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Project Pajero


Day 7 1 September
Leaving their roadside camp west of Longreach our Grey Nomads made good time on the sealed Landsborough Hwy as they headed towards Winton and a heavy rain storm. Given that they wanted to visit Lark Quarry today, the rain storm did not look too good. However, they passed through it and there wasn’t much in it at all. When I first spoke to Tony and Carol in Winton this morning their biggest problem was the fact that the Bakery is closed on Tuesday’s, today was Tuesday! But they found what they wanted at the local IGA.

Dropping the caravan at the Caravan park in Winton they visited the info centre in town to purchase their tickets to the 12 noon tour at Lark Quarry, only to be told that they can’t purchase tickets at the Info Centre and had to get them at Lark Quarry itself, someone should update the Lark Quarry website!

Tony tells me that 50 k’s of the road to Lark Quarry is now sealed and the remainder is good gravel, no problems and they made good time arriving at 11 am to have lunch before the tour.

The tour cost $10 each and finally Tony gave it the thumbs up, good value he reckons. Their guide was a gentleman in his 70’s who had a wealth of knowledge on the dinosaur tracks and the building which has been erected over them to protect them. There were 15 people in this tour, at least 12 in the 10 am tour and a crowd waiting to get on the 2pm tour, so it is obviously a popular place despite its remoteness.

Back at Winton I had suggested a visit to the very good Matilda Centre, but in setting up the van Carol discovered they were carrying half of outback Queensland under the bed in the form of dust, so apparently this afternoon was given over to cleaning.

Tony advised me that sitting under the van’s awning this afternoon the temp was 38 degrees at 3.30pm, now that is pretty hot. Lots of other grey nomads around with the Caravan Park full tonight. It was interesting to note that fuel economy for the Pajero on today’s run without the van behind it only improved marginally to 15.6l/100 it should be around 12 litres per 100 we reckon. Maybe Tony will have time to have it checked in Mt Isa, their next destination.

By the way, a message to John in the USA who is keeping a watch on these updates, when they don’t have phone service I can’t get the latest details OK, that is why occasionally we are a day or two behind, when they get into the more remote places in Australia where there is no phone service this may stretch out to a few days. You see John, Australia is not like the USA (thank goodness), you can drive for hundreds of kilometres and not pass through any sign of civilisation. Anyway, glad you are keeping an eye on your sister’s travels.

Day 6 31 August 2009
I think Tony was happy to leave Welford, his tone on the phone was not good and besides a few drops of rain had started to fall and we he knew from our earlier trip out here in June that these roads became impassable after rain. Rolling into Jundah it was time to feed the hungry Pajero. With costing $1.54 per litre thankfully the slower pace saw the Pajero return 17l/100.

I remember Jundah from 1984 when I was competing in the Australian Safari off road rally with a mate, it was a refuelling spot for us, there wasn't much else there. Tony tells me there is now a new amenities block in town which also provided showers, so they took advantage of these. They also spotted water leaking from the rear of the caravan it seems a stone had ricocheted off the rear bumper back onto the tap on the tank, slightly dislodging it and causing a leak. Tony was able to make a temporary fix to save their water. A dust cover on the caravan's axle had also disappeared somewhere on the dusty track so this was replaced in Longreach. Carol remarked that the caravan is not really suited to unsealed roads as it leaks dust like a sieve!

Heading north to Longreach the bitumen is only one lane wide and the Grey Nomads were surprised at the amount of traffic heading into Jundah, no one seemed to be going north, except them. There was a light overcast and it was cooler gain today, and no strong headwind.

Arriving at Longreach they made for the Stockman's Hall of Fame. Our new seniors don't have their seniors cards as yet, so it was full fare to get into the exhibition which was $22.50 each. after spending close to two hours in the Stockmans Hall of Fame they left feeling that it was poor value for money. I have to agree, that I also think the place is overrated. they then headed up the Landsborough Hwy for about 30 k to a rest area beside the road for their overnight camp.

Day 5 30 August 2009
After a pleasant night beside the billabong outside Quilpie our intrepid grey nomads were on the road early. You will notice from the SPOT tracker that their day seems to start around 7.30 am when they hit the road. No sleep in for this retired couple, although I bet Carol wouldn't mind. Tony comes from a work background where he regularly rose at 4am so I guess he is finding it impossible to sleep past 5am!

