Our WA stats are:

• 9 1/2 months or 295 days
• 31,492 kms,
• 59 camp set ups
• 16 national parks

Our top 5’s are (in no particular order):

Nik –         Steep Point, Karijini National Park, Francois Peron National Park, Gibb River Road and Esperance.

Amy-        The Gibb River Road, Steep Point, Margaret River, Broome (for the life saving club and visits from family and friends back home)   and our stay at Mandurah (purely as we got to spend time with my family xxx)

Bec-           Karijini National Park, Ningaloo, The Gibb River Road, Margaret River and Broome for the life saving carnival.

Zoe-           Ningaloo, The Gibb River Road, Margaret River, Lucky Bay National Park and Steep Point.

Abby-        Karajini National Park, The Gibb River Road, Margaret River, Esperance and Steep Point.

Jess-          Ningaloo, The Gibb River Road, Lake Argyle, Karajini National Park and Red Dog at Dampier.

The scenery and places of WA have been more than we could have imagined, however we are a bit wary now as we think it will take a lot for mother nature to impress us anymore, as what she has created in WA is beyond spectacular.

We have also met some fantastic, warm and friendly people who have also made our stay enjoyable. Whilst we all believe the scenery is what impressed us the most, a lot of our top 5’s were made all the more special because of the people we spent time with, my Mum and her sisters Rob, Peta and Carol and their respective other halves and families down in Mandurah, having coffee with the Cullen/Berrimans in Lucky Bay down in Esperance, the Leeds for the top half of WA and especially The Gibb River Road, the Mol’s in the Pilbara, the Fredin’s in Karratha and finally the McClymonts, the McFarlanes, the McAuleys and Nan and GP (Niks parents) in Broome. As well as all the other travelling families and people we have crossed paths with as we made our way through the state.

But having only covered half of Australia we think we are up for the challenge to try and be ‘out wowed’ by the rest of this country, so farewell WA and G’day again to the Northern Territory. We are very excited and looking forward to the next chapter, adventure and as always destination on our OZLAP…………………

Our next destination after Knx was Lake Argyle, only 70kms down the road, therefore we arrived nice and early and securing our spot in the usual caravan line up. We had heard on the grapevine and from fellow travellers that you had to get there early in order to secure a powered site and thankfully we were, so we scored a nice big powered site not far from the infamous infinity pool.

After we set up and had morning tea, we went for the usual walk around the park and sussed things out. The infinity pool looked awesome but the temperature didn’t impress me, so we decided to wait for the next day to take the usual photo with the lake in the background, as I think I need to psyche myself up for it. Instead we went for a drive up to the impressive dam wall, down to the picnic area below and along to a few lookouts. From one of the lookouts we were able to view the water below the dam spotting a crocodile cruising around, not sure if it was a freshie or a saltie.

The next day Bec, Abs and myself went for a hike along the St Georges Terrace- Bluff Lookout walk, which had us walking around past the old the homestead and onto the bluff, where we were able to take some amazing photos. The walk was great, we didn’t stray off track once and it wasn’t too steep!!! Later on that morning we went to the Durack Homestead where we wandered through and learnt about the history of the Durack family and how when the Ord river was dammed it flooded the majority of the Lake Argyle Station. The bricks from the homestead were saved and transported to Knx where they were in storage for many years until they were finally able to receive some government funding and relocate and reconstruct the original homestead to where it stands today, using the same bricks it is an exact replica of the Durack’s homestead that was built in the 1880’s.

After our history lesson we went and found some geocaches and also stumbled upon some aboriginal art at a place called Crocodile Rock. We were surprised that this little landmark wasn’t passed on to visitors as it was located in a pretty cool cave, however it was nice to have it to ourselves!!!!

Another walk across from the caravan park had us climbing up a fairly steep hill to give us some pretty amazing views of the Lower Ord River and the dam. After lunch we got ourselves ready for our sunset cruise that we had booked in for with Lake Argyle Cruises. We were picked up from the park at 2:30 by the bus and taken down to the boat ramp, where Matt our boat skipper drove us around the lake for the rest of the afternoon. Matt also got us up close and personal with some Short Eared Rock Wallaby, freshwater crocodiles and some Archer fish (which spat the water at us). The cruise was a bit of a history lesson too, with Matt talking to us about the history of the land, known initially as Argyle Downs Station, and founded by the Durack family way back in the late 1800’s. Geography was also covered as Matt pulled out the overhead map and showed just how little of the lake we had been on and how small was the amount that you could actually see. Considering that back in the 1980’s the whole dam project was considered a bit of a white elephant, it is now supposedly doing quite well, as it supplies the water for the agriculture farms in Kununurra, with the biggest user being TFG (who grow Sandalwood, a product used for perfumes), and it produces the electricity for Kununurra, Wyndham and Lake Argyle township. I assumed that it was also the areas main drinking water source, but no, not one ml is used for drinking. The cruise concluded with a chance for the brave to jump in and have a swim, whilst beer, wine, nibbles and afternoon tea was handed around, both on the boat and on the water via a floating esky. All up the cruise was great, although a tad expensive, but we all had a good time and enjoyed ourselves.

We enjoyed the scenery and history of Lake Argyle, they were both interesting and amazing and we learnt a lot about the last 120 years of the area, however we now start a new and exciting chapter and look forward to our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP…………………………..

The east Kimberley town of Kununurra was our next destination after our trip along the Gibb, we were looking forward to setting up on some grass and restocking the fridge and pantry. Kununurra, or Knx as the locals call it, was established back in 1963 as the main service hub for the Ord River Irrigation Area and has a population of around 6000 people.

We stayed at the Lakeside Resort Caravan Park, which had a great resort style pool and, as the name suggested, it was on the banks of Lily Creek Lagoon only a kilometre from the town centre. We decided to book in for a week in Knx as we wanted to have a good look around as well as get some school work done.

In between the schoolwork, our first adventure had us heading north/ west along Parry Creek Rd heading towards Parrys Lagoon Nature Reserve, but first we were lucky enough to have to cross the infamous Ivanhoe Crossing. The Ivanhoe Crossing is a concrete causeway that takes you across the Lower Ord River, home to many saltwater crocodiles, but has been closed for the last couple of years due to consistently high water levels deeming it too unsafe to cross. However, luckily for us the local council had quietly reopened it only about 6 weeks ago, so naturally after word had filtered through to us (via facebook of course) it was our first point of call in exploring Knx. After taking the customary photos and assessing the depth and flow of the river we jumped in the car and drove across with absolutely no hassles whatsoever, our side steps didn’t even get wet!!!

After the crossing we continued along towards Parrys Lagoon where we first stopped in at the Mambi Island boat ramp, spotting at least one decent sized saltie sunning himself further up the river along the opposite bank. The campground was quite dusty and also offered limited shade so we didn’t stay long.

From Mambi Island we then entered Parrys Lagoon Nature Reserve and stopped in at Marlgu Billabong. Marlgu is the local aboriginal word for ‘wild bird’, so naturally we were able to sit in the shady bird hide and marvel at the abundance of wildlife. There were catfish swimming under the hide, birds such as egrets, pelicans, spoonbills, herons and whistling ducks, and less than 100 metres away we spotted 4 salties sunning themselves on the banks of the billabong.  We ended up staying there for at least half an hour as we were spotting different animals with the binoculars.

It was getting towards morning tea time so we headed to the Rusty Shed Café in ‘Old Wyndham’ down at the port. I had a very decent coffee, whilst Nik enjoyed an iced coffee and the girls shared milkshakes and gluten free raspberry cheesecake, yummo!!! $40 later we left and dropped Nik down at the jetty to have a fish while the girls and I went to do some more around town sightseeing. First we headed to the main attraction being the Five Rivers Lookout, which enables views of part of the Cambridge Gulf as well as the beginnings of the Ord, King, Pentecost, Durack and Forrest rivers. We were even able to spot Nik down on the jetty with his fishing rod.

On our way back down to town we called into the Warriu Aboriginal Dreamtime statues, we couldn’t find a plaque explaining the story or the statues, but they were massive and towered above the girls and I. After we headed back to the port and picked up Nik we had some lunch at a nice shaded park, took the customary photo standing in front of the oversized crocodile and started to head back to the van at Knx. On the way back we also drove past an area of controlled burning, there were hundreds of birds of prey and crows circling the burn off and as we wound the windows down, we were struck by the extreme heat and the fact that there was not another soul around…… Controlled burning like this is common place in the Kimberley this time of year with lower temps and not much wind, unlike the Summer months where the temperatures are often above 40.

Whilst in Knx we took a drive up to Kelly’s Knob which afforded some nice views of the town below, it actually reminded us of the views of Alice from Anzac Hill. The rest of the week was spent taking it in turns of doing schoolwork and geocaching. The geocaching took us all around town, including the dam on the Lower Ord River and even the crapper farm…….. However our best day of caching was when we spent the morning in Mirima (Hidden Valley) National Park, only a stones throw from the centre of town. In between the kids giving Nik and I funny looks, as we were quoting Top Gun and ‘sending you 2 clowns to Mirima’ we did the few awesome walks and found some geo’s. Mirima is very much a mini Bungle Bungles, with the same beehive shaped sandstone domes, albeit on a much smaller scaler. The general concensus in the car on the way home was that it was one of the best parks we had been too!!!

The girls and I also had an enjoyable morning at the Saturday markets in town, we didn’t buy anything but it was fun looking around. Abby and Jess also nagged me about going to the library, so the 2 of them and I headed there after finishing school one afternoon. After we were there for an hour I hadn’t seen them for a while, so I went and had a look in the kids section only to find them curled up on bean bag watching the TV……..we left 5 minutes later!!!!

We had a ball in Knx for the week, we explored in and out of town, swam in the pool and enjoyed some amazing sunsets sitting on the banks of the lagoon watching the resident Jabiru searching for food. But, as usual, our feet started to itch and we were ready to move onto our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP……………………

Finally, after spending the morning doing all the last minute jobs like collecting meat from the butcher, filling the gas bottle, checking the post office one last time for mail, filling up with diesel and most importantly grabbing a decent coffee we headed out of Broome for the last time. Our jobs had taken that long that the girls were too engrossed in their movies to bat an eyelid, so just like that we cruised on out, heading east towards the Gibb.

We had decided before our last GRR trip that when we headed north again we would travel via the GRR instead of the highway and visit the few places we didn’t get to see on our first trip across with the Leeds. We stopped for lunch at Willare Roadhouse, in between Broome and Derby, managing to find a free car park next to yet another tour bus. Being back in Broome we had forgotten all about the countless tour buses and their passengers and have since decided that we have a love hate relationship with the tour buses. On the one hand we hate the masses of people they bring into the not so large gorges when we are there, making them noisy and overcrowded, however we also realise that with these tourists comes tourist’s dollars, something that is very welcomed up here in the seasonal Kimberley. We also hate the way the tourists bitch and moan about the lack of facilities and their run down qualities out here in the remotest part of Australia, however we love it when, like today, we end up parking next to them and scoring 3 huge containers of 5 star cuisine consisting of a bean, pecan and pepitas salad with a delicious soy sesame dressing, a tuna and corn salad with crunchy noodles and lastly a chicken Caesar salad complete with anchovies, croutons and real chunks of chicken!!!!!!! Bingo, lunch, dinner and tomorrows lunch sorted!!!! After we bade farewell to the tour bus like we were long lost friends we finished our gourmet lunch and headed to our next destination, a free camp on the Lennard River, just near the Windjana Rd turnoff.

The next day we headed 20kms down the heavily corrugated Windjana Rd to explore Windjana Gorge and see the hundreds of freshwater crocodiles we had been hearing about. We had arrived early and set off on the walk by about 9, the morning for once was overcast, making it good hiking weather. We kept our eye out for the crocs, but on our way in only managed to spot 2 right at the beginning, so we kept walking and looking, assuming they would be at the end, until finally we arrived at a sign that told us that the last 1km of the walk was closed due to track damage from the previous wet season and ongoing weed control…. Disappointed we turned and headed back the same 3km we had come. The walk we all thought was a pretty cool walk, taking us on the dry river bed and then through the forest sides of the river, with the girls saying it felt like we were in a rainforest, as usual there was some rock hopping and lots of ups and downs. It wasn’t until we got about 500 metres before the end of the walk that we saw the freshies, sunbaking on the opposite side of the riverbank, all up we counted about 39 of them, big and small. We were pleased that we had finally spotted them, not in the mass numbers that we had been told about, but nonetheless we saw them in their natural environment.

From Windjana Gorge we headed east a further 35km to Tunnel Creek, along the very corrugated road, spotting quite a few up turned, looted and burnt out vehicles. We got a good look at them as we cruised on past doing our usual speed of about 50-60kmph, wondering just how fast they had been travelling to crash and roll like they had. Arriving at Tunnel Creek we headed in prepared with torches and prepared to get our feet and shorts wet. The tunnel was pretty cool, after some rock scrambling we entered a huge cavernous area and proceeded into the dark huge space beyond. The walk in was not too bad, yes we got our feet wet but the wade through the water was only knee deep at its worst, so we managed to stay dry. We saw and heard lots of bats, but unfortunately (or not) we didn’t spot any creepy red eyes peering out at us from the dark depths of the cave.

That afternoon we headed back to camp for a lazy afternoon sitting in front of the fire and having fun spotting more freshwater crocs in the river about 50 metres away from camp. The next day we were on the road by about 9:30, with today’s drive being a long one for us, about 200kms along the GRR, back to one of our favourite spots, Manning Gorge campground. We arrived right on lunchtime and were expecting to see the campground chock a block, however we were pleasantly surprised when we saw that it was in fact quieter than when we were there last, only 4 weeks ago. After a very busy past few weeks, we spent the next 2 nights at Manning Gorge campground chilling out, swimming and catching up on schoolwork.

From Manning Gorge our next stop was about 70km up the road, Mt Elizabeth Station. Mt Elizabeth Station is predominantly a cattle station that dabbles on the tourism side of things during the dry season. The campground is pretty basic, however it is a large open space that we enjoyed after the busyness of Manning Gorge and the facilities, whilst, dated offered clean flushing toilets and awesomely hot showers, bliss!!! We found a bit of grass away from the main campground and enjoyed the peace and quiet in front of the fire.

Mt Elizabeth Station has 2 main attractions, Warla Gorge and Wunnumurra Gorge, both only being a short drive from the homestead. After we set up we had lunch and then headed out to Warla Gorge only 30 minutes away, where we spent the afternoon having a quick dip, lazing in the sun and trying our luck at fishing (of which we only caught a few little ones.) The next day we had yet another sleep in and then headed off to Wunnumurra Gorge, only 10kms away, however it took us over 45 minutes to get there due to the rocky slow going drive. The Wunnumurra Gorge is actually on the Barnett river, where only a few days ago we were swimming in downstream at Manning Gorge campground. The gorge here was fantastic, complete with an awesome waterfall, chilly swimming water and a few little fish. We had the place to ourselves (something unusual this time of the year on the GRR) and spent most of the day here, ate lunch, swam, fished and then tackled the slow rocky drive back to camp, where we set about lighting the fire in anticipation of another fresh chilly night. The last couple of nights we have noticed the evenings getting a little chillier, but last night we were all literally freezing, layers of clothing and blankets were required in order to get a comfortable night sleep. This weather had us all thinking back 12 months ago to the freezing nights we had whilst staying in Alice Springs. After surviving yet another chilly 3 degree night we packed up early an headed off by 7:30 for a long day of slow GRR driving.

The road this morning was not too bad until we got to the Kulumburu Rd turnoff, from here on as well as corrugations we had to contend with sharp shale rocks as well. Travelling about 50-60kms an hour our drive took a few hours, we passed a few cars that had pulled over after shredding their tyres and after making sure they were OK we kept going and as per our plans we reached Ellenbrae Station about mid-morning, just in time to have scones for morning tea. After we enjoyed coffee and scones we then set off for our next destination, Home Valley Station, but not before we had to pull over and help a couple from Melbourne who had shredded a tyre and punctured their spare within an hour of each other. The couple were in a Thrifty rental car and had no more spare tyres so were just sitting on the side of the road waiting…….. One tyre was completely blown out on the side wall, whilst the spare they put on was not far behind, however Nik was able to locate the hole on the spare and managed to patch it back up after using  3 plugs. We advised the guy that he needed to drive a bit slower to Home Valley as the side walls of the spare tyre were still looking a bit iffy. Whilst he was putting the spare back on Nik checked the pressures of the other tyres and noticed they were all sitting at around 40psi, so after he lowered them to 28psi they headed off very wearily to get a replacement. It’s amazing the difference tyre pressure and speed make to the tyres, too much pressure and it’s like rolling a balloon over rocks, they are going to pop and shred. Too much speed on high pressure tyres and driving over corrugations then results in the side walls buckling and therefore blowing out. Whilst we do tend to harp on about tyre pressures, we religiously change our pressures both on the car and the van according to the conditions and have never had any issues whilst driving dirt and rough roads. After having travelled the Oodnadatta Track twice, the Birdsville Track, the Plenty Highway, Cape Leveque Rd and now the Gibb River Road twice we figure we are on to something and the only time we have had a blow-out was actually on the bitumened M1 highway….

After our little stop over we finally arrived at Home Valley Station around lunch time, where we set up and proceeded to the pool for a very refreshing dip (I opted to sit and watch and have a ‘real coffee’). We spent 2 nights at Home Valley Station, relaxing, swimming and doing laundry. We sat on the banks of the Pentecost River and watched the sunset over the Cockburn Ranges, the best view I think I have ever seen. Then the next morning Nik went back down to try his hand at fishing, unfortunately the fish were off the bite (again) as the water temperature was quite chilly, however he did spot 2 big salties on the other side of the river eating what looks like the barra that Nik was going to catch…… The next morning, he took the drone back down to the river in the hope that the salties were around again, but unfortunately they weren’t, so instead he got some awesome footage without them.

With the word around camp saying the road from Home Valley to El Questro was pretty rough, we took a deep breath and headed off to complete the last bit of the Gibb. After another awesome crossing of the Pentecost River, with even less water in it than last time, we arrived at El Questro by mid-morning. After setting up, we headed off to do the Saddleback Ridge track and Pidgeon Hole lookout, both offering awesome views of the valleys and Pentecost. We then spent the late afternoon swimming in the swimming hole and catching up with fellow travellers at happy hour, with Jess and Abby participating in the ranger’s activities at the stables, according to Jess they played awesome games and also found a cane toad which then wee’d on the rangers hand……. We also ventured out to Explosion Gorge for some sightseeing and fishing. Also on our very last day we were lucky enough to be doing a horse ride, the girls were very excited, so much so that I awoke at 5:50am with a start to open my eyes and find Jess sitting and staring at me with a big smile on her face. She was ready to go, however still had another 3 hours to wait…….

