Travel Plans Update - Dec 2020

Extending the trip!

If you've been reading our blog for a while you'd realise our travel plans have changed a fair bit since we left! Covid of course has had an impact, particularly with border closures, and we've come up with various solutions. This doesn't overly bother us as one of the pleasures of being on the road without a fixed schedule is that we've been able to adjust our plans to suit our circumstances, rather than having to stick to a preset plan which may no longer be ideal.

Back in August we toyed with the idea of extending our trip by an extra six months in order to give us time to get back up to the north west of WA, which was one of our favourite places from our last trip. Due to the wet season, the top end is an unpleasant place to be in the wet season so it's not the sort of place we could go at our current time of year (December). At the time we discounted this option, but since we arrived in Perth we've reviewed it again, and after much consideration have decided to go with this option. This means that God willing we will now return to Adelaide in June 2021.

Dec 19-30 - Around Perth, End of Year Studies

Just a few highlights of the past week and a half.

On a couple of days we've gone down to the local park. There have often been other local kids there. Jude took the whip down the first time, and wow they were stunned when they heard it crack out! They all lined up and wanted a go, and on the three occasions I think we've been down there the same kids have all had a go at cracking the whip! They demonstrated what we had learned ourselves, that it's a lot harder than it looks!

 

Our three (centre, rear), with Josh and Lynette's kids Laila (far left)
and Luc (far right), and Johannes (front centre). Oh, and the whip far left!

Readings at Chris and Kathryn's.

On Friday Dec 21 we went around to Chris and Kathryn C's house to do the readings. Chris has been reading the blog in detail since he found out about it a week or two ago, which led to the curious circumstance where most things we went to mention about our trip he'd already read! He knew our car, he recognised the damage on the front of the car from the kangaroo incident at Coen in July, he'd read about the caravan leaf springs breaking (both times) and our quarantine dramas when we entered WA! There really didn't seem to be much news to tell him!

Dec 16 - 18 - (Day 320-322) - Billabong to Perth

538km. 176km (16th), 128km (17th), 234km (18th).
Lines are marked different colours for different days.

Wednesday 16 December

This was the collection of cans the kids came back with last night!

Flat battery - started thanks to solar blankets!

Mim's parents headed off fairly promptly as they needed to get back to Perth before us. After they left we found we'd left the Cel-Fi Go (mobile phone signal booster) in the car turned on overnight and we had a flat battery. Fortunately with both solar blankets out we got enough charge into the battery after about 10 minutes to restart the engine.

 

While I was working that out the kids wandered over to where a Great Dane was tied up near a tree while its owner went into the roadhouse. Pretty enormous dog!

Dec 13 -15 (Day 317-319) - Billabong to Carnarvon to Billabong

Sunday 13 December

We set off promptly next morning and drove most of the day before reaching Carnarvon about 3pm.

Before heading to the caravan park, we decided to go past the market gardens we'd been to last time. This one's accessed by a dirt driveway to one side of the Caltex service station on the main road which leads to the farm direclty behind.

 It's such a lovely place! Tall trees, banana plantations, orchards with lush green grass and chickens and turkeys grazing amongst the trees. It's exactly the type of place I'd like! This time we bought some bananas, pumpkin, paw paw and a couple of dozen eggs.

The driveway into the plantation

 

Dec 10-12 (Day 314-316) - Kalbarri to Billabong

 Thursday 10 December

Today we drove from the free camp into Kalbarri where we found a caravan park that accepted TAWK (Travelling Australia with Kids), which allows us to stay for 2 nights with the kids staying free. It's only a once of fee - when we bought it a couple of years ago it was $25, it's up to $40 now but definitely worth it. Their website has lots of other useful info for travelling Australia with kids.

Some caravan park around the country are quite supportive of this and it's very handy to help us decide where to go with this option as it does get quite expensive if you go to caravan parks a lot. We have tried to free camp around the place as much as possible and then just spend a little in the town we are staying in to save on the cost a little.

Also along the road we saw quite a few wild goats just galloping across the road and in the nearby bushes.

We arrived in Kalbarri around 1pm and needed some bread for lunch so went straight for the IGA and then the information centre for some other 'must see's' while in Kalbarri. We also needed to purchase a pass to go into the National Park to visit so did that while we were there.

We went to the park across the road briefly before heading to the caravan park to set up.

Dec 9 (Day 313) - Geraldton to Galena Bridge

 Wednesday 9 December

We were woken quite early this morning by numerous fishing enthusiast coming to the boat ramp to drop off the boat and park at around 4.30am and continued even while we were leaving around 6.30am.  So we decided to pack up and move closer into Geraldton to have breakfast and where we needed to get a few bits and pieces for the van.

Because we had been woken quite early no shops were open so we found a lovely spot on Marine terrace at a park near the beach where we had some bbq's, playground & amenities. Perfect spot for a nice cooked breakfast. Unfortunately none of the bbq's worked so we got out our own equipment and it worked a treat.

