Week 20-28 - Margaret River - Monkey Mia - Geraldton - Perth

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Welcome back to our blog!!

So basically, just to explain, I know there has been many complaints that I haven’t done a blog for the past couple of months but it’s just because we have not had a massive amount of news to report on a weekly basis, however looking over my notes of what has happened there has been a number of funny happenings. So without further ado I‘ll start.

Kate finished off the last blog at the end of our bush tucker Canoe adventure (thanks again Sam it was a fab day). After that we spent a couple more days in Margaret river. We had decided we should find a little work to help fund some of this trip, so we had a think and decided we wanted to work together, work in a stress free environment and work near the coast. So we thought lets give grape picking a bash. We headed to the local vineyard recruitment company “Vine Power” to sign up with them, however I really do dislike these recruitment companies, I always feel like you owe them something for trying to find you a job, so they can get paid. So anyway, I begrudgingly signed up with them. To be fair we are more hands on and would prefer to trawl all the vineyards looking to be employed directly then wait around for a phonecall, so we headed off with our map of all the vineyards and started to “door knock”. Well after a few “sorry, we use Vine Power” we came up with the idea to try and target smaller vineyards . We spoke to a local chap and he kindly highlighted all of the smaller vineyards on our map, we headed to the first one and they took our name and number, the next did the same and then we arrived at the third and within 2 minutes of walking into Ashbrook we both secured a temporary job for between 5 and 8 weeks which was just perfect. We start at 6am and finish at 12ish, the vineyard is family owned and run and they supply snacks and refreshments throughout the morning shift. So, just like that we had a job, it wasn’t hard to find either and we can work together which is just what we wanted. Now we had a week and a half before we started so we decided to go up to Perth and sort the van out.

When we bought Harry the paper work didn’t go though properly so we spoke to the old owner who lives in Perth to meet up and sort it out, but anyway that’s all sorted now. Just before we went up to Perth we spent the day with the hostess with the mostest Jan Naumowicz. Jan suggested that we all go to Augusta for some fish and Chips. Augusta is about 40km south of Margaret River, so we all hoped into Harry and headed down. Now Jan being somewhat of a local knows where everything is, from the cheapest petrol to the best fish and Chips so she took us to the last eating place this side of the Antarctic. It was a great spot right on the river so we put down a rug and spent a couple of hours there. Kate and Jan had shark whereas I opted for a more traditional red snapper. After lunch we headed to a lighthouse and then to a really old waterwheel, which I forget the name of but if your reading this Jan you can leave a comment at the bottom to inform us all. On the way home we grabbed some cakes to eat from the bakery that Sam worked at in Margaret River and headed back.

In the morning we said our goodbyes and headed north to Perth. The trip was only about 300km or so and we did it without any bother. We arrived in Perth on the weekend so it was pretty busy. We headed through the city and straight to the beach. We chilled on the Perth beaches for a couple of days and watched a surf lifesaving event which was action packed. We did however laugh a few times at some of the competitors, they where jumping into the water and trying to swim out to a buoy, then a guy on a canoe/surfboard type raft would then come out and rescue him. It was a race between about 8 different life saving clubs. Some of the guys on the boards were really struggling to get over the surf and out the buoys, well we found it quite funny and thought it didn’t look very difficult, so we thought we would go for a swim and check out the conditions. So we grabbed the body boards (as the waves even from the beach looked big), we jumped into the water and it was immediately obvious how difficult it was to get over the initial wave! The water suddenly went very deep, so you couldn’t use your feet to help push you off the floor at all and we found ourselves constantly being pushed back to the shore with the little kids! So with our egos battered and feeling more respect for the live saving clubs we retired back to our spot with our towels and continued to watch with heightened admiration for those taking part in the competition!

We drove around the city of Perth and into Fremantle and came across a football tournament being played, so got out of Harry to take a look. We were surprised to find that hardly anyone playing was Australian and most of the teams were from South America. They even had their local music playing in the background as there were quite a few spectators there, all drinking and eating and having a really good time. It was a great atmosphere and we enjoyed our afternoon watching football and feeling at home as we understood all the rules not like Aussie Rules Soccer!

