24 Back on the Road

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Its now early March and we have returned to Western Australia and are on our way again.

We went back to NZ in mid October for a wedding, caught up with everyone, had a good Christmas with our family and friends, and generally had a good time. However, the weather was hopeless! Several times I caught myself thinking that the winter wasn’t so bad, when in fact it was December or January. Not a lot of rain, but cloud and wind and more cloud and wind!

We flew from Auckland to Perth via Melbourne, crazy, but we saved $NZ400 on the two airfares compared with flying direct. How does that work? Direct should be cheaper than multi-stop??

The probable answer is the West Australian mining industry because about 80% of the passengers on that flight were male, and I guess the same applied to the Auckland Perth direct flight.

We’ve arrived into yet another Australian political storm. This one is Treasurer Wayne Swan saying that the mining magnates earn too much. Gina Reinhart (Lang Hancock’s daughter, of Pilbara iron ore fame) earned $5.9 billion last year. With true Australian subtlety, the miners have called Swan “an intellectual pygmy”, a lightweight” and more. Australia doesn’t need a comedy show - they’ve got Canberra. With 22 million people, surely they could have found 3 better than Gillard, Rudd and Abbott.

In Perth, we stayed a night, and had dinner with Jacquie, Pattie’s niece from Karratha, who was down in Perth for a couple of days for a work conference (Rio Tinto). Next day, picked up the Landcruiser from Luke’s brother and drove down to Harvey, about 200km south of Perth where we had left the caravan with Lorinda, Pattie’s other niece. Great to catch up, especially as Lorinda and Ryan have had their baby, Taylor (girl). Then took the caravan to Bunbury for a 60,000 km service. We’re not quite there, but the van has been stored for 4 months. Managed to catch up with Tony and Jill Trilling for lunch. Tony is an old friend with our acquaintance dating right back to the middle 60’s sailing on “Stormvogel”.

As is common, we had fun re-setting up the various electronic devices we have, changing plans, hooking up new ones, so on and so on, but all is good now.

Then to Busselton where we are in the Mandalay Tourist Park. Absolutely 5 star – beach really close, lovely shaded sites and spotlessly clean showers and toilets. Probably the best we’ve stayed at so far. Temperatures are also lovely after NZ – maximum daily temps between 32 and 38deg, with the nights about 18 to 20deg. Not a cloud to be seen anywhere.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday were WA’s Labour Weekend so the campground has gone from being packed with anklebiters to only about ½ full.

It’s just too hot to play any golf as it hits 30deg about 9.30am and doesn’t drop below that again until after 5pm. We are now just tooling around the area, getting ready for our assault on the Margaret River wine region.

Scroll down past the ads, etc for more photos.

PandD

5 March 2012

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Photos

Mandalay
Campground at Busselton - 5 star plus

Busselton Beach
100m from our site

Old friend
With Tony Trilling in Perth

Comments

[Craig]

Happy Travels!
Hi you 2! Great to see you're back on the road again.

[fiona]

cape naturalist eh? anything like Urititi??? glad to hear you have resumed travels, can only see one photo tho.... xx fi

[Rachael Harvey]

Hi Pattie & Don, glad to hear your Xmas in NZ was pretty good! The weather here hasn't been great either-but not as bad as home I believe! Hope this next trip will be as fab as the last....great to be able to follow your travelling adventures! Lol The Harveys

[Linda and Denis Mckenzie]

Back tuit!
Good to see you are getting back into your traveling around Australia. We are still following your progress and enjoy reading your comments and your photos. Wish we were there too. Hope to be sailing in the Whitsundays later in the year. All the best. Linda & Denis.

[Steven & Bev Bradley]

Good day and cheers from Melbourne
Very excited for you both, to hear that you are back on the road again. Your newsy blog is always a pleasure to read and we do look forward to all of your updates. We thoroughly enjoyed catching up with you on your home turf and would love to be back out on the road again as you are. We are tossing around a few ideas to head across to Perth in mid June, then Bali for a 50th birthday, then back to Perth and North up the West Coast as far as Broome. Nothing except the Bali trip set in concrete yet. Our 2nd daughter, Jade was married 2 weekends ago in 37 degree heat (wonderful day) and now only have 1 left till empty nesters. A bit scary !! Anyway, keep on enjoying our beautiful country and stay safe. Till next time, regards and cheers, Bev and Steven.