Easter Family Road Trip 5 days of Cold Food and Drinks

Easter this year saw our family take a drive from the Gold coast, down to Coffs Harbour for a night, then on to Scone in the Upper Hunter Valley in NSW. We left on Thursday morning and arrived home Tuesday afternoon. A total of 5 days and everything was still cold when we got home.

The wife had always wanted to go to the Hunter Valley. As this was Easter, it was right in the deer rut, So I managed to line up a day chasing Fallow Deer with the bow, while a good friend hunted with the rifle.

I won't go on too much about the hunting, as I didn't get a stag on the ground and I don't want to go into that. But I did take the 22L Cooler for day trips and the 56L cooler for most of our food and to hopefully bring some venison home in.

The 56L we mostly use on weekend or multi day trips. I find this a great size for our family road trips for 2 adults and 1 child. This is only for food and soft drink. You would need something else if you are taking a lot of beer.

The 56L, I had put a 5kg block of ice in, 24 hours before we left. Top pre-cool the ice box. This helps make your ice last longer and gets everything cooler before you start.

Then, I added 4 of our Large 3.5kg Gel Ice Bricks, in the bottom of the ice box, then we had all our food cold in the fridge, from at least 24 hours prior. So I filled the ice box with all our cold food, drinks and Easter chocolate. This was on Thursday morning.

We drove to Coffs Harbour that night. Then on Good Friday we continued to Scone NSW. 

Saturday saw me running up and down hills chasing deer, with no success, while the wife and our baby checked out the township of Scone.

Sunday came and I took the wife to a winery for lunch, while I drove.  Then in the afternoon, we went to the Linga Longa pub in Gundy. It was a great vibe to hang out, have a few drinks and an early dinner outside there.

Then on Monday, we drove back to Coffs Harbour to stay with the in-laws for a night.

Then a sleep in on Tuesday and we headed back north to Tweed Heads, which is home. I took the food out that night, but left the 56L ice box in the ute to clean the next day. The gel ice bricks were still nice and cold come Wednesday morning.