Chapter 1 - Introduction

2023 Trip - Flinders Ranges & The Outback

Our winter trips are normally planned five or six months in advanced. However, our COVID-developed procrastination skills have been finely honed and so we set out on our trip without a clearly defined route. 

Rough ideas were formed in February 2023. More detailed plans started to appear around late March. The first booking happened on 9th May - and that was  only because it was a beach location.

Our first major stop is to be the Finders Ranges, last visited 10 years ago in 2013. The southern end of the Flinders Ranges is about 400 km north of Adelaide.

We may visit a few station stays whenever we can, and meet some of the people on the land. There are quite a number in and around the Flinders Ranges. The ability to have a campfire, suitable for cooking dinner, is high on the priorities.

After the Flinders Ranges, we will travel east to Broken Hill, then further east before heading north into north-west Outback Queensland - around Quilpie. A place that can be called "Hell Hole Gorge National Park" is surely worth considering.

South West Outback Queensland

A beach visit is also on the agenda - namely Hervey Bay for three weeks from late July. It is close to Fraser Island and popular for whale watching. We may not see any whales, but we should have a whale of a time.

Our aim this year is to also have more campfires and more campfire dinners. Our caravan has been enhanced to include a diesel heater so that we can be warm when free camping (or have unpowered sites). The Prado also has a sharp axe included in its tool kit. I sort of hope that I don’t need to use the axe. 😊

We should see birds (I would love a blue wren), sunsets and sunrises. There has to be campfires, damper, scones, pizzas and frivolity. A dinosaur would be good. Maybe the odd smoothie, weird sign, or just quirky Aussie stuff. After all, it is coming from me.

On the second and third day of the trip we may see four or five sets of silo art, in places with names like Horsham, Arkona, Kaniva and Coonalpyn. The first three are in Victoria, the fourth is in South Australia. There is more at Eudunda and Farrell Flat - that may also be on our route to the Flinders Ranges.

We hope to visit some new places, and some not seen by us for some time. 
We plan to enjoy the journey. I hope you do so as well. The route may be something like the image below. As you can see we have no idea what route we will take on the way home.

😀😀😀😀

*** Last Updated: 18 May 2023 ***
*** End of the Introduction ***

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