Brisbane Trip Day 25: Armidale -> Newcastle

It was even colder this morning - 6.7 degrees when I got up. Beautiful and crisp though. I started sorting our stuff a little and was about to make a cup of tea when some people arrived at our tent - a man and lady from the New England Lapidary Society, saying that they were setting up for their gem show and would I be leaving today. I said I was and asked what time they were starting - they said 9am. It was just before 8 at this stage so I said that I wouldn't be out by 9, but I'd be as quick as I could. They went around to all the other sites and told people that they had to leave - several of them had paid for another night, or even the whole week, and were understandably quite upset. The gem people were quite rude about it too 'Well we have this area leased, so you'll have to go'. (The caretakers had been away on the weekend and volunteers had helped out, and we figured they must just not have known about this previous booking).

I started packing up at 8.10, and we were all ready to go at 10.20, one of our quickest pack ups ever. By this stage the caretaker had come down and apologised to everyone and said that the lapidary people had no right to go from site to site - and that they didn't start their show until Thursday, they were just marking out the sites today, so everyone could stay a few more days if they wanted to. Some people had already packed up enough that they decided to go anyway, others decided to stay and move in a few days.

We all went to the toilet and on the way back we stopped to chat to several people (and met a very cute puppy), so it was 10.50 by the time we left. It was a beautiful sunny day and not cold any more. I really enjoyed the first part of the drive to Uralla - I've driven that road many many times and it was exciting to see it all again. From Uralla I kept going to Tamworth rather than turning off to go the Buckett's Way - I figured the highway would be easier with the trailer on.

The drive to Tamworth took a lot longer than expected. We were stuck for a good while behind another camper trailer who was driving quite slowly. Twice the truck driver behind me leaned on his horn because I hadn't overtaken the trailer when he thought I could have (neither times felt safe to me). I was glad when we had an overtaking lane and the 2 trucks behind me were able to get past us both. At the next overtaking lane I was also able to get past the slow trailer and was able to drive a bit faster - although I'm often quite slow on windy roads. Before Tamworth the road has a few very steep sections as the elevation drops quickly - this time the speed limit for buses and trucks was 60, so this was possibly steeper than the scary hill a couple of days ago. There was no one behind me as I came down these 2 hills, which made it less scary but I still didn't enjoy it at all, I found it rather stressful. I appear to have gripped the wheel quite hard too because my forearm was very tight and sore afterwards.

We eventually made it to Tamworth and drove past the Big Golden Guitar, then continued south. The road from Tamworth to Muswellbrook had a lot of of roadworks and we were frequently stopped or slowed to 60 or 40, which made the trip take a lot longer. There was another steep hill coming in to Murrurundi. As we came into the town I noticed a dragon fly stuck in my windscreen wipers, so we pulled over opposite a park so I could let him free. I also wanted to check my brake lights on the trailer as on Saturday the connection from the car seemed to wiggle loose as we drove - everything was still working today. We all went over the road to use the one toilet available - Amelie was amused that there were 3 different toilet paper dispensers, all different designs, all fully stocked. There were more roadworks as we continued south and we eventually made it to Muswellbrook around 3pm - way later than I had expected. As we drove in we could see open cut mines on the other side of town - whole hillsides that had been exploded, it was quite striking.

We stopped at the park next to the railway station and I made us some sandwiches. While we ate we saw 3 long trains go past with a variety of engines on them. We explored the park a bit and had a rest, then continued on through town and got some petrol, and stopped at Aldi to buy a 4-pack of Choc-mint ice creams (it took us a while to get to Aldi because first I turned left out of the petrol station instead of turning right across the highway, and tried to get there the back way, then ended up turning right onto the highway further down, and then missed the turn into the street I needed and had to go far enough up the road to find a place to turn around.) Eventually we had our ice creams and were on our way again.

The drive to Singleton was easier, and I enjoyed driving through both Muswellbrook and Singleton and seeing all the old buildings. And lots of memories from both towns. Beyond Singleton, just before Branxton, there's a new road which skips all the rest of the towns and makes the trip to Newcastle much quicker. This was much easier driving and we made good time. It was exciting to come into Newcastle through Wallsend and point out more familiar landmarks, including another street where I used to live. The trip out to Blacksmiths went smoothly and we arrived at my brother-in-laws around 6pm.

