WE ARE HOME!!! XD

From Streaky Bay we pretty much drove the whole the rest of the way home. Through into Victoria and then New South Wales. We drove until 8.00 on Thursday in order to get home that night. And we did!

It was so nice to be home again! Sandy went berserk and we have enjoyed the last few days unpacking (that bit was not as enjoyable), seeing friends and family, taking out the motorbike and horses and sleeping in our own beds!

I will start blogging on the news page again (less frequently) but I will leave this blog up, just in case! 😛

Love all of you and thanks for reading my travel blog!

Lauren

We’ve been through Albany, Esperance, the Nullarbor Plain and across the SA border. We are now coming to Streaky Bay at the east side of the Great Australian Bite. We only have a few days before we are home.

We’ve have just done two roadside overnight and or toilet is full while our water tank is empty. Yesterday we got up at 6.30 and drove till about the same time that evening. We have some more long driving days ahead of us before we arrive back at home. Poor Dad, is well and truly sick of driving!

We are just leaving Shannon National Park, a fair way from the last place I blogged. For the last 3 days we have stayed in a lodge in the national park, quite secluded from anyone else and we really enjoyed being able to spread out. The activities we did included the Great Forest Tree Drive where we saw huge Karri, Marri and Jarra trees and visiting the G—– tree, which is 60 metres tall. Some of us climbed the ladder of steel pegs that had been driven into the tree, all the way to the top. The view was amazing and the drop was dizzying!

Backtracking a bit, I’ll give an overview of the couple of weeks. From Toodyay we drove through Perth and stayed at a caravan park in Fremantle where the weather cleared up considerably. We drove back into Perth and hired some extra bikes so that the whole family could ride through King’s Park and eat lunch at a kiosk there. During out time there we also visited SCITEC, a Perth version of Questacon and we watch a presentation about astronomers. On the Sunday we went to church and then the girls shopped in the Fremantle markets and the boys walk down the street to the Maritime Museum and did a tour through a submarine.

In Margaret River we stayed at a working sheep farm the doubled as a caravan park and we took a day trip to Augusta where the wind was very strong and the water was COLD!! We got a treat at the lolly shop at Hamilin Bay and visited Cape Leuwin, the most South-east point of Australia!

We also did some recreational activities as mum put it, riding for the girls and mountain biking for the boys. Poor dad was sore the next day! ;D

Our next destination was Pemberton and the national park we are leaving now. We are bound for Albany with about 2 and a half weeks left to the trip! I am determined to enjoy these last few weeks of travel before we return to normal life, even though the whole family is pretty tired.

Today was a driving and sightseeing day. We got up and packed up the van, then drove to the national park that the pinnacles are in and took a 1.2 km walk through them, well wrapped up because of the wind and spitting rain.

Then we drove to Lancelin where we had lunch and tried to find some place to hire sandboard so we could ride down the massive dunes. It turned out that the rain made bad sandboarding weather and we just drove to the dunes instead and took a dry patch in the weather to walk over them for a while.

The rain got pretty consistent after that and we all settled in the car to drive to Koodyay, where we are currently staying and set up in the rain and wind again. I took Bethany to pat the Shetland ponies and play on the playground before we all helped to make dinner and got an early night.

I haven’t written since Coral Bay which is very sad and I am sorry. We’ve been moving our way down the coast, stopping in at Shark Bay and Monkey Mia and we are now leaving Kalbarri and driving to Cerbantes. The weather has turned ugly and we’ve had several showers and dreary days (like today) over the last few days.

I must say that I really enjoyed Shark Bay the most out of all the places we’ve been to lately. I loved the dolphin feeding we went to at Monkey Mia, not to mention the spa at the resort pool there! Speaking of spas, at the national park near Denham we enjoyed a artesian hot tub while watching the emus. It was really very nice, except when you had to get out and the cold wind kicked in!

I look forward to getting to Perth because it will be a big milestone in the trip and then we can all think, “We’re almost home!”

