Month: June 2018

John, Matt and myself jogged the 6km to Britz to pick up the camper vans. After a reasonably lengthy induction, we were driving our new homes for the next 2 weeks! Very easy to drive, bit rattly but there’s also no shortage of cupboards & other items that vibrate, particularly at speed.

We head to the hotel, pick up the girls and do some shopping then it’s on the open road!

Matt & Mandy were leading us out of Alice, and after our briefing that if we roll the camper vans, we’re not covered by insurance, Matt decides to take a last minute right-hand turn and tests out just how nimble the vans are. Turns out they’re pretty good!

Kings Canyon was our destination which is about half way to Uluru, but off the highway. After 5-ish hours, we made it to our accommodation which was the Kings Canyon Resort – a nice caravan park right in the gorge. We became acquainted with how to use our vans a bit more & set up for the night. Dinner was in the restaurant (which was essentially a big, open shed) where we enjoyed some rather good food and then watched Australia go down to France in the World Cup opener, 2-1.

After a lengthy day, we trudged back to our vans, climbed our ladder to get to the top bed and for new surroundings, slept pretty bloody well.

As I approach 40, I was keen to visit more of Australia. Seen plenty of the rest of the world, but I’ve never been to the heart of Australia – the Northern Territory.

So what better time than now. Friends Matt & Mandy and Biddy & John were keen so we booked our camper vans from Britz and on June 15th 2018, we flew to Alice Springs to pick them up.

Day 1 – Alice Springs

Getting to Adelaide Airport, I was very surprised (and touched) that the team had organised personalised t-shirts for the trip! A silver fox on the front with a big “40” on the back along with our traveling hashtag, #thisonetimeatvancamp. Was awesome stuff!

The flight to Alice was pretty easy and as we arrived – the uniqueness of the NT was upon us as we had to use an old-school phone to call for a taxi. Quaint and cute at the same time.

We got a taxi into our hotel at Alice (the Mercure) which was very clean and nice and then on into Alice Springs town centre. Bit of a culture shock! It’s just not like anywhere I’ve been before and super interesting. We went past the world famous Sybil’s cafe in the Woolworths group; checked out a pub for lunch and then spent the afternoon drinking at a very cool bar called Monty’s. Highly recommended for the Pimms and lemonade.

We bought some, well, a lot of booze where we had to hand over our ID to get scanned. Lots of locals are banned from buying alcohol so they check everyone’s ID. A little worried we needed to carry cartons of beer back when it was dark for a kilometre back to our hotel. John enquired with the cop who was on duty @ the bottle shop to see how we’d go (can’t say we’re locals just yet!), and said we should be fine as it was still early. And this is for all races – there’s a lot of unsavoury characters around!

Ready for our first day on the road tomorrow where we hit the road!