Cobba's travels

A sharp little Mack

Paul

For the Bedrod lovers, this one looks fairly tidy.o

Cobbadog and Cobbarette,
Good to hear from you again. I was worrying that the teasing some of us gave you might have put you off. Have fun in the Pipeline State. I call it that because some years ago we visited there and it seemed that every road had one, two or even three pipelines running alongside it. If you get as far as Chrystal Brook, say gidday to PDU for me.

Hi Morris, you will have to try harder to piss me off I'm sorry. Where we were in Echuca was bad for almost all telecommunications. One end of the van park was brilliant but the other end where we were was a black spot big time and no chance of being moved to the other end as some music festival was on and everywhere was fully booked.
We travelled today to Ararat via Bendigo. Nice drive along straight roads across the plains then played dodge the pot holes as we got closer to Ararat.
We had booked a van park and arrived there early afternoon and set up. As we were seting up the wind was around 25kph with some strong gusts up to 45kph. The site offered was under a few widow makers and rather large twigs and lumps of bark were falling onto to van and the Hiace. So asked to be moved to a 'safe' site but was not able. Owner understood and offered to return full payment so we went to another park and what a pleasant surprise and difference. So here for 4 nights then to Mt Gambier for a week unless the temps are too high then it will be Portland then to Mt Gambier. Will look on the map where PDU resides. Just had a look and it will be another trip in the future when we head that way and going to Quorn and districts.
Had some horrible hot weather 41'c where the Brass Monkey fridge/freezer lost the plot and only was able to cool to -1'c. Still frozen technically but not good enough for what we liked. Then at 3pm the a/c in the caravan went into self protection mode and stopped. So off to the Workers CLub until it cooled off. Strange weather here where the high temps have not been reached until mid afternoon and not drop off until 8pm. So we had tea at the Club then back to the van and the a/c booted back to life and worked again. So with the fridge/freezer we looked at what is on the market that worked. EvaKool was high on the list plus Aussie made except the compressor which was Ceptco or similar. But they only sell online and we preferr to look and touch before buying. Next that seemed very appealing was Engel so off to BCF to touch things. Dont even think of the most popular product, Dometic, they specialise in making and selling absolute rubbish and will never get another cent from us with their inferior products.
Back to the Engel, we spoke to the store manager for well over an hour about this unit. It is a 60ltr fridge/freezer and not a dual zone unit you have it as a fridge or a freezer. The longer we talked the cheaper this got, in the end he knocked off another $40.00 from an already discounted price. We always check online for best prices so he match it and then took off another $40, happy days.
We took it back the van and plugged it in to start cooling off to being -14'c. This took about 45 minutes in ambient temp of 32'c at the time. Swapped over the contents from old to new and since then in 36'c on a few days it has held the -14'c. Even when I forgot to close the sliding door it it was in the full sun.
Bored you enough, will report in more often now we are back in civilisation.

Your a busy camper Cobba, as long as your having fun I guess

It has been a tad warm in spots on the odd day but all in all it has been a very mild summer in northern Victoria

As long as the fridge stays chilly I guess is the main thing

Gone are the days of a Esky and buying a bag of ice each day when traveling

Paul

Cobba

Good deal on the Engel!

What carrier do you have? I find it very surprising there is a dead spot in such a place as Echuca. You probably know that love them or hate them, the only carrier you can use in most of Australia (not most of the population but most of the area) is pure Telstra. Aldi etc Telstra is limited. If you are Optus or Vodaphone you will need a Telstra cheapy prepay to keep in touch all over.

If you look at the coverage maps for country areas it is not a case of Telstra being a bit better but 5 times better. We see this on the Postie Bike trips where Telstra users can talk almost everywhere with the tiny town 4G cells while the others can not talk for days.

I think they all should do better when you think of the coverage in many other "developing" countries. We never lost contact in India and even in the most remote mountain valley in Vietnam there is phone coverage.

Lang

Cobba, how old is the Brass Monkey? I had one fail at twenty months old. I thought for the price that was reasonable, so went to Jaycar to buy a new one. I mentioned to the assistant that I was happy with the original one, upon which he asked me how old it was. I wasn't sure so he looked it up. I got a new one free, they have a three year warranty.

Lang, our mobile coverage is better than the UK, yep, surprised me too.

I'm glad you went with a new Engel, you won't be disappointed. I've got 4 of them, 2 x 15L, a 32L, and a 40L. Mine were all purchased secondhand though.

Brett.

I bought an 33lt Electolux 3 way "Finch Fridge" 27 years ago and it was great. Unfortunately, the day before our last trip away, it refused to work on gas. In to town and bought a 50lt "Ironman" fridge/freezer. Been fantastic. On special for $629 including cover, as it was floor stock.

wee-allis wrote:

I bought an 33lt Electolux 3 way "Finch Fridge" 27 years ago and it was great. Unfortunately, the day before our last trip away, it refused to work on gas. In to town and bought a 50lt "Ironman" fridge/freezer. Been fantastic. On special for $629 including cover, as it was floor stock.

That's a fairly easy Fix Steve..!!