LiAM woke up feeling extremely cold around
4.30am and came up to our bed. Millie was already there too so it was a little
crowded. I waited until everyone else had settled back down to sleep then
extricated myself and got up into the cold morning at around 5.30. I put on as
many clothes as I could find and went and sat in the car to use the computer.
Once the camp kitchen was open at 6.30 I moved over there to have a cup of tea
and charge the computer and my camera battery.
Everyone was a bit reluctant to get up
because it was so cold. As the sun got higher though the day started to warm a
little and I gradually shed my layers as I started to pack everything up. We
had breakfast while we packed and kept an eye on what was happening in the
Olympics, particularly the swimming. We all stopped to watch the semi-final of
the womens 100m freestyle on Tony’s phone, which an Australian won (C
We were ready to go before 10, and headed
slightly out of town to the Esperance Bird and Animal Park (we pulled over to
the side of the road to watch the mens 100m Freestyle Final, also won by an
Australian, very exciting to see another gold medal). Tony dropped us off at
the Bird and Animal Park, unhitched the trailer, and went back into town to get
groceries, petrol etc.
As we had driven up the driveway to the
park we’d seen Scottish Highland Cows on one side, and horses and ponies on the
other, so everyone was excited even before we got through the door. In the café
area there were tanks with turtles, lizards, fish and frogs, and once I’d paid
and the kids had finished looking at those we moved outside. The first several
cages were of birds – lots of Australian birds and also more exotic species,
the coolest of which was probably a golden pheasant – I’ve never seen a bird
with such varied colouring, and he had a gloriously long tail. We moved past
more cages of birds and up a hill, then through a shipping container that is a
bridge across the path below (very clever) and then down past more birds and
almost back to the start. The path from there went around under the shipping
container past more cages of birds – this time the highlight was a Major
Mitchell Cockatoo who appeared to be digging himself an escape tunnel – he had
made quite a hole in under the wall and was working hard at it. We were amused
though that if he got through he’d end up in a tiny little ‘air lock’ cage in
the entrance of the cage next door.
Around the corner we came to the mammals,
which we were allowed to feed (the kids had each been given a bag of food). The
lady at the café had said we’d know who we could feed because they’d ask for
it, and she was certainly right! We walked around the corner and suddenly 2
goat’s head were thrust through the fence, trying to get to our food. We fed
and patted the goats, then some kangaroos, several pens of sheep, some more
goats, 3 emus (who got incredible range with their long necks as they poked
them through the fence – I was standing back so they didn’t peck me, and a
sheep from the pen across the path stuck its head through the fence and started
nibbling on my shoes). At the end of
that path were 2 miniature horses who we stopped and patted for a while, then
back past the other side of the sheep to a pen with 3 alpacas in it. We tried
to fee the smallest of the 3, but he was very shy, and the other 2 kept getting
the food first no matter how we tried to distract them and give some to the
little guy.
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We moved on to some ducks and chickens,
then there was a pen where we could go in with lambs and kids, the kids enjoyed
that until the kid nibbled Millie’s ear when she was leaning over to pat a lamb
(who was lying on the ground with a coat on and didn’t look very well – he got
up and tottered around for a while and looked very unsteady). From there we
went into the rabbit pen and the kids could have stayed all day. There were big
rabbits and baby rabbits, plenty for everyone to cuddle. Eventually we also discovered
some guinea pigs. There was a 5th birthday party happening at the
park and a lot of the kids were in the rabbit pen when we arrived, they moved
on to have their party food and our kids got to pat and hold rabbits as much as
they liked. Eventually they came out of the pen and we saw a wedge-tailed eagle
called Willow – she had a broken shoulder and can’t be released into the wild.
She was magnificent looking, so impressive to see – we felt quite sad though
because she was up on the highest perch in the cage and kept trying to fly out
of the top corner, she didn’t look very happy at all.
We did a quick circuit back around past all
the mammals and the emus so that LiAM could use up the rest of his food and we
could pat everyone again. We ended up back in with the rabbits and stayed there
until Tony said he was back and hitched up and ready to go. We washed our hands
and went to the toilet and chatted to the lady in the café then headed back to
the car and on our way around midday.
Tony had bought cheese and bacon rolls, and
doughnuts, so we were able to eat lunch in the car as we drove north towards
Norseman. The countryside here was largely treed, good sized gum trees that
reminded us a bit of home. There were more of the low lying areas that fill with
water at times, as well as some sizable lake type areas with lots of water in
them. We did see one billabong that was pink, exciting to actually see a pink
lake after missing all the others (there
were some up along the west coast that we didn’t go to see). We stopped at a rest stop once to get LiAM a
drink of milk, then kept going to Norseman where we filled up with petrol.
Norseman looked like an old town, all the houses were made of fibro and it
seemed pretty sleepy. We listened to Harry Potter on and off, playing alphabet
or word association games in between.
From Norseman we headed out on the Eyre
Highway to the east – really heading towards home now and excited to be about
to cross the Nullarbor. The highway was initially between trees again, not
quite as tall here but still fairly thick. The gum trees were thinner than we
had been seeing, and their trunks were a shiny coppery colour. Their leaves
were a very glossy green, it was like the whole trees were a bit sparkly. We
stopped at a rest stop to fill up our water bottles from our bigger containers
in the back – it was hot in the car (22 degrees outside which is the warmest
day in the last week or so, and the sun was shining and making us all quite
warm) and we’d drunk all our water in our little water bottles. We wandered
areound the rest area a bit, it felt pretty remote and dry. There were still
trees but they were getting shorter. We drove a bit further and stopped athte
Belladonia Roadhouse for more petrol (we didn’t need much but wanted to hit the
Nullarbor with a full tank, especially as the price is likely to get more
expensive as we go across). The sun was low in the sky but we were keen to get
to a rest stop with toilets – there are 24 hour rest areas quite frequently on this
highway, but few of them have toilets.
As we drove further east the landscape
changed a bit and there was mainly low, silvery bush, very few trees at all. We
passed the 90 mile sign – the start of the longest straight stretch of road in
Australia – 90 miles, or 146 km. We’d seen plenty of long straight stretches of
road on our drive so far today, and when we measured them on the odometer they
were only 5-10km long, so this stretch is going to be beyond our imagination.
We drove a short way then pulled into Woorla Homestead Rest Area and found a
place to put the tent – at first it looked like every cleared area was a road,
then we found a spot between several clumps of bushes and trees, and we settled
ourselves in there.
The sun had nearly set but we had plenty of
time to get the tent up in the light. Tony started cooking tea and I organised
the beds and the chargers for our devices. Caitlin rode her bike around and
explored the site. LiAM really wanted a fire so he and I went exploring for
firewood, it was easy to find small sticks but bigger ones were more difficult.
It was quite enjoyable walking together in the dark, with a half-moon and lots
of stars. We found a little bit of wood, and discovered that the rest area went
WAY back, it was huge, so many spots for people to camp.
We came back and got the fire going and had
our dinner (lamb and mashed potato). Caitlin was exhausted and went straight to
bed to keep reading the new Harry Potter book. LiAM and Millie roasted the last
few marshmallows, then we heated the water for the hot water bottles on the
fire. Tony found some more wood across the road and got the fire nice and hot.
He also cooked up the rest of our potatoes so that we won’t have to throw them
out if we get to the border today.
It was cold but not as much as the last few
nights, it wasn’t too uncomfortable in the tent. I read Inheritance while Tony
did the dishes (so he could hear the story as well) then we all snuggled in to
go to sleep.
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