20th July - Arrive
21st July - Caravan shopping
22nd July - Swap meet shopping
Seriously, we're planning to look at and choose a caravan and truck in the first week in Western Australia so we know what we have to deal with, and then it will probably take us another 3-4 weeks to get all the paperwork sorted out, work out what it comes with and what else we need to buy, and have a few test runs before heading too far from civilization (such as it is in WA)
mid-late August - head north up the WA coast and then inland and east to Darwin and the Northern Territories, getting warmer all the while. Kakadu national park for the crocodiles, Arnhem Land for the aboriginal rock art, maybe down as far as Alice and Uluru, although we saw that back in '95. And no trip across the Simpson Desert would be complete without Maria doing her impersonation of Priscilla. I have a vision of a deck chair tied to the roof rack on the ute, and a roll of kitchen foil. And no, I am not going to do the Boney-M impression.
November - we need to be in Queensland for our fist visitor. Kevin is coming to meet us in Cairns on Nov 11th as part of his Asia tour, so see the full solar eclipse on the 14th. Here's hoping for clearer skies than we got in Plymouth
December - work our way down the gold coast to be in Sydney for new years eve fireworks on the coathanger, then across the south to be back in Perth by late March for the start of the 50th birthday season among Maria's friends, then seeing WA in more detail until Maria's big 50 on July 4th
After that we have 2 weeks to leave the country, probably heading to New Zealand for 6 months as we're in the neighbourhood....
