Sunday 30 September – And so our big trip ends!  It was about 9.15 when we left the petrol station at Ararat on a cold, cloudy day with the last four hours of our trip ahead of us.  There is not a lot to report – the drive was uneventful apart from Grant cleaning up a crow which took a bit too long to get out of the way of the car.  So our final personal roadkill count – Grant 2 (a lizard and a crow), Dawn 1 (a lizard).  

I always like the countryside around Bacchus Marsh, and today was no exception.  The hills are a beautiful green and they always look so fresh and somehow clean.  It was quite grey over Melbourne, but the traffic was pretty light so we had a good run through.  During the day we encountered a few showers (some of them pretty heavy) and a few patches of weak sunshine, and the rain thankfully held off as we got to Newborough where we received a sunny (well it wasn’t raining), warm (that’s a lie!) welcome. 

Back in our driveway we first of all came in and said hello again to our house, to find that Lisa had been up and the heaters were on, there was a lovely vase of flowers on the table and a welcome home note and a plate of home made bikkies and cupcakes on the bench.  That was a warm welcome!  We immediately set up the van, and had unloaded pretty well everything when Lisa, Graham and the boys came up to see us.  It was lovely to seen them all and catch up on the last few weeks in person.  Then Amanda, Mark and the kids arrived, so lots more hugs all round, and lots more chatter.  And they arrived bearing more food including a yummy cake Amanda had made, so we were very spoilt. 

We spent a noisy, chatty, fun evening sitting around eating fish and chips, and having a great catch up.  We’ve had a fabulous trip, but I must say, it is good to be home.  Now we will start planning the next trip.

Saturday 29 September – Another early start this morning, not that I wanted to be awake at 6.15 mind you – it just happened.  I opened one eye and saw the light was on in the van and Grant was dressed and getting the kettle on to boil.  Maybe he’s excited to be getting nearer to home!  So up I got and we left at a bit after 8.  And as luck has it, I was able to do my packing up of the van tasks - just have a little bit of soreness in a couple of spots.  Nothing that a bit of exercise won’t fix.

Weatherwise it hasn’t been too bad, considering the forecast both in S.A. and in Victoria where we were heading.  There was heavy cloud for part of the day, with the resulting heavy showers, but quite a few good patches of welcome sunshine.  This past week has been a lot like the first five or six days of our trip – lots of driving – and today was no different.  All up we covered 425 km today, arriving at Ararat just as the Grand Final was about to start.  The main towns we passed through were Keith, Bordertown (where we got petrol), then into Victoria and Kaniva, Nhill, Dimboola, Horsham, Stawell and then Ararat.  Most of the region we covered is crop growing and sheep country, so we saw some beautiful scenes of paddocks full of half grown wheat alongside paddocks of canola in full bloom.  And with the sun shining on them, the yellow of the canola looks spectacular.

The Grampians provide a perfect backdrop for the golden canola.

We stopped at a roadside stop near Kaniva for a cuppa, and had something for lunch after we arrived here at camp.  We then settled in, Grant reading his latest Wilbur Smith book, me updating stuff on the computer, but both of us with an ear to the wireless and the hard fought Grand Final.  At this stage Hawthorn is catching up a bit (third quarter), so I’ll leave off this blog for now and finish it later in the day.  Who knows??  Something exciting might happen!

(Later)  Well I guess something exciting did happen if you are a Swans supporter!  We listened to it and at least it was a good close game. Once again we have chosen a good caravan park!  We’ve lost count of the number of parks we have stayed in that are situated right by an airport, a railway line or a freeway, and tonight we’ve really done well.  The railway line goes right past the front of the (small) park – you can see it right there as it passes, and since we arrived at about 2.30 (about 5 hours ago) there have been at least four very loud, long goods trains going through.  Lucky we are pretty good sleepers.

I’m getting a bit nostalgic about this being the last night sleeping in the caravan for a while!  I suppose there’s nothing stopping me sleeping in it out in the garage if I really miss it, but I reckon our house will seem so big once we get home, after living in a 13 x 8 ft space for almost three months.  But I know what I will really miss – and that’s the minuscule amount of housework I have done during that time.  I reckon I’ll have to break myself in gently.

Tomorrow night I will post a short blog to wind up this adventure.

Friday 28 September – Where do I start for today?  I suppose waking up time is a good place.  It was a bit earlier than I had hoped when I woke at about 6.30 to find Grant up and dressed and the sound of raindrops on our roof. As we didn’t have to be at the ferry wharf until a bit before 10am we imagined having a slow, easy morning.  So this was not a good start, as we certainly don’t like packing the van up when the canvas is wet.  However the rain was just those few drops for a couple of minutes, but the sky was very threatening and looked as if it was going to bucket down any time soon.  So we decided that we would gobble our breakfast, pack up the van and just be early birds at the ferry stop.

