Catch Up take 2 - Part2

Day 23 - Albany

After leaving Bremmer Bay we got to Albany late, did a shop at the local Safeway and that was about it. Had Nicholas' fish for tea , the luderig was not that nice but the Australian Herring (also know as Tommy Rough) was very nice.

Day 24 - Pemberton

Departed Albany for the Valley of the Giants tree walk, that was brilliant (apart from the fact I don't like heights and was scared stiff!). The Red and Yellow Tingles are just astounding but I liked the Karri trees better. The feeling you get walking amongst the canopy is just brilliant and something you must do if you come down south of Perth. Speaking of down south if you ever get the chance to some down her you must I think you could spend three of four months here and not see everything, I will certainly be coming back!

We camped that night near Pemberton in a free camp near Big Brooke Dam, we arrived late and basically had dinner and that was it, the boys found some hot coals and made a fire but we were all in bed early as usual!

Day 25&26 - Busselton

I woke early the next morning as I wanted to do some work on the jacks of the van, they were squeaking so I wanted to put some grease on them, plus I had notice that the nuts were coming off as well. What I thought would be a quick job ended up taking a while (story of my life) so we didn't leave there till 9:30ish

We were heading to Busselton via Margaret River, at this point we have been traveling and only spending 1 night for a couple of nights so we were all keen to get out of the car and relax for a bit. We pulled into Margaret River and Tanya and I looked at each other and said "Is this it?". We stoped in a park and had some lunch and agreed to move on, we found out later you have to go to the river mouth which is (I'm told) spectacular, plus supposedly its more about the region than the town!

Finally we arrived in Busselton and found the oasis in the desert that is Mandalay Caravan Park. This is the best park we have seen by far, beautiful green grass, immaculate amenities, they even vacuumed the sealed roads.... HEAVEN we booked in for one night but once we had setup we decided we would stay for two! By now I had worked out we could do the whole trip and still have 8 days up our sleeve so we stared to relax a bit, mind you we still felt like we were flying!

When we checked in we were EXTREMELY disappointed to find out the pier was closed for repair, this was something we had been talking up with the kids and Tanya was really looking forwarded to, so got over our disappointment with a relaxing day in the park while the kids played in the pool.

The next day we headed into town on the bikes (on the 70.3 run course which had been on the weekend before), Busselton is a beautiful town but unfortunately we were there on a Saturday and town was chokers! Cars everywhere and not a friendly town for pedestrians, we grabbed some rolls and headed home.

We decided we had better head back to have a look at the Margaret River Region., first stop was the cheese factory which was a huge let down so we headed on to the Nut factory which was a bit better and then finally the Chocolate factory which was AWESOME free chocolate! Finally it had to happen we went to a winery my favourite (and I only found out the oldest in Margaret River) Vasse Felix, and the thing i love.... wine was more expensive here! WHAT THE!!

We went back to the van and I wanted to go for a snorkel, Lachlan wasn't keen but Nicholas wanted to fish (as usual!) so we headed for the beach, I went into the cold water and immediately felt a tinlgle all over my body, I assumed this was just the cold water, i keep swimming and the feeling didn't go away. There was nothing to see under the water so I came out and asked Nicholas if i had anything on my neck and he said there was a big welt, i started to panic of course and headed to to my personal nurse. By the time I got back I had assume that it was just stingers (which I thought would be gone by this time of year) and started to calm down. (note: Even now I have the marks on my neck and hip!) I was supposed to pick up some stuff for dinner which of course I didn't so we had Pizza.

Day 27&28 - Perth

Finally I had arrived in Perth its been way too long, after spending lots of time in Perth in the 90's since finishing with Ashton I have only been to Perth once. We were arriving on Mothers day which was probably not good planning but we managed to navigate our way to Helen's and drop off the van. We headed to Fremantle for a look around and catch up with Mark Vassallo who I worked at Ashton with. The kids imedatly spotted a busker called Matty Blade who looked alot like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and his claim to fame is that Guinness Book of records has recognised that he can swallow 19 swords!

Catch Up take 2 - Part1

OK well I give up its way too hard to blog three of four paragraphs per day so im gunna catchup to where we are, which right now is the bustling metropolis of Carnarvon.

Last time I wrote it was Day 9 well here is a quick summary of between then and now.

Day 11 - 13 Port Lincoln

The major theme for this was RAIN, Tanya and I didn't know what to do with our selves, actually that's wrong, it was the weekend so I sat in the van and watch about four AFL games!. The kids on the other hand were having a ball fishing on the pier, rain hail or shine they were there catching all sorts of fish, they even caught enough garfish for tea! When it was time to leave Nicholas was disappointed he wanted to fish more. We had had enough of the rain and decided to head west till it stopped!

