April 8 (Day 337) - Geraldton to Mullewa

170km

We had a reasonable night sleep. There was a fair bit of traffic going past as we were just in a roadside rest area and I woke up about 6am but went back and slept until about 9!

Current projected track of Cyclone Seroja
(at 11pm 9 April)

Cyclone Update

Pretty quickly we checked the cyclone update only to find there was now a third cyclone joining the party off the north west of the WA coast! This interaction makes it difficult to plot where it may go. However it was firming up that the coastal regions would be terrible places to be. We wondered if we could have made it up to Shark Bay to get out to Steep Point (the western-most mainland point) and then cut inland, but the roads all looked pretty rough. We also had the broken caravan safety chain to sort out. So we decided to head back to Geraldton to get that sorted out, and then head inland towards the Great Northern Highway. One option which is looking the most promising, in terms of the projected cyclone path and our own limited time, is to head up to Karijini National Park first (which is roughly due east of Coral Bay and due South of Port Hedland), then come across to Coral Bay and Exmouth after the cyclone's past. This will allow us to basically mirror the cyclone's current projected track.

April 7 (Day 336) - Perth to Geraldton

 

450km

 I say 'Day 336' because according to my calculations that's what we're up to in terms of days actually travelling, rather than total time away from home. Our last day of travelling on the road as such was heading back to Perth from Kalgoorlie in January.

After another slower morning than we'd planned for, we managed to get packed up and left the Bundesen's. What a lovely family and what a lovely couple of days of relaxation after a busy pack-up week and a busy weekend together!

Getting ready to leave the Bundesen's

As always seems to be the way when we're leaving, there were various odds and ends to attend to, even though yesterday I made a special trip out to attend to what I thought was the full list of odds and ends! We dropped into a Jayco dealer to pick up a door handle that broke this morning while packing up; we then had to do a bit of shopping to stock the fridge with some basic supplies, after which we were famished and got Subway for lunch. After having had a bit of junk food over the weekend we wanted something a bit healthier than white bread cheese and bacon rolls from Woolies which had been the plan. But at last after 1pm we got onto Leach Highway, then Orrong Rd, through the Graham Farmer tunnel under East Perth, and out onto the Mitchell Freeway northbound.

Travel Plans - April 7

One is reluctant to plan too much as it seems to change so often! But here is the plan for the last leg of our trip as it stands on April 8.

• April we plan to drive up to Coral Bay, Exmouth and Karijini National Park - basically the Gascoyne and Pilbara regions.
• May we plan to go through the Kimberly across the Gibb River Road to Kununurra
• First week of June we'll be starting the trip down to Adelaide, either via the Stuart Highway via Daly Waters, or via the Tanami Rd which runs from Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberly down to Alice Springs

Kids are due back at school on June 15 so we hope to be home a week or so before that.

All God willing! Who knows what could change! 

-- Greg

April 1-6 - Pinjarra Bible School, and at the Bundesen's

Our last week in Perth was pretty hectic getting stuff together, having final catch ups and making sure we had the necessary bits and pieces for our next leg of the trip up north all God willing and also making sure the kids had all their schooling stuff. They are going to still be connected to Perth Heritage until we return to Adelaide so that work can be sent until the end of Semester 1 which will be very useful.

As always there is always something that gets left behind so Greg took Jude back to school to pick up the final bits and pieces and made an outing out of it for morning tea.

Morning tea with Jude

 Along with our up north preparations we also had to make sure we were ready for Pinjarra Bible school (held at Fairbridge Village campsite) over the Easter long weekend as we are in a house with other families and a large number of teenagers.

Pinjarra Bible School

Fairbridge Village mud map

Pinjarra Bible School is hosted on a large historic property called 'Fairbridge'. It seems to be an old town with a number of old houses. Because these were full houses people once lived in, they each have their own amenities (kitchen, toilets etc) so you're fully self-contained in this house while at the camp. A number of families stay in each house, where you share meals and time together, in addition to the studies and some communal meals in other common areas of the campsite.

 

March 26-31 - end of stay in Perth

 Well our stay in Perth has almost come to an end! We came here expecting to stay for about six weeks and ended up staying for 20! Wow, that's four and a half months and we've had such a lovely time!

A few highlights of the last week:

Caravan:

We bought another spare set of springs for the caravan just in case we break another spring on our last leg of our journey. They're pretty heavy so I was trying to get rid of excess weight, and decided to install the two brand new suspension rockers instead of carrying them around as spares. The centre rocker has a grease nipple in the end to keep the rocker lubricated, but when I'd tried to the grease had gotten dried up and gone really hard which had probably contributed to the wear. I had to pull most of the suspension apart to get the rockers out so I could clean out the dried hardened grease so the rockers could be lubricated again. On the old rocker, I found the steel bush on the centre pivot point, and the two side nylon bushes which I'd replaced in Darwin, were all showing signs of wear.

The old centre rocker. Notice the wear at the top of the centre pivot point, and at the bottom of the side pivot points.

The centre pivot bolt. See that dark dot in the middle of the shiny patch? That's supposed to be a hole which grease comes out of! It had gone rock hard!

 

March 1-25, 2021

 March 1-25, 2021

I taught Jude how to make a house of cards

One highlight of March was our wedding anniversary! We had lunch in town, then stayed the night at the Duxton Hotel which is where we had the first few days of our honeymoon!

Feb, 2021

 February, 2021

I was supposed to be visiting Adelaide in the first week to get some things done on the house between our last tenants moving out and our next ones arriving, however the lockdown put an end to that idea. The kids had plenty of time at home! They were very disappointed to not be going to school as Monday was to be their first day at Heritage over here. They have been looking forward to it for weeks!

 

I had another late-night course for a new program I've joined to help improve the business' performance. I found this very helpful, and February was an extremely satisfying month on many fronts. Not only do I have a much better business plan, it's meant I'm using my time a lot more efficiently which has also meant less actual time working and time to get a number of other important things done, like spending more time with the kids and reading books.