The kids were all excited to see their cousins and we sat and ate pizza with them and then I sat out the back and had a cup of tea while chatting to my BIL. Once I felt rested enough I went to get the trailer - when I'd arrived there were lots of cars in the street so I was worried that it would be difficult to even get the trailer to the driveway - by the time I was ready to try, everyone had left (there is a yoga studio across the road so the cars were from the yoga class). We'd moved the couch out of the garage, last time it made it a just a bit narrow and a bit tricky to turn the trailer at the end to avoid the garden. With great directions from my BIL, I backed up the street, into the driveway and through the garage, with really no problems. We unhitched in the garage and pushed the trailer the rest of the way into the yard, and quickly had the tent up. After a bit more of a chat I put the beds up and enjoyed listening to Liam talk to his uncle about movies and books and science and puzzles.

Caitlin hung out with her cousins (either on the trampoline or watching tv) until they went to bed, then she rang some friends. Once everyone else was in bed, Liam and Amelie watched Dr Who and Pokemon on Netflix, and I went to bed to read for a while. The kids came in not too long afterwards.

Half-lap Day 106: Kimba

LiAM woke early, feeling cold and unwell. He and I got up as neither of us were likely to go back to sleep, and discovered a thick layer of ice over everything outside. We’d left one waterbottle on the table and the water in that was not frozen solid, but was mainly ice. We sat in the car as it was the warmest spot and played on the iPad until the others got up a couple of hours later. By now the sun was up and the ice was starting to melt, it wasn’t too bad to stand in the sunshine.

We took our time over breakfast and decided not to try to see or do anything today. Kimba is the mid-point between Sydney and Perth, and has a few interesting things around town to check out, and it’s not far from here to the National Park with lots of interesting rock formations – we decided a rest day was way more important than seeing more things for the sake of it (there was nothing here we had been looking forward to or even knew anything about before we arrived).

Caitlin checked out the coin-operated showers and came back happy and clean. We read some Harry Potter and played on the iPad, then Tony and Caitlin rode their bikes into town to get food for dinner and a pump attachment to blow up the balls we’d bought with us. Millie, LiAM and I played cards until they got back.

With the balls pumped up (including a new football that they’d also bought) we went over to the tennis/netball/basketball courts. We were trying to figure out how to play netball with 5 people (Caitlin really wanted to play netball) when Millie fell and hurt her knee and elbow and didn’t want to play anymore. She was happy to lie in the sun and watch us, so we played a very tricky and exhausting version of 2-a-side netball. Lots of fun though. Once everyone was too knackered to play anymore we had a bit of a play in the playground, then Tony and the kids went out on to the football oval to kick the football around, and I found a powerpoint in the tennis pavilion to charge my computer and catch up on days worth of blogging, email, banking etc. It was warm in the sun and still a bit cool in the shade, a lovely day though to just enjoy and take our time over things.

We had a late lunch and hung around the tent and playground and tennis courts, a very relaxing afternoon. LiAM and I had showers (the water here is full of chlorine, it felt like I was showering in a hot swimming pool) and we played more iPad and read more Harry Potter then had hotdogs for dinner. I talked to a friend on the phone for a while and the kids played in the playground, then we got ready for bed. It was a cold evening but not as cold as the previous few nights. We still did hot water bottles and rugged up, and as LiAM had been feeling unwell all day he slept in my bed with Millie and I, Caitlin slept on Millie’s bed and Tony slept in LiAM’s. It took us a while to rearrange all the blankets again but eventually we were all ready and in bed for a bit more of Inheritance. Tony did the dishes then came in and read more of the Harry Potter book – we’re all trying to read it as fast as possible so we can talk about it, and I’m trying to read it aloud so that everyone can keep up – so we’re all up to different stages and some bits have been read by everyone and we’re getting to know the story really well.

Half-lap Day 103: The Nullarbor

I got up just after sunrise and it was cold and beautiful outside the tent, the early morning sun shining on the few trees and over the low bushes surrounding the campsite. I went for a bit of a walk to find more firewood, there were a couple of dead trees not far from us and I was able to find plenty of branches around them that would get the fire going again for the morning.

