August planning dinner

Another planning dinner tonight at our place- for the first time we actually had the maps out BEFORE the wine!

We were joined by Shannon and Neil who are planning to join us for the Mataranka, Litchfield, Darwin, Kakadu section of the trip. Although they are a bit like us and are still planning how they are going to get there. I thought I had a plan and now after talking to Matt and Maree I think we are going to revise it.......again. This will be it - the next plan for how to get to Mataranka is it and we will have a firm leaving date.

Maree bought the Pat Callinan Kimberly DVD for us to watch tonight which was good because he drove the Gibb River Rd. So after a lot of "isn't that beautiful?" and "we have to go there" we have a good idea of the places we "must" see but I think we are planning to keep it pretty flexible. General plan is to spend between 2 and 3 weeks in the Kimberly.

Our other firm plan we have made is that we are going to keep our Prado. Basically came down to finances and the fact that we can extend the lease for another year and we like it more than the new one. Well, Paul and I like it - Claire and Thomas aren't all that enthusiastic about having to sit in the back of it for long periods of time. So that means we can start making the long list of modifications - bull bar, driving lights, cb, upgrade the suspension, roof tray and snorkel.

We will also need new tyres before we go - I told the kids they would all be getting a tyre for christmas - 4 kids, 4 tyres - seems perfect to me - not sure why they are unimpressed......I mean they are REALLY good tyres.....

Well I totally forgot to blog the last planning dinner - which was a shame because it was very productive. We have a rough plan for what we want to do and see in Litchfield NP, Darwin, Kakadu and Katherine.

But the biggest news since my last blog is that we sold our old camper trailer and have bought a 2009 Jayco Outback Swan. It all happened a bit fast but it had what we wanted at a really great price so we picked the kids up from school on the Wednesday afternoon and drove to Lithgow to pick it up and spent a couple of hours with the lovely couple we were buying it from. They took us through how everything works and helped us hook it up and off we went (after a bribery pitstop at the golden arches).

The kids have had a couple of sleepovers in the driveway, Sam was apparently a pain in the but wanting to sample all of the beds and eventually settling with Paul. I had to forgo the first sleepover because I was at work, the second one I didn't have that excuse but I couldn't bring myself to sleep in a camper trailer knowing my comfy king size bed was only a few feet away!

We are really looking forward to going away over the October long weekend to give it a real test. It is surprisingly easy to put up and everyone will have a job - goal is to have it set up in 10 minutes or less.

Next planning dinner is to talk about Katherine to Broome on Aug 14th at our place. Maree came up with the idea of sampling easy meals we can cook while we are away. I am thinking Risotto.......