Shakedown Trip in the Rockwood UltraLite

Nearly 4 months after taking delivery of our new Rockwood UltaLite 2622RK 5th wheeler, its time to go camping. The Evergreen Ultima 27RK 5th wheeler has served us well for over 10 years. It has now been sold and payment has been made. We have to deliver it to Sorell in Southern Tasmania soon, hopefully before Christmas.

We are spending the weekend at the Deloraine Pony Club, which is part of the showground. All went very well, even though we have one 190w solar panel. This is inadequate as we have a 12v fridge, luckily with 400ah lithium batteries that have been swapped over from the previous 5th wheeler. Lots of backup power, however extra solar will need to be added very quickly.

Plenty of room and some fine weather, a little overcast but no rain all weekend

We had a great weekend with a few friends, the van performed faultlessly, some fine tuning of where everything is stored and hopefully many happy years of happy camping.

We did drive on a temporary registration permit, hopefully we will have it all complied and registered before our next trip over the new year

2021 Trip Plans Postponed Again

Covid seems under control, however we have decided to stay home over winter in Tasmania again. We are not prepared to be caught in a Covid lockdown and have it ruin our holiday.

Our cautious approach has seemed to been the right decision, as firstly Victoria, the New South Wales and Queensland have had Covid restrictions. Had this happened as we were on our way back to Tasmania and we weren’t able to cross state borders and been forced into quarantine for 2 weeks or more would have ruined our trip and even prevented me from getting back to work after my 2 month break.

We have lots of weekends away even through last winter, so the 5th wheeler has had a fair bit of use. However we do miss our trip to the mainland for some warm weather over the Tassie winter.

I have also been busy researching and ordering a new 5th wheeler from the USA, a Rockwood Ultralite 2622RK. I placed a deposit before Christmas 2020. It was delivered to the dealership mid May 2021, shipped from Baltimore on July 6th and should arrive in Melbourne around August 12th, the first day back at work after my holidays. Just brilliant timing, I’ll be back at work, when I would love to be converting the 5th wheeler to Australian regulations ready for registration.

All we can do between now and next year is that vacination levels are high and Covid levels come under control so life can get back to almost normal as we learn to live with life dealing with this worldwide pandemic