It was cooler today with a southerly change and some light cloud, top temp in the low 30's. Following the sealed towards Windorah they took the road to Welford NP about 50 k before Windorah. This is an unsealed road which leads 50 k to the entrance to Welford NP. On arriving at Welford and paying the camping fee of $5 per person they dropped the caravan to undertake the scenic drive around the Park. In Tony's words, don't bother, its is a dry flat plain with either mulga or little else. Even Sawyers Lookout is only a slight rise in otherwise flat country. They collected the caravan and headed to one of the campsites in the Park known as Boomerang Waterhole, and whilst there was water in the hole, the terrain leading up to it was flat and featureless. Tony thinks that all the money collected must have went to the Rangers Quarters which looked quite nice, he even had a tennis court! One ponders with whom he plays? But the one facility at Boomerang Waterhole was quite primitive.

On the way to the Waterhole, Tony nearly managed to test the East Coast Bull Bar, on several occasions, as mobs of kangaroos, despite being well away from the road, all jumped across in front of the Pajero. Tony reckons Welford must mean gathering place for stupid kangaroos!

Even the waterhole was sparse on wildlife with just one Osprey and a kangaroo with her joey spotted. But they did have the place to themselves, with no other travellers arriving through the afternoon.


Day 4 29 August 2009
Today dawned partially cloudy with a strengthening north west wind. Now as you might realise, if the wind comes from the north west in Lightning Ridge, it is going to be hot!

Before hitching up the caravan Tony was accosted by another Pajero owner, he had exactly the same model Pajero towing a caravan. Except his had done 150,000K and had given him no trouble what so ever, that made Tony feel good, then Tony’s new mate told him he was averaging 12l/100k, that made Tony sad!

T&C covered nearly 600 k’s today, travelling up the road to Hebel, crossing into Queensland, then they followed the road to Diranbandi, I had asked for a photo of the town sign because I like the name Diranbandi. On the map it looked like they had 10 k of dirt to cover, but this turned out to be more like 40 K, the first dirt road this Pajero has probably ever seen. Anyway, it was dust proof, can’t say the same for their caravan though, although someone left one of the windows open, I figured it was Tony, but he was blaming Carol anyway.

Long stretches of lonely road into a howling wind, refuelling at Cunnamulla at $1.36 per litre and then at Quilpie at $1.48 per litre (unleaded remember). Ouch! And at 25 l/100 due to the strong head wind, this was costing our Grey Nomads an arm and a pair of dentures.

At Quilpie Tony followed the road towards Adavale on the east side of town, in June he and I had tried to get to a nice campsite beside a billabong outside town but were cut off by flood waters. This time the water was back in the billabong and if you look on the SPOT Tracker and zoom in, you will see they were camped tonight right beside the large body of water. They arrived 10 minutes before sunset but already Tony has spotted, Swans, Spoonbills, Ducks, Dotterels and even a Leaden Fly Catcher which is apparently a bird that looks like a Willy Wag Tail without the stripes on its face – Tony is a Twitcher by the way!

Temperature in the car was 42 degrees and outside at 6pm it was still 34 degrees and in the ARB fridge its still minus 15, most impressive. Its going to be a hot night beside the Billabong. This is a free camp and there are about 6 other campers sharing it with them.


Day 3 Friday 28 August 2009
Our intrepid travellers spent the whole day in Lightning Ridge soaking up the atmosphere and the dust. The Car door tours turned out to be quite interesting with dusty roads finishing at homes of the locals. One was a working opal mine, very dusty and lots of hard work, one was a an assortment of tent and corrugated iron shanties all very dusty. Another coloured door led to a corrugated iron church, I reckon the patrons in Summer might think they had gone to the other bloke! The final coloured door led to an “interesting” structure made of 44 gallon drums filled with concrete to form concrete columns, very strange but “interesting” and dusty.

Last night after dinner, Tony and Carol walked up to the outdoor and free artesian bath. Lowering themselves into the 41.5 degrees Celsius water was not something to be rushed. The bath is approx 30 metres in diameter and about 2 metres deep, with various stairs leading into what actually looks like a big round concrete septic tank in the ground full of very hot water. But most relaxing under the starry night. Or it was until Carol noticed the older gentleman who simply dropped his duds in front of her to change!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tony also relayed a story he overheard at the Caravan Park BBQ last night between two grey nomads, it went like this.

Grey Nomad one “Been coming here long”
Grey Nomad Two, “Yep, 8 years”
GN1 “What have you been doing all that time”
GN2 “Playing bowls”
GN1 “Playing bowls?”
GN2 “Yep, Lightning Ridge has the best Bowling Club in Australia, we are here for 3 months this time”
GN1 “Ooohhhh”

And to make Tony happy, Carol’s brother, John, who lives in the USA has advised me that with his Pajero returning 20l/100k it would qualify for Obama’s Cash for Clunkers Trade in Program – now that is sure to make Tony happy!