I sat near the fire for a while and then as people woke up, got breakfast ready and we started to pack up. Everyone was cold and wanted to sit near the fire, which helped us feel warmer and may have slowed down our packing a bit. We were ready to go around 10.30, the last (by a few minutes) people to leave the campground.

We continued eastward along the longest straight stretch of road in Australia. There was a slight slope to parts of it, so we could only see 5 or 10km ahead, and when it was flat, the road shimmered out of sight in the distance, so we didn’t ever feel like we got a strong visual sense of how long it was – but it did take a long time to drive, without a bend. It wasn’t boring though, the scenery was fascinating, sometimes low, sparsely scattered trees, sometimes plains of low bushes, all very dry and inhospitable looking, but always quite pretty. It was exciting to get to the end and have the road bend a little. There weren’t a lot of bends over the course of the day – mainly the road was straight with the occasional meander to one side or the other. Therre wasn’t a lot of traffic either,  some road trains and caravans coming the other way, and occasionally another truck or van going our way, often we were the only vehicle we could see.

Part of the longest straight stretch of road

Not long after we started driving we saw a dead camel by the side of the road – our first wild camel sighting and we all felt it was a sad way to start. About 2 hours later we saw live camels, four of them to the right of the road,  in an area with no trees. We pulled over and watched them for a while, very excited to tick another desired animal off our list. Later on I saw a pair of emus – the kids didn’t see them though so we hoped that we would see more as we kept driving.

Camels

Around 2pm we were approaching Madura, and saw a sign to a lookout. I think this is the place someone told me about, way back in Hahndorf, so I suggested we pull over. It was a fairly bumpy road in to the lookout, and then the view was incredible. The road sloped down quite steeply just after the turn off to the lookout, and below us was the Nullarbor Plain – flat land for as far as we could see, with low, silvery green bushes and grass, and the occasional tree scattered all the way across. From where we stood the trees looked like emus – rounded green tops with thin trunks. To the north of the plain, looking straight ahead in the direction of the road, was a large escarpment – I had no idea that it even existed. From the lookout we could hear, and then see as they came past, the road trains and the caravans laboring up the hill as they headed west.

View from Madura lookout

We had lunch while we were stopped, then drove down the hill ourselves, onto the plain. The road followed the escarpment for the rest of the day. The terrain was similar all the way, with the occasional stand of taller gum trees (not tall, but not the tiny trees that were over most of the plain. Many of the rest stops had these taller trees. 

Once again the sun was setting fast as we drove away from it. We had hoped to get to the border, or at least close to it, today – however there was a strong vote for stopping at a rest stop with a toilet, and the last toilet was at Jilah Rockhole, about 70km before the border. We arrived there about 4pm and found a nice clearing between trees and set up the tent – the sun was close to setting by the time the tent was up so it was good timing. We wandered through the trees to find wood for a fire, finding a pile left by someone at one of the spots near the back (again, it was a very large camping area, with lots of relatively private spots because of the trees) and Tony found some wood he could cut with his axe. Caitlin had a bit of a scare as we loaded wood onto her bike – 2 wolf spiders were nestled together in a hollow in one piece of wood, and it took a while before we found them on the ground (after we flung the wood away) to make sure that neither of them were still on her bike.

We got the fire going and I made a cup of tea, while Tony cooked dinner. I hung some washing so it could start to dry in the morning, and Caitlin went for a ride to see if she could find anyone heading west so that she could give them our leftover onions – we can’t take fruit and veg into South Australia and we’d used all the onions we could manage. We also had carrots and apples left and felt confident we could eat them in the morning.

Caitlin had finished reading the 8^th Harry Potter book in the morning, and I got it out to start reading. While I did the washing LiAM started to read it and made his way through most of the first scene – that’s all 3 kids who have started to read by reading a Harry Potter book.

Caitlin hadn’t come back when our sausage and egg burgers were ready, so LiAM and I went to find her. She was talking to couple from the Central Coast, who were travelling west and had taken our onions gratefully, and as usual we shared tips on places we’d been and things to do. We walked back over and had our dinner and enjoyed sitting around the fire.

