Wednesday 26th to Sunday 30th September 2012. Across the Nullarbor!

Yes, we do feel like we are heading home now! I don't know if it is anything to do with our homesickness, missing our community, the fact that we are now travelling East again,or all of those, but even though we are still more than 3000km away, we are feeling like we are on our way home! We need to make a consious effort now not to rush on, but to continue to stop and take things in.

Today, we drove through Norseman, where we stopped for lunch. Norseman is named after a horse that was tied to a tree overnight and when fetched in the morning was found to have pawed a hole in the ground revealing a huge gold nugget! I love some of these stories! The town also boasts of tin camels standing in the main street, a symbol of its past, when camel trains were common in the area. Thats about all there is to the Western gateway town to the Nullarbor. From there, we drove on to our first camp spot for the night, cooked on the fire and roasted marshmellows again under a near full moon.

Once you have come across the Fraser Ranges, the landscape is low scrub and dry, thin trees in sandy, gravelly soil. The road is flat and straight. Some emus ran beside us today (and nearly in front of us!) just after the 'Watch out for camels, emus and kangaroos' sign, just so we know those signs aren't for nothing!

We head off again on Thursday for more of the same after a rough night with Reuben getting bad croop and waking in panic trying to get breath! After ventolin and steaming up the van with a saucepan of water, he settled thank goodness, and we didn't need to find a flying doctor! (At least there are emergency landing strips on the highway here for them.)

Its overcast and windy, and the landscape hasn't changed. After a short stop at Balladonia (where part of the sky lab satellite crashed to Earth and is displayed in the Roadhouse Cafe), we hit the  90 mile straight (longest straight bit of road in Australia) where the trip couldn't get any more monotonous! We did see three kangaroos drinking the rainwater on the road in front of us though, and managed to miss all three! Maduna pass was the one high spot where we got a good view of the Nullarbor Plains and if it wasn't overcast, we would have been able to see the Great Australian Bight Coastline...but we really had to use our imaginations today. We stopped at our next freecamp near Maduna soon after with lots of other Nullarbor travellers for the night. Hopefully a more relaxed one! And off we go again tomorrow...we are still only about half way!

Okay, the Nullarbor freecamp loos are revolting! Unmaintained and well-used and gross! I am not fussy, but I would rather dig a hole than use what they call toilets! Today we drive as far as Eucla where once we stopped for lunch and a toilet (that you could call a toilet), we decide to stay in the van park attached to the roadhouse for the night, as the SA side of the Nullarbor decides to eliminate the stinky, gross toilet problem by just not providing any other than at roadhouses! Eucla is the last WA town and was a nice stop though after lots of driving, with nice gardens and ocean views of the Bight, our first different views for a while. Thats where the travellers cross is too, a monument for Christians crossing the Nullarbor. It felt good to know we were more than half way!

On Saturday morning we started out by crossing the next border and driving into South Australia. Our 5th Border crossing! The scenery changes dramatically with the Nullarbor Limestone Cliffs of the Great Australian Bight on one side and the Treeless Plains of the Nullarbor Desert on the other. If you are lucky, you get to see whales here, and the magnificence of the longest strip of Limestone Cliffs in the world, which are breathtaking and something different to look at for a bit!

The Nullarbor lives up to its name though, with kilometres and kilometres of saltbush and sand, and not a single tree! This can make it pretty difficult to do a roadside pee, as Reuben found, hunting for the largest saltbush he could find before doing the deed! We stopped at the infamous Nullarbor Roadhouse, for lunch (and not fuel at over $2/litre), and then onto Nundroo for the night again.

When I say the names of these places, you need to know that they are a roadhouse...thats it, usually with some sort of motor inn/van park attached and no more. Eucla was the largest with a population of 80, most others being about 8! It is amazing to think about those 8 that live there! At Nundroo, the Roadhouse is next door to the 4th hole of the Nullarbor Golf Links (longest Golf Course in the world) so the kids got out their minigolf clubs and had a go at 'Wombat Hole', a little fake patch of green in a landscape of brown, which was pretty funny!

On Sunday, we summons up just  enough motivation to drive the last leg of the Nullarbor and head to Ceduna, going through Penong, a really tiny farm town with over a hundred windmills. We reach Ceduna where we stop and breathe a big sigh of relief! We made it...over 1200km of not much! We are officially Nullarbored!

Next stop...a little beachside spot on the Ayre Penninsula somewhere to stop with no driving for a few days...

Tuesday 19th to 25th September 2012. Albany to Esperance.

We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at Cosy Corner campground near Albany, discovering it was right on the beach, but well protected from the wind by a line of trees. A gorgeous little spot for free! The kids were also delighted to find another family travelling with five children to play with while we were there! We enjoyed walking on the beach and getting some beautiful views of the southern ocean and some beach cricket with our other friends.

On Wednesday we headed into Albany to visit the Brig Amity, a lifesized replica of a convict ship captained by Lockyer in the 1800s. We loved being able to explore the ship, even down below deck. We then checked out the Museum and historical buildings close by, including the old schoolroom. Albany is quite lovely, built on the hills rising from the shoreline.

Each night at the campground after tea, we would get a visit from the local bandicoots, coming right up to our van and hanging about looking for scraps, which was pretty cool.

On our final morning at Cosy Corner, we spotted whales playing only about 100metres from the shoreline, and sat watching them spirt water, flick their tales out and roll their tummies up...how majestic and awesome that was to see!

