Its been a while I know

Sorry to put a dampener on things by re-announcing myself back on the blog, but here I am again anyway. Been a long while since my last post and you will realise why very quickly.

So I stayed in Broome until the first week of July during which I got a call from my brother saying he and his wife were coming across to Western Australia to view the wildflowers in the spring, and we arranged to meet up on the 24th Aug in Kalgoorlie. This meant travelling back along the same roads that I had not long ago driven to get up to Broome. Rather than over complicated things I decided to stay at the same places going back down as I did coming up as I knew where they were and the rough distances between them. Its was a trip of approximately 1800kms (just over 1100miles) which I planned to do in very slow time, mainly because I knew how much cooler the weather would get the further South I travelled. Owing to this recovering of old ground which I had already written about not long previously there wasnt really much to tell you all about.

A couple of little things happened on the way down, one was I started to get a pain in the bottom of my right foot, and from previous experience I new that this was the onset of Plantar Fasciiitis, and it got very painful very quickly, to the extent I could barely put any weight on the foot at all. The second thing was I noticed that Cody’s was getting the beginnings of smelly breath. A phone call to a vet in Kalgoorlie and I managed to get an appointment for him, and as an aside I also got the car booked in for a service. I also get a message from my brother saying he had booked the Superpit tour of the goldmine in Kalgoorlie, which you may remember I tried to do the last time I was there but it was cancelled due to the weather. About three weeks or so before we were due to meet up I got a call from my brother saying they were going to have to postpone their trip as both he and his wife had tested positive for COVID and had to self isolate for 7 days. This put a wee spanner in the works but as I had booked appts I decided to go ahead with the visit. The car got serviced with no problems and Cody had his visit to the vet, and he needed some dental work with a possible extraction, he also had a lump on one of his back legs which the vet recommended being removed. So Cody was booked in for the following week to get these things sorted, and thankfully, after their week of isolation negative COVID tests were obtained so the meet up was also back on for the following week (31st).

After nineteen months the rendezvous was achieved, and a good catch up followed. Cody had his day at the vet no extractions of teeth were required but a good clean up was carried out and the lump removed. As well as the removal of Cody’s lump an arm and a leg was also removed from myself to pay for it. After four days we parted ways me to head further South and to finally transition out of Western Australia after over a year, and to head into South Australia for the spring and probably up to Christmas time. This also meant that another item on my bucket list was going to be ticked off which was the crossing of the Nullarbor Plain, which roughly runs from the town of Norseman in the West to Ceduna in the East, approx 1200kms (going on 800 miles). Due to some very inclement weather I free camped about 40kms north of Norseman for a few days while the rain passed through, picked up a few supplies in Norseman then turned left and started to head East. I didnt go too far on the first day and found a very secluded and quiet free camp in which to spend the night. The next morning it was on to the first roadhouse (Belladonia) where I needed to stop for fuel and also booked in to their caravan park for a couple of nights to recharge the batteries and to top up with water in the van. This is when I discovered two things, the first is that none of the roadhouses on the route had any potable water, and two none of the dump points on the route were in use. Luckily I was able to top up the dog’s water containers with bore water so at least they were sorted out. The dump point situation wasnt really an issue either as most of the places I had planned to stop had toilets, and I wasnt desperate for water but i just needed to keep an eye on it.

Next stop was Caiguna where yet again there was a nice free camp to be utilised which as a bonus was all gravel so no worries about getting bogged if the weather turned nasty. A few kilometres from this camp was the start of the longest piece of straight road in Australia 146.6kms or 90miles heading due East with not a bend, curve, slight deviation to be had. Cruise control is a wonderful thing but cruise steering would have been useful as well. After this I got to Moodini rest area and was settling down to a quiet evening when I got a knock on the door to the van and found pulled in behind me was my brother. A night at the camp fire was had we said our goodbyes again and we set off again the next morning, me to go to Border Village which as the name suggests was at the WA/SA border and them to go further on to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. When I got to Border Village where I was intending to stay I was told that the generator that supplies the power to the caravan park was broken so they only had unpowered sites, so I decided I may as well find a free camp instead.. However I did discover that their dump point was working so i made use of that and whilst i was doing so who should pull in to also use the same but my brother. So it was agreed that I may as well go on the Nullarbor Roadhouse for the night as well. From Moodini to Nullarbor Roadhouse was about 340kms which is the sort of distance I do in two days or sometimes maybe three, so I did a stop to let the dogs stretch their legs and use the facilities. Once again the next morning we said our goodbyes again I was heading to Nundroo free campand my brother to Penong, which was about 70kms or so further on. I stopped in Penong the next morning to get a coffee before heading on into Ceduna where I was booked into a caravan park for 4 nights. Boy they like the Windmills in Penong, not in the sense of Dutch type windmills but the get the water out of the ground type. There were hundreds of the things everywhere, and they even had a windmill museum. Anyway onwards toward Ceduna and the border checkpoint, no fruit, veg or plants to be transported between states. and as I was approaching I got a call from my brother to seay they were in Ceduna so we met up yet again on a very windy foreshore. Shopping was done and coffee was drunk, before we said farewell to each other yet again and this time finally. I was heading off to the caravan park and they wre heading off to Kimba for the night.

I had a very peaceful stay in Ceduna and im now slowing making my way down the West coast of the Eyre Peninsula, which currently is very windy and ever changing weather. Still i guess being springtime and this far South its only as expected.

So folks you are now all up to date and now im in pastures new updates will be a bit more regular.

A few pics to end up with, nothing much as Ive been very lax on the photo taking recently