The toilet was interesting – a drop toilet, not surprisingly, but with a very narrow hole leading from the bowl down into the pit underneath. Normally with the narrow hole, the toilet has a water pump that lets a small amount of water be run down the bowl after use, or a bucket of water with disinfectant in it and a toilet brush that can be used to clean the bowl. This one had neither – just a stick (an old broom handle) that could be used to poke down anything that hadn’t made it through the narrow hole. It was pretty gross, and seemed to get worse every time we went in there. I’ve recommended to my friends who are following us across the Nullarbor in the next week or so that they don’t bother stopping here just because it has a toilet…

We heated up our hot water bottles on the fire and snuggled into bed, with beanies and socks and neck warmers, to read Inheritance, which is getting extremely exciting.

Half-lap Day 101: Esperance

There was a fair amount of rain overnight, although the wind wasn’t too bad. It was cold and a bit hard to get out of bed, then everything was wet once we got outside. I spent a bit of time over in the kitchen, having a cup of tea and blogging and sorting out photos. Millie and Tony came over after a while so I could take Millie to the toilet. The three of us had our breakfast, and the other two had a bit of a sleep in. I had a lovely hot shower. Once everyone was up and had eaten we got ready to go out for the day. It was sunny by now and not quite as cold as it had been earlier in the morning. I handed our Census form in and then we set off to look around the area.

We drove through the town centre and along the foreshore, it has been done up nicely and we all wanted to come back later and have a better look at it. It looks like there are lots of islands offshore (it reminded us a bit of Albany) and there were large ships anchored in the harbour. We got petrol and then drove out of town towards Cape Le Grand National Park. The girl at the caravan park suggested we go and stay out there for a few days – we’d love to, if we had a bit more time (and the weather wasn’t quite so cold and windy).

We went straight to Lucky Bay, which she’d told me has the whitest sand in Australia. On the way we passed a very cool looking mountain, and a cove that looked wild and fascinating. The bay contained a big curved beach, with rocky headlands at both ends – on the far end the rocks extended a long way out across the mouth of the bay, so the water can only come into to the bay through the right hand side and on a bit of an angle. The surf looked pretty high, and the water was a deep blue out in the bay and a turquoise blue close to the shore. The sand was indeed very very white. It was a beautiful scene, even from the carpark. 

We walked down onto the beach and were surprised at the feel of the sand under our feet – like nothing we’d walked on so far. It felt most like we were walking on a hard crust of snow, and that underneath would be a deep pile of softness if we broke through the crust. At times it felt rubbery, or like we were walking on springy floorboards. The kids discovered that if they ran along it without lifting their feet it made a cool (and soon rather annoying) squeaking sand. I think there were a lot of air pockets in the sand, and the grains were extremely fine and rather wet, and that all contributed to the weird feel. When we picked it up in our hands it felt rubbery and quite a lot like kinetic sand that we play with at home. It was also like oobleck (which we make using cornflour and water).

We bounced around on the sand for a while and watched the waves, then started walking along the beach. As we walked further from the carpark the waves got bigger and rougher. Watching them crash in towards the beach, with the red rocks behind them, was pretty cool. The sound was exhilarating too. There were also waves crashing against the rocks in all directions around the edges of the bay. The kids wanted to get to the sand dunes further along the beach so they could slide down them. There were warning signs that the sand could collapse, so they were careful to pick only clear, sloped areas of sand once they started exploring in there. Tony walked part of the way along the beach with us and then sat to watch the waves.

The kids played in the dunes and on the sand (LiAM found a toy Hawks car buried in the sand in his digging ) and we saw various seagulls and other sea birds (some with a long red beak, who were poking their beaks into the sand to catch their dinner), and seaweed and lots of interesting plants and flowers on the dunes. We walked to the area that the kids had wanted to see, and they had a bit of a play there, before heading back, trying to beat the rain that was threatening from big black clouds that had rolled over. The wind had picked up a bit too and was blowing spray off the top of the breaking waves which looked very impressive. The clouds passed over us and out to sea and it was sunny by the time we got back to Tony and all walked the rest of the beach together. A sea eagle was soaring around above the bay. We dug in the sand a bit more and after much talk of swimming and temperature and so on, Caitlin decided to have a quick dip in the ocean. Everyone except me had waded in the waves, Tony thought it was the coldest water we’d come across yet, Caitlin said it was warmer than the pools in Karajini. She was pretty refreshed by her dip, and it was exciting for her to go in the ocean, even just the shallow water.

