Planning The Trips

Planning is more about basics than clever people planning the perfect trip.

Pre Trip Preparation & Planning

After purchasing the car and caravan it is most important to have time to do some trial trips to learn all about your combination and to shake out any problems that need to be repaired or remedied prior to attempting any major trip.

Load your caravan carefully making sure that you do not overload it. Save weight at every opportunity!

In fact we went so far as to set up an excel spreadsheet and weighed and catalogued every item we put into the van. Surprisingly we very quickly were within 20Kg or 30Kg of our maximum allowable for the caravan so it is probably wise to go through this exercise even if only once to get a feel for what you can carry. Remember the little things like water in a tank or hot water system tank weighs a lot and will take up a lot of your allowance if you carry it (the Adria people informed us that the weight of the water tanks and the refrigerator filled to 85% capacity was included in their declared TARE weight so did not have to be accounted for in our allowance to meet the aggregate weight. However as different manufacturers declare differently it is best to check this with your dealer and even then a weigh bridge is probably a necessity). We did carry both tanks full as often as possible which meant that not only were we never caught short but that our ball weight remained fairly static as well. When using your water supply it is important to ensure that your ball weight is monitored as a tail heavy caravan is a nightmare to tow. It is always possible to move heavy items toward the front of the caravan to rebalance as required. If you would like a copy of the spreadsheets (there is one for stuff and one for foods etc) then email Gary and I will send you a copy that you can blank and fill with your own items.

Before we went anywhere Mary & I had a sleepover in our driveway running as a self contained caravan which was a good idea as we could walk up to the house to get anything that we had forgotten to pack. Several walks later we had it sorted out.

Next the four of us set off on our first trip south to Yallingup where we were lucky enough to get sites that allowed us to take advantage of our extensive front view windows. It was an eye opener as we had never done any of it before and it was particularly frustrating when trying to erect our annex with its German instructions. When we pulled it down we colour coded all of the parts so we could quickly assemble it next time (e.g. thin yellow tape joins with thin yellow tape etc.).

We then decided to do a trip into the local country regions in very high temperatures. Wow it reached 47°c, which was excellent as it allowed us to fully appreciate our insulation and air conditioning. It also encompassed the “Australia Day” holiday so we had some visitors (Graham & Lynne Quartermaine) bearing roast lamb, which was a lovely surprise.

Lastly we did a one-week trip with our youngest daughter “Hayley” to Guilderton and now we were confident that we were all ready to go on the big one!

For reference David & Merrilyn missed the country trip due to an unhappy family situation but did do a trip to Mandurah at the same time as we were doing our Guilderton trip.

In both our cases we had some small issues to be attended to with our caravans although David seemed to cop the rough one when his air conditioning malfunctioned after a couple of hours. Fortunately the agent for our caravans was very professional and everything was attended to efficiently and professionally. The warranty work was done at the same time as the 1000km service to make it more convenient for all concerned.

Planning the Australian Circumnavigation

This is not as difficult or scientific as it may sound. We wanted to head north from Perth into the north of Western Australia, across the Northern Territory and then into northern Queensland. The cyclone season in north Western Australia is usually over by the end of March, the best time to be in Darwin is told to us as being July/August and we are further advised that we should be out of north Queensland by the end of September. Therefore it was decided to leave on the 15^th of April (it is very important to set a date as there will always be a reason not to go until next week). Our first stop it was decided would be near Geraldton for 2 days and then our next stop would be a week in Kalbarri. Both of these are booked (to help us all to stick to our departure commitment) but from there it is decided to proceed northward by committee decision. Of course the committee of 4 would always have to bear in mind our rough schedule and departure south from Queensland dates.

Plan Months Ahead for the People Around You

It has taken a long time for our family and friends to come to grips with the fact that we will be away for around a year. If you are lucky you will have a lot of people that you will need to do a lot of reassuring to as to your availability. You need to be careful not to make any commitments that you do not intend to keep. We have spent a lot of time preparing everyone for this and even longer to say goodbye to friends.

Plan for Your Commitments

Most of us have many commitments that need to be managed – Insurances, Credit cards, Investments, Bank accounts, Phone plans, Etc. Etc.! These all need to be managed whilst you are away. Organise for someone to forward your mail on a weekly or fortnightly basis – Most caravan parks are happy to hold mail for you if you advise them you are coming. You can also have mail sent to “your name” “Post Restante” C/- G.P.O. in any capital city and you can even ring 13 13 18 and ask if there is anything being held for you. In our case (ex Perth) mail takes 4-5 days intra state, 7-10 days to NT & Qld, and 5-7 days to the rest of Oz. Our eventual best solution to this was to have someone scan the accounts and forward the documents by email. Many accounts can be paid on the internet (if it is available, you have a computer and a secure connection), many can be paid by phone (this can be expensive on mobiles) but good old fashioned cheques in the mail will always work. Some payments can be scheduled in advance and this might also be convenient but whatever you do try to think some of this through before you go so as to avoid angry fee charging institutions.