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Travel Queensland: Calliope Free Campsite Accommodation

Calliope free campsite is situated just One kilometer off the main A1 highway west of Gladstone and south of Rockhampton, it has a massive area for both tent sites and Rv or motorhomes alike. The grounds are covered with shade by surrounding trees as well as having spots so that you may charge those solar systems. Weather you are interested in just stopping for the night or two this place has the lot – great bush walks miles of river to explore,  just 2 k`s from the Calliope crossroads for fuel and supplies.

Plenty of nature to enjoy and explore in, this place is a great stepping stone if you are heading further up north and need the time to rest and recharge beofre heading off again. Dont forget to check out the calliope historical village and the museum is just of the bruce highway north. Check it out you never know what gems you  might find.

You will find the calliope campsite in the camps 4 and 5 booklets in the Queensland section for more detailed directions.

If you are interested in fishing then cast a line out in the river and try your luck. Boats and kayaks are welcomed in the park so don’t forget to pack your swimmers so that you can enjoy the lovely scenery alone the river side.

Plenty of bins are provided by the local council ane are located in several handy spots for you to deposit that rubbish.

Calliope free campsite Amenities:

Plenty of shade
Plenty of space for big rigs
Riverside camping
Toilets Mens and womens
Under cover seating
Access to river

Travel  – Queensland: The Beachside Caravan Park Yeppoon

 
The Beachside Caravan Park is located right on the ocean approximately 100k`s from Rockhampton queensland, Australia.. Accommodation ranged from $18 to $22 dollars for a powered site a night, suitable for 10 meter vehicles or less.

The caretaker was very obliging as, he stated that we were able to have a look at the site to make sure that Rv would fit in to the available spot prior to booking in. The camp site itself was very peaceful so we stayed another couple of nights un planed.  

So in my opinion bring your caravan or motorhome and if you are not so inclined you are most welcome to still enjoy the camping experience tenting.  And when you sit out of an evening, make sure you take in the breath taking views of the beach below.   

Yeppoon itself has many things to experience like cafes, clubs and boutiques for your shopping pleasure, If you wish to get out and let your hair down for a night of dancing and dining with fine wine, this might just be the place for you.

If you’re interested in motorsport however, what would be better than to visit The Peter Brock Experience. See the old LC six cylinder Torana XU1 that Peter Brock drove to victory at Bathurst over the larger and more common V8 Falcons of the time, all the way through to the awesome A9X and the first of the commodores, a true treat for the whole family just minutes away.
 

Beachside Caravan Park Amenities:

BBQs (gas)
Toilets
Under cover seating
Men’s and women’s Separate Hot showers
Laundry mat (3 dollars a load) Dryers, Irons

Travel – Queensland: Wandering through the wonders of Kenilworth

 
Kenilworth is situated 1 hour north of Brisbane along the tourist drive through the picturesque rolling hills of the surrounding area. The town has cafes, parks, and restaurants and all the other necessities in order to stock up those depleting motorhomes pantry and fridges.

If you like your meat as much as I do then you can’t go past the local butcher; I would recommend trying the chicken snitzel and or the T bone steak. These have always been of great size and quality. The other wonder of Kenilworth is the town owned cheese factory, which is a must not just for the cheese but other dairy products as well, like yogurts, and many other local products.

Enjoy your stay there as well as free taste testing of the cheeses and maybe catch the free demonstration on what goes on behind the closed doors with there cheese making viewing platform.

If you are looking for somewhere to cool of why not take a walk down to the river and take a dip in the mountain spring water, very refreshing indeed.

Kenilworth accommodation:

 
Need a place to stay at Kenilworth try the show grounds on the main drag on  Elizabeth street for $10 a night on there powered sites. This provides a quiet area to relax and unwind taking in the atmosphere of this friendly little town.

Other accommodation in the area if you are looking for somewhere to stay for free, just 1-2k out of town just past the bikers café is a Freebee site  little yabba creek picnic area you can park up overnight. The amenities this little yabba creek has are toilets, unfortunately no drinking water or showers, but lets face it what do you want for free.

