Great Western Adventure 2019

By joves we have crammed in some kms. Had a little downtime out of the car (it was only a little) and seen some more amazing sites. We have also caught up with some friends, planned and unplanned over the past week. We arrived in Esperance last Wednesday11th. Managed to get a nice caravan park overlooking the ocean which made the stay a little more special. Of all the other places we have stayed along the coast not many had ocean views. Esperance is a very beautiful place and I can see why it is so popular with tourists. It’s just unfortunate that it is so far from anywhere. Nine hundred kms from Perth and four hundred from Kalgoorlie. I’m starting to show signs of callouses in a couple of spots where the sun doesn’t shine. After a slow start, we got out the tourists broachers to see what was on offer. It was a short drive inland a bit then back to town around the coastline. They call it the Great Ocean Drive. Sounds like they may have stolen that title from Victoria. It was f...

5/9/19  Arrived Busselton for a two night stopover. We have been pushing pretty hard getting down to the southern region fo WA. Our destination Busselton, is another very popular coastal  town. We found a nice tree lined caravan park not far from the famous Busselton jetty . The weather was wet and drizzling rain for most of the travel time getting here. It was Thursday night and the first week of the AFL footy finals. Janine & I decided we should dine out and go to a local pub and watch Essendon & West Coast Eagles play the first game of the finals. We were deep in enemy territory. Sporting my Essendon shirt, we set off to watch the game on a big screen but sadly, not feeling overly confident. We picked a good night to go out as it was Thursday night specials. Parmie & a pint, $20. Sounds good to me. Well, it wasn’t long before we realised that we (Essendon) were going to get touched up tonight. By half time in the game we decided to make an exit for the door...

6/9/2019  Well where has that week gone. Just realised that I hadn’t done anything on the blog for a while as we have been moving around some areas without the good old free WiFi. As I said in the last blog we were heading down to Geraldton but decided to move on further to a small community inland a bit so as we could see something a bit different, eg the WA wildflowers. The day started out a bit free and was looking more & more like rain as we moved inland. This was because the south west region of WA were coping some pretty ordinary weather. Cold & wet and we were just on the fringe of it. We rocked up to the small rural town of Mingenew expecting the caravan park to be fairly empty. Not so. It’s wildflower session so the grey nomads have settled here to be within close travel to the various vantage points. The owner, not wanting to let a few dollars get away found a quite position for us to park our van. No sooner had we bunkered down when the heaven open up. No proble...

The last couple of days we have been kicking back in the coastal town of Kalbarri. We are about five hundred and nine kms north of Perth. As we venture south the weather has been changing a little and the first night we arrived we had rain for the first time on our trip. Wasn’t much but enough to wash some of the red dust off the van. This is just another very popular destination for the travelling nomads as all the parks are pretty full. Arriving in town requires the mandatory trip to the local supermarket to stock up on fresh fruit & veggies. We have been very fortunate with meals because Janine precooked & froze quite a lot and we are only now getting towards the end of those. Very handy when you can just heat a precooked meal after a long drive or free camping and it’s quick and easy. Well done Janine. Yesterday it was blowing a strong westerly for most of the day so we ventured out in the car along the coastline to the many high vantage points to try and spot some mig...

28/8/19  What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we arrived at our digs for the next few days, RAC Monkey Mia Resort. This place is relatively new and is very spacious. The ground instead of being covered in red dust, has ground sea shells over all the van sites which makes it look very clean & white. It was twenty eight degrees when we arrived with clear blue skies. Today it is still reasonably warm but we have a very heavy mist/fog hanging over the park and foreshore. A real pea soup. We were out early to witness the dolphins as they come in for their early morning treats. These dolphins have ben coming in here for years but now the rangers only give them one or two fish so the dolphins still have to really on their own instincts/abilities to fend for themselves. There is usually only three or four dolphins that come in at each interaction. It is always a special event when you can get so close to any animal in the wild. We have managed to see a few on this trip from the ...