We're going to be doing a lot of Jeeping and Glamping over summer so we've decided to start a series and this will be the first post in that series :)
First of all, this is the route we ended up taking. A lot of 4WDing and forest tracks along the way.
Glamping requires a lot of gear. The tent weighs 40+kg, and we take 22l of water, a spare 20l of fuel + clothes, food and furniture. It's not easy to fit all of this into the little Jeep. Thankfully everything kind of fits together like a game of tetris.
We hit the road late Friday afternoon. It was a long drive and a hot day. We took the risk and went full convertible, leaving the soft top at home.
Our destination was Jamieson but we were pushing our luck to get there on time. We didn't get many photos on the way there because we were in such a hurry.
Being Australia, here are always kangaroos on the road at dusk. It's hard to capture them because they move quick. (Our first attempt at DTube, what an awesome application!).
We set up our campsite when the sun was setting, made dinner then went straight to sleep. This photo is at sunrise.
There was frost covering the grass when I first woke up. Strange considering it was 33 degrees the day before.
The campsite was hard to get to (wouldn't recommend it in a 2WD due to the steep entrance), so there weren't a lot of people here.
She loved exploring by the riverside. There was a big snake here hidden in the rocks. One has to be careful of that out here.
We had an early breakfast at a cafe in Jamieson. Great food and a stunning morning.
We found some people tubing in a river and tried to find out how they were getting down there. This was one of the paths we followed but we came to a dead end.
Later we drove towards Lake Eildon. Unfortunately along the way the brakes overheated, as it's a mountainous area with lots of curvy roads and also a hot day. Took a while to figure out what was wrong. We poured water on the brakes and sure enough they sizzled like a fry pan. So we drove to a river where there was cold water and 6l later the brake had returned to normal.
We never actually made it to Eildon, we had to turn back after the car issues. Instead we lit a fire and chilled at the campsite.
We have a candle-lit chandelier in our glamping tent. Really great feature to have.
The next day we started heading home. This was a gravel road for the most part, through national parks and state forests. Also we crossed the Great Dividing Range. There was hardly anyone else out here, I think we saw 2 cars (one of them another Jeep).
You can see a lot of bushfire damage in this forest. We were a little bit worried as it was such warm weather.
We stopped for lunch at a cafe in Marysville. This parrot stopped to say hi so we shared a potato chip.
The road out of Marysville is one of the best in Victoria, especially for motorcyclists. It's like this the whole way.
DTube video
Now we're doing some restoration work to the Jeep to make it look a bit nicer. We'll have some trips coming up soon so be sure to follow us if you like this stuff!