We headed back up to the car and she got dry, Millie and I walked over to the toilets and checked out the campground – there was a camp kitchen, and hot showers so we partially wished we had stayed here instead. It could have been very blowy if the wind was high, but it would have been much cheaper than staying in town… It doesn’t matter though, we made our decision based on what we knew and needed at the time, and we are happy with that.

We drove around to the wild looking cove we’d seen on the way in (Thistle Cove). There was large rock behind the picnic table, which overlooked the entrance to the cove, called Whistling Rock. We could hear the wind rushing through it, sometimes making a whooshing sound and sometimes more like a whistling. We sat in the shelter of this and another rock, and had our lunch overlooking the ocean. Down below us were smooth, large rocks with rounded sides (kind of like the side of large, flattish eggs). The water was breaking over these and then running off in streams, then mixing with the water that was coming in for the next wave, I could have watched it all day, it created the most amazing patterns and variations in the water. There were big waves breaking over the headland as well, and there was a large rectangular rock sticking out of the water below us which created huge splashes when the waves hit it.

It was wind and occasionally some of our stuff tried to blow away so we had everything held down by heavier stuff. We watched some little birds and some crows hopping around on the rocks, interacting with each other and the wind and with us. The crow was very interested in our food. We went for a bit of a walk further down the rocks, and admired the hill on the far side of the cove – the rocks here are fairly smooth, with lots of vertical lines on them, possibly creases worn away by water running down. The bases of the rocks tend to be black where the ocean is beating up against them. The hill opposite us was mainly rock, with a little bit of plant coverage, and had a big cave about 2/3 of the way up. While we were looking around, LiAM said he’d found a fireplace – in under one of the rocks near us he’d noticed a gap, and looking under he’d seen a circle of rocks laid out, with sticks set up ready for a fire. We climbed over a small rock and past a bush to the other side of the large rock, and there was a larger opening that side – the kids went through the opening and there was a cave large enough for them to all sit in. There were even rocks placed around the fire pit to use as seats. It felt pretty exciting to be in there.

We packed up our lunch and then explored a little bit the other way form the carpark– I wanted to see the beach (the rocky bit we were sitting on cut off our view to the beach). From the top of the beach trail we could see back over to the mountain we’d driven past on our way in. The sun was shining on it and reflecting off the water running down its side – it looked like it was covered in snow, as the reflections were so white. We walked down the beach access path, through lots of bushes and wildflowers (including some we hadn’t seen before, yellow banksias I think). There was a rock overlooking the beach so I ran down to stand on that and then was ready to head back – the others kept walking down to the bottom of the rock to the edge of the beach itself.

There was a channel of water running out of the brush and down to the ocean. The water in it was clear but quite yellow, I’m assuming that was stains from the plants that surrounded it. The kids were playing along the edge of the channel, then Tony jumped across the channel and onto the main beach. The kids all soon followed, with various success at not landing in the water (none of them had shoes on so they weren’t worried about getting their feet wet anyway). The only way on to the beach was through or over the channel – I wasn’t sure if I could make the distance in a single jump and I really didn’t want to take my shoes off. I waited until the others were walking onto the beach and then I jumped – I made the distance easily although I did twist my ankle a little.

The sand here was white again and had a similar rubbery feeling to Lucky Bay. The waves were quite rough here as well, and once again it was cool watching them run along the side of the rocks and crash onto the shore. We walked along h beach a little way and compared footprints in the sand and investigated the plant life. Heading back I made the jump over the channel quite easily, then we climbed back up the rock (I’m doing a lot of walking on sloping rocks on this trip, not normally my thing, and I’m getting more confident), and headed back to the car.

On the way back to town we called in to see Le Grand Beach – it was much longer than the little bays we’d looked at and possibly more protected. The hills and rocks leading in to it were beautiful and impressive to look at – more of the smooth rock hillside, with vertical (squiggly) lines running down them. There was a good view of the mountain from here too, it had kind of a hooked rock at the top, it looked a bit like an eagle’s beak.

Back in town we drove past the foreshore again and the kids wanted to play on the playground. We decided to go and see Pink Lake first then come back. The lake was huge and quite pretty – unfortunately it wasn’t looking pink today. The pink and orange colours are caused by salt and bacteria, and I guess they need the right light and heat conditions to be seen. Back to the foreshore – Caitlin and LiAM went straight to the playground, Tony went to find some hot chips, and Millie and I checked out the fountain in the middle of the roundabout – it was made like a rock, with metal seals and birds sitting on it.

