Author: Chris Riley

How big does a caravan need to be for a couple travelling with a dog?

| Chris Riley

You may be wondering just how big a Caravan set up is that would be suitable for a couple with a dog. If you’re considering setting up for caravan travel I guess the answer to that will depend on what the basics are that are necessary for you. Every rig is a compromise of some sort, and every couple has their own set of needs and wants to make living in a caravan enjoyable for them. A bigger rig gives more on board storage space, but it also needs more space to store your van when not in use. You’ll need a substantial vehicle to tow it with, and your fuel economy will be higher than if you can manage with a smaller rig.

A smaller rig is lighter to tow so you won’t need a heavy duty tow vehicle. There won’t be as many cupboards and drawers inside it either so you will have to be economical with what you pack to take away with you. When it’s not in use a smaller van is less cumbersome to store. If you don’t mind the canvas skirt around the top of a pop top caravan, one of these may even fit into your garage, or under your carport.

Think about whether you want an ensuite in your van. We’ve had two caravans with ensuites, and two caravans without. I used to think it was important. But now I’m happier without that extra size and weight behind us when travelling along. We do carry a porta-loo on board, and we manage between caravan parks by having a PTA shower (Privates, tips and armpits). Some people carry a portable shower with them that they set up in a separate shower tent.

Shall I tell you about our rig? Okay, get yourself a cup of coffee and settle yourself into a comfy chair, and I’ll tell you what we manage with now…..

We have a very modest, 15 year old, Coromal Magnum 457, pop top. It’s only 15 feet in length, has two single beds, and it doesn’t have an ensuite. The caravan has been well kept, and didn’t look to have had taking any sort of beating. We only paid $18,000 for it. At the time of purchase we thought our Subaru Forrester would be okay as a tow vehicle, it was legally able to manage the weight of the Magnum. However the 200km trip to bring it home told us how wrong in that assumption we were. The mileage was horrendous. The next week out went the Subaru and in come the vehicle we now tow with, a 2020 Pajero Sports.

Our caravan has air conditioning, but at the moment that’s not working. (The joys of buying an older van, things in it may getting towards the end of their use by date). However, our idea of caravanning isn’t so much to go to different places, but rather to be in perfect weather. (Hence Broome is repeatedly on our winter travel agenda). We’ve been a bit further this year. We went up to Darwin which is hotter, and more humid than Broome. Air conditioning would have been useful up there. However we have two fans, one for at the end of each bed, and the fans together with the great ventilation that a pop top has, meant the van cooled down quickly. When the outside temperature dropped the van cooled down quickly. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t unmanageable. Personally I think we’re all getting a little too reliant on things such as air conditioning and heating anyway. I wonder sometimes if we’re losing the ability for our bodies to self-regulate temperature. Never-the-less we will get the air con looked it to see if it can be fixed. If it’s past it’s use by date we’ll think hard before replacing it. I doubt it’s going to get much use, but as it’s housed inside a cabinet, the space it takes up could be better utilised for storage. There are some pretty damn good portable air conditioning units now too. They don’t take up much space, and could travel in the car to be brought out only when needed. Something for us to think about. If any of you reading this already have a caravan and if it has air conditioning, do you use it very much? I’d be interested to know, it may help us make our decision.

The fridge is a 90 litre built in 3 way fridge. It runs very well on gas, but can be temperamental on 240 or 12 volt. A lot of people seem to be replacing their 3 way caravan fridges now with two way compressor fridges. We’re considering doing the same. So, again if any of you reading this have a caravan we’d be interested to hear what type of fridge you have. If you have a compressor fridge do you regret not being able to run it on gas? We have a good battery pack and solar panels. We’ll need to look into it further yet, but we think the battery pack will be sufficient to run both our caravan with a compressor fridge, and our portable Bushman fridge. We’ve been looking at the Bushman 130 litre compressor fridge. Apparently this fridge should fit into the same space as our Dometic 90 litre fridge. That’s a lot more internal fridge space for the same amount of caravan space that the current fridge takes up. Do any of you have a Bushman Fridge? Are you happy with it?

We’re both in our 70s now and as we’ve grown older we find a good nights sleep has become harder to achieve. In a caravan the single beds help, plus they’re easier to make, the bedding is easier to launder, and single beds give a feeling of more space inside the van.

We have a wardrobe between our twin beds that has a cupboard underneath. That’s where we store our porta loo during the day. At night we pull it out and place up the other end of the van, and then we put the dogs bed on the floor between us in front of the wardrobe. At home he sleeps on our bed, but single beds just aren’t big enough. It took a few nights of perseverance to get him to accept the new sleeping arrangements, but he has no problems with it now. The wardrobe has shelves in it rather than hanging space. We use packing cubes, and between the shelves, the overhead cabinets, and the under bed storage we have tons of space for all of our clothes and other stuff.

We’ve also purchased a number of attractive cane baskets which sit on the shelf that goes all around the van above the cabinets. The baskets house our tea towels, bath and beach towels, games, dog grooming gear, and several other bits and pieces. When we’re travelling most of the baskets sit on the beds, with some in a crate on the floor between the beds. When we pull up for a night it takes less than 10 minutes to pop the roof up, unzip the top windows, and put the baskets on the top shelf.

