Tyres and tribulations

It soon became time to move on from Fitzgerald, it was a very pleasant place to stay and quite a few others came and went while I was parked up. There were some lovely trees all around the area but a standout line of them were right next to the caravan. Unfortunately my picture doesn’t do them justice. So it was onwards Eastwards towards the town of Ravensthorpe, which on the map looked to be a reasonable size. Well, like so many of these rural towns it wasnt much more the a few houses and shops either side of the main thoroughfare. I booked myself into the local caravan site for 4 nights to give the batteries a rest and to restock with water and empty the chemical toilet. I also needed to stock up on some bits and pieces for the pantry ad fridge and Ravensthorpe had what looked like a decent sized supermarket. Well it was most certainly a decent size unlike the contents of it shelves, many were completely empty and a lot of them only had one or two of items they did have on display. It did make me think how the heck the locals coped, as the nearest big towns were either 200kms to the East or 300kms to the West. Not exactly the sort of distances you would want to travel just for a few bits and bobs. Anyway I managed to get a few things to keep me going for a while, and the stopover also gave me a chance to catch up on some washing.

After four pleasant days in Ravensthorpe the Easterly road called again and I was going to go to a small place called Munglinup as it had a small free camp area in the town, well when I say town it was basically a roadhouse and a few houses. Anyway you had to be fully self contained to stay at the free camp which unfortunately Im not (no grey water holding tank), but looking at my trusty wikicamps app I found a nice looking free camp spot about 18kms prior to Munglinup. So off we trotted to see what was what. And also by stopping here it only left me about 100kms to go to reach Esperance. One afternoon while I was parked up at the free camp spot the dog started to bark and carry on about something they had seen or heard outside. I knew it wasnt somebody else parking up so just presumed it was probably a kangaroo hopping by. I thought I had better pop out and have a look just to make certain it wasnt something untoward, and to calm the dogs down and at first I didnt see anything, and then, what I thought was a bush about 70mtrs or so away started moving and lo it was an Emu. then out of the bush wandered a small mob of them, in all there were six. One was marked up slightly different to others and seemed to keep a little distance to the others which I assumed was the adult. Unfortunately my book of birds didnt make it overly clear. Anyway they hung around for about 15 or 20 minutes, enough time for me to grab my camera and get a few shots of them, before they all disappeared back into the bush. I didnt seem them again for the rest of my stay in the area. Being only 18kms from the Munglinup roadhouse I was able to make a trip to get bread and milk and a few little snack type things. More importantly I was able to get a pretty decent cup of coffee as well. Its the small things in life that keep you going. Also while I was at the roadhouse I managed to book myself into a caravan park in Esperance.

I couldn’t get into Esperance too soon as I had my caravan booked in for a wheel bearing check and didnt want to be hanging around too long before that was due., anyway I got there two days before (28th inspection on 30th). Esperance is a decent sized town with a lovely seafront promenade and lots of places to park up to enjoy the view. It also had a pretty well stocked supermarket so I was able to do a decent shop and more importantly managed to get some fresh fruit and veg. I dropped the van off on the morning of the 30th and pointed out to the man that I also needed either a new door or hinges on one of my outside storage spaces, two out of the three hinges were purely decoration so he said he would have a look. So off the dogs and I went to have a little stroll on the seafront and to find a coffee shop and await the call to say I could pick up the van. I was sat on a bench enjoying the view when at about midday the call came in saying the van was ready. On walking back to the car I noticed that one of my rear tyres looks a bit flat, definitely needing a bit of air. Anyway I thought it would do me to pick up the van and get back to the campsite where I could change it over for the spare. The van was all done, new wheel bearing all round, parking braked re-tensioned and new hinges on the storage door. Managed to get the it all back to the caravan park and got it all set up again and by now the back wheel was nearly flat. So next job was to change it over. Well as most things that didnt go to plan either, I couldn’t loosen off any of the nuts. I had to ring a couple of places till I found somewhere who could fit me in, so I got my air pump out and pumped the tyre up and hoped it would last until I got the the tyre dealership. In some ways I was pretty thankful that I got the puncture as when they inspected the tyre it had a lot of bald patches on it and in one place it was nearly through the rubber. This was the same for both back tyres so it was a case of getting two new ones put on. Now these tyres were Michelins and had lasted about 19months and no more than 30 thousand kms (about 18 thousand miles). So now have a set of semi off road tyres on the back (Goodyear Wrangler in case you are interested) to the tune of $700. So my second puncture of the year, one on the car and the previous one on the caravan

Esperance was the farthest East I was going to travel and as it was now April it was time to start heading back up North for the winter. So with new boots on the car and new bearings in the caravan I was all set to go. The first stop on my way North was a free camp called Kamarl, which was a lovely large flat area to find a spot to set up. On the following morning I had to pack up and move on, nothing wrong with where I was except for the flies, now I don’t mean the normal fly type flies these things were the size of double decker buses and they bit. Good old sandflies and it wasnt just the odd one or two there were loads of the buggers, so as I was getting more and more pissed of with them it was time to move on. Only went up the road by about 40kms and found another free camp spot called Bromus Dam which was far better. Still had flies but normal types I was used to. Stayed here for a couple of nights then it was in to Norseman caravan park for a few nights. This caravan park was quite a size with loads of powered sites, and it was fairly busy, mostly with people just stopping for one night either before or after that had travelled across the Nullarboor Plain, as this was the first/last town from the plain. Not a great deal to write home about in Norseman very tidy township but like most places when you go rural, more shops and businesses closed and boarded up than open ones.

Im currently about 140kms North of Norseman at another free camp spot called Feysville bush camp. I could be here for a little while as my next stop which is Kalgoorlie is a wee bit busy at the moment as school holidays started yesterday and at lot of the campsites are fully booked. Now just to round off this little blog let me tell you what happened today. I was walking back to the caravan after going for an amble with the dogs and I noticed that one of the caravan tyres was flat, yep yet another puncture. Well the air very suddenly went very blue I can tell you. This time though I had the trolley jack to use so after jumping up and down on the wheel brace (rattle gun is next purchase) to loosen the nuts, it was a simple matter of sliding under the jack on some blocks and up the van went. So wheel changed in about 20mins rather than the couple of hours it gook me last time. Nice big nail in the punctured tyre. So when I get to Kalgoorlie it will be yet another visit to the tyre dealer for yet another tyre. Im sure I should be getting frequent customer discount or something along those lines. Although it was a lot easier to sort it all out this time I was still majorly hacked off with the fact that it had to be done.

Anyway folks that’s the state of play at this time. A few photos to end up with and catch you all again soon.