 So that’s what we did, and after driving the fifteen kilometres to Lucky Bay we found ourselves first in the queue at the ridiculously early time of twenty to nine!  The office where you had to check in didn’t open till 9.30, by which time there were about seven or eight vehicles, so while we were waiting I read a couple of magazines to fill in the time.  The ferry arrived a bit late as the weather was poor and they’d had a bit of a rough crossing, and though we were first there, we were third last to be directed onto the ferry.   They let all the cars and four wheel drives on first, about twenty of them, and then us, followed by two mobile homes that had arrived after we did.  It was a very big, impressive ferry – a bit of a catamaran.

The SEASA ferry.

It was pretty cool with the wind today, and I thought they might have had the heating on in the boat, but no …. they had the air-conditioning on!!  Our crossing of Spencer Gulf took a bit over two hours, and we arrived in Wallaroo just before one o’clock.  We bought a bit of lunch half an hour before landing as that saved us stopping for something along the way.

Now came my test.  With Zola incapacitated, it was left to me to navigate the drive to today’s destination – Tailem Bend.  And after my poor performance back in April trying to negotiate (country town sized) Adelaide at four thirty on a Friday afternoon, I wasn’t going to repeat the exercise, so we were avoiding Adelaide.  Last night I sat and transcribed the 28 steps in the route Google Maps had found for us to follow (as I don’t have a printer with me), so with my notes in my lap off we went – Grant driving and me doing my best Zola impersonation. 

We wound our way in a south easterly direction from Wallaroo (where the ferry dropped us off), passing through such places as Kadina, Port Wakefield, Two Wells, Gawler, Williamstown, Mt Pleasant, The Barossa Valley, The Tamar Valley, Tungkillo, Palmer, Murray Bridge and finally reached Tailem Bend at around 5 o’clock this afternoon.  The heavy skies lifted for most of the afternoon, but as we reached Tailem Bend there was a massive black cloud loitering with intent.

The lovely countryside near Gawler.

So we hurriedly set up, and whilst Grant was connecting the power it started to rain, so I leapt out of the van to put our table, chairs, accessory bag, etc out of the rain.  I deposited one lot to the sheltered spot, and as I returned for the next lot I tripped on the short power lead which was lying on the ground and went for a sixer!  I didn’t do any real damage, just a couple of sore spots, but it shook me up a bit.  Grant gave my upper back a rub with some smelly liniment stuff and that seemed to help a bit.  We’ll see how fit I am in the morning – I might have to call in sick for my packing up of the van tasks.  Only joking – I’ll be fine.  But what a twit – I should know by now how big my feet are, and not to put them where they don’t fit!

Well, by now even we are counting the sleeps till we get home – only two more sleeps!!  It’s really hard to believe all that we have seen and done over the past weeks!

Thursday 27 September – Our latest waking time for quite a while happened this morning.  It was 7.30 before we woke.  I suppose with only two other caravans in the park there wasn’t a lot of early morning noise, or we were just tired, or a combination of both.  But whichever way – it didn’t matter as we only had a relatively short travel day today, and we were here at Cowell Foreshore Caravan Park and had a cuppa made by 1 o’clock.

And I’m sorry to report on the demise of Zola.  She refused to start up today (the start button has been stuck in for the last couple of weeks, but today it wouldn’t register), so as she is still under warranty, she’ll be going back when we get home.  So from now on it’s back to my navigational skills.  Lucky we aren’t going through Adelaide city where I got us all boxed up back in April!!

From the other side of Ceduna yesterday almost until we got here today, we drove through crop country.  Huge paddocks planted with wheat and canola, and in every little township/settlement there were massive silos ready for the harvest.  It is beautiful countryside, relatively flat until we got within about thirty km from here when we scaled a mountain or two, but now by the shore it is flat again.

For the first 80 odd km today we followed the Eyre Highway before turning onto the Port Lincoln Road for about 55 km then finished up on the Birdseye Highway for the last leg.  Today there was a real dearth of wildlife, except for about a dozen or so kamikaze lizards.  Well they must be as why else would they sunbathe or try to cross a highway (I know…. The grass is always greener ….) which is frequented by road trains and numerous other vehicles.  Several of today’s sightings had been successful in their kamikaze pursuits and were therefore flattened on the bitumen, but some had at least avoided their fate at the time we passed by.  Grant did some pretty skilful manoeuvring when two were going across at the same time – single file, and about a car’s width between them.  We’re not sure if the road train driver following us was as skilful. (Although we did see one ahead of us earlier in the drive weave to avoid a lizard). They seem to be all of the shingleback variety, so don’t know how many brains they have.

Grant went up the street after we set up to get some bread and to see if he could get some shucked oysters, as Cowell is now THE place in Australia for oysters.  He could have bought them here at the caravan park for $8 a dozen, but they were unopened, and he didn’t fancy having to open them.  Anyway, he came home with bread as well as information as to where he could get the oysters (just about a couple of hundred metres from where we are) at a beachside outlet.  He also had discovered that there was a patchwork shop in town, which made my eyes light up!

