Paraburdoo, Western Australia

We first found out about Paraburdoo some 12 months ago by a fellow travelling friend, Shannon. She had posted on facebook about the FREE WASHING MACHINES……… so this place had stuck in my mind and it was a no brainer that of course we head there when we were in the area.

We arrived late in the afternoon after our long drive from Exmouth, about 500km, and were pretty tired, however not sure if I mentioned the caravan park had FREE WASHING MACHINES so once we said our hello’s and caught up with the Leeds, who had arrived the day before, I lugged every bit of clothing, towels and bed linen over to the FREE WASHING MACHINES. Now for all those younger adults and men out there, I feel the value of this place will be lost on you, however I believe that every mother who has ever stayed in a caravan park, whether for a weekend or 2 weeks, will appreciate this post. Now for those of us that knew nothing about Paraburdoo except the FREE WASHING MACHINES, the town is actually a town built purposefully for mining, complete with its own airport for those FIFO’s. It is only about 60km south east of Tom Price and as far as we could gather it pretty much has everything on offer. There is an IGA, post office, library, cafe, newsagency, public pool and even the central mess hall in the middle of town that does a killer  evening meal for only $25.

We ended up staying for 2 nights and getting a lot of washing done as it was FREE. I even managed to drag myself away from the FREE WASHING MACHINES to spend a morning at the library with everyone catching up on schoolwork. As it was a Saturday the library closed at midday and being that it was still stinking hot we rewarded the kids with an afternoon at the public pool. Due to it being a Saturday we thought it would have been packed, but we actually had the whole pool to ourselves, as it was the WA school holidays so all the kids had been packed off back to civilisation for a break. Another bonus (which had nothing to do with the FREE WASHING MACHINES) was that because it was school holidays the pool had an inflatable course set up, much like the wipeout version you see on TV.

Finally after  3 hours of playing on the inflatable toys the kids got out of the pool, they were absolutely exhausted from continually pulling themselves up on to the equipment, none of them could lift their arms above their head. It was a great day all up and together with the FREE WASHING MACHINES cemented Paraburdoo as one of the best outback country towns we had been to. However, with clean clothes and bed linen it was time to move, as quite simply a woman can only enjoy doing so much FREE laundry. So the next morning, before the heat set in we had packed up and were off on our way towards our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP………………

PS. Just incase you didn’t get it, the washing machine were FREE……..