Apart from the lower initial cost of our second hand pop top, and the fact that it fits into our available storage space at home, the thing we really love is how airy it is. It’s a caravan, but the canvas around the top (or the PVC or whatever it’s made of) gives it a bit of a feel of camping. We love that. In our fifth wheeler and full height New Age caravan it took much longer for the van to cool down and for the breeze to blow through taking all the stale air from travelling with it.

That’s basically it for our indoor set up. It’s a small set up, but it’s adequate. There’s plenty of room for two old codgers, all of their gear and their little Labradoodle. We’re comfortable. We do as much of our living outdoors as we can, so our outdoor set up is extensive. For now though this post is already almost long enough to be a book. I’d better tell you about our outdoor set up another day.

Oh – and for any of you interested in how my editing problems are coming along with WordPress. Their AI assistant escalated the issue to their ‘happiness engineers’. Eventually they acknowledged this is a known problem, and they sent me a link to a Jetpack editor. It seems to be working a treat. I do hope they fix the problem though soon. It’s been a problem for years….. Honestly – just how long does it take! I guess companies just never fix errors these days, they’re far too busy trying to move on to bigger and better things.

The costs involved in caravanning

| Chris Riley

In a recent post I mentioned some costs for caravan parks. One of the comments received on that post expressed surprise at the price, thinking that caravanning was a cheap holiday option. Consequently, I did a bit of research.

Firstly you’re going to need a caravan, a tow vehicle, and a few other bits and pieces to make life comfortable. For a small entry level van you’ll likely pay somewhere between $25, 000 & $50,000. A mid range caravan with a few more luxury’s such as air conditioning, standard solar panels, and a small ensuite will be a more expensive. You would expect to be paying somewhere between $50, 000 & $90,000 for one of those. However if you really want to add a bit more size, luxury, or be equipped with a heavy duty van for more self sufficiency, and hard off roading, you’ll need to fork out somewhere between $100,000 & $250,000.

Below (in no particular order) are some of the rigs we’ve had. This is only a few of them. We’ve upsized, and downsized many times over the years. We’ve had tents, camper trailers, caravans, and even a swag. We’ve had small second hand caravans, one new caravan (a New Age Manta Ray), and we’ve had a top of the wozzar second hand fifth wheeler. The fifth wheeler was brilliant, easy to tow, and very luxurious to be in. The swag was cool, absolutely perfect for a few nights camping under the stars, particularly on a dry winter’s day when you could have a fire. And I have to say I loved our first caravan, and I love the one we have now. Both are pop tops, so that canvas top makes them feel airy (almost like tenting, but much more comfortable and convenient), and both were no frills.

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You’ll also need to factor in a vehicle that’s up to job of towing whichever van you choose. Your existing vehicle may safely tow one of the smaller vans, but if you choose one of the extreme heavy duty models, or a big luxury caravan you’re going to need to consider something like the big American Rams to handle the weight, or at the very least a Landcruiser. Whatever you do, don’t tow anything above your vehicles towing recommendation. Should you come to grief, you most likely wouldn’t be covered by your insurance.

On top of the initial outlay for your van and vehicle, you’ll also need to set it all up. Towing mirrors, weight distribution systems and vehicle brake controllers will cost somewhere between$4000 & $9000. Your running costs will add a further $3000 – $8000 a year. That’s to cover registration, servicing and repairs, and the extra fuel needed to tow your caravan.

Then you’ll maybe also want outdoor chairs and tables, something to cook on outdoors, ground sheets, and possible even a gazebo.

Caravan park fees for a powered site can be anywhere from $25 – $125 a night. (Yes you read that correctly – if you want to stay in a much sort after area in peak holiday season, overlooking water, $125 a night would be the going rate). The $25 nightly fees are for out of the way places, usually inland, and not usually places that are on people’s holiday itinerary. Of course if you are set to be completely self sufficient, and you have a rig that’s capable of taking down some rugged roads, you may be lucky enough to find a lovely spot that costs you absolutely nothing, and you may be lucky enough to have it all to yourself. There are also lots of places that are organised camp grounds with either no, or very little facilities that have small nightly fees. (Some of these are now getting expensive to now. Expect to pay anywhere between $10 – $60 each night, depending on how popular the place has become).

We’re currently staying at a modest caravan park in Broome. I’ll show you around the park at a later stage. It’s a lovely park, not too big, and nice and shady. It doesn’t have a pool, nor a kids playground (advantage being, not many kids here belting around on their bikes, or throwing a tantrum because mum or dad wants them do something they don’t want to do). We’e here for full calander month, on a small powered site at a cost of $2418. We love the park, and of all the parks we’ve stayed in in Broome, this is the one we’ll be coming back to for sure. Again, I’ll tell you why in a later post.

If you were under the assumption that caravanning is a cheap holiday, I wonder if I’ve just disillusioned you. If you use your caravan often though, it does cover the costs of the initial outlay. If you then compare the costs of three months away per year in your caravan as opposed to three months away in paid accommodation, you would end up in front most likely in the caravan. I think most regular caravanners though would agree with me though when I say that caravanning isn’t about the costs (although that probably does enter into it). It’s a lifestyle choice. For us, it’s about sleeping in our own bed, not one that’s been slept in by 1000 other people. It’s about being outdoor under our annex, cooking our own food, having our own vehicle with us, and being able to holiday with our dog.

It’a about being in Broome for much of the winter, and being able to drive right up to the water’s edge on an outgoing tide in our own vehicle. It’s about having our drinks in that vehicle and maybe even dinner, having a long walk on the beach , and then sitting with a drink as we watch the sun set. It’s about being able to get to our happy place.