We really loved our time at El Questro and especially the Gibb River Road and the Kimberley as a whole, as we drove out and away from the Cockburn Ranges for our last time I think we made a silent promise to ourselves that we will be back sometime, but in the meantime we had our next adventure and destination to look forward to on our OZLAP……….

We initially arrived in Broome way back when in early May and eventually left for good in the middle of July. However out of this 2 ½ months we spent in the southern part of the Kimberley, in total we spent about 6 weeks in Broome itself.

Our initial visit had us restocking groceries and catching up on school work before we went exploring, first up was a place just north of Broome called Quondong Point. We spent the afternoon there swimming at the secluded beach and lazing around before we headed back south along some dirt tracks that led us to Willie Creek Pearl Farm. We only had a quick look around the farm as we had deemed the pearl tour too expensive and we figured we would do the one up at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm.

We also visited the weekend markets that were held at the Old Broome Courthouse in town, with the Saturday markets being a lot busier with more stalls than the Sunday ones. The markets were great with plenty of Asian food stalls, coffee stalls, mango farm stalls and plenty of pearl stalls (yes the freshwater ones too….grrr) as well as clothes, knick-knacks, art and circus gear….

Fortunately, one of our stays in town coincided with the Staircase to the Moon event. With the best vantage points being at Town Beach, where we spent an intimate evening with about 3,000 other tourists, perched on the grass staring east out over the mud flats of Roebuck Bay. After a bit of jostling, nudging and pushing (we had arrived fairly early to get our good patch of viewing grass and were not going to give it up for straggly latecomers) we were able to hold our ground and view the moon rising and forming the horizontal reflections on the mud flats and creating the optical illusion of a set of stairs leading up to the low set moon. However, Jess has declared that it looks more like a ramp to the moon for her…….. Nik and I tried to get some decent shots of the staircase, unfortunately it was a bit hard as we didn’t have the tripod for the camera (it probably would have knocked over by the crowds anyway) and we couldn’t help but shake our heads at the hundreds of flashes going off on cameras around us. So after we were finally jostled out of our vantage spot we retreated back to our car, however I did sneak one final look over my shoulder and couldn’t help but catch my breath as I turned at the perfect moment. The sheer size of the moon and its staircase reflection was amazing, as usual it was a sight that no camera could do justice to, however I was fortunate enough to have it saved to my memory, before I turned and realised everyone else had walked off leaving there by myself staring stupidly at the moon with my mouth wide open…..

Whilst in town I dragged everyone off to Streeter’s Jetty, just behind Chinatown, to view the jetty at both low tide and high tide. Streeter’s Jetty was named after one of Broome’s original pearling locals and was once the centre of the hustling and bustling pearling industry, with many pearling luggers being moored along it and near it, back in the day. These days however, it now sits out the back of Chinatown as a cherished reminder and monument to a once thriving industry, having being restored to a more safer structure a few years ago. Although the tides here aren’t as big as the tides at Derby, some 200kms away, they are still pretty amazing. At low tide the jetty is a lonely figure standing in mud flats and surrounded by mangroves, fluorescent orange crabs (with one huge claw and one small claw) and of course millions of biting midges that literally chase you running, screaming and slapping your legs and arms off the jetty. However, at high tide the murky, muddy water is lapping at the timber boards of the jetty, air bubbles constantly bursting on the surfaces, leaving you wondering just exactly what creatures (big and small) the tide has bought in and are hiding beneath the water and the mangroves.

Another exploration had us heading down to Gantheume Point, the southern most point of Cable Beach in search of dinosaur footprints. Now this little adventure couldn’t be done any old time, we had had to wait for a low tide that was lower than 2.1 metres and this then had to occur at a reasonable time of the day. The reasons being that the footprints were actually in the water most of the time and that to view them the tide had to drop below 2.1. So after we had worked out the best day off we trotted late in the afternoon to look for these footprints. To our surprise the information boards asked people NOT to go down onto the rocks to look for them, so as to preserve their existence, which was confusing as this adventure is well advertised as one of the top 10 things to do in Broome……. So shaking our heads in confusion, we began to scramble down the big rocks to the low tide level to unsuccessfully look for the dinosaur footprints, we searched left, right, high and low with no avail, so after we were all hot and bothered and Jess was complaining of a stinging feeling on her big toe we retreated back up to the car. Disappointed that we had left empty handed, we promised ourselves we’d catch up with those sneaky dinosaurs on the east coast of Australia on the ‘Dinosaur stampede trail’ in QLD.

During our stay in Broome, we were also lucky enough to be have a few visits from family and friends back home, with Nik’s parents being first up and spending a week with us at the caravan park. We spent a week playing tourist again, visiting the markets, the Broome Museum and also the old Convent. Sue and Derek also spent a lovely day out at Willie Creek Pearl Farm on one of their lunch and pearl tours. It was great to see them, as we hadn’t seen them since September last year, and we were all sad to see them go.

Before we had arrived in Broome, Nik had contacted the Broome lifesaving club explaining that we were visiting soon and that we were keen to participate in the Broome sunset lifesaving carnival in July. He also asked if the girls could join in with the occasional training session, as it had been a few months since they had been on a board. So not long after our initial arrival we headed down to the club and were practically met with open arms, yes the kids can do as much training with them as we wanted!!! So to the girls delight, whenever we were in town we headed down to training 3 times a week in the afternoon, whilst Bec also trained 2 mornings a week with a dedicated few. Needless to say we were a common sight down at the club and we got to know a very welcoming and friendly handful of people that would bend over backwards to accommodate and help us.  We felt that we had only scratched the surface of a very approachable, kind and sociable community that made up the life-saving club.

Our final 2 weeks in Broome are best described as the icing on the cake for our southern Kimberley adventure. We were lucky and humbled to have our close friends, the McFarlane’s and the McAuley’s, from the Mornington Lifesaving Club come up to visit us for a few weeks. Of course as we knew they were coming up we had decided to leave a few touristy things to do for when they were here. So firstly we caught up for dinner at the Divers Tavern for some crab racing, the kids also went and saw Finding Dory at the outside cinema and then we booked in for the quintessential camel ride and sunset on Cable Beach, something every Australian needs to experience.  It was a great afternoon/ evening as we also celebrated Keiran’s birthday with a chocolate birthday cake and sparkles.

Tourist checklist number 2 was the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Farm just outside of Broome. This unique crocodile farm was originally situated right near Cable Beach not far from our caravan park. However, the rumour goes that Broome was not originally saltwater crocodile country and that they were never really sighted this far south, they were more so up the top end and NT, sure there were plenty of freshwater crocs not far away in Windjana Gorge, but Broome is not really the home for salties, apparently……… However, the story continues that during one wet season when a cyclone went through Broome, the Cable Beach area was flooded and apparently quite a few crocs escaped from Malcom’s croc farm, after that the farm was relocated. Apparently since then there have been quite a few more sightings of saltwater crocodiles in the area, with stories of Willie Creek Pearl Farm and Crab Creek both having a rather large 3-4 metre ‘residential’ croc. During our stay the beach had been closed a few times due to this…… So after freaking all our new visitors out with this rumour (while we were spending the day at the beach of course), the next day we headed off to the croc farm to witness some HUGE saltwater crocs in all their spine chilling glory. (We later decided in hindsight this was probably an error of judgement given that the kids had a carnival at the beach that weekend, the same beach the croc handlers told us they found some of their caged big crocs at…….)

And so finally to top off our stay in Broome the Smith’s, together with the McFarlane’s and the McAuley’s donned the dark green skull caps of Mornington Life Saving Club and had an absolute ball participating in the weekend’s lifesaving carnival events. All up we had a team of 10 kids competing and even 3 master’s competitors, who all did us proud, even though the master’s team struggled to move for a few days afterwards.

As we drove out of Broome for the final time, we did so with happy hearts. We felt we had experienced Broome as a semi-permanent local, even though we had felt we had only scratched the surface of the lifesaving community. Like all small towns, Broome is not without its usual problems of drugs, violence and bored youth, both in town and with surrounding Indigenous communities. We also figured out that Broome is not really as it seems, once you wade past all the tourist paraphernalia (read fake Broome pearls, grr) and hype, it’s a typical small remote country town. During the hype of the tourist season you don’t really get to see the real Broome or the locals out and about, so our experience at the lifesaving club gave us a small glimpse into the people that make up the small community that call Broome home.

Whilst we really enjoyed our time in Broome, we felt we were ready to move on and experience our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……..

From El Questro it wasn’t long before we made it back onto the bitumen and turned right, our destination for today was Purnululu National Park. Purnululu actually translates to mean sandstone in the local Kija Indigenous language, a much more appropriate name than the Bungle Bungles, I think anyway. Purnululu National Park was officially declared a World Heritage Listed Area back in 2003 and is considered one of the Australia’s greatest natural wonders, alongside Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.

We reached the Bungle Bungles Caravan Park, which is located just off the highway, about 1pm and dropped our van in the storage area, as dual axle vans are not permitted into the national park. The heavily corrugated windy rough 54km road in took us about an hour and a half to drive and we finally arrived at our campground at about 3pm. We had booked online earlier that day and camped at Walardi campsite, situated at the southern end of the park, closer to the huge beehive domes and Cathedral Gorge. We then spent the rest of the afternoon setting up, relaxing and planning the next day before it got dark at 5:30 and then we were all tucked up in the tent by 7:30, however it felt like after midnight.

The next day we were up with the sparrows and had eaten and packed up well before 8am, ready for a big day exploring. First up was a drive 15km down the road to the Cathedral Gorge carpark, this end of the park is home to the amazing sandstone bee hive shaped domes. The domes were apparently rounded over after millions of years of erosion, with the distinguishing stripes occurring as a result of a type of algae and iron oxide being present on the sandstone. The short hike along the domes and into Cathedral Gorge only took us about 15 minutes, however it was a little hard as it was mostly along the very sandy dry shallow creek bed, a bit like walking along the soft sand of the beach for a few km’s. The creek bed then meandered and snaked its way into the domes ending up at an amazing gorge with a vast high cathedral like roof, giving it an amphitheatre appearance and also its name. Whilst the small amount of water at the end of the gorge was very stagnant and manky and there were also quite a few people starting to congregate in there, the place had a very peaceful feeling about it. We all had wandered off into different parts of the gorge to try and get our own personal perspectives on it. I had found a comfortable rock away from the crowds to perch myself on, laid back and gazed up to the high roof above, studying all the nooks and crevices within the rock walls and ‘ceiling’, this place was interesting to say the least, so many places where hidden animals could be, so much untold history and stories that we could only imagine. Such was the feeling of the place that many of the 50 or so people that were also there were whispering in hushed tones, no one game to speak out loud in case they disturbed the sleeping spirits.

As we were walking out of the gorge we passed at least another 60 people heading in along the track and as we reached the car park we counted at least 6 tour buses, god what a crowded nightmare, needless to say we made a hasty retreat and prayed they would be fair way behind us for the rest of the day. Our next stop was approximately 45km towards the northern end of the park to view the stunning Echidna Chasm. The brochures advise being in the chasm at around lunch time as this was when the midday sun shone directly into the chasm. So conveniently we arrived just before lunch, loaded up our water bottles and headed in for the short hike. The walk took us through a palm lined dry creek bed, this time the walk was hard due to the rock hopping required and careful concentration needed to not fall and twist our ankles on any loose rocks. From the perspective of the kids the walk took us into a huge ‘crack’ in the rock that had been formed a very long time ago and as a result of thousands and millions of years of water, weather and erosion the crack had progressively gotten bigger and bigger, towered on each side by the huge sheered 100m cliffs of said rock.  The ‘crack’ progresses about 1km into the ranges and finishes at the Echidna Chasm, where in some areas the width of the crack is only an arms width apart. As we had unwittingly timed it so well we were there right on midday and were lucky enough to experience it in all its glory. The midday sun shining into the chasm, lighting it up and giving it an almost mystical surreal feel, however after we took a few photos and had fun scrambling up and down a few ladders and boulders, we started to head back out as quite a few people were starting to come in and it felt like it was getting quite crowded, more importantly though our tummies were rumbling….

After we had eaten our lunch we then began the long corrugated drive back out of the national park and back to the van at the caravan park, where we set up for the night and watched an amazing sunset and had a well-deserved hot shower. Our trip into Purnululu was a quick one as we were on a tight schedule to be back in Broome to meet up with friends and also the fact that we literally had no food left…… However, we enjoyed our short time here, although the kids were a little disappointed at the lack of swimming, especially after our awesome time on the Gibb. We were lucky enough to admire the beauty of the park and as usual were in awe of mother nature and what she had created and then had graciously chosen to leave for us to ponder and wonder just exactly how? Visiting places like this always has us asking each other what other amazing treasures lay within this park that we are not permitted to visit or see, I suppose we will never know………. So with Broome now in our sights we were eager and excited to head towards our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP……..

As nice as the scones were at Ellenbrae Station, we set off the next morning, all very excited, as finally the day had come where we were actually going to cross the famous Pentecost River. A very distant 8 years ago I had cut out a photo of a car crossing the Pentecost with the Cockburn Ranges in the background, I then got it laminated and it has been on our fridge ever since. As expected the photo simply did not do it justice, both the crossing and the ranges behind was an awesome sight to behold and I am very pleased and thankful to be able to have it forever imprinted in my mind, in addition to the few photos, drone and go pro footage we took as we ended up going back and forth about 6 times each. Both Nik and I had a go at driving it, with me being a little bit more nervous the Nik, however disappointingly we didn’t spot a saltie lurking in the shallows.

After we pretty much dragged ourselves away from the crossing we then continued on a short distance to our next stop, El Questro homestead. El Questro Wilderness Park is over one million acres in size and is located on the eastern end of the GRR. It is a very popular holiday destination for travellers from all demographics, for the high rollers there is the homestead accomodation costing $2,500 pn, Emma Gorge Resort for the non campers and finally the station accomodation (much like a caravan park set up) for us campers and caravaners with a little less coin to throw around. The attractions around EL Questro are absolutely stunning and fortunately 75% of them are available for everyone to see by 4WD, which is exactly what we did during our 4 night stay here.

First stop for us was El Questro Gorge which involved hiking along a spring fed creek surrounded by shady palms and ferns. The tough hike took us over 4km into the gorge where we climbed up boulders, hopped over rocks and even scaled up a waterfall to reach our final destination of McMicking Pool, the clearest and deepest swim hole we had seen. Amazing!!!

The next morning we awoke bright and early and arrived at Zebedee Springs by 7:15am, to hopefully beat the mad rush, in particular the many, many tour buses. The crowd wasn’t too bad, probably about 20 of us there, however Nik was clever enough to walk up to the top of the springs and managed to nab us the perfect sized pool that practically built for the Smith family. It was ablsoute bliss lying there in the 28 degree crystal clear water looking up at the many palms, red cliffs and blue sky. I could have stayed all day, however after an hour we hopped out and went back to the car where we had our breakfast and watched car after car roll in, by the time we left there would have been about 50 cars there and 1 tour bus….

After our relaxing soak and breaky we packed up and headed across to Emma Gorge Resort, where along with about 200 other eager tourists we hiked the 1 1/2 kms up the creek to be rewarded with yet another stunning gorge and crystal clear swim hole. Emma Gorge was yet another highlight as the kids had a ball swimming and trying to duck dive to the bottom of the gorge. After a while though, the crowds started to roll in so we thought it best to start the slow tedious walk back, stuck behind the tour groups who weren’t too keen to let the younger, faster hikers past. We finished up eating lunch on the lush green lawns at the resort before we headed back to our van at the station for a very quiet afternoon.

Whilst at El Questro we took a 4wd up to Branko’s Lookout where we sat and enjoyed the sunset overlooking the Pentecost River, no sooner had the sun gone down than the biggest, brightest and fullest moon arose from the east, as the usual the photos just don’t do it justice.

On our last afternoon/ evening at El Questro we had a farewell meal and yummy desert to celebrate our time spent travelling with our mates, the Leeds, which in total has been 6 months on and off over for the last 15 months. We had a great time eating, reminiscing and reciting all the places we had camped and the experiences we have shared together, however with the sugar hit kicking in it wasn’t long before the kids started running around and playing a game of highly charged 40/40 home. The next day it was hard to say a final goodbye, however as we will be heading over east next year (where they are are heading and settling) we decided to instead say see you later. As we drove off, we pondered with the idea and possibly of a reunion, perhaps Cape York as the destination……….

And so finally the last 20 odd kms back out of El Questro was the final offering of dirt that the GRR had for us, with the rest of the road being bitumen back to the highway.

In summary, whilst we were expecting some damage and mishaps to both car and caravan, we felt that we came away relatively unscathed, our casualty tally combined with the Leeds, ended up being a snapped antenna, busted light bar, broken winch controller mount, loss of water from water tanks, broken caravan lifting arm, a few broken guards under the front passenger wheel and lastly a busted caravan shocker discovered just before El Questro. Fortunately for us our storey differed to a lot of others, with broken axles, broken trailer welds and shredded tyres to name just a few that we had heard of, perhaps our lowered tyre pressure and easy going (OK, read slow) pace was to our advantage, as we were passed by quite a few cars doing ridiculous speeds as they overtook us.

Our GRR stats were as follows:

• approximately 1,500 kms driven
• 80 minutes of drone footage
• 30kms hiked
• car casualties – snapped light bar holder, broken winch mount, broken wheel guards x 2
• caravan casualties – battery issues and loss of water (both after doing the Kulumburu Rd)
• ZERO tyre problems, car tyres at 25-28 psi, van tyres at 28 psi
• Places we stayed – Silent Grove (2 nights), Charnley Station (2 nights), Manning Gorge (3 nights), King Edward River (2 nights), Mitchell Falls (1 night), Ellenbrae Station (1 night), El Questro (4 nights), totalling 15 nights.
• fresh food ran out at about the half way mark, a few mandarins and apples were purchased from Mt Barnett Roadhouse.
• Our favs – Nik: El Questro Gorge, Amy: Manning Gorge, Bec: Manning Gorge, Zoe: El Questro Gorge, Abby: Manning Gorge and El Questro Gorge, Jess: Bell Gorge and El Questro Gorge.

