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Caravanning News is registered with the National Library of Australia's PANDORA archive |
January 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Happy New Year and safe travels to all our readers |
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By Dennis Amor A FATHER has
told how he desperately tried to save his young son after a caravan burst
into flames in New South Wales. Stephen Stace used buckets of water
as firefighters rushed to the scene on a rural property in Innes Lane at
Moto near Taree, but five-year-old Isaac perished in the inferno. Police
said 41-year-old Mr Stace, who suffered burns to his hands and face, had
described how he put the boy to bed in the caravan about 8pm before
returning to his wife and two other children in a converted dairy about 30
metres away. The family recently moved to the area to start a livestock
farm. Isaac, described as a happy and intelligent boy, was due to start
school today. According to one police officer, the boy was scared of the
darkness so his father had left a burning candle in the ageing caravan,
which did not have electricity. Fire investigators were examining the caravan's charred
remains which were surrounded with children's toys. A report will be prepared for the Coroner.
UNLIKELY RIG TURNS A FEW HEADS IN WA
BOB and Cheryl Taylor certainly turn a few heads when they hit the road
with their rig. For the West Australian couple from
Rockingham haul their European-built Adria Adora 532LT caravan with nothing less
than a European-built Porsche Cayenne V6. According to reports, the tug
compares "okay" with other six-cylinder luxury SUVs like the BMW,
Mercedes-Benz and Audi. Cheryl told Adria's Aussie Caravan News
that they recently did a trip to Busselton in WA and are regular visitors to
Exmouth, where they always head to Yardie Homestead. "Most people we meet
say it's quite unusual to see a Porsche towing a 'van, but these two
travel exceptionally well," she said.
Grey nomads key contributors to tourism Plan aims to improve outback caravanning Providing direction for the next five years
By Dennis Amor QUEENSLAND'S remote
areas would be blessed with more caravan parks and camping grounds, if the
authors of a new report had their way.
Boy, 5, dies in park horror accident By Dennis Amor A VICTORIAN
caravan park was in shock after a young boy died in a horror accident
with a car inside the park on New Year's Eve. The five-year-old died
shortly before 8pm, an hour after the collision at the packed 244-site
BIG4 Inverloch Holiday Park south-east of Melbourne. Paramedics
desperately tried to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead before an
air ambulance could fly him to Royal Melbourne Hospital. It is understood
the boy suffered severe head and chest injuries. Police were interviewing
stunned holidaymakers in a bid to piece together what happened. No one was
available to comment when Caravanning News attempted to contact
staff at the park, which has been fully booked out until mid-January. But
police said in a statement: "Officers have been told that a five-year-old
boy was riding his bike at around 6.30pm. He approached a tee-intersection
within the park and collided with a Jeep Cherokee. Emergency services were
called to the scene but the boy could not be revived. The driver of the
Cherokee, a 43-year-old Rowville woman, has been assisting police with
their investigation." A report will be prepared for the Coroner.
Teen turned into human fireball 'Mood flame' terror as family celebrates festive season By Dennis Amor A 'MOOD
flame' almost cost a young girl her life in a freak festive season
accident at a New South Wales caravan park. The 12-year-old was
sitting near the open flame flickering from a steel canister which was
being refuelled when a sudden gust of wind turned her into a human
fireball. Her horrified parents dashed to smother the flames and rushed
her to the nearby shower block where they doused her with water until help
arrived. The Boxing Day evening drama stunned holidaymakers at the
four-star, 365-site Crookhaven Heads Tourist Park at Culburra Beach on the
state's south coast. Manager Kathy Pascall told Caravanning News
the accident happened at a private caravan as the family celebrated
Christmas.
Couple swim to safety through croc-infested waters
Speeding nomad more than 4X the booze limit A DRUNKEN
grey nomad in a mobile home has copped a hefty fine and driving ban after
speeding over a flood-ravaged bridge in the Northern Territory. The
55-year-old traveller astonished police as he flashed through road works
at more than twice the 40kph speed limit at the Edith River crossing on
the Stuart Highway. He continued for a further 3km before bringing his
Hino coaster bus mobile home to a stop, police said. He later appeared in
Katherine Court where he pleaded guilty to high range drink driving,
exceeding the speed limit and failing to obey directions of police. He was
fined $1400 and disqualified from driving for a year. The court heard he
returned a blood-alcohol reading of 0.204 ... more than four times the
legal limit. Police described the area around the Edith River bridge is
essentially "one big construction site" and were concerned why so many
drivers were choosing to add to the existing hazards.
Caravanners flout council's tough no-camping rules
HUNDREDS of campers and caravanners snubbed their noses at a Queensland
council's tough stance on budget camping and free rest areas during the
festive season. Despite Bundaberg Regional Council's previous warnings
that illegally camped travellers could cop hefty fines, revellers in
caravans, tents and motorhomes enjoyed million-dollar views across the
blue waters of the Pacific at Norval Park north of the city. The council
banned caravans, motorhomes and campervans from the picturesque beachfront
area about two years ago, permitting only fee-paying permit-holding
holidaymakers to pitch tents or camper trailers on specially marked out
sites well back from the foreshore. But many Christmas and New Year
holidaymakers blatantly ignored the ban and set up camps at every
available spot among the sensitive dunes, where endangered marine turtles
nest at this time of year. One couldn't-care-less camper told
Caravanning News: "Generations of families have been spending their
holidays here so why should some killjoy bureaucrats in their ivory tower
spoil it for them?"
