York

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We decided to head to York and stop for an overnight stay at Avon Valley Park which was along the way. Using our 10 years out of date camp site book and a £30 Sat Nav we’d bought from Gumtree this was gonna be a g’day mate!! First drama... one hour from Perth we seen our first “Roo” close up.. very very close up!! Well I seen it - Phil was too busy tuning “Hits 666” on the radio. I screamed and Phil slammed on the brakes - we skidded across the road and nudged the Kangaroo, at least we know our Roo bars work K (No Kangroos were harmed in the making of this blog J (the old jokes are the best!)).



Next the suiciddle Sat Nav tried to kill us taking the over a mountain on an unsealed road which kept getting narrower, bumpier and steeper, we started to get really worried but we couldn’t find a place to turn and had to keep going,.. finally after a few Km’s (we use the metric system now Boo to miles feet and inches J!!) we found a turning spot.. PHEW!! Then it started raining we started creeping our way back down the mountain Bob was slipping a sliding all over the road and we nearly poop’ed ourselvies! 30mins after we both open our eyes and we were back on the glorious tarmac! Thank god for those gippoes!



After that we gave up on Avon Valley and our STOOPPIIDDD GPS, and headed for the next closest camp site according to our out of date camp book. After a few hours drive we arrived at the “campsite” only to find no camping was allowed since 2005 Dohh! It was getting late and we still hadn’t’ found anywhere to camp - the next site was about one hour away and everyone had warned us not to drive after dark because the Kangaroos (Gee’s we couldn’t even miss them when it was light!) We headed off for Toodjay and made it just as darkness fell, the office was closed so we were greeted by mad Dave the only other person camping at the site.. Dave had a grudge against “backpackers”. He stopped me on each trip to the toilets to lecture me on why he had to pay for us (“Backpackers”) because we always drove off without paying blah blah blah!! We thought Dave was just a bit drunk and all would be ok in the morning.. he arrived at our campsite next day with a few beers to apologise for his behaviour the previous night.. turns out hes pretty crazy when sober as well and his apology turned into a three hour long lecture about how we were gonna to die while traveling around Oz - His top tip for survival in Oz was “Ice-Ice-Baby” – Ice-Ice-Davey you’ll always be a legend to us J!!



We stayed in Toodjay for three nights it was a pretty cool place and gave us some time to get Bob just how we wanted him (this mostly involve chucking out all the crap Julie and Nevielle had loaded us up with!), and we also had plenty of quality time with crazy Dave and his family who we became good friends with before we left.



Also on our the last night in Toodjay we had the pleasure of meeting Matt and his family who is the CEO of lonely Planet which is based in Oz (Melbourne), very interesting guy and we spent the night swapping travel stories and having a laugh (Dave stopped me on the way to the toilets to tell me he wanted to grenade their caravan – he didn’t like rich tourist with kids, as well as backpackers!)



Matt had advised us to check out New Norcia on the way to York which is a monastery built by Spanish Monks to try and convert Aboriginals to Christianity, its European styling looks so out of place in the middle of the oz desert.



We eventually made it to York which is the most the ???, it’s a pretty little town that has a western feel with its shuttered windows and old styled covered shop fronts. We visited the local park for a BBQ lunch and checked out the view point over the town and a historical walk along the river.







God speed Phil, Alana & Bob xx

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