18th August 2013
This was a really miserable day weatherwise that stopped us
walking and even venturing outside for more than a very brief spell for
shopping.
19th August 2013
The weather is slightly better allowing our walk but not
much else. Our walking habit probably
doesn’t get our blog readers excited but it is helping Merry greatly.
21st August 2013
We used the train into Melbourne to go to the appropriate venue
to cast our absentee votes for the upcoming federal election as we will not be
back in Geraldton or Perth by the 7th September. However, it is done and out of the way now
and we needed to visit Melbourne for a Village cinema to use the tickets that
Sue and Garon gave us before they raced off to their new WA jobs, which they
are apparently enjoying.
24th August 2013
We drove down to Taylors Lake to visit the Spotlight store
to buy the backing material for the quilt that Terry is making for us which the
Bendigo store didn’t have, and also buy some more of the border material for
Emma to use when we get back to Perth.
We managed to buy the backing material but only had the one option and
they didn’t have any of the border material.
We then drove the 100kms up to Bendigo where we bought the original border
material only to find that the remains of the one and only roll had been
sold. We bought some alternative
material to make a third narrow border so that the main border can be narrowed
to provide material for Emma to use on the matching pillow cases she is hoping
to make for us. However, when we got
home we didn’t like the match up with the new material, so we may use some
material that Terry has instead, or try and get away with the original border
material and hope we have enough. We now
know why homemade patchwork quilts are so expensive.
25th August 2013
We took a drive with Steve and Terry to the Mt Macedon pub
for lunch but the lunchtime meals were so big that we wouldn’t be able to
manage dinner which was already cooking at home, so we settled for a drink with
a bag of crisps. Whilst there, we booked
a table for five for Friday night.
26th August 2013
We cleaned and polished the car as our first move towards
preparing to leave Woodend and head towards Perth, and because our car is
parked under a tree that seems to be a congregation place for every bird with
bowel problems so we have now covered the car with one of our tarpaulins. We will start loading the roof rack and the back
of the car tomorrow onwards, and clean the caravan on the weekend.
27th August 2013
Today required another early start for a drive to Sunbury
for Merry to reluctantly visit a dentist for a filling of some description as a
few pieces have broken off of a tooth and exposed the nerve. This has given us an opportunity to visit a
Coles Express garage to use a 30 cents/litre fuel docket to fill up prior to
leaving on Tuesday. We will be topping
up the car’s main tank and sub tank which will be about 100lts plus two jerry
cans for another 40lts which will save us a respectable amount off our fuel
bill. We have another of these dockets
for use at a later date, preferably at Ceduna prior to crossing the Nullarbor
as the price of fuel in the middle of nowhere escalates dramatically. When we are completely loaded with 180lts of
fuel, and subject to the direction of the wind, it should get us between 700kms
to 900kms across the Nullarbor so that we only have to use one expensive fuel
stop out there. Unfortunately the wind
is most often west to east which is going to be a head wind for us with the caravan,
so here’s hoping it is light. In the
afternoon we walked into town to the post office for our daily walk which is a
slight increase in the distance that Merry has been managing and all went
well. We have also packed up virtually everything
so that we are ready to leave next Tuesday which now only leaves the caravan to
be cleaned.
30th August 2013
The weather has turned foul again after a couple of decent
days that actually included sunshine. It
didn’t exactly fool us but it did fool some plants into thinking it was spring
and decide to open up their flowers. It
is now very blustery and damp so rather than walk into town; Barry walked round
the shorter regular route with Steve and the dogs and managed to avoid the
threatening rain. In the evening we
drove up to the Mt Macedon pub for the dinner which was our farewell treat for
Steve, Terry and Sue (Steve’s sister), although a few days early. The meals were large and excellent and we
followed up with some lovely desserts, except Barry. We then moved to Sue’s house in Macedon for
coffee before heading home.
1st September 2013
We did some more preparations towards leaving for WA such as
cleaning the outside of the van, filling water tanks, pumping up tyres, etc,
and Barry replaced the bonnet support gas struts as the original ones tend to
let the bonnet close on you. These ones
are slightly stronger than the originals.
2nd September 2013
We had a slight change of plans in as much as Merry went
into Melbourne to the hospital for her PET scan, on her own rather than with
Barry, who stayed at home to finish off the remaining household chores and
bathing Foxy.
3rd September 2013
We left Steve and Terry’s at about 8.15am on the start of
day one of the journey back to Perth which took us through Woodend for the
final time, joined the Calder Highway and headed towards Bendigo. We veered off left just before Bendigo on the
Alternate Calder Highway towards Renmark and then towards Barmera but turned
right before getting there towards Morgan.
The right turn kept us on the north side of the Murray River which
avoided having a ferry crossing at one of several places. We stopped just short of Morgan at about
5.45pm having travelled 666kms, at a free camping site a short way off the
road, which being a ‘B’ road didn’t have a great deal of traffic so we had an
undisturbed night.
