Hi guys,
I'm thinking of running an Australia Day Weekend touring trip. This isn't so much about 4wding as it is overlanding, actually I'm pretty sure a 4wd isn't needed for this trip. I'm looking at covering about 1,000km over 3 days.
So, first off, my own mates get first dibs. The open spots will reflect this, so it'll be them plus anyone that joins from here. It'll be a minimum of 2 nights camping as well, and although I'm planning camps that have toilets (one even has a shower, which is great - trust me.) This means that you'll have to bring your own water, food, cooking equipment and such. I don't know what the fire bans will be at the time, so I wouldn't rely on camp fires to be cooking on. There SHOULD be enough in the way of equipment between all cars though, so don't stress too much.
Now down to business. First, the destination. I'm thinking of travelling from Warragul, Vic to Eden, NSW. Rough plan is leave Warragul Friday morning-ish (I'm not a morning person, so no early rising from me), and head to Goongerah for Friday night. This will be a 4-odd hour drive, plus rest stops, breakdowns (we’ll have Jeeps and Land Rovers in the convoy, God help us) and vehicles struggling through the hills - I'll freely admit, it'll be mine that does that. IF you want or need to camp around Warragul at the beginning or something end of the trip, you should be able to stay on my parents property (I’ll ask that you avoid the house though, we need to respect their privacy). From Goongerah, we'll head to Eden, where I've secured a vacant block of land near the cemetery. This leg will be more like 3 hours, so this should mean we get there early enough to have lunch and spend Saturday on the beach. There's no power on this block, but there are showers and toilets very close by.
From there, Sunday will be the trip back home. This is a big one, at 5 to 6 hours drive depending where you come from. I've done it before, it's fairly easy. Once I get into the 8 hours, I find it begins getting tedious. It is all highway driving home however, so nothing too difficult. We'll have plenty of stops. First one will be around 2 hours, then every hour after that so that no one gets over tired.
So yeah. That's the rough plan. Lots of talking, drinking, eating and driving. There was also the idea of doing a big loop around the Alpine National Park. This was kind of Healesville > Bright > Omeo > Bairnsdale > Home. I have not looked into this one too much, but if nobody wants to leave the state, well, it's an option I guess.
I'll do a detailed list and route plan once I get a gauge of the interest in this kind of trip. You will need to secure Friday off work, which shouldn't be too hard hopefully. I'm open to leaving Thursday and returning Saturday leaving Sunday for rest and recovery.
This trip should be a good starting point for those of you out there that want to get into long travel touring or overlanding. I'm hoping to start doing some large trips myself, so it could also be a good place to meet people with a similar interest in travelling. I'm limiting the group size to 10 cars max. 8 cars is the aim, but I'm open to letting in a couple of more people who really want to give this a go.