This is ideal or Rv`s, motorhomes that have all the mod cons.

Amenities:

Space for big rigs, Rvs and motorhomes

Men’s and women’s Separate Hot showers
Toilets
Swimming Pool (small cost required)
Laundry mat 500 meters from the park (3 dollars a load)
Dump site

Rv – Motorhome Essentials: Generators

No matter what type or style of motorhome or RV that you decide on there are a couple of things that you will need to think about taking with you on your wanderings. Weather you have the best solar panels that money can buy and a battery system to backup all the appliances that you are running, the best thing to take with you is a good quality generator.

Now there are a lot of generators on the market and many types of them as well. The most common types in rv`s and motorhomes are run on Petrol or Diesel.

Finding the right Generator for your needs:

Make sure that you consult a dealer for the best generator to choose for your needs.  One of the main things to consider is type and watt size of your generator. All you need to do, to get this right, is make a list of your equipment you are running in you motorhome and show this to youre local generator dealer and they will find the best unit to suit your needs.

But here is a rough guide to help you in the right direction. Please check the lists below for types and general uses of each of the types listed.

I have the Scorpion 2300watt pure magnet generator in my bus, it is not the quietest generator on the market but compared to the GMC there is a major difference. The 2300 watt that I have will power all LCD tvs and powertools alike. It has a 10 litre petrol tank and will give you 10 hours of running on a tank of fuel.

 The motor in my scorpion in the 6.5 HP mitsubishi and this is very easy to start compared to the GMC version of the same type. I purschased mine from Repco, but there are other dealers if you dont wish to purchase from them.

Make and Types of Generators:

Some of the more well known house hold brands of generators are Honda, Dunlite, Yamaha, Scorpion and GMC.

Most of these produce the pure sine/pure magnet types.

Pure/sine wave – pure magnet Generators:

If you are going to run equipment like laptop and desktop computers, set top boxes, LED/LCD TVs, Vcr`s and Dvd recorders  it is best to have what is called a pure magnet/Pure sine wave generator, without getting to technical this just means that it will give your equipment a constant power supply at 240volt.

Modified sine wave generators:

These types of generators are used primarly for fridges, rear projection tvs, power tools that are not so sensitive to a rise or fall in the voltage. Some of these types of generators have AVR (auto voltage recovery) this system will try and keep the voltage as close to 240 volts as posible, but it still not as good or as reliable as Pure sine wave.

The other thing to have with these types of generators is what’s called a uninterrupted power supply (UPS for short) this will maintain the power supply and stop any other damage being caused by the generator running out of fuel.

Using and storing the right fuel for you generator:

And that brings me to the next important thing on the list FUEL weather that be diesel or petrol, you will always want to carry at least 20 litres of either fuel handy just incase you find yourself in the middle of no where (which happens quite a lot in Australia). The containers are well marked now a days with yellow and or red.

The Red containers are for Petrol and the Yellow are for diesel.

This makes the likely hood of putting the wrong fuel in your generator or heaven forbid your RV,  much less likely.

Hope this helps you chose the right generator for youre rv-motorhome.

Feeding The Troops with a cast iron camping oven:

Which brings me to another must have when you’re out there enjoying your camping experience and dinner time rolls around. I like to break out the 4.5 quart camping oven that I purchased. In my opinion it has to be one of the best things for cooking a full roast meal in just hours, while still enjoying the wilderness, wandering and exploring.

One of the things I have found with my oven was that you can put them on the fire and walk away, see the sights and when you get back you have a full roast meal there waiting for you, truly awesome. The only down side that I have found is that they are a pain if you don’t clean them straight away or just plan don’t want to.  But the food that they produce and the taste are out of this world.

Step 1) Seasoning or curing youre Camp oven:

Why do we need to season or cure our camp ovens from new?. Good question, the answer is curing  the surface of the camp oven is very important in order to stop any rusting of the cooking surfaces. This will ensure that youre oven lasts for many happy cooking years.

