We have some difficulty in coming to terms with the months of planning people seem to
go into for such a trip.

I recognised one has to try to plan distances, number of days available, and things they want
to see, but I would suggest that people concentrate on overall number of days available
and keep distances and things to do flexible.

By this I mean you may allocate several days for things you planned to see at a particular
area but when you get there you’ve seen everything in ½ to a day (Ayers rock is a typical
example of this) so care with forward bookings.

Most brochures are prepared to appease the resort owners ego, not reality. We never book in
advance for more than 48 hours and once on a site possession is 9/10 ths of the law.

As recent early retirees we do not have any time constraints. From what we’ve read to date,
overall weekly costs will average no more than current expenditure.  If necessary,
one can toss out the anchor and stop a little longer here and there to save on fuel costs.

We intend to service the car and van, flip a coin to see which direction (clockwise /
anticlockwise) and put the pedal to the metal. We are not totally irresponsible, as we
have just completed a 3-month trip around Queensland as a shakedown cruise.  It was supposed
to be 2 months, but we did not want to go home so turned right at Townsville.

My only worry is going to be ball weight, as we did not use 90% of the gear we packed in
the van in our recently completed trip, so we’ll have a much lighter van when we take off.

Overall we found the quality of the parks very good, but having said that if we did not
like the look of the park from the outside, or it looked too crowded (i.e. full of polar greys
with tinnies, Hervey Bay, Yeppoon Lucinda, etc) we just kept going.

One of the difficulties has been the fact that the bulk of Queensland in under drought
conditions and parks are looking a bit sick in the grass/greenery department. Some places
have severe water restrictions in place so owners cannot water. Some places therefore
give impressions which may not truly reflect the attitude or will of owners. We had Intended
to call at these places on the way back, but turned right at Townsville.

We have worked out how the current star rating system works for most park publications:
	Take two over the hill punch-drunk boxers,
	Tell them the name of a van park,
	Tell one to punch the other in the head,
	Then asked the one punched how many stars he saw,
	Record for park rating publication.

Also if you are using the Queensland Caravan Parks 2001 directory take no notice of the blue
shading on the individual maps for where the water is suppose to be - you will be sadly
dissappointed.