Melbourne to Adelaide

It's been aaaages since my last post!
I'm going to do a bit of blogging on the road.

I am in the hot hot car with Freya and Seth. I'm writing this partly for my own documentation, but hopefully also for a bit of light reading for you folks :)

We are making the grand journey from melbourne to Darwin in a little Toyota corolla. Yep that's right.
So we left at about 7am yesterday from carlton. We had heaps of stops yesterday.. I think we're just getting used to being in the car for hours again, it's been a while since we've done a Byron or the likes road trip.

Meals so far: croissants for brekky yesterday, Vegemite on bread with no butter for snacks.. Almonds... Lunch was Brie I'd had in Freya's freezer, which was perfect by lunch time, with tomatoes I picked the day before from my garden, watercrackers, hummus, baba ganoush. More Vegemite bread for snacks.. Apples.. Jelly beans... Lots and lots of water.... Then dinner was bolognese I'd had also in Freya's freezer, with spaghetti and feta. (The emptied contents of the freezer are coming in handy).

We've had a couple of glitches so far.. One major (to our personal comfort) being the air con not working (!!!!!). It started working on and off yesterday.. It would work for about 5 or 10 minutes then just start blowing out hot air, then work again about 20 minutes later. It makes me feel so incredibly lethargic, it's really hard for me to drive in these conditions.
The car itself has been great, until we hit the Adelaide hills and the temperature climbed dangerously high, we had to stop a couple of times to let it cool down. I really don't know what we would have done without Seth, I feel very incompetent in the car knowledge department!! He's also been driving heaps which suits everyone :)

We stayed in a concrete slab type caravan park last night, which I haven't done in years, I'm so used to beautiful, free bush camping. It was right on the beach though which was lovely after a very long, very hot day. There were lots of "glampers" in the caravan park! Fairy lights, pot plants, aircon.
We met a nice old couple form Perth, who have driven round the coast (more or less) of Australia, and had some good tips for our trip.

Just before I continue documenting our day yesterday, ill mention we are driving in the car in 37 degree heat with the windows down and the heater(!!!!!!!!!) on. Otherwise the car might over heat. Fun times! Brendon told me the bush tucker man says you can lose up to 2-3 litres in extreme desert conditions. And we're only just out of Adelaide. And its only 10am. Shiiiit! Luckily we have about 6 big water bottles and a 20 litre water can in the boot. Next stop I'm going to buy some squirty bottles for our faces.
I'm actually feeling ok in the heat today, yesterday I was so stuffed. Seth said he's so much less stressed being hot than the car being hot. A less stressed Seth is a good happy Seth!

What we've been listening to: D'Angelo, City and Colour, Fat Freddy's, Father John Misty, Alexie Murdoch, Paul Simon (excellent for driving), Dave Mathews, Crowded House, Eddie Vedder.

It was so warm last night. We all slept well though. This morning Freya made bacon and scrambled egg sangas while me and Seth packed up the tent. Then we went to an air con guy we found on the Internet to look at the car, because we thought the aircon needed re gassing, but he looked at it and its not the gas, it's the compressor over heating. Which means it would cost way more to fix. So we're just going without.
It's all part of the adventure!!
The guy who looked at the car had a mullet.. And keeps his gate locked "coz it's a stabby area".. Ha!
(We also saw a hooker on the corner of his street). So my thoughts on Adelaide are not the best.. Next time ill go to a nice area to make my final decision!

We're driving past salt pans, and big dry brown paddocks. I can't wait to get into some different terrain, you know when you go on a road trip and the first part is similar to the land you always see at home? It's so exciting when you get into new land! I'm excited to see the red centre!
We're staying in Coober Pedy tonight.

It's pretty cool we're doing this road trip, I would really like to see a lot more of our country.

I haven't got the app to add photos from my phone, so they'll have to come at a later date, and sorry if there are spelling and grammar mistakes, I'm in the car!

x Zannah