Blogs from Geraldton, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 4

Day 36 (Tuesday 26-May-09, NJJ) After a good night sleep, with the exception of my waking in the middle of the night and screaming 'spiders', we set off by 8.30am. Our first tourist stop was Nambung National Park and 'The Pinnacles'. We did the desert walk and the Pinnacles drive. It was definitely an unusual landscape with me doing my usual excessive camera snapping. Late afternoon we stopped at a campsite in Geraldton to check in for the night. Jamie drove and I had an hour sleep in the back on the way. I'm generally not a good passenger on long journeys and struggle to stay asleep, I hope I break this habit along the way. Pasta again for dinner. Another episode of Underbelly before sleep.... read more

Sunday 17th May, 2009 Today we are off on our caravan trip heading north and eventually going through the centre of Australia to the south coast, returning via Esperance before returning sometime in September. We have organized some work on the way to help defray the expenses and to meet some of the locals. We didn't get away from home until 10am, our first stop a petrol station to put more air in the caravan tyres. Unfortunately, the turn was a bit tight as we drove into the first one and we couldn't see a way to get close enough to the air hose. Rags hasn’t got used to the length of the caravan and car yet so we left for the next station. However Rags felt the van was behaving strangely so we pulled over ... read more

Back on the road toward Perth, We made it as far as Geraldton, Dannielle has been exploring her skills as family chef, I am not sure if we have a Jamie Oliver due to the creativity or a Gordon Ramsey because of the attitude when things go wrong but the food is good. We continued on to the Cervantes and the Pinnacles today, almost arrived at Perth but stopped just north, the weather is a little cooler and we have even seen a little rain which we haven’t seen a drop of since we left home, not happy but still having a ball. ... read more

We went to Steep Point (the most westerly point of Australia). On the way there we saw a lot of wildflowers and we took a lot of photos of them. We got to the most Westerly Point, but I don’t get it, because the sign is in a spot, but you get still get further west to the edge of the cliff. Had to let the air out of our tyres to 20psi so that we could get traction on the sand. We also risked a fine of $25 if or when the ranger checked the tyres. We drove back and stopped at False Entrance to see the blowholes and then we drove out. It was a long day, because it was over 320km’s round trip. We drove to Kalbarri National Park which had a lot ... read more

Slowly we made it back to Geraldton this morning and pulled into a radiator specialist. The damage? $820 worth...crikey! We leave Harry there to have a brand spanking new radiator fitted and cycle into town. Trying to put a positive spin on things, at least this gives us the time to do what we missed out on yesterday and we went to the museum. It was worth seeing but a very expensive excursion considering the reason why! Harry was happy and ready to be picked up at 2.30pm so we then headed to Northampton. The drive there was a real example of how much the terrain in Australia changes. The landscape is so contrasting from emerald green fields to rich red dirt to dry bush land to rocky hills! Northampton itself didn't really have anything to ... read more