Well two weeks are over, and we are still going OK. Around 2,700km’s under the belt. It seems pretty normal now, living in a motorhome. What do we need a house for again?? 🙂 Don’t worry, we haven’t got to that level… yet…

It has been a busy trip so far – starting to feel like we need a holiday! (Lol, I’m starting to sound like Mum and Dad…). I think the number and frequency of ‘tourist’ activities will decrease as we head west of Mt Isa, which will make it feel a little more relaxed.

Not surprisingly, the further west we head, the more people wave as they pass on the road. Out here even a good proportion of caravaners wave, as well as the occasional car! There are a lot of people travelling in caravans, far more than I had realised. They’re still all old though….

Whilst happy to do some short bits of dirt road, we’ll be avoiding any long distances. Corrugations just feel like they are shaking the motorhome to pieces! Probably not as bad as it feels, but we didn’t see other motorhomes in several places we’ve visited!

Our mechanical woes worsened, after I lost the water filler cap the other day. That actually turned out to be an easy fix – there was a camping store at Longreach that had a filler that fits (different brand and look and bit hard to remove, but some mods with a Stanley blade will fix that!). I forgot to mention that the pressure release valve on the motorhome hot water system started leaking when we had hot showers that day (and continued to leak when cold). That was a pain as we couldn’t leave the water pump on. I couldn’t find a replacement in Longreach (or Mt Isa), so initially just bought a plastic end plug. I’ve since put the valve back in and inserted a bit of rubber (bike inner tube) between the sealing surfaces which has sealed it. A nearby camper suggested it. Bit of a dodgy fix, so not sure if it will last when the heater is used next!

Our 1000W pure sine wave inverter has carked it! And I paid top dollars for it…. from Kogan…. lol. It is a pain though, so today I bought another cheap little 400w unit to keep us going while I work with Kogan to get the failed one replaced. Also lost one of the covers from the white lights at the front top of the motorhome. Seems you can’t buy the covers anymore – will have to replace with an LED unit. All minor issues in the scheme of things – not like the engine blowing up or anything!

We had our first few nights without mobile phone coverage. Though fortunately we’ve still had internet! Phew..! If you are wondering how that works, our phones are with Optus whereas the tablet is with Telstra. So we can get internet/emails through either, but only text messages and mobile calls through Optus. Btw, we still have our landline also – the 07 3103xxxx number (I won’t put it out there for the whole world – email me if you want it). It is the same number we’ve had for over 10 years (it’s a SIP/voip number if you’re wondering). Also skype, though we don’t have it running all the time.

We’ll leave Mt Isa tomorrow (Wed), which will give us 7 days to get to Uluru and meet up with Nikki. That is certainly a faster rate of travel than we’ve been doing so far, but then again there will be less along the way to see/do.