Whilst it was a great feeling to be driving on a smooth road we were also a little sad to be finishing this part of our adventure, we had waited so long and it was such a pivotal part of our trip that we had very mixed emotions as we turned onto the highway. Mmmm, perhaps we may find ourselves back here again after our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP…………

From Manning Gorge we had a big day planned, heading to Drysdale Station and then onto King Edward River campground, en-route to Mitchell Falls. The drive along the GRR to the turn off was pretty uneventful with the road being in pretty good nick, however once we hit Kalumburu Rd we encountered the worst road we have ever driven on, in regards to corrugations. The relatively short 65km drive to Drysdale Station took us over 2 hours of bone, car and caravan rattling fun. Thankfully on this section we only had one casualty each, being when our light bar on the front of the bull bar broke its metal brackets and came off, whilst our mates the Leeds had their UHF antenna simply give up and snap in half, all we can say is thank god for cable ties and duct tape!!!! We limped into Drysdale Station, where we sat on their lush green grass and had some lunch, then took a vote to keep pushing onto the campground at King Edward River, as we had been told by other travellers at Manning Gorge that it was an awesome place to camp with a great swimming spot to keep cool. Thankfully the next 110km of dirt road to King Edward was a bit smoother than the first bit, although it was still very rough in places, and after another 2 hours we rattled on into the campground. Unfortunately for us, the casualty list kept growing, with us losing all our tank water due to a simple to fix loose bung and the Leeds had some issues with the wind up mechanism on their van. We weren’t too fussed about the water as we still had another 70 litres in our jerry cans and water containers. As Leah, myself and the kids went and had a swim, Nik and Simon spent the next hour conducting some more bush mechanic repairs on the van, once again I believe duct tape and cable ties may have been involved.

The next day we spent the morning organising and packing the tent and car for our overnight trip to Mitchell Falls, another 65km trip which once again took us over 2 hours to complete. The roads up here are pretty tough and even though the grader had recently been through, in places it was still very rough as put simply you can’t grade or breakthrough the bedrock, it was about this time we inwardly decided that we were very glad that we had set the car up for such tough driving conditions. However, as we expected we had suffered another casualty, this time our winch controller bracket decided it had had enough and snapped clean off, so yes you guessed it, out came the cable ties and off we went without skipping a beat!!! The drive through the Mitchell Plateau, from King Edward to Mitchell Falls was awesome, almost tropical even, as the track in was literally littered with the fan palm, ‘Livistona Eastonii’, not surprisingly the guidebook states that the ‘Plateau has WA’s highest annual rainfall of 1400mm’. I also couldn’t help but to let out a nervous laugh as the info book I was reading stated that ‘the Mitchell Plateau is also home to the saltwater croc, the Taipan, the Death Adder and the King Brown snake, gulp…….. After we set up our camp at the Mitchell Falls campground, we set off for a short walk to Little Mertens Falls for a late afternoon swim, then back to camp to get ourselves organised for the hike into Mitchell Falls early the next morning.

The walk into Mitchell Falls was a relatively easy one, particularly as it was early so the sun didn’t quite have its full strength, however by the time we reached the falls we were all drenched in sweat and ready for a swim before we headed to the look out. After we had cooled down we dragged the kids away to the lookout and were not disappointed, the falls were amazing, from our vantage point we were lucky enough to see all four levels of the water falls, something we weren’t expecting.

We spent the next hour having morning tea at the lookout and had another swim before we said our goodbyes to the Leeds, who were excitedly getting a lift back to camp by the helicopter, and we hiked our way back by foot. This time it was a tad more difficult due to the heat of the sun, so when we went past our last water crossing we all simply sat ourselves down in the water to cool down. Once back at camp we ran into our new mates the ‘Hamiltons’, who we had first met at Silent Grove and the ‘Pinwheels’, who we had met the previous day at King Edward Campground and were fellow Expanda owners. I then literally had to drag Nik away as he managed to find a cold beer and had proceeded to sit down for what could be a lengthy chat!!!! So after packing up the tent, we said our goodbyes and made our way back to the vans, where we cooled down with another late afternoon swim.

As reluctant as we were to drive back down the rough Kalumburu road, we headed off back to Drsydale Station, where we were able to refill our water tanks and then back onto the GRR for an overnight camp at Ellenbrae Station. Ellenbrae was a great little spot with awesome green grass on which to frolic and we were lucky enough to make it in time to taste some of their very yummy fresh scones, which we scoffed down for afternoon tea.

From Ellenbrae we were heading to our last leg of the trip and were very excited about the next adventures and destination on our OZLAP……

The idea that was to become OZLAP was initially born from our desire to drive the iconic Gibb River Road in the remote Kimberley region, in northern WA. We really wanted to do it, but didn’t want to have to rush and fit it in to our measly 4 weeks of annual leave that we were afforded each year. So based on that train of thought we then decided to hell with it and began to instigate the planning of our unlimited OZLAP and see the whole of Australia while we were at it!!!

Fast forward 5 and half years and here we are, early on a Tuesday morning, packing up our caravan and heading out of Broome, bound for Derby and then onto the Gibb River Road (known as the GRR). Our stay at Derby was a relatively short and sweet overnighter, we arrived in town early in the afternoon, met up with our GRR buddies, the Leeds, hurriedly set up and headed out to visit the infamous Boab Prison Tree. The prison tree was used way back in the uncivil olden days when many Indigenous people from the west Kimberley’s were kidnapped and forced to dive or work on the pearling boats, whilst they were waiting for the boats to come into shore they were held captive in these many boabs. Clearly not a feel good piece of Australian history that we can be proud of, so we instead concentrated on the humungous size of its trunk. We then went to the jetty to see the high tide surging in. The 9 metre tides in Derby are the second largest in the world, only trumped by Nova Scotia in Canada at 11 metres. It seems Derby likes to do things BIG….

But we all agreed there was much bigger things to come and with much excitement we packed up early and set off on the first stage of the GRR, taking the customary photo at the ROADS OPEN sign. Then much to our amusement and a little disappointment drove for another 100km on bitumen……..

FINALLY, we hit the dirt, it wasn’t too bad, a few corrugations, but nothing that we weren’t expecting. We spent most of the morning driving and stopping to take photos and drone footage of both the Napier Ranges and King Leopold Ranges, arriving at our campground just after lunch. Silent Grove campground is located in 19km off the GRR within the King Leopold Conservation Park, it amazingly has flushing toilets, luke warm showers and drinking water all fed from a spring and only costs $12 per adult. We then spent the next 2 days exploring, hiking and swimming in nearby Bell Gorge. Bell Gorge has the reputation as being the most picturesque gorge in the West Kimberley and much to our delight it didn’t disappoint, with a great short hike into the gorge where we were then able to waste away most of our day swimming, playing and reading. Whilst here we also met another travelling family, the Hamilton’s (www.hamiltonianciruit.wordpress.com), who had been following us on our blog, saw our car and came up and said hello, it was great to meet them and hear about their exciting travelling stories too.

From Bell Gorge we made our way to a place called Charnley River Wilderness Camp, which is located about 43 km west off the GRR. The road in was great as we were following the graders, which we actually nearly ran into when we arrived at the main office, so it was a pretty smooth ride. Charnley River Wilderness Camp (previously known as Beverly Springs) has recently been acquired by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC), a non-profit organisation who pretty much charged us an arm and a leg for a patch of grass, hot showers and flushing toilets. Adults were $20 each and the kids were a ridiculous $10 each, this combined with a vehicle access fee had us paying a whopping $185 for a two-night stay, the lady then added insult to injury and added that we could make a donation online as well……. As far as I was concerned we just bloody well did make a donation!!!!

After we set up we decided to take a drive out to Donkey Pools for a swim, where we spent the rest of the afternoon. The next day we went exploring the three swimming spots available to explore on the property, Lilly Pool, Grevillea Gorge and Dillies Gorge, the kids enjoyed swimming at each of these and the walks in weren’t overly long too, which is a bonus. On our second night there, the dingos had us feeling a little uneasy with all their howling and carry on, it sounded like there was a whole pack of them and they were surrounding us, right when I needed to go to the loo as well!!! Whilst the gorges were lovely and we got some great photos, our stay was dampened a little by the price, it certainly wasn’t worth the exorbitant cost and we wouldn’t recommend it to anyone purely for that reason.

Our drive the next day was only a relatively short one, 43km back to the GRR and then a further 50 odd km’s, we unhooked the van and went for a look at Adcock Gorge, which was no swimming (boo from the kids), then we headed onto our next camp spot at Manning Gorge campground.

The Manning Gorge campground is situated 7km off the GRR behind the Mt Barnett Roadhouse, approximately located half way along the GRR, and the roadhouse and the gorge campground are both owned and run by the nearby Kupungarri Aboriginal Community. We called in at the roadhouse, bought some bread and milk, paid for our camp spot (a more respectful $99 for 3 nights) and drove the short distance to set up camp. During our stay we hiked the 2.5km walk to Manning Gorge, which started off with a fun little tinny boat and a pulley system to enable us to get to the other side of the river with dry feet, clothes and cameras. Once at the gorge we spent a lazy morning swimming in the waterfalls, which were by far the best we have seen, even though there was at least 100 people there with us, the falls and swimming area is large enough so that it doesn’t feel that you are all crowded. We also spent the next 3 days relaxing and swimming in the river at the campsite, whilst keeping a close eye on a fresh water crocodile who was happily sunning himself on a rock about 50 metres away. There was a lot of people swimming in the river, so after we calculated our odds based on ours and the girls swimming abilities we felt pretty safe.

Mt Barnett Roadhouse is the halfway point for the GRR and from here we set off early as we had a big drive onto one of the major attractions for this area, we were very excited about our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP…………..

After a short stop over in Broome to restock food and water we decided to head out of town, heading north up the Cape Leveque Rd towards the Dampier Peninsula. The road is one of the roughest roads we had been on, so our first 85km was a bone rattling slow process. However all good things must come to an end and eventually we made it back onto the bitumen, shaking off the dirt and rattling as we went. We arrived at an Indigenuos community called Beagle Bay at lunchtime, so cautiously we opened the van door to find only a little bit of damage, a few loose screws (which we are still not sure where they belong) and the box of 200 cotton buds spread all about the floor of the van…. Unfortunately the lady in the van next to us suffered an unfortunate spilling of soy sauce……ugly!!!! After lunch we explored the Beagle Bay Sacret Heart Church, which was built by French monks, using hand made bricks, way back in 1890. The church is the main attraction of the community and inside the altar is decorated with mother-of-pearl and other shells from the surrounding local waters.

From Beagle Bay we travelled another 50km to a place called Natures Hideaway at Middle Lagoon. Middle Lagoon is owned by a local family and have a great campground set up with some fantastic amenities. There are lots of sites with about 10 being on the ‘ridge’ just above the beach. Whilst we were meant to go into one of the ridge site initially we were glad that they were all full as they were lined up like sardines, so we got to choose a nice little semi private spot which still had views of the beach. We spent our time at Middle Lagoon pretty much just swimming, fishing and doing a spot of schoolwork, also meeting and hanging out with some great people.

Heading further north up the Cape Leveque Rd we arrived at the Indigenous owned Kooljamon Resort at Cape Leveque. After paying our $10 fee we headed in by foot to explore the Cape, first heading towards the appropriately named Western Beach. As it was low tide we were able to walk onto the beach and take some awesome photos of the blue water, white sand and amazing red rock cliffs. However as we were not allowed to swim at this beach we backtracked and walked over to the eastern side of the cape to the swimming beach. This is where you can hire some beach shacks to set your tent up underneath (for a pricely figure….) and waste away the days swimming and fishing. Cape Leveque was a stunning place and the colors were amazing, unfortunately we weren’t staying there as they don’t take caravans and Nik and I couldn’t justify paying over $100 to pitch a tent up in the campground.

From Kooljamon we travelled along the road to Cygnet Bay Pearl farm, where we had a booked a powered caravan site for a much more affordable price of $70 pn. We stayed here for 3 nights, choosing to do one the pearl tours with the kids. The tour was really informative and we all learnt a lot about the process of growing pearls and why they are so expensive. As part of the tour the guide also opens a shell and, fingers crossed, it has a pearl in it. Luckily ours did, we then went and got it assessed and priced, ours was about $80, unfortunately it is not a complimentary part of the tour so we had to leave it there when we left. We also learnt that the all the ‘affordable’ pearls that were being sold down at the Broome markets (and that I had my eye on to purchase) were all in fact freshwater pearls and came from Japan, what the……….  After that, considering I wasn’t going to fork out the extra $$$ for a proper Broome pearl I decided owning a pearl wasn’t for me. It still made me shake my head in wonder as later on back in Broome, I noticed all the pearl showrooms in town sold freshwater pearls and sneakily didn’t bother to tell people they were not from Broome. One showroom in particular couldn’t even guarantee me that the very expensive pearl I was looking at in the cabinet was from Australian waters…….. talk about a farce.

We also took a drive out to Ardyaloon (One Arm Point) Aboriginal community, calling into their supermarket for some bread and milk, it was so well stocked it also sold washing machines and big screen TV’s…….. After only purchasing some milk and frozen bread we headed out to the Ardyloon Hatchery, just in time to pull in with 3 big 4WD tour buses, doh!!!! The hatchery  was orginally set up to cultivate the shell, ‘Trochus Niloticus’, which only the local Bardi people are permitted to collect and sell. However it has gotten bigger and better over the years and is now full of display tanks filled with a giant barramundi, coral, anemone fish (Nemo), lionfish, cod and archer fish. After we paid our $15 per adult, the lady was kind enough to pull us aside and say ‘quick lets start before all those tourists start’, so thankfully we had a little guided walk and tour around the tanks. I got the fright of my life when I fed the huge barra, he is so quick and loud as he literally sucked the food out of my fingers, we all jumped so high!!! The girls favourite was of course the Nemo fish, the turtle and the Archer fish, which spit water up at the food your holding, hoping its an insect and will then fall into the water for them to eat…..pretty bloody clever those ones!!!!

Lastly we tried to visit Lombadina, another Aboriginal community that I had heard about many years ago and was very keen to visit, however as it was a Saturday the office was closed and therefore we weren’t allowed to go in any further. I was bitterly disappointed as I really wanted to go there, but as the sign on the office said, please respect our privacy when the office is closed…..another big DOH on my behalf!!!!!!

And so after spending an awesome week up on the Dampier Peninsula it was time again to tackle the long 85km stretch of dirt road and head back into Broome. In typical fashion, as we were expecting the worst we actually found the trip home soooo much better than the trip up…….perhaps the grader had been through….who knows, but we all voted and decided that we had had a ball, even though we found it very expensive we were glad to have made the effort to visit.

We left Point Samson early for a big day of driving, as the further north we go the further apart things are becoming. We quickly called into Port Hedland Woolworths to pick up some fresh bread and milk, however decided against heading down to the port, we all voted we had seen enough big ships and iron ore for the moment. Our stop that night was a free camp called DeGreys about 120km north of Port Hedland, we found a spot along the river, however it was a bit disappointing as the river was a bit manky due to a poor wet season. Apparently after a good wet season the river is flowing beautifully and the place gets quite full over the winter months. We only stayed one night here as the weather was really starting to heat up now, with minimum temperatures barely dropping below the high 20’s, needless to say we were all wilting and were in need of a swim!!!

After we left DeGreys we stopped in at 80 mile beach for lunch, the beach was so nice we decided to drop the tyre pressures and take the car and van down to the beach for a spot of lunch. We got some great photos and enjoyed our lunch however it was stinking hot yet again so we decided to retreat to the car air conditioning and head to our next destination, Barnhill Station.

Barnhill Station is a working cattle station located about 100km south of Broome and as we had a few days up our sleeve we decided to stop here before we hit the hustle and bustle of big town Broome. We set up along the ridge with beach views and spent the next couple of days relaxing with the cows, swimming and fishing at the beach. The sunsets were magical, the lowering sun lighting up and enhancing the red rock of the cliffs was amazing and the photos just don’t do it justice. Barnhill was quite a busy little station stay, with many grey nomads already setting up for their Winter break up here, thankfully though there was not many people out with us in the unpowered section. The station also has a bowling green for the many lawn bowl comps they hold over the season and a kiosk that sells ice cream and freshly baked bread. Unfortunately we were about 3 weeks to early as they don’t start the bread baking until June…..so stale bread for breakfast for us.

Unfortunately with supplies running low and temperatures running extremely high, we decided to pack up and head into the big smoke on our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……………………

From Karijini we had decided to drive along the private Rio Tinto Rd for which we had the permit for, it wasn’t really a short cut more a case of going the more adventurous way. And what an adventure it was, with both Fiona (from Mols on Patrol) and I taking the wheel and steering us towards Millstream Chichester National Park. Whilst the driving skills were impeccable the road conditions weren’t with lots of corrugations and red dirt, after a few hours involving the occasional stop to count the many carriages on the mine trains, 247 in total, we arrived at our campsite. As we were later informed thats 247 carraiges carrying 300 tonne each, not surprisingly it only takes three of them to fill a whole ship.

Our campground was the Miliyanha campground in the Millstream Chichester National Park, about one and half hours south of Karratha. It was an oasis in the desert and was actually an old pastoral station back in its heyday from 1865 until 1975, when it then became a tavern and lastly, in 1986 it was handed over to the Department of Parks and Wildlife. The campground is set beside the beautiful old homestead built alongside the natural wetlands, where we went for an explore.

Whilst at Millstream we also took a  drive to Python Pool where we had a very welcoming dip, as the temperature was nudging 40, then that night we had a BBQ dinner and another swim at Deep Reach Pool a short distance from our campground. After paying our respects to the Warlu (an Indigenous mythical serpent) we jumped in and had a great time with the Mol’s, swimming, enjoying a double rainbow and listening to the very loud and raucous corellas.

After a relaxing and hot few days at Millstream we then headed north to Karratha to restock the fridge and water tanks and have a decent wash!!!! Karratha was an interesting town with lots of new infrastructure going on and apparently more lay offs and retrenchments that you could count……. Another interesting fact shared by some amazed locals was the construction of a new hospital located in a floodway, of all places……………go figure. Our time at Karratha was spent catching up with my cousins daughter and her dad, who were  nice enough to have us over for dinner as well as take Nik out crabbing and fishing, resulting in an awesome birthday feast for yours truly!! We also bade farewell to our travelling mates, the Mol’s, with the promise to visit them on our way through QLD, I’m sure an offer they will eventually regret!!

On our way out of Karratha we also called in to see our favourite red kelpie, ‘Red Dog’, a statute erected at Dampier to honor the legend he was, with the girls having to watch the movie again before our visit. Apart from Red Dog, the port and a cool little botanical park, there was not much more to Dampier, so we headed off on our short 60km drive to Point Samson where we relaxed, fished and swam in the beach for a few days. Point Samson is literaly just a pub, a caravan park and a few 4 star resorts, however back in its day it was a the main port for nearby Wittenoom and Roebourne. Apparently it has a coral reef just off the beach, but unfortunately we didn’t check this one out.

