus

Motorhome Travels - June 2013

03/06/2013

Only one day late! The plan was to leave the relative comforts of our Mt Perry property on the 1st of June - so by 11am on the 2nd we were closing the gate behind us.

Morning fog at Mt Perry on the morning of our departure - [Click for a Larger Image]
Morning fog at Mt Perry on the
morning of our departure

To be honest we were both a little nervous about leaving, the last false start (the tree collision incident) still fresh in our minds. But with just 3 minutes of turning wheels behind us we both gave a sigh of relief and all nervous thoughts seemed to evaporate. We both commented that it felt like we have never stopped traveling.

Lifes Journey - [Click for a Larger Image]
Lifes Journey

The old bus did not take long to get into stride and soon we were heading west at our normal 80km/hr. We plan to take the trip to the west quite slowly and explore as much as we can along the way. We really have no idea how long it will take us to get to WA - but we feel that it does not really matter. Our small business (Imageworkx web design) has quite a few more clients now, this will require us to be a little more available than we have been in the past, and we will have to make sure we use our internet satellite system each day to pick up emails and service requests from clients - still, it pays the bills :-)

I have quite a long list of articles that I would like to write for the website - many in response to (mainly electrical) questions I have received - I look forward to getting this written and published on the site.

08/06/2013

Now I remember what I like this motorhome traveling so much. It has been a wonderful week, it just feels so good to be moving again. The route west from Mt Perry was chosen to include as many roads we have not traveled before as possible. Of course most of these are not sealed and in some cases not well formed.

This is a main road??? - [Click for a Larger Image]
This is a main road???

One of the really nice things about being so far away from civilization is that camp spots are everywhere. There are not too many fenced roads around here so the nearest free camp is normally just a case of driving off the road for a few hundred meters and parking up for the night (or longer). Right now we are parked in a large look out on the top of Mount Slowcomb. The views from here are just amazing. It was quite a crawling climb getting up here, but well worth the effort - as a bonus there is even a sniff of Telstra phone signal up here - that saves me from having to setup the internet satellite dish.

13/06/2013

Well getting down from Mount Slowcomb was not a drama, first gear and exhaust brake engaged.

Getting down. - [Click for a Larger Image]
Getting down.

Traceys yoga pose at sunset. - [Click for a Larger Image]
Traceys yoga pose at sunset.

While we were up there I took the time to embed our twitter feed into the home page of the website. If you would like more frequent updates than we publish on Facebook or our blog, you can either check our home page often (to view the feed) or subscribe to our twitter feed (you can subscribe from our home page (follow us)). The twitter updates are always tiny and often contain a photo of where we are.

As we started to head further west the vegetation keeps getting smaller and the landscape gets flatter. After a brief stop in Windorah to get a small welding job done (broken restraint on the Moke) we headed deeper into the desert. We expected to see less wildlife out here, but it has been quite the opposite. We have been seeing lots of birdlife and even more kangaroos and emus.

Today we past four wedge-tailed eagle's feeding on a roo carcass - this seemed to be the ideal opportunity to try out one of our new cameras - the tiny GoPro. We set this up so close that it was almost inside the roo carcass, then moved about 200m away and watched. The photos below are some of the results.

Wedge Tail Eagle - [Click for a Larger Image]
Wedge Tail Eagle

Wedge Tail Eagle - [Click for a Larger Image]
Wedge Tail Eagle

Wedge Tail Eagles - [Click for a Larger Image]
Wedge Tail Eagles

We are very impressed with this little camera and will have to try out some other ideas we have.

We just had to visit yet another Australian corner today (it was sort of on the way) - this one is Haddon Corner and is the north-east corner of South Australia. Not much there really - just a couple of survey marker poles ... still, it had to be visited.

Haddon Corner - [Click for a Larger Image]
Haddon Corner

22/06/2013

Birdsville is an interesting town. Its actually smaller than we expected it to be ... a pub and a roadhouse and not much else. We took a trip out to the edge of the Simpson Desert to see and climb the famed Big Red sand hill and had an overpriced meal and an overpriced beer at the pub. It is very hard to imagine Birdsville when the yearly race meeting is on. The population of the town goes from 160 to over 10,000 for about 10 days.

Hobohome at the Birdsville Pub - [Click for a Larger Image]
Hobohome at the Birdsville Pub

From Birdsville we traveled slowly north through Bedourie (where we enjoyed the free artesian spa) and on to Boulia where some post was waiting for us. Thanks to our tyre pressure monitoring system, we discovered a slow puncture in one of the back tyres and had that repaired before leaving Boulia and heading into the wild. The general store at Boulia is quite a sight to see, they stock everything from motorbikes and wheelbarrows to sewing needs and fresh fish.

On top of Big Red - [Click for a Larger Image]
On top of Big Red

We have had a pleasant surprise with the bus fuel consumption since leaving Mt Perry. When we first fitted the Isuzu engine (way back in 2005) our fuel stats were around 4.6km/ltr - this gave us a range of about 900km on a tank of diesel. Over the years this had dropped to around 3.8km/ltr (reducing our range to just 750km). Before leaving Mt Perry I replaced the fuel/water separator, replaced all of the fuel lines and fitted an electronic lift pump at the tank. I also replaced the grill on the air intake with a larger mesh to allow freer air flow. In the three tanks of fuel since leaving Mt Perry we have averaged 4.9km/ltr. This takes our range back up to a very healthy 970km. I'm not sure what has been going on, but I suspect that we have had a small leak in the fuel lines somewhere that was allowing air to be introduced - this has had the effect of upsetting the injector timing and reducing both power and fuel economy.

With a range of over 900km we should be able to cross the Plenty Highway without having to purchase diesel from one of the stations at over $2.50/ltr.

Tracey looking for sunrise (this might be the second sunrise T has seen this year :-) - [Click for a Larger Image]
Tracey looking for
sunrise (this might be
the second sunrise T
has seen this year :-)

I am quite excited about getting to Alice Springs - not only because the beer will be running low by the time we get there, but also my new "toy" will be there waiting. All I am going to say about it for now is that it should add a whole new dimension to our photographs.

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