THE BIG DASH: Getting serious

As week three of our sojourn commences we’ve left the Flinders Ranges behind and headed north.

Actually, to be accurate, we’ve initially driven south-west to Hawker and then the Spencer Gulf before turning north to Port Augusta. There we stocked up on supplies before joining the Stuart Highway and the road that will take us all the way to Darwin.

But in the next seven days a station stay, Coober Pedy, our first overnight at a roadhouse and Kings Canyon are on the agenda.

As Port Augusta disappeared behind us, it felt for Jane and me that the trip had entered a new phase.

How did Eddie and Lulu feel? Hungry or sleepy most likely.

The Kia Tasman X-Pro is happy out here.

On these long , flat roads, it pulls the caravan quite comfortably at around 100km/h.

On the climbs it needed some downshifting assistance to maintain progress, but they were usually long and gradual and gave us a fighting chance of maintaining momentum.

We even caught and passed other traffic occasionally, including this road train towing five trailers. We were out there on the wrong side of the road for quite a while.

Thankfully those sightlines are good out here.

But running at 100km/h – or trying to – has proved pretty darned expensive as diesel prices continue to steeple well past $3. We’re doing longer runs with the 'van and very little driving without it attached, so the cost and consumption quickly adds up.

While our overall consumption averages we’ve been publishing have been lower, the towing component has been showing up at 18-20L/100km on the trip computer estimates.

So I made the decision to slow it down and see what impact it had.

I can’t admit it was all my own idea. The trigger really came via a slightly scolding email from former Holden (now Multimatic) engineer Michael Barber.

A great bloke, who like all engineers sees things so rationally and has the education and brains to back it up.

He wrote:

“I’m impressed you’re banging along at 100kph. You’re displacing over 6 tons of air for every km travelled. Your forbear, Sir Zac Newton, showed us that F=ma (Force = mass x acceleration – Newton’s second law), meaning the faster you drive then the faster you displace (accelerate) the 6 tons of air around the car and van, so the more force you need to do it.

“Recalling our discussion during the fuel price spike of 2022, fuel consumption is actually a velocity cubed relationship when we are balancing power output against aerodynamic drag.

“You will save significantly if you became even more of the Annoying Caravaner and do 80 kph instead of 100…. anyway, aside of cost, you should bear this in mind in the event you’re worried about making it to the next fuel station."

“I expect fuel consumption will drop with speed even down as low as 30 kph, albeit with diminishing returns," he continued.

Well, I didn’t slow to 80, or 30, but chose 90km/h (92km/h indicated on the speedo) to see what the impact was.

Michael, as he usually is, was right. Fuel use dropped around 2L/100km or more to the 16-18L/100km bracket. I’ve even seen 15s occasionally.

And so to this week’s numbers:

Litres consumed: 308.9
Kms travelled: 1479km
Consumption average: 20.886L/100km
$ paid: $1079.44
Kms per $: 1.37km (down from 2.02km per $ last week)

Things we enjoyed this week:

Touring an opal mine: Coober Pedy is famous for opals and joining a guided tour of an opal mine was undoubtedly the best part of our stay in the South Australian outback town.

The tour itself of Tom’s Working Opal Mine was fascinating and our host, the owner Paul (Tom was the original owner many years ago) was full of great stories of fortunes found and lost.

Our four legged travel companions, Eddie and Lulu were even allowed to come along and got their own hard hats!

The other great thing about going underground? Getting out of the heat, sure, but mostly getting out of the flies. Since the Flinders we’d been copping plenty but here they reached plague proportions. You could not go outside without a fly net on.

Kings Canyon in the Watarrka National Park: This was not on our original list to visit when we started planning this trip as it’s a three hour drive off the highway and meant a minimum two night stay.

Well, everyone we met who’d been there said how wonderful it was, so it went on to the schedule. They were right, what a spectacular place.

We enjoyed it so much we stayed four nights. A lot of emphasis is made about the initial climb up the canyon wall onto the plateau for the rim walk, but it’s comfortably doable if you pace yourself.

Then once you’re up there, it’s an incredible geographic Disneyland of sheer sandstone cliffs, fossilised ocean beds, ancient rocks worn into cracked domes and secret lush gardens.

The walk can be comfortably achieved in three hours. Don’t miss the accompanying creek walk, it’s beautiful too.

And if you keep driving out the road for 30km you get to a lookout called Morris Pass at a low range of hills which provide a glorious sunset view of the George Gill range, which Kings Canyon is part of.

I’m a bloody forgetful bastard and caravanning is exposing me pretty ruthlessly.

There has not been one time we’ve set off in the morning after a packdown without me forgetting to do something or other.

Usually it’s minor, like not plugging in the repeater for the caravan’s tyre pressure monitoring system. The repeater is needed because our 'van is a tandem axle and the sensor signal on the rear wheels can’t reach the display on the dashboard without a boost.

More seriously, we left the vent cover for the door behind at Wirraminna Station, which was our first overnight stay on the Stuart Highway.

Not only did we leave it behind but I ran it over because it had been sitting on one of the tyres!

We missed it that morning because Jane wasn’t feeling well and didn’t do the usual final check that she conducts to make sure I’ve not done anything dumb – like forgotten to put the vent on.

Happily, it was found by the station owner Stacey and some fellow northward travellers delivered it on to us a few days later. Jane gave it a couple of bangs with the mallet and it fitted straight back on.

But the primary issue for me has been the caravan’s park brake. I’ve left it on for an entire day and not engaged it when decoupling from the 'van on-site.

That was scary as the van rolled back on a gentle slope a couple of feet before being pulled up by the security chains. Thank goodness they were still attached.

My solution has been a very visual prompt on the A-frame to ensure I don’t keep making the same mistake.

We camped at the opposite ends of the spectrum this week.

Wirraminna Station is geographically located around midway between Coober Pedy and Port Augusta, so it makes a logical overnight stop.

There’s no power, no water, just a series of flat rows marked out in a paddock … oh, and a billion stars in the unpolluted night sky once the sun fades into the west. Magnificent.

This was our first effort at free camping (well, we paid $12), which means we relied purely on the electricity stored in our caravan’s battery, our gas bottles and our onboard water tanks using our onboard water pump.

The gas-powered Weber Baby Q got a workout and worked well; the 12v Englaon tv still worked, the Starlink ran perfectly off our 240v inverter, and we had plenty of hot water for washing up.

The only drama was our Aldi coffee machine that consumed too wany watts for our 1600w inverter to handle. Caravan lights flashed and flickered and the machine itself sounded in pain.

Bak to the Moccona!

Only a few days later we were in the opposite situation at the Discovery caravan park at Kings Canyon.

Talk about luxury in the outback. We had a direct view of the range, water and power, a pool and even a restaurant serving cold beers and chilled wine.

It was also pretty much empty. No doubt the diesel price and potential shortage is having an impact. I've written more about this here. 

Rested and replenished at Kings Canyon, it’s on to Alice Springs and deeper into the deep north...

Also read:

THE BIG DASH: Now or never

THE BIG DASH: Why we went Chinese

THE BIG DASH: Buying all the bits

THE BIG DASH: Sorting the tow tug

THE BIG DASH: Hitting the scales

THE BIG DASH: On the road, finally!

THE BIG DASH: Onwards and upwards