After we had some lunch we both went up to the shops – Grant went to the hardware shop to buy a couple of screws, while I of course went to the above mentioned patchwork (and gift) shop.  It was a fabulous shop – very extensive stock of fabrics and some lovely, unusual gift lines.  I had a long browse, but didn’t buy any fabric as I had no project in mind, and the selection of a piece or two was just too hard.  On the way back we called around and Grant got his oysters which he enjoyed as a starter for tea.

Once back here we sat around having a cuppa and a read, during which time a bird shat on my head!  I know it is supposed to mean good luck, but it was also pretty yucky! Before tea I went across to the laundry to put a couple of magazines over there, and started talking to a lady doing her ironing (I haven’t ironed a thing since we left home!!) and as our conversation progressed she mentioned that her daughter lived in Balnarring –‘well, not exactly Balnarring but Bittern’.  I mentioned that I had ancestry in the Balnarring/Bittern area to which she replied: ‘They live in Davies Rd!’  When I told her that Davies was my maiden name and that Davies Rd was named after my great great grandparents and family who settled there in that road in the 1870’s, she was gob smacked.

It remained fine all day and warm, though it became a little cloudy (light cloud) during the afternoon.  Apparently it is supposed to not be so good tomorrow.  That would be right, wouldn’t it, when we have to go on a vehicular ferry for a two hour sail across Spencer Gulf.  So long as the sea-sickness doesn’t hit us we’ll be fine!

Didn’t take any photos today, so here’s Grant, just back from his shower.

Wednesday 26 September – Today turned out to be a long one, and a good one.  I suppose it was a bit before 8.30 by the time we left the caravan park, and a short while later we reached Head of Bight – as it says, the head of the Great Australian Bight.  Regarded as one of the most spectacular whale watching sites in South Australia (and even the world), the scenery is spectacular with the sand dunes on the coastal part of the desert meeting up with the limestone cliffs, dropping a sheer 90 mtrs to the ocean.

Cliffs at the Head of Bight.

In the bay at the head of the bight the water is very sheltered, and Southern Right whales have chosen this spot to congregate en masse each year to give birth to their calves.  Whales at the at the Head of the Bight take up 'residence' for an entire 5 month period between June and October and generally remain within a 15km long section of coast.  And with the water being so pristine and a beautiful clear blue, it really is the ideal whale watching place.  Great boardwalks have been built to give easy access to viewing platforms, and the whales put on a real show.  It almost seems as if they know they are being watched and they ‘turn it on’.

Today we were lucky enough to see at least a dozen whales, some with their young ones, and they just cruise around spurting up water every so often.   The young ones seem more energetic and playful and often leapt in the air.  It was just great.  We were there for about an hour and a half, and I could have stayed all day watching them, but of course that wasn’t possible.

One of the bigger whales.

The surroundings from then onward for the next hundred or so kms was very much like yesterday – no trees, and no animals or roadkill.  We figure that there aren’t a lot of the bigger animals around there as there are no trees for protection or shelter.  We did see numerous lizards and two or three snakes that had come to a sticky end on the road, though.  And unfortunately I was the cause of the demise of one of them when I accidentally ran over it this afternoon.

It was some time during this stage of the drive that Zola had a nervous breakdown.  She was just sitting quietly on the dashboard until a road train passed us and she started making this ‘ddrrrrit’ sound, literally every second!  And I couldn’t stop her.  Eventually she was relegated to the console between our seats, with the lid pressed firmly down, where she continued to be a nuisance, as though somewhat muffled, she was still proceeding with her melt down.  After about twenty minutes we got jack of her carry on, so I got her out, examined her closely, saw a small hole in her side with the letters rst above it, stuck the stylus in that hole (which I gather must mean ‘restart’), and her behaviour returned to normal.

After a morning tea stop (close to lunchtime) and a later lunch stop, the decision was made that as we were making pretty good time we wouldn’t stop the night at Ceduna, but would drive on an extra 94 km to Wirrulla, thereby making tomorrows drive shorter.  It was about 4 o’clock when I pulled in there – a real one horse town, where the caravan park is situated on an old tennis court and housed about 6 or 8 vans.  When I went into the general store to pay, the lady said that she didn’t think there was a power point left, but if we had a double adapter she was sure one of the other campers wouldn’t mind if we shared a point.  But when Grant checked, it needed to be a 15 volt adaptor and ours is a ten volt.  So back I went to the general store with the toilet key to return and explained the situation, got a refund and we were back on the road again.  Fortunately the next town was only 45 km away, it had a caravan park, so here we are at Poochera, in a park behind the pub with only two other vans here accompanying us.

We didn’t get here till about 5 o’clock - our latest arrival so far – but got ourselves set up pretty quickly, had our showers, chatted to the neighbours, and I made stir fry for tea which we’d finished by about 7.  It has been another beautiful day, quite warm, and today we had the benefit of a tail wind – though nothing like as strong as the wind we had yesterday, thank goodness.  At least it made the car not quite so thirsty.

Today I had a phone call from the Neerim South hospital letting me know the arrangements for my cataract surgery next Wednesday.  I have to be there by 10am, so this time next week I’ll hopefully have one really good eye! 