Step 2) How do we season or cure our camp oven for use:

This is a very simple step indeed, all we need to do is remove the camping ovens protective coating, to do this we place it in the oven at 250 degress celcius (remove after 10 minutes with oven gloves) then  cover with solidified oil both inside and outside of the oven, put it back in the oven at 250 celcius until it starts to smoke and changes colour the colour you are after here is a nice burnt black.

Note: If you don`t have an oven or you are  in the great out doors just place it in the fire to complete steps 1 and 2.

Step 3)   

Once you have done this step you are ready to cook. 

For prices and availability please check out the site below:

Click Here To Enter Camping R Us And View Products.

When Nature Calls use a Thetford Porta Potti 365:

No one likes to be caught short and no where to go,  and when you really need to go there is only one thing you should be thinking about. Why did I not buy the thetford porta potti 365. 

Well I have found the Thetford porta potti 365 is a must for your camping kit. The Thetford is compact enough to sit in any postion and be descrete, althoug still has all the comfort of it larger conter parts. I have this Porta Potti in my BUS and have found it to be very robust and easy to use and clean.

When it comes to breaking down the waste, Biomagic seems to be the best product that I have used to break it down, it has a lovely smell that does kill those odours and it is safe for the environment and septic tanks. It seems to have this uncanny ability to lubricate rubber seals of the system too.

Thetford Porta Potti 365 Features:

- 15 litre rinse tank capacity

- 20 litre Waste tank capacity

- robust plunger flusing system

- split body and Rotating empting spout

- ergonomic carry handle for that trip to the dump site

 (all parts are available from your local Thetford dealer camping stores)

RV Motorhome and Camping Essentials:

Camping and being in the great outdoors is just something that is coded into us from birth. The required passions, to explore new lands, go where no one else has gone before. For that, I go prepared with all the camping gear that I need for the trip. Being the case, if you had come from the blog section of Wanderingfree.com you would know that, I was stuck without a tent….. Not good, had a conversation with a campsite owner, he stated that I was not getting in the park without a Tent.

I bought as you can see in the picture a little 2 person Dome tent which served me well for the several months that I was traveling around in New Zealand as well as the trips that I made in Australia. This tent has gone through a storm in Te Anau and held up very well to the point I was still there in the morning and dry as a bone.

This little tent has been excellent value for money.

RV – How to install/Repair an extra 12 volt battery in parallel to your RV or Motorhomes solar system:

Materials and tools needed for this section:

- Solder
- Conduit
- Socket set
- Cable Ties
- Multimeter
- Heat Shrink
- Wire strippers
- Soldering Iron
- Ring eye terminals
- Red and black wire, 40 amps (battery cable)
- 35 amp inline auto reset-able fuse 12volt.
- *Note: Battery of suitable size and type – should be the same AMP hrs as the original

Choosing the battery type:

Hi again, and welcome to the next level of installs for your RV or Motorhome. Here we need to understand three things before we start.

1. The battery must be the same type i.e. lead acid (wet type) or the more common AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt Battery type) these are true deep cycle batteries. Some examples of these are Concord and Full River. There is also a GEL battery type on the market.
2. The batteries must be the same AMP hours i.e. 80 amp/hrs or 120 amp/hrs and the same type.
3. Always measure the area that you have so that the batteries will fit without rubbing or pulling on the wiring and the battery cases.

Locating the Battery:

Please make sure that if you are using the (wet type) battery as in sulfuric acid type, you have these mounted outside the cabin or living space as these batteries give off hazardous fumes that can cause harm to humans and can explode if exposed to naked flames.

The other types AGM, GEL batteries can be mounted in the cabin or living space, and these are the type of batteries that I would recommend to use in this application as they are true deepcycle. The main reason for this is that deepcycle batteries can last longer then normal batteries and are designed to be maintained (charged) by solar systems.

Also you are able to mount them anywhere and you won’t have worry to about fumes. Once you have found an appropriate spot for the batteries, it is time to add them to your system.

