26th Jan – Australia Day!


Following an early night we were up by 5am, and pulled onto the road to Kalgoorlie by 530 heading west, the temp was 19 degrees and the sun was behind us which was a nice change compared to yesterday afternoon, we had 420km to travel to our final campsite at Boulder...... which has a pool!
Arriving 11am we quickly set up and made our way to Hannan’s North Tourist Mine which used to be an original working mine. By now it was 35 degrees and getting hotter by the minute while checking out the mine trucks, old original buildings, gold pouring and first aid room. At the end of the tour we even did some gold panning, the boys each found a little fleck of gold. While panning the water it attracted 3 huge wasps collecting water (see photo). After an hour in the sun we were melting and hungry (now 12.45pm), so we went through Chicken Treat drive through for lunch. Now we haven’t had takeaway on this trip with the exception of today, our excuse was we didn’t have much to choose from as most shops were closed. Feeling pretty crappy after devouring.... whatever it was they served us we made the dash to the Superpit Lookout to watch a blast, @ 1.12pm ... we could see the dust...then 2 seconds later the sound hit us, it caught the boys by surprise.
Now back at camp and around 40 degrees so we hit the pool for the afternoon. With the giant Aussie thong for the pool, music and beer (snuck in) we attempted to stay cool for the afternoon. Still 37 degrees at around 6.30pm with the sun close to setting, Bell dashed to the shop to pick up some snacks for the ride home tomorrow, Chris started cooking the lamb and the boys stayed in the pool. With dinner ready the boys unfortunately had a bit of a tiff over something silly and decided they didn’t want dinner! With lamb, homemade potato salad and cold corn on offer we thought they were crazy, finally they changed their minds when they realised nothing else was on offer! Bell decided that tomorrow in the car they can write a page about what Australia Day means to them, since they were acting like they were spoilt!
Later that evening whilst laying in bed the boys spoke about how excited they are to see their friends, we fell asleep only to awake at midnight to the sound of a storm rolling in. Still 37 degrees in the camper the lightshow was spectacular and finally the rain started, jumping out of bed we zipped the windows half way up, Aiden was a little scared and jumped into our bed. Riley was pumped and sat up watching the storm for the duration.
By 5.30am it was 27 degrees, sun shining and heating up rapidly, we were back on the road by 6.30am heading for Perth with mixed feelings of our last 600km for this trip. Our little Hawk ‘Kayos’ survived ...just, giving us just what we needed to call it home for the last 10 weeks.












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