And so after a fantastic couple of weeks in the Pilbara, it was time to move onwards and upwards, we loved the Pilbara, from the gorges of Karajini to the beaches and coast of Karattha and Point Sampson and hope to one day come back for another visit. However as always we were very excited and looking forward to our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP………………………………………………………….

Karijini National Park had always been on our wishlist, we have seen so many photos and in the last 12 months have heard so many fantastic reviews that there was no doubt that we would make a bee line straight for it. Our stay here coincided with 2 things, firstly the WA school holidays and secondly the annual ‘Karijini Experience’. It had crossed our mind that with both of these things occuring at once, that the park may be a bit busy, so we were slightly concerned about getting a campsite in the national park, as it was first in first served, no bookings taken. However, before we left Paraburdoo we rang the visitor centre and she told us they have heaps of spots available, which was a relief.

Karijini National Park is WA’s second largest national park, located within the Hammersley Ranges, in the heart of the Pilbara, it’s landscape is quite amazing with huge mountains and deep gorges that cut through the flat valleys. We were not sure what to expect from Karijini, however going by everyones feedback we had a feeling we wouldn’t be disappointed. We had decided to stay within the Dales Recreation Area, which was located on the eastern side of the park close to the visitors centre, not far from all the spectacular gorges. It was a national park campsite with no power and basic facilities, however reasonably priced. We booked in for 6 nights to allow ourselves plenty of time explore the many gorges and particpate in a few of the free events for the Karijini Experience.

A short walk from our campground was Dales Gorge, where we spent many days exploring. Our first adventure and swim was at Fern Pool. The scenery was breathtaking, one minute your walking along the path from the car park and the next minute your staring over the cliff into a huge gorge, the colors were mind blowing as the gorge is lined with white Sappy gums against the reddest of rock. The rock is actually made up of mostly iron and silica-rich sendiments compressed into the earth many millions of years ago. During our time there we were lucky enough to make the ranger walk and talk, as well which gave us a bit more insight into the gorge and Fern Pool. Apparently, according to the traditional Aboriginal stories, Fern Pool is a bottomless pool and is a significant cultural site for the traditional land owners. According to the dreamtime a serpent lives down below the water, therefore everyone must pay their respects to it as they enter the pool.

Also at Dales gorge, we hiked down to Circular Pool, another significant Indigenous cultural site. Circular Pool was magnificant, aside from the other 100 tourists that were there, it had a peaceful, spiritual aura about it. Nik and the girls paid their respects before they went for a swim, however as the water was coolish (read FREEZING), I went and found a quiet ledge on the rocks away from the bustling crowd, to sit and admire the beauty and feel of this special place. I could only imagine how special it would have been to be the only person there. Sitting there watching the fresh water trickle out of the rock, creating a waterfall into the pools, made me feel very lucky.

From Circular Pool we hiked along the river, scrambling over rocks and through the river, finishing up at Fortescue Falls. Fortescue Falls is a beautiful waterfall just downstream from Fern Pool, with the surrounding rocks of the falls creating a natural amphitheatre. As the weather was still very hot and we had hiked 2km from Circular Pool, we finished off the walk with a relaxing swim before we tackled the tough stairs back up to the carpark.

A little bit further from our campsite, were both Weano and Hancock Gorge, however due to having a poor wet season the ranger advised against going into Weano Gorge and the hand rail pool as the water was stagnant and not nice to swim in. Hancock Gorge however, was a different story, so we headed down into the gorge, swimming through the ‘sheep dip’ into the ‘Amphitheatre’ and then continuing along the ‘spider walk’ into the Kermits Pool. Kermits Pool was definately voted our most favourite part of Karijini, so much so that we tackled the obstacles again for a second visit before we left. I think one of the reasons we like this place so much was that it was never really overcrowded, so we could feel that we could sit and relax and take in the surroundings in peace.

We also went and had a look at the lookouts for Joffre and Knox Gorges and whilst we didn’t hike down into the gorges the views were again spectacular.

Nik and Bec together with our travelling buddy Simon, decided to go and explore Mt Bruce, which is the second tallest peak in WA, and boy did they feel every metre in the 9km return  to the summit. It was a tough hike and going by the Gopro footage and photos it was not a place for the faint hearted, with some quite steep drop offs……. However, like a trio of mountain goats, they managed to succesfully reach the summit, which afforded them some amazing views of the surrounding national park as well as the Marandoo Mine, which was only located a short distance from the parks gorges. Amazed, but saddened that a mine site has been allowed in such close proximity to the surrounding natural environmental wonders, I’d hate to think of the long term impact……

Whilst Nik, Bec and Simon went for their stroll, Fiona (our other travelling family buddy) and I made the long trek into Tom Price to run a few errands. Firstly we needed food, we were running quite low and were in desperate need for some fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately, after dropping Bec and Nik at Mt Bruce at 7am we were a bit early for Coles, so we took one for the team and sat in a cafe and had bacon, eggs and a coffee…… Even when Coles opened they hardly had any stock, as they were still waiting on the load from Perth, whose flight was delayed, so we ditched out trolleys and headed over to the info centre to waste more time. As we had planned to travel to our next destination on private Rio Tinto roads, Fiona and I needed to watch a short documentary to obtain a permit. Twenty minutes later, with said permits in hand we headed back to Coles to continue our shopping.

Our last destination in Karijini was to Hamersley Gorge, on the north west side of the national park. We had decided to call in here on our way to our next campsite, as it was only a stones throw from the private Rio Tinto Rd. So after we made ourselves some lunch we spent the next hour cooling down in the water and swimming along the gorge to explore a little. The rocks here were amazing, the way the different layers of iron and silica travel up and down along the cliff edge, you can only imagine the movement and the force of the earth so many millions of years ago.

As our stay also coincided with the “Karijini Experience’, we were lucky enough to participate in many of the free events that they organised. The kids had fun making spears and also attended a musical workshop, which they enjoyed thoroughly. We all also participated in the Deadly Fun Run, which was run on the air strip near the info centre. It was a 2km or 4km run/walk, with Jess, Abs and I running the 2km and Nik, the older 2 Smith girls and Fiona and Chloe Mol completing the 4km run. They all did an amazing job, with Bec and Abby being the first girls across the line in their respective distances. The “Karijini Experience’ week concluded with the Moonrise Makers Market, where Nik and I purchased our first Indigenous canvas painting, now all we need is a spare piece of wall to hang it on…….

Karijini National Park certainly didn’t disappoint us, we were in awe of the natural beauty and ruggedness of this place. Northern WA itself is an amazingly spectacular area and every place we visit, it seems to be upping the ante more and more. Bec has already stated she is coming back, particulary to do one of the canyon tours. The Pilbara is certainly a place of contrasts, with natural wonders and mining occuring side by side, we were lucky enough to experience its beauty at present and just hope that it stays this way for many generations to come…..

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……..

After a week of high 30’s temperatures out in the National Park, it was nice to drive into the Big 4 caravan park at Exmouth and have power with which to run the air conditioning, as it was still bloody hot!!! However, the downside was how busy the caravan park was, I had to queue for a washing machine even though I actually needed about 4 of them!!! The minor downside of camping at the beach is the amount of sand in the van and in the beds!!! Our plan was to spend a few days washing clothes, recharging devices and desanding the caravan, as well as celebrate Zoe’s 13th birthday!!! Outwardly, we had all discussed and ‘planned’ to head to mini golf on the morning of her birthday, come back to the park for a swim and then Bec had decided to organise a party for her, her sisters and our friends the Mols, complete with party games and then finish the day off with cake. However, inwardly I had liased with the Fiona and Corey and we had actually booked into a glass bottomed boat tour instead of the mini golf.

With only the adults aware the kids were completly unsuspecting, so we got organised to walk across the road to mini golf, we packed food, put sunscreen on and even bathers, as we now never go anywhere without our bathers on due to the heat…… As we were heading past the park office we spotted the mini bus ready to pick us and take us to the boat, so we said aloud to all the kids, ‘c’mon we’ll jump on the bus and he can take us to mini golf’…… Normally the kids would have jumped at the chance to hitch a ride instead of walk, but of course not today, they then started to argue with us that it was only across the road, we can walk………. So pretty much in the end the adults demanded the kids get on the bus!!!! Then as all the kids pretty much had got annoyed with us, none of them read the side of the bus which told them what we were doing, so we then had to pretty much spell it out to them that we weren’t going to mini golf, we were going on a boat instead. Needless to say, this little surprise actually went down like a lead balloon, especially with Zoe as she actually still really wanted to go to mini golf…… The bus drive was a relatively quiet affair after that, however as we boarded the boat I saw a shimmer of excitement from her, just a slight shimmer though.

We ended up having a great morning out on the boat, we even got to have a snorkel a bit further out than normal. Some of the bombies here were awesome, we even fleetingly spotted a turtle underneath, although Zoe missed it 😦  We had heaps of questions for the tour operator and his assisstant (who was a marine biologist) and thoroughly enjoyed the morning, however Zoe really started to enjoy it when her and Bec started swimming under the boat taking photos under the glass bottom. We arrived home around 2pm, then as organised the girls went for a swim as it was still really hot. Then the rest of the afternoon was taken up with Zoe’s party, Bec had it all under control, they had games galore including pin the tail on the unicorn, and of course the day concluded with chocolate birthday cake. Zoe said she really enjoyed her second travelling birthday, however did point out that she still wanted to go and play mini golf…..

Whilst in Exmouth we also went for a drive south into the east side of the Cape Range National Park to explore the Shothole Canyon and also along the Charles Knife Gorge Road. The drives were both pretty easy along the dirt roads, however the scenery was amazing literally around every corner we turned we were oohhing and ahhing.

So with all the charging, cleaning, laundry and birthdays complete, it was time for us to head off nice and early as we had a long drive towards our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP……

We left Carnarvon bright and early as we had a few kilometres to travel today. The drive was uneventful and we made it to Coral Bay for an early lunch. And it seems that at least 500,000 other people were in Coral Bay too and it wasn’t even school holidays yet!!!! After lunch we had a walk around town and out onto the beach, the water was amazingly blue and clear and the sand was ridiculouly white. The scenery of Coral Bay was spectacular, however we couldn’t get past the fact that it was sooo busy, even a week before the school holidays. We had orginally been hoping to stay here for a few days, as my cousin David had raved about it, however we were only able to book the National Park further up in Ningaloo for the week before school holidays, so unfortunately our plans of staying here and also at Waroora Homestead were squashed, as we had to move forward a week or two to compensate for the busy upcoming holiday period.

After we left Coral Bay, we had a quick stop in Exmouth before heading around to our campsite in Cape Range National Park. We had booked in at Osprey Campground for the next week, the campsite was neat, clean and had amazing views of the reef and endless sunsets. We had the best of both worlds camped here, as we had the amazing reef to the west of us and gorgeous hills, gorges and ridges to the east of us.

However, firstly we were itching to get in the water, as one it was bloody hot and two we wanted to see some awesome fish. Our first snorkel was at Torquoise Bay, and the infamous Torquoise Drift, where you walk up the beach about a 100 metres then hop in the water and start snorkelling. The current of the water then ‘drifts’ you back to your original spot, no swimming or paddling required, unless of course, you want to explore around a particular bombie for a while. You just had to keep an eye out that you didn’t drift too far as you would end up past the point and out to sea……. Needless to say Abs had us well organised and kept us informed about when we had to swim back into shore. The snorkelling was amazing and relatively easy work as the water is so salty and therefore makes us all more bouyant, particuarly the more larger members of the family!! The only problem we did encounter was we were all constantly yelling out to each other to ‘come here’, ‘look at that’, ‘quick over here’. Think the girls made Nik and I swim around in circles so they could all show us what they had found, the funniest thing was listening to their underwater squeals through the snorkels. Towards the end of the week the girls had the snorkelling mastered and would quite often duck dive to the bottom for a closer look. Zoe had also spotted and befriended 2 reef sharks at the drift, who we saw for about 3 days in a row hiding under the same coral, she had no fear and spent most of the time diving down to them, while they happily ignored her.

We ended up snorkelling at the drift every afternoon, however we also took a drive to the Oyster Stacks for a look. The stacks was great snorkelling too but could only be done at high tide and entering and exiting the water was a bit more difficult due to the rocky beach, with lots of scrambling and unflattering exiting occured on my behalf.

One morning we got ourselves organised early to explore the Mandu Mandu Gorge, it was a relatively short hike however at one stage it was straight up the side of the gorge and with the hot sun beating down it made for a hot car of Smiths afterwards. Whilst there was no water in the gorge we were able to walk along the stone river bed and marvel at the color of the cliffs, then we scrambled up to the top of the cliff to get some awesome pictures of the gorge below.

Halfway through our week the travelling Mol’s arrived, setting up camp nearby. So of course we had to snorkel the drift with them again…… this pretty much became our routine every afternoon. With the Mols we also drove the short distance down to Yardie Creek, where apparently you can cross the tidal river at low tide when the sand bank is exposed and continue along sand tracks all the way to Coral Bay. We had met many people along our travels who said that this was the best way to get from Coral Bay to Exmouth, however when we got there and looked at the crossing, we were more than happy with our decision to stick to the bitumen main road. The crossing was about waist deep with water and by the looks of it and according to the info centre the sand bank hadn’t been exposed for a few years…….. Quite clearly a case of chinese whispers from the many travellers down south…..

Whilst at Yardie Creek we opted for the cheaper option of walking to the end of the gorge instead of taking the boat cruise. The walk was easy, a few up and over bits here and there, but all the kids and adults did it with ease. We were even spoilt with a turtle spotting further in and also some awesome views of the gorge down below, however as usual we were kept on our toes by the girls getting a little to close to the edge for our liking.

Of course we couldn’t be so close to the mountains and ridges without taking the cars up there for a short drive. We had earlier seen a track that led up into the ridges, so one morning together with the Mols and another family the Martins, we went for a short drive. There were a few rocky steep sections that we had to navigate, however we all made it up quite easily and were rewarded with a spectacular view of the Ningaloo Reef and ocean beyond. After some photos were taken we decided that we would head back down to do some more snorkelling, however it would have been pretty cool to follow this track across the range and onto the main road back up to Exmouth, although we had been told that it takes at least half a day.

But with food and water stocks running low we finally decided to head into town for a few days to stock up, recharge and perhaps celebrate another birthday with a special surprise. We had an awesome week at Osprey, as usual we met some great people, we all mastered the art of snorkelling, saw some colorful fish and drove through amazing ranges. In anticipation we headed off on the short drive to our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP………………….

After an action packed stay at Hamelin Station we, along with our mates the Leeds, were ready to move onto our next destination, Carnarvon, some 200km up the road. Carnarvon, ‘the hub of the Gascoyne’, is situated on the mouth of the Gascoyne River, between Shark Bay and Ningaloo Reef, and is renowned for its growth of fruit and vegetables. During the Winter months it supplies 70% of WA’s winter vegetables, producing over 30,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables each year collectively from its 176 plantations.

We had long heard about the Wintersun Caravan park in Carnarvon, which has a kids stay for free for the first 2 nights, so it was decided that we were heading there. We had told every other traveller about it while we were in the Shark Bay area, so really we weren’t surprised to bump into about half a dozen of them as we pulled into the park. Our stay at Carnarvon was only a short one, enough to restock at Woolies and hopefully get some fresh fruit and vegetables at the farms, catch up on laundry and school work and to have a look around town. Of course it also conincided with the caravan parks weekly Sunday morning pancake breakfast, which we attended quite enthusiastically!!! We were also pleased to see our new friends the Mols here and all the Smith, Leed and Mol kids had a ball playing on the playground.

Our first outing was to do the ‘fruit loop’ a short 20km drive around the plantations to see what goods we could gather. Unfortunately we were a bit too early in the season and most of the plantations weren’t open, however we still decided to try our luck at the few that were open. We didn’t score a lot but we managed to pick up some cheap apples, bananas, zuchinnis, beans, corn and sweet potatoe, so it wasn’t a complete lost cause. The bananas managed to last a day at least, before the girls demolished them……

As the Leeds had previously been to Carnarvon on their way south late last year, we headed out with the Mols to do some touristy stuff, with our first stop being the Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum. The museum is a celebration of the role Carnarvon played in the manned space program, as well as its role in Australians communications industry. There are 2 parts to the museum, the tracking station and the OTC Satellite Earth Station. The tracking station was the last station to have communication with the space capsules as they left earths orbit and as they splashed down. It was the largest manned space flight tracking station outside of the US and at its height had about 220 staff. Whilst the OTC Satellite Earth Station was built primarily to carry communications from the  NASA station to the US. Even Buzz Aldrin visited Carnarvon back in 2012 to open ‘phase one’ of the museum, then Aussie astronaut Andy Thomas  opened ‘phase 2’ in 2014. Unfortunately all this was lost on the kids as they were only interested in going in the Sky lab proto type and playing with the Mars rover (which wasn’t working as he had run out of ‘special’ batteries that had to be bought in Japan……) Fiona and I enjoyed ourselves whilst we moved around the museum reading the information, however as you can see from the photos, the kids mostly enjoyed the dress ups and the 2 bigger kids enjoyed ‘space invaders’. We obviously enjoyed ourselves there as we ended up being there for over 2 hours!!!!

Afterwards we went to the foreshore for lunch, then headed to the One Mile Jetty just out of town, which boasted an Interperative centre, restaurant and the ‘Coffee Pot Train’. However as it was late afternoon on a Saturday the cafe was closing and the ‘coffee pot train’ was not in action, so we decided to make our way on foot to the end of the jetty. Unfortunately we only made it half way, as quite clearly the jetty has seen far better and sturdier days and the wind was horrendous. So we decided to find a geo, cut our losses and head back, wondering how the ‘Coffee Pot Train’ travels safely on the jetty, clearly no OH&S guidelines out here!!!

The next day the Mols packed up and headed out to Point Quobba to camp for a few days, so we decided to go out and visit them for a day trip and do some snorkeling. We finally managed to see some real life working blowholes, not huge blowholes, but blowholes none the less!!! We then went and visited the Mols at their campsite and went for a swim and a snorkel, it was a very popular spot, particuarly with the backpackers. Afterwards we went for an explore along the sandy track and not suprisingly we came across a bogged van, with the owners, an  Italian, French and Mexican backpacker, standing beside it literally scratching their heads. Much to Niks delight they needed to be winched out of their predicament, and they were very thankful for it too. Nik was just chuffed he got to use the winch and I must say it worked a treat!!!!

