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| Luxury travelling |
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| "Grand Hotel" |
It seems that travel for the Rambling Retirees has taken on a modicum of luxury in 2015 with the purchase of a lovely camper-trailer.
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| Sleeping quarters |
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| A Chef's Delight! |
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| Camping at Bowenville Reserve |
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| ....And now for a relaxing beer |
On Saturday evening we decided to make a trial run on Sunday and camp for two nights at the Bowenville Reserve. Just a mere 50kms from home -- far enough to test our camper-trailer set-up skills, but not so far that if Baby K (due any day now) chose to make an appearance we could return home to make our way to Mackay to visit the new parents and welcome Baby K.
Setting up was a breeze - despite the howling gale force winds that prevailed all day. It took just 15 minutes from arrival to relax time with our first beer, and all was in place except for the shade cover over the kitchen area - that wasn't going to happen in such windy conditions and it really wasn't an essential necessity on this run anyway.
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| Oakey Creek "rapids" |
After a very comfortable night on Sunday, we decided to spend Monday morning testing out our two man canoe on the nearby Oakey Creek. We had only used the canoe once before and that was on a very open and windy dam near Finch Hatton in Central Queensland. That was hard on the shoulder muscles if I recall and I wasn't too enthused about another attempt.
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| "Cruising" on Oakey Creek |
However, I have to admit the gentle row on the Oakey Creek was an entirely different, and pleasant, experience - despite losing my balance when trying to get out of the canoe and falling into the river as a result (oh, and the OGO had a good belly laugh over
that little incident!!!!).
Our morning test turned into a lovely four hours on the Creek. I even managed a couple of minutes of video on my camera - not sure if they will successfully download to our blog but if they do they will be in the Photographic Journal on the RH menu bar. We'll definitely go back and have another go at that little exercise, I'm sure (minus the river dip of course!).
Despite a practice run in the garden at home, folding the trailer up on Tuesday morning didn't go all that smoothly. Somehow the OGO managed to secure one of the poles inside the tent on one side and the trailer just would not fold into its compact shape as desired. However, once the error was corrected, the trailer was folded and covered in a flash.
Oh, I am so going to enjoy the "luxury" of this little machine on our travels up into the Gulf in July/August. We shall, no doubt, have a couple more "trial runs" locally in March/April before our big adventure begins in May.
With a little bit of good management, jolly good planning, and a prepaid mobile broadband thingey, I may just be able to keep up-to-date with our blog on our next major adventure.
You'll find more photos of our two days at Bowenville Reserve and the canoe "cruise" on Oakey Creek by clicking on the
Photographic Journal title in the RH menu.