How to add the battery in parallel to your system:

Please see the diagram below on how to install/add your new battery to your solar system.

It is very simple to do this, and all we need is two cables. The cables will be made up from your RED and BLACK battery cable and ring eye terminals as listed above. All we do is trim off enough cable of each colour so that it reaches from the positive on the first battery to the positive on the second battery.

Then we strip the wires, grab our heat shrink and slip that onto the cable at both ends then fix our terminals with our terminal pliers. Then just slide the heat shrink up the terminal and use our heat gun to melt it to the wire and the terminal. Then fit conduit to the cable to cover the wire and the base of the terminal (this will be yellow in colour). Please repeat this process for the negative cable.

Connecting the batteries to your charger controller:

*Note: Leave the Positive from the charger controller detached from the positive battery terminal at this stage.

From your charger controller there will be two wires, one being positive and one negative. Attach the Negative to the Negative terminal on the second battery (as stated in the diagram above). Please note that all your accessories will have to be hooked up in this manner also i.e. (TV, radio, fridge, and inverter). Now before you connect the positive to the first battery please make sure that you have at least a 30amp auto reset-able fuse at 12volt, inline on the positive side between the charger controller and the batteries.

Once you have done this, you can now fit the positive cables.

Testing the Solar System:

Once all your leads are connected we take our Multimeter select DC voltage from the settings and put the red lead on the positive of the first battery and the Black lead on the negative of the second battery. What you should be seeing is 12.5volts on your meter.

If the charger controller is operating i.e. showing 4 to 25 amps you should then see what is showing on the charger controller LED display (if you have one, and most do) lets say 14.4volts for example. This shows that both batteries are being charged and you have hooked things up correctly.
Then all you do is check your accessories and your done, very simple.

Check back later for more Install/repairs.

RV friendly town of Laidley gives us Lake Dyer Camping Accommodation:

Lake Dyer is one of those places where you just don’t want to go home from, close enough to the city but still has, that out in the middle of no where feel about it. I stayed a short 7 days. But it was very quite and I had a great sleep, truly a great place to unwind. The people that take care of the park are great, easy to talk to, laid back happy kind of people. Nothing seems to much hassle and they actually listen to you, a rare thing indeed.

I would recommend giving them a call a planning a trip.

When you have revitalized it is just a short 1k trip to the town centre, should you require supplies, fuel, water or just go some where for dinner, if you choose not to cook.

Location:

The RV Camp at Lake Dyer is situated 6 k’s off the warrego highway at Laidley. Just continue through town over a train crossing and a small bridge till you hit forest rd on your right, then proceed for another 1k and then take the lake dyer turn off on your next left. Total k`s from Brisbane CBD would be around 80k.

Accommodation Available:

Large powered RV powered sites that will take at least 16 meters in length, (call them for complete measurements. Tents sites, No cabins, Long or short term stays.

Amenities:

Locked Gates, No dump site, (but one is provided in the town centre), Hot Showers/Disabled, Toilets/Disabled, Gas BBQs, Kids playground, Plenty of seat shade, access to Lake Dyer.

TV reception:

Tested on a Omni 3000, and HD digital Tuner you will get most channels only ones I had trouble with was ABC2 all the other main channels were fine.

Special:

Listed in the camps 4 and 5 Editions

RV  – How to install/Repair your 12 volt CD player with a separate Rocker Switch into Rv or Motorhome:

Materials and tools needed for this section:

- Solder
- Conduit
- Socket set
- Cable Ties
- Heat Shrink
- Circuit tester
- Masking tape
- Wire strippers
- Soldering Iron
- Long nose pliers
- Spade terminals
- Ring eye terminals
- Phillips Screwdriver
- Radio mounting bracket
- Inline fuse holder and 10 amp fuses
- Red, white, yellow and black wire, 15 amps

- Rocker Switch On/Off - 20 amp rated, Spade Terminal connection

Now this is more of an advanced install/repair a seperate rocker switch install does require a bit more thought and materials but if you follow the instructions you should be able to complete this part without to much trouble.