We had a great few days in Carnarvan, we managed to complete our list of jobs to do, as well as play tourist, eat pancakes, snorkel, see blowholes, complete an international rescue with some helpless backpackers and also wash the car. However we are getting into the nitty gritty destination of our trip and we were very, very, very excited to move on towards our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP………

Now even though we were only at Steep Point for the one night, we felt that the photos alone deserved to have its own post!!! Once we had arrived back from Francois Peron NP, we cleaned, showered and slept in the van at Hamelin Station before once again restocking the car and heading out to Steep Point.

For those of you that are not familiar with Steep Point, it is located on the western most point of mainland WA, within the Edel Land National Park and the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. It has long been known as a tough drive due in part to the many sand dunes and rugged Zuytdorp Cliffs, rising almost 200 metres above the Indian Ocean. It was first discovered way back in 1616 by Dirk Hartog, and has since also been explored by many other European explorers, giving the area the many unusual and exotic names. The Zuytdorp Cliffs are actually named after a Dutch ship that was shipwrecked along the cliffs back in 1712. One of the many shipwrecks that we have read about on our trip heading north form Perth.

We left early for our drive out to Steep Point as we had heard many differing stories regarding the condition of the road and driving conditions. After we turned off onto Useless Loop Rd, our calculations had the drive into Steep Point at about 140km, all of which is unsealed road. Recommendations were for it to take 3 hours, so we settled in and enjoyed the scenery, mostly of which was low bushes and saltpans during the early stages. The initial 110kms of road was easy driving, with hardly any corrugations, where we drove past the turn off for 2 remote stations, Tamala Station and Carrarang Station, where a lot of people choose to store their caravans while they make the trek out to Steep Point. Just after Carrarang Station, as we crossed over the last saltpan causeway, we obeyed the signs and dropped our tyre pressures to around 22psi. After another 10kms of easy, but this time corrugated driving we finally hit the sand dunes, as stated in the info books the last 30kms of driving is where the fun begins as you traverse the amazing sand dune systems on the way to the cliffs and ultimately Steep Point.

We found the drive through the sand dunes was easy and loads of fun, some of the turns were tight in our big cruiser, the sand was fairly deep in lots of sections and the track also became narrow in parts as well. Ascending the dunes, we were fortunate that we didn’t come across another car coming the opposite way, as that could have made for some creative manoeuvres and possible near misses as you couldn’t see what was coming up the other side. In general, we had a good visual most of the time in regards to the track ahead. Silverfox didn’t miss a bit and much to Nik’s disgust we had no instances where we even nearly got stuck, so the winching and Maxtrax’s were kept for another day!!!

The rest of the drive towards our campground had us all surprised and stunned, as the scenery was amazing. At one stage we turned the corner to arrive on the most beautiful beach, with green bushes and birds on one side and clear blue water and rocks on the other side. Of course we had to stop and get out to absorb the beauty of it all, wandering over to test the temperature of the water, still a bit cool, but fresh and very inviting. Whilst we were standing there taking it all in and taking photos we also spotted a turtle swimming along the shore, then further along we spotted a reef shark in the shallows, as well as lots of fish darting here and there, most likely trying to evade the reef shark!!

After a while we were back on our way, driving along the beach, Nik struggling to keep his eye on the ‘road’ whilst taking in the scenery. This was not what we were expecting from Steep Point, we had envisioned a rugged desolate place, surrounded by cliffs and pounding waves, not this peaceful and tranquil oasis that we had stumbled upon. We eventually arrived at our campsite, approximately 3 hours after we had left Hamelin Station, so safe to say the info books had got it right. Our campsite was situated right on the beach of Shelter Bay, with views of Dirk Hartog Island opposite us.  As it was just going on lunchtime, we decided to quickly unload the car, grab a sandwich then head off exploring before we came back to set up the tent.

Quite obviously, our first destination was the western most tip, Steep Point. The drive from our campground only took us 10 minutes, passing a few other camps and awesome little alcoves within the bay. So many times we have seen photos or footage of people at the point practically being blown away from the force of the wind, so naturally we were expecting the same. However, in tradition with this little adventure, we were once again surprised to only encounter a slight breeze as we took the customary photo of everyone standing in front of the sign. The girls went and explored, wandering too closely to the cliff edges for my liking, while Nik and I were talking to another family who were camping not far from us.

After we talked for a bit, sussing out each other’s stories and past and future destinations, we jumped back into the car and drove around to the area where all the hard core fishermen (and fisherwomen) come. My goodness, these people are dedicated and must love this sort of fishing. Firstly, they are camped high above the water, set back on the cliffs that are covered with dirt and sharp rocks, that make stable walking quite an effort. The wind around this part of the point (called The Oven/ Faultline) was ‘mild’ today according to a lovely couple we got talking to, generally they say it is blowing a gale night and day, which to me sounds like rather unpleasant conditions for camping in a tent or camper trailer. We sat and chatted with this couple for a while and watched and asked many questions while they fished and showed us how the whole ‘balloon fishing ‘concept worked. Once again our perceived ideas and thoughts were way off, we assumed the balloons helped the fisherman determine if they had caught something way down in the water, however this is not the case. The helium filled balloon is in fact, used to float the lure out to certain parts of the water, this actually requires quite a bit of skill by the fisherman, to where a ‘bait bomb’ is located (a huge school of fish that the tuna have herded together and then herded to the surface of the water) then as the balloon floats around in the air the lure bobs in and out for the water, looking like part of the bait bomb. Then as the bigger fish like tuna, mackeral and even shark, head in for a feed, they actually hook onto the line, it is at this stage that the reaction time and strength of the fisherman, or the anchor and strap that they are secured to on the rocks comes into play. Apparently quite a few fishermen have gone over the cliff (about a 20 metre drop) as they haven’t been quick enough to clip themselves onto the secure strap and there is no way in hell they are going to lose their $500 fishing rig. Thankfully the drop is not too big (compared to the Zuytdorp Cliffs on the western side) and dangerous and if the swell is not too bad they can safely pull themselves back out of the water and begin the long arduous climb back up the rocks to the cliff top.

After the excitement of watching the cliff fishing, we headed back to camp to set up, have a swim and relax for the evening. The night stars were awesome, however the temperature dropped and together with the wind forced us into the tent for a few games of cards and an early night. It was at this stage that we met the friendly Spinifex Hopping Mouse, up close and personal, as 1 or 2 of them were climbing up the fly screen door of the tent, trying to get to some food, which was all thankfully locked away in the car. Shining the torch outside, we saw at least a dozen of them hopping about the place, bit like a scene from a horror movie where killer mice descend on the poor unsuspecting campers sleeping in their tent……………. Needless to say they weren’t killer mice and we did end up surviving the night, even having quite a restful sleep, until we awoke the next morning and started brewing some coffee for breakfast and noticed the tell-tale droppings in the back of the car and the half nibbled corner of bread. Crap, there was one in the car………in the beloved Silverfox!!!!

After a while spent playing ‘cat and mouse’ (pardon the pun) we packed up and headed off, listening to the pitter-patter of our tiny friend as he searched for a way to escape the roof compartment above us, for the drive home. Today’s drive was a little different to yesterday’s drive, it was less sandy, rockier and little bit harder and at times hairier, as we navigated a sometimes unclear track along the enormous cliff tops. This track took us home via the rugged Zuytdorp Cliffs on the western side of the peninsula, past some amazing views and southward down to Thunder Bay Blowholes and then False Entrance Blowholes. However, as we were blessed with some awesome weather and no wind, this translated into no swell or waves in the ocean and therefore no blowing of the blowholes. Still standing next to the holes and listening to the awesome sound of the wind, air and waves way down below gave us a sense of how powerful and amazing they could be.

After we had explored the blowholes and stopped for some morning tea, we enjoyed our last bit of sand dune driving before we arrived back to the causeway where Nik reinflated the tyres and we were on our way back to civilisation. Steep Point had long been a must see destination for Nik and I, however we were astounded as to the beauty, isolation and ruggedness of the whole place. Our expectations were completely blown out for the water and we all agreed that it was a top 3 highlight of the trip so far. It made us all the more excited for our next adventure and destination on our ozlap………………………….

When we left Kalbarri we decided to ‘wait out’ Easter at a station stay we had discovered called Murchison Off Road Adventures, about 130km north east, inland off the highway. We arrived just before lunch and quite frankly were not impressed, the toilets were covered in filth and when we were told to head out and find a camp spot along the Murchison River, we were also informed that the ‘permanant water hole’ that was advertised on their website was not actually permanent…….. To add insult to injury in regards to the free pony rides and $35 horse rides that were also advertised on the website, we were told that if we found the horses out in the bush, could we bring them in so we could ride them………..

Disillusioned, we still went out and found a campsite, set up and spent the rest of the afternoon losing our body weight in sweat whilst being inundated with flies, sadly with no relief in sight with another 4 days of 35+ forecast over Easter. I was definately not impressed, so after being a very grumpy camper that afternoon, evening and night, the next morning we got up with the hum of the flies outside and decided to pack up and head out, trying our luck for a campspot further up north at Hamelin Station.

We arrived at Hamelin Station just after lunch and thankfully found it to be not busy at all, we had the pick of about 25 sites and also state of the art amenities. We were more than pleased with our decision!! So after setting up we headed down to the awesome camp kitchen and met some fellow long term travellers from Brisbane, ‘the Mols’ and their 3 gorgeous girls, it didn’t take long for the tribe of girls to get to know each other and they were off playing, as us adults chatted the afternoon away. Hamelin Station is a great place, originally a sheep and goat station, it is now owned by Bush Heritage Australia, ‘ a leading conservation organisation, that protects millions of heactares of natural bush around Australia.’ They have many reserves and partnerships around Australia, and here at Hamelin Station, incorporating the camping and accomodation side into the reserve is a fantastic idea and has been done superbly!!!

Our next day we headed out for a bit of an explore heading to the stromatalites nearby in Hamelin Pool, which were over 3500 millions years old and very interesting to look at. From there we headed to Nanga Resort for a sticky beak, not what we expected as it was a bit old and run down, however we still had a swim and a fish. After Nanga we headed to Shell Beach to collect shells and wander around, along with quite a few other people as it was Good Friday.

After a day hanging around camp finishing off term 1 schoolwork, laundry and repacking the car we headed off with our mates, the Leeds, towards Denham and ultimately Francois Peron National Park for a few day of camping without the caravan. We had decided to spend 2 nights camping out at Francois Peron National so we were well stocked with plenty of food and water!!

Francois Peron National Park is located within the Shark Bay World Heritage area, only a stones throw from Denham along the road towards Monkey Mia. As we drove along the gravel road towards to the entrance we reached the self registration booth, paid our dues and headed into the park, however we were then completely surprised to find around one of the bends an area to deflate and reinflate the cars tyres, complete with air hoses!!!!! We thought it was quite proactive of the Department of Parks and Wildlife as basically everyone stopped to let down their tyres. After our short stop we started to comfortably cruise on into the park, the driving was fairly easy, through lots of red dirt, red sand and hard salt pans, which we thought would have been quite slippery after a bit of rain!!

Not far from our campground we had to stop on the road as a group of young women had decided to head into the park, in their little Suzuki,  for some snorkelling and had proceeded to get bogged in the deep sand all the way up to their axles……… So out Nik, Simon and I hopped, Nik and Simon got straight into some digging with someother guys that had stopped, while I of course took some photos. The girls were very embarressed, but after some digging and 4WD driving instruction from us they mangaed to pop out of the sand, as we yelled at them to keep going, don’t brake!!!! So we assume they made it out for their snorkel and hope they then made it back, as we never saw them again after that.

Finally we arrived at our camp for the next 2 nights, Bottle Bay, which was about 6km south of the tip at Cape Peron, it is a basic camp with drop toilets and as we all discussed either our site was on’ sandy dirt’ or dirty sand’…….. Needless to say, whatever it was, afterwards it took a few loads of washing to get it out of the kids clothes!!  We spent the rest of the afternoon setting up our tents, then walked over the sand dune to spend some time swimming and fishing at the beach. Boy did we catch some fish too (well Nik did)!!!!!!!! Overall we lost count of the amount of fish we caught, but due to their size we had to throw the majority of them back.

The next day after an amazing sunrise, our Hamelin mates the ‘Mols’ turned up and we decided to head out for the day to explore the rest of the tip of the park. First we headed to Cape Peron, the furthermost northern tip of the park, here you can see a line in the water where the ocean and bay waters collide and create some fairly strong currents. The colors at the cape were amazing, the bright blue of the ocean and sky contrasting on the deep red of the sand and rocks was awesome. After a few ohhs and ahhs and some photos were taken, we decided to grab a few drink bottles and head off on the short 1.5km Wanamalu trail towards Skipjack Point. The trail was a fairly easy walk along the cliffs and sand dunes accompanied with some awesome views and some interactive signage along the way telling the story of the park, its animals and the indigenous owners, the Malgana. We saw hundreds of birds, cormorants, standing along the waters edge waiting for their feed of fish, the story goes that apparently if the birds are on the edge then it was a sign that there were no sharks around. So we figured today, due to the massive number of them on the shoreline that today  wasn’t our day for shark spotting……

It didn’t take us long to arrive at Skipjack Point, we walked along the lookout platform searching intently, as apparently on a good day, sharks, dugongs, turtles, manta rays and dolphins can be seen swimming in the waters below. Try as we might though we were only able to spot a decent ray, however we were pleased with that, then we turned our attention to locating a geocache that was hidden nearby. After succesfully locating the geocache, we headed back to the cars and drove back down the cape past our campsite towards South Gregories beach. After some lunch we went for a swim in our thongs of course as apparently stone fish like this area…… we didn’t last too long on the water as one of us noticed a rather large ‘fish’ jump out of the water just up from where we were swimming. As it was getting late in the day, we said our goodbyes to the Mols, who were staying in Denham, and headed back to camp to spend the next couple of hours fishing, swimming and simply having a ball.

After another peaceful sleep and gorgeous sunrise we rose with the birds, enjoyed some breakfast then packed up and were back on the sandy track heading south, firstly towards ‘Herald Bight’, a really nice beach on the western side of the peninsula, protected from the southerly winds. It was a beautiful spot and would have been awesome to camp there, however going by the tyre marks in the sand, a lot of peoplpe over the weekend had thought the same!!! After some usual photos of the kids and the cars we then set off for our last stop in the park at the Peron Heritage Precinct.

The Peron Heritage Precinct is a great historical site with interactive displays highlighting the many indigenous animals, as well as a walk through the old shearing shed. However, we had read up about this place and made a bee line straight for the picnic area and the hot artesian spa. After some morning tea, we decided to brave the boiling water of the spa, with only Leah and the kids getting in as it was so very hot, in and out!!! After tracking down yet another geocache we headed back to the cars and to the reinflation parking bay, to make our way into Denham to spend a few hours lazing away on the foreshore and jumping off the jetty. We had a great time in Francois Peron National Park, the fishing and scenery was great, however as always it was nice to get back to the van and the showers and think about where our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP will be………………..

We only had a short drive today from Coronation Beach to Kalbarri, so we extended it out a bit and stopped at a lovely little town called Northampton to look for a geocache. Even having done that, we still ended arriving into Kalbarri well before lunch, where we went straight to the caravan park, set up and proceeded to get through a weeks worth of laundry as well as washing beach towels, bath towels and bedding. Needless to say it was lovely sleeping in beds that didn’t have half the beach in them!!!!

With a warmish day forecast for the next day we got ourselves organised and up early to be out the door by 8:30am to go explore the Kalbarri National Park, in particular the infamous Natures Window. The window was only a short walk from the car park and being so early there was only one other couple there, so we were able to get some great pictures.

We had also packed our hiking backpacks as we were heading off to do the The Loop hike that takes you to Natures Window then beyond along the cliff tops, then down to banks following the Murchison River as it winds back onto itself, then we finish with a steep climb back up on Natures Window to finish. All up the brochures had said it was an 8km class 4 (difficult) hike, which we all mentally prepared ourselves for that previous night. However when we arrived the sign stated it was actually just over 9km, including the Natures Window hike……. So after we regrouped our thoughts we took a hesitant look at the sun peeking its way through the clouds trying to make its way out, deciding to get going so as to try and beat the heat of the day. The beginning of the walk along the cliffs was amazing, it had fantastic views and was a great natural hike, we also had plenty of photo opportunities as we were stopping for short rest intervals along the way due to the heat of the sun.

After about 4km we then started to descend into the river bed along the Murchison River where we stopped for a longer break and then we started to follow the riverbed along the river for the next gruelling, hot and draining 4kms. Lots of encouragement, high 5’s, support and of course, music was used as we made our way along the hot dry riverbed, however the kids were stars and didn’t complain at all, except when Jess got stung by a bee…. Finally we had the window and lookout in our sights, Nik and I looking at each other as we heard an Ambulance siren squealing, as we presumed it was taking a heat exhausted hiker to the hospital.  Even though we were organised with back packs, plenty of water, sunscreen and hats we were all certainly wilting and therefore could understand how easy it was to suffer. The mood once again turned jovial though as we climbed the last 500m up to the window, took an extra photo or two and then completed the very last 500m hard slog back to the car park, where we refilled and sculled water from our 10 litre container in the car.

As usual when we got back to the caravan park the extremely exhausted and oh so tired kids threw on their bathers and swam for the next couple of hours before finishing of the last 2 hours of daylight running around the playground and doing gymnastics on the jumping pillow……… Nik and I were then nice enough to let them put on a Harry Potter movie to watch, which of course didn’t have them going to bed until at least 8:30, so needless to say they were actually exhausted when their heads hit the pillow!!!

The next day we were all awake at the crack of dawn, Nik went and had a game of golf at Kalbarri Golf Course, Bec cooked up some pancakes and the girls then got stuck into some schoolwork by 7:30am. It was a very productive morning with schoolwork, with them all completing just over half of their weekly subjects, so after lunch we decided to head for a drive, with only a minimal amount of walking this time. We first dropped Nik off at Red Bluff beach where he was staying put to try some fishing, while we all continued on to the other lookouts for some stunning scenery and hopefully successful geocaching. Natural Bridge and Island Rock were our first point of call, located south of Kalbarri within the National Park. We might have stretched the truth a bit here to the kids as we also ended up doing a shortish 2km stroll between these 2 lookouts…….

