Blogs from Jurien Bay, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

The journey has finally begun. After one more nostalgic look around the home in Greenwood and saying good bye to the cousins Christie and Chris, we set off on our trip up the northwest coast of Western Australia. No rain in sight, just a beautiful blue sky and lots of excitement. We knew the first day was going to be fairly easy as our travel time to the first destination, Jurien Bay, was only a couple of hours away on the Indian Ocean Drive. This was probably a good thing, for we were towing our caravan for the first time and even the vehicle was having its first real test-our trusty Mitzubishi Challenger. We arrived about 1:30pm. The caravan park is situated right on the ocean with all facilities. These days they are more like resorts ... read more

We decided to go for a road trip toJurienBaywhich is about 2.5 hours fromPerth. On the way we noticed a lot of sand dunes in the middle of the bush which looked really surreal and more like snow capped hills. We stopped off for information and a map when we got there then drove to Sandy Cove andDynamiteBaywhich were both gorgeous beaches further upIndian Ocean Drive. We stopped off for a sunbathe then carried on further up north where we followed a dirt track road to discover a (salt?) lake which was pretty vast but really shallow. Afterwards, we followed a very long and bumpy road toStockyardGullyCavewhich was a bit of a disappointment. We finally got there and there were warning signs about not disturbing the large feral bees. When we reached the cave we saw ... read more

Marg decided that we had had enough of South Australia, so we pointed the car North West and made a run for the border. With the long and barren drive across the Nullarbor in front of us we decided to stock up on a few items in Ceduna bearing in mind that all fruit and vegetable matter (not cooked) and honey wouldhave to be forfeited at the border control. It was a very judicious shopping experience. It was a fairly long day’s driving and we elected to stop at a free camp about 90 kms West of Ceduna. It was on the wrong side of the road, but we were able to get a reasonable distance away from the highway so the road trains did not disturb us too much. There was another van already at ... read more

...was fortunately no Titanic. In fact, our trip to Leeman, about 30 kms north of Perth (population 620!), was quite uneventful, which was great! I drove while Paul took the opportunity to read to the boys (current book, Louis de Berniere’s Red Dog, a delightful true story about the adventures of a Red Cloud kelpie in the northern part of Western Australia). The four hour trip passed by quickly, though it did raise some concerns about our car’s fuel capacity / consumption (currently at 30l/100km - ouch! Ed.). We arrived at the caravan park, forewarned that campers can spot a newbie from miles away, who then gather around, stubbies in hand, to watch (not assist) the very likely frazzled newbies reverse their caravan and set up camp. Well, there were a couple of guys in one ... read more