The vineyard (Ashbrook) in Margaret River called and said we didn’t need to start work for another week, so we decided to “cease the day” (SN!) and make the most of the week and head north for some more sightseeing as staying around Perth is pretty difficult in big old Harry, with parking being limited to 2 hours in the city and generally hard work to find somewhere we wanted to leave the big guy.

Off we went to Monkey Mia in Harry. I didn’t want to take Harry as he started to feel a bit frail, so we looked into buses, flights and car hire but after weighing up the cost of it all we decided that paying over $1000’s to get there by a different means of transport was not justifiable so we just took big H. It was 800ish km to Monkey Mia and the weather was super hot, it was 40+ degrees in the shade and we were really feeling the heat. We got halfway there on our first day travel so we stopped at our free camp spot for the night where some other vans were. We began to get ready for bed when we heard a little munching under the fronts seats, well yes I couldn’t believe it, there was another mouse just sitting there polishing off some crisps that we had dropped earlier in the day. Right lets get the little B******D I said. So like a madman I was grabbing everything, moving it out the van but he was running and hiding under the seats. So we decided to move the van to the other side of the campsite hoping that he would hop out. So off we went over to the other side of the campsite. I parked up and we sat there in silence, nope I think he’s gone we said as we got into the rear. We lay there and all of a sudden we heard the munch, munch, munch of the burger rings down the side of the seat again. So off we went over to the other side of the campsite. I parked up and we sat there in silence, nope I think he’s gone we said as we got into the rear. We lay there and all of a sudden we heard the munch, munch, munch of the burger rings down the side of the seat again. So we just rolled over with a “what’s the worst it can do” attitude and went to sleep. Well after an hour of sleep I awoke to the hear him again and well this happened pretty much every hour for the whole night but I just gave up trying to “get him”. In the morning we woke up early to drive the second leg of the journey in the cooler temperatures, and we just wanted to get out of this camp ground straight away as there we loads of flies everywhere (Martin you would have been a wild man!), they were driving us crazy. So we zoomed off.


As we were approaching Monkey Mia my worst fears had come true and Harry began to give off a kind of burning smell. I just thought “what a nightmare”, it’s hot, we are in the middle of nowhere and Harry has decided to start messing around. I stopped and checked everything but really I wasn’t sure what to look for so we carried on to Monkey Mia.

Now I wasn’t to sure what to expect from this place, and it was quite a surprise to us when we got there. It really was only a resort named Monkey Mia, with a campsite and chalets. We checked in and found our spot, which incidentally was right next to the beach and it was a stunning white sand beach. The waters were clear and the sea was calm so we snorkelled around and messed about in the water. The big thing of which I have failed to mention about Monkey Mia is that every morning wild dolphins come into sure. Now this is somewhat of a magnet for tourist as you would expect, but it is fairly remote so there are not 100’s and 100’s waiting to see the dolphins every morning.

We awoke early at 7am the next day to get down to the beach to see the dolphins, we headed over to where the crowd were standing in the water and joined the end. Everyone was standing in a line side by side looking out into the ocean. There were 2 Monkey Mia rangers who spoke to the audience about the dolphins and explained the do’s and don’ts. About 14 dolphins came up and were swimming around our feet and playing in the water (it really was one of the most fantastic feelings being surround by these beautiful wild creatures that are turning their heads out of the water to poke their eye out and look at us! Kate‘s comment!).