However the kids didn’t notice as they were too excited about possibly seeing a whale and shark feeding frenzy in the water. Unfortunately it was a long way out, the day was foggy, misty and overcast and we could only zoom in with Simon’s camera. But we were studying it for at least 20 minutes and all came to the conclusion that the big long thing in the water blowing air out of its blowhole was in fact a whale not a dolphin, however we couldn’t be 100% sure that the fins and splashing around it was a shark, although we were fairly confident and Zoe even claimed that she saw its jaws come and open and bite on something in the water……….. So after that little bit of excitement we moved along to our next couple of lookouts, Shellhouse Granstand, Pot Alley and finally Red Bluff lookout where we waved at Nik below still fishing on the beach.

Our 3rd and last full day at Kalbarri we spent the morning doing schoolwork until morning tea then decided to head to Blue Holes for a snorkel before the wind came in. The kids and Nik had a ball in the chilly water, spotting many Rainbow Trout, Whiting and even a groper hiding under one of the big rocks.

All up we had a great time in Kalbarri, the weather was a bit hit and miss, but we still enjoyed ourselves. However it was time to move on as we continued our journey norther, excited about our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……….

Our next destination was Geraldton, about 420km north of Perth, and the location of my First Aid refresher course, so we decided to power up and do some grocery shopping in town for a few days. We stayed at the Bel Air Caravan Park just out of town past the docks, so quite a few times during the night we were woken by the train laden with goods and grains, passing our park on its way towards the docks to unload. We had a few busy days in town with my course, shopping and schoolwork, but spent alot of time relaxing at the free water park and playground at the foreshore and also in the pool at the caravan park.

Once we completed our to do list, we then went and played tourist and visited the local HMAS Sydney II Memorial, we were very impressed as the gardens were beautiful and the memorial was very well done. The memorial is about the HMAS Sydney II that came under fire on the 19th November 1941 from a German ship, after which a battle ensued and both ships were lost. The HMAS Sydney II had a crew of 645 men, all of which perished in this battle, the ship was never found until 16th March 2008, eventually located 207km west of Steep Point, WA at a depth of 2,480 metres. The Geraldton memorial commemorates the ships final resting place, with the tall bow structure pointing out to see to the where the ship was found, as well as the wall of rememberance which is engraved with the names of all the 645 crew that was lost with the ship. The memorial also had some wonderful views for the surrounding town and ocean.

After a few days in town paying over the top prices for a powered site, we decided to head out of town to a cheap camp called Coronation Beach, where we eventually spent 10 days. We needed to ‘wait out’ a few days here to coincide with the Easter weekend coming up and quite a few station stays that we wanted to visit further up north that were not opening back up until 1st April. Coronation Beach was a great spot on the beach, however the beach was a bit too seaweedy which made fishing very difficult and swimming a little less desireable…….

Our days at Coronation Beach were spent doing schoolwork, swimming, fishing, heading back into Geraldton for supplies and lego…. On the weekend though we were told about a Family Fun day at Nukara Farm just out of Geraldton and not far from our camp, so we decided to head out a have some fun too. The day was actually organised by Geraldton Regional Aboriginal Medical Service or GRAMS for short, and was a day of getting families together and socialising. There were unflatable jumping slides, bungy jump, animal farm and circus activities available for the kids and a concert for the adults. It was a huge day that didn’t end till 7:30pm, however after being there since 10am we called it a day at around 3pm, dragging the kids reluctantly away from the rides.

Our last day at Coronation had us in town to buy some more lego… as well as restock groceries that should hopefully last us another 3 weeks as we head inland and out of service for the next destination and adventure on our OZLAP………………..

It was a good feeling to be back on the road again, heading to unknown places, and to be heading north. When we had decided to do this trip it was mainly because we wanted to see and spend quite a bit of time exploring northern WA, so finally after 14 months of travelling it was finally happening.

Our first stop was a camp just north of Jurien Bay called Sandy Cape Recreational Reserve. It was a camp right on the beach with drop toilets and had some great reviews according to Wikicamps and for only $15.00 a night it was great value and a great base to explore Jurien Bay and surrounds. As we arrived on a Wednesday morning it wasn’t too busy, but then by Thursday afternoon the cars and vans all started rolling in and by late Thursday evening the place was full. We were surprised and astounded at the volume of people who had come away camping, until someone mentioned that it was actually a long weekend. We then soon discovered that Jurien Bay is the northern suburbs weekend holiday of choice, just as Margaret River is the southern suburbs  choice of getaway. Thankfully we had our little patch of sand where we couldn’t get to overtaken by other campers so we were still able to enjoy the place.

Our first exploration was the infamous Pinnacles, located within the Nambung National Park, about a 30km drive back south of Jurien Bay, over the years we had seen many photos of these, however we weren’t too sure what to expect and were surprised at the commercialism of the place and that you could actually drive around them in your car. We were a bit taken aback as surely this couldn’t help with the perservation of this ancient place….. Anyway after we dodged the many hire cars and tourists, who just decided to stop in the middle of the track, we parked (out of the way) and had an explore on foot, taking photos and marvelling at the strange pillars that dotted the landscape within the national park, with some being more than 4 metres tall. Whilst here we also had a hunt around for a Geocache, however were unsuccessful, as there was lots of people around who thought us a bit strange looking through trees and bushes. After our drive around we also had a look in the information centre to try and understand a bit more about the strange ancient pillars. We spent a few hours here and really enjoyed ourselves, even though it was very busy and Nik also decided to get up early the next day and come back and take some sunrise photography and time lapse video, which were pretty awesome.

Another great national park we visited nearby was Lesueur National Park, named after Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, a natural history artist who sailed on board the ship, the Naturaliste back in 1801. The park is known for its abundance of flora and wildflowers, however as we were too early in the season we didn’t get to experience the park in all its glory. We still enjoyed reading about and seeing the abundance of flora on show during our 3km hike to the top of Mt Lesueur though, searching for the infamous Wedge Tail eagle but to no avail, perhaps we were too noisy!!! After our walk we contined the drive through the park, having morning tea at the Cockleshell Gully picnic area and finding 2 caches.

Stockyard Gully Conservation Park was our next destination for the day, in particular the Stockyard Gully Caves. Stockyard Gully is located inland, north of Jurien Bay and Green Head and is only accessible by 4wd as the track in is quite sandy and rocky. In the 1800’s stockmen used the cave and the creek bed as a natural stockyard and rest point, when droving their cattle from Geraldton to the areas of Midland and Guildford, hence the aptly named Stockyard Caves. With the weather warming up we were looking forward to a short hike and then some relief within the cave. The cave itself is very large and is one of the few known places in Australia where quicksand is found during the wet weather. Thankfully we had no wet weather so didn’t need to worry about losing the kids in the quicksand, so armed with our torches and with the kids holding hands and forming a line across the cave we went exploring. The cave is about 200 metres long and not surprisingly pitch black when at the centre, we thankfully didn’t encounter any bats but were amazed at the enormous bee hives at either entrance, they were massive and you could certainly smell the honey when you got close, not too close though!!!

After our walk through the cave we set ourselves up at the picnic table for lunch before heading off back to camp, but not before calling into Green Head for a look around, a quick swim at the protected bay and some successful geocaching. Green Head is a small town consisting of a general store, petrol station and a cafe come accomodation come adventure centre, so there was not a lot too see, but the cafe made a decent coffee.

Whilst staying at Sandy Cape we also ventured into Jurien Bay on a number of occasions to pick up a few supplies and have lunch at the foreshore, as well as a swim at the beach and a fish off the jetty. On the Sunday morning we headed in quite early to have a wander around the weekly market, it wasn’t a huge market but the kids enjoyed the bubble lady while Nik and I enjoyed a coffee and speaking to the people at the Bonsai display stall, they had quite an impressive arrangement of Bonsai trees and were more than happy to answer our many questions on the subject.

The long weekend at Sandy Cape was ridiculously busy with many people day tripping from Jurien Bay to swim at the amazing beach here, it was packed. As much as we would have enjoyed staying longer after the crowds dispersed on the Monday morning, we too had an appointment to keep further north in Geraldton so unfortunately had to pack up and move on with the masses, thankfully they were all heading south as we were heading north to our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP………

After waving goodbye to Rob at Mandurah we then headed north towards Lake Karrinyup Caravan park only a mere 70 odd kms away, however when you head off at 4pm on a Friday afternoon to head through the city the drive is certainly a long slow affair. Needless to say, 2 and a half hours later our patience was gone as we drove into the caravan park and set up…….

Our stay here was purely due to Nik working lots of long hours across the road at Lake Karrinyup Country Club in preparation for and during the Perth International golf tournament. He had started at the course back at the beginning of January, commuting the hour long drive twice a day, thankfully his hours missed the peak hour traffic we had encountered on out way up. However with the tournament less than a week away he was working everyday starting at 4am for a few hours then returning at 4pm to finish up the day at 9pm, clearly too far to be driving 4 times a day to and from Mandurah. So with Nik bouncing back and forth from work the girls and I got stuck into school work, whilst enjoying the swimming pools, playground and jumping pillow. It was a hectic 2 weeks for Nik, but once the tournament arrived he was in his element, thoroughly enjoying the buzz, one that he first experienced way back in 1995 when he worked at Kingston Heath Golf Club in Melbourne and they hosted the Australia Open. The girls and I, along with our travelling buddies, the Leeds, were lucky enough to get snuck into the course the day before the tournament to watch the players practice in a pro am.

To celebrate Nik finishing work on the Sunday we organised a return day back to Adventure World, this time with the wonderful Lauren, my cousins daughter. The day was a lovely 30degrees, the non existent lines were even better (the line for the ‘Kracken’ was 2 minutes as opposed to the 2 1/2 hour wait back in the school holidays) and we got to go up and down and around and around the whole park for 6 hours. Needless to say the calf burn from going up and down stairs all day was horrendous, but we had a great day and were glad we revisited with less crowds and hustle and bustle.

Our final day in Perth we had organised with my cousin David and his wife Debbie to head over to the famous Rottnest Island, only a short 30 minute ferry drive from Fremantle. We were lucky enough to be given vouchers for the ferry from my brother and sister in law for Christmas, so we once again took advantage of the weekday lack of crowds and the ‘tight arse Tuesday’ rates that the ferry had. We left home with plenty of time to spare, which was lucky as Nik noticed 15 minutes later that he wasn’t wearing any shoes……. needless to say we promptly turned around, collected said thongs and preceded back towards Fremantle in a knife cutting silence which was not broken until we arrived in time to catch the ferry!! The ferry ride over was uneventful (at least one way was smooth….) and we arrived on the island bright and early at 9am. We quickly purchased our tickets for the shuttle bus that continously drives around the island and headed tot eh bus stop where we sat and planned our attack for the day. First up we were taking the bus all the way around the island, however we decided to get off at the very west end of the island, Catherdral Rocks. However David jumped of a stop before and quickly went for a dive to get some crays, he caught a few, however they were a little small, so after showing the girls he threw them back in to fight another day. We in the meantime had walked down to Cape Vlamingh to the lookout for Fish Hook Bay, we took some great photos then walked around to the seal viewong platform at Cathedral Rocks to watch the seals frolicing in the water, they were quite funny to watch actually, rollong around and waving their fins in the air like they were waving at us.

On the way back to the bus stop we found a geo cache and whilst sitting at the stop we were inundated with lizards and quokkas, all crossing the road and searching around us for food. It was quite funny as we felt like we were Dr Doolittle, that was until Nik picked up a lizard and it latched on so hard it broke the skin and then Debbie was holding her hand out to a quokka who decided to see how it tasted…….. thankfully no blood was drawn and they both had recent tetanus shots so we decided to just observe them both for signs of rabies or the like!!! Thankfully the bus came and we continued on our journey, next stop we got off was at Parakeet Bay, for some lunch, swim and a snorkel. Parakeet Bay was a gorgeous small bay with some awesome sorkeling that Nik, David and the girls had a great time exploring, until the coolness of the water drove them out.

From Parakeet Bay we caught the bus back to the main settlement, grabbed a bite and a coffee from the bakery and walked down to The Basin to join the other 100’s of people on the beach. We managed to find our own patch of sand and the kids, Nik and David once again had a great time snorkelling. However as the afternoon wore on we decided to head back to the settlement and have a beer at the pub while we waited for the 6pm ferry.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have had  a few dozen wines, or as Debbie suggested caught the earlier ferry, as the last ferry trip home was horrendous and downright scary, thankfully the strong southerly wind seemed to help us in our efforts back to shore as the trip only took 20 minutes. Nik, David and the girls were having a blast, mucking around and being silly, whilst Debbie and I, the mature ones were holding on tightly fearing the worst……

Clearly we made it home from Rottnest Island, it was a great day, made all the more special to spend it with David and Debbie, however we tucked ourselves in early that night as the next day, after a long stint in suburbia, we heading out of metropolitan Perth, away from the crowds of people, away from the traffic and away from the conveniences of city living. We had enjoyed staying in and around Perth, exploring different things and settling into everyday life for a few months, however we found the masses quite claustrophobic and were looking forward to heading norther. Leaving at the beginning of March we figured we could get an early start on the ‘grey nomads’ and travelling masses as we all headed norther, all in search of our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……..

1st January to 2nd March

Another highlight of our time here in Mandurah was catching up with our travelling soulmates the Leeds. We had decided to get together at the beach up in Fremantle, Woodmans Point and it just happened to be nearly 6 months to the day when we had parted ways way back when back in Alice Springs. We spent a great day with the Leeds and it felt like we had only left them yesterday. We played in the park had a bbq lunch and a few swims down at the beach. Nik, Simon and the kids also had fun jumping off the jetty, with Nik apparently performing one hell of a handstand and half somersault off the jetty and into the water…….Unfortunately his timing was off, perhaps due to lack of training and fitness……..and the half somersault into the water was more of a three quarter belly flop onto the water…. All I can say is thank god I didn’t see it, all I saw was Nik gingerly walking out of the water holding his back and not saying much…. We had a great day and realised how much we had missed travelling with the Leeds, however we did discuss future travels for when we head north, so stay tune for that one!!!!

Another day had the kids and I spending the day with Rob and Max travelling by train up to the Perth Mint. Jess had earlier mentioned to Rob and Max that she had never been on a train before, poor child…. So it was then decided that we would catch the train up to Perth, which was really our only option as we would not all fit in the one car anyway. It was quite funny watching the girls on the train, realising what we tend to take for granted the girls got a real kick out of, and to make it even better we only paid $12 for a family ticket which included 3 adults and 5 kids…… go figure!!! We had a great time at the mint and got to do the tour which showed you how they make a gold bullion as well as getting to see the $1 million gold coin. We then caught a bus to Kings Park and had a lovely lunch, then caught the bus back down to the station and caught the train home. We all had a great day and now Jess can cross train trip off her list, although now she keeps harping on about never being on a plane………

During January, Bec also used her plane ticket home and spent 2 weeks hanging out with friends, cousins, auntie and uncle and of course Nanny, Nan and GP. She had a great time, bought far too many clothes but also spent some time volunteering at a few junior life saving carnivals as water safety with Zahli. And thankfully before too long she was safely back in the van with us (much to her disgust), it took a week or two of readjusting but I think in a way she was glad to be back.

And so by the end of February it was time to say our goodbyes to Rob and Max and be forever grateful and thankful for their neverending hospitality and open arms. We all had a great time staying at Chateau De Burton, the girls loved their surrogate grandparents, Nik enjoyed being able to use power tools in Max’s shed and I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed the many conversations and coffees I had with my lovely aunties, Rob and Peta. Having grown up on the opposite side of the continent to them it was great being able to spend time with them and I will certainly miss them both!! It was certainly sad to say goodbye to everyone, aunties, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins and other people somehow related to me via a cousin. However after 3 months in Mandurah its time for us to move onwards and upwards on our next adventure on our OZLAP………

1st January to 2nd March.

The beginning of 2016 for OZLAP involved early mornings, very early mornings in fact, particulary for Mr OZLAP, Nik, who had scored a temporary contract as a qualified Greenkeeper at Lake Karrinyup Country Club. This contract involved preparing and getting the course ready for the Perth International tournament which was is to be held there on the weekend of 27th and 28th February. Whilst the early mornings were not delightful, Nik did enjoy getting back into his preferred career choice, which he had left some 20 years ago. So it was throughout our stay at Chateau De Burton that Nik left early for work, arriving home about 3pm where he tagged myself and I headed back out in the car to work a few evening or night duty shifts each week at the local hospital in ED, much to my surprise, delight and shock. Even though we were without a car during the day, with Nik at work, we were spoilt with a fantastic pool and the constantly generous offer of my aunties car if need be.

However, not all of our time was spent working, we were also lucky enough to visit Adventure World with my cousin Penny and her gorgeous girls, as well as the majority of WA. The weather was glorious and the park was choc a block, however we decided to stay a little later than most and by about 4:30 the crowds had halved and we got to go on the rides without having to line up for an hour!!!!

On another fine Perth day we decided to head into the big smoke and spend a day at Kings Park, exploring the ANZAC memorial and walking around the many stunning gardens and playgrounds scattered about the acres of bush. After what felt like a few hours of walking we settled ourselves on the grass in the shade at one of the playgrounds, while the girls played  and enjoyed the water playground.

On another occasion we met up with my cousin David and his lovely wife, Debbie and their friends for a fantastic afternoon spent enjoying the sun and the canals down in Mandurah, it was a great day and we were made to feel so welcome. The girls were spoilt for choice and got to ride around on the back of jet skis, jump off the boat moored at the jetty, as well as go off exploring the surrounding canals in kayaks, going under quaint little bridges and having a ball.

We also lobbed in at Kelly’s (yet another cousin) house for a BBQ dinner, taking a quiet stroll to the beach less than 200 metres from her back yard. The kids had a quick swim while Nik spoke to the fisherman, when he returned he oh so casually mentioned that he was fishing for shark……..needless to say the kiddies were herded out of the water and we headed back to the house for  dinner.

We also managed a few catch ups with another aunt and uncle, Peta and Garth and their daughter Erica, one of which involved a late night collection of pavers…………….. The lifesaving carnival calender also kept us on our feet during January with a few carnivals. Our first foray into the WA lifesaving carnival way of life was at a beach north of Perth, called Sorrento. The beach and weather were superb, unfortunately we were also introduced to these nasty little sea critters the locals called stingers. Well these little buggers took a particular liking to Zoe and caused her grief, even a week later when her stings flared up again and she developed a nasty case of hives. But our girls are tough as nails and they repeatedly went back into the water to compete in the swim surf race, board races and board rescue events. We were so proud of the girls (and guilt ridden) we decided to head to Hillarys Boat Harbour down the road for a late lunch at the pub/ cafe, which made us feel less guilty for sending the girls into the water…..

