We set off on our final push towards Melbourne this morning on another hot, sunny day following a massive thunder storm overnight. The rain was coming down thick and fast but fortunately we’d put the fly sheet on just in case. With the fly sheet on the Howling Moon tent always seems to keep us dry regardless.
We took a scenic route back through the mountains on the Imlay Road through the forest to Bombala. From there we headed to Jindabyne and Thredbo following the road past Thredbo until finally arriving at the Tom Groggin rest area where we made camp for the night.

Plenty of ‘roos at the campsite, one of the more curious youngsters is featured above – he/she won the who blinks first competition in the end..

Tomorrow we’ll be taking the off road track south from the camp eventually working our way to Omeo. We’ll then have to try and get some local information on the tracks across to Dargo and then onto Mansfield.
Once again,no phone signal here so this will have to be posted later !

A stop to admire the view on the way to Bright

We left the four wheel drive tracks behind us this morning, for a while at least. Heading first to Omeo for a quick internet fix and refreshment break (2 days without phone signal and using long drop toilets left us feeling the need for a bit of comfort !). From Omeo we headed out via the ski resorts road through Hotham Heights to Bright.
Yet more twists and turns with climbs and descents as we threaded our way through the mountains but there were some spectacular views along the way. We once again topped 5000 feet and must have been close to the tree line as in places the few trees were severely stunted. There were also signs on the descent of recent bush fires.
We plumped for a camp site for tonight that is another national park site but this time paying a fee as it has showers… always a good thing after a few days on dusty roads. The Lake Catani camp site, despite being pretty remote it also has a phone signal which is always a bonus. That’s probably a product of it’s altitude as we’re camped at around 4300 ft above sea level if the GPS is to be believed. It’s warm now but I suspect we’ll need some extra layers on tonight !
On the last stages of today’s drive the main tank fuel sender started playing up, reading full despite us travelling close to 200 miles since the last fill up. Once we stopped at camp I took the dash apart and changed back to the factory setup which exhibited the same problem so everything pointed at the sender. Fortunately the access panel in the rear floor meant I could verify this and a few sharp taps to the top of the sender unit freed the arm off and all was working again. We’ll need to keep an eye on it though and if it happens again try rotating the sender in case the float and arm are catching somewhere on the inside of the tank.

On our final “wilderness style” camp before we head to Melbourne for the Formula One we ended up choosing another national park site, camping at the side of Lake Eildon.
During the trip across we ended up following yet more mountain roads and a section of unsurfaced and gravelled road that is a precursor of things to come. It took me a while to settle into a rhythm on the unsurfaced track as there tended to be a lot of loose material on the outside of the bends that would drag you into understeer and then washboard sections on the inside that would do the same. It seemed to be a case of finding a sweet spot between the two and not heading too fast into any of them.
We filled up at Alexandra and were reasonably happy with the fuel consumption given how much time we’d spent on off road climbs and on steep mountain roads since the last fill up. It returned around 23 MPG which should give us a baseline for our practical range. Both tanks combined hold 28 gallons so that gives us at least 644 miles or 1036 Km. We’ll need to confirm that after we’ve done some more sustained dirt track mileage, we’ve managed just short of 27 MPG on more normal parts of the journey so far (756 miles or 1200 Km).
The fuel sender on the main tank was playing up slightly after filling up but it seemed to sort itself out after a while so hopefully no repeat of yesterday’s wobbly but I’ll need to keep an eye on it.

Due to our stay for the Formula 1, Melbourne is expected to be the longest we will stay in one place for the whole trip. In some ways it feels a bit like we’re tied down and just want to get moving again. The city seems a bit oppressive and the camp site is a LONG way off our idea of a camp site. It’s cramped (average spacing between vans seems to be about 4 feet) and very noisy. We’ve ended up with a reasonable amount of room by comparison – not sure why ! The tram is 15 minutes walk away and takes over an hour to get to the GP which makes it a bit of a chew, it feels like we’re commuting to work every day.
We’re counting the nights off and can’t wait for Monday morning when we can get moving again. The Formula 1 so far though has been a great experience, I’m writing this after returning from the track after qualifying having been to the track 3 days running (around 8 hours on the **** tram so far and 3-4 left to go !). No idea how Jenson will fare tomorrow, hopefully better than today where he qualified 11th.

It’s Pam’s birthday today and as she has a UK and Australian birthday it will still be her birthday tomorrow morning too. Maybe Jenson will give her a late birthday present and pull something remarkable out of the hat !

Updated after the GP…

JB did pull something out of the hat after all ! An excellent result for JB and McLaren after a disappointing qualifying session. Two spot on strategy decisions took JB to 4th and Magnusson drove a solid race to finish 3rd – both of them will be placed 1 spot higher if Ricciardo’s disqualification isn’t overturned on appeal.

Tomorrow we resume our travels proper…

We finally “escaped” Melbourne this morning and headed out on a 400+ km drive to a free camp site along side Lake Lascelles. There is supposed to be a donation box somewhere that we will contribute to – it’s a really nice spot, particularly after the cramped and noisy site in Melbourne.

The drive north west took us through a number of rain showers but it’s dry here at the moment. As we make our way towards and into South Australia it’s going to get a lot hotter and drier !

The town alongside the lake, Hopetoun, seems to be on it’s uppers, starting to resemble a ghost town with lots of boarded up and closed houses and businesses. Seems a real shame as the infrastructure looks to be in place.

The fuel level sender on the main tank has been playing up again so we let the main tank run low rather than filling up along the way. We’ve now exceeded 400 miles on the main tank since filling up and there’s still fuel left in it. Once camp was set up I took the sender out of the tank and checked it. There’s no sign of a problem that might be causing it to stick so it must be getting stuck against the side of the tank. I’ve rotated the sender slightly to move the arm away from the side of the tank – hopefully that will fix it once and for all.

We’re looking at travelling along a couple of the “Victoria’s Deserts” tracks tomorrow although having let the main tank run low we’ll need to find some fuel first so may end up doing a shortened version. We’ve been doing a bit of forward planning for South Australia too and started to get a bit of an outline route together.

We also need to replenish our food supplies somewhat but as we’re approaching both the fruit fly zone and the South Australia border, which has it’s own restrictions on what can and can’t be taken over the state border, we need to be a bit careful what we buy until we’re in SA.

There are a couple of suggested tracks in the HEMA book that are inside the Victoria’s Deserts section. One of them starts at Hopetoun but having run the main fuel tank quite low and there being no fuel available we instead headed north on the highway to get some fuel.
Once we’d filled up we headed for the northernmost track we’d looked at, heading into the Murray-Sunset NP just west of Underbool, following a number of different tracks towards the north west corner of the NP and the Shearers Hut campground.
Many of the tracks are signed as 4×4 only and, although much of it was fairly easy driving in places, soft sand and sand dunes kept us on our toes. Much of it brought back memories of my previous experience of driving on sand in the Outback Challenge. One dune in particular caused us a bit of a headache as I approached the bottom too slowly and the soft sand sapped away all the power a few feet from the crest. After a couple more attempts we made it over the top and then lowered the tyre pressures all round.
Not sure if it was down to the lowered pressures or not but the rest of the dunes didn’t cause any issues.

En-suite facilities at the campsite…

In all we drove on the unsurfaced tracks for over 120 miles before we got to the camp site. We haven’t seen another person or vehicle since we entered the park and we’re the only people at the campground. It’s certainly warmer here than we’ve been used to and it’s likely to get hotter tomorrow as we head into South Australia.

Stump Jump Plough made between 1912 and 1920 in the blacksmith shop at Murray Town

We headed north to finish off our “off road” trek through the Murray-Sunset NP this morning. After a brief stop to air up the tyres to road pressures we continued North West, finally crossing the border into South Australia mid morning.
We went through the quarantine point and I got a dressing down from the quarantine inspector for exceeding a 25KPH speed limit that neither of us had seen the signs for ! After a quick inspection of the rear of the 90 searching for contraband fruit and legumes we were on our way.
We stopped at Berri to get the necessary permits/paperwork to drive an international vehicle in SA which will cover us for our journey west and also on our return journey through the Simpson desert. All paperwork sorted we carried on our way. Nearly all the roads in this area either go North-South or East-West which can make heading North-West a bit of a challenge !
The aim for today was just to make some distance so we shared the driving and continued on a roughly North West bearing until late in the afternoon where a quick search on WikiCamps led us to a community campsite at Murray Town. We probably covered around 300 miles today including the 30 or so on unsurfaced tracks.
We’re aiming to make it “around the corner” tomorrow, heading to Port Augusta and then head South to Port Lincoln. Just to the south of Port Lincoln is the Lincoln National Park that has some interesting options for a bit of 4×4 travelling and bush camping next to the coast.

The wind picked up last night with a weather front moving In from the south. There were some very strong gusts that shook the tent leaving us with a fitful sleep. With the winds coming from the south the temperatures also dropped which I’ll admit was a bit of a relief as yesterday it was nudging over 30 degrees C and today’s temperatures in the mid 20s were more pleasant.

The commemorative plaque at Memory Cove

We had a relatively gentle day today, starting with a drive down to Port Lincoln to the Info centre where we got our park permit and, fortunately, the last available camping spot and gate key for Memory Cove. The cove can only be accessed through a locked gate in the Lincoln national park and it’s an hour long drive from the gate to the cove on rough 4×4 only tracks. We explored other areas of the park before heading to the locked gate so it was around 1pm when we arrived and set up camp.
We were a bit concerned that the strong winds would be a pain on such a relatively exposed piece of coast but the cove itself is actually very sheltered with only a cooling breeze giving any indication of the strong winds that could be felt elsewhere on the peninsula.
The cove itself is an idyllic spot and our early arrival allowed us plenty of time to relax on the beach. The five camping spots are all within about 20 feet of the beach so once the tent was deployed and we’d had a chat with one of the “neighbours” we set up our chairs on the beach and simply chilled out for the rest of the afternoon, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying this peaceful retreat.
No phone reception here so this will have to be uploaded to the site tomorrow. We’re planning to head North West again tomorrow perhaps as far as Streaky Bay but we’ll have to see where we get to. It’s a good hours drive from here to the locked gate and then probably another hour to Port Lincoln to hand the key in.