Jan 14 - 15 (Day 329-330) - Albany to Esperance

 

620km

Thursday 14 January

 Today was a slow morning getting some work and school work done. 

Lunch at Wellstead

Then we hit the road towards Ravensthorpe. We were hoping to get to a caravan park to be able to do some washing and have a shower but most parks are busy this time of year so we had to think outside the box a little. So I looked on Wikicamps for rest stops that had showers available (like we did when we first arrived in Esperance last November) and spotted one at Wellstead which was on the way to Ravensthorpe.

 On the way up the road was closed and took us on quite a detour before heading back to the main highway but at least we were still heading where we wanted.

We all throughly enjoyed our shower! Oh, warm, clean and smelling like violets and daffodils! :D

One way we get a bit of clothes washing
done while on the road

Washing on the road

I also got Greg to fill a bucket half full of warm water to use in our 'caravan washing machine', which is just a 20L mayonnaise pail. This is a tip we learned from other travellers and gets you by. It's pretty easy to use - put your washing powder in and water, dump your clothes in and then sit it on the front (or rear) of your caravan. In our case it lives in the front tool box. The bumping along the road acts as an agitator, so when you arrive at your next destination the clothes are roughly washed. You then change over the water and rinse a few times an then put back in the tool box for the next bit of the travel to shake around and rinse nicely; then when you get to camp simply wring out and hang up.

Since we had used the showers that were free we thought to help them be able to maintain these free facilites we would buy something from the shop. As we got into the shop the boys spotted this cabinet full of matchbox cars. They were in absolute awe.

An incredible matchbox car collection at the Wellstead roadhouse!

Today seemed to be the day of road works. Actually this part of the highway they seem to be doing a lot of work on. Maybe widening it or something? I'm not sure but we were sitting at this stop for at least 5-10 minutes.

This is the Wheatbelt region of WA, and they've now finished harvest so most fields just have the stubble left.

Sun on the stubble - after harvest in the Wheatbelt, WA

Ravensthorpe

We made it to Ravensthorpe by about 4.45pm where we needed to pick up a parcel at the post office by 5pm, which Mum had sent down from Perth as it had arrived the day after we left for this southern part of our trip. It was a new solar regulator as the other one apparently wasn't working properly. 

We had travelled through Ravensthorpe on the way from Esperance to Perth preparing for our lockdown, so we started to recognise a few spots from here on.

Then we found a lovely little spot just south west of Ravensthorpe for the night. The weather has been so bitterly cold the last little while since getting down towards Albany which is a bit unusual for us as we've been in the warmer parts of the country for ages. Only needed our jumpers a few times here and there but down here we have needed them pretty much every day since about Augusta. But I must say it is nice in the evening when it comes to bedtime and you can snuggle under the quilt because it's cold. Much more bearable than sweltering and not being able to sleep because you are so hot.

Our camp for the night, about 10km south of Ravensthorpe

Friday 15 January

We headed from our rest stop down to Hopetoun to have a bit of a look around and hopefully drive along the coast towards Esperance.

We spotted a bakery on the way through and just had to have a little something. The boys had a quick play on the playground and then we went for a short walk down the street to the bakery and got some goodies to share between us all.

The coastline and beaches look so lovely but because it's so cold we haven't gone for any more swims.

Greg has been hunting and hunting online to try to find a bull bar for the Pajero. You'd be aware we hit a kangaroo on Cape York Peninsula July last year and we're going to be getting it repaired in Perth before we leave, but we're hoping to install a bull bar instead of just getting a new front bumper. It's been very hard to find something exactly right, and he made a few further unsuccessful phone calls while we were having morning tea.

Beautiful shoreline east of Hopetoun

From Hopetoun there was a road running along the coast for a while before it rejoined the main road further along, but we thought it might be nice to have some scenery of the coast so opted to take that road. We pumped up the tyres at a service station (we'd let them down a little while ago for a dirt road), then carried along the road out east for a while and got some nice views of the coastline, however the road was reasonably skinny and after a while it turned into dirt! Having just pumped up the tyres we weren't inclined to drop them back down for a smoother ride, so after a minute or two's vacillation decided to chicken out and head back to Hopetoun then back up to the main road. Times like these are why we've said how good information centres are, and this is the price you pay for ignoring your own advice!

Along the way we spotted a blue tongue lizard which Matthew went and rescued off the road and we let it road the car for a few minutes and then release back into the bush.

Along the road from Hopetoun back to Ravensthorpe a few farmers have put these large pieces of art around the place. This is just one of them but there were about another 10 pieces of art that were a bit further down other roads which we didn't go down. 

On our way to Esperance I made a few phones calls to caravan parks but every one of them was fully booked out so next best thing is looking on the satellite map and spotting bush tracks and finding somewhere we can squirrel ourselves away in that's free and to ourselves. We found one just 12 kms North West of Esperance and we'll stay here for 2 nights. There's not heaps of phone signal but enough to get some work done.

Our camp near Esperance

-- Mim and Greg