Lightning Ridge to Surat

The search for warmer weather was not looking good as we crossed the Queensland border and had a quick stop in Hebel. It was too cold and windy to stop for long so we jumped in the bus and kept driving.

 Originally we had only planned on doing a small drive today but because of the weather which was now raining we decided to keep driving. We ended up stopping just outside of St George at Beardmore Dam, by the time we got here the rain and wind had stopped and the sun was out. It wasn't exactly warm but it wasn't too bad either. Chloe wasn't feeling well again today so spent the whole afternoon on the lounge in the bus.
We kept moving the next morning not far this time just up the road to a great camp spot outside of Surat on the Balonne River.

We spent a couple of nights here just relaxing the days were nice as long as you were in the sun, out of the wind but the nights were freezing!! We had planned on taking it pretty steady from here on but we again changed our minds and decided to drive as much as we could over the next few days and get to Townsville as soon as possible! 

Gulargambone to Lightning Ridge

The sun was shining as we rattled, squeaked and bounced our way towards Lightning Ridge on a very bumpy road. Travelling with sick kids does have one advantage they sleep! Chloe slept nearly all the way and Lucy slept for just under half of it. We stopped for a quick lunch at Walgett before arriving at the Opal Caravan Park in Lightning Ridge. This is a great park only about 3 years old with a nice big clean amenities block. 
1st stop was a dip in the artesian bath and at 42 degrees was pretty hot but really nice once you got used to it.
Everyone woke up slightly better the next day and we were all keen to try a bit of fossicking. There is a big pile at the tourist information centre that you can fossick for free and we all managed to find at least 1 opal each. They were all extremely tiny but that didn't matter we were so excited to find any at all!

After lunch we headed to the Chamber of the Black Hand, if you are ever in Lightning Ridge I recommend this tour. A miner who had no luck mining opals started doing carvings in the walls & roof of his mine and now charges people to go into his mine and look. These are amazing and the kids thought it was fantastic.

The weather was just perfect for our 2 days in Lightning Ridge, on our 3rd morning the wind picked up, the clouds rolled in and it was alot cooler so we packed up and headed in search of somewhere warmer.

West Wyalong - Gulargambone - July 2014

As we drive off on a freezing cold, windy and wet afternoon it still hasn't really sunk in that this is it! All the planning and dreaming from the past 4 years has paid off and we are actually doing this crazy adventure. We have sold everything we could, stored what we couldn't, kissed our families goodbye and without any real plan (expect to head for warmth) driven off! 

We were only going to go about 100km but because the weather was so horrid decided to just keep driving, we stopped at a roadside rest area about 15km south of Dubbo, watched a movie and went to bed. Pretty exciting for our 1st night on the road!!

I woke up Wednesday morning sick also and Chloe wasn't looking too good but we had lots to get through that day starting with a quick trip to Dubbo Zoo. We decided to drive the car around to make it a bit quicker and easier. Lucy wore out pretty quickly and spent most of the time looking at the animals from the car.

 The Siamang's put on an amazing show for us. The sounds they make are incredible

We then headed to Dubbo Distance Education to pick up Lucy's school work for term 3.

Lucy going thru her school work at Lightning Ridge

We stayed the night at a small but lovely (and cheap!) caravan park in Gulargambone. This park had some goats, an alpaca and some geese, which would have usually made our little animal lover very happy, but she was going downhill fast and just wasn't interested. So it was early to bed once again.

Last Days

Our last week was a pretty hectic one, we closed our shop down so spent most of the week packing up the remaining stock, cleaning, trips to the tip, trying to finalise all things to do with the business and more cleaning. This doesn't sound like much but it was a big job and I think we did pretty well to get all done in less than a week! We also moved the bus from our house to my parents backyard and did some last minute clearing and cleaning before settlement. Chloe had her last 2 days at preschool, thanks Bland Preschool for making Chloe feel so special on her last day she will miss you all! The weather on our last weekend in West Wyalong was amazing and we spent a lovely couple of days just relaxing with our families. 
Originally we were planning to leave on the weekend but decided to stay for Lucy's Academic Achievement Assembly on the Tuesday. Unfortunately Lucy got sick over the weekend and missed her last full day of school. I did take her in for a bit of a celebration with her classmates to say goodbye and have some cupcakes organised by her lovely teacher. Thanks KH what a fabulous little class, I'm sure there will be lots of postcards written to you!
Our last day arrived and the weather was horrible!! Freezing cold, windy and wet. We headed to Lucy's assembly where she received the Student of the Term Award!! 

Packing....

After forgetting nearly the whole kitchen we got home from Condobolin and decided to pack the bus properly and start living in it full time. We had recently put a for sale ad for the house on Facebook and found a buyer straight away! So the fun of packing up a house and condensing our belongings to fit into an 11 metre bus began!! I take my hat off to all those families that do this in a caravan or camper trailer, it was such a hard job deciding what comes and what stays and what will fit where. Lucky we have lots of storage space as I always overpack. The kids handled this really well, I packed the majority of their toys/clothes while they weren't home but I was still expecting a few tantrums especially from Chloe as she is a big hoarder and usually has about 10 dolls/teddies in her bed each night. But it went surprisingly well as long I was packing her things to be stored and not throwing anything out she was happy. I may be in trouble with her when we unpack as quite a few things went in the rubbish, surely she won't remember everything she owned....

3 days of non stop packing, and we were pretty much done and decided we needed a break. So off we went to Ariah Park which is a tiny little town that has a great campsite for $10 with power and water.We still couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong with our little car so we were car less again, but it didn't really matter because the campsite is a easy bike ride into town. Brads bike rack he made on the back of the bus was definitely worth it! We spent 2 nights at Ariah Park then decided to head to Mirrool for a night on the way home. At Mirrool we camped right next to the playground which kept the kids amused for hours. 

We had a great little break but it was time to return to school, work and start cleaning the house ready for settlement. We can not wait until this is our reality!!

Easter - April 2014

Easter was our first proper trip in the bus, the 1st one we didn't really do any cooking or anything so this time we would be úsing it properly. We were all ready to leave but for some reason we could not get our newly purchased car to switch over to neutral, which it has to for towing. (This is not putting the car in neutral but switching the 4WD transfer to neutral, which creates less resistance while towing) In the end we ended up leaving the car behind and hoped we could work it out later. We went to Gum Bend Lake in Condobolin which is a fantastic large free camp spot with hot showers and toilets, its a really popular camp spot and was really busy over the Easter weekend but there was still plenty of room. We went with my parents which ended up being quite lucky because we forgot SO much stuff and being seasoned travellers themselves they have everything under the sun in their van. 
The weather was perfect, cold enough at night for a fire but sunny and warm during the day. The kids had a great time, riding bikes, playing in the dirt and fishing with Pa, I don't think they even watched TV the whole time, which is quite amazing for our kids!

Sunrise at Condo

New Wheels

So with the bus finished it was time to sort out our towing vehicle. We own a manual dual cab ute so we were initially hoping to get an A-frame attached to this but after a far bit of research Brad worked out that this was going to cost a fortune and require the ute to be in Brisbane for a couple of weeks. After a few days searching the internet Brad found a Suzuki Grand Vitara with a Hitch'n'Go system already fitted, low km's, it was reasonably priced and not too far from home. We had someone coming to buy our Landcruiser that week so it was all looking good.
That weekend we jumped in the bus and headed to Marulan for our very 1st trip. 
We stopped at Wallendbeen free camp site for a night before heading to Marulan to pick up our new car that the kids have named Suzi.

The kids found 'Pride Rock'- Wallendbeen