Tuesday 25 September – Boy! Today has been a warm one!!  We managed to leave Madura at about twenty past eight this morning, so that was pretty good going.  First stop was at Mundrabilla Roadhouse for the car’s daily fill up.  We had been advised that this place is usually about 10% cheaper with its fuel than others, so we had only put enough in at Madura (at $1.99 per litre) to get us the 116 km to Mundrabilla.  Well it wasn’t quite the suggested 10%, but it was cheaper at $1.86, so we filled up there.  Actually it was the same price at Eucla, too, so there are a couple of places a bit cheaper than others.

Next stop was at the W.A./S.A. border where there is a little settlement called Border Village and here we had our morning tea.  They don’t do the quarantine inspection when you are coming eastward, just tell you not to bring stuff in.  And of course it was time to put our clocks forward the extra 45 minutes, so now we are only half an hour different to home.

Me with the ever essential cuppa at morning tea.

Between Border Village and here there are several places where you can drive in to lookouts on the Great Australian Bight.  We went into three of these – Lookout 3, Lookout 2, and Lookout 1 (They are numbered from east to west and we are travelling from the west.)  The views were absolutely stunning.  The wind was blowing a gale by this time – a head wind I might add, when everyone told us that we would get a tail wind, but the water in the Bight was quite calm and a beautiful blue.  And the bonus at Lookout 1 was that there were three or four whales playing around in the water quite close to shore.  We managed to get a couple of photos, but it’s tricky seeing them in the viewfinders that reflect.  We had our lunch at this stop, too.

The beautiful view from Lookout 1.

It was about 3.15 (newly adjusted time) when we arrived at Nullarbor Roadhouse, after travelling a fair chunk of today in true ‘Nullarbor’ – the part that is actually designated ‘Nullarbor Plain’ and which really is pretty well treeless.  There are scrubby bushes, but no trees.  The road was strangely devoid of roadkill today with just a few wallabies, in fact after we crossed the border into SA I don’t recall seeing anything, except perhaps a snake.  I think we saw three dead snakes on the road today.

Nullarbor Roadhouse is a complex on the flat plains, a big caravan park area of dusty gravel, no shade whatsoever, and when we arrived it was blowing an absolute gale.  We were convinced that the allen key would get a real test tonight.  However it has calmed down quite a bit, and as I write this (at 8.15pm) it is still very hot.  I’m in shorts and Tshirt and am actually sweating.  Showers are $1 in the slot here for five minutes, so that’s not bad, except that the water was what I would call just under tepid.  Lucky it is a hot day.

When I went over for my shower this evening, I was talking to a couple who are into genealogy and are heading from Perth to Broken Hill to meet up with some family connections on both his and her families.  While I was talking to them, their glasses of wine blew off the table in the wind, spilling everywhere and the maps they had out took off towards the highway.  I managed to retrieve one map, she got the other and he had to run for a cloth to wipe up the wine off the table and off her ipad thing (mostly its cover).  So that was a bit dramatic!!

Tomorrow we travel to at least Ceduna and possibly a little further, depending on how long we want to spend at Head of Bight.  We may even have phone and Internet coverage, if we are lucky.

Monday 24 September – I can’t believe that this time next week we will be back in Newborough!  Time certainly flies when you are having fun.  But now that we have our noses pointing eastward, I must admit it will be really good to see everyone again.

This morning we left Balladonia just after 8am, so that was pretty good.  We didn’t need a really early start as today was a 345 km day, so take it easy.  About twenty two km out of Balladonia we passed Del and Cindy on their bikes, so we again gave them a toot, and about a km further on (around a long bend) we pulled over and got out to take a couple more photos of them to send to them.  They stopped and we had a chat for two or three minutes before setting off again.  It was only a few minutes later that we passed the sign telling us that we had now commenced driving on the longest straight stretch of road in Australia –145.6 km, so Grant found steering pretty easy for the next couple of hours.  We saw seven cyclists in total today – apart from the Kiwis we saw one bloke on his own, then a group of three, then one more on his own.  It’s a gutsy effort, as really once you start, it’s very hard to give up.  There’s no phone coverage if you want help, so they must just rely on passing assistance if it is needed.

The Kiwis.

The Nullarbor is anything but boring so far.  The vegetation changed about four or five times today, from small scrubby bushes, to no trees (Nullarbor), to tall trees, and from dense cover to very sparse cover.  But without doubt, today’s outstanding feature was the abundance of road kill!  There would have been over 100 carcasses on the road and its edges, many of them fresh victims.  Most were kangaroos and wallabies, but there were also a couple of eagles and a CAMEL!!  I’d hate to imagine the damage to the car that hit that one.  When we were driving we seemed to be constantly swerving to miss the bodies on the road – after checking the rear vision mirrors and oncoming traffic of course.  Though there was a reasonable amount of traffic, with the road being pretty straight and visibility very good, there were still long stretches where we felt we were the only ones on the road.

There are signs everywhere to watch out for camels, kangaroos and emus, but today we only saw a wallaby which was at the side of the road and hopped along beside us for a few bounds before heading for the scrub.

