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.
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