Blogs from Western Australia, Australia, Oceania - page 7

Tour Days 94-95 – First, I knew Australia was big just by looking at a map; however, I didn’t realize just how big. When compared to the contiguous 48 states (the lower 48), the United States is 3.2 million square miles (8.1 million km 2) while Australia is about the same – 3 million square miles (7.8 million km 2). Initially, I was planning to rent a car and drive around Australia; however, I discovered a web site, campermanaustralia.com, which has several road trip variations for discovering Australia. The web site prefaces the trips on digesting Australia and not just sniffing this diverse country. The straight-forward trip, the “Circumnavigation Around Australia,” is 17,100 km (10,625 mi.) takes 244 hours of driving time and requires 3 months or more. Of course, just following the coast omits the ... read more

Monday 11th December Heading home quick pack up as we had not hooked up water or put the legs out or un coupled the van, on the road by 9am The Highway was the most terribble road to drive, it is the Southern Highway but drives like a C road not an A road, ruts and holes all over the place poor G driving again with the van all over the place. Stopped for a break at Wagin to have a look at the Big Ram, he is big, worth seeing but not alot else happening in town again doing it tough with sheep farming dying, so too is the town shame so sad to see. Up home into familiar territory now the landscape has changed to the brown dry dust we are used to in ... read more

Saturday 9th December We had seen what we thought was kangaroo poo on the grass near our van and we were delighted this morning to have breakfast visitors, a mother and joey came right up to the van, fortunately Tippy was inside, they seemed used to people and not at all scared when we walked pretty close to take some photos, nice to see. In keeping with our lazy week we heading into Walpole town, such as it is, to pick up a few bits of groceries. The Information Centre was nice and the people really friendly, I couldn't resist buying another cap for my collection. All sorts of walks and hikes are the thing down here but not for these cookies. We headed back to the van which is parked in such a lovely spot ... read more

Thursday 7th December I spoke with the Margaret River Tourist Board yesterday and was told that even though the caves are in a National Park we can take the dog provided he does not leave the car. Tippy is used to travelling and sleeping in his crate in the back of the UTE and as the weather today is a cool 22, we decided to visit the caves which are very close to our camp site, we reckon as this is one of the smaller caves we will only be leaving Tippy for an hour and we normally travel longer than that so he will be fine. We headed off to be at Ngilgo Cave by 9am as we had been warned that a large school party was due at 10.30am so we wanted to be ... read more

Tuesday 5th December We decided that stopping and taking stock was a good idea today. Even though we are retired we always seem to be doing something when we are at home, so we stopped and did nothing all day what a treat. We sat in the sun , walked to the coffee shop for morning tea and drinking water, walked the dog around the lovely grass areas of the park. I did some puzzles and G played on his computer, we had lunch and tea and sat some more, really good to stop and relax completely. G suggested a drive at about 2pm and I said no tomorrow will be soon enough so we stayed put, helped by the lovely mild weather and the green of the park it was great. I decided to try ... read more