Blogs from Esperance, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

Oh, dear, another small drama at the house this morning – NO HOT WATER! The couple late to rise were cursing the early birds for using up all the hot water but discovered when they ventured downstairs that the couple out of bed first had not enjoyed showers with hot water either. So, we had another round of looking in fuse boxes and trying to resolve the problem ourselves before calling the owner. Bernie thought that he recalled the hot water switch in the fuse box being in the opposite position to the rest of the fuses in the box so switched it downwards. Tracey opted for a sponge bath and Bernie decided to brave a quick cold shower. We boiled a kettle to wash up the breakfast dishes but, after an hour and a half, ... read more

A once in four years day today with it being a leap year! Perhaps I won’t manage as much detail today as we haven’t spent any time in the car, we’ve been on a boat or on foot exploring Esperance and surrounds? The day started with a power outage. We were all getting ready to head out for our Recherche Archipelago cruise when the fridge stopped humming and an emergency light came on over the dining table. Oh dear, is it an Esperance-wide outage or is it just the townhouse? Bernie checked the fuse box and couldn’t see a problem there, so we started Googling for information about the power being out in Esperance. There didn’t seem to be anything that applied so then the big question was - do we bother the owner about this ... read more

We started our trip in the Fremantle suburb of Perth. We woke up to bright blue skies and a crisp clean freshness in the air. The high street reminded me of Wellington in New Zealand with the artistic flair of boutique cafes lining the streets, bringing character to the beige sandstone buildings. After a quick bite of avo on toast, we hoiked on our backpacks and strolled down to the Barrack Street jetty. After a short ferry ride over to Rottnest Island, we grabbed a couple of hire bikes and set off in search for the cute Quokka, famously described as the happiest animal on the planet. We took the intermediate trail around the south-east of the island towards Little Salmon Bay passing crystal clear sea bays and pure white sand stretching into the distance. We ... read more

3 – 8 October 2018 At the end of the last blog we said goodbye to Richard & Beverley at the airport and wished them a safe journey home as they headed for their flight back to New Zealand and we set off on our next adventure in the campervan. As previously in Oz this is a Toyota Hi Ace, less than four metres long and one and a half metres wide. Astrid is five star luxury in comparison! But we knew what to expect and in fact there is more storage in this model than we had previously so all is well. We were prepared to move downmarket as the days of two bedroom apartments with kitchens and laundries had to be left behind in cosmopolitan south west Australia as we started our journey into ... read more

Well almost a very sad story to post. We headed out of Kal and camped at Widgeemooltha. The next morning I went to get my camera only to find it missing. I asked Ken if he had moved it and he said he hadn't. Not sure what I'd done with it as I usually leave it in the same place all the time. So went through the car a few times. No sign of it. Then the next thing was to remember the last time I used it. Which was about 3 days beforehand. So I left Ken to do some more detecting and I drove back to Kal (120km) and north (80km) to the last camp spots and detecting sites we had been to. No sign of it Next stop back to Kal Police station ... read more