Thousands flee as floods threaten NSW parks THOUSANDS of
people fled flood-threatened caravan parks in NSW as unrelentless
rains swamped the state's north and Mid North Coast. As the wet
weather continued, police today urged people to delay all non-essential
travel. "If holidaymakers are planning on visiting these regions they are
also encouraged to postpone those plans until the floods clear," they said
in a statement. The State Emergency Service earlier this week ordered
the evacuation of Fingal Head, a low-lying strip of coastal land south of
Tweed Heads. An emergency evacuation centre was
set up at Kingscliff TAFE. The action came as flood warnings were issued
for every major river system between Taree and the Queensland border. Up
to eight caravan parks in and around Chinderah were affected. Meanwhile,
30 residents of a Coombabah caravan park were allowed to stay as flood
conditions on Queensland's Gold Coast eased. "The people at the caravan
park did have some water through there but it was nothing terribly
dramatic," Disaster Management Unit coordinator Warren Day reportedly
said. The wet conditions forced the closure of camping grounds and
walking tracks in Queensland's National Parks ahead of Australia Day. Many
caravan parks in Queensland's south-east reported floodwaters as the
heaviest rain in two decades drenched some areas.
Golden
place to stay in WA
Government blamed for showground lockout
Sunland offers website choice
Nomads urged to
work butts off in litter battle
Discovery launches new discount card
Girl
critically injured by runaway trailer at tourist park
Discussion paper puts residential rules under microscope
Eco
park donates $500 to possie park Gem
of a park scoops major award
Quadriplegic in battle to go caravanning For stories from the last six editions of Caravanning News, click on the appropriate month:
Web pages designed and produced by Dennis Amor No
part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted without Copyright 2005
Dennis Amor |
Auction scheme hammered by
THE idea of offering powered sites to the highest bidder seems to be a
growing trend so I thought I'd share my experience on the subject. I'm
sure many will have seen the TV ads or the website offering auctions of
powered sites. I had my first experience of this recently and have to
report it didn't work very well. We were in Mildura and heading along the
Murray when I saw the website was offering an auction for The Rich River
Caravan Park in Echuca. I checked there were sites available and then made
a bid on the auction. The following day I received an email telling me I
had won the auction and they duly sent me a voucher to be used at the
park. The usual riders applied, not available during Victorian school
holidays etc. I rang the park to book our site, early December being well
outside any school holidays I’m aware of, to be told there were no sites
available until well after Christmas. I then went back to the BIG4 website
where, if I chose to do so, I could book a powered site for the dates I
was looking for. I spoke to Travel Auctions who immediately offered me a
refund of the amount which I had paid. I believe the concept of the travel
auction is good, but the system is flawed in that the caravan park is
obviously choosing the dates when it will honour these vouchers and will
only accept them when the time is suitable to the park. Travel Auctions
can really only be faulted in that when this was brought to their
attention they still ran another auction for this particular park. I don’t
know how common it is for this to happen but my feeling is probably it
will be, or become, quite common for parks to use this as a way of filling
sites in quiet times. So it's a case of buyer beware ... and an experience
I am unlikely to repeat anytime in the near future. Disappointment on capital return
ALTHOUGH it all sounds good in your 'Aspen
Parks fund forging ahead' story (click here),
I invested $50,000 seven years ago ... which is now worth $58,000. Not
much of a return on capital!
Plea to spend BEING a regular stayer at Aspen Parks, I would like to see them spend some of their profits on maintenance of their assets.
Stiglet. GOR toll idea 'scandalous'
CORANGAMITE Shire Mayor Matt Makin and
people like him seem to want to cut off their noses to spite their faces (see
story here). A toll of $20 on the Great Ocean Road is scandalous.
Who is going to pay that sort of money just to use a road? Mr Makin, you
are on a lose-lose campaign with this. If you could guarantee the money
would go into the local infrastructure – and you know and we know you
can't – it may make sense. Just another case of local government greed. Pink piggies and over the top!
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Credibility questioned
Beef about rally venue AND what is making Rockhampton so wonderful all of a sudden, that they will have a rally in the town? (see story here). A town that only last year allegedly stated it would not join the RV-Friendly scheme, resulting in many RVers saying they would never camp there due to local council animosity (see story here). There were to be no rest areas allowed in the town. Has all this changed? One assumes that all RVers will have to be squeezed into already full parks or be prosecuted. I can't wait to read of the aftermath of this rally. So one must assume that the rest area problem has been overcome, or has it just been forgotten about? This from not that long ago.
Paul Klat.
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Mastering the question of communications
Customer
service shines at Kurrimine
Council
busy sifting through comments on $4m park plan
Finance
wizard joins Aspen stable
Adria
busy improving customer service
Huge
show will help with memory-making