Some are as old as 35 and some were just a few months old. All of the dolphins there have been coming to Monkey Mia all their lives, even the eldest!!! We were told after a while that they rangers would pick 5 volunteers to feed the dolphins. Well, I know I’m often classed by my friends as a “lucky” kind of a guy and I do defiantly have my fair share of luck so I was quietly confident of being picked. I stood there making eye contact with the rangers, hoping to be picked. If I was picked I was going to let Kate go and feed them as I know it’s more her kind of thing so I really wanted to get picked;. So the time came, the fish were bought out in buckets and the rangers said looking over towards me “the girl in the purple dress”. I thought well that’s not me I’m not wearing my dress today and realised they were pointing at Kate (my luck must be rubbing off)! Brilliant, I thought, Kate is getting to feed the dolphins, I knew she really wanted to. So Kate went out into the water and proceeded to feed one of the dolphins. Great!! So after the feeding the crowd of about 100ish dispersed and we sat there watching the dolphins swim about. Then, after about 10 minutes the dolphins hadn’t swam out and the rangers came back out and said they would be doing a second feeding in 5 minutes, we hung around looking at the pelicans until they came back. The whole process started again, talking about the dolphins, the do’s and don’ts and that 5 lucky people will be able to feed the dolphins. So again in a line side by side of about 60ish people a different lady said ok I need to choose 5 people to feed the dolphins. I just knew it would be Kate again, so Boom, there it was “the girl in the purple dress please step forward” I knew it!!! So Kate then very kindly said that she had been before but said could I could go instead. So off I went and fed a wild dolphin. We were pretty lucky to get the chance to do that. So after the dolphin feeding we stayed in MM for a couple of days and then decided to head back to start our jobs in Margaret River.

We woke up early, again to drive a few 100km in the cooler weather. We got about 100km and Harry’s braking system started to fail and there were a few interesting sounds, so we found a garage in the town of Geraldton. It was the Friday afternoon before a bank holiday weekend and a garage agreed to have a look at it. Well after 5 hours of waiting the result was not good. “You’ll need a new alternator boy, and the truck ain’t coming ‘til Wednesday”!! Well, there we are I thought, we are spending 5 long days in one of the hottest towns in Australia, good old Geraldton. So we checked into a camp site and thought we would make the most of being there!!


We woke up Saturday and it was another hot one. I mean hot. Not just a little bit warm, it was an absolute scorcher. Unlike anything Kate and I have ever seen. The wind was blowing from the NE which means it’s coming from the desert and that means hot winds and hot sun. Now me being a complete wimp in anything more than 30 degrees loves to find air con or shade pretty much for the whole day. So we started off by leaving the current campsite and heading towards a air conditioned McDonalds for a quick internet fix.

After a quick, well not really quick, after nursing a 50c cone for about an hour we decided we should really leave and face the heat. We checked the temp online and it was a mere 45degrees in the shade, let alone in the sun and it was only 10am! We headed to a different campsite, on the other side of town as we felt our fellow neighbours were a little pykey at the first one. Anyway got to the second campsite and it was better, but the heat was more unbearable than ever. When I tell you I would swap this heat for rain and drizzle I am telling the 100% honest truth. It is just a nightmare when you don’t have a cool place to go.

So we decided that we needed to get out of the heat so we went to the cinema. Well it was about 2:00 and we rocked up to find it didn’t open until 3pm. For god sake, this is another example of being back in the mid 1990’s. So after running along the scolding street in the shade we found an ice-cream parlour where Kate had a honeycomb ice-cream and I opted for a blueberry slushy . We again milked the air-con until the cinema opened and headed in for a few hours of air-conditioned bliss. As a matter of non-interest we went to watch Valentines Day, guess who chose that one!!! Well, it’s worth renting out on DVD if you are desperate, but to be honest I would only give it 6 ½ out of 10, and that‘s because we had air con. If you want to watch a film of a similar ilk we both would opt for Love Actually, it is much better all round. So after the cinema, we headed back to camp for dinner. I hooked up the fan to the roof of Harry and we tried to sleep.

After waking up and hoping the weather report I read was from Michael fish, it seemed that whomever wrote it was in fact good with the weather and we were for sure in for another 40+ degree day. So, with that in mind I again looked at the cinema listings. Now some of you might be thinking, “come on M & K, your travelling, you should be exploring, and seeing new things”, well we have seen and done so much, but when you are away for months on end, you really can’t find something extraordinary to do everyday and in particular when it’s just stinking hot all you feel like doing is NOT being hot, that is the objective of the day.