I think that 3 months is my travel limit because I am missing you guys at home so much and I’m just looking forward to getting back to normal life. Ah well, we’ll be back soon enough!

Today we drive to Coral Bay, a 6 hour ride. We have stayed the last few days at Karartha. We went on a four hour bus tour of the towns around here, Cossack and Roebourne. It was very well done, although the lunch didn’t really fill us. We have visited a few beaches and done a walk or two here but the Pilbara hasn’t interested me as much as other places, probably because I didn’t know that much about it. Just that it had a bunch of mining towns.

Before we came here we stopped a night at Eighty Mile beach, which was a bit of a highlight, simply because, that evening we took our dinner in the car, drove along the beach and then ate dinner with the sunset and jumped off the top of the sand dunes. The next morning, just before leaving, we went back down to the beach and this time Sam and I drove! It was so much fun to drive along the beach in a 2 tonne truck, not having to focus to hard because it’s an automatic. But we drove along the sand both directions, then we had to get going.

We are meeting up with some friends from church, the Hays in Coral Bay who are staying at the same caravan park that we will stay at. We’re really looking forward to seeing them and exchanging notes since they are travelling around for the second time. This second trip is more of a vacation and they have been seeing less and relaxing more than us. Dad claims that one day, when all us kids are gone, he and Mum will have that luxury!

The whole family had a laugh last night when Sam gave us his to-do list for Perth, aided by Ryan. It included Adventure World, a giant water park and several other high budget activities. We really weren’t surprised, Sam tends to be expensive.

Our stay in Broome was one of the most interesting times I’ve had on the trip. Broome is up there with the favourites!

We walked on Cable Beach during sunset. We swum there during the day and threw a ball on the beach. We shopped at Chinatown and visited the Pearl Luggers museum, receiving our own Mother of Pearl shells. We took the plunge and had a camel ride. I can understand why they call them ships of the desert! The movement make me feel a bit woosy!

Now we are driving away, heading to Eighty Mile Beach and I would love to come back to Broome some day.

Dad’s birthday is tomorrow! But I’m not telling how old he is turning (for his sake)!

Wyndham is really just a little town at the top of WA. We had trouble finding a cafe that was open after two! The only tourist attraction we had a look at was the Five Rivers Lookout where you have a beautiful view out over the Cambridge Gulf.

Before we went to Wyndham we drove to Emma Gorge, another part of El Questro and did a walk to the water falls and thermal pool at the centre of the gorge. Then we drove to Wyndham, though we didn’t spend long there. We were back at Kununurra by five and had a quick swim in the pool before the sun went down.

This morning I got to sleep in for the first time in months. Dad took the car in for a service so we’re not going anywhere today. We are thinking of maybe going for a canoe in the lake and of course swimming in the pool. The basic idea is an at-home day and a chance to catch up on some schoolwork. Fun.

😀

Right now we are camped at El Questro, north and west of Kununurra. We have no power here and no 3G so I’ll publish this when in range.

We drove about 10 minutes to the beginning of the walk along El Questro Gorge. It was a two hour return without a swim in the waterhole at the end but we did it in two hours with the swim. It was good because it was through the bottom of the gorge where it was shady and cool. We also got smart and did it at the beginning of the day.

Then we drove straight to the car park of Zebedee Springs, with a five minute walk to the thermal springs, well worth the effort because they were beautiful! We soaked in there for half an hour and then spent yet another afternoon at the van park swimming in the river and relaxing. This seems to be a recurring theme in our current daily schedule. This is, of course because of the heat.

I think everyone’s, at least the children’s favourite part of this park is the river. There is a big old tree with a thick, leaning branch that hangs out over the water. We climb up it and jump from up to 5 metres into the water. There is a sand bar in the middle of the river where the young girls like to play and the water isn’t to deep for them. Even mum has come in for a swim, though we haven’t managed to convince Dad yet. (The wimp!)

Tomorrow we leave early for Emma Gorge, another attraction here, then spend the majority of the day at Wyndham. We will be back at Kununurra by the end of the day.