Millie went back to the playground and I watched the kids and the fading light over the harbour (the sun was getting close to setting). There was a port over to the right, and a few ships anchored out in front of us. We’d looked at the map and there were lots of islands outside of the harbour, they all looked very cool in the late afternoon light. There was a water slide on a pontoon not far from the foreshore – would be very cool to swim out to and play on when the weather is warmer. A passing family pointed out some dolphins to us – 2 dolphins swimming up and down the shore line, only a few metres from the edge. It was quite unexpected and very exciting to watch.

Tony returned with a hot chicken and chips from Red Rooster, and we sat at a picnic table and ate as the sun set. Caitlin and I went for a walk to find an exercise equipment park she’d seen further down the foreshore, we had a bit of a play there which was highly amusing. We joined the others back in the playground and all had a play – 5 of us on a large seasaw thing which was fun until I started to feel sick. We walked out towards the breakwall, having a bit of a play on a large and beautiful sculpture of a whale’s tail. We all wandered out to the end of the breakwall and sat and watched the lights on the harbour and listened to the water lapping against the rocks. The kids put on a bit of a stunt/ gymnastics show for us, then we walked back down to the exercise park and everyone had a go on the equipment.

Eventually we headed back to the car and then to the caravan park. I’d dressed quite warmly for the day, with multiple layers, and at times had been too hot. I was comfortable at the foreshore – when we got back to the tent though the temperature was much much colder and I didn’t seem to have enough clothes on. It also didn’t seem to make much sense that it was colder here than at the beach. The girls and Tony all went to have showers, and LiAM and I got the hot water bottles ready, did the dishes and watched some TV. We all watched the Olympics for a short while and then headed off to bed, possibly the coldest it has been inside the tent yet so we all wore beanies and socks and lots of clothes to bed, and listened to a chapter of Inheritance.

Half Lap Day 100: Karlgarin -> Esperance

The sun was out when we got up in the morning and the whole area was quite pretty, lots of wattle trees with their blossoms shining in the early morning sun. It was also very very cold, with a layer of ice over the car and the tent, and frozen pools of water on top of our trailer cover. Tony got another fire going, and the kids gradually emerged out into the cold and sat around the fire before having breakfast. The kids rescued a little skink from the fire and played around the campground. Millie was keen to leave, she didn’t like the place at all. I’d hoped to get up and going early, we were all moving pretty slowly though and it was 10.30 by the time we had everything ready to go.

On our way to Wave Rock (only another 30km) we saw a pig farm, with lots of big pigs and a group of very cute little piglets. There had been a war memorial at our campground and as we drove I noticed that many of the road names were the same as the names on the war memorial – I guess they would have been farmers around this area, and I don’t know if the roads were named after the family who lived there, or in memory of the men who fought in the war. We got petrol in Hyden, which had cool decorations around the town. The old railway platform was covered in iron sculptures of people and seats and equipment – as if they were all waiting for the train to come.

Wave Rock is somewhere that I’ve wanted to go since I was a kid, and I didn’t think we’d be able to fit it in to this trip. When we looked at the best way to get home though, it worked quite nicely as a stopover on our way to Esperance (if we are willing to skip Kalgoorlie. I would have liked to see it too, but Wave Rock and Esperance seemed more exciting). We paid our entry fee and when the lady gave me all the information about the area I briefly wished we’d stayed at the rock instead of where we did, so we could spend more time there – then figured it wasn’t worth worrying about what we could have done if we’d had more information, and just to enjoy what we did do.

We rugged up, there was a wind blowing and it was pretty cold. We walked around to the Wave and it was very very cool. So weird to see a rock curving out like that, and it was high and long and quite impressive, well worth the drive out to see it. The kids climbed up the slope as far as they could, and slid down again, We wandered along it’s length, reading about how it was formed and the geography of this area – it’s a very rocky part of the world, and Wave Rock is the most famous of a great number of cool rock formations around here. I wasn’t expecting the colours on the rock, lots of vertical stripes of black and orange and yellowy colours, caused by water and lichen and cyanobacteria, which made it look even cooler.

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Past the end of the wave we were able to walk along the side