Adventure Again

Well here we go again,
We have made a very hard decision and decided to sell up and move to Bunbury to be close to our two daughters, it was not easy as we are leaving our son and grandkids as well as my Mum and 3 brothers.
It has been a hectic time with the house up for sale and the need for us to sell the majority of our furniture.
I have finished work for now and now a real grey nomad.
We have bought a new caravan and it will be our home for the next 6mths or so.
We expect to be on the road by the end of March.

The trip home

Sadly the time has come for us to to take the road home, as with all holidays we just wont to get home now but we still have 4,000k to go.
We leave on Sunday at 6.00am with a very tearful farewell to our family in Bunbury and head off for Coolgardie. We(I) drive 600k on the first day and stay at a free camp.

One minor hiccup on our first day, a fellow traveller alerted us to the trailer having a flat tyre so we pulled into the nearest spot and I proceeded to change the tyre and while doing I noticed that the wheel had a fair bit of play in it so I decided to check the bearings and ended up replacing the front bearing.The weather was very hot and the flies were in plague proportions so Wendy stood beside me with a tree branch swooshing the flies away while I was working but I was sure she hit me more thn any flies.

The next day we wont to try to get onto the Nullabor so again a pre dawn wake up to be on the road by 6.00am.

We get to Caiguna roadhouse and stay the night at van park behind, another drive of 660k . Our goal for the next leg is to be in Ceduna a 850k drive.
Originally we had planned to use the free camps but tho there are plenty of these none have any toilets a very poor showing from both WA & SA, it is later that we discover that the WA govt owns all the roadhouses so it seems that they are forcing travellers to use them as there overnight stops.As far as SA is concerned they have the worst stops of any state and really need to lift their game.
Wendy finally decides to leave our found cd's at a roadside stop near Madura.

We arrive in Ceduna and stay at the Foreshore van park one we have stayed in before it is ideally located right next to the pub that serves fabulous meals which we partake.
Our next leg takes us to Peterborough in SA as we intend to travel home via Broken Hill it is here that after 31/2 mths we finally meet some one from my home town, the Barber from Unanderra who cut my hair for many years.
Our next leg takes us to a free camp between Cobar and Nyngan then the final leg home through the dreaded Bells Rd which I vow I will never travel again.
We arrive home at 5pm on Friday our car and camper have travelled 18,500k and brought us home safe and sound.

Bunbury

Ok we are in Bunbury and staying with the kids at their rental property and sleeping in a real bed indoors woohoo. We are both excited and sad as we realise that our adventure is drawing to a close. We have visited the kids new home which is getting very close to being completed and Wendy has spent time with Kristy helping her select some furnishing and the little nicnacs that go into finishing off. Have done some minor maintenance to both the car and the trailer. We have a long trip home 4,000k and will only being doing overnight stops

Cervantes

A very exciting day as we are due to meet our Kristy,Shane and our 3 grandkids Stina,Kobe and Kingston we will be spending 5 days with them here before travelling with them back to Bunbury for  another week.

Well we have had a great time here tho the weather has not been so kind visited the Pinnacles walked thru them then did the drive thru which covered a much greater area. A truly fascinating place  was almost like walking on another planet. Took the kids fishing but the wind and all the seaweed made it very uncomfortable.

Geraldton

Have spent just 2 days here, is easily the biggest town we have been to since leaving Darwin.
We now realise that we are heading back into the more populated area as there is no longer the endless hours of driving between our destinations.
It is now wildflower season in the west and the bush on all sides of the road is a mass of colour tho I am over yellow and we spend time trying to spy any other colour.
Geraldton is a major port and is the first that does not have a long jetty but a deep water port that sees the ships come right in to shore.
We have noticed on our journey down the west coast a lot of development and gather it is from a government funded program Royalties for Regions, Geraldton has completely revamped the waterfront removing all the railway lines that were along the shore and replaced with open public space and tourist development such as marinas and accommodation. 

Denham/Monkey Mia

Have arrived here and staying for 4 nights,passed thru the Tropic of Capricorn and the weather has changed as well, gone are the hot summer days of 30+ , the wind is blowing and the sky is grey very tempted to turn around and head back north.
 Denham is part of a world heritage area because of the sea grass that grows here.

We travelled to the well known Monkey Mia today to see the dolphins they wanted to charge us $8 each to enter luckily they did not have eftpos and said we had to pay at shop inside which of course we did(not). The dolphins were just swimming around in the shallows right out the front, it has become very commercial which has taken away some of the mystic

Carnarvon

We have arrived at about 12pm and as we had not booked we just picked the closest park to the town centre. Carnarvon is a major farming area with bannanas and other fruits as well as a large commercial fishing fleet.

We have to stay 2 nights here mainly as we need to exchange the battery we bought from Beaurepairs in Katherine as it is not holding its charge, so have not planned to do anything special here other than have a look around. A nice town situated at the mouth of the Gascoyne River is an old town with several buildings dating back to early 1900's but neither of us was greatly taken by it.