Dec 8 (Day 312) - Jurien Bay to Geraldton

We woke to a hot, windy morning with a forecast top of 42 degrees C! The site we were staying in was on the top of a hill so was always going to be a bit windy.

Our campsite near Jurien Bay

Morning tea at Jurien Bay with Mim's parents

After breakfast we did our two morning readings, then discussed our plans. On such a hot day we decided to try to get a good leg of driving done, and to stop and enjoy the surroundings on cooler days. So we packed up and headed down to Jurien Bay to take a quick look at the water. By this time it was about 10:30 at the time which is the traditional hour the stomach yearneth for a bakery! So we pulled into the Bay Bakery in Jurien Bay and enjoyed a delicious morning tea.

 

 

Dec 7 (Day 311) - Cervantes to Jurien Bay

We celebrated our first combined morning on the road with pancakes for breakfast, which Bek cooked for us (thanks Beks!)

 

Breakfast together

We spent a bit of time looking at the manual water pump tap in their caravan which didn't seem to be working, but after disassembling it and finding nothing of concern it turned out the water tank was empty! Apparently it had overflowed when they'd gone to fill it before leaving so they thought it was full but something else must have caused that.

By about 11am we'd finished everything and headed down to Cervantes for a swim.

The ocean at Cervantes was simply gorgeous! Beautiful white sand and clear light green water blending into darker blue further out.

Dec 6 (Day 310) - Lancelin to Cervantes

100km

We had a pretty quiet morning as Mim's parents were intending to head off reasonably early and join us here in Lancelin, so we were just waiting around for them to arrive. We had breakfast, did our two morning readings, then had another cuppa and I did some work on the blog from yesterday and the day before (particularly those videos which always take so much longer to prepare and produce than they do to watch - a bit like preparing meals I guess!) 

About lunch time Mim's parents advised they were waiting in the gravel patch just out by the main road, so we finished packing up the van and headed out to join them. It was lovely to finally both of us be on the road together!

 

Dec 5 (Day 309) - Guilderton to Lancelin

150km today

After carefully heading back to the main road we drove about 6km down to Guilderton. After finding the main carpark was now a paid ticket carpark, we drove up to a public carpark on the cliffs overlooking the ocean and Moore River.

Guilderton / Moore River

The town of Guilderton is about 90km north of Perth, and sits at the mouth of Moore River. Moore River is unusual in that it normally doesn't flow through out to the Indian Ocean! There's a sandbar between the end of the river and the ocean, and over time the river fills up more and more until a combination of its rising level and the ocean crashing over the sand bar causes the river to break through the bar and all flow out to sea. The bar then closes back over and the process starts again.

Looking east from the cliffs to the broad swimming area in Moore River

Looking south to the mouth of Moore River (left) -
nearly joined up with the Indian Ocean (right)

Dec 4 (Day 308) - Perth to Guilderton - back on the road!

170km

Today we're on our way again! Our plan over the next couple of weeks is to head up north and then back to Perth with Mim's Mum and Dad. We're not sure how far we'll get in that two weeks but that's the broad plan. Beyond that we don't know exactly where we'll go. But we do want to go at least as far as Geraldton, because last year Mim and Jude had to fly with the Royal Flying Doctor Service from Geraldton to Perth when Jude broke his leg, so they've not travelled that bit of road before. We expect to get at least as far as Shark Bay, possibly Carnarvon. But we'll see.

The best laid plans of mice and men stated we were going to be heading off together first thing in the morning, after having gotten everything packed the night before. Oh how promising that always sounds. Our intentions to leave Adelaide at the start of our trip in mid-January sounded just as promising (we ended up leaving on 1 Feb!). If you've ever tried to head off at a particular time you'll know there are so many 'last minute' things that the last minute tends to take several hours or more! And so it was this time. Given the pace things were moving, I went back to the doctor for a face-to-face appointment rather than the intended phone appointment given I expected we'd have been on the road by then.

Nov 14 - Dec 3 (Day 288-307) - Border Village to Perth (including quarantine)

Saturday 14 November

What a whirlwind of a first few days! What started off a bit exciting but calm turned into quite an ordeal!

So continuing on from last entry... we were lined up waiting along with another couple who had been waiting a bit before us, and we agreed they'd cross the border first even though that was our hope. No matter. There was quite a line of cars but we were next to the other people at the front. The cars were all sitting there with their engines idling waiting for the signal from the police and not wanting to be the one who moved a second too late and got overtaken!

 

Quarantine check at WA border

At about 11:55pm last night the police waved a light to wave us over, so we let the other guys go first and took our place behind them.

 We'd already spoken to the police and the quarantine officers to work out what they'd need to look at and what they'd care about, in particular a bag of red sand we got from Big Red in Birdsville. Despite being told it would be fine, they decided at the time to take it :(. Not to worry.