Darwin here we come …

Well we are sort of on our way to Darwin even if it is in a round about way. Last year we took the West Coast to Darwin for the V8 Supercars but this year we are tackling the East Coast up to Port Douglas and then across the top to Darwin.

Having just got back from the USA, there has been time to do some washing, complete some jobs on the caravan including a new battery, before hitting the road again. Not sure how the battery seller is making money as I got one delivered overnight from Melbourne with no freight charge to me.

While the USA trip was Long Service Leave, this trip is my normal fostered recreation leave with a few shift changes (standbys) thrown in to give me 7 weeks off. Jenny even though she has a mountain of Long Service Leave that you can’t jump over, has decided only to join me for 3 weeks of the trip.

With the van packed and hooked up, managed to get on the road around 10:20 am which was only 20 minutes later than I had planned. The skies were looking dark, there was a bit of wind and the temperature was around 17C. Glad we are heading north to some warmer climes.

Apart from a few stops to grab some geocaches, today’s travels went fairly well. There was one little heart starter around Ouyen when some tosser decided to overtake me (I was sitting on 90kph) on a bend with little vision of oncoming traffic and with a no overtaking line. As it turns out there was a car coming the other way who had to stop and pull off the road otherwise would have been hit head on and I had to put on the brakes too so that he didn’t cut me off trying to get into our lane.

I managed to notice some markings on the doors for a certain railway company with a friend who works there. A quick phone call with a request for some photos and dashcam video and I think that guy may think again about his driving practices on the open road.

I was going to camp on the river tonight but as it was all overcast all day, the solar didn’t have a chance to keep the new battery topped up. Just on dusk, stopped into the Wood Wood Caravan Park to hook up to 240V and wait for some weather that was supposedly on its way.