Most of the preparation for our departure had been completed yesterday. The major obstacle in leaving was a motorhome parked a little over 6m from the front of the van and that made it virtually impossible to line-up straight.
Nevertheless, after breakfast we managed to hitch the caravan and after bidding farewell to many friends, we departed. We left about 9:15am with a drive of a little over 5 hours in front of us.
We had not looked at any maps for our trip to Kerang in Victoria with the intention to rely on the GPS. In fact, we were not even sure we had maps with us. Relying on the GPS added just over 100k’s to our trip as we were told by others to head to Lockhart (which we did) and after passing through Lockhart and missing the turn to Urana, the GPS took us back to the route it wanted to take which was via Narrandera. Gurr……..
The GPS also kept us on main roads after Deniliquin rather than quicker country roads.
Nevertheless, we did enjoy the drive and arrived at our destination at 4:00pm. We did stop at Jerilderie for lunch and enjoyed gourmet pies from the local bakery.
We did have a near miss on the way. After turning towards Lockhart, we saw several large birds feasting on roadkill on the edge of the road. We watched several depart to the left but the remaining bird started to the right and directly in front of the car. With approaching traffic a long way in the distance, “He” swerved the car only to feel loss and power as “He” had assumed that cruise control had disengaged. That was not the case as immediately following the slowing of the vehicle, we accelerated again. What had taken place was that the ESC device fitted to the caravan had detected to violent movement and had instantly braked the caravan to stop the caravan from losing control. All we could do was to smile and say thank you to ALKO.
We parked in the street next to our friend’s house. We were also joined by another couple who also parked in the street. After happy hour, we all purchased fish and chips for our evening meal and after talking for a couple of hours, we were happy to head back to our caravan and our bed.