On Thursday, after some very drawn out goodbyes to our new found feiends (this doesn't get any easier when we find special people along the way) we drove the journey to Ravensthorpe. Its just a tiny little town on route to Esperance, with a quirky little van park where we stopped. It is famous for its variety of wildflowers, and we did see quite a few of them on the drive in. The 'wildflower show' advertised in all the tourist mags was nothing to write home about though...I am not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't 600 little stem samples in glass jars on shelving in the Senior Cits hall run by some little grey haired ladies! But hey, it passed about 15 minutes of our time in sleepy Ravensthorpe!

The weather turned nasty by Friday afternoon, and the winds became destructive and the sky turned black! We decided to stay put and wait it out rather than heading closer to the coast again, and in the morning Captain Slow was still dry inside and in one piece! The rain had stopped and the winds settled, although still blowing, so we felt safe enough to set off for Esperance.

We decided to stay at Cape Le Grande National Park, about 50km further East of Esperance, a spot quite wild with stunning coastline scenery. The icy cold winds blow straight through us though when we first arrive, and we hope for the weather to improve if wre are to enjoy this area at all! A quick walk along the beach and a pat of some very friendly kangaroos before we cosy up in the van for the night to stay warm.

On Sunday, we wake to sunshine and no winds, thank goodness, and decide to head into Esperance for the day, starting with a visit to a friends church, then onto Tanker Jetty to see if 'Sammy the Seal' will come and say hi. (Sammy is a wild seal who apparently makes regular visits to the jetty to get fish scraps from fisherman, but we didn't see him today unfortunately.)

We take part of the Ocean Drive up to Observatory Lookout, and see some of the most spectacular coastline views we have seen though, so glad the weather is better and we get to see it. Reuben gives us a bit of a scare at one of the beaches, climbing up a rock ahead of us and then us losing sight of him on the other side where there were massive crashing waves and rips! Then he pokes his head up out of a crevise and looks at us all as if to say "what are you all screaming about?" Hence, our little climber learnt a big lesson today about not going so far ahead of mum or dad!

Monday is a glorious, sunny day and we decide to do the walk from Lucky Bay to Thistle Cove in the morning. It is a beautiful walk taking you up high on the rocks, with amazing scenery to enjoy along the way. The afternoon is an easy one, enjoying the beach and warmth and the friendly kangaroos. And yes, the kangaroos do actually sleep on the beach...we didn't believe it until we saw it!

This coastline is spectacular and we feel very blessed to have seen it, walked on it and had some sunny weather to enjoy it! Unfortunately though, both Dwayne and I both seem to be allergic to it, and haven't stopped sneezing since we arrived...not a spot we could settle in no matter how tempting!

Today we have stocked up on snacks, checked tyres, etc for our next big trek - that loooong, straight drive across the Nullabor.

Monday 10th to 17th September 2012. More of the Sth West

On Monday we settled in Busselton for a couple of days, home to the 1 Mile Jetty (the longest in WA), which left us a little confused as we were sure Carnarvon was claiming the same when we went through?!? Although we didn't walk this one, the kids spent most of the afternoon on the fabulous, creative playground beside it. Busselton was also where we found the oldest stone church in WA and some gorgeous parkland. The town is very 'touristy' otherwise.

We did use it as a base though, and on Tuesday did some driving down to Dunsborough and the magnificent Margaret River region, with absolutely beautiful scenery made up of farmland, wineries and forestry with wildflowers, wild lillies and ferns. We even saw a deer farm with deer leaping across the field as we drove by. On the way back, we went through the town of Cowaramup, where statues of dairy cows lined the main street...very cute!

We left for more Jarrah Forestry filled with wildflowers on Wednesday, and stopped in Bridgetown-Jarrah Park for a few days before we head further south. Its a small, cosy spot with walking trails and not far from the town of Bridgetown where we will spend the next days exploring. We started a fire early though, as it got pretty chilly when the sun went down and roasted marshmellows under the stars for dessert.

On Thursday, armed with maps and plant identification charts, we spent the morning on a 4km bushwalk finding and identifying plants and trees in the Jarrah Forest. It was a great school morning. We drove into Bridgetown for lunch in the park...what a pretty town full of character built on the top of rolling green hills where the backs of all the buildings lead down the hills towards the river. Bridgetown is the home of Blues in WA, so has a great 'vibe' to it, and is also home to the Jigsaw Museum! Yes, walls filled with mounted jigsaws of all shapes and sizes, even ones to complete if you so desired! We thought it was fantastic (and a little bit quirky)!

We left Jarrah Park on Saturday and drove through to Manjimup for lunch and laundry, then continued on to Shannon National Park Campground for the weekend. A beautiful part of the Southern Forests, with more Karri country, one of the most magnificent forest trees growing to over 300 years old and over 80m tall! Another nice thing about Shannon NP is hot showers (run on wood boilers) and flushing loos! We don't usually have these until we stop in a van park!

We spend Sunday Morning driving through the 50km Great Forest Trees Drive through the park, with little radio broadcasts along the way explaining the history, plant and tree life of the National Park. Its a great little compliment to what we have been doing in school the last few days while travelling through the forests. An afternoon walk gave us some close up views of big grey kangaroos feasting on the green flats near the campground.

We decided to continue our forest theme for school on Monday and drove further south to the Valley of the Giants Tree Top walk in the Ancient Tingle Forests. The Tingle Trees are only found here, and remind me of the trees you see drawn in cartoons with bulgy foot like trunk bottoms and massive trunks. You cannot even capture the whole tree in a photo they are so huge! (The Grandma Tingle was the kids favourite in the photos below with her wrinkles and one eye.) The guided walk taught us a lot about the Tingle Forest and the Walk took us 40m high to see some of it. Another great learning day that brings us to the end of the South West Forests and down to the Southern Coastline.

In the not too distant future we will cross another border and leave WA...wow, what a massive state! I don't think we really appreciated the size of this state until we drove from one end of it to the other and we still have more to go!