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Published: September 26th 2009
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Hi All!
We've just got back from our 10 day "Wicked" roadtrip up to Exmouth and back so I have lots to write about today but I'm going to split our trip into several blogs rather than one very loooonnnnggg one.
We had decided to hire a "wicked campervan" for our trip as we'd thought it would be a pretty cool and cheap way of covering a vast expanse of Western Australia in a short space of time. For those of you that don't know, wicked campers are basically old banger vans converted so that they have a bed, sink and work top in them, and each van has a different paint design.
Having seen loads of photos of different vans we weren't really expecting much when it came to picking ours up early Wednesday morning. We were therefore thrilled when we were introduced to Wallaby, a converted Toyota Estima that was to be our home for the next 9 nights.
Having signed over my deposit and pocketed the keys, my initial excitment began to wane slightly as I realised that I was now going to have to actually drive Wallaby. I realised I might have a
problem when I started driving down the road and could still see the handbrake sign illuminated! In my defence I had never driven an automatic before, nevermind a car with a gearshift lever so just assumed that once you took the car out of park off you could go! On top of this, I have only ever driven a Ford so all the controls were a bit alien and in the wrong place - who puts the handbrake lever down the side between the chair and the door???? It also took a while (and a few sharp braking incidents) before I realised that you only need to drive using one foot (not one on the brake and one on the accelerator)!
After 5.5 hours and no further incidents we arrived at our first destination - Geraldton. On the way up we drove through some stunning scenery. I was expecting the landscape to be quite barren, but instead I found that we were driving through wildflower country and beautiful green valleys.
Our first campsite was just outside of the main centre at Sunset Bay which was beautiful. The site had direct access to a long sandy beach, which apart
from a couple of men fishing, was empty. After a nice walk along the beach we headed back to camp to settle down for our first night in the van. Getting into the back of the van for the first time we were really suprised how much room we actually had and how comfortable it was; much better than anticipated!
Early the next morning we headed into the town centre. Geraldton itself is quite quaint although we didn't find that there was a lot to do. We went up to the HMAS Sydney memorial which is on a hill over looking the city and port. The HMAS Sydney was a ship which sunk off the coast of Geraldton during the 1940's, but the wreck was not discovered until last year. One part of the memorial is a statue of a lady looking out to sea waiting for the sailors to return. It was worth a trip up to the memorial, not only to see the monument, but also for the view out over the city and port.
We did try to find another lookout that was listed on our map, however after numerous wrong turns and a dead
Wallaby
This one's for you Charlotte end which resulted in me bottoming the car on a rock, we decided that it was probably time to leave Geraldton and head on up to our next destination - Monkey Mia.
Total distance travelled = 442 Kms
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Rachel
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WOOW
Babe, all your road trip blogs are amazing. They are flooding back soooo many good memories - I basically did that road trip. AMAZING!! Although I did the East Coast in a Wicked van not the West, wish I had done - looks so cool. I did the West on a tour, as was scared about the LONG driving - but you seemed to nail it!! Your wicked van cracks me up, mine said something like "it's people that give drinking a bad name". Haha, legend!! I'm loving these blogs, so fab to see how you're getting on. Loving it by the looks, my aim this wknd is to win the lottery and get on the first plane to OZ!!! Take care and party on, lots of love Rach xx