Mr Tilly hasn’t always taken to caravanning. But now he loves it. It’s such a pleasure to be in our happy place once again, and now with a pesky puppy who also seems to be enjoying it as much as we do.

Apologies for all the errors in this – I’ve tried everyone’s suggestions, and I’ve been onto the AI assistant that WordPress has. None of it works, and in fact it’s gone from bad to worse. Everytime I try to insert my cursor into text now for a revision the whole block highlights. If I carry on, it deletes the whole block. I’ve managed to save a couple of blocks but only just, by closing down before it has a chance to auto save. Some of the errors change the context of what I’m trying to say altogether. I have the choice of re-typing the whole thing or publishing as is. SO BLOODY FRUSTRATING. As this is a ‘known fault’ the AI assistant on WordPress has escalated the issue for human assistance. I have no idea how long the take to address the issue. Bearing in mind that I’ve contacted them myself long, long ago, and no doubt others have contacted them also many times, I’m not holding my breath for any help in the near future. I’m not going to re-type my whole blog, and I’m resenting the fact that I may have to learn how to deal with typing this all up in Pages first (as others seem to do to get around these editing issues). I want to stand up for what I think is my right – that is to be able to edit what I write in my WordPress draft. I pay for that right. I’m going to be WordPress’s squeaky wheel. I’m going to be pestering them daily, maybe even hourly…. They’re going to hate me!

Dog Friendly Cable Beach House

| Chris Riley

It was quite cool this morning, only around 10 degrees, so we lingered a bit before taking Tilz for a walk. A bit of scrolling while we had our first cup of coffee for the day. This time it wasn’t mindless scrolling, we had some research to do. Our three way fridge has stopped working on both 12 volt and on 240 volt. We didn’t want to try it on gas until we’d done a bit of research into possible causes, remedy’s, and to see if it was safe to try on gas. After a bit of research, both on the net, and by way of removing the vents to check for possibly ammonia leakage, we deemed it safe to light the gas. That was around 6 hours ago. Anyone who’s familiar with 3 way fridges will know they don’t cool down quickly, but it is slightly cooler than it was this morning, so fingers crossed. We contemplated trying to get someone out to take a look at it, but we’ve ruled that out. Being 15 years old, it’s probably nearly due for replacement. We’re still in the research stage, but it seems like it may be a good time to consider changing over to a more modern caravan compressor fridge. That’ll be an exercise best done at home, and if the worst comes to the worst in the meantime, that is the fridge is unable to be used even on gas, we do have a good sized Bushman portable fridge. We won’t be stuck.

Research completed, it was time for Tilz to be walked. It’s approximately 15 minutes walk from our caravan park (Tarangau) to the surf club at Cable Beach, a good distance for an early morning walk. A few people were out and about, and why not – it was about as perfect as a morning can be for a walk. What am I saying, of course it was a perfect morning for a walk. Every morning is perfect for a walk at this time of year in Broome. That’s why we come here.

We walked past Resorts and coffee shops and restaurants, even the occasional huge holiday home. The walk was well shaded, the gardens beautifully tropical. There were Boabs, colourful Bougainvillea, and stunning palms to walk past.

We didn’t walk down on the beach today. Instead we took a look at the work being done up near the surf life saving club. A few years ago Town Beach on the opposite side of Broome was all upgraded, and is now quite beautiful. Now it’s time for Cable Beach side. The work won’t be completed this season, but there’s definitely a lot going on. I can’t wait to see it all next year, that’s presuming it’ll be finished by then. The old Zanders Coffee shop is now Cable Beach House. We enquired if it was ‘dog friendly’ in the outside area, and were thrilled to find out it most certainly is. We decided to treat ourselves to breakfast.

The waitress brought us out a bottle of water, two glasses, and a bowl of water for Mr Tilly. We ordered a cappuccino each, and a smashed avocado on toasted sourdough to share. Fortunately we didn’t each order a breakfast, it was huge. Three small pieces of sour dough toasted and spread with smashed avocado. Then topped with a good amount of salad of baby spinach and rocket, crispy chick peas, roasted baby tomatoes, bocconcini, and a flavoursome garnish of a slightly sweet vinegar. The meal was delicious, and not too badly priced ($40 including the two coffees). And the view…… Well that was priceless!

Cable Beach House is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s both an inside and an outside area, and it’s licensed. Both areas overlook the turquoise waters of Cable Beach. Dogs are only allowed in the outside area, so if booking a table, (and I’d certainly recommend booking if you’re planning to go for dinner), be sure to stipulate that you have a dog with you so you require seating in the outside area. I was warned by our waitress to ask the person taking the booking to actually write on the booking that a dog will be with us. Apparently some of the staff neglect to specify this which ends up in an inside table being booked by mistake. As always during the busy season overseas backpackers make up a lot of the hospitality staff, so English is often a second language – so apparently there’s a need to be assertive when booking.

We had walked down to the same place yesterday evening, taking a beer and a light dinner with us, and we sat in the lawn area outside to watch the sunset. (That’s free, not actually part of the restaurant area). It was absolutely stunning as it always is. How much more magical this would be if had been sipping a cocktail and having a special dinner in one of the seats of Cable Beach House. We’re here for another month yet, so perhaps we’ll try it one evening and I’ll let you know what their dinners and cocktails are like.

