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The wait is finally over! Apologies it’s taken so long for us to get in touch, but doing nothing really takes it out of you!!
Our trip down from Isa was pretty good, all in all it took us about 10 days, with stop overs in Nelson Bay, Hunter Valley and Orange to catch up with Allison, Geoff and little Henry who was showing us just how well he can get around on his own!
A stint visiting family and friends in Vic was great, but cold! We upgraded our car, traded in the Pajero for a 2005 Prado which has been a lot better on the fuel, something we appreciate now that we are in WA and prices are up around the $2 mark.
OK, so our first stop over was Burra, S.A. A town founded on copper mining mid 1800’s. Its still got plenty of old world charm with the main street not changing much and a lot of original stone buildings around the place. It was here that we learnt that sleeping with your beanie on was a good thing! From Burra we headed to visit some friends (The Stephens Clan ) in Roxby Downs, I
didn’t know what to expect from this place, people sleeping in tents in the main street? We certainly did not see that but it is very different to Isa. A lot smaller to start with, and you cant see the mine from the main street! Or anywhere in town for that matter! From Roxby we visited Andamooka, a small town nearby based on mining opals. On the way we had our first taste of outback art……..a scene out of everyday life, with a clothes line, ironing board and bed set up on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere to amuse passing travelers.
From here we decided to take some dirt road from Roxby to Flinders Ranges (get the Prado dirty!) So we hopped on to the Borefield Track (so named because the bores that supply Roxby with water are dotted along it) and then took the Oodnadatta Track to Flinders Ranges. To our dismay the roads were a lot better than we expected, we even saw a Tarago on our travels! So there weren’t too many challenges there! We also saw art exhibition number two, the hoover bus (see photo) accompanied by some kind of
hippy commune, what the!?
The Flinders Ranges. Photos and words can not do this place justice. Every time you round another corner there is more spectacular scenery and another photo op. Again, it was dam cold! After the second night when we woke up to frozen water in the tank we knew it was time to move on!
So off to the coast it was. The Eyre Peninsula has plenty of small towns with great spots right on the beach. We stopped over at Whyalla, Arno Bay (a magic little place where we could see, hear and smell the ocean) and Coffin Bay, where we set about eating as many local oysters as we possibly could, at $6 a dozen for oysters fresh out of the ocean someone had to do it, and we were up for the challenge!
Our next challenge was tackling the Nullarbor. Our strategy was to get it over asap. We launched our assault from Fowlers Bay, a small town just past the start of the Nullarbor, hugged by sand dunes. During the day the sun shining and the fish were biting on the local jetty, however by night it felt like gale force
wind through the tent which the zippers and canvas kept dancing all night! So it was with a sleepless night under our belts that we headed west. The next day saw us with better luck when we stopped in at the Head of Bight and were lucky enough to see several whales migrating with calves, I could of stayed for hours, but there were still a few kilometers to cover for the day.
First stop in WA was Cocklebiddy, a road house in the middle of nowhere, and then onto Esperance, where we are now for a few days. The coastline here is absolutely beautiful, with water a pristine aqua colour. We have however crossed paths with what is known in caravanning circles as the laundry Nazi, and it seems we are yet to learn laundry edict of the caravan park!!
So having a great time so far, even though we’ve seen a lot we’ve realised just how much more there is to see.
Missing you all, stay tuned for the next installment!
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