 

Lunchtime for this eagle.

We arrived here in Madura quite early – about 1pm – a typical roadhouse camping ground with just dusty earth underfoot, but at least this one has some trees for shade.  Oh yes!  I haven’t mentioned that today has been a beautiful day – lovely and warm, sunny all day and just a few whispy clouds to make the sky look good.  We were the first ones to book in for the night, but it wasn’t long before another couple came in, and as it got dark I reckon there were probably a dozen or fifteen vans, etc in here.  We had a long chat to a couple of ladies who were at last night’s camp.  They were going to stay at Cocklebiddy, but decided when they got there that it was too early to stop, so came on to here.

After lunch we spent the afternoon reading.  Grant has moved onto his second Wilbur Smith book for the trip.  The first one took some reading, as he couldn’t get into it, and we were on the go all the time, but he eventually finished it and is enjoying this one a lot more.  As I’ve read the three novels I brought with me, I’ve been mostly reading magazines, and swapping them at each caravan park (at the laundry based libraries), for others.  But yesterday morning I swapped my magazines for a novel which I started last night and I really got into it, so I finished it this afternoon.  There is no library in the laundry here, so I’ll hope for one at tomorrow’s stop.

So that’s about it for today.  Tomorrow we make for the border and intend to spend the night at the Nullarbor Roadhouse not far short of the Head of Bight.  Today we came across a big sign telling us to put our clocks back 45 minutes.  They must do the hour and a half difference between here and South Australia in 2 stages of 45 minutes each, though that’s not official as there are only three time zones in Australia.  Anyway, Grant has duly altered his watch as have I, but as my watch is losing time at an ever increasing rate, and has been for about two weeks now, it doesn’t help me much.  I’ll sort that out once we get home.

Sunday 23 September – Waking to fine drizzle wasn’t what we hoped for this morning, but it didn’t last for long, and by the time we were packing up the van it just needed a bit of a wipe down, so not too bad at all.  It was probably about 8.15 when we pulled out of the park, and after our cars usual travel day breakfast of a big guzzle of petrol, we were on our way.

Driving north towards Norseman we came across lots and lots of quite large dams or lakes, many of which looked to have salt deposits around the edges.  I decided to look it up on the computer tonight to see if they were indeed salt lakes (Grant reckons it’s only white sand), but as we have no phone or internet coverage here tonight, that will have to wait.  There continued to be lots of canola and wheat properties and quite a lot of sheep.  We passed through a couple of places on the map – but there didn’t seem to be much evidence of a township – we  must have blinked going through Scaddan and Green Patch, but Salmon Gums was quite a settlement, having a school, a playground and a few houses and other buildings.

By the time we reached Norseman it was cuppa time, so after photographing their corrugated iron camels which feature in the centre of the roundabout as you enter town, we found caravan parking at the rear of the visitors centre and had our cuppas there.  There was an outback experience tour bus there from Albury with a load of grey nomads having morning tea, and we were wondering where they had been and which direction they were travelling.  As I was coming out of the toilet block I spoke to a couple of ladies from Sydney and I asked them if they were part of the bus group, but it seems they were the female half of two couples travelling together by car.  They seemed to be a bit confused about where they had been, as they said that the bus group had stayed at the same accommodation place as they did last night in Esperance, and the people were from all over the place.  And both them and the bus load were heading to Kalgoorlie today.  When I got back to the car and told Grant, he had been talking to a bloke from the bus tour who had told him that they had come from Kalgoorlie and were travelling to Esperance!!  But then I guess that bloke could have been the confused one!!

Some of the corrugated camels.

I took my turn at driving from Norseman onwards, and a couple of hours later we stopped for lunch at a roadside stop, then continued on to where we are now installed – Balladonia Roadhouse.    

Today we saw a mother emu with three or four emuets – quite cute as they were still at that stripey stage, and then excitement plus!!  We saw our first dingo of the trip.  Unfortunately it was quite flat, and on the side of the road – it was no more!  So we can’t now say we haven’t seen one – just that it was dead.

A glimpse of the Eyre Highway.

About ten km out of Balladonia we passed a couple of cyclists with little trailers on the back of their bikes and gave them a toot.  Grant snapped a picture of them as we were passing.  So when they pulled into the caravan park at the back of the roadhouse here I went and spoke to them and offered to email them the photo when they got home.  They were delighted with that, as they said that it isn’t possible to get photos of both of them together ‘en route’.  It turns out they are Del (a bloke) and Cindy (his wife) from NZ and are cycling from Perth to Adelaide.  They left Perth on September 1^st and have allowed two months to complete the trip.  She told me that when they started they could do about 50 km a day, and now they easily do 100.  They are probably about their early to mid 60’s, and did a cycling trip in France last year.  So later in the afternoon I got their email address and will send off the photo in due course.

Grant had noticed that the roadhouse sold cappuccinos, so after we had set up, over we went and he had is fix, and we browsed through a small museum here which is part of the roadhouse.  Balladonia hit the headlines worldwide in 1979 when it was showered with pieces of the US space station SkyLab as it fell to earth.  So there was a section in the museum about that, and a big chunk of the space station was on display.

