Once upon a time, in 1981, there was born a child. His name was Laurent. No one knew that in 27 years, he would be known as Laurent the Magnificent! He searched high and low, all around the state of Western Australia, known as Australie Occidentale, for the correct pair of sunglasses - and when he found them at Laubman & Pank in Esperance, he became known as Laurent the Magnificent. Narrated by Laurent, 14/2/09 And, if you know the saga (10 months of sending sunglasses in various stages of repair from Sydney to Midland, Geraldton, Broome, Sydney, Broome, Kununurra, Sydney, [View Full Entry]

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…of being introduced to my extended family! His first trip to South Africa started well, as he was seriously impressed by the cameras mounted on the tail and undercarriage of our SAA plane, which allow you to see the areas you fly across. Our first few weeks in Africa were almost a continuation of the WA wanderings, as we hired a car and drove from Johannesburg via Capetown, the Garden Route and the Wild Coast to Durban - driving through the Karoo, in particular, was deja vu. Unfortunately the car we were given was not nearly as nice as Churchill - [View Full Entry]

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I’ve heard quite a few complaints about the slow start to the movie Wolf Creek; but for us, watching the film for the first time in January, that was one of the most suspenseful sections. It mirrored almost exactly our own trip to the Crater - minus, thankfully, any engine failure or murderous stranger - with jokes about ghosts, a deserted campground, and gathering storm-clouds. But when the backpackers in the film decided to go 2500 kilometres to Kalbarri to get medical aide, we were reassured that it wasn’t real, after all. Our southern trip was quite neatly broken in [View Full Entry]

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…Lakeside Caravan Park in Kununurra. Why, many of you might ask, did we decide to stop in Kununurra, of all places - a little, middle of nowhere town near the border with the Northern Territory? Well as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case the need to replenish the coffers resulted in a couple of jobs with Tropical Forestry Services. I had the good job, a research position...Laurent had work on one of the maintenance crews, which meant weeding, planting, spraying and all sorts of other fun things. But at least he was the proud driver [View Full Entry]

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I’d been looking forward to driving the Gibb River Road since we started our trip, and the gorges along it are as stunning as everyone says, especially if you can see them without the attendant crowds (i.e. be prepared to get up early, and stay a little later than most). Each one is a little different, and everyone has their own favourite - I loved scrambling around Lennard chasing a water monitor, whilst Laurent preferred jumping into the pools at El Questro and Galvan’s gorges. But if you can take your time, there are places other than gorges to see. We [View Full Entry]

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So, after 20,000 kilometres, five punctured tyres and a long, long time since the last update (and to think that I was worried about being a month behind when I started this blog!)… I last left you as we rolled into Broome. Most of the towns up north are like Derby, where one of the sights to see listed in the tourist brochure was “the friendly trees”, two entwined trees that can be found at the local service station. But Broome has the reputation of having a little more to it; and after the highly unexciting town of Port Hedland, followed [View Full Entry]

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WA's a big state. A REALLY big state. And as much as it's filled with incredible places to visit, there's a lot of space in between. Which, of course, has meant we've done a lot of driving in the past few months. We may only be about 3000km from Perth by the shortest route - but we've in fact driven around 7000 kilometres. So there are times when we get a little bored. Coming up from Port Hedland was one of those times, and, perhaps being by that point tired of talking only to eachother, we introduced our two new travel [View Full Entry]

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Well, anyone would have thought we shouldn't have left Shark Bay. First, Laurent had broken his 1-week old prescription sunnies. Then, I was sick, and grumpily sick at that. And furthermore, as previously explained, we noticed a coolant leak in the car - which, as it unfortunately turned out, Steve did not fix. And finally, just as we were about to drive out of Carnarvon, we also noticed an oil leak from the diff. Sigh. Then, on the first of several relaxed days enjoying the scenery and the company of our friendly fellow campers at the Kennedy Range National Park, I [View Full Entry]

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So...in true Sarah and Laurent style, we're rather behind on the updates! But we've been having so much fun that it's rather difficult to find time to blog, even when we do actually have internet access. It feels rather longer than 3 1/2 weeks that we've been travelling, probably because we have a very established routine each day as a result of our free-camping. We can't change the routine, because then we can't fit all the gear into our car! But we have been complimented several times on how neat and organised our vehicle is (what a change from my usual [View Full Entry]

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