4th September 2013
We woke naturally at 6.30am and were on our way on day two
of our journey by 7.30am and heading for Port Augusta via Burra and Crystal
Brook. We arrived in Port Augusta at
around mid-day and stopped at a Coles express garage to fill up the main and
sub tanks which allowed us to use our second 30 cents/litre fuel docket off 102
litres. We also bought some pies for
lunch which we had just out off the other side of Port Augusta. We proceeded along the Eyre highway past Iron
Knob, Kimba, Wudinna, Poochera and free camped 45kms short of Ceduna, having
travelled 728kms.
5th September 2013
Day three of the homeward journey was an even earlier start
at 7.00am with a heavy overcast cloud that provided an almost constant sprinkle
of rain for the whole of the South Australian leg through Ceduna. We called into Ceduna and used the Coles
express garage to use a regular 4 cent/litre off docket to fill up which should
get us to the border of SA and WA. When
we got to Border Village we made the mistake of topping up the tanks again and
then found that the fuel at Eucla about 10kms inside the WA state was 13
cents/litre cheaper. However, on the
bright side the Eyre Highway changed from a just-wide-enough bumpy road to a
pleasantly wider, smoother road as we crossed the border and we drove out of
the sprinkling of rain, although still heavily overcast. Crossing into WA also came with a time zone
change from 2.0am in SA to 12 noon in WA giving us longer daylight for longer
driving but we did have an extra rest break at 4.00pm as well as 2.00am WA time,
and it also was a no wind situation.
Where we stopped for the extra break was a good free camp area and
probably should have stayed there for the night but choose to move on to the
next free camp area near Cocklebiddy having travelled 764kms. It is actually a better area but because of
the cloud cover it was not as bright as normal for that time of day which had
brought the Kangaroos out to feed. We
had already decided to ease back on the speed as this also meant that they
didn’t know which side of the road had the best grass to feed on, when one
choose to cross from nowhere diagonally in front of us. If it had kept going it may have got away
with it, but it tried to turn back when it was right in the middle of our side
of the road and felt the 70km force of our Roo bar. Having had the suspension raised and
therefore being a high vehicle it pushed the roo down under the car and back left
rear wheel and out the side so there was no damage to the Patrol, or
caravan. We can’t answer for the roo as
we never saw it again as it wasn’t on the road behind us.
6th September 2013
We started out earlier than yesterday at 6.30am with an
almost clear sky plus what little breeze there was happened to be a tail wind. This made the caravan the equivalent to a
yatch with the spinnaker up which improved our fuel economy by 1km/litre. That partly compensated for fuelling up at
the most expensive fuel station on the Nullarbor and got us through to Norseman
without having another fuel stop. From
Norseman we proceeded to our chosen free campsite 70kms north of Southern Cross
arriving in bright daylight despite some cloud cover creeping in, and before the
roos became active.
7th September 2013
We started out a little later today and travelled slightly
slower as it was raining for most of the way, sometimes quite heavily with
lightening in the distance. We stopped
at Tammin where it was raining really hard and considered pulling off at a free
camp site and stay there until the next day when the weather might be better
for setting up the van at Colleen and Craig’s place without the rain. We phoned ahead and were told the rain in
Perth had cleared so we continued to
the Memorial Rose Garden at Meckering for our lunch break where it was still
raining but put our trust in Craig. We
did eventually drive out of the rain as we got closer to Perth and then had to
decide whether to follow the Navman direction our make our own way the
remainder of the trip. We followed the
Navman directions which we were dubious about as they took us almost to
Mundaring Weir but it turned out okay. It
was hilly which we would have to do one way or the other, and twisty but not
too narrow. It was actually better than
many of the roads we travelled in Queensland and Tasmania. We arrived at our destination at about 2.45pm
and were able to set up in the dry.
However, the ground is a bit sloping so we will be making some modifications
tomorrow as our shower water doesn’t empty completely.
8th September 2013
Barry re-arranged the levelling of the caravan in the
morning and then we went with Colleen for a drive into the Swan Valley to a
Coffee shop to buy some coffee for her coffee machine. From there we had to take the very short
mandatory drive to the Chocolate factory.
We did a lot of sampling but no buying as we still have a reasonable
quantity of Aldi’s chocolate which we thought to be superior. The Swan Valley has changed dramatically from
our last drive through that area about ten years ago. It was a series of wineries with open cellars
but is now a series of wineries plus numerous tourist attractions such as
coffee, chocolate, cafes, restaurants, and ice cream which we also had to
visit. It is now a family orientated
affair rather than just wine tasting.
We collected Richard and brought him up to Colleen’s for the
afternoon/evening which of cause included an excellent diner that was prepared and cooked by
Emma with Merry’s supervision.
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