Our next carnival was an hour south of ‘home’, down at Bunbury and once again we had another glorious day. The sun was shining, the stingers were no where to be seen and the girls had a great time competing and spending time with their friends. It was a long day and not surprisingly they fell asleep for the very long hour drive home. Our last carnival was a team events carnival up in Fremantle, where for once the weather failed to put on a show and the day was overcast and even bordering on getting a little chilly. The weather teamed with the wind didn’t make for favourable water conditions and it was an early day as the water events were called off before lunch, Nik and I were practically high fiving each other on the way home. We love the carnivals but they are a long day trudging up and down the beach only to make it to each of the girls events just after they have competed……..

27th November to 31st December

After a relatively quick drive up the freeway we arrived at Chateau De Burton, AKA as my aunty Robyn and uncle Max’s gorgeous house just north of Mandurah. We quickly set up and spent the rest of the day catching up with Rob and Max. Over the next couple of days we continued catching up with family we hadn’t seen for at least 5 years.

However after a few laid back days it was time to get sorted and unpack, unload, sort, bin and send to salvos all the stuff we haven’t been using and carting around. We started by unloading the car, we think it grew about 4 inches without the extra weight on board and breathed a sigh of relief. Nik had a few jobs and bits and pieces he needed to do with the new van now that we are based somewhere for a while, so he kept himself busy gathering contact numbers, locating willing tradies, welding and generally enjoying tinkering with the new van.

Not long after we arrived in Mandurah Zoe was lucky enough to recieve her grade 6 graduation certificate, it was finally official, she wasn’t a primary school kid anymore!!! To keep ourselves active we also decided to join a local surf lifesaving club, after some quick research by our friend in the know, Kerry, we chose to join Secret Harbour Surf Lifesaving Club. It was only 15km away from ‘home’ and it gave the girls a chance to meet some new friends and for Bec to requal for her Surf Rescue Certificate and notch up some hours patroling for the club.

However after a week or 2 we needed to get into the Christmas spirit and get organised for the big day, so we spent a lot of time exploring and discovering the abundance of shopping centres available around the Mandurah/ Rockingham area, the choices were numerous!!! Finally after getting ourselves sorted with van stuff and Christmas we set about going out to be tourists!!

First stop, Fremantle Prison, what an amazing place full of historical stories both humorous and horrible!! We chose to do the ‘Doin Time’ tour and the ‘Great Escapes’ tour and certainly enjoyed ourselves. We learnt about how the prison was built and used for the convicts and later on the ‘modern day prisoners’. Where and how the infamous Irishman John Boyle O’Reilly, came to be a resident at the prison and how he made quite a successful name for himself in the US after he had escaped from the jail and sailed to the US on a whaling ship. We also saw the whipping post and gallows, listening to the somewhat gruesome and terrible history being told by our wonderful tour guide and story teller, John about how the last man was hanged in 1964 and the blood curdling techniques used by the guards during the whipping or lashings to the prisoners. We learnt and laughed about the infamous ‘Moondyne Joe’ and his escapades and John also told us about the famous 1988 riot and the damage it did to the structure of the prison, whilst no one knows to this day still what the rioters actually wanted or tried to achieve………

We also learnt about the very nasty husband and wife resident serial killer that were undone by the courage of a young 17 year old who was able to escape and alert the police to their atrocities, god knows how she recovered after what she endured. John, our guide, was very aware of the kids present and was very discrete and mindful of the more horrid stories he partially told. All up we had a great day, the kids really enjoyed themselves too, we also contemplated doing the tunnel tour and night tour but the minimum age was 12 so that ruled out half of our mob, much to Bec’s dissappointment. Our tours finished anout 1:30 and we were starving so naturally we headed off to Little Creatures Brewery just down the road for a bite to eat and a beer of course!!

Whilst in Mandurah we also had our second magazine article published in 4WD Action, it was very exciting and the kids loved seeing themselves in a magazine, we also have a special mention and thank you to our dear travelling soul mates the Leeds who once again starred in the many photos in the article and shared such a wonderful time in the East Macs in Central Australia with us. We were also lucky enough to have dinner and a catch up with a dear friend from home, Keiran, poor guy probably couldn’t get a word in with the 6 of us constantly chatting and asking him questions. Whilst I also spent some time with my inspiring sister inlaw, brother and their precious boys and finally managed to pin down my best mate for a long overdue coffee, even if it was 11:00 at night!!!!!!

And before we knew it was Christmas eve, Nanny had arrived from Melbourne and we were lucky enough to spend a wonderful Christmas Day with Mum, her sisters and brother and all of their kids and grandkids. It was a great hectic day and of course the girls got spoilt by Santa Claus. The celebrations continued on for the week that Mum was here as we also celebrated the New Year and reflected on the wonderful adventure that was our 2015.

So after a busy December sorting and celebrating with family we have decided to stay put for the time being, to recharge our batteries and most importantly our bank balance as we have discovered that money does simply not grow on trees, no matter how hard and how high we have looked. However our hearts still have that yearning feeling to get back out on the road again, we have come so far and have seen so much, BUT we have so much more to see and do and we can’t wait to share it with our 4 precious daughters and also to all our family, friends and followers on OZLAP. So stay tuned as we bunker down and begin to prepare ourselves for the next exciting instalment and adventures on our OZLAP………

16th November to 27th November.

Our first trip to Hamelin Bay to view the mantra rays was unsuccessful, so never ones to give up we decided to head there on another much sunnier day. We eventually found a carpark as it was quite busy and proceeded to walk down the sand path to the beach. It wasn’t too packed but it was pretty busy, so we headed down to the shoreline to have a look for these infamous rays and found……none 😦 Whilst the water was crystal clear and blue and the sand was a stunning white color underneath we could not spot any rays, we stood there for about 10 minutes looking up and down the beach but still nothing. So we decided to wander up the beach to where the boat ramp and quite a few people were swimming and fishing, to see what they were catching and as we were walking up there we noticed that a few people were ‘looking’ at something in the water up past the boat ramp, so up we quickly walked and finally we saw what we  had come to see. There were 2 mantra rays, a huge one and another little baby one and it was amazing just watching them as they glided along the shallow water on the shore, stopped then turned around again and went back along the line of people now starting to mill around. I didn’t actually touch them but Jess said they were quite slimy and were very friendly.

After a few rest days we got back into tourist mode and headed north to explore around Cape Naturaliste, Bunker Bay and Meelup Beach, which are just north of Yallingup and Dunsborough. The lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste wasn’t as big and grand as the one down south at Cape Leeuwin and therefore only cost us a gold coin donation to walk the short distance to the lighthouse from the house. It was also surrounded by a wire cyclone fence so there was no spectacular views or photos, which was a bit dissapointing. On our way back south we called into Bunker Bay, which was a little bay on the east side of Geographe Bay, I was impressed as there was a little cafe there which sold not too bad coffee (pity about the service though…) This little bay was also home to the Bunker Bay Resort, a quaint little upmarket holiday resort away from the summer crowds. After the girls had a swim and I had my coffee we bade farewell to Bunker Bay and only headed a short distance down the road to Meelup beach which had come highly recommended. Meelup beach, home to the HMAS Swan wreck, located a little bit off the shore, is also a good spot for whale watching and picnics and whilst it was stunning it was quite busy, therefore we all voted that Bunker Bay was our fave place for the day!! On our way home we drove down the main street of Dunsborough and were quite impressed with what we saw, it was a beautiful little town with some gorgeous houses and surrounding property, unfortunately it seemed that the whole of WA was there so we didn’t stop for a sticky beak as we had a deadline to meet…….Millers ice cream closed at 4:30 and we just had to make it before it shut!!!!!!

During our last couple of days we also went back up to Busselton for the day, we didn’t bother doing the full jetty walk as we had already made the trek and also visited the aquarium at the end of the jetty a few years prior. So instead Nik grabbed his fishing gear and settled in for a few hours mid way along the jetty whilst the girls and I went for a walk back to the main street and shops in town. We had a wander around town, but our favourite place by far was the gorgeous little bookshop located in Fig Tree Lane, called Barefoot Books, which was also owned by the father and step mother of our travelling buddies, ‘The Stricklands’. We spent at least an hour in this bookshop, each of us entranced in our own areas, Jess already settling herself in the reading corner reading her favourite books. We all bought at least one book, secretly wishing we could have taken so many more!!!! Afterwards we headed back to the jetty to check up on Nik, who had caught a few squids, have lunch and play on the park and relax in the shade. We had a lovely day, which of course was finished off with yet another ice cream, thank god we are only gluten free not diary free!!!!

As we had promised the girls earlier we also spent a day at the Margaret River Maze, it was a stunning place and quite a hard slog too, finding our way into the maze. We had decided to make it a bit harder and head off in pairs to find the different ‘animal seats’ and head into the lookout in the middle. It was hilarious listening and watching the girls running around in circles, yelling and screaming that they had found it only to have them run back past us saying no wrong way. So after a good 10-15 minutes we all eventually made our way seperately into the centre where we met two lovely couples who were also staying at the park we were at. Standing up on the decking of the lookout we then spent the next 45 minutes having a great chat to them whilst the kids mastered the maze by finding their way out and then back in at least twice. Eventually our little genius maze runners dragged us away and out of the maze where we also wandered around the gardens, playing all the interactive games and puzzles,  later on we all agreed that we had a great few hours at the maze and the gardens were wonderful and relaxing. After running a few errands in town of course we had to finish off yet another hot day by cooling down with another Millers ice cream…………

As we had made oursleves at home here at Big Valley we spent the last day tidying up and getting ready to head off the next day, however we did head out for afternoon tea at the Berry Farm just around the corner from Big Valley. We had scones, jam and cream, coffee and milkshakes, then the girls played on the playground and we then purchased a few jams and pickles from the shop as well as two bags of avocados for $5 each!!!!!!!!

Finally after nearly 3 weeks down in Margaret River it was time to pack up, we had thoroughly enjoyed our time at Big Valley Campground and highly recommend it to anyone staying in the area. We met quite a few other long term travelling families and the kids spent most of their free time playing with all the other kids up in the ‘Magic Tree’, they still continue to talk about the magic tree and how awesome it was!!!! So after we sadly said our goodbyes and vowed NOT to call in to Millers and get an ice cream on the way out of town we headed off onto our next destination and adventure on our OZLAP…….

16th November to 27th November.

After yet another amazing drive through some stunning forests we arrived at our next stop, a farmstay about 10 minutes south of Margaret River. Big Valley Campsite/ Caravan Park is actually a working sheep station that has a caravan park/ campsite attached to the homestead. It has 2 areas with 2 separate big sheds that each house an enormous well equipped camp kitchen, laundry, showers, toilets and even a family bathroom. We originally booked in for a week but ended up staying for 12 nights as there was so much to see and do and the farmstay was a fantastic place and a great (read cheap) base.

After a day of R & R we headed south down to Augusta and surrounds. The weather started off sunny and warm, however whilst we were at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse the wind and rain came in, however we managed to take a few nice sunny photos of the lighthouse from a distance as we refused to pay the $50 entrance fee. As it was lunchtime we headed to a local cafe opposite a park which served gluten free chips (winning!!) and sat and ate while we watched the rain and wind outside. With our bellies full we then decided to do some geocahing at a nearby park and walkway along the inlet. We were successful in locating a few, but the chilly wind forced us back into the car where we took a vote and decided to head home early, but not before we called into Hamelin Bay to see if we could spot the resident stingrays. However with no luck with the sting rays we drove back to the van with our fingers crossed that the rain didn’t go through the open windows of the van as we had left them open that morning.

The following day was still overcast and chilly so we decided to just explore in the car, we drove south and then west to Contos, which is an awesome part of the coastline and home to Contos campground. We had earlier planned to stay at Contos but after we had calculated the cost for 2 adults and 4 kids charged by the rangers for an unpowered site we found that it was only a few dollars cheaper than if we stayed at Big Valley.  For us it was a no brainer as Big Valley offered the creature comforts of electricity, water, showers, toilets and washing machine. We also called into a few surf shops in town to see what beaches they recommended for swimming and surfing for the kids, to which one replied Perth……..

Finally with the sun out and the weather warming up considerably we decided to spend the next few days at some beaches, with our favourite being Redgate. We had checked out the Margaret River Mouth but deemed it too unsafe for the girls with most of the surfing being from reef breaks and we didn’t fancy spending the day scraping our skin off on the reef. Therefore we spend an awesome few days down at Redgate bodysurfing, swimming and surfing whilst getting a few cool photos with Bec’s GoPro.

We also dusted off the semi decent clothes to visit a brewery or two, the chocolate factory and nougat winery. First we headed to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory, where we sampled plenty of chocolate, had a coffee and of course made a few purchases. Next we went around the corner to the Margaret River Nougat & Bettenays Wines where once again sampled the nougat and made some purchases, but not before we picked the poor fellows brain about how to make nougat. For lunch we decided to stop at Cheeky Monkey Brewery, where we had a lovely lunch, Nik sampled some pale ale and the younger girls played on the playground. After lunch we headed to Bootleg Brewery where we spent the next hour and a half lounging in the sun playing mega Jenga and Hackey Sacks. Thankfully we had paced ourselves and not overindulged during the day and were then able to find the last bit of room for an ice cream from the Margaret River Dairy Company, needless to say we all skipped dinner that evening…..

Our next outing for a day was a drive north, firstly through the town of Cowaramup, which we still have trouble pronouncing and therefore will be refered to as Cowtown!!! Cowtown had a great lolly shop where we watched the colorful owner and lolly maker make some honeycomb. It was pretty cleverly done and we were left in no doubt that this guy LOVED his job as well as his own jokes!!! Before we left we felt it was only right that we bought some of the honeycomb that they had made, we then gave the kids $5 and waited and waited and waited and waited, well you get the picture. Apparently the choices were too much for them and they couldn’t make a rational decision so Nik and I patiently tried to guide them. We eventually left the shop, with a lot less patience than we had taken in!! There was also a geocache in town that as much as we looked and looked we could not find, so after many strange looks from passer bys we decided to call it quits and move on (or sit in the car sulking whilst eating our quota of lollies).

As we turned west onto Caves Road we really enjoyed the scenic drive north and as we were passing the Yallingup Maze thought we’d call in and have an explore. We nearly choked as the lady told us how much going into a wooden maze would cost, $80!!!! Nik gave me many evil looks warning me to hold my tongue as I was disgusted at the cost, so much so that I refused to buy a coffee there, no matter how much my desire for caffeine was (for those that know me that was a dam big statement!!!) They did have free puzzles and a jumping castle out in the sitting area and cafe which we decided to have a go at, whilst still NOT ordering a single thing from the cafe, HA!!!!! We then drove further north towards Yallingup, where we spent a lovely hour having lunch and playing on the awesome playground. For those of you wandering, yes I finally got my coffee from the lovely lady at the cafe at the Yallingup foreshore, it was worth my making my stand!!!

With so much to see in WA’s southwest we woke up so excited every day, wondering about what our next day’s destination and adventure was going to be on our OZLAP…….

12th November to 16th November

Our next destination was a place called Quinninup, about 30km south of Manjimup and 30km east of Pemberton. Nik had found this little gem of a caravan park on Wikicamps, they had a lot of great reviews and were a hell of a lot cheaper than all the other parks in the main towns. The caretaker decided to only charge us $40 per night, awesome so we ended up staying for 4 nights, it was a great base to explore the surrounding area. The girls loved the friendly kangaroos and emus that without fail turned up mid afternoon and hung around eating till dark.

After we arrived and set up we decided to go for a drive up to Manjimup, we ended up getting  few extra supplies and Bec needed to print out a maths test so off we all went to the library. Lucky for us they were having a $1 book sale, so we all spent at least 45 minutes going through their old books and were each able to find a few books each to buy. After our purchases we realised we had lost Jess and Abby, thankfully we found them in the kids section colouring in, so what did we all do……sat down with them and coloured in for then next 30 minutes. We also got some colour competition pictures that we could do and return in time for the cherry festival at the end of the month, they even had an adult competition!!!!

Whilst here we also took a drive into Pemberton, grabbing a coffee and heading straight to the Gloucester Tree, another place that OH&S would have a ball with!!! Considering the height of the tree and the largely spaced out ‘pins’ that acted as a ladder for you to climb up we didn’t allow the younger 2 girls to climb it, even though they were the only ones who wanted to. Bec ummed and ahhed and finally decided no, Zoe was a definite NO from the start and I had doubts as to my climbing ability and fitness so passed as well, Nik was the only one who went up, much to Abby’s disgust!!!! Can I also add that his quads have been nicely burning and getting back at him for a few days now as a result.

On the way out to the Gloucester Tree we noticed a ‘pub front’ and some cool old cars, after some asking around we found out that they re filming ‘Jasper Jones’, Australia’s version of To Kill a Mockingbird. It stars Hugo Weaving apparently, but we didn’t spy him around and couldn’t be bothered sneaking in and having a look so we took some photos and continued on.

After our climb we decided to go for a scenic drive to the north of Pemberton, driving past the Big Brook Dam along the Karri Explorer Drive. We decided to stop at the dam for lunch then Abby and Jessica decided to go for a swim even though they didn’t have their bathers. After a while we continued on our drive through some beautiful forests and past some avocado farms, where we picked up 8 avocados for $2, winning!!!

We also went for a drive through the Warren National Park, just south of Pemberton, which took us past some huge karri trees and lovely, but not caravan appropriate, camping spots along the Warren River. We finished off the day by calling in to the Lavender and Berry Farm just out of town for ice cream and coffee arriving back to the van in time to greet all the kangaroos who had taken quite a liking to the grass right beside our van.

The next day with the weather looking in the high 30’s we decided to take a drive down to the coast to a little fishing settlement called Windy Harbour. Windy Harbour is the only 2wd access to the WA coast between Walpole and Augusta consisting of about 220 cottages which are leased for about 20 years each. WOW, what a place, we went to Salmon beach first for a swim in the shallows (lots of rips and rough beach) and then to the ‘township’ which had no shops, where we stumbled upon a great grassy area with picnic tables and an awesome playground where we had some lunch. Afterwards we went to the beach just over the dune, it was fantastic, a sheltered little bay where all the boats were launched and a great swimming area protected by rocks. The girls had a ball playing in the water and jumping off all the rocks, I think they were playing a mermaid game of some sort. In the end we had to drag them out, they were desperate to come back again tomorrow as they loved it that much, unfortunately we had to say no as we had other stuff to do and we were moving on the day after.

After another trip to Manjimup and more importantly Woolworths we then packed up and got ready to head off to our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……….

