Knee Deep Travels

Travelling Oz in our caravan, just taking it all in

Five months on the road

That’s much too close to six months for our liking, we’re not ready to be halfway through… 😞

On the plus side, we had two surprise visitors this month and spent some quality time on the Eyre Peninsula.

We know we’re super behind on our blog, so consider this your highlight reel before the more specific posts 🙂

Before we get into each of our highlights and reveal our surprise visitors (The photos may have given it away)- let’s look at the numbers for this month (and total in brackets):

  • – 3,200 kms travelled (18,264kms) + approx 860km on the Spirit of Tas!
  • Fuel bill for the month: $880 ($6,009.26)
  • Most expensive diesel: $2.12 (pretty good!)
  • Cheapest diesel: $1.98
  • Most expensive campsite: $47 per night
  • Accommodation costs: $950 ($3,886.86)
  • States & Territories visited: 2 (5)
  • Pools swum in: 3 (12)
  • Natural waterholes/beaches swum in: 3 (9)
  • ParkRuns completed: 1 (9)
  • Playgrounds visited: 16 (68)
  • Big things: 3 (10)
  • Harry Potter audio books listened to: 4.3 (we’ve slowed down as Emily takes her time to read the book before we listen).
  • Podcasts on high rotation: Fierce Girls and Imagine This.
  • Most said phrases: “Gee it’s windy” usually followed by “Yup, it’s SA!”

Highlights

The month started with us packing up from Ballarat and heading towards a fabulous bush camp in the Adelaide Hills (more koalas!). After a fun day checking out Hahndorf with Karen and Paul, we returned the next day to collect our mountain of mail and a big surprise package – Nana and Grandad!

This crazy pair decided to hotfoot it across NSW and half of SA to spend time with us before we headed west. We had the best few weeks exploring the eastern Eyre Peninsula with them.

After saying our reluctant goodbyes, we continued exploring the rest of the Eyre, picking up some great new friends on our travels.

Let’s see what each of us picks as our highlights for the month (anyone that has met Emily on this trip will already be yelling “oysters!” so we’ll let her go first…)

E: Oysters!! Learning to shuck them and getting to eat them fresh out of the water nom nom. Lots of time with Nana and Grandad, Korinya Farm Gate, Coffin Bay (duh, oysters), Streaky Bay and the fancy toilets, new friends, Cowell, sqiudding, Port Lincoln, Elliston, Whyalla dolphins, Shiloh Park and Hahndorf.

G: Hahndorf, Whyalla, Korinya Farm Gate and the Oyster Farm Tours – Coffin Bay (it was bloody awesome).

M: Hahndorf, spending time travelling with Nana and Grandad, the free splash park/waterslides at Cowell, Hotel Boston (yum), Oyster’s in Coffin Bay , squidding for the first time, Korinya Farm (x5!!), swimming at Elliston and Streaky Bay, fancy toilets and just chilling out at Streaky Bay and wonderful new friends.

H: Travelling with the folks again was a significant highlight this month – we really enjoy the opportunity to explore with them. This time was no different we had a lot of fun and we really appreciated having the kids travel with them some days – oh the quiet! Hahndorf was a fun place to explore and our bush camp was so nice to return to each night.

The Eyre Peninsula is spectacular and another gem of SA. Its hard to choose favourites but swimming at Whyalla and Fishery Bay, the oyster tour at Coffin Bay, squidding at Port Lincoln, seeing dolphins and seals up close in the wild, and our visit to Korinya Farm would be among the best times of the month.

Oh and the seafood… we ate a lot and it was magnificent!

Lowlights

Car issues and delays. We have to be honest, this month has been wonderful but stressful at times with a niggling car issue that makes the trip west a bit of a gamble and a lack of willing and able mechanics to fix it. The delays have been super frustrating, the challenges with mechanics stressful and the estimated costs to fix it giving us a little heartburn! The issues are still not fixed, but we are closer now – let’s hope we have a better update on that next month. Having said all that, we are choosing to see it as part of the adventure. We have explored places we would have otherwise missed, met some great friends and even had a little extra time with the folks, so it’s not all bad.

Best buys

Hat hangers! Seriously these are so handy and beautiful – I had been watching them for months and finally ordered. The good old $8 occy straps work perfectly in the car but the hats lying around the van were driving me nuts. Thanks to Southern Land Creatives for all the advice when ordering – I love them!

Lessons learnt

Good customer service is golden! This month we had amazing customer service from muk mat and Southern Land Creatives and they deserve a shout-out – thank you for showing others how amazing small businesses can be! Also, to the mechanics who did help us: Full Throttle Mechanics in Ballarat, M&M Garage in Mt Barker and Hein Engineering in Streaky Bay, thanks so much for your help and honesty. We won’t mention the much longer list of mechanics that don’t fit that bill.

Community art is worth so much more than we realise when we’re at home… Yup, we’ve all seen the community art that pops up in our local areas and the ensuing Facebook debate that always ranges from “it’s ugly and a waste of money” to “inspiring”. We’ve come to the conclusion that community art is not really for locals. Community art gives travellers a reason to stop and enjoy your town (and more often than not spend $$). Make it different, interesting, or have more than one piece and they begin to become a trail. They get added to the campers bible – WikiCamps – as a point of interest and all of a sudden you’re planning your morning tea stop to check it out. And that’s when you discover the great little towns hidden around our Country.