For now though, I can certainly recommend breakfast. What a pleasure!

A change of name and trying to improve my WordPress experience

| Chris Riley

I’ve been having a lot of trouble using WordPress lately. I’ve always had a lot of trouble, but increasingly over the years it’s become so frustrating, that I almost gave up completely. I had cancelled my auto re-new for the site, and wasn’t going to renew it again. However, blogging does seem to give me motivation to get out and do things with my life. So I thought I’d give it one more go. I’ve paid for another year to see if I can get a bit better at this computer ‘stuff’.

I’m going back to the original purpose of my blog, which is to record our caravan travels, only this time it’s caravan travels with a dog. Lifeofrileyow.com originally stood for life of riley on wheels. Then while we were in the UK for six months we weren’t ’on wheels’, and I missed blogging. So I thought about what the ow part of my website name could mean, and came up with, ‘on whatever’. When we returned to house living and were only travelling part time in the caravan it seemed appropriate to use the blog to record our daily lives. One occurrence in our lives was the addition to our household, Mr Tilly (aka Tilz), our little Labradoodle. Tilz is now nine years old.

He was a nightmare to take away in the caravan, so much so that we sold our caravan, and with no caravan to store, we ended up downsizing everything. We had resigned ourselves to overseas trips. However, we missed our camping/caravanning. Long story short – we’re now back in a caravan, albeit a much smaller one, and we’re now living in a home that will accommodate the smaller van. Tilz comes along with us now, and at the ripe old age of nine now seems to be enjoying the travel experience almost as much as we do.

I’ve returned the theme of my blog to, life of riley on wheels, only I’ve added ‘with a dog’, and I’ve decided to try to use WordPress better. I think I’ve made some progress today. This morning I discovered what I think is an AI generated assistant. The assistant walked me through clearing the cache so as to enable easier editing. Editing has been a nightmare. I think it has worked. Time will tell….. If it has worked, then I’ll be just about dancing in the street for joy. I’m such a dinosaur with technology, but the AI assistant, was far more understanding and helpful than any human could possibly be. I’m living with hope….

If it has worked, this AI assistant is about to become my new ‘Best Friend’. I suspect I’ll be talking to him/her more than I talk to almost anyone else. That doesn’t mean I don’t talk a lot to others, I do. It just means I years and years behind in trying to grasp technology. I have lots of things to discuss with my newly discovered ‘Best Friend!.

(Footnote: it didn’t work – I tried to insert my curser in the paragraph above to correct I to I’m in front of years and years behind. But the curser wouldn’t go in. It’a a pain in the arse. I’m going to have to give this assistant a name, perhaps ‘PA’ for personal assistant will do, and I’m going to have to pester PA again.

Broomes Gateway Caravan Park

| Chris Riley

I don’t know why we make travel plans, we never stick to them. We did get up to Darwin to see our son and Daughter-in-law, but we stayed three weeks rather than the planned five. Also we had planned to return home via the Red Centre, but instead have back tracked and are now back in Broome again.

We had a caravan park booked in town as from 28th, which at the time of writing this, is today. Arriving three days earlier than that we decided we’d give the Broome Gateway Caravan park a go. It’s nearly 30 kms out from town, and they don’t have powered sites. However, it’s around half the price of any of the sites in town, and it gets great reviews so we thought we’d give it a go.

The sites, as promised, are really spacious. There’s plenty of shady trees on most of the sites, and plenty of sunny space left for charging solar panels. Having plenty of solar panels and a power pack, we don’t need to have a powered site as long as we can get our panels in the sun for most of the day. We had our caravan set up, the annex partially set up beside it, and beside that a 2.4 x 2.4 shade house. There was a small grove of trees at the side of our shade house, probably around 3 metres in width with about 5 trees, and there would have been a similar amount of space on the other side of our caravan. For anyone used to caravan parks you may think I’m exaggerating. I’m not, I wish I’d taken more photos to prove it. The sites are amazingly big.

The ablution blocks are equally as spacious. Each toilet, shower, and hand basin is in its own very large, separate room. The rooms have painted concrete floors, and the walls are concrete block and tin. The showers are hot, and whilst the toilets and hand basins are stained an outback sort of orange colour, it’s still clear that they are spotlessly clean.

During the three nights we were there, there were two ‘fire watch’ alerts issued for an area that included the caravan park. Fortunately the fire was to the west of us, and the wind was blowing in a Westerly direction, so the fire was travelling in the opposite direction of the caravan park. If the wind had reversed, it may have turned nasty, but all was good. We couldn’t even smell the smoke, despite the fire looking alarmingly close.

We wondered if it would feel too far away from Cable Beach. However, none of the caravan parks in town are right on the beach, so even when staying in town, we usually take our car and drive onto the beach at Gantheame Point. The extra 25 – 30kms seemed to make very little difference really in the scheme of things.

At around 5pm they light a big fire in the communal fire pit at Gateway. The travellers bring along a drink and sit around the fire sharing travel stories and getting to know each other. On the first night we met three other couples who come from the same suburb in Mandurah that we live in. We’d never met them before, amazing!

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Today we moved into the caravan park that we booked in town. As I type this I can hear every word my next neighbour says as she talks on the phone, and the noise of traffic going past on the adjoining street has me thinking that Gateway may just end up being our preferred caravan parks for future years. It was so peaceful there comparatively, although the noise of the trucks on the highway at night did carry on the wind from time to time.

