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Peter
and Patrice share their teardrop adventure to Lawn Hill
In
June 2012 my wife and I did a 4000km trip to Lawn Hill National Park and back
with our teardrop camper. We have an 8 x 5 Little Guy Teardrop which was
originally imported to South Australia with a container load of other TD's from
Little Guy Campers in the USA. I bought the camper in late 2010 from a fellow in
Melbourne. We had been on a couple of shorter trips on the Queensland and NSW
coast but the trip through the outback to Lawn Hill had been on our list for a
while. We were restricted to the mid-year school break as my wife is a teacher -
so we had 15 nights all up.
We
headed to Lawn Hill which is in far north west Queensland, via Roma, Charleville,
Blackall, Barcaldine, Longreach, Winton and Cloncurry. From Cloncurry it's
around 400 kilometres including the last 85 kms or so of gravel - passing the
Burke and Wills Road House and Gregory Downs. On the trip up we took in the
Stockmans Hall of Fame and the QANTAS Founders Museum at Longreach and coming
back the dinosaurs at Winton and a three day stop at Cania Gorge near Monto in
Central Queensland. We stayed at a mixture of caravan parks, national parks,
free camps and even behind a pub at Muckadilla near Roma for $10 - a top spot to
stay if you are passing.
Lawn
Hill National Park is a wonderful place to visit - a real oasis in the middle of
the harsh savanah country of the gulf. Emerald green Lawn Hill Creek runs
through the red gorge and abounds with fish and freshwater crocodiles. Everyone
swims in the gorge - it's too inviting not too - in spite of the crocodiles
which are not known to attack people like their saltwater cousins. You can hire
a canoe and paddle the gorge - most people do - swim at the falls between the
upper and lower gorge - and do the many walks that start in the National Park
campground. There is also a private campground - Adels Grove - just up the road
from the park. We stayed there as the National Park tends to be booked out well
in advance. An added bonus of staying at Adels Grove for us was that Ernie Dingo
did an impromptu show. He was staying at the nearby Lawn Hill Station and agreed
to do the show for donations to the Royal Flying Doctor Service which is a very
important institution in that remote part of the country.
All
along the way our teardrop drew strong interest from other travellers in
campgrounds, rest stops and garages. The common questions were, what is it? it's
so cute, does it fold out? how do you fit in there? (I'm 6'3"). They were always
amazed at the queen size bed in the cabin and the galley, which in our case,
because the van had been used as a demonstrator, has a fridge (small Waeco)
microwave, induction hot plate and small pantry. Some people said they had seen
them before but had never seen inside one and other knew about them and had
wanted to own or build one for a long time. At some campgrounds we a had an
audience before we had even unhitched and they were always amazed at how quickly
we set up and how we could just push it around to fine tune the final spot. We
just use an RV shade over the galley which is on two flexible poles and takes
just a few minutes to erect. We could be set up and having a beer while people
with conventional caravans, pop-tops and camper trailers seemed to be working
for a long time to get set up. That's one of the many advantages I see with a
teardrop - the minimal set up time which helps when you are trying to cover
relatively long distances in limited time.
We
had some extreme ranges in temperature - from below zero in Central Queensland
to warm nights in the gulf country. One morning at Sapphire we woke to find the
roof and walls of the teardrop covered in ice. We were a tad cold that night -
but only because we were using a summer doona. Once we switched to the down
doona we were fine even in the sub-zero temperatures. All up the teardrop
performed beautifully and was no problem to tow even at maximum highway speeds
and then some. One day we covered 900km in under 9 hours including stops for
smoko and lunch. My tow vehicle is a turbo diesel Hyundai Santa Fe and averaged
9.5 l/100km towing at speeds between 100 - 120kph.
For
most of our lives we have been traveling and camping and have used a variety of
approaches including tents and owning two Kombis for 20 years. We find the
teardrop very convenient, easy to tow, easy to set up, easy on the vehicle and
fuel consumption and yet very comfortable and practical to travel with. We are
planning more trips when we can get away from our work commitments.
