A trip to the Corner Store.

[Terry]

Hi,

I am starting to put together plans for another Moke tour to happen in early to mid April 2019 and the destination is the Corner Store at Camerons Corner in the North West of NSW, known as the Corner Country, where the three states NSW,QLD and SA meet. The other main POI's are Broken Hill, Silverton(home of Mad MaxII) and some more remote lessor known attractions up that way.

Based on the experiences of our recent shortened trip, this one will be a weekend to weekend affair of around 8-9 days on the road meeting up somewhere around Hay, NSW with a view to making it central to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney and one day to get there. If plans work out that we back up onto Easter then the trip might use the extra couple of days to explore a little more.

At a minimum it will have around 300-400km of dirt road as Cameron's corner is 150km of dirt each way from Tibboburra and there is a bit of dirt road still between there and Broken Hill. Depending on final plans there may be as much dirt road again taking in some other roads less travelled but in general they are fairly well maintained up that way but there can be painful corrugations at times.

It wont be challenging, get the ropes out sort of stuff either, more your sofft road adventure to give people a taste of touring the outback in a Moke. It is not really a trip for nice 'Pretty Mokes' unless you are looking for a free sandblast due to the fast dirt roads, but it is not going to break any reasonably well prepared normal road going Mokes either.

Two to three days of 'free time' around Broken Hill is on the cards while a trip out to Silverton to look around and visit the excellent Mad Max Museum is a must do as is the checking out the locations where it was filmed and kicking over the rocks looking for bits that fell off the vehicles during filming.

Accommodation will be camping, a mix of Tourist Park and bush camping so you need to carry your own bedding and food and water for possibly a few days remote camping at a time, and there is no plans to make bookings for accommodation at this stage even though we may be in school holiday period. I prefer to keep things a bit fluid and flexible to account for breakdowns, weather and changes in the plan if needed. It is small camper trailer friendly if you have one.

The trip is Mokes only

Terry

The basics.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Broken+Hill+NSW+2880/Silverton,+New+South+Wales+2880/Tibooburra,+New+South+Wales+2880/Cameron+Corner+QLD/@-31.085061,141.1036871,6.75z/data=!4m26!4m25!1m5!1m1!1s0x6aef3360de52c2cd:0x40609b490440170!2m2!1d141.4539396!2d-31.9539135!1m5!1m1!1s0x6aec1a269a76b77b:0x40609b490440230!2m2!1d141.2304919!2d-31.8890695!1m5!1m1!1s0x6af6e30778d06e7b:0x40609b490440120!2m2!1d142.0107687!2d-29.4330519!1m5!1m1!1s0x6a589e6da85ae0d3:0x400eef17f20dba0!2m2!1d140.9999668!2d-28.9977642!3e0

[Terry]

Hi,

I have had a few people been in touch about  this run and so far have three definite and two maybe's to pencil in.

Terry

[Samm]

Hi,

I have had a few people been in touch about  this run and so far have three definite and two maybe's to pencil in.

Terry

Pencil me in Terry 

Samm

[jimwat]

Hi Terry, Doing my first trip to the Round-up so want to get that out of the way before deciding on my next adventure. Jim

[Terry]

Hi Terry, Doing my first trip to the Round-up so want to get that out of the way before deciding on my next adventure. Jim

That is fine, I might know more about what the plan is by then.  You will need to fix your suspensions though.

Pencil me in Terry 

Samm

Done

Terry

[Terry]

Hi,

I had a look over a real map the other day and did some more fine tuning of the plan and came up with this revised route tonight.

https://goo.gl/maps/Wp2GBW6m85D2

From Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney you will have one day to get to Hay and then two days to get home from Broken Hill.

And if you have had enough of the dirt and dust then you can come down from about Milparinka to Broken Hill on the Bitumen rather than down the Border track to the west.

Terry

[Newie]

Looking better all the time Terry 

[Terry]

Hi,

some more fine tuning to the proposed route which overcomes a quirk of Google maps that had us taking the long way around from Tibooburra to Camerons Corner and I dropped the long way from Whitecliffs to Tibooburra but it is now just an approximation of the route as I have some more planning to do on this leg.

https://goo.gl/maps/ipMCVZQs2Ru

The Hay to Broken Hill part of the tour is now only 1429km and of that there is approximately 900km of non-bitumen surface with options to avoid some of that, however there is no bitumen between Tibooburra and Cameron Corner and back so there is at least 300-400km of dirt that you need to be prepared for.

