Twelve days, two families, one caravan, and roughly 3,400 kilometres of outback New South Wales. That was the plan for the September school holidays: tow the caravan north to Lightning Ridge for a few days of opal hunting, then loop home the long way via Bourke, Broken Hill, Silverton, and Mungo National Park.
The travelling party is Jo and I, James and Will, plus Jo's sister Monique, her husband Craig, and the kids, Riley and Zoe.
The budget below is the planned spend, not the final reckoning. Fuel is budgeted at $2.80 a litre and 10L/100km, which for a diesel 4WD towing a caravan is somewhere between optimistic and brave.
Diary entries are linked from the itinerary table as they are written.