Camping

Introducing Black Betty – House on Wheels Take 2

I know Jess has already ‘introduced’ Black Betty but I thought it was time to do it properly…. i.e. Blokey-ly….

So settle in for another one of my monster posts. (I don’t post often, I just post BIG)

First up, Stats:

Make: All Terrain Camper Trailer (ATC)

Year: 2009

Model: 17′ Full Off Road with upgraded deluxe kitchen and ‘Moon Roof” otherwise it is bog standard (well, it was….)

No disrespect to Karen Camper, living in her during our big trip was very comfortable, but there were times when we faced a decision whether to take a certain road or not, based on if we felt Karen would make it. Jess and I do not like being limited like that, if we want to go somewhere or do something, then nothing is stopping us.

Enter “Black Betty”

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Categories: Camping, Modifications, Planning | Tags: | 7 Comments

Carisbrooke Station

Hi Everyone! I’m just reblogging this Carisbrooke Station post from our trip last June as the photos I uploaded originally while we were on the road were way too small. We had such a great time there with all the family! I wonder if it is still this dry now? Anybody been out to Carisbrooke Station recently?? Continue reading

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | 1 Comment

Bits & Bobs

Disclaimer: I promise this post won’t have any more baby related stuff in it!  No doubt you are all well and truly Fealy babied out with all the news and photo’s of our little Kipp’s arrival, so we’ll give you a post off from baby stuff!!  A big thank you so much to everybody though for all the lovely emails, text messages and comments on our blog and Facebook Page that we received – it was so lovely to get them all!!

There are so many bits and pieces that I have really wanted to tell you about over the last month!  I thought they all deserved their own blog posts but time just seems to gallop at the moment so I’m just going to blurt them all out here!

First though, check out what just wandered out of the garden this morning while Matt and I were having smoko ……………………………..

10 Brand Spanking New Ducklings - good job mother 'Georgia'!

10 Brand Spanking New Ducklings – good job mother ‘Georgia’!

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Categories: About Us, Camping | 4 Comments

Flashback Friday – “Free”

Well, seeing as we finished all of the posts about our trip yesterday, it seems only fitting that this week’s Friday Flashback be dedicated to a small photo montage of our adventure.  Using our theme song of course, “Free” by Zac Brown Band as the background music.  Man, we had a great trip! Just click play and watch the video!  If you are thinking about a trip like this – JUST DO IT!!!

Categories: Camping, Zac Brown Band | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

The Final Leg

DSC_0429Sigh.  Deep Breath …………………………………………………………………..

There is no more delaying.  It is time to bite the bullet and write the final post covering the last day and night of life on the road for the Fealy Family Adventure of 2013.  Aaaargh, so hard.  That means our trip really is over, complete, finished, done.  It was so long in the thinking and planning and all over in three very short, but amazingly good months.  It feels like a dream now.  

Ok, on with it. Continue reading

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

“All good things are wild and free.”

Categories: Camping, Soapbox | 8 Comments

Normanton/Karumba

DSC_0172It is physically hurting my heart to write these last few posts about our trip, oh how I miss the days of adventure!  But, I realise there are probably several people out there following our blog who are just wanting to read the last few posts about the trip and wishing we would hurry the heck up and get on with it, so they can then ‘unsubscribe’ and no longer have to listen to our ramblings and be subjected to posts about Chocolate Slice!  Fair enough I guess, so here goes, today and tomorrow will see the last couple of posts about the trip published.

After surviving the Savannah Way, we popped back out into civilisation at Doomadgee and after a quick fuel top up we decided to head for Normanton and spend a precious few nights there.  It was a tough decision to bypass Lawn Hill National Park, but we didn’t think we had enough time left in our trip to ‘do Lawn Hill properly’ and we have decided that will be one of the first destinations that we head to when things finally start to slow down here at Blue Sky Produce. Continue reading

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments

The Savannah Way

DSC_0094After dragging ourselves reluctantly away from the Borroloola Rodeo at just after lunch time, we headed off along the Savannah Way towards Burketown and back into Queensland territory again. We aired down (dropped the pressure in our tyres to 28 PSI) just after we left the bitumen out of Borroloola and lucky we did as this stretch of the Savannah Way was the roughest patch of road we encountered on the whole trip!  It was quite narrow, very rocky and dusty, quite corrugated in sections and had lots of creek crossings!  It made for a really interesting/fun drive but did rattle the car and camper around a lot which meant it was quite slow going for us.

Creek Crossing

Creek Crossing

Creek Crossing

Creek Crossing

Peter Prado & Karen Camper on the Savannah Way

Peter Prado & Karen Camper on the Savannah Way

Matt checking out the depth and rocks on another Savannah Way creek crossing.

Matt checking out the depth and rocks on another Savannah Way creek crossing.

We saw only two other vehicles on the Savannah Way for the several hundred kilometres we travelled.  We loved it!  It felt like a real adventure!  We did, however, blow another tyre on the camper – much to Matt’s disgust!!

Can you tell that Matt is getting a little sick of changing flat tyres?!

Can you tell that Matt is getting a little sick of changing flat tyres?!

As we were late getting on the road we pulled up just before dark after only travelling about 100km’s that day, in a gravel pit on the side of the road.  It was the best free camp of the whole trip!  We were well back off the road with plenty of room, heaps of firewood to scavenge and not another person for miles, and miles and miles!  We had a great campfire dinner that night and even dragged a mattress out to lie by the fire under the stars – it was beautiful and oh so quiet!

The best roadside free camp of the whole trip!

The best roadside free camp of the whole trip!

Last campfire of the trip!

Last campfire of the trip!

Pretty good view out the bedroom window that night!

Pretty good view out the bedroom window that night!

