It has been almost 6 months to the day since we used the caravan. After the success of the trip to Far North Queensland last year, there was encouragement from branch members for another trip to be organised and from that encouragement a tagalong called the 2026 Opal Country and Flinders Ranges Tagalong was developed and approved by the Australian Caravan Club.
The trip was planned to start just after Mother’s Day and run for a duration of about 35 days.
The war in the Middle East and the resulting fuel crisis in Australia made us think hard about going but there was a collective decision that as we are not getting any younger and the fuel prices were starting to drop, the trip would proceed as planned.
Today we left home at about 9:45am and then 9:50am after returning to see if our other car that was left in the driveway was locked. The trip to Mount Victoria was uneventful with only light traffic experienced. We were not sure if the fuel situation was reflected in the lack of traffic. We recalled having to stop at only 4 sets of traffic lights between Concord and Lithgow. We also kept the speed down to try to reduce fuel consumption.
The trip from the lower Blue Mountains to almost Bathurst took place in light rain. Just before Bathurst the clouds parted to reveal a nice blue sky, exactly as the BOM had predicted. We purchased fuel at Kelso at what we considered to be a very reasonable price and purchased sausage rolls at the same venue.
We arrived at our destination at Macquarie Woods about 45 minutes before the time we expected. We had allowed extra time to navigate through Lithgow due to the closure of the Great Western Highway at Mount Victoria but that part of the trip was a lot quicker than we expected.
We were the second to arrive at our destination and not long after, the other 3 members of the group arrived.
“He” managed to have a gentle fall as the site was full of covered holes. We had a happy hour until the sun set and then all headed to the warmth of our RV’s. We had wraps for our evening meal. We noticed that the water pump would not turn off when water was not being used. This has happened in the past and was said to be something to do with timing. It could also mean that we have a leak and that the pump is actually pumping.
Today we used Starlink for the first time and our setup for free camping gives us a little over 2 hours of connectivity. This was with a small power source, and we have a large one if needed. We were very pleased with this result.
With the temperature slowly dropping and the attraction of a warm bed in the rear of the caravan, we were in bed just before 9:30pm looking forward to a long sleep.