A big hello to everyone, it's been awhile, and we have covered some massive kilometres along the way.
We left Ceduna and was in search of a place to spend the Easter period.  We found the perfect spot to relax for the four days.  A place called Cactus Beach.  Some of our surfing friends would know that this is a famous beach for surfing, and it's also owned by a famous surfer himself.  What many of you may not know, is that this beach is also nicknamed 'Shark Restaurant', due to the number of shark attacks.  Nevertheless, it was a beautiful spot, with loads of lovely walks which we took advantage of.  On the way in, we passed the Pink Salt lake, and the most awesome sand dunes we have seen to date.  A short walk and we were at the jetty at Port Sinclair.  It was really pretty, but after seeing the shark netted swimming area, and reading how a 10 year old boy was killed by a White Pointer, (back in '79) it took on a whole new feel.  We reached the campground and I started jumping up and down.  There parked right next to us, is Nat, Levi and Chilli.  They had drove some 600km to catch up with us and spend Easter with us.  Legends or what.  The kids had the time of their lives, and the Easter bunny found them all, and Nat and I made a treasure map with cryptic clues, which took us ages to set up, yet the kids smashed it in only minutes to find their eggs.  Goes to show we must be teaching them pretty well...  I hated saying goodbye, but they have their own journey as do we, and we will cross paths again, on the road and well after.

                                                     Our great mates

                                                          Point Sinclair

                                                      

                                                     Sunset on Cactus

We left Cactus Beach on Easter Monday and was in search for a good spot for Kaicey's 10th birthday.  We had been told Fowlers Bay was a must, so we called in to see a nice little town, population 16, with a jetty (yep, another one...hehe) where we walked to the end and watched a lady pull in a squid.  It's so great to see people catch stuff, because we can't catch a thing!  It was there that we also learnt, that hundreds of years ago, a young Aboriginal boy, was the mail service.  He walked on foot, from Ceduna to Eucla, which approx. is 400km to deliver the mail... Unbelievable.

                                                    The squid and the jetty

                                                        Fowlers Bay

After full bellies and a history lesson, we set off.   We had it in our heads that we would try and make it to the border, one, we had little food and had to go through quarantine and didn't want to do a big shop, and two, we were low on water.  We were on the Nullarbor.  We were so excited.  Calling into the Head of the Bight, and stopping to take photos of the signs were pretty special.  The first part of the Nullarbor was not what we had expected.  We thought it would be just a straight road, red dirt and the occasional clump of bushes.  We were very wrong.  It followed the coast in parts and it wasn't just straight, and there was heaps of little trees and bushes.  Did I mention the Nullarbor is very long, and this was only a very small part of a very long journey....  Troy had driven 400km, and it was time to stop.  We stop 17km south of the WA border, on the cliff edge, amazing coastline on the left, quite baron to the right.   Tired and hungry, we eat and sleep and prepare for the time change and a big day.

                                                Our camp on the Nullarbor

 