To be fair we’ll give it a couple of weeks here before we make any firm decisions for future years. One thing that we certainly can’t ignore though is the cost. If we had stayed for the entire 5 weeks at Gateway the cost would have been a total of $1320. For the same amount of time in town, this particular caravan park, albeit on a powered site, will cost us $2695. That’s less than half the price. Even factoring in a couple of extra tanks of fuel, it’s still at least $1000 less. Most of the caravan parks in town are even more expensive than that. We’re actually in one of the cheaper, no frills parks. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very nice park, with lots of shade, and very clean toilets. There’s no pool though, nor children’s play equipment (we don’t want either of those things anyway). Compared to the space allocated at Gateway, these sites are small. The phrase that comes to mind is ‘crammed in like sardines’. But I guess the owners have to make a living, and there are always a lot of tourists in Broome during the winter months, so there’s a need for caravan parks to fit as many caravaners in as they can. Whether or not we decide to stay at Gateway again in future years, we really did enjoy the space and the serenity there this year, even though it was only for three nights. It had a campground feel to it rather than a structured caravan park full of rules and regulations. Oh – and I haven’t yet mentioned they seem to take great pride in being extremely dog friendly (to friendly dogs). They even have a fenced dog paddock for pooches to run around in off lead. Typing this up, ya know what – and I think you’ll agree with me, I think it’s going to be a no brainer as to where we stay next time we bring the caravan up to Broome! What do you think?

A Broome Fix at last

| Chris Riley

With more than four years since we were last in Broome, the closer we drew to the place, the more our plans for shorter travel days went out the window. With a mixture of plans that went awry due to circumstances beyond our control, along with a growing desire to see the red earth, and turquoise waters that are Broome, we condensed four days of travel into two. It was mid afternoon when we arrived, and getting near sunset by the time we did a quick a set up of the van, and headed down to Cable Beach for the first swim of many at Cable Beach for this trip.

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It only took us a few days to change our travel plans. Our plan had been to return home down the Red Centre via Alice Springs, rather than to back track from Darwin covering the same old ground. However, Broome, being a bit like a drug to us, thirteen days just wasn’t going to give us the fix we craved. So back-tracking it is, with another three weeks in Broome on our return from Darwin.

We gave up caravanning because our pooch, Mr Tilly (Tilz) was just so anxious being away from home. Neither he, nor us were enjoying our trips. We had resigned ourselves to short overseas trips leaving him with someone else. However, we missed our road trips, and he was just as anxious being away from us as he was being away from his own home with us. So we tried again with the help of some Prozac from the vet for Tilz. We gave him one Prozac, and he watched the world go by in the caravan park, very chilled out. Wonderful! We cut the next pill in half, and he was still very laid back. We forgot to give him more on that trip, but it only seemed to take the two doses and it was as if he suddenly realised, ‘hey, chilling out and watching the world go by is kinda cool’. And so our trek back into the world of road tripping commenced once again.

He is a different dog now. He travels well in the car, he stays on our allocated caravan site even without a lead, and he rarely barks when anyone walks by. If he’s trying to sleep he occasionally gives a grumbling sort of bark if there’s any noisy people near by, but it’s not a bark that they’d hear. It’s just his little way of saying, ‘hey can I have a bit of peace here please, I’m trying to get some sleep’.

It’s the same when we’re at a the beach. We take a lead with us, but it only goes on him if we see a dog that we don’t trust coming near. When we sit on the beach reading a book he just sits or lays down beside us, watching with interest all the other dogs playing and frolicking at the beach, and watching all the people. He shows no sign of anxiety, just watches the world go by with curious interest. And no Prozac, it only took 1 1/2 pills….. I have to pinch myself sometimes to believe he’s the same dog.

It’s a pleasure to be back in Broome! It’s a pleasure to back to road-tripping! And I never thought I’d be able to say this, but it’s a pleasure to be travelling with our Mr Tilly! An absolute pleasure!

A few extra photos:

These ones are the popular beach, Gantheume Point, a beach that you can drive your car onto and unload your chairs without having to lug them down the steps further up Cable Beach at the more popular swimming beach. It’s important to note whether or not your parking against a rising, or ebbing tide. In the photo below the tide was on the way out, so it was safe to park right down almost at the water’s edge. If any of you are observant enough to notice the dent in the front fender, that happened when we took our car to get new tyres fitted two days before leaving. The tyre place had a stack of tyres that fell onto our car. There wasn’t time to get it repaired before we left home, so their insurance will take care of it upon our return.

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And these next photos are the much less populated Reddell Beach. This beach is off a dirt track, and has a step flight of steps thatlead down to the red sandy beach. It’s a good beach for exploring some wonderful rock formations, or to throw in a line and try one’s luck at catching a big fish (no luck for us that day though).

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This next one is of the cliffs at Reddell beach as the sun is starting to go down in the sky. As the suns rays lower they hit the red cliffs making them look almost iredescent.

De Grey river to Broome 525 kms

Fuel – 55 litres @$2.62, total $145

Accommodation 13 days at varying daily rates (a weird system that Broome caravan park now uses) $755 for 13 nights. As an aside – we won’t be staying at Broome caravan park when we come back this way again. It’s gone down hill from when we last stayed here. We’re not that fussy, but quite honestly sometimes I feel dirtier after having a shower here than I did before I showered. It’s improved since we arrived, after many complaints, but it’s going to take a lot of gumption and elbow grease to remove the grime that’s built up after being neglected for way too long. The Kimberley is a dusty place, so it’s difficult to keep on top of things. This park used to manage just fine, as do other caravan parks here in Broome. It was taken over by Summerstar some time ago, and I gather that’s when the problems started. Summerstar allocate the amount of time needed for cleaning an ablution block, and I gather that’s a time allocated according to capital city cleanliness without regard for outback conditions. I doubt we’ll be renewing our membership with Summerstar.