The next morning we were up and away pretty early and it didn’t take long before we were crossing the border back in to Queensland – what a bummer!!

And we're back in Queensland!

And we’re back in Queensland!

Only two blog posts left to finish off our trip, which means it will be all over by the end of this week!! Noooooooooo!

 

Categories: Camping, NT Camping | 5 Comments

Flashback Friday – Cars

This is really such a random Flashback Friday post.  I think I’m very tired or maybe it’s the heat, or baby brain, or I don’t know, maybe I’m just a bit nutty, but tonight I’m having a trip back down memory lane to remember all the different cars we have had in our life to date.  It’s actually quite interesting to see how our family has evolved through our vehicle choices, and also to see that there are all kinds of ways to get away camping!  So, without further ado, here is the Fealy Family history in cars over the last 15ish years.

Lets start with Matt’s first hot rod ……………………………. ‘Little Red Car’.  Matt’s older brother did say “are you serious??” (with a few expletives in there) when a 19yr old Matt took him to check out his first car purchase.  It didn’t have much of a cool factor but Matt loved this car!!

My first car was ‘Stevie’ the Festiva.  Matt helped me buy her when I got my first full time graduate job and Matt finally got out of having to taxi me to netball 3 nights a week!!

Stevie Festiva

Stevie Festiva

Then a baby came along so we decided we needed a ‘family’ car.  Introducing ‘Tezza’ Terios.

Then, another baby and another baby, and we thought we might have some more babies, so it was time for a people mover and we found ‘Graham’ Grandis.

Graham Grandis all packed up for a camping trip

Graham Grandis all packed up for a camping trip

With 3 kids and both of us working, it also meant we needed a second vehicle and this is where the second love (after me of course!) came into Matt’s life.

The motorbike

The Motorbike

Much as Matt loved his motorbike, when Jack started going to school we realised that it was not very useful for picking kids up on!  So after much angst, Matt decided it was time to say goodbye to the bike and hello to ‘Sammy’ Sirion.

Sammy Sirion

Sammy Sirion

Unfortunately ‘Sammy’ turned out to be a bit of a lemon and her engine died after only 2 years in the family so she was turfed out and we welcomed ‘Harris’ the Yaris, who you might remember we sold just last year to help fund our trip around Oz!

Harris the Yaris

Harris the Yaris

Graham the Grandis was of course sold to purchase our trusty stead, Peter Prado who we think will be with us for many more years yet!

Peter Prado

Peter Prado

So there you have it, a family history in cars!  Goes to show that you can still camp without a 4wd, although you probably won’t make it into any 4wd action magazines!

Do you remember your first car?  Do you have a car ‘love’?

It will be interesting to see what our kids think of these cars in 20 years time!

Categories: About Us, Camping, Flashback Friday | 2 Comments

King Ash Bay/Borroloola

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I’m really eeking out the remainder of these trip posts aren’t I!  Ok, so after a last swim and overnight stop at Mataranka we set our sights for a stopover at King Ash Bay in the Gulf of Carpentaria.  We had the tip to camp at King Ash Bay from the resident family Grey Nomads, Aunty Nerida and Uncle Garth, and it was a great little overnight stop!  King Ash Bay is all about the Barramundi fishing!  The campground is huge and there are lots of lovely shady sites right on the river bank.  BUT, there are saltwater crocodiles everywhere so it is very dangerous for kids to go anywhere near the water’s edge, such a bummer as it would be the perfect spot if you could only swim!

King Ash Bay

King Ash Bay

The shop at King Ash Bay fishing club where you purchase your camping permit

The shop at King Ash Bay fishing club where you purchase your camping permit

Our setup on the bank of the MacArthur River, King Ash Bay

Our setup on the bank of the MacArthur River, King Ash Bay

King Ash Bay gets very, very heavy overnight fog and dew which doesn't lift until nearly 9am!!  Makes it very difficult to have a dry pack up and get away early!

King Ash Bay gets very, very heavy overnight fog and dew which doesn’t lift until nearly 9am!! Makes it very difficult to have a dry pack up and get away early!

Delicious fish and chips at 'Gropers Bar & Beer Garden'

Delicious fish and chips at ‘Gropers Bar & Beer Garden

We had a pretty slow getaway in the morning from King Ash Bay due to the heavy dew, and then after driving only 40km’s down the road we came upon the little township of Borroloola, and what do you know?  The annual rodeo just happens to be on!  None of us had ever been to a rodeo before so we made the unanimous and very spontaneous decision to stop and check it out.  It was an awesome morning!

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There was just so much action and excitement and you could tell that it was a major event for the small community!  Have a look at this short video clip and you will get an idea of some of the atmosphere!

There wasn’t really a side show alley as such but the kids did talk us into letting them buy a couple of show bags to share as we realised that they hadn’t yet experienced that ‘rite of passage’.  They thought their show bags were just awesome!

Kids super happy with their first ever show bags!

Kids super happy with their first ever show bags!

And we all thought the bull riding was amazing!!DSC_0859 DSC_0861 DSC_0867 DSC_0868 DSC_0870 DSC_0871 DSC_0874

You will be glad to know that the rider in the photos above managed to walk away unscathed after this – it was so hard to watch but the rodeo clown and other helpers were in there very quickly to distract the bull!

The young kids all got in on the action too, attempting to ride some super bucky little ponies!DSC_0996 DSC_0945 DSC_0957 DSC_0962 DSC_0964 DSC_0988

We honestly could have stayed and watched all day, but for the fact it was stinking hot and the Savannah Way home to Far North Queensland was calling!  They were playing some very fine music throughout the day too – Zac Brown Band all day long at the Borroloola Rodeo – wahooooo!!

Categories: Camping, NT Camping, Zac Brown Band | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments