Port Lincoln - Dec 8 - 18, 2017

We had so been looking forward to this trip and it been months in the planning.  The idea to go to Port Lincoln stemmed from Gregory's 40th birthday wish which was to go Shark Diving!!

We had a bit of a stressful start to the trip as we discovered on Wednesday night that someone had slashed our caravan tyres.  Made a mad dash and got one repaired, only to find out that the spare had also been done.  This meant an extra day off for Tony as he then had to go and get the second tyre fixed.

We both took a week off of work and planned to be away for as long as we could stretch it.  I managed to skip out of work early on the Thursday afternoon and we were on the road by just a little after 3pm.  Mum hot the road with her van first and we were to meet up with her at our first stop.

Our first stop was port Pirie Caravan park.  Took us just over 2 and a half hours which wasn't too bad.  We decided not to unpack much more than a couple of chairs so that we didn't need to do much the next day.  He went to Woolies down the road to pick up some food.  Had hoped for takeaway but doesn't seem to be much available here other than McDonald's.  Opted for a couple of microwave meals instead.

Our sites in the very vacant caravan park

Up early on Friday morning and opted for roadhouse breakfast at the BP Tinman Roadhouse.  Probably the best roadhouse we've ever eaten in - food was great, was very reasonably priced and the service was ace.  As we were in convoy with mum we decided to make sure we had plenty of breaks.  Before we knew it we were in Cowell and it was lunchtime.  

One of the girls from work had been working over here earlier in the year and I remembered seeing photos of the fried oyster lunch she had.  We asked in the service station where the blue shack fish place was and we were directed down to the boat ramp.  Fortunately I was armed with a recommendation, because if you just took the place on first impression you would never want to eat there.  It was a run down little shanty called the Fish Box Kiosk.  We decided on garfish and some fried oysters.  Holy cow were they good!!  

McLaren Vale Lakeside Caravan Park - January 25 to 29 2017

Decided to take advantage of the long weekend and make it an extra long weekend.

Headed off down to McLaren Vale at 3.30 on Wednesday afternoon.  Took a couple of hours to get there as the traffic was pretty heavy and there's no quick way for us northerners to get to the southern expressway.

Got to our site pretty easily - site 113 which is right at the back of the park and backs onto the camp kitchen.

We finished set up by 6 pm so I took off back up the road to the local shopping centre.  Were hosting a BBQ lunch tomorrow so I needed something other than the sausages I bought with us.  McLaren Vale has 2 main shops - a Coles and a Foodland.  I opted for foodland and quite frankly it was perhaps the nicest one Ive ever been in.  Complete with a cheese room there was so much local produce - meats and cheeses were the highlight.  A trio of enzos heat and eat pastas for dinner and we were set for the night.

The park is beautifully rural and lots of local birds - galahs, cockies and magpies.  They come in at night at around 8pm and then wake up just before 6.  We had us a Tony cooked bacon and egg breaky and then waited for our guests to arrive for an Aussie Day lunch.

Don came first at a little after 10 so the boys all took off for a ride around the southern vales Shiraz trail.  They took about an hour and by all reports was hard work but beautiful scenery.

Shortly after the rest of the party turned up.  Mum, Karen and Emma (Tonys friends) and John and Lesley (Dons friends).  We had a great lunch with lots of laughs.  The weather was perfect and before we knew it they had all left and we were on our own again.

Friday was great weather again.  We walked the dogs to the shops and Tony and Nate had a bit of a hit of tennis.  The rest of the day just vanished as we watched movies and then cricket / tennis.

Saturday was much of the same again.  The boys rode and I supervised the dogs.  After their ride they hopped into the pool for a but of a cool down.  We enjoyed the rest of our time just chilling. The time went way too soon and before we knew it we were packing up and driving home on sunday morning.

 

 

Next time I think we will try 48 or 49 

A new adventure awaits

Earlier this year we got bitten by the camping bug.  On the January long weekend we went and stayed down at Port Willunga for the Tour Down Under.  We stayed in a cabin but spent a bit of time sitting outside under Mum and Dads Caravan awning.

We started a new tradition just last year of staying in a caravan park around Tony's Birthday.  Unfortunately we only got to do it twice before Dad died but I think we knew then that we were hooked.

So after the tour we decided we needed to get our own camper trailer.  We looked around for a little bit and then spent $5ooo on a second hand one from a nice family who were upgrading to a Campervan.  We took it out once, for Tony's birthday weekend and stayed at the Kingston-On-Murray Caravan park.  It was such great fun.  Nate had a blast as he did the first time we stayed in a caravan park as he got to make friends with some of the other kids and just got to run around like a mad thing.

The only downside we had to the Campertrailer was that it was heavy to set up.  Im not much good at that kinda thing so it was mostly up to Tony to put it up.  We wondered if we had done the right thing in buying it because it seemed like a lot of work.

Sadly Dad then passed away in April and we wondered if we would ever go camping again.  We decided after a lot of thought and a lot of tears that it would be a good way to honor him as he loved getting out in his van.  On our other trips he said more than once that his dreams had come true having us there with him.

So in July we decided it was in our best interests to upgrade.  A quick search on gumtree and we found the new beast.  A 12 month old Jayco Swan Campervan.  It was perfect and at a great price.  Once Mr bank Manager agreed with us we were able to sell off the old trailer - at the same price we paid and we had the new van.

We decided it needed a name so we've decided upon RG the RV - "Bobby" for short  in honor of Dad who started us on this path.

Our first trip is this coming weekend and were combining two of our favorite things - the Crows (playing in Geelong) and camping!!