So, we got up and it was just as hot again, so we showered and headed to air con heaven for an hour, yes I know it’s pretty sad , but we went to McDonalds for a hour and had milkshakes. After that , we headed off to go to a shopping centre, but being Sunday and in the mid 1990’s it was closed so we ended up heading to KFC. Bloody hell, we are in Australia, with all these fresh produce and Kate and I were doing some kind of fast food crawl around the streets of Geraldton!!! After our gourmet lunch we spotted a beach across the road so we made our way across, when crossing the grassed area we walked passed a chap in his 50’s, a little Danny Davito looking, with only 4 toes on one foot and said hello, he said “ are you the English couple that are coming here to water ski?”, well, no we weren’t but we could be!!

Well, we are generally kind of cautious about this kind of thing. You know, we have met the guy for 2 minutes and he is saying lets all go water skiing, so we umed and arghh’d and decided to sit in the shade and think about it. So, unusually for us we opted to sit with some local drunk aborigines (really drunk) in the shade and chatted for a while and then thought we would go for it and try water skiing. He told us he was under the green gazebo, so off we trundled to the gazebo and met up with him, then a 16 year old girl came over with a 10 year old girl. Well Kate thought this guy must have been some kind of paedophile (like you do) and was planning how we would not get onto the boat with him and the young girls. I mean, it did look a little strange, an old guy (not old ,but you know what I mean) taking two young girls on his boat and a random English couple he has literally just met.

But, within a couple of minutes their mums turned up and Kate’s panic died down and we went with it. We got into the speed boat, and headed out to sea. Well, I don’t know if Kate and I have a engine curse at the moment but we got 200 metres out and the engine conked out and we were just bobbing around! The guy, well hang on I’ll actually give you his name, Pete tried to start it a few times but to no avail, I was thinking if he actually starts it do we really went to go out any further, this old outboard engine has blatantly seen better days, do we really want to be stranded further out? Then to make matters worse the young girls were saying things like “shall we all swim back to shore? It’s not too far”. Well, I was thinking “Oh God, please lets not all swim back”, I mean surely they need someone to stay with the boat, I can be that person. I can barely swim 20 metre let alone 200 in shark infested waters!!

With luck on our side (again) the engine didn’t re-start and we got rescued by another boat. We got towed back into shore and about 3 guys all started to look at the engine (very Aussie that the men just love to fix things themselves) and within minutes we were being waved over to get back onboard. We went out and Kelly the 16 year old went first to show us how to do it on a knee board and then water ski’s and didn’t she just. So next up was Kate, she opted for the Knee Board and did really well, she could kneel up and fly along behind the boat without much difficulty at all. After a few attempts it was my turn to go on the Knee board. Well, I was OK, not up to what I had hoped and really I think both Kelly and Kate were better then me. I blame it on the Knee board. Anyway I then tried the Water Ski’s and I wasn’t much better, they were really hard to master, but I was pleased I gave them a bash. So we headed into shore and had a cold beer with a few of the locals under Pete the paedophiles gazebo. It was a great day, one in which both Kate and I learned not always to refuse an offer of generosity and genuine kindness. There really are still some genuinely good people out there.

After the Jet skiing we headed back to the campsite and watched the sun go down over Geraldton. So after a long weekend in Geraldton, we handed Harry back to the garage and they needed to keep him until Wednesday, so we lost our home on wheels and went so stay in a 4* hotel for a bit of a treat.


On Wednesday afternoon we picked up Harry with a new alternator and headed the 500km towards Perth. So there we were back in Harry driving along without a care in the world, well until we lost most of the power and he started to throw plumes of black smoke out of the back!! Damn you Harry!!!! We were in the middle of nowhere going up a hill and all the “umph” had gone. Luckily I saw a sign for a roadhouse, which was only a few KM away, we got there, I looked under the bonnet (well the engine is actually under the front seats) and come to the conclusion that it was the air filter that was blocked, but on this van it was so unclear where it was. I gave up on looking for it as by this time it was getting dark, so we stayed at the roadhouse for the night and decided to run the gauntlet to Perth in the morning.