Day 14 - Venus Bay

We left Port Lincoln and headed over to Coffin Bay (famous for their Oysters) National Park, we had planned to come and stay here but with the rain not going away we just went in for a look, it was beautiful but i think we would have gone mental if we were stuck in the van here I am tipping we would not have got any TV reception ;)

We headed through Elliston, and Talia (stopping to have a look at the caves) then through Venus Bay until finally finding a great spot for the night on the shores of the bay in the National Park. The best part of the day was buying bread on the road in Colton, there is a guy who bakes bread in a wood fired oven and puts it out the front in the morning, you just chose what you like and leave the money in a tin, it was late as we came through and Mark (the baker) came out to make sure there was bread for us, we had paid for a Vienna and he also gave us a dark sour dough for free. As the kids will tell you " we love free!"

Day 15 - Cactus Beach

On the recommendation of Mark the Baker we went through Ceduna and turned off the main road at Penong and headed to Cactus Beach, he said there was cheap camping and some great surf. The way in was about 20kms of corrugated muddy road and the car and van got covered! The camping had only one shower and lime based toilets, this was OK as we were only here for a night and it was cheap at $17

We sat around the fire that night and chatted to the surfers, we mat a guy who had driven from Warnambool just to come here and surf for a week (roughly 18 hour drive)

Day 16 - Day 1 of the Nullarbor

We headed out from Cactus Beach and commenced the trip across the Nullabor what can you say its a long drive, one thing I will say is there is more vegetation than i expected. We camped over night at a road side stop and once again Tanya and I were up at 2:00am bringing the awning in, who would have thought that out in the middle of the desert it would get windy! The best thing was we were now in WA and guess what it didn't rain!

Day 17 - Day 2 of the Nullarbor

Day 2 on the Nullabor and it got more like I expected very little vegetation, another long drive and we were finally in Norseman, not a town I would recommend visiting, its like everyone is dead there, the one thing i can remember from Norseman was that they charged $14 for a 1kg of Cheddar Cheese!!!

Day 18 - Kalgoorlie

We left the van in the caravan park at Norseman and headed for Kalgoorlie, for me this was my second time in Kal after coming here on a mine tour in 1993 with Ashton Mining, this time I was doing it sober! We headed to the super pit and the kids were astounded with the sheer size of it! We then went and visited the RFDS which was fantastic as the volunteer who took us through used to live on a station halfway across the Nullabor and was able to tell us what it was like years ago having to rely on the RFDS for everything. We got to have a look at one of the RFDS planes but we couldn't actually go into it. We then headed to the SuperPit show where we watched a video about an English guy who became a truck driver in the pit.

We left Kal and headed for Coolgardie which has lots of historic buildings but not too much that the boys wanted to see so we headed back to Norseman.

Day 19 & 20 - Esperance

Packed and left Norseman early, half way down Tanya changed over and had a drive, she did really well so it looks like everyone is leaving something in this trip, for me its patients with the kids, for Tanya I'm sure she is intent on being self sufficient with the caravan (hrmm is she planning something!)

Arrived in Esperance and got an awesome site which over looked the beach, Nicholas was right at home again fishing off the beach and catching Sand Whiting. We went to the pier and saw the Sea Lion, Nicholas saw lots of fish and was nagging to come back and catch some, we went back later that night and I caught two calamari which we ate and they were beautiful.

The second day we woke and had coffee sitting watching a pod of dolphins swim past, ahh this is the life!

We did the tourist drive and Lachlan and I had a snorkel at Twilight Beach, Nicholas was happy just to fish off the rocks, he amazes me there were very few fish around be he caught a few (and let them go again).

Day 21- Cape Le Grand National Park

This is one I had been waiting to get to for a while, we camped at Lucky Bay which was just amazing, beautiful beaches and crystal blue water. We went to go for a walk along the beach but the boys and I couldn't resist a swim in the surf, we had a great time and I caught a wave all the way to the shore. We were disappointed not to be able to stay longer but we were getting concerned that we didn't have enough time to get all the way round!!

In the park we even had kangaroos come in under our awning looking for food.... how great is that

Day 22 - Bremmer Bay

In what I thought was an easy day it ended up being a long day of driving, and arriving a beautiful park late, in the day. The next day we packed up and headed off, as a last min thing we decided to check out the beaches, plus I wanted to have a look at an underwater dive trail. We found the beach and there were a couple of guys packing up who said they had been there for a couple of hours and only got a couple of fish. Nicholas grabbed his rod and headed to the beach, we had a chat to the guys and by the time they left Nicholas had four fish, the guys were amazed! Lachlan and I had a snorkel and it was great we saw lots of fish. When we had finished we both had a fish and we ended up catching enough for tea.

Forgive Me ..It has been... ummm WAY too long since my last confession/ blog!

