Along with water and shelter, reliable communications in the outback is essential. This article will focus on short range communications as well as long range and emergency communications. During our trip out to and across the Simpson Desert access to regular cellular communications networks will be quite limited. There may be patches of coverage from […]
Simpson Desert – Communications Read More »
As everyone should by now be aware, Sand Flags are a requirement when travelling in any part of the Simpson Desert. These are required as a safe guard against having a head on collision with a vehicle heading the opposite direction up the other side of a sand dune. The idea is the person will
Simpson Desert – Sand Flags Read More »
We’ve settled on our accommodation needs for the Simpson Desert crossing. We’d originally thought we would be taking our roof top tent, but in an attempt to keep as much weight off the roof as possible we’re made the decision to go with an annex room which is much lighter than the roof topper and
Simpson Desert Accommodation & Kitchen Read More »
Cooloola National Park is situated between Tewantin and a Rainbow Beach on the eastern coast of Queensland. Roughly 3 hours drive north of Brisbane, Cooloola beach, also known as Noosa North Shore, is like a miniature Fraser Island with a beautifully long sandy beach on the shadow of a lush green ridge that follows the
Cooloola National Park – Beach Camping Read More »
We crossed the equator last night, at 11:30pm local time. Prior to this, at 11:30am yesterday a cheesy ceremony was held where a fake God Neptune was paraded around the upper deck where he eventually presented the ‘Key to the Ocean’ to a staff member. This apparently allows the ship to cross the equator, although
We have a few days at sea until we reach the Cocos Islands and really all we’ve been doing is relaxing around the ship. Leanne and Gary have been going to the daily talks in the theatre which cover various aspects of WW I and WW II. I thought I’d take this lull in activity
Albany to Cocos & Keeling Islands – Part 2 Read More »
For the next few days we will see no land whatsoever, and in actual fact we saw nothing at all. No birds, whales, dolphins, other ships, nothing at all, not even flotsum or jetsum (whoever they are). Sunday night was the Captains Gala Cocktail, where the drinks were included and we had the chance to
Albany to Cocos & Keeling Islands – Part 1 Read More »
This morning we were off the ship and into Albany. The cruise company had arranged busses to run a hop on hop off service all day, which was a great idea. We had an earlyish breakfast and headed off the ship being scanned on the way out. Kath and I had slightly different plans to
Albany and beyond… Read More »
We arrived in Albany in the late afternoon and prepared for the Gala Concert event. Gary and I in our very expensive (not) suits and Leanne and Kath in black evening gowns. We all scrubbed up pretty well and proceeded to head to the buffet at around 5:30pm. Yes, you heard correctly, we went to
Gala Concert – Albany Read More »
Thursday morning we awoke and had breakfast at the house. We did our final pack and had a shower in readiness for Gary’s cousin to pick us up at 10. The cleaning crew for the accom arrived a little before 10 with Kate arriving shortly after. Kate was driving Sherman the German, a big old
Boarding MSC Orchestra Read More »
The day has finally arrived and today we will board the MSC Orchestra for our journey onward. Here is a picture of the ship entering the harbour this morning taken by a fellow passenger. Last night we had dinner down by the water at Bathers Beach House. We arrived early enough to catch the sun
The ship has arrived Read More »
One more sleep! Tomorrow is departure day and it’s all beginning to get quite real. The last coupe of days have been relatively uneventful for me as I’ve been working however L&G and Kath have been getting out an about at various times. It’s quite cool over here at the moment, but lovely and sunny.
Ain’t nothing stopping us now… Read More »
A brief touch on the the previous post. We went to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. We’re still a little out of wack with the timezone shift so we planned to have an early dinner and early to bed. There turned out to be a minor flaw in our thinking here, as early dinner
Family & Friends Day in Perth Read More »
Our trip kicked off with a flight to Perth. There was a minor drama at the airport with those crazy bag drop machines firstly not wanting to print a label, then continually failing to scan the barcode. Eventually this was sorted after speaking with a couple of attendants, making us wonder wouldn’t it just be
Yes, we made it to the tip. What a great journey and one that everyone should take. You don’t need a hardcode 4WD, nor do you even need a tent, you just need some time to plan, a sense of adventure and a fondness for corrugations would help. Yes, corrugations are the norm up this
The trip up to Atherton was quite uneventful. The only point to note what the constant road works along the way. They just never seemed to end. Thankfully they started to thin out after Rocky, but never the less there were still many more between there and Atherton. The only major issue that the Jeep
Brisbane To Atherton Read More »
The day has finally arrived and we’re all packed and ready to hit the road. The Jeep looks good and with all the hard work put in by Hammond 4WD it’s running better than ever! The trip up the coast will be leisurely and as there are quite a few road works along the way,
Approximately 365 days ago I set up a count down timer on our Cape York 2013 website, and at the time I remember thinking how it felt like an eternity before we would hit the road, and how much preparation there was to be done. Well, that time has come and the count down timer
Cape York, Here We Come Read More »
There is only 3 more sleeps until we head to the cape! Unfortunately there has been a last minute change to the numbers with Keith & Marg having to pull out due to health reasons. We all wish Keith a speedy recovery. Some last minute things to make sure you pack: – Extension cord and
12 people, 5 vehicles, 4 weeks. After a year of planning and prep we are only 1 week away from departing for Cape York. Today we spent time making up the bed in the roof top tent, checking nuts & bolts on the Jeep, doing a final pack of the food & cooking boxes, testing