De Grey – A favourite overnight camp

| Chris Riley

Our plan was to fuel up at Fortescue Road house after departing Onslow, before stopping at Miaree Pool for lunch (just before Karratha), then continuing on to Peawah, a free overnight camp. Our stop at Miaree Pool, a place we love, would have allowed for a leisurely lunch, and would get us into Peawah around mid afternoon. The plan was in keeping with our commitment to a more leisurely paced trip. However, we arrived at Fortescue Road house only to discover it’s now closed down. Mmmm! Would our fuel hold out till we reached Karratha – we weren’t sure!

We thought it would, but as we watched the fuel gauge needle dropping we started to have our doubts. Miaree Pool came nearer but it would have meant an extra couple of kms to pull into the place, and the extra fuel needed when re-starting the car to continue on our journey. We carried on by. Karratha was getting closer, but the needle on the fuel gauge was dropping lower, as was our speed. With the fuel warning light flashing we limped into a fuel station on the highway at around 60kmh, with the realisation that we either need to consider fitting a long range fuel tank, or travelling with not one, but two Jerry cans of additional diesel in the future. A small hiccup like a closed down road house can spell disaster when travelling in outback Australia if you’re not prepared.

Rather than stopping to make our salad for lunch, we instead bought our first pie of our trip. Our commitment to more leisurely paced travel includes a plan for taking the time to stop and make a healthy lunch rather than eating overpriced junk food purchased from road houses on the way. Never mind, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’. We continued on to Peawah.

I can’t remember what time we arrived, but it was earlier than planned. We’ve never stayed at Peawah roadside camp before, but we have friends that often stay there. We found a place to park up for the night, popped the roof on the van, and put our outside chairs in the shade. We had quite a bit of open area behind our van for Tilz to be able to wander around in the red dirt without fear of getting in the way of fellow travellers. Five minutes later, Tilz was limping. Investigation showed a multitude of double gee prickles lodged between his paw pads, in his tail, in fact, everywhere. Mmmm – one of those down his ear was something we definitely didn’t want to risk. With our earlier arrival, we had a rethink. A couple more hours of travel would get us to the cleaner and tidier De Grey overnight camp, a favourite stopover place we’ve used many times in the past. We re-packed the chairs, pulled the roof top down, removed all the double gees from Tilz, and settled in for a longer day in the car.

De Grey is a huge camp site with room for hundreds of rigs. Most times we’ve found the long drop toilets there to be clean, (once they let us down), but this time they were spotless. We had a wander around, had dinner (cold roast beef and salad), a few games of cards, and hit the sack early. The next morning we awoke to a pleasantly warm, but very misty morning. It was just gorgeous.

Screenshot
Screenshot

We went for long walk around the area with Tilz, watching the sun come up breaking through the mist. Mist covered cobwebs dotted the areas of scrub reminding me of a wind farm, there were so many of them. It had been very worthwhile having the longer day that took us on as far as De Grey, it was quite beautiful.

Distance travelled: 600kms

Fuel per litre: $2.26

Total fuel including re-filling our one and only Jerry can $185

Onslow, don’t by-pass this place

| Chris Riley

Next stop on from Yannarie Roadside is Onslow. We had stops at Gladstone, and at Woorrara station planned, weather permitting. However, rain was on our tail, so weather wasn’t permitting, so we let those two places wait for another year. Onslow wasn’t originally on this year’s travel route, but with time to spare it seemed like an opportune point in time to take a look. Having heard not so great things about Onslow in the past, and as the road to get into Onslow is approximately 80kms off the main highway it’s a place we’ve always by-passed. As part of our new dedication to a slower rate of travel and with spare time saved by excluding Woorrara and Gladstone, we decided we’d give it a whirl this year. We phoned ahead, and as they had an ocean view site available. We decided to stay for a week.

With beautiful views over the ocean from our site, and views of both sunrises, and sun sets, it took us only two days to decide a second week was a good idea. That’s the sun rising in the photo above. Here I am 11 days later, sitting overlooking the beautiful Indian Ocean from our campsite, typing up this post.

With a population of less than 1000, there isn’t much in the way of facilities in Onslow. There’s a general store, a hardware store, and there’s a beach club with a restaurant/cafe. Of course at this time of year the town swells with tourists utilising the two caravan parks (one of which has just undergone a big new extension). The general store has most of what we all need. It’s pricey, very pricey, but it’s good quality, so can’t complain.

In front of our caravan park is a wooden boardwalk which I think is more than a kilometre in length. It starts at Back Beach (so named because it’s the best place to view the sunsetting at the back end of the day), and it finishes just past ANZAC park. From there it’s a short walk along the front of the town to Front Beach. Front Beach is the best place to see the sunrise I believe, but we’ve been happy watching it rise from our caravan. Neither beach is great for swimming, although we did manage a quick dip at Back Beach the other day. (Quick being the operative word – there’s some big fish in the water’s around Onslow!)