8^th November to 12th November

Our next stop was at a council run campground about 25km west of Denmark, it is unpowered, has flushing toilets, solar heated showers and fire pits. It is completely run and maintained by volunteer staff and is over half the cost of the caravan parks in and near town and for $5.00 you get a wheelbarrow of chopped wood!!!! Thankfully when we arrived just before lunch there were plenty of spots still available, our next hurdle though was seeing if the van fit under the height restriction bar, thankfully it did by a mere 10mls. Nik got up on the van to get the best vantage point to guide me through, then as we were slowly driving under people were yelling out to stop you’re not going to fit, with Nik yelling back at them ‘Nah mate,we’re right!!!!’ And yes we were right mate!!!!

After we set up and had lunch we jumped in the car and headed back to Denmark to the information centre to find out the must sees. From there we decided to do the Ocean scenic drive back to camp, so we drove along the Denmark River to the ocean mouth and the Denmark Life Saving Club, where we stopped for a while watching the locals surf and spotted many pods of dolphins near the mouth of the inlet. We continued onto a few look outs, checked out the ‘elephant rocks’ and Greens Pool and then headed back to the main road, stopping at the Denmark Chocolate Factory for a coffee and chocolate which was delicious. Just when we thought that we had eaten enough sugar we spied a toffee factory and of course had to pull in to check it out!!! And check it out we did, cutting a long story short, lets just finish by saying we made a considerable contribution to Denmark’s economy…….

Our next tourist drive saw us do the Scottsdale Scenic route just north of Denmark, we had 2 stops along here, the Denmark Alpaca and Animal Farm and the cheese factory. We pulled into the animal farm and based on initial looks figured we’d be in and out of there quick smart, but we were happily proven wrong. After we choked on the price we entered what can only be described as a menagerie of animals, there were goats, alpacas, llamas, kangaroos, chickens, roosters, hamsters, rabbits, racing pigeons, horses, cows, highland Scottish cows, emus, a camel, ferrets, sheep, lambs, ducks, koalas, 6 week old baby goats, galahs, turkeys and an orphaned 5 month joey. The kids had a great time patting and feeding all the animals with the hamsters and rabbits getting lots of cuddles but the highlight was the baby goats Cliff and Norm who would stand there and suck on Jesse’s fingers and the little joey who after a brief play crawled into its pouch (a pillowcase) and proceeded to suck its claws.

After the farm we went to the cheese factory and resisted too much temptation and only bought some yummy cheese. The scenic drive took us back into Denmark where we had lunch at the ‘award winning’ Denmark Bakery which was great as they did gluten free hot chips, the girls were in heaven as it had been a while since we had found a place that didn’t deep fry their chips with battered food.

Whilst in the area we also made a trip to Walpole and the Tree Tops Walk and Giant Tingle Tree, both of which we had visited some 7 years prior but as Jess was only one and Abby three at the time we decided to have another look. The trees were really massive and quite impressive up close, whilst the tree tops walk had us all hanging on to the rails as it was quite bouncy.

After playing busy tourist for a few days straight we decided to spend a few days around camp just chilling and also relaxing and fishing at the beach, the weather was not bad and the girls had fun swimming, while Nik fished, after which we packed up and headed off on our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……..

5th November to 8th November

We set out a tad earlier today knowing that our drive was a little longer than usual, about 400km. Our intended destination was a free camp just before Albany called East Bay, it had been recommended by someone, somewhere, sometime ago…..we can’t recall actually. Just as well too as when we got there we were not really impressed, it didn’t help that the weather had turned overcast and windy, but the campground itself was small, pokey, open to the elements and already had at least 4 separate campers there. So we decided to continue on to another free camp that I  had read a lot about, Cosy Corner, in between Albany and Denmark. After another hour on the road we pulled into yet another pokey campground Cosy Corner, about 4:30pm, only to spot a sign out the front stating it was full……crap, after driving for nearly 6 hours with gusty strong crosswinds, our driver had had enough. So with no other options we drove back into town with our tail between our legs to pay a bank robbing amount of $80 per night to stay in a caravan park. We had planned on staying a week in Albany, but at these prices we quickly poo-pooed that idea. We booked in for 3 nights and sat and figured out our busy itinerary.

The next day we were up early and had started school by 8:30, with the girls making good progress, with just over a week to report writing, we are trying to get as much done before Monday so we can send off a few modules via express post. After lunch it was time to play tourist, so with nasty grey clouds ahead we headed off to the National Anzac Centre up on Mt Adelaide, which had spectacular views of King George Sound. We arrived at the centre just as the threatening clouds opened up and the rain started. After paying we each received a card with a photo and the name of an ANZAC on it, which we then placed on different screens throughout the centre, to read and learn about their involvement in the war. In addition we were given a pen like listening device that we could scan over certain areas and holding it to our ear we could individually listen to different ANZACS (including the one on our card) or people involved in WW1 without bothering other people around us.

I think overall we spent about 2 hours in there, even Jess remained enthusiastic until at least the 90 minute mark. We began at the beginning, trying to figure out and explain to the kids all about the different allegiances between European countries and Great Britain, which led to WW1 and ultimately to Australia’s involvement. From there we learnt about the first and second convoy of ANZACS that were deployed from King George Sound, Albany, less than a kilometre from where we were standing, to the infamous landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli in 1915, onto the many battles of the Western Front and Egypt. We then learnt about the ‘armistice’ and what happened on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month and what the kids know as Remembrance Day. The last part of the tour wraps up with information about the huge deployment efforts and the many mental and emotional problems that the soldiers endured on their return home. Then to conclude the whole self guided tour you can place your card on the final screen and learn what become of your ANZAC, Jesse was lucky enough to have Charles Bean who survived the war and returned home to dedicate a large part of his life to the development of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, whilst I had Bugler Otto Siefken, 11th Battalion, AIF, who sadly became a POW and perished during the war at the age of 24.

The ANZAC Centre was well worth the entrance fee and the girls, Nik and I gained so much from the interactive tour, the girls were constantly coming up to Nik and I saying you have to listen to this person or that person. Whilst a lot probably went over their heads they were able to recall the main key features of the war, which I’m sure they will still be able to vaguely  remember in years to come if they study it within the school curriculum. Sadly due to the abhorrent wet weather we were unable to do the many walks around the outside of the centre, but didn’t feel as if we had missed out. If anything it makes me more determined to visit the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, something that’s been on my bucket list for a while.

Our last day in Albany involved another morning of schoolwork followed by an afternoon at the Historic Whaling Museum. ‘Whale World’ is a heritage listed tourist attraction, that was Australia’s last operating whaling station, with operations ceasing only a mere 36 years ago, hard to believe that this type of inhumane act was actually still occurring within my lifetime. We didn’t really know what to expect from our afternoon, we had worded up the kids (and ourselves) that it maybe quite depressing and confronting so we went in with our eyes open. However we ended up having a great afternoon, we found the initial tour focus was on the gruesome details about whaling, however after the big ‘skeleton museum shed’ the tour then focused on the plight and conservation of these large gentle giants. We marvelled at the sheer size of the bones and skeletons, in particular the pigmy blue whale at a mere 22 meters long. When the tour finished we then went through and watched a few movies, a 3D one on the whales and another one about sharks and how important they actually are to the marine ecosystem. The sharks seem to have had a bit of a raw deal these days and are not as popular as the whales, but they too need to be protected just as much as the whales, especially the Grey Nurse shark, as scientists predict it will become extinct in a few years time.

After the movies the girls didn’t fancy having another look at the skeleton museum so we headed over to the whaler chaser ‘Cheynes IV’, which is now up on land and open to tourists, and spent a quite a while going up and down and in and out the labyrinth of cabins and corridors, below deck and above deck. From the captains cabin to the walkway down to the harpoon (the captain was the only one who was allowed to shoot the harpoon and grenade), further on down to the engine room. After a while I decided to let Nik and the girls continue playing chasey and hide and seek and sat outside waiting as I was getting quite claustrophobic inside, clearly I’m no sailor!!!! As it was getting late in the day we naturally then headed to the café for coffee and milkshakes whilst looking out at the wonderful view of King George Sound.

After a busy few wet and cold days in Albany we decided, OK the ridiculous prices for accommodation decided, that it was time to move on, so on yet another grey and dull day we packed up and headed off to our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……………………

2nd November to 5th November

After a wet Sunday night and a forecast for more rain to come on the Monday we decided to only drive back to Esperance and spend the night at Seafront Caravan park to do some school work, washing and utilise the cheap dryers. The next day before we headed off I went into to town to do a few jobs while Nik, Zoe and Abs gave the van a wash with many a grey nomad walking past commenting to Nik about how good the two girls were helping out!! Afterwards Zoe even guided the car onto the van and hooked it all up, taking off the jockey wheel and brakes, while Abby connected and tested out the lights on the van, while Nik stood to the side having a chin wag with his new mates……..

We arrived at our next camp not long before lunch as it was only a short 120km drive. Munglinup Beach was a ‘cheap’ camp, only costing us $10 per night, many locals spend their weekends down here for the awesome fishing, as usual Nik made a few new grey nomad friends!!! We then  spent the next two nights camped here, with Nik fishing, Bec doing schoolwork (which was on the ecosystem of Munglinup beach) and Zoe, Abby and Jess snorkelling, collecting shells and sliding down the sand dunes on the bogey board and surfboard. The girls had a great time snorkelling near the reef on the beach, that was until a friendly manta ray came swimming up to them, you could hear them scream through their snorkels!! They quickly hopped out of the water and were happy to watch from the safety of the beach. Jess was also kept busy for hours collecting shells from the beach, she was enthralled. We also explored the rock pools and sat transfixed for ages watching the crabs trying to hide from us.

After the manta ray incident the girls decided the water was too cold for them now and set their sights on breaking the sand sliding speed world record with as many people on a bogey board as possible. We also had a competition for the child with the most sand in their mouth, eyes, up their nose and in their ears……. This fun and games continued on for a few hours until low and behold one of them hurt themselves on one particular bullet run……. Later on we connected the camera to the TV and were in hysterics at the many action photos of the girls doing their countless dune runs, with every single one ending up with them catapulting over each other to land face first in the sand. How they managed to do it over and over amazes me as I experienced immediate quad burn simply going half way up the dune to take photos…..I’m still feeling it now whilst typing this!!!!! I also managed to put a gash in my forehead whilst attempting to scale the dune (in order to obtain phone reception…) as a very nasty stick came leaping out of the ground at me, needless to say it bloody well hurt, however on a positive note it did get me out of dinner duty as my head ached.

Waking up on the third day we were glad we were leaving as the flies came out in force, which made for some very grumpy campers whilst packing up, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief as we jumped into the car, sat back and relaxed as we headed onto our next adventure and destination on out OZLAP…….

29th October to 2nd November.

WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS FAR MORE PHOTOS THAN WORDS…….THE WORDS SOMEHOW PALED IN COMPARISON TO THE IMAGES. Don’t worry I’ll make up for it in the next blog……

After we bade farewell to Shannon, Gerard and the kids we made our way about 45kms east of Esperance to the infamous Cape Le Grand National Park. We had earlier purchased a nice shiny new 12 month national parks sticker that we promptly popped on the front windscreen, so after checking in at the park entrance we headed on out to our campsite at Lucky Bay. Thankfully there were a few spare sites so we chose one with a bit of protection from the wind and set up for the next few days. We had found out a few months ago that upgrades were being done at Lucky Bay, but decided to still stay there in the hope that the works weren’t too disruptive. We found that whilst there was constant noise from the construction and landscaping works going on not far from camp we found that it didn’t really bother us that much. After we set up we went for an explore along the beach by foot, heading over to the big rocks to the western side of the bay to take some photos of the views and get a feel of the layout of the campsite.

We found the kangaroos to be quite tame, however we didn’t feed them, but obviously people have been as considering it is such a highly populated campground and now with the inclusion of trucks, bobcats and earth movers the kangaroos still didn’t batter an eyelid at their sometimes noisy surrounds.

The next day Shannon and Gerard rolled in and we set out for a day of exploring, but not before we grabbed a coffee at the coffee van that comes out to Lucky Bay and sets up on the beach most days of the week, unbelievable!!!!! After we had our caffeine fix we drove along the beach to the far east end for some views and stunning photos, made even more beautiful by a strategically placed sailing boat that had also decided to anchor in the bay for a few days.

After we literally had to drag ourselves away from Lucky Bay we took a drive back through Cape Le Grand to see if we could be equally impressed with what else she had to offer us, simple answer, HELL YES!!!

From Hellfire Bay we drove onto yet another beach which takes you the short cut way back to Wylie Beach just outside of Esperance. The ‘piece de resistance’ was the climb up the granite boulder at the end of the drive. Nik had seen Ron Moon drive it and had been harping on about it for the last 2 weeks, so together with Gerard and Shannon in their car we all drove up it, very, very, very carefully. Once at the top we took some photos and as Shannon and her kids were not very impressed with the drive up, they decided to walk back down instead whilst the guys had to carefully manoeuvre the cars back down and I played official photographer.

As we once again said goodbye to Shannon and Gerard, who were heading back to the caravan park in town we decided it would be quicker to drive back the way we came, so off we went back along the beach, loving every minute of it.

The next day we packed up and headed even further east to a place called Orleans Bay, setting up at the overly priced and overly valued caravan park, which was disappointing as this place had come well recommended to us. We were slogged $150 for 2 nights for a patch of grass with power and water……and then a further $20 to hire a fire pit…… The weather also turned on us here and it was cold, overcast and we even copped the eye of a massive storm on the second night that pretty much washed all our surroundings away!!! Whilst here we had lunch at the nearby Condingup Tavern, which was actually reasonably priced and had great food, and drove to Wharton Beach, which I’m sure on a good day would have been fabulous, however not real kid friendly as we spotted 4 rips in the space of 200 metres….. So after 2 nights we couldn’t wait to get out of there, even if the weather was awful and the park more expensive than a nugget of gold we found the  park owners cocky attitude whilst looking down at us from her three storey house was even more disappointing!!!!!

And so it was onto greener pastures we headed, on our way towards the next adventure and destination on our OZLAP………..

15^th October to 29^th October

We arrived in Esperance a little bit ahead of schedule after we had decided to only stay a few days in Kalgoorlie and then overnight at Wave Rock. We had decided to break up our stay in Esperance and firstly spend a week at a cheap camp then a week at a caravan park. As we were mainly staying in town so that I (Amy) could study for my exam and the girls, particularly Bec, could get ahead in her school work prior to the beginning of report writing, we decided to spend the first week doing majority school work in the morning and a little bit of playing tourist in the afternoons. Thankfully we had some great weather which meant the girls enjoyed swimming and surfing at the beaches and the photos we took were stunning and bought out the amazing colours of the sand, water and sky!!!! Twilight beach was a highlight and clearly our favourite beach and was 100 times more amazing in real life!!!

After a week we needed a change of scenery so we packed up and headed to the council run Seafront Caravan Park, right on the foreshore in town, it was by far the cheapest, but had the best location and views. During our second week we continued with school work and my studying and on a few occasions we were interrupted in the morning by a pod of dolphins swimming past the caravan park, which then meant the younger 3 girls simply dropped their pencils and took off out of the van, running across the park, crossing the main road and were last seen chasing the dolphins along the beach………. Thankfully they came wandering back to the van about half an hour later ready to continue on with school work.

All in all in we spent 2 weeks staying in town, we enjoyed many coffees and walks along the foreshore, the girls in the family had some retail therapy and finally my exam was done and dusted. When the weather turned on us we chillaxed with a few pj and video days and continued to play catch up with school. On our last night we had the pleasure of catching up with some friends we had met way back when, in Alice, in May. Shannon and Gerard had been half way through their lap when we first met them in Alice, then they had continued back up north and have since travelled the whole WA coastline so it was great to finally see them again here in Esperance. The kids jumped straight back into the games they had been playing in Alice, not missing a beat and getting on like they had just left each other yesterday. However after 2 weeks in Esperance we had decided to move on, promising to meet up with them on our next leg and destination on our OZLAP……………

14^th October to 15^th October

After we left Kal we headed west along the ‘so called’ Great Eastern Highway, which continues on for about 550km into Perth. I say so called because I would definitely not rate the condition of the road as great, more so it was ridiculously bumpy, so much so that we initially thought we had an issue with the car!!!! We weren’t too sure how long today’s drive was going to be as none of our navigation systems would pick up, recognise or even acknowledge the short cut dirt road that we planned to take just before we reached the town of Southern Cross. Thankfully we had our HEMA 4wd maps which helped us along, however we found that the dirt road short cut was in fact a hell of a lot better than the actual highway, all 137kms of it, it was amazing how smooth and in good nick it was. Our destination today was Hyden, or more specifically the infamous Wave Rock. Hyden is a small country town, with the rabbit proof fence passing near by, that has certainly taken advantage of Wave Rock, setting up a caravan park, café, toy soldier museum, airport, resort, wildlife park and The Lace Place ( home to the largest collection of lace in the southern hemisphere……) all within 100 metres of the rock. Wave rock itself is a granite cliff that is 15 metres high and 110 metres long and is shaped and undercut due to effects of weathering and erosion.

We arrived in Hyden mid-afternoon, set up and went out to explore and walk around the rock. We decided to do the first walk to Hippo’s Yawn, then on the way back we decided to keep up today’s tradition and take a short cut, pretty much straight up the side of the rock in the hope that it met up with another one of the walks, as the map clearly showed it did.

Once up the rock we headed in what we thought was the right direction, however we soon ended up on the other side of the rock near a big patch of black grass……..which funnily enough turned out to be the Hyden Golf Course!!!!! Now even though I was holding the map and telling the others which way to go, I blame Nik for getting us ‘apparently’ lost at yet another bloody golf course!!! After we laughed and joked about the headlines for tomorrow’s news of a family of 6 going missing on Hyden Rock, or even recalling scenes from ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, we managed to find our way back to the correct walk. However, as we were descending down the really steep section at the end of the walk (well we think it was the way to go down, not sure as we were the only ones going that way….) we did notice and comment to each other about the lack of clear signage and directions, perhaps we have been spoilt by the NT maps and signs that were written for dummies and clearly us!!!

After we had come up with what we thought was an ingenious idea we decided to take photos of the girls pretending to surf the rock (tongue in cheek here as I think 9 out of 10 visitors do the same!!), afterwards the girls decided it was hot enough (near the equator somewhere) to go for a swim in the pool, whilst Nik and I spoilt ourselves with a coffee. After being lost for so long in the bush we were thirsty and dehydrated so this was just what the doctor ordered. After our quick stop over at Hyden, which we hadn’t been planning on doing we were back on the road ready for our next adventure and destination on our OZLAP……….