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Published: February 24th 2008
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For those of you who may wonder where we've been for the last week and for friends overseas who may like to see a bit of Australia we're adding this new blog post.
Last Tuesday evening we took the midnight horror to Coolangatta, Queensland via Sydney to check and finalise the purchase of our new vehicle. The worst part of this trip was the 4 hours twiddling our thumbs at Sydney airport!
Arriving in Coolangatta we were met by Ken from James Frizzel Motors as promised. After taking delivery of our new Jeep we drove north to Nambour where we stayed overnight with Rags' old friend, Rob Woolrych. It was great to catch up with someone he hadn't seen in 17 years and Judy was finally able to meet one half of the yearly Xmas card writers. His wife Jan, unfortunately being in Brisbane on a course.
As we were on a tight deadline we left the next morning. Using our new toy, a Tomtom GPS, we were led through the beautiful Queensland countryside. Our first night was spent in Coonabarabran, New South Wales (NSW).
After an invigorating swim in the hotel pool the next morning we
drove through NSW until we reached Broken Hill about 900 kilometres away. It was before 8am the next morning when we left here but we stopped for diesel at the local Centro shopping centre. Here we made the mistake of buying our days supply of fruit as we'd been through the quarantine station just before Broken Hill so figured we were safe as Broken Hill must be part of South Australian quarantine. However, after eating only one banana and looking for somewhere to eat the rest we came to Oodlawirra where we were surprised by another quarantine check. Both being hungry then we declared our freshly bought fruit thinking they'd be ok or we'd have to eat them before continuing, but no, the officious red headed chap here told us we had to put it in the bin. We could not turn around and eat it, nor eat it there! Judy was most irate as she had looked forward to the expensive apricots (South Australian we figured since you can't take fruit from NSW to Broken Hill) and the avocado we'd bought as a spread for lunch. We had no alternative but to hand over our freshly bought fruit. We
don't need to write here what we said about him - it wasn't complimentary!
Places to purchase food were scarce after this so we had no chance to replace our lost fruit. Rags managed a pie at the next service station and Judy a couple of dry Ryvita's. The weather also changed quickly as we moved into South Australia. After experiencing (or not experiencing with the efficient airconditioning in the Jeep) 38 degree temperatures in NSW we were met with temperatures around 17degrees in SA. Ceduna was wild and blowy as you may see in the photos below. Here too we passed another quarantine check and found a supermarket where we bought 2 bananas each.
By the time we reached the Nullabor National Park it was after dark and we were ready for a sleep so having blown up our new mattress earlier we found a spot and climbed onto our bed for the night. We slept surprisingly well and didn't wake too early as the sky was overcast.
Luckily, we'd eaten both our bananas when we reached Border Town where we found another quarantine check. Here they were more thorough and a man checked our vehicle,
The dreaded cane toad
Rob took Judy on a cane toad hunt after dark. He didn't get away! finding we had a couple of cardboard boxes which may have contained fruit, he confiscated those!
The road was long and straight and the vehicle just ate up the miles. Neither of us were tired so although Rags did the lion's share of driving Judy did do a couple of stints. She was driving just before 8pm when we turned into the sun. It wasn't pleasant so we decided to pull over and eat. We'd just passed through Bullabulling and had at least 5 hours to go before reaching home. It was a great spot and we decided to sleep here and do the last stretch in the morning.
We left there just after 6.30am this morning and after a stop for deisel and fruit and vegies we arrived home about midday.
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Thelma
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The Straight Road
I found the photos of the trip from Ceduna to Perth brought memories flooding back to me. Nothing very much has changed since Errol and I used to try and make our yearly pilgrimage over to Adelaide to see our families. Except we did see Wombats, emus and Kangaroos back in those days. Where is Border Town ? I don't remember that place. And Norseman used to be where the Quarantine Station was in W.A. Is it not there now? The new car looks very nice and I hope it gives you years of safe travelling. I really enjoyed this entry on your blog.