By the time this blog gets an airing, you will probably have realised that we have no internet access, and if this keeps up right across the Nullarbor, we may just beat the news home!

I went over to the amenities block before tea for a shower, and it was very basic, to say the least.  The showers (there are 2 in both the mens and the womens blocks) look quite okay – lovely shower curtains, all tiled cubicles, but I’ll tell you what!! I could have peed faster than the water was coming out of the shower.  After running around the cubicle to get wet, the trickle of water turned cold, then came hot again a couple of times.  So tonight’s shower certainly was just a quick splash, and when Grant went for his a while later, he had the same experience.  And when I mentioned to the lady who came out of the other shower that I could have peed faster, she nearly wet herself laughing and said she couldn’t have described it better herself.

I miscalculated the distance of today’s drive in my planning.  I thought we were covering 445 km, but it was only about 390, so we enjoyed the afternoon.  As I’ve said before, we don’t intend to do massive mileage each day, so our next door neighbour from yesterday would be very disappointed that we didn’t take his advice and do 900 km today!  We intend to arrive home next Sunday bright eyed and bushy tailed and not as sleep deprived zombies!

Saturday 22 September – Wow! What a dreadful night we had last night.  No sooner had I posted my blog when we were hit by gale force winds and heavy downpours which lasted pretty well right through the night.  It was slightly calmer today, but we have still been blessed with intermittent heavy showers and very gusty winds, so not the greatest day weatherwise. We were concerned last night as the van was really being battered by the wind, so when Grant found a brief temporary easing of the rain, braving the elements, he went out and tied ropes to the struts which support the van roof, and tied them to the roof racks on the car.  So if the van had taken off with us in it, then the car was coming too!  And the allen key (solution to the roof stay caving in a couple of times a few weeks ago) held firm, so we weren’t woken by the canvas wrapping itself around our ears.

The squally weather this morning meant that we weren’t going to see the sights in their best light, but, intrepid travellers that we are, we sallied forth and did the Great Ocean Drive.  This is a drive of about 25 km which (as the name amazingly describes) follows the coastline westward for about two thirds of the distance, then branches inland and returns to the town centre via Pink Lake.  The scenery is beautiful, and even with the heavy skies, the water was a stunning turquoise colour.  There were large waves crashing to the shore, and as the land is very rocky, and shelves of rock go straight down to the sea and continue out under the water, there were waves hitting rocks well out from shore and making quite a spectacle.

The beautiful water and sand at Esperance.

  A couple of whackos in the cold conditions.

We drove into every bay and lookout spot, though as the rain again hit, the viewing was pretty limited.  We can only imagine how beautiful it would be on one of our typical Victorian sunny days!  Pink Lake is a pretty big lake which didn’t look very pink today, but if you tried hard you could see it a bit pinkish.  Apparently it goes pink regularly as a result of the green algae and/ or high concentration of brine shrimp.  And when all the statistical figures (salinity, temperature, algae levels, shrimps, etc) align, then the water appears pink.

By a little after midday we were back at camp, had lunch and hung around till about mid afternoon hoping for the weather to improve.  Rugged up in windcheaters, heater on and the footy on the wireless made us feel like we were back home! It obviously wasn’t going to suddenly become fine, so we went for another drive along the coast in an easterly direction.  There were three massive ships there – one at the wharf to be loaded and the other two out in the bay waiting, I suppose.  There were some very fancy houses along this strip of the coast, all of them with million dollar views.

Now we have had tea, the footy is over and next week’s Grand Finalists have been decided, and our visit to Esperance is almost over.  I really like it here and hope we can one day come back and have a good stay here, with calm waters, sunshine and just the gentlest of breezes.

Friday 21 September – All records broken today, as we actually left the caravan park and headed off for the day at 25 to 8 this morning!!!  Grant woke me up at 6 o’clock, which I thought was a bit rough as I was having a lovely sleep.  But I guess it paid off as we arrived here at Esperance at about 2 this afternoon so had plenty of time to just sit around doing nothing.

Today we travelled largely on the South Coast Highway, though from when we left Albany, we didn’t actually see the coast again until we approached Esperance.  We only went through a couple of towns in the 480 odd km we drove today – Jerramungup and Ravensthorpe, but we travelled through some really beautiful countryside.  This is certainly a most picturesque and fertile region – very hilly and today VERY windy.  The wind was sort of behind us for some of the time, but mostly a cross wind from the north-west, so you really had to drive, and not just sit back and steer.  When there were cleared paddocks (and there were lots) they were a beautiful lush green, hosting very healthy looking sheep and cattle, otherwise they were planted with canola which was mostly in full flower, displaying a brilliant yellow carpetlike cover which extended for miles. 

There were also large areas of bush – mostly tall gum trees, but with heaps of lower bushes and clumps of colourful wildflowers.  As I’ve said before, still no sightings of the swathes of colour covering the countryside, but certainly enough varieties to give you a bit of an idea of what it must be like to see the full display.  At our morning cuppa stop I managed to get a few photos of the flowers in the vicinity.

