Our amazing adventure summary!

 Here’s some of our stats for those of you interested!

We travelled 27,073 kilometres through Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory & Western Australia. Our main focus was NT (6weeks+2 days), WA (15 weeks), SA (3 weeks + 5 days).

Our highlights in NT were: Uluru, Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), Litchfield National Park, Mindel Markets, Alice Spring Desert Zoo, McDonnel Ranges & Douglas Hot Springs.

Highlights in WA: Coral Bay, Ningaloo Reef, Cape Leveque, Esperance, Karijini, Bungle Bungles & Kalbarri.

Highlights in SA: Barossa Valley, Naracoorte Caves, Coober Pedy & Flinders Ranges.

One of the highlights of travelling has been meeting so many different people that we would never have come across in our day-to-day life in suburban Melbourne. Our thanks go to the following families & couples that have made our trip so much more memorable by your friendship, assistance & hospitality: The Lynch Family, Derossfield Family, Lawrence Family, Rutland Family, Cosway Family, Don Philips and our travelling adopted grandparents – Richard & Sharon, Pam & Pete!  We look forward to meeting again somewhere on the road!

In just under 6 months we set up & packed up our caravan 76 times. Our kids became excellent assistants and we often had this job done well within an hour! It was fantastic to see them pitching in without even asking towards the last few months and working so well together as a team!

Our breakdown of stays were: 26 caravan parks, 5 National Parks, 17 Freecamps, 20 Lowcost camps & 8 Station stays. We were fairly happy with this breakdown as we often required power at caravan parks to complete work on the road. We were disappointed in the south of WA & SA we couldn’t use the National Parks as much due to maintenance/school holidays booking out.

We also have some nominations for the places we’ve stayed:

Nicest National park – can’t decide! All of them!

Best Freecamp – Longreach Waterhole, Elliot NT

Best Station Stay – Bullara Homestead, Exmouth WA

Best Caravan Park – Wintersun, Carnarvon WA & Adelaide River NT

Best Low Cost Camp – Gnylmarung, Cape Leveque WA

Best Tour – Coral Bay Glass bottom Boat WA & Mimbi Caves, Fitzroy Crossing WA, Yellow Water Cruise, Kakadu NT

Best Hikes – King’s Canyon Rim Walk NT & Karijini National Park, WA

Best National Park Activity – Turquiose Bay snorkelling, Ningaloo Reef, WA;  Buley Rockhole/Florence Falls, Litchfield NP NT; Ubirr Rock art walk, Kakadu NP NT.

Best Beaches – Coral Bay, WA; Hellfire Bay, WA; Turquoise Bay, WA.

Dodgiest caravan park – North Bank Park, Katherine NT

Worst Hike – Butterfly Gorge, NT. (Just ask the kids!!!)

Funny Stats:

We went through 9 hats & 8 drink bottles. Jesse lost 3 pairs of thongs. Kieren broke 3 pairs of sunglasses. The girls went through 1000 sheets of paper & numerous exercise books. We ate through approx. 1 kg of apples per day. We only got burnt once but went through copious amounts of sunscreen. There was one case of septicaemia, one broken arm, one broken toe, one fall over an empty firepit, a couple of bike stacks, & plenty of grazed knees!

What we won’t miss about travelling: drop toilets, cramped in wet caravan days, no showers, our tour of WA hospitals(!), billions of flies & mosquitos!!

What we WILL miss about travelling: adventuring to really cool places every day, hiking & meeting different people & fellow travellers.

I also want to publicly thank some people back home who have supported us through this time: Beth - for your fantastic assistance with mail, Ben – who has done a fantastic job managing our business in Kieren’s place, our parents & families for all your support (& cash while waiting for our tax :-O), Blair – for looking after our house & dog, The Mugamu family for looking after our chooks, and the Atkinson & Leech Families for giving us lots of inspiration J We are very appreciative that we’ve been able to complete such a mammoth adventure! I better also thank my husband who has worked tirelessly as a driver, mechanic, homeschool teacher, chef & portaloo-emptier to keep us going on the road J  And with that, our adventure is complete…..until next time!