Day 2 Thursday 27 August 2009
After a cool night in Delungra, our travelling couple woke to a clear morning. Their camp for the night at the Delungra showground as described in their Camps Australia book provided basic amenities but they did include hot showers.

Today’s drive to Lightning Ridge was over easy terrain with just a few hills, consequently the economy improved to 16 litres /100k, a great relief to Tony. Topping up with unleaded in the opal town of Lightning Ridge where the fuel cost $1.31.9 the same as in Sydney today.

They are camped in the Lightning Ridge motel/hotel Caravan Park (sounds like they have the lot) where the powered site cost $22 per night. Tony reckons there are another 35 grey nomads in the caravan park.


T&C plan to spend tomorrow (Friday ) in Lightning Ridge taking in all the various sights and spent this afternoon in the Visitors Centre working out what to do when. Tony said something about doing the car door tour, something like follow all the red car doors and then all the yellow car doors etc, sounds like a tour of the junk yard to me, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it really means.

On the weather front cloud is gathering and rain is forecast, so that could make the car door tour interesting.

26th August 2009

Tony said on the eve of the big trip.
Only one more sleep to go. Have been running around like a blue bottomed fly buying those last minute items and doing those last minute jobs. I hope all is ready for the final pack tomorrow morning. I doubt that NASA had to put so much effort into landing men on the moon. We should lumber out of here around lunchtime tomorrow, putting into motion all of our efforts.

The accompanying photos were taken at 12 noon on 26 August, all packed and ready to roll. Note Tony's handiwork on the extended rear mudflats, I wonder how long it took him to hand write Project Pajero on each one? Hmmm should have got a sticker for them if you ask me.

Anyway, Tony and Carol are off on their big adventure, SPOT tells me they rolled out of Coffs Harbour around 1pm and as i type this they have just struggled up the Waterfall Way to Dorrigo. the first big test for the fully laden Pajero with the Caravan in tow.

I asked Tony just before he departed if he had done a trial run with the Caravan on the back - Nope, no time, was his flat reply. So I guess the winding uphill climb to Dorrigo will certainly sort everything out. Destination today is supposed to be Inverell, lets see how far they get! I certainly wish them well. Remember 3 weeks ago this was just a standard Pajero doing daily chores around Nth Sydney, $10,500, will it make it around Oz? I hope so!


Day 1

Well I just spoke with Tony who is camped in the showground at a small town called Delungra west of Inverell.

They had a later departure from Coffs than anticipated due to a minor glitch with Telstra and their new Next G mobile phone. This phone was purchased exclusively for the trip as Next G has superior coverage to other carriers. Only problem is, despite signing up for a 3 month contract (the length of their trip) they discovered just before leaving that Telstra had this down as a one month contract, meaning they would be cut off one third of the way through their trip. In true Telstra fashion, the Telstra shop could not sort it out and it meant making a call to their service centre. Now we all know what that means, some foreign person in another country answers after 30 mins of selecting one or two or three. Needless to say, the problem was not sorted and they had to hit the road.

So it was a late start and they still had to tackle the Waterfall Way up past Dorrigo. As mentioned previously, Tony did not have time to test tow the Caravan. Anyway, with it hooked up and the Polyair Bags pumped up to 25 psi, everything was even and the van towed beautifully.

Then they hit the big hill from Bellingen to Dorrigo. Despite selecting the Pajero for its 3.5 litre motor, it virtually died on the hills, as Tony said, “I thought I would need low range!” down to a crawling speed of 40kph, seems like this Pajero might be overloaded, at least once they get over the mountains there won’t be too many more hills.

Refuelling at Inverell they were shocked to find they averaged a very poor 20litres/100!!! That is going to have improve or the piggy bank will run dry real soon.

Tony was very happy with the ARB fridge, he is currently running it as a Freezer with a setting of minus 15 Yikes that’s cold! He said it gained that temperature super fast and has held it all day easily.


Not so happy with the HEMA Navigator though, in street map form and Guyra Police station punched in, it tried to take them via Grafton?? Kept saying turn around and go back despite them taking the most direct route, it did not show most of the roads they followed and when parked out the front of the Guyra Police station it said make a U turn and head for Armidale??? I suggested he use the HEMA map section rather than the street map mode, let’s hope its performance improves tomorrow.

Anyway, the rest area just out of town was very small and provided little privacy so they turned around and went back into town where their camp ground guide also from HEMA said they could camp at the showground. So that is where they stayed on their first night, no-one else around, not even anyone to collect the camping fee. Maybe there is an honesty box that will be more visible in the daylight, as you may see from SPOT they arrived at 6.30pm in the dark.














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