Posted from Tabulam, New South Wales, Australia.

Our adventure began, with a weekend away with 30 or so other families, which was about 2 hours west of Byron Bay.  Our friend Natan was having a 40th birthday camping weekend on a property, which was excellent timing for us. We had many reasons to celebrate that weekend. For Richard and I it was our 15^th anniversary ( 15 years what an amazing achievement in it self if I may say so). That was also the date we decided to leave Byron Bay and start our journey and it happened to be Natan’s 40’s Birthday on the same weekend. What an amazing way to spend some quality time with friends before we head off into the unknown., Warnambul

The drive there was somewhat eventful, having never towed a campervan, let alone one overloaded, and with an overloaded car…. we were soon swaying all over the place.  Increasing tyre pressure to 40pounds up from 32 soon stopped some of the rot, but it was clear we were too heavy for comfort.  The  other problem was, we were not sure where we were going. Luckily we met up with our friends Gil and Susi, and convoyed with them the final 50 kms. The tar ended with 15kms of dirt and a last 50 metres up a sandy incline. I guess on our very first day of touring our rig got tested to see if it could deliver on the promise of travelling off the beaten track. We hopped out to inspect and watched our friend Gil launch his ute up the hill.  Launch, literally as his front wheels were at least 2 feet of the ground as his roared over the top. Nice work Gil but doing that with our car and Caravan wasn’t an option.

Towing a caravan, we elected for 4wd, low 2nd, and just crept up nice and slow. We had not driven an automatic for 10 years, and never an automatic 4wd, but this was just great.  We camped a little away from the rest of the group,because we were leaving early Sunday morning to catch up with other friends on north Stardbroke island.We then proceeded to enjoy the next 3 days.  Natan and crew had organised a camp kitchen – which we all kicked in money and were fed for 3 days amazing food. 
We played in the river all day, with various people on child minding duty.  At night we danced to many different tribal tunes, With many of the campers being djs and with a sound system and decks set up it turned into a fun weekend. It was heaven and just what we love to do and what we had ordered from the universe, as packing up and getting ready has to be one of the most stressful things one has to do.

 Some things we learnt

a. Caravans are better to sleep on, when flat.

b. Best not to leave anything behind, but if you take everything, there is nowhere to put anything, and no way to find anything,( that’s referring to space in our car and caravan)
c. if you do a poo in the woods, mark the spot, so the next person doesn’t dig a hole in the same spot.

d. Cows, are big, and sometimes they wander into your campsite, and say”moo”very loudly in the morning when they are going to get a drink from the river.

We floated down the river on lilos, the gentle rapids were fun but not dangerous.  Someone set up a flying fox , Link header across the river which the kids (including the adult kids) had a blast swinging along it. We packed up on Sunday morning (after Nici only had 2hrs sleep) said our goodbyes and headed off to catch the 1pm  fairy to North Stradbroke outside Brisbane. 

The weather was wonderful, the company was amazing, and it was an excellent way to start our adventure.
Thank you guys.