Reaching the Border was interesting, after cleaning out all our fresh fruit and veg and doing the right thing, the lady at quarantine had me going through our rubbish, picking out vegie peel and fruit skins.  Asking if I could just throw the whole bag in the bin, she proceeds to tell me that she's not a rubbish tip.  This is right in front of a sign that says," keep the scenery beautiful, bin it".  I say, "how are you supposed to do the right thing and bin it if you wont let me use the bin" !!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway....
We stop at the service station to get fuel and water.  No go, water is more precious than food here.  Up the road a little and we stop at the next stop for water, still no go.  I jump in the drivers seat, and after a few kilometres, I know it'll be a long time before I let Troy back in it.  There was a sign that said, "You are on the Longest Straight Road in Australia, 145.6km".  It's times like these when you really appreciate having a funny husband. I'm driving and we are all on the lookout for camels, emus and wedge-tailed eagles.  Troy pipes up and says, "babe, put your indicator on so your not so bored driving" hence the 145.6km straight road.  Everyone is calling for a wee stop, so I pull into a rest area.  Back on the road and Troy says, "That must have been exciting, you got to turn the wheel".  I suppose anything would be funny after driving a straight road for that long.  By this stage we are a little over it, when Troy yells "Camel".  Finally we see camels along the Nullarbor.  The wedge tail eagles were spectacular.  The size of them, up close, and you can totally see how they can pick up a small sheep.  The Nullabor had turned into what we had expected.  Long, straight, baron and boring.  Depressing comes to mind also, as we had to pay $2 a litre for Diesel.  A pit-stop was in order, where I think we had the best steak sandwich we have ever eaten.  Troy took over the driving then, I had driven close to 500km and was beat.  I grabbed a few beers out of the fridge and happily hopped in the passenger seat.  Another 280km down the road, we finally hit Norseman.  The only small park with water, showers and toilet, and don't they know it. They charge $38 a site, then $10 per child on top of that.  That's $78 a night for a piece of gravel and a shower. As tired as we were, it was Kaicey's birthday the next day, so Elley and I wrapped her presents before bed.  Elley was so excited for Kaicey getting an iPod, that she woke the kids up at 11:30pm, 2:00am and 4:00pm so Kaicey could open it.  They had also went to the shop and spent their own money on gifts for her.  5:30am was when it all happened, and after paying so much to stay there, I couldn't care less about the screams that followed her opening her presents.  Pancakes with ice-cream for breakfast and we hit the road for Esperance. 

                                                     Birthday morning at Norseman


Wanting somewhere nice for Kaicey to spend her 10th Birthday, we picked Esperance, and we weren't disappointed.  What a beautiful place.  Walking along the lookout and swimming in the beach was awesome.  Pictures are the best way to show you!

                                                   Happy Birthday baby girl

                                                            Esperance lookout

Cape Le Grand National Park was on the agenda, and oh my goodness.  Is this place heaven on earth.  I have never seen anything like it before in my life.  Water so clear you don't even think your in it, sand so white, and so ummmm, i can't even describe it.  It was like standing on really thick playdoh, that didn't stick to your feet, but the longer you stood in one spot, you sank in it.  They call it silicone sand and I wanted to bottle some of it.  We pulled up and I wanted to stay for weeks.  We swam, and walked and seen dolphins and kangaroos and rock formations that you can't even fathom.  We went for a walk to Thistle Bay, where we seen a little too much than we expected.   Lets just say we seen a couple very much in love naked on the beach.  This led to a lot of awkward questions from the kids, and Max repeating, I seen a bum down there!!!!

                                              Lucky Bay

                                                           Magical

                                                           Dolphins

In the car again, and I need a beer.  We find ourselves in Hopetoun.  That's not a typo, it's actually called Hopetoun.  Lunch at the pub and a few ales, we found ourselves at a Caravan Park, where Troy went to the Mens', only to find a lady at the pee troffs.  Mmmm... We only stayed the one night.

                                                Hopetoun and the Hopetoun Pub

Still catching up on big days and lost sleep, I finally crack.  We had covered something like 1500km in the matter of days and I was over being in the car.  I turn the centre console into an esky and head for a camp where we can stay for more than one night.  Cozy Corner is where we ended up, a free camp just south of Albany, right on the beach.  It was just what was needed.

                                             Cozy was the perfect name

A days rest and we went sight seeing in Albany.  The Blowhole and The Bridge were amazing and we also went to the Whaleworld Musem.  To be honest, the Whale thing was very off putting for me.  It seems as though they are very proud of their whaling past, yet we found it very sad.  Seeing the slaughter of the giants of the sea was depressing and vulgar, and to think they make money displaying these things, and being proud of it, didn't sit well with me.  Yes, the past it was, but that doesn't make it right!!!  Lets move on.

                                                   The Bridge

                                                    The Blowhole

                                                    The skeleton of a blue whale, the shed stunk

                                     Had to add this one, Troy sliding down the whale slide


Four days at Cozy Corner and we move on.  The Valley of the Giants where upon us and we just had to stop by.   It was great, something we can say we have see.  To me though, it was no more special than the tree top walk we done at Cape Otway!  That night we camp at Shannon, an old Mill town with an awesome camp.  The kids had a ball with another family that had been on the road for 8months.