So, bright and early we got up, and drove, Harry was doing quite well and we got about 60km outside Perth, but by this time the smoke was really pouring out of the back. With all this smoke every car behind was either dropping well back from us or zooming past. Anyway, as we almost got to Perth I looked in the rear view mirror and saw some blue and red flashing lights, yep, for the third time in Australia I was being pulled over. Well this time it was defiantly not for speeding, it was obviously for the smoke. So, I pulled over and jumped out, went through the story of being stuck in Geraldton, having a new alternator and the smoke was a new issue and I was getting it fixed in Perth. He was a very nice officer, but did have to put a “defect” sticker in the middle of the windscreen. He told us we had to get the smoke issue resolved within 14 days. So I asked if he could recommend a good mechanic in Perth, well he could, his brother . So we got the directions and went to see his brother, who was in fact, equally as nice and helpful. We got the smoke issue sorted, we needed a new air filter as suspected. We did also find out whilst at the garage that the defect notice means that Harry needed to be subject to a full inspection by a police authorised inspector, basically that meant a full drains up on the van which has the potential to be a nightmare, especially considering it’s a 1988 van that has never ever had to have an MOT or anything of the sort.

We drove down to Margaret River again back to Jan’s to see if we could get the inspection done down there. I went to the first garage and they pretty much said don’t bother, it won’t pass the test, however they had not even seen Harry yet and they also didn‘t know that I always find a way around every problem! So I ended up getting the details of a mechanic in another town that was a lot more lenient when I comes to passing defected vehicles. To be quite honest, after seeing the defect check list I was not massively confident. We drove up to Busselton and took him to “Passmore” motors (I think the give away is in the name) where we played the confused backpacker card. I bent the truth a little and said this would be the end of our trip if we cannot get Harry through it and we were really sad about it all. So, with that, the mechanic began to explain all about the defect notice (most of which we had already researched). He went around Harry saying things like “when you bring it in for the test make sure you take out the fridge, cooker and gas as I see it’s not registered as a campervan, only a panel van” basically totally illegal, then he said, are there any rips on the upholstery (to pass the test you must have no rips on the upholstery), well yes there is one on the drivers seat, he said “I’ll pretend I haven’t seen that” and well, after about 5 minutes I knew this was the test centre for us!!! So we booked him into the garage next door to get some minor work done and booked a time for the test.


So after a few days of again job hunting as our previous jobs had gone due to the breakdown/time scale we took Harry back up to “Busso” for the pre-test check, there were a few minor things that needed fixing but overall he faired pretty well. So the next day was test day for Harry, it was a live or scrap situation for him so we were all desperate for him to fight another day, he wants one more loop of Australia!!! So we took him into Passmore garage with extra big smiles on our faces hoping he would pass. The inspector was being fairly serious with us which made me nervous, but it was in his hands so we left Harry with him. We went to the park close by to read our books (I was reading Richard Branson, losing my virginity and Kate was reading Dawn French, Hello Fatty). After about 1 hour the mobile went…

Hello I said
It’s the garage
Hi, how’s it all going?
Not good, where’s all the paperwork?
Not too sure, I’ll be straight round

So we headed back with a brisk walk. Well, I walked in and he wanted to see the paperwork as he could not see a chassis number on Harry or a VIN number on the engine, he also said whilst he was looking for the numbers he saw lots of things he didn‘t want to see!! NIGHTMARE, I thought….he’s never going to pass him without those details. So I frantically pointed out some random number on his bodywork all of which were totally the wrong thing and he then asked to see some of the old paper work. Well we produced some paper and he said “that might do, go and have a seat”…So, there we waited and he appeared 30 minutes later and said I’m faxing the form off (what does that mean we thought). He was actually faxing the form to the police station to say Harry had passed, but he was a bit nervous of the VIN and Chassis number he put down. So we waited for the all clear from the police and waited and waited…..nothing came back. He then phoned and they replied saying we were OK to go, they had just faxed it back to the wrong number!! What a massive relief that was …..We both thanked Passmore garage for passing Harry and all they said was “We don’t ever want to see you and that van ever again, in the nicest possible way”…….we are pretty lucky sometimes and so was Harry…….woo!!!!