Some wildflowers we saw today.

We passed a few lizards at different times today – sunbaking on the roads trying to get the warmth from the bitumen.  I don’t know how many of them would have survived their little luxury though.  I know that at one stage when I was driving Grant asked me whether I had just seen the lizard on the road (I hadn’t), and said I could have run over it (but I didn’t).

We are at a small caravan park (43 sites) only block from the beach.  The neighbours to the back of us (well the bloke half of the couple) was trying to convince us that we should drive across the Nullarbor in two days as he did.  At this stage we have no intention of doing it so quickly, and we don’t plan on having huge days.  As we will have a full week of only one night stops and moving on every day, we don’t want to spend the full day every day driving, and get home exhausted.  But we just nodded and said we’d work on that idea and thanks for the suggestion!

Tomorrow we intend having a bit of a look at what we believe to be beautiful coastline round this area.  There are supposed to be very strong winds tonight, but at the moment it is fairly calm, so hopefully we can enjoy our sightseeing without being blown away.

Highlights of the position of the caravan park:

1.      The train runs right beside the park and toots its whistle loudly and

2.    There is a church somewhere close by and the church bells are ringing regularly, even playing a tune at around teatime.

Thursday 20 September – We’ll have to come back to Albany as though we have had a full day sightseeing, we still have more to see.  We woke to weak sunshine at about 7 o’clock, and it didn’t get much sunnier as the day progressed, and as I write this there’s a very threatening sky.  Grant thinks we may miss the downpour – he feels it is moving away from over the top of us.  Regardless of the dubious weather I did a bit of hand washing, which actually got dry, so that’s good.

So we first went for a drive to Frenchman Bay which is pretty well south east of Albany, but you drive from Albany in a westerly direction.  Work that one out!  A short visit to a lookout gave us a picture of the coastline and the very rocky and hilly terrain, then we drove a short distance on to Whale World.   We thought this would be about an hour visit, but it turned out to be almost three hours.  Sited on the former Cheynes Beach Whaling Company, this is an authentic site which has been developed as a place where visitors can get a real insight into the whaling industry which of course is now no more.  The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company was Australia’s last operating whaling station, closing in 1978 after whaling was officially brought to an end almost worldwide.

We joined the guided tour for just under an hour where a guide gave a very informative and quite amusing description of the life of a whaler, and the processes involved in locating, harpooning, bringing in to the station and processing of the whale.  After the tour was over we then went back over parts of it, watched three visual presentations on the industry before boarding a whaling boat.  They have there one of the last three whale boats operated by the company, and visitors are welcome to go aboard and sus it out.  It was a really good tour and visit.

Skeleton of a Pygmy Blue Whale.

After leaving the whale place we moved on to two coastal attractions nearby – The Gap and Natural Bridge.  The Gap is an impressive really rugged granite channel which has been carved by the waves of the Southern Ocean over thousands of years.  I’ts pretty scary, as there is a sheer drop of over 25 mtrs from the lookout platform to the crashing water below.  As the water came thundering in, spray flew up against the rocks and into the air.

 Likewise, the Natural Bridge is the result of the same action of the Southern Ocean, with the erosion of the rock forming a bridge.  The entire area around this part of the coast was made up of massive rocks and was very impressive.

The Natural Bridge.

An example of the massive rocks at this coast.

Another interesting sight here was the effect of the wind on the vegetation – the ti-trees growing here were literally growing horizontal to the ground.

Back in Albany we next visited the exact replica of an early 19^th century brig “Amity’.  The Brig Amity brought the first white settlers to Albany.  While the replica was built in 1975, the original Amity arrived in the Princess Royal Harbour on Christmas day 1826. This replica is situated just a few hundred metres from where the original landing took place, with a party of forty-five under the supervision of Major Edmund Lockyer.  This was the first European settlement in Western Australia.  We went onto the ship and did a very good tour, using a handset to provide the commentary on the ship and the story around it.  There were some ladder like steps to go down, lots of ducking the head to avoid knocking yourself out on the low doorways, etc, and a very small appreciation of what it must have been like to be on one of the ships our earliest ancestors came across the sea on.

The Amity replica.

By then it was after 2pm so we came back to the van and had some lunch before going to explore the other side of Albany – the Forts, Avenue of Honour and two or three great viewing spots around the coast.  By now however, the sky was darkening by the minute and it had become a bit cool, so our sightseeing here was a bit less enthusiastic.

 Finally, as we were returning to the park I took a photo of Dog Rock, a rock almost in the centre of town which bears an uncanny resemblance to (as the name implies) a dog’s head.  There has even been a ‘collar’ painted around his neck.

Dog Rock – taken from the moving car as there was no place to stop!

Now as I finish up for the day I must day that Grant was right – we did miss the downpour – let’s hope it continues to be fine as we make the long drive tomorrow to Esperance.