It looks like the towns folk are trying hard to tidy up the town. It’s very tidy, and it’s peaceful, and it feels very safe.
Feeling safe is one of the things that’s been missing in recent years when visiting any town in WA north of Dongara. A few years ago there seemed to be an unwritten rule that caravanner’s gear was a ‘no go’ zone for would be thieves. Not now though. Now we’re told to sleep with our car keys under our pillows. As I said though, Onslow feels realtively safe. ANZAC park photographed above is an example of how tidy the town is. There’s barbecues, picnic tables, and there are no obvious signs of vandalism or litter.

As I said we’ve had one swim, but I doubt we’ll go in again. The town may feel relatively safe, but I’m not so sure about the ocean. If I could say there’s one thing missing from the town, it’s a good swimming beach. Perhaps one day there will be, maybe an ocean fed infinity pool built out over the close to shore reef. But that’ll definitely be years away, if at all. Apart from that we’ve done some beach combing, we’ve taken a look at Old Onslow (Onslow was relocated about 100 years ago), and we’ve tried our luck at fishing, successfully I might add on two out of three occassions. It’s been a relaxing stay, and could well be on our travel map again future years.

Not much remains of Old Onslow except the old cemetery, and the ruins of the police precinct. The rings attached to the floors in the remains of the cells was a reminder of the cruelty with which we treated our criminals in days gone by, and in particularly, indigenous law offenders. They were certainly given a rough deal in days gone by, and that’s a shameful part of Australia’s history. Our indigenous population is still not given a completely fair deal, but it’s a complex issue. Living in this country, it’s a difficult problem to address, a problem that divides our country, and a problem that people from overseas may form an unfair judgement of when looking at isolated ‘facts’. The percentage of the jail population in the north of our country is primarily indigenous peoples. That taken at face value can appear to be a country that’s racist in its judicial system. However, this statistics need to be taken in the context of who is committing the most crimes! It’s not evidence of racism, rather it’s evidence of a system that doesn’t seem to be working at aligning the behaviour of the indigenous community with the expectations that society now has upon all of it’s citizens. As someone said to me recently in regards to our indigenous population, “never have we given them so much, yet never have they behaved so badly”. I don’t know what the answer is. I do know we haven’t found it yet, and I doubt we will for a generation or two yet. Those rings cemented into the derelict cell floors almost brought a tear to my eyes. So did some of the gravestones in the cemetery. 50 seemed to be past the general life expectancy. Most of the women’s headstones showed ages somewhere between 27 and 36. The headstone that I’ve included in the gallery above gave food for thought though, ‘ Some day, Some time, we’ll understand’. I wonder what happened to poor Walter, what was his story!

And that folks is Onslow. I’m sure there’s more to the town, more history, and much more to come in a few years of tomorrows. But for now, it’s been a pleasure for us to take advantage of Onslow as it is today. I’m sure we’ll be back this way again.

Yannarie to Onslow: 198kms

Fuel @ $2.70 litre. Total $150 (including filling jerry can)

2 weeks accommodation @ $315 per week. Total $630 (however torrential rain is expected on the two days prior to our scheduled departure, so we’ll pull up stumps two days early and head to Broome. Broome can ALWAYS be relied upon for consistently fine weather throughout the dry season.

Laundry – 3 loads @ $4 a load, total $12

Caravanning – what we do with our day

| Chris Riley

People often ask, “But what do you do all day?” My answer is usually, “The same as what you do with your day”. Let me tell you about a usual day for us when we’re in one place for longer than the one night spent between places, and a bit about our current set up, and how that may alter our day slightly from set ups we’ve had in the past.

In the past we had bigger rigs for our long stretches of time on the road, rigs with water heaters, showers, and toilets, and washing machines on board. Now we travel with a lowly 17’ Coromal Magnum pop top. No water heaters, no shower or built in toilet, and no washing machine. We do a have a portable loo that fits into a cupboard for overnight use. Do we miss the other luxury comforts? I thought I would, but actually I don’t. Not one bit, and that surprised me. I certainly appreciate the lighter weight travelling behind us, especially so ATM with the Trump inflicted price of diesel.

I can still do all the things I did with all those mod cons on board. I’ll give you a run down on our usual daily schedule, and I’ll tell you how this varies slightly depending on whether or not we’re staying in a site with power and water, water only, or with neither.

Firstly, we have a power station and solar panels with us. Vital for when we’re off grid. More about how we use it as you read on.

Our day usually begins when we get up around 6am. We do a few stretches, and a few exercises to keep our aging, arthritic bodies moving. Then it’s wake up coffee time. We like our freshly ground, percolated coffee, and we like it with frothed milk. We have a coffee grinder, two sizes of percolators, and a milk frother with us. Paul is the Barista. He grinds the coffee beans (enough for 3 – 4 brews), either using park supplied power, or using the power station when we’re off grid. The coffee percolator heats our coffee on the gas ring, and the milk frother froths the milk, either using the power supplied, or by using the power station if we’re off the power grid.

Then we’ll do the usual scrolling. I’d like say we do very little of that, but that’d be a lie. We’re both totally addicted to our screens. One day I’ll get my screen time down to 30 mins or less, but I’m not ready to attempt that just yet. Then it’s breakfast. Most days that’s Greek yogurt with a couple of desertspoons of chia, and some frozen raspberries mixed in. We let that sit for 1/2 an hour or so, for the the chia to soften a bit and for the berries to thaw. Then we top with 1/2 a banana, walnuts, and Paul also sprinkles a bit of his home made toasted muesli over it. Our week-end breakfasts are a little different. On Saturdays we have boiled eggs, and on Sundays we have pancakes.