OK OK you all know what I'm like and it got too hard to Blog, between travel and the lack of ability to use the computer when we free camp it got too hard but here goes for a quick catchup!

Last I wrote and we were in Victor Harbour SA and heading for Hahndorf, well we are now in BEAUTIFUL Busselton WA but here goes with the catchup!

All of this come courtesy of my lovely wifs written travel diary (cause she can write it while I drive)

Day 7 - 20 April 2009

Funny both Tanya and I were very keen to see Hahndorf but didn't know why, It was a bit of a trip from Victor Harbour and very hilly. There is only one caravan park so we went to check in, it was weird with a capital W. It had obviously been a themed park but now it was just run down, the girl behind the counter said "We are a BASIC park please go and have a look and if you want to stay just setup on any site and let me know, because we cannot give refunds!", we drove down the hill past the weird looking cabins to find about sixty sites but only three caravans, and one of these was on long term storage! We setup checked in and headed into Hahndorf. Hahndorf just NQR, lots of cheep tacky "fake" German souvenirs. The museum was interesting to read about how the migrants came out but that was about it. Oh and Lachlan was in heaven in the knife shop. We decided to have an early "traditional German" dinner at one of the pubs and then retire for the night. I had the three wursts (bratwurst and what ever the other two were) , Tanya and Lachlan had chicken schnitzel and Nicholas had fish and chips so i don't think it ended up being traditional German food!!! While we were in the Tourist Office we saw the add for a ferry that went from Wallaroo to Cowley, which meant we didn't have to go through the gutter aka Port Augusta and saved us about three hours and roughly 300kms, the best news was there was a 50% discount on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the only catch was you had to book and pay the day befor travel, we tried to book but they were closed so we decided to call in the morning.

The next day we tried to call at opening time of 6:30 and there was no answer, still no answer at 7:00 finally got through at 7:15 and they said they would have to call back and let us know if there was room on Weddnesday. Got the call at 8:30 to say we could get on and the total cost was $209. We headed back into Hanhdorf to go to the cheese shop which we missed yesterday as we were too late and then we finally departed the beautiful metropolis of Hahndorf and headed for Wallaroo via Adelaide. We got straight onto the highway and all of a sudden we were diverted onto a single road through the back blocks of Adelaide, and if i thought it was hilly getting to Hahndorf this was ridiculous, the brakes on the van were continually on for about 3/4ers of an hour. Finally back on the highway and into Adelaide (funny neither of us were interested in looking round and all Lachlan wanted to see was where the V8 raced!). We went to Ray's for a couple of things had Maccas for lunch then headed for Wallaroo.

Day 8 - 21 April 2009

Up early after camping next to Cletus Spuckler and his three yapping dogs in a small cage and onto the Ferry, it was a beautiful morning without a cloud in the sky, the trip across was great and I watched a movie while the kids did their homework. We were heading for Port Gibbon which is a free camp just out of Cowley. We did a bit of shopping in Cowley after we landed and headed for camp. We turned off the main road and headded down 5kms of dry dusty road, in what felt like the middle of nowhere we came across the town of about 4 houses and about 20 caravans and what looked like no room for us, thankfully there was another couple with two kids who were just leaving. Tanya got talking to the other lady and found out they were traveling round Australia for 18 months, he was a painter and was picking up work here and there, we were disappointed to see them go it would have been great to get some more tips! We set up camp on the edge of the cliff (with a great view) in the dry dust bowl. The kids went to the beach and played and joined them and went for a snorkel to see if there were any fish for Nicholas to catch, nuttin but blue swimmer crabs and me without a net, I looked at one in Ray's the day before but decided it was a pain to cart all over Australia (even if it was only $8!). We went to bed that night and it was a beautiful still night, once again at 3:00am the wind and the rain came and Tanya and I were up and pulling in the awning! From now on if there is any hint of wind we are putting the awning in before we go to bed. We woke the next morning to more rain so we went for a drive in the nothingness to Arno Bay and fished (in the rain) off the pier, only to catch nuttin! We came in and wanted to warm up so we went to the Arno Bay pub for a $7 counter meal. I had the roast (which included some lovely boiled veggies and the kids had bangers and mash which they said was GREAT! We headed back to camp and did a bit more sight seeing. I had been GUARENTEED that I would get a snapper of Flat Rocks so we headed there only to get snagged every cast and gave up within 10 mins!

Day 9 - 22 April

We headed for Port Lincoln (which Tanya's parents had loved only a few month before) and prayed for no more rain. We found the caravan site (which was a welcome relief from the dust of Port Gibbon) and got a very small site on the side of a hill. I connected up the water hose and within 2 mins the thing had blown the hose apart (apparently the water pressure here is EXTREMELY strong) so I had to go and buy another connector.