Waltzing Matilda: The maiden voyage.

Our plan was to try out our new Earthcruiser (EC28 - the 28th Earthcruiser made) with visitors, and in the cold. Both extra numbers and cold weather was likely to stress the systems and that is what we wanted.

So we headed off towards Canberra. Our first impressions of the vehicle were the size -much bigger than anything we have driven before, except for the motor homes in NZ. The EC is more compact - especially in width, with the camper only as wide as the vehicle, and in height -with the height easily seen from the cab. This makes estimating clearance from overhead obstacles much easier than in the motor homes.

The next thing we noticed was all of the attention our vehicle created. We constantly saw people staring and turning to watch us. Drivers strained to see the name of the vehicle. Pedestrians stopped to ask questions. At first this was all very gratifying, but over the next couple of weeks the novelty soon wore off. Every time we returned to the vehicle there would be people standing around it and wanting to know about it!

Our first night camping was a pleasure as we tried out the equipment and worked out how to camp with our setup. Notice how clean the vehicle looks!

The young adult members of our family arrived in Canberra the next day, swelling our numbers to 5 adults. Two were to sleep in the roof top tent and one on the folded down back seats, on an inflatable mattress.

And it was off to the snow! Unfortunately this was a very poor snow season in eastern Australia. Our first night in the alpine area we camped at 3 mile lake west, not far from the Selwyn snow fields. There was no snow but there was a severe frost. Some of us braved the cold and sat around a camp fire, but the others stayed inside with the heater.

The next 10 days were very enjoyable as we settled in to the vehicle and some routines. The boys skied at Perisher in man made snow, and we didn't see snow fall until our last day in the alpine national park.