For our Sunday pancakes I try to make them high protein, and I don’t add sugar. I put about 1/3 cup of whole meal flour with a bit of wheat germ and wheat bran mixed in, into a big bowl. To that I add a mashed banana, five beaten eggs, and sufficient milk to make a thin batter. That rests for about 1/2 hour, and then makes two good sized pancakes which we top with Greek yogurt and berries. If the berries aren’t sweet enough we’ll add a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Tilz loves to get his small share of our pancake breakfasts. I thought the wholemeal flour would make them heavy, but with so many eggs in the mix it hardly seems any different that those made with refined white flour.

If you’re wondering why we have specific days for the different days. It’s because some rituals on certain days keep us in touch with what day of the week it is. Without some rituals reserved for certain days we’d totally lose track of which day of the week it is.

Next on the agenda is a bit of laundry and general housekeeping. Like I said – our days on the road are pretty much the same as our days at home. Housework duties don’t stop just because our home away from home is on wheels. We don’t have a washing machine on board any more. We’ll use caravan park washing machines when we want to wash our bed linen and towels, and we may throw a few items of clothing in with those if there’s room. However we wash most of our day to day clothes by hand using a ‘Scrubber Bag’. These bags will hold a couple of tee shirts, a pair of shorts or two (depending on the weight of the shorts), and a few undergarments in each wash. They have nodules on the inside that work like an old fashioned scrubber board. We need to do a bag full once a day to keep on top of our day to day items. It takes around 2 minutes to load the items into the bag with some hot water from the kettle, some cold water, and appoximately 1 dsp (or less) of soap powder, seal the bag up expelling the air, and give the clothes inside it a bit of a massage. Then let it soak for 10 minutes or so, give it another bit of a beating inside the bag, rinse out and hang to dry. (It helps give our arms a bit of a gentle work out too). While the clothes are soaking, we’ll tidy anything inside the van that needs tidying, sweep the floor (wash if needed – which is a hands and knees job with a cloth – takes less than a couple of minutes). The laundry is only possible if we’re in a place that has water. If there’s no water, we let it accumulate until we next have water available without using our precious on board water.

It’s usually around 10am by this stage, so time for our second (and last) cup of coffee for the day, (and a bit more of the dreaded, time wasting, scrolling).

At some stage during the above activities we’ll take Tilz for a morning walk. It may just be a five minute walk, or it may be for an hour or more, depending how we feel. He almost always gets a walk of an hour or more at some stage of the day.

If we are in a powered site we’ll boil a kettle for hot water, or if there is no power, we’ll use the gas ring to boil water. It takes very little time, and means none of our precious cargo space is used for a hot water system.

We have a power station and solar panels with us. The solar panels work well when we’re not in a powered site for keeping the power station charged.

Then we may do a bit of shopping, or we may go for a longer walk, or we may read a chapter of a book, or we may do a bit of site seeing, or go for a swim, or do a bit of beach combing, or we may just do what I’m doing now – write up a bit of a blog while paul does a bit more scrolling.

Then it’s lunch time. Lunch, dishes, and some more of something mentioned above. Today after lunch we’re going for a drive to check out Old Onslow. Apparently the cemetery there is quite interesting to look around. Yesterday we checked out 4 Mile Creek, (it looks like a good place to fish). Tomorrow we’ll take the fishing rigs to see if 4 Mile Creek will live up to expectations.

Then it’s dinner time. We go to bed early, so we try to eat early (somewhere between 5 and 6pm). We try to keep our meals simple. Lunch is most often canned salmon and salad. Dinner is some sort of protein. We try to alternate chicken or pork, with with beef or lamb, that gives us three meals of red meat a week to keep our iron levels up (we’ve both had low iron levels in the past so we’re conscious of keeping our levels up now). Because of Paul’s Poly Myalgia Rhumatica, we’re trying to stick to an anti-inflammatory diet. That means very little refined foods, limited alcohol, and because of his diabetes, and the effect that steroids can have on blood sugars, we’re limiting our carbs. It’s easier to do than it thought it’d be. A few days of eliminating most things with added sugars, most processed foods, and all ultra processed foods, and the cravings for them had gone. Very surprising.

We do have some carbs, either sweet potatoes, (sometimes normal potatoes), or brown rice, or home made flat breads. Our flat breads are sort of a chapatti, – wholemeal flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, a little salt and a little olive oil, mixed to a dough and kneaded for a few minutes. About a cup of flour mixed up and then kept in an oiled bowl in the fridge will make several days of flat bread. We twist of a small amount, roll it flat and thin and dry fry in a fry pan. Sure tastes better than any of the ‘beer mat’ type bread that’s usually available in small out of the way places. If, however, we find a good sour dough bread anywhere, we’ll buy that.

After dinner and dishes we usually have a few games of cards and if we see the clock turn over to 8.30pm then we go to bed and call it a late night. We have a tv for the caravan, but we chose not to bring it away with us. We don’t miss it. When we’re on the road we’re usually well asleep long before 8.30 though.

And that’s what we do with ourselves when living in the caravan. I’m guessing that apart from your daily television, it’s not a lot different to the way you spend your days. Am I right?