Taking your Pants to Paradise

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Taking your pants to Paradise.

29^th December 2014



Sometimes when we blog its just hard to get the right title and we realised a long time ago that it’s all about the title, then there are other times when we are writing and good titles just keep appearing out of the pages, like the other day when we wrote Chicken tracks, I think we ended up with 5 options to choose from.

Funny really we had a pretty big day yesterday 29/12/2014 and I woke this morning with a title on my mind, even before I had struck a blow on the computer keys.

As you are aware we have been having our Christmas break in Cape Arid National Park, Western Australia, we were invited down here by Andy and Karen, two people who we have become friends through our 4 wheel drive club and they had also invited a lady who Karen works with from Canberra called Naomi.

This trip was perfectly timed with the purchase and arrival of a new Kimberley Karavan who we have called Roobie and the only reason that came about was someone from our old 4 wheel drive club in Canberra just happened to ask us the question “would we ever consider selling Gypsy?” and thought these thoughts of selling that magnificent Vista RV trailer were initially so far away from what we wanted to do I believe things do happen for a reason and Gypsy has gone to a lovely family in Canberra and we move forward.

Cape Arid is fairly remote and places like this need you to be self-sufficient they only facility here is a long drop toilet, but in the grand scheme of things this is probably one of the best long drop toilets we have seen in the bush.

Now Roobie is equipped with two water tanks that I think are 90 litres each but need to confirm that and one tank is drinking water and one tank is non drinking water and even though the two tanks are filled from the same source with town water, the difference is with the systems inside the trailer, the cold water system (Drinking water) is filtered and the hot water system is not and this is the system that is connected to the inside and outside shower, so simply put you would not want to shower with filtered water from your drinking water supply, that would just be daft.

We have been out for over a week, the solar panels have functioned magnificently replacing virtually all the energy we consume without any loss, so that makes us self-sufficient, the freezer as well has stood up pretty well in the heat (don’t forget we are in the middle of summertime in Australia and the skies have been blue and the temperature has been between 20 & 30 degree’s every day so with this heat the energy your freezer is pulling would be greater than a lower ambient temperature to keep your food frozen.

Somewhere along the line we goofed on the water. How we don’t know but we had to go in to town yesterday 250 Kilometre round trip to get some water as we were running really low, don’t get me wrong or be too concerned we had plenty of drinking water but we were low down of shower and washing up water.

One could say though it may have been a great excuse to go in to town and do what normal people do, shop, coffee, washing clothes, catch up on telephone calls and publish the blog.

We left camp at 08.30 sharp and took the dirt road toward Esperance the first leg was about 80K’s and it took us all the way up to Cape Le Grand National Park, were we had camped before last year on our way over to the West, here we had to pay $12.00 for a one day park pass as we wanted to access the beach from here and drive the last 30 K’s along the beach.

At the start of the beach there was the obligatory sign about sand driving and using it as you would a normal road, it’s a pity as some people use it anyway they feel fit on the day so you really do have to keep your wits about you, not just for the obvious sand driving hazards, but for others who choose not to drive the way they should.

Andy radioed me and said did I notice the carcase of a Death Adder that had been draped over the sign and strangely enough I hadn’t noticed the critter until I looked again and there was a very flat and shortish snake about, this bad boy is up there in the top 10 of unpleasant creatures that you would wish never to get bitten by, I have never seen one in the wild before, but they are obviously about.

The beach leg was awesome a couple of small washouts but nothing to serious, the only thing you needed to do in certain places was keep the momentum going and stay in a higher gear, but in the main this stretch of beach is fairly busy and the sand well compacted by the traffic.

We got in to Esperance about 10.30 and both vehicles parted was as we all had different chores to do, our first stop was Bunnings and we needed a few bits and pieces then off to the jet wash to wash all the sand and salt water away and also all the dirt we had accumulated when we went down to Israelites Bay, it really was great giving the truck a good once over I do love the hi pressure washers.

Then it was off to the launderette as we had a week’s worth of washing to be done and whilst our stuff was going around in the washing machine, we walked over the road to MacDonald’s for a coffee.

And this is where I got the blog title from as I woke this morning the first thing I thought of was “Taking your pants to Paradise”, this came from a British TV ad for fabric conditioner some years ago when we lived there and was a saying from that time on in our house.

Sitting in Macca’s sipping a coffee our phones were going nuts downloading messages that we had not picked up for a while and we will get around to responding to them all as quickly as we can, Though I type this blog on Tuesday morning back at Cape Arid at 06.30 in the morning again without any internet or phone access you can see our difficulties.

I managed to up load our Blog “Chicken Tracks” I did really enjoy writing that one and I thought the photo’s of late have been really good, Caroline is enjoying her new Canon 24-70 lens and is producing some good shots and I keep going with my bullet proof little point and shoot Olympus.

Soon our coffee’s were gone and our washing was done, dried and packed Into the truck, so we phoned Andy (B) and asked him where they all were, he said they were just food shopping.

Our next chore was to top the diesel tanks up ,they were still doing OK but both needed filling back to the top, so off we shot to Caltex in town and did that duty.

Finally our last chore was our food shopping and again we didn’t need much just bits and pieces (fresh stuff) for our dinner on New Year’s Eve as it was our turn to cook, we already had the meat in the freezer we just needed the fresh vegies and a nice desert.

We were now done and dusted and went to meet Andy, Karen and Naomi who were sitting down by the Esplanade having a sandwich in the afternoon sun, we went down and met them and sat enjoying the rest of the day.

Eventually we set off in our vehicles and took a drive along the coast, past all the big posh houses on the hill that had an awesome sea view, then we drove to a swimmers beach with a surf lifesaving club and watched everyone in the water and there out on the water was a huge rock with people jumping off it in to the water. Andy (B) told me that last year a shark had trapped a lot of people on this same rock and was just swimming around for hours and the people all had to be rescued by boat.

We headed for camp but not before our final stop at tourist information where we were going to fill up our tanks to take back to camp, they had a tap of town water which was free to use, Andy (B) had a 70 litre tank on his roof rack that needed filling and this would be the water we were going to fill our non-drinking water tank up with, It must have had good pressure as it filled really quickly and soon we were on our way back to our base.

Caroline drove home, we took the bitumen back until we got to the last 30 K’s of the journey where it turned in to gravel, we arrived back at around five pm, it had been a really busy day with nothing left to do but put the kettle on and have a quick rest.

We had pre-prepared our dinner before we went out, well, Andy did, he did a hot Chicken Curry a couple of weeks ago and froze it, so we thawed it overnight as we knew we would all be thankful for an easy meal, we warmed it and took it back around to party central and devoured it with some ease.

We had a couple of hands of cards which took us to bed time we were knackered, such a full on day now we just needed sleep.

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Photos

Taking your Pants to Paradise
Sand Driving between Cape Le Grand and Esperance

Taking your Pants to Paradise
Sand Driving between Cape Le Grand and Esperance

Taking your Pants to Paradise
The of around Esperance

Taking your Pants to Paradise
This was the rock that a lot of people were stranded on when a shark made an appearance and would not go away.

Taking your Pants to Paradise
Jack and Caroline on the beach

Taking your Pants to Paradise
The coast road in Esperance

Taking your Pants to Paradise
The surf life saving club beach