Wednesday 19 September – It was nine o’clock before we managed to get away today, so not the earliest start of the trip!  And today we clocked up about 360 km.  After getting some petrol and programming Zola, we travelled down the South Western Highway for a fair chunk of the drive.  Today we encountered dozens of places (many via signposts) with names ending in ‘UP’, which means ‘place of’ in many aboriginal dialects.  We passed through Donnybrook and Bridgetown before coming to Manjimup.  The countryside is beautiful – lush green paddocks with lovely dams and healthy looking cattle were everywhere.  It was very hilly, so we didn’t make rapid progress, but it was very scenic.  And as we drove further south we found ourselves surrounded by the tall tree forests of karri and jarrah trees almost forming an avenue as we wound around and over the hills.

A few kilometres south of Manjimup we took a short turn-off to have a look at the Diamond tree lookout.  This lookout is at the top of a 51 metre karri tree, and is the only wooden treetop tower in the world. It is still in use as an important part of the fire management and spotting programme. You are allowed to climb the tree, but you’d have to be pretty game to do it.  The ‘ladder’ you climb is actually metal rods embedded into the tree forming a spiral stairway to near the top where there is a final vertical climb to reach the lookout platform.  And the rods are a long way apart – much further apart than the rungs of a ladder.  I got up two steps and stopped (and that was only for show!!).  I reckon you would have to be stupid to tackle it! 

The scary ‘ladder’ up the 51 mtr tree.

But the surprise at this stop was the lady there who is a wildlife carer.  She was sitting beside her van with a couple of travellers who had just turned up there like we did, and they were both nursing baby joeys that had been orphaned when their mothers were killed on the road.  There was a third joey in the back of the van.  They were each snuggled a little polar fleece pouch, and one was being fed with a bottle.  There were other bottles there for the others to be fed.  They were very cute, and we realised as we were about to leave that the lady probably chose this place to feed them, as she had a donation box there, and a tour bus was pulling in.  I’m sure there would be lots of contributions to her cause.

One of the joeys has his tucker.

There were some lovely wildflowers there, too – some wild wisteria, clematis and a pretty yellow one which I can’t identify.

Wild wisteria.

Our next stop along the drive was at Walpole where we had lunch and a pitstop before the last leg of the drive through Denmark to Albany.  Zola managed to get us to our destination – the Albany Gardens Holiday Resort – a flash name for a caravan park, where we are currently installed.

The day was a mixed bag today, lovely sunshine, cloudy spells, a few showers, but not cold and tonight there are stars galore.  With some good maps given to us by the lady in the office here, and some suggestions for interesting things to do, we should have a pretty full day tomorrow, which sounds good.

Oh yes!  First thing this morning Grant rang his doctor  with his warfarin reading, only to find that his doctor has gone away on holidays for four weeks, so the duty doctor would ring back.  The call eventually came at about 4.30, and the dosage adjustments have again been made, with no further blood test until we get home.

Tuesday 18 September – Just as well we put the flys up on the van as we had some very heavy rain last night and during the night – even thunder!  And today has been a bit on the cool side, but lovely when the sun was out.  We had no rain today, though it was very cloudy early on.

There was nothing to rush for today, so we started slowly, leaving here to get Grant’s blood test done a bit after nine o’clock.  And we didn’t have to wait too long at the hospital, so that was good.  His reading has gone up again, so, as his doctor doesn’t work on Tuesdays, Grant will have to ring him tomorrow and no doubt the dosage will be changed again.

After we left the hospital we drove into the city centre and went to the visitors centre to get some brochures, etc.  These centres are really good and one young girl in this one was especially helpful and chatty.  We then went for a bit of a sightseeing drive around Bunbury, first stop Koombano Bay where dolphins come in regularly to the delight of those watching.  Well they didn’t come in while we were there, but we watched for them anyway, and watched some activity at the wharves near there.  There are some pretty big cargo ships come in, that’s for sure.  The main exports from Bunbury are alumina, mineral sands and woodchips.  From there we went to the town lookout, climbed the 90 steps (nearly blowing away in the process) and had an excellent panoramic view of the city and the surrounding ocean.

A picture of the lookout (at night) that I pinched from the internet.

Grant at the top of the lookout.

The areas surrounding the lookout and the lighthouse look to be very wealthy as the houses built there are massive, elaborate and probably child free as they all seemed to lack anything that looked even a tiny bit out of place, and no bikes, trikes, swings or anything else of that ilk could be seen from the bird’s eye view we had from the lookout.

We drove round the city and surrounds finding an older area of the town with its much less grand houses, many dating from the early years of last century, but all nicely maintained with pretty gardens.

Back at camp we had a cuppa, then lunch and this afternoon have read, eaten, had cuppas, done crosswords and sudokus and generally just bludged.  It is quite a bit cooler tonight and I even have my trackie pants and a windcheater on – first time for long pants for a very long time.  Tomorrow we are making our way to Albany and I think the forecast is for a top temperature of about 18 degrees, so it looks like the thermals will be dragged out in the next few days of this daily drop in the temperature keeps up.