On the Road Again Perth Odessey 2010

Day 37

11/9/2010

Still at Jillah Rockhole

Today has been a rest day at our 50 billion star resort, Jillah Rockhole Rest Area,  and that is exactly what we did, slept, pottered, ate, drank, tendered our fire, collected more fire wood, had the most tremendously tasty camp oven cooked Ozo Bucco, walked and talked. 

Reminiscing on highlights of our trip so far, taking out the obvious, Thomas, for Sheryle’s top 3:    The Valley of the Giants tree top walk& Emperors walk , the whales at Albany and our camp here today; for me:    The Valley of the Giants tree top walk & Emperors walk, Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse and  travelling the Nularbor including our rest day here. 

We have discussed the set up in our van, what has and has not worked for us and changes to be made before our next trip.  In the main everything has worked well, however, the 3 way fridge is going and will be replaced with a compressor fridge; at this point in time the Invitri Frigo is what we are thinking of as the compressor is separate and gives an extra 30 litre capacity for the same size as other fridges.  A new drop down leg for the large draw in the tunnel boot, the instillation of Holland blinds at the windows, 12v outlets by my side of the bed so as there will be no need to have an extension cord at night, and continuing to think over the electric bikes and how we could mount these on the van. 

We have found the van to be extremely comfortable and roomy, we have looked at what we are carrying and what has and has not been used, only the turbo oven has not been used to date, items added while away, an electric fry pan and pie maker; the fry pan  was always to be included just had not got around to getting one, the pie maker, well now we have 2, this is not a bad thing as when we are home we make a swag of pies at one time and this will halve the time spent in the kitchen.

The van tows like a dream, Tom Oltoff???on the spelling, an engineer and specialist writer for Caravan World for many years has stated it does not matter what you are towing “a brick is a brick” size and weight have little baring if you have your weight distribution balanced, “a brick is a brick”, this I find is correct the fuel consumption between towing our 25ft,  2,600kg unladen Regent and 16ft 6in 1,600kl Island Star, the main difference is take off and hills, once rolling on the flat there is little difference.

Catch you tomorrow  

John & Sheryle