So here we are in early May 2020 in COVID-19 lockdown. We are both in the “at risk” category and we are told that if we can stay at home then do so. Essential local travel only means just that. People aren’t measuring their car fuel consumption in Litres / 100km’s, we’re measuring it in litres /week. Last time I got fuel was over a month ago.
So we’re stuck at home bored. What to do ? Well we’ve been idly talking about a big trip for a while now and while we’re stuck at home we may as well get on with a bit of planning and preparation.
The car needs a gearbox valve block overhaul and a new fuel pump. I’ll have to do the throttle position sensor too. Then there’s the usual greasing and checking as well as an oil and filters change to be done.
The camper also needs a bit of maintenance – wheel bearings checked and repacked. Water tank cleaned and flushed, etc.
We need to set dates to take advantage of the weather and to avoid the worst of the Northern Australian wet season which is loosely November to April. We also need our travel dates to dovetail nicely with other activities that we’d like to fit in. Campground Hosting in South Australia and the Northern Territory for example.
Organising a house sitter and our finances are also pretty high on the list of priorities too.
Working out our finances is going to a bit of fun. We’re both on limited and fixed incomes a d so far I’ve only done a really rough calculation of fuel costs – about $3,000, probably more.
We are planning to be away for up to six months so there’s a fair bit of planning and preparation to get on with which should keep us occupied at least until we’re allowed to travel interstate again – the state borders are currently closed so we have to at least wait until they’re open again. So at this stage we have no idea when we’ll be leaving or when we’ll be back.
It seems like a whole bunch of “pie in the sky” stuff, doesn’t it ? Bear in mind though that every trip starts out like this. Also bear in mind that we don’t do contingency planning, we go with whatever is happening at the time. Have a read of Preparation and What to do when Plan A goes to the dogs .
When we’re planning a trip we plan the route and from there we can plan our fuel usage. More about the fuel use planning later. We also sort of plan where we’re going to stop each night – bush camp, caravan park, show grounds, etc. That tends to be a part of the fuel planning spreadsheet. We don’t bother with planning food or shopping as we find that we can always find somewhere to do a shop when we need to and we only ever find that we spend about the same on shopping as we do at home.
First up is a draft route but I can see a number of articles before we leave and then of course a much larger number of articles during the trip.
Anyway on with the route planning