After raiding Kerries Dad's kitchen for breakfast we had to do the rounds of Toowoomba clothes shops looking for dance shorts for Em. Somehow they had been forgotten in the pack up.
Finally at about 10:30 we got ourselves organised and headed west along the Gore highway for Goondiwindi.
The car and van have been travelling well. I had a bit of a scare when the extension mirror crashed back when a double b barrelled past. This happened a couple of more times before I got the message and stopped and took the eaten soon mirror off. We're going to have to get some that mount on the door rather tan the cars mirror. Not really much difference with just the standard car mirror, they are pretty good anyway.
It's been interesting to watch the fuel consumption. Up hills we push about 16l/100km but in the flat it settled down to Just under 13l/100km. Not too bad, and a bit better than we used to get from the commodore. The pajero travels well in drive 4wd-high letting the auto deal with gear changes. I tried out using manual 4th as recommend in a number of forums. It did not seem to improve the fuel consumption and the car seemed to be working a lot harder.
At some point in the past it looks like there has been about 30km of resurfacing if this highway. They had out in a 80km/h zone to avoid stone damage. Unfortunately they seem to have forgotten to take the speed signs away when there was no more need.
The road was fairly rough from Millmerren to Gundi keeping everybody shaken up.
We efilled at Gundi, cheaper than Brisbane and went shopping for some food for lunch and dinner. It never ceases to amaze me that the the supermarkets everywhere seem to have the same food.
Having got the makings of lunch and dinner we went to the park for late lunch. The kids found one of those "round and round" swings at the playground and had a fine time.
The trip to Moree and the free camp went quietly apart from some spots of rain and some very threatening clouds. The car happily cruses along at 100km/h, and we made it to the free camp at about 5:30. This is a truck and car rest area just off the Newell. Not the most quiet of spots, but the price is right. We've got two other vans here as well.
So tomorrow we are off to Coonabarabran and the Siding Springs observatory. Tomorrow night should be a lot quieter with the option of a couple of bush camps.
No comments:
Post a Comment