In this install/repair we will need to make our own wiring loom for the CD player to run. The materials that are needed for this module are listed at the top of this page.

Installing the switch:

Now let’s say that we already have a hole for the CD player to fit into as in the install/repair on the Acc switch, so now we can focus on the wiring. I like to fit the rocker switch into place first in an area that will not get in the way of the vehicles operation, a spot on the dash next to the radio or near the steering column, I will add a picture of my bus to help you see what I mean.

Now just make sure that you have a look what is behind the area you are going to drill into first to amke sure that you dont cut though any of the dash board wiring for your Rv.  Now we can run our constant wire, the color for this wire will be red. This will run from the battery through the fire wall of the vehicle to one side of the switch. When conecting this wire you should be using at least 6mm or 20 amp wire. Then from the other side of the switch run another wire to the CD player hole. You will have to strip and tin both ends of these wires fit heat shrink and spade terminals, use your terminal pliers to fit the terminals and use your heat gun to fix the heat shrink.

Now it is time to run the wires through the engine bay:

Just look for the main wiring loom from the engine bay to the cabin and run your wires though the rubber boot. It also makes for a neater job if you follow the main loom for all your wiring. Most vehicles have an extra boot that you can cut to gain access to the cabin normally situated on the steering column side of the fire wall. If you are having trouble getting the wires through the hole (tip: get a long plastic or metal tube, and tape your wire to it, use lube WD40, then push both the tube and the wire through the hole).

Fitting the Inline Blade Fuse Holder:

Once you have the wire through run the wire to the stereo hole in the dash. Once you have done this, go back into the engine bay, strip and tin the end of the wires, slip on a piece of heat shrink, take a ring eye terminal and fit it to the wire with your terminal pliers, slide up the heat shrink till it touches the base of the ring eye and then use your heat gun to melt the heat shrink.

Now it is time to fit our inline fuse holder to the wire (use a ten amp inline blade fuse holder and blade fuse). I normally fit this around the battery area as there are many places to fix it. Now all we do it strip both wire ends of the inline fuse holder, then we cut the constant wire and strip those two ends.

Now we solder the joints together, so that the fuse is inline with the constant wire and then fit the 10 amp fuse. If you are running a separate amp on the CD player you will have to run a larger fuse, say 15 amps or make sure the AMP is fused as well.

In other words run a separate inline fuse holder and fuse for the PC (power constant) and the negative for the AMP. Make sure to the run the constant wire to the rocker switch. Because if you don’t you may flatten the batteries.

*Note: Leave the constant detached from the positive battery terminal at this stage.

Now we can run the negative lead from the battery terminal through the same hole as above with a wire and run this wire directly to the CD player after removing the wire from the conductor.
At the battery end strip and tin the wires, again add a piece of heat shrink and ring eye terminal, use the terminal pliers to fit the terminal and a heat gun for the heat shrink.

You may now fit the negative wire to the negative battery terminal. Try and run these wires in the same direction and have them run side by side in the engine bay, this will make it easier for you to fit the conduit when you come to the finishing stage.

Once you have run all your wiring, check over all the joints to make sure that they have a good solder joint. An example of a bad joint would be parts of the conductor showing or poking through the heat shrink joint. If you see any of these problems, please cut away the heat shrink and start the joint again.

Now that we have checked our workmanship we can continue with the conduit, it is very important to fit the conduit for these reasons:

1. Covers all wiring to stop it from rubbing through on the chassis of the vehicle.

2. Prevents wiring from melting together in the heat of the engine bay. Sparks and fuel, not a good mix.

Now, the next and final part of our install is to cable tie off the conduit, so that it follows the main wiring loom, and appears to be part of the car itself. Now just connect the CD player wiring loom to the rear off the CD player, mount the CD player in the hole, screw into place, and reassemble the dash of your RV or motorhome.

Run test. Flick the switch, have a beverage. Enjoy your sounds. 

*Note: All radio setups will be lost every time to turn off the rocker switch.

Stay tuned in touch for your next:

RV – Electrical Install/Repair