The Boondockers: Mac Donnell Ranges East

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Mac Donnell Ranges East

Along the Ross Highway.

Trephina Gorge

The magnificent Ghost Gum

"Corymbia papuana"

300 years old, 33 metres tall.

Examples of the flora in the ranges.

Trephina Gorge Panorama.

Click to enlarge.

Arltunga Historical Reserve

Arltunga was officially central Australia's first town, born out of a gold rush after alluvial gold was discovered in a dry creekbed in 1887.

Fortune seekers had to travel 600km from the Oodnadatta rail head, often on foot.

Arltunga once supported around 300 people.

Camel Canteens

Furphy Water Tank

Restored jail cell.

A novel window.

I was amazed how unsupervised children were allowed to play in the old mine shafts.

A very old grave yard.

Emily Gap

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IN THE BEGINNING

Timeline

Our travels actually started in 1994.

We purchased a 20' Hallmark caravan and headed north through the eastern states of Australia.

Over the next 12 months we travelled to Cape York, the northern tip of Australia, then back down to Queensland’s Gold Coast where we called home until 2011 when we sold up to become "Grey Nomads".

We broke our van journey for a 3 month backpacking tour through Asia.

We called our then current caravan, a 20' off road Bushtracker, home.

Due to a weak US dollar we decided to take advantage of the excellent exchange rate and shift our travel focus to the USA. So in November 2012 we flew to LA.

We searched several cities for an RV and found our truck, a Chevrolet Silverado and a caravan, a 25’ Coachman, in Sacramento, CA.

Our travels took us to Salt Lake City, UT, where we decided to change our caravan for a 5^th wheel, a Keystone Montana.

Our first US tour finished in Palm Springs, CA where we stored the RV and travelled back to Australia.

2013 we arrived back in LA to continue our journey.

Our trip ended abruptly when Chris developed a medical problem and returned to Australia for treatment.

A few of our Montana Owners Club members stepped up with offers to store our van.

I travelled down to Fayetteville, NC and stored the van before rejoining Chris back in Australia.

We decided to sell the Bushtracker.

2014 we had a small window before Chris needed further medical treatment and so we decided to return to USA and bring our Chevy home.

We flew back to Fayetteville.

A 6 week trip took us across the US, along Route 66 and back to LA where we shipped the Chevy.

We decided we needed a base so we built a house and settled in Sale, Victoria.

The American economy strengthened along with USD. This caused us to rethink our North American travel plan.

Sadly we decided to sell the Montana so in 2015 once again, we travelled back to USA to prepare the RV.

This trip we flew in to New York and decided to travel down through several eastern states before our return to Australia.

Reluctantly we decided to sell the Chevy and in 2015 we purchased a Mazda BT-50 and a new caravan, a Jayco Silverline.

What is Boondocking?

The word boondock originated early in the 20th century from American military servicemen serving in the Philippines. It comes from a Tagalog word for mountain bundog.

They started using it to mean a rural, remote, bushy area. When they came home they developed the slang word "boonies".

The RV community adopted the word to use it to describe remote camping in rural areas. So if you were going fishing in your truck camper to a remote National or State Park, when you got there you were camping in the boondocks. Since you had no hook-ups, but were self-sufficient, you were boondocking.

Then some people noticed that while they were driving for several days to get to the boondocks, they could save some money by staying overnight in the parking lot of a WalMart.

Since they had no hook-ups and were self-sufficient, they said they were boondocking.

After awhile people saw that they could save a lot of money by not staying in RV parks and so they started planning their trips around WalMart stores, staying in their parking lots most nights of their trip.

Extract from http://cheaprvliving.com/Boondocking.html