A New Addition!

Almost a year ago we had an addition in  the lovely Arabella.

That was really just an excuse to include the photo of Arabella, taken by her Dad.

However our current addition was caused, to some extent, by another former addition, Tammy, rather than herself.

One of the problems of travelling with her is that many accommodation facilities won't accept a dog.  They seem to think dog = ravening house destroyer.

So we have bitten the bullet and after investigations reported in other posts have bought a camper trailer.  We got it from the Cub company and 20 December was the day appointed to pick it up.   There were a couple of issues with choosing that date, as will be revealed below, but

• it was about as quickly as they could get it built and 
• we didn't want to wait until after the Christmas shutdown.

The first issue was that of temperature.  The forecast maximum temperature for Carwoola on the day was 37^o C and while 'only' 33^o C was forecast for Sydney it was commented that it will be a lot hotter around Parramatta.  Whatever: we hoped the demonstration was going to be in the shade!

We left home at 7am aiming to get to the factory by 10:30:  we had left Tammy at home and hoped we be back in about 9-10 hours (3+ hours each way driving, and 3- hours for the demonstration).  As shown in this first image the countryside was very dry.

By this time (about 8:15, just past Goulburn) the temperature was already 33^o C.  

The road was very well endowed with truck traffic.  Although it is still 5 days to Christmas I suspect most people were planning to start their break on this day (the second 'issue').   I use the density of truck traffic on the Hume Highway (linking Sydney and Melbourne) as an indicator of economic activity in Australia.  If that is real, we are in boom times!

Moving on down the road we passed through a zone burnt in the recent bushfires.  I think this is near Yanderrah.  I could understand why they closed the Highway during these fires.  As a result of the bush being burnt we could see the houses, perhaps 100m off the road: they would have had a very nervous time, but looked to have been saved.

For the first time I noticed that many the paint on signs on the Highway appeared to have melted in the fire.

During this part of the drive I was struck a couple of times by the dangers posed by P-platers restricted to 90kph.   As everyone else was driving pretty much at the limit (110 kph) the newbies formed a mobile road block leading to other people doing unusual acts to maintain their line and length.  I'm sure Mr Plod would say this is all wrong and speed  is a factor in x% of accidents but on what I observed yesterday the LOW speed was a very hazardous activity.

On getting in to Sydney we found our way on to the Cumberland Highway successfully but then had a 'navigational moment' at Old Windsor Rd.  (Note to Google Maps: Rather than saying "Continue on Cumberland Highway"  say "At Old Windsor Rd continue ....".)  However we then found Windsor Rd (unqualified) where there was diesel to be be acquired.  I was quite impressed with this stretch Hummer and decided from the attire of the driver it wasn't being used for a formal event.  Possibly it was following the NYC approach, where we were told such vehicles were mainly used in the Negotiable Affection Services economic sector (ANZIC Industry Class 9534).

When then shuffled around the back streets of Parramatta and following the rest of the instructions got to the factory at 10:31

Here is our van about half way through the very good demonstration by Victor.  We continued to be impressed by the staff at Cub: all seemed very focused on client needs and friendly.  Victor had many helpful hints about how to use to the facilities of the camper.

 This is a look through the back door of the showroom into the factory floor.

We ended up leaving at about 14:20 including signing a few documents and changing over the tow-ball to the gymbal version need for off road capability.  As we drove off, the temperature on the car showed 43^oC.

Oh dear.  Was the traffic heavy?  It definitely was not "my brother"!     Some years ago Frances said that a good way of learning the width of a new car is to drive through Sydney.  I can add to that by saying that a good way of learning how to drive with a new camper-trailer is to go into Sydney traffic as everyone leaves work for the Christmas break.  The traffic was heavy all the way along the M4 - including going past this lovely sight/site at Eastern Creek (photo taken by Frances: I was focusing on the traffic).

Somehow the image doesn't quite capture the lurid colours and gastro-intestinal twisting of the plastic tubes.  I have since read that the place was a new attraction and completely full on the Friday night when a storm forced them to close, putting 10k people into the traffic system and causing (more) chaos! Whatever we continued on towards home, marveling at how the traffic volume dropped dramatically at Campbelltown.  By the time we got past Mittagong it was the usual quite easily negotiated traffic.  (The fact that all the idiots in the roadworks industry had stopped being paid to put up stupid signs and lean on shovels also helped the traffic flow.)

We got home in a bit less time than we had taken to go up which quite impressed me.  While we didn't stop for comfort or refueling purposes, and I did crank the speed up a tad on the highway going home, we spent the first 50+km coming home at well under the speed limit.  So the camper gets a big plus for driveability.

What about the impact on fuel consumption?  That is yet to be established by refueling (see below for an update), but clearly we used more fuel coming back than we did going.  This is a photo of the fuel consumption graph on the way out.  Note the upwards shift of the graph (ie more distance per unit of fuel) at '1': that was as we descended the escarpment.  Point 2 shows what happened when we got into the Sydney traffic.

 This second image shows the graph from the trip home.  Point 1 is the Sydney traffic, with the very low point being the bumper to bumper stuff along the Cumberland Highway.  Point 2 is going back up the escarpment.  The graph is a bit less stable that that in the way as I suspect that towing an 800Kg trailer means that added acceleration is needed on little hills and when overtaking pelicans in underpowered trucks.

Some commentary on different fuel consumptions achieved going to and from Penrith are in a previous post.  I suspect the differing slopes cause about 1 litre/100km  difference.

Ignore the temperature reading of 43: when the image was taken the car had been sitting in full sun for a bit over an hour.  When we got home (1730) it was 35^o C -still hot but tolerable.

All in all a successful day, considerably less traumatic than it might have been.