                                                      Valley of the Giants

                                                          The camp at Shannon

Margaret River.  Where's the River???  We camp at a farm stay called Big Valley and it's only 7km from town.  Tex, the resident goat pays us a visit on arrival and tries to enter our van, then follows Elley to the toilet!  We decide to go exploring.  The first on the list was Yahava, a coffee house with free tastings.  We met a man called Neil McCloud, who runs tours out of Margaret River.  He was at the coffee house and invited us to his house the next morning to look at maps and show us the best places to stay on the west coast.  We continued on our day, cheese factory, wine tastings, chocolate factory and Millers Ice Cream factory.  It was a wonderful day.  The next morning we head to Neil's house for some advice.  Advice wasn't the only thing we found.  We arrive and Neil says, jump in the back of the ute and I'll show you my property.  The kids were so stocked.  Riding in the back of the ute, we see kangaroos and the property Neil takes tours on.  How lucky are we.   We head back to the house to find Neils wife, Coralie.  We all head up to the horses, where Neil and Coralie give the kids a ride on them and feed them carrots.  Next thing you know, we are having tea and iced buns in their home, while Neil is showing us the best places to camp as he was a tour guide along the west coast for 10 years.  We leave with loads of useful information, freshly picked tomatoes from their garden, the left over iced bun they had bought and the wonderful memories of riding horses  and riding in the back of Neils ute.  We are overwhelmed with the generosity we have just been shown.  Not 24hours ago, we met this man in an coffee house, and now we are leaving his private home.  Humbled....  We arrive back at our camp to find an empty beer carton full of food.  Bread, fruit, pancake mixture, sauce, chocolate desserts and vegies.  Looking for a note that we couldn't find, we assume it was left by the group that we crashed their fire the night before.

                                                         Tex the goat

                                              Margaret River

                                                      The back of neil and coralie's ute

                                                    The girls horse riding with Coralie and Neil

A daytrip to Augusta was where we headed, where again, we were met by amazing generosity.  We pulled up at Cape Leeuwin, and were honestly not planning on seeing the light house.  Which by the way, is the tallest standing operational Lighthouse on mainland Australia, and is also where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean.  The man that worked there has had holidays in Queensland
and we are still not sure whether he felt sorry for us, or just plain liked us, but he gave us six free tickets to see the  lighthouse and the grounds.  We couldn't thank him enough.  And, we are so grateful!!!

                               The tallest Lighthouse on mainland Australia

                                                Two oceans meet

                                                    Most south-westerly point of Autralia

                                                          it still stands today

"The Busselton Jetty, you just have to go there" was the general consensus.  At the end of the jetty was an underwater observatory.  It was a great day and something we are glad to have seen.

                                        Waiting for the train to take us to the end of the jetty

                                                         Underwater observatory

                                                       a Tailor with a hook still in its mouth

                                                The Busselton Jetty which is 1.8km long

 

                                            (the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere)

 

Leaving Margaret River, Big Valley Farmstay was hard, it was a great stay.  But all good things come to an end.  We headed for Perth and stayed on a fishing farm last night.  We drove through Fremantle which was so pretty, and Perth is such a lovely city.  The looks we get from towing a caravan through a major capital city will never cease to amaze me.  I'm excited, excited about whats next.  Excited to see friends, Briony, Troy, Caitlin and Lauren, and excited to seeing family, my cousin Quinton, who I haven't seen in 20 odd years, but can't to have a beer with him.  As yet, WA hasn't been what I've expected, but we have such a long way to go.

                                                       Fremantle/Perth

We have missed a few birthdays, and will miss a few more yet.  Addy and Jacques, I will call you if we are in range, It's so hit and miss.  To my Beautiful Sissy, Brenda, Happy 40th darlin', I hope it's everything you wished it to be and am so sorry i can't be there to celebrate it with you.  A kick ass present should suffice though.  Well, come close maybe!!!!  We have come so far, yet still have so much more to go.

P.S Happy Mothers Day to our wonderful mummies, Ann and Kath.  Love you to the moon and back!!! XXXXX

                                          The black line is our travels thus far!!!!

Love ya's all
The Travelling Bryants XXOOXXOO