So with the van back on the road all we needed to do was secure a job. Back to Jan’s and back to the job hunting, we tried a few wineries and got a days work a Gralyn winery, just outside Margaret River so up bright and early 5am we headed to our first days work in over 6 months. With the eagerness of being new we were fresh faced, smart (Kate wanted me to mention that Merilyn said we were the smartest pickers she had ever seen, to be fair I was fussing over what to wear/iron to pick grapes) and full of enthusiasm to pick some grapes. We met Graham and Merilyn and they gave us our instructions, we were being paid by the bucket so it was actually a case of the more you pick the more you earn. Well, very quickly all three of our initial qualities wore off, our faces were no longer fresh, smart clean clothes changed to dirty and we had more enthusiasm to go home than carry on! It was a really hard graft. The only thing that kept us going was not wanting to let the owners down. We managed 6 hours picking and picked 45 buckets each (what a Co!! Sarey!) which was not bad for our first time!!

After that we could not really walk for a few days so we mainly went to the beach, read our books and swam around in the sea. Then, one day we went back to Busso to look for a job and I spotted an advert on a notice board “needed - people to help at café and tourist attraction” so we gave them a ring. Unfortunately the person we needed to speak to was out but they were going to call us back, but we got on the front foot and headed to the location of the job. Which in fact was a local Maze and Café in Yallingup, we got there and spoke to the owners, in particular Amanda. She got us totally wrong and was getting good vibes off of us, thought our energy was good and that we would make a great addition to their team. So just like that we acquired a new temp job at a maze and to make things even better we were being put down to work every shift together. Also on the same day Jan managed to find us 3 more days grape picking, so we did a day and then sacked it off due to Kate having repetitive strain injury on her hand and my back was not great….oh well not all of us are made to pick grapes, some are just meant to drink the produce!!

So, just to explain, Jan had kindly offered for Kate and I to stay with her and Mike (Jan’s son) for the duration of our time whilst in the area. We repaid this generosity by taking it in turns to cook with Jan and wash up most nights for her. I must say Jan loves her cooking and in particular her chocolate muffins of which Kate enjoyed massively, I quite liked them too. So back to the maze….

Our First day at the maze was on a Sunday, so we put our Sunday best on which was in fact a Yallingup maze t-shirt and headed into the office. The duties were explained to us, Kate would mainly be working on the second till (I think Kate was put on the till as she is one of the best “meeter and greeter” any company could have) and I was given the role of making milkshakes and slushies, now I hope this wasn’t because I look like I drink loads of milkshakes, but anyway that’s the way we rolled at the start. After a while I moved onto making coffee’s which is in fact an art in itself. We have a newly found appreciation for good freshly ground coffee and anyone that can pull it off! The other thing I have to mention is that most coffees are almost exactly the same, latte, cappuccino, flat while all really the same…..skinny this, skinny that, just have a dam coffee!!! I’m with Kate’s dad John, I enjoyed an espresso whilst there and Kate would have a Cappuccino or I’d like to make her hot chocolates or milkshakes or slushies….Kate loved the free drinks!!

So we both really enjoyed working at the maze, which was in fact a panel maze, not a hedge maze, it has a every changing ability and is linked to a puzzle café. The puzzle café has loads of puzzles and games for all the family, they are placed all over the tables for people to play, there are kites, bats and ball outside, giant jenga games and much more for the whole family to play. It was one great place to work for a month whilst in Australia, we once again were pretty lucky finding that number as most other travellers just pick grapes and end up with bad backs and repetitive strain injuries ;-)….. So we worked there for about 4/5 days a week for a month, we were supplied with lunch everyday from the menu and as many drinks as we could manage. The owners Amanda, Ian, Mark and Bob were some of the nicest people we have come across, it was a real pleasure to work along side each and everyone of them. On our final day we had drinks afterwards at Amanda’s house which is set on the same land as the maze and café (it’s 100’s of acres). All the team sat around on the veranda drinking wine and beer watching the sun go down and we saw wild Kangaroos jumping along, a really great time for us in Australia! The job we could have dreamt of and the best people too.


