15 - Summary for 2020

 

SUMMARY 2020

2020 was a year of new experiences for us and most other people around the world, the year of the covid-19 pandemic.

We had spent the best part of 2 years planning our activities for 2020. Our primary focus on our Canada based daughter’s wedding to take place near Toronto on the eastern side of Canada.

We had been provided with further inspiration from a lovely, like minded Canadian couple whom we had met in 2017 and spent time with during our Canadian adventure then.

Taylor and Ernie came up with a very agreeable plan for us to land at Vancouver on the western side of Canada and they would take us on a road trip around Canada over a period of about 6 months, including time spent with our daughter and her Canadian family. This was also to be a dream trip for Taylor and Ernie with further incentive from us to visit localities they had only dreamed about.

January 2020, we finalised all our required bookings, paying a substantial sum of money, committing to our planned time in Canada.

It was almost exactly one week later when the media announced the corona virus pandemic effecting the community in Wuhan, China.

By March, Australia went into lock-down mode, including the cancellation of flights in and out of Australia, trying to prevent the spread of covid-19 (corona virus) in the community. All of our 2020 plans suddenly evaporated or should we say were flushed down the per-verbal gurgle r. We were house bound for about three months only venturing out for food or medical reasons.

In our home state of South Australia, restrictions started to ease by June and we were permitted to travel around our own state, but adjoining state borders remained closed. Like many other people we were feeling the effects of limited movement and enjoyed time travel-ling with our caravan in the beautiful Flinders Ranges, located about 500 kilometres north from home. Freedom of movement felt wonderfully good.

With the opening of Northern Territory borders in July we headed north, leaving the cold winter conditions of southern Australia behind. Our target destination the warmer northern regions of Australia, about 3,000 kilometres up the road. There were still ongoing restrictions due to the effects of covid-19 consequences, though it felt good to be out and about providing a much need boost for our well-being.

Even with the disappointment of our daughters cancelled wedding due to the covid-19 pandemic, we still experienced many happy times in 2020. During our yearly travels (since 2013) we meet many nice people and for us 2020 was a year with some extraordinary lovely people experiences.

The below indication of our 2020 travel lifestyle costings include our February and June travels along with our extended travel time from July.

 

Our cost summary for 2020.

 

All costs have been rounded out to the nearest $100.

Days spent travelling              =                      183      down about 35% due to covid-19

Expenditure incurred whilst travelling, ~       $55 per day – (averaged out)

Kilometres travelled                                      15,000

Food expenditure       =                                  $2,500

Fuel expenditure         =                                  $3,900

Accommodation expenditure            =          $1,900

Other living expenditures       =                      $1,600

 

Our other incurred main travel expenses not included in above.

 New tyres for 4wd & Caravan                      $3,800             to hopefully last over 4-5 years

New oven & hot water service                     $3,100             hopefully to last for 20 years

 

We spent 57 nights in National Parks, 27 in caravan parks, 63 at free camping locations and 34 at showgrounds / low-cost camping areas.

14- Queensland Sunshine Coast to Canberra to Adelaide, 18 Nov to 4th Dec

 

Entry 14 – 18^th Nov. to 4^th Dec., Sunshine Coast, Queensland to Canberra, ACT.

We only needed one night at the township of Beerwah after collection of our caravan from the manufacturer, to complete our testing of the caravan’s new equipment and other repairs. Once again, we were very satisfied with Bushtracker quality of workmanship, reiterating the value of travelling a long way for their service.

Our next target location a couple of hundred kilometres down the road was the town of Dalby where our tow tug had been booked for a service. We set camp a bit out of town in a bush setting at Lake Broadwater.

Mary continued with further testing of our new oven’s capabilities.

Our tow tug was provided with new filters, oil, and new exhaust hoses, a requirement for the current emissions regulations, the first time we have experienced fitment of new exhaust hosing as part of a vehicle service, naturally at our expense. With the caravan re-connected we were on our way, heading south, pleasingly a few hours earlier than we had expected with an early completion of the tow tug service.

At Goondiwindi we returned some borrowed audio books to the library and set camp at Moree, in New South Wales located another 130 kilometres down the road. We chose to utilise a caravan park with four hot artesian pools. It was 5.30 pm at arrival time and the temperature was still 36 degrees, with our priority to activate our caravan air-conditioner to provide an acceptable sleeping temperature. We do like our artesian waters, immersing our bodies in the artesian pools, starting in the 34-degree pool, next the 38-degree pool, finishing with some laps in the air temperature pool. It was a most relaxing way to finish our day.

We were a day in-front for our current location than where we thought we might be. We do like our artesian waters and decided to stay a second day, because we could.

We continued travelling south, focused on driving over the next three days, staying overnight near roadside stops. Our first night was at a location a bit north of Dubbo at Eumungerie campground providing power and toilets for $10 a night. We do enjoy a bush setting like Eumungerie campground, leaving our curtains open, waking at day light, enjoying views of silhouetted trees around us highlighted by the rising sun.

Day two we drove through some low-lying clouds with periods of heavy rain, our first bit of good rain for a few months.

Day three we arrived at our destination of Canberra, parking up in the front yard of our son’s home. That was, after trimming a few low-lying tree limbs, hindering our access to his front yard.

We spent a week enjoying the company of our Canberra family. Naturally with the rest of our time, utilized ticking off our son’s wish list for home maintenance.

During our time in Canberra, we closely monitored the various state border crossing requirements due to the ever-changing covid-19 impacts, in preparation for the choice of our travel route home. Normally, we would travel through Victoria on our way home but at the time, our home state of South Australia border was closed to people from and travelling through Victoria. 2020 our return trip to home required us to travel a route further north, circumnavigating around the state of Victoria to get home. We had still been required to apply for an entry permit to get back into South Australia, under covid-19 conditions. Yes, we were stopped at the border at a police check point and they established we did have an appropriate permit to enter.

We had a good run home, taking five days of driving to arrive back at our home. Though it was a long boring period of just driving. Every now and then we would get a glimpse of the activity in the nearby paddocks for this time of the year with bumper year for crops being harvested from the paddocks.