Adventure Awaited – and was Experienced
ELSIE is our Winnebago Iluka, registration V-ELSIE. We towed our Suzuki Jimny (Lucie – VLC-000) on our adventures around Australia.
See our blogs under this photo – Each week lists all the activities we undertook.
Australian Adventure – July 2024 to November 2024
The map below is a screenshot from Wikicamps to see the journey we took on this trip.
Trip Summary:
13497 Km in V-ELSIE
2202 lires of fuel for V-ELSIE
AU$4363.03 for fuel for V-ELSIE
Average fuel consumption =16.3 L/100kM
Best: 13.5 L/100kM
Worst: 20.2 L/100kM
Max distance between refuels = 488kM
Max Daily travel = 699kM
Our passion for visiting places and experiencing fascinating wildlife
Our next trips are by motorhome around Australia. We expect to visit a number of places along the way. Let us know where we should go. Below are a brief description of some of our earlier overseas adventures.
August 2013
Our first major trip – Turkey first – Zelve, Goreme, ballooning over Capadoccia, Cavusin, a few days on a Gulet down the Turkish coast including a trip up river to Ortaca and the mud pools at Mugla. Then on to Istanbul, over to Gallipoli – the Lone Pine Cemetery, Anzac Cove, and the war memorials. On to Greece – Ephesus, the Pamukkale thermal pools, the islands of Rhodes, Lindos, and Thira on the beautiful island of Santorini. Lyn’s 60th birthday on the beach at Mykanos, then on to Athens for the Acropolis and a tour around the city.
April 2016
South America & The Galapagos Islands – Starting in Lima, we then headed to the Amazon – Madre de Dios, the Amazon River (catching Piranha) and Tres Chimbadas Lake, glamping in the Jungle then on to Cuzco. Making our own Cuzco Sours with our hiking partners before heading off and doing the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu. Lyn suffered badly from altitude sickness but managed to continue on this iconic trip. Then a bus tour on to Lake Titicaca and the floating village before heading off to Quito for a 7-day cruise around the Galapagos Islands experiencing the magnificent and unique wildlife.
December 2016
A brief trip to Vietnam starting in Ho Chi Minh City. We visited the war museum and were fascinated at the respect the Vietnamese people had for the war. The effects of Agent Orange on populations were devastating and understandable why the Viet Cong used their personnel traps in the jungle. Their tunnels and foxholes were incredibly small. On to Duy Xuyen, My Son Sanctuary, a river cruise in Hoi An, a fantastic 3-day cruise around Howlong Bay and then on to Hanoi before returning to Melbourne.
July – August 2017
First on to Uganda where we hiked into the rainforest and spent an hour and a half with wild mountain gorillas – the best experience – they are such social and placid beings. We then headed to Olikombo on the Masai Mara to meet our Masai guides Charles & Indi – experiencing a Cheetah run down and kill a wildebeest calf, a wildebeest river crossing, the big 5 (except a leopard) and we then the Masai village as their guests (I negotiated the price of the souvenirs using a stick on my arm) – a fantastic experience; on to the Serengeti & Ngoro Ngoro crater where we saw lions, giraffes, hyenas, elephants, wildebeest and zebra together, cheetah and our leopard sleeping in a tree. Our tent camp was visited by lions, elephants and hyenas during the night – we were told the elephants drank out of our shower water supply and the lions walked under our guy ropes. A brief trip through Zanzibar and then onto Egypt for the Sphinx and Pyramids. Our stay in Cairo was fascinating as very few tourists had been there lately. We were stopped several times to have our photos taken with the locals.
July – August 2018
Up to Norway for the last day before the loss of the midnight sun with a cruise on the bay in Oslo before heading to Longyearbyen on Svalbard for our cruise to the Arctic. Seeing some polar bears, walrus, birds and whales and where Lyn did her first Polar Plunge. We then headed to Barcelona in Spain (that was a change in climate!). We visited the Sagrada Familia and saw the magnificent architecture in Barcelona. We then took our first high speed train to Paris for the start of our 21-day European river cruise. First, 3 days in Paris naturally the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysee, then a 15-day river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, and then 3 days in Prague where we had a degustation meal in a Michelin restaurant. On to ‘The Best of Italy’ – Venice, the Italian Lakes, Asti, Portofino, Santa Margherita, La Spezia, Cinque Terra, Lucca, Pisa, Florence and Rome. Such a beautiful country, incredible history and seeing the statue of David and the Coliseum with all the other delights of Italy was an unforgettable experience.
February – April (because we were locked up in Sydney) 2020
We headed over to Bueno Aires for a day, then on to Rio de Janeiro with a couple of trips around Rio, a day at the Copacabana, beach and an evening and morning at the Mardi Gras – what an exciting and brilliant experience. Next on to the magnificent Iguazu Falls – both sides first Brazil and a trip over the falls by helicopter, then on to Argentina. Next to El Calafate before a long bus trip to Torres del Paine in Chile. Torres Del Paine was set in some beautiful country where we hiked and rode horses and witnessed a wild puma and her two cubs on a mountainside as we were leaving. Then on to Argentina – Buenos Aires for two days before a flight to Ushuaia. Here we started our cruise to Antarctica – our 7th continent and Lyn’s second Polar Plunge. A great trip down across the Drake Passage to the Shetland Islands where we started our marine and land-based excursions. Lyn was a hit with penguin chicks and we saw some fascinatingice floes, scenery and wildlife. A 5-week quarantine to cap off the adventure (2 weeks locked in Sydney had to be the hardest experience we’ve had).
The First Major Australian Trip
So, we headed up the East coast to Cairns, meet up with our travelling group on a 4WD tour to Cape York, Thursday Island and return. Then over to Darwin and down the middle through Alice Springs, Adelaide and home to Melbourne.
Make some suggestions as to what you’d like us to do or see.
- Scenery
- Activities
- Wildlife
“Two weeks in quarantine in Sydney will test your relationship. No fresh air, not allowed out of the room, no exercise and the food and drinks allowances got worse and worse!”
Leigh Coutie
Survivor of 5 weeks of Lockdowns