Well, 8 days and 3,300kms later, we finally arrived back home again after a
rather quick "shake down" holiday with the new camper trailer.

The weather was not real flash at all, but we did manager to score a couple
of nice days.

The new camper trailer was great! No leaks at all, and even in some very
heavy downpours!

We left Bundaberg in the rain, and it stayed wet all the way to Goondiwindi.
It then fined up for our first night at Narrabri.

From Narrabri we ventured up through the Warrumbungle Ranges and had a look
at the huge Siding Springs Observatory.
From there we ventured down to Dubbo for our 2nd and 3rd nights. We stayed
at a Big 4 Caravan Park and our daughter, Amber, had heaps of things to
occupy her and lots of other kids to play with.
The weather on day 2 was perfect, sunny but cool. The only full day we had
on the entire trip without rain!!

Day 3 was spent at Dubbo's Western Plains Zoo. What a place to go!!
All of the animals were in natural environments with large areas for them to
roam in. Carefully placed "moats" kept the lions, tigers and Cheetahs from
jumping the fence and snacking on tourist's!! No bars anywhere!!
It rained most of the day so the only real disappointment was the Meer Cats
refused to come out, even at feeding time. The other disappointment was that
the old Asian Elephant that I remember from my many visits as a kid to
Taronga Park Zoo had died just 2 days before at the age of 55.
One of the highlights for us was at the end of the day when we decided to do
one last lap around the zoo. We came back across the Giraffe enclosure and
noticed the Giraffes walking towards the front of the enclosure. Then we
noticed a park ranger getting ready to feed them.
We were the only ones there and so we walked up to get a close view of them.
The park ranger then said to us "You guys are the only ones here so would
you like to come out onto the feeding platform and feed them?" Of course
Amber and I jumped at the chance and walked out onto the platform where we
were handed a heap of carrots. Soon we were hand feeding the Giraffes up
close. They were literally eating the carrots out of our hands. Amber even
got slobbered on a couple of times. They seemed very timid animals for their
size. There would have been 8 to 10 Giraffes all around us. It was great!!

We had played with the idea of also spending day 4 at Dubbo and just
relaxing, but since the rain was now a steady flow, we decided rather than
sitting around in the rain all day, that we would venture further south
towards the Blue Mountains.

We arrived in Bathurst mid morning and decided to do a couple of laps of
Mount Panorama. Lyn grabbed some sand trap gravel from McPhilamy Park (top
of the mountain) for David and brought it home. The sun was out shining
again and we decided to push on to Katoomba and spend the night there.
We arrived in Katoomba and took Amber down the Scenic Railway to the bottom
of the valley and then back up on the new Scenic Cablecar. They have changed
it heaps since the last time we were there (15 years ago) and it is now a
very interesting walk at the bottom of the Valley showing all the old mine
shafts and accident sites.

Just as we were starting to look for a place to stop for the night the rain
came down again and did not look like letting up. The temperature was cold
too so we decided to push on and see what happens.

We arrived at my dads house in Gosford around 9:30pm and setup in his back
yard.

Day 5 was spent visiting some old friends around Gosford. Amber spent the
day at the local Skate Bowl having lots of fun.

Day 6 we set off again north towards home, and warmer weather!! We stopped
just north of Coffs harbour at a fantastic Caravan Park called Darlington
Beach resort. It was expensive at $58 per night for a camp site, but the hot
spa, 2 heated pools and heaps of activities for Amber made it all worth
while.

Day 7 was spent, in the rain, at Darlington Beach Resort. Amber made heaps
of friends on the BMX track, the huge jumping pillow and also around the
pool. That night she joined in with the kids "Dinner and Movie" night while
Lyn and I relaxed in the parks restaurant.

Day 8 we packed up again, in the rain, and headed for home arriving back in
Bundaberg around 8:30pm last night.

The camper trailer passed every possible test we could have put it through
for a shakedown run, including dirt roads, heavy rain and lots of miles.
It was very comfortable and, at most, took about 15 mins to set up. That
included putting pegs in the ground to keep the floor in place, transferring
the clothes boxes from inside the trailer to inside the tent, setting up the
kitchen table and chairs and assembling Ambers bed.
If we put the annex up that took about another 15 minutes as we then needed
to put up poles and guy ropes etc.

We have decided that the only real thing that needs to be modified is the
kitchen.
Having an opening kitchen is great.
Having to connect the water hose each time though is a real pain, especially
when you are on wet grass and need to get down on your knees to find the
clip points.
Having the stove on a slide out is not the best either. In theory it sounded
like a great idea, but in practice it isn't.
That will give me something to work on before the next trip away.

As for fuel economy and performance, well we really could not feel any
difference in performance with the camper on the back except when climbing
hills. It did effect the fuel economy though. On gas we averaged about
300kms per fill (LPG) at about $30 to $40 per fill, so I guess an estimate
of $10 to $11 per 100kms would be a rough average.

Its certainly not as good as I had hoped for, but it wasn't too bad either,
considering the car weighs about 2 tonne and the trailer, loaded, about
600kgs.

Sure, in the rain, it would have been great to have had a full size caravan
where we could have simply pulled up and gone inside, but I dread to think
what that would have done to our fuel economy. I still firmly believe that,
for what we want to do, and the very few times per year it will get used,
that the Camper Trailer was still the best compromise.

Best regards

Garry