25th Jan – Change of plans


We have decided to do a u-turn! Only joking it’s been a big day today, we awoke to a lovely cool morning at Laura Bay with not a breath of wind, hitting the road at 8am back on the Eyre Hwy we stopped at Ceduna to pick up some fuel. Passed Penong with all its windmills, remembered our stay at Fowlers Bay on the way over as we drove pass the turn off, waved at Wombat Hole as we were now on the Nullarbor, 472km from our first planned destination we stopped for lunch with a view of the Great Australian Bight. We all jumped into the Kangaroos pouch at the border crossing and before we knew it we were back in WA, even had a light sprinkle of rain from Eucla to Madura. With only 27 km to our scheduled campsite we had a change of plans, we had heard about the Cocklebiddy caves so decided to have a look. Since crossing the border and winding back our clocks we have an extra 2.5 hours up our sleeve, it was 35 degrees outside so we decided to keep going as setting up and sitting in 35 degrees wasn’t so appealing. We stopped at Cocklebiddy Roadhouse and visited the budgies, saw the photos of Cocklebiddy Caves and had a quick chat with a road train driver. She had a 37.4m triple road train which her and her partner travel 10,000 km every week from Brisbane to Perth and back! Since the Cocklebiddy caves are a watery cave unfortunately they have been declared unsafe for entry so we headed to another cave 5.5km west named the Murra-El-Elvyn cave hole, it was very cool looking in, surprisingly you could feel the cool air pouring out from inside!
Next stop was 90 mile Straight which is Australia’s longest; we managed to see two huge eagles feeding on the side of the road together and alongside 3 or 4 crows. As 5pm WA time ticked over and we had travelled 1042km in 11 ½ hours, with only two icy poles needed to bribe the kids with the extra distance I think we did pretty well. The boys kept themselves entertained learning some new words by righting definitions, sorting and looking through trip photos on their laptops, watching a movie and playing Uno..... oh, and of course annoying us from time to time.
We finally came to camp at Woorlba Homestead Rest Area- 55km east of Balladonia at 5pm, the temp had dropped to 27 degrees and there in the middle of the area was a huge F250 truck and 27ft caravan, the elderly owners had raised the Australian flag and were sitting out the front in the shade listening to country & western at 200db! We parked the camper, setup for an overnight stop had some dinner and the boys got out the camper levelling ramps to use as jumps in the rest stop. After dinner we grabbed a drink and headed over to introduce ourselves to the neighbours, Lyn & Maurie were from.......Australia! They had sold up 9 years ago and were driving ‘round n round this great country visiting their children whenever they were nearby. Maurie and Lyn owned a trucking company previously and in their early 60’s sold up and hit the road keeping just a couple of commercial units in Albany.












Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

18th Dec – Spider, Lennox Heads, Surfing!

Image
Back from our regular morning run/walk on the beach we had started our ritual “pack up” when Riley found a hitchhiker inside our car, a huge wolf spider had made house over night thinking this might be a great place to start a new life away from the elements! Thank goodness he was found before we set off. Excitement aside we said goodbye to a lovely local family who were our neighbours for the past 3 days, even had a son called Aiden. So Lennox here we come, with a quick stop at Ballina Bunnings on the way (including the Huge Prawn next door) Riley said he read it cost $400,000 to refurbish!, we arrived at our caravan site, and boy was it hot! The boys did there bits and disappeared to the camp kitchen to indulge in that massive thing called a LCD TV, whilst we finished setting up. As we drove in we could see the beaches, and the surf looked like it had already blown out, so we checked out the interweb, made a call, and ended up meeting this old boy called Terry who does local surf le...
Read more

27th Nov – Museum, War Memorial and more

Image
This morning we awoke following a night of torrential rain, the boys stirred at 2am following a huge thunder clap and lighting flash. The weather was overcast but at least it wasn’t raining, enough to make bacon and eggs outside the camper (the outdoor electric skillet is getting a workout) and by 8.30am we had loaded our day packs and hit the road. Our first stop was the National Museum, here we spent 2 hours looking at exhibits ranging from the Pioneers, introduced species and the impact they have had on this country, and even a small display on Carnamah of all places! The boys also got to sit in a 15 tonne ONK shovel bucket used at Tom Price many years ago. Our next stop was the National Art Gallery and then off to the High Court where we were treated to a tour which explained the role of the High Court and examples where the Court had represented the best interest of the people in relation to our Constitution. After lunch we headed for the Australian War Memorial situated whe...
Read more

19th Jan – Last full day on NSW coast

Image
9 weeks today we left for an adventure of a lifetime across Australia. We only have 1 week and 1 day to go...... Checking out the morning surf and taking Bluebear for his first adventure out (he has been in hibernation in Aiden's bed), we had a good breakfast. Today was the first day were we have experienced what we would have expected for most of the trip, 31 degrees with a slight breeze, so we were out and making the most of the day at the beach in the surf.  When needing a break from the constant waves a paddle up the river entrance at the north end of the beach made for a nice change. The boys learnt a lot (after some basic directions) and made the most of the 3mt surf out the back, and 2mt on the second break. The boys did really well navigating, and utilising the tidal rip at the rocks to get out the back of the break and then cutting in to catch the waves back to shore. Following some bridge jumping the boys were in desperate need of food, so we left them at the rivers...
Read more