Hi everyone! Mingo your Camping Flamingo here! It's time for the Merchant-Rose clan to hit the road - make that the dirt road! - again.  This time we are taking a 9 day return trip from Townsville to Laura for the annual Rodeo & Campdraft.  We will not be travelling there by road however; we will doing most of the trip via "the back way"... Whether that's across private land or public tracks, the bitumen will be avoided as much as possible.  The draft itinerary is published below - the return leg was a work in progress at the outset and just unfolded as we wen ..read more

Hey it's Mingo here again! It's been a while since I've written, mainly because we've just bought our very own piece of the Outback - 500 acres of virgin bushland at Reid River, about 40 minutes south of Townsville. It's very exciting - but more about that in another post! So in early April, right after Cyclone Debbie scared us all half to death (and then missed Townsville completely and instead absolutely smashed the whole of SE QLD and Northern NSW), the Easter school holidays rolled around and it was time to get out there camping again!   We must've gone a bit soft over Christma ..read more

Hey everyone. It's Mingo your Camping Flamingo here again.  Our exciting trip this time is around the Goldfields area around Palmer River and Maytown. We will also be stopping at the beautiful Cobbold Gorge and Chillagoe.  So strap yourself in and come with us on our latest adventure!   Day 1. Townsville to Cobbold Gorge We were all packed up and ready to go by 7am, (including our new porta potty), with the aim of hitting Cobbold Gorge in the early afternoon.  Even Sunshine was sporting a very short Camping haircut! We stopped off at ..read more

Call me crazy, you wouldn't be the first! We've decided to head for Cape York again - only this time, we're planning on getting there with both Triton and Swifty intact! DAY 1: TOWNSVILLE TO FISHERY FALLS You may remember that we tackled the trip last October, with our original Swifty. We got as far as 30km north of Musgrave Station, on the Peninsula Development Road, when the unthinkable happened. We managed to get caught in soft sand whilst rounding a corner, the van bounced, fishtailed into the back of the Triton, before flipping onto its roof and basically exploding into million ..read more

Hi everybody! Mingo here again! Well this is just a mini trip over 3 days but I thought I'd share it with you all via I'm gonna be twistin' and jivin' at the Rock & Revs Festival at Bowen this weekend. Here's their link if you'd like to read about it:  https://www.facebook.com/events/998233313548131/ So we were all ready to go by 8.30am on Saturday, waiting for our friends Renee and Scarlet, who were coming down with us in convoy. Here they are! Montana and Harley are REALLY excited ..read more

Hey it's Mingo here again!   It's been a couple of weeks since we went camping at Kooroorinya Falls and I'm very sad to report that that was dear old Spike's last trip. He passed away peacefully last week with his family around him. We were so glad he was able to make that last trip with us. Now he is running free forever with lots of wonderful memories. We will never forget you little man ♥️ Sunshine is missing him too, so has had even more cuddles than usual, especially from Steve! Laura was especially sad and missing Spike a lot, so Steve decided to take us on a Mystery Tour ..read more

Hi everybody!  It's Mingo here - I'm back!! For those who don't know the story of Swifty Mark 2, (Swifty Mark 1 having met a nasty end on the way up to Cape York last year...).  We had taken him on a 4 week, 10,000km maiden voyage over Xmas: Townsville to the Victorian High Country via the Red Centre and back. Unfortunately, things started falling off him, pretty much as soon as we left home; the beds warped and bowed so badly, they wouldn't roll in and out; the body was so far out of alignment that it wouldn't pack down properly and the roof wouldn't close over the top. The door wo ..read more

Had another great meal at the Royal then decided to sleep outside under the stars, alongside the dogs, with a cool breeze blowing... Ah delightful... til 1am when Laura got stung by a caterpillar and came up in horrendously itchy blisters on her feet!! So we packed up and went inside, leaving the door open and the dogs on long ropes, so they could get out if needed. Well that didn't work either because it got much windier about 3am and the door blew shut...with Spike outside, whining to come in! And then a family a bit further down put their music on really loud at 6am as they wer ..read more

Not a great night's sleep; poor old Spike had the upset tummy this time and had to be let out every 10 minutes from 3am! We were just about to take the mattress out to sleep outside when he fell fast asleep poor old man ? So we had a sleep in til about 9.30am when it was already 34 degrees, before taking off down to the FJ Holden cafe for brekky. It is an amazing place, all decked out like a 50s/60s Diner, models of cars and Rock n Roll memorabilia. Awesome!   We had a massive breakfast then headed up to Porcupine Gorge, waving to more of our bovine friends on the way...m ..read more

Uh oh we both got upset stomachs in the night - Steve even had to do a midnight nudie run to the little boys' room!  Laura had a terrible headache and neither of us slept much. We put it down to the BBQ chook we'd bought from the corner shop the day before, since everything else we'd eaten was out of tins or bottles! By mid morning we were feeling much better, packed up in the 35 degree heat and left at 10am. The area between Longreach and Winton was absolutely bone dry, with no signs that they'd had any of the rain we'd experienced earlier in  the week.  We started planni ..read more