Long before midday on April Fool’s Day, ATGANI finally did hit the road and with no intention of coming back for at least a year. 

We head north to Brisbane via New England to be there for Easter and, mostly, Mardi’s 95^th birthday on Easter Monday.  After that, we’ll turn left and head across the great southern land, probably via Broken Hill, Coffin Bay and Kalgoorlie to arrive in Exmouth by June 10 – the only fixed date in our calendar, and only 50 days to get there.  Even the swim-with-the-whalesharks boat has been booked ‘cos it’s busy over there.  (Note to self: remember Kwells)  From there it’s across the top, heading vaguely north and east until we get to far north Queensland just before it starts to rain.  When it does, we’ll turn south and come down through central Qld, heading for Victoria, Tassie and SA before coming home, hopefully “tired but contented”.

In a handful of pretty stressful and rainy days before April 1^st, we’d parked the van at Lane Cove CP, let the flat (twice – with complications and furniture), packed up lots of stuff and sent it to storage, missed a going-away party (will they never leave?), avoided rapidly spreading Covid, had our last Monday walk, readied the van, been washed out at Phantom on the Harbour with Sue and John, drunk some more champagne, had a final sausage sizzle (thanks for the very superior travel cups, Marlies and Uri) and “we’re off”.

Avoiding the sodden coastline, first stop was McNamara campground in Broke which we’ve walked past often enough but never stayed at.  Fine free camping, level ground, some of it newly mowed so we found a secluded spot and set up camp.  Even had our first fire-pit fire with wood from Knox’s past supplier.  In the wordy way of the country, he was incredulous that I was not taking a boat for fishing, strongly recommended a 3.85m tinny with no more than a 15hp outboard, and just trawl (troll?) as long as I get the right lures – advice to live by. 

A quick social comment (look away now) – he usually fished at a “blackfella’s camp” in the NT.  There was not a hint of judgement or denigration or praise in the use of “blackfella” – just an objective fact.  What do the urban concerned make of that?

 Our Hunter Valley stay included most of the usual rituals – light lunch at Enzo’s👍; hamburgers at the Broke Store👎👍, washed down with 2018 Margan Shiraz👍; wine tasting at Petersons where we bought a sustaining case of “aged” reds👍; golf at Cypress Lakes on a very wet but playable course👍(standard of golf👎👎); dinner at Matt Dillow’s Deck which we think works much better for lunch👎👍 ; a walk to Rocklee Grove which looks the same except that the road’s been graded and the rubbish bins stolen.

Three nights at Broke with not a lot of solar input saw us low on power but eventually on the road to CityLights CP in Tamworth.  Breaking the never-drink-bakery-coffee rule, we had quick lunch at the entirely satisfactory Life of Pie in Murrurundi👍. 

ATGANI and the LandCruiser are fully laden so we know we’re driving a big rig – but the tug is strong and ATGANI tows well.  We may have even passed someone on one uphill section!  Fuel consumption is another matter and I reckon we’ll struggle to do better than 22l/100km on hilly driving – that’s a range of just over 600km.  Fortunately, Josh’s get-elected 22c/l excise cut seems to have started filtering into the country!

But for now, we’ll go see the sights and sites of Tamworth (I’m very keen on the Country & Western Music Hall of Fame – Lesley less so) and use the luxury of a powered & watered caravan park to get ready for our next stops:  both free camps in the high country near Glen Innes and then Tenterfield – no power, no water and probably no other humans!  What could possibly go wrong?