Terry

[Terry]

Hi,

with Tamworth done and dusted now is the time to start planning and preparing our Mokes for this trip and find out who is playing and who is  a spectator.

If you are thinking you would like to try something a bit more of a challenge with your Moke the preparations you will need make Mokewise is to have suspension that works, i.e. not sitting on the bumpstops when loaded up with gear, no movement/slack in the ball joints, bushes and bearings for the wheels, steering suspension, a functioning cooling system that can handle a warm to hot day, and an engine that can hold its oil and water. A hood with doors to keep out the water or the sand at times is preferred over no doors or no roof or it can make for a very long grumpy trip for some.

For accommodation a small tent, swag or small camper trailer are the general fare used or ditch the passenger seat and sleep in your Moke and for cooking a small esky or fridge and basic utensils and some like to carry the small disposable gas can cookers. For the bush camping we tend to have a fire going and between everyone we have pans, hotplates and billy's to cover everyone.

There is a limited number of spots available but the exact number isn't determined at this stage as I like to try and have a mix of 50/50 people who have travelled with us before and newbies joining us for the first time or so.

If you are interested let me know via here or a PM and I will start up a list of participants on this thread as the list grows. Already have around 5 people already saying they are going, with a few pencilled in as interested.

Terry

[Peter]

Hi Terry
2019 is just around the corner which only leaves 3 and a bit months until this little adventure starts. Have we come up with a start date yet or is that a discussion yet to be had?
Except for the fact that it is right in the middle of the school holidays I like the idea of of the week before or the week after Easter. It means that the poor people that need to work get the benefit of the public holidays. (Good Friday is the 19th,  Easter Monday is the 22nd and Anzac Day is the 25th as it is every year)

Peter

[Terry]

Peter,

Thanks for letting me know your preferences, I am thinking pretty much the same time frame.

I was going to do a quick check around a couple of intended travellers in the new year as I have heard a few whispers that plans may be changing for them so wanted to let life get back to normal and just see how their plans are coming along before setting a date.

Terry

[Terry]

Hi,

I have been looking at dates tonight and the week before Easter is School Holidays in Vic, NSW and SA while the week after is holidays in SA and NSW so it is to be expected that BH will be crowded over Easter and accommodation not as easy to get.

Based on this I am thinking if we left on the 19th(Okay Friday) we would end up in Broken Hill the following weekend and miss the crowds that might be there over Easter.  We would be in Broken Hill around the 26th/27th and home on the 28th/29th depending on how big a rush you are in. Another factor is if we have issues and have to limp into Broken Hill there is a better chance of getting access to services than on the Easter weekend.

And not that I drink Tea or Coffee but these are usually offered free on most major routes on Okay Friday and can be a good excuse for a stretch.

For those who are going or even those that are still getting splinters, let me know how this suits you.

Terry

[Peter]

Sounds good to me Terry
But saying that any time that misses as much of the feral kids as possible is a a good thing 

Peter

[Terry]

Hi

just confirming the dates, we will leaving from Hay on Saturday the 20th and depending on your needs to get home leaving Broken Hill from Saturday the Saturday 26th onwards. You can look around BH a bit longer if you want to have an RDO on Monday, but otherwise the whole trip should only cost your four days of your annual leave.

The expectation is people will use the 19th(Good Friday) to make their way to Hay, do the trip to the corner store and we arrive in Broken Hill around Thursday for a day or two of looking around and then make our way home over the following weekend or spend a few more days to look around.

https://goo.gl/maps/ipMCVZQs2Ru

The total distance shown should be 1429km but sometimes the link has us going via Cobar(1700+km) but that is not happening, should be more or less a straight line between Hay and White Cliffs.

Terry

[Terry]

Hi,

in being able to confirm the dates I can now share who is going and that might encourage a couple more to risks getting some splinters and slide down off the fence.

Terry
Peter
Graeme(Coxy) and Collette??
Vicki and Alan(Team Mazy)
Robbie(Dickie Knee)
Wayne(Smithy)
Dave(Moke 71)
Andrew(MoeMoke)

There is room for another 3 maybe 4 Mokes at this stage.

Terry