Well now we have completed our working stint, we decided to sell big Harry to some lucky people. We have been advertised him in Margaret River but with no real interest. Apart from a 60ish year old lady hoping to drive around Oz with a massage table in the back, offering massages to pay her way around the country…..well, she nearly bought him but decided he had a slight damp aroma inside (that’s just him) and she was allergic to damp so she didn’t buy him. But it turned out I went to the same school as her son in Torquay - it’s a small world.

So anyway, I tried advertising him online and we got a few low offers of which we declined so we thought the best plan would be to come to the city of Perth to offer him to the waves of backpackers that come through this city. So I put him online in the Perth area and we had a phone call from a Jewish girl from Israel, she was interested and wanted to meet. I told her we would not be there until Sunday 19th at 2:00pm, she said to let her know when we arrived. So we left Jan’s in MR, said our goodbyes and headed up the road to Perth (300km). When we arrived we met up with the girl and her partner to show Harry they were pretty strange but wanted to take him to there mechanic to check him over. They did however tell us they had already looked at between 20 and 25 vans!!!! So, they had been promised so many times that “the van is good” and the mechanic just told them it wasn’t.

We got to the garage and I promised them Harry was a “goody” (well apart from the illegal bits etc, I should say reliable rather than a goody) , he went up on the ramps and within a few minutes the Mechanic Abe Schnizer said he looked pretty good and told them this is by far the best van they had bought in and they should make us an offer. So, it was time to negotiate…..I knew we had time on our side as we put by 1 month to sell him, but we also knew that the worst thing would be to leave Harry at the airport due to not selling him at all. So, there we all were outside Abe Schnizer’s mechanics in Perth, the two Jews speaking Hebrew discussing what to offer. They tried to point out some negatives but we all knew they wanted him and he was the best of nearly 25 vans so they had little room to manoeuvre. So we dropped our price a little for them but managed to sell him for over 35% more than what we bought him for and within 3 hours of being in Perth….now that was pretty good going in our minds.

So that was the end of another chapter in our travels, Harry has gone up North to continue round for another loop of Australia and we are in Perth exploring all the touristy things in the city……where next? Who knows? But we will certainly be in New Zealand on the 19th of May with Banjo and Cerri (Our good friends from home), and as a coincidence we are actually on the same flight as them from Melbourne to Auckland. When we get to Auckland we pick up our big Motorhome which is pretty much a hotel room on wheels, it even has a flat screen TV for the world cup if we are not near a pub……….I will be trying to do the blogs more regularly again now we are back on the tourist trail……..

We really hope each and everyone of you are good and we hear that the weather has begun to brighten and you have started to have some warmer days which is great news, that long winter is finally over and Age and Sarey, those nights will be getting lighter for you and the commute!

Until next time,

Love from your favourite bloggers

Matt and Kate x x

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Photos

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I bet you forgot what we looked like ;-) !!!

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Having fun in Geraldton on thelong ot bank holiday weekend

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Good jumping Kate!!!

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Sunset in Gerldton

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Monkey Mia

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That's close enough for me!!!

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Harry at MM

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Kate's in fancy dress

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What's on the menu Kate·?

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I tried the costume on too.....

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Monkey Mia Ranger

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Tourist number 2..

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Flipper

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On the boat in MM, Kelly, me and Pete

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The girl in the purple dress out of all these people!!!

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He was giving us the eye!!!

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Feed ME!!

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Monkey Mia

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Where's Rod Hull???

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Monkey Mia

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Sunset at MM

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How romantic ay!!!

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There it goes

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This on is a bit nosey

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Lucky lady...

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Augusta

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Harry finding a younger friend!!

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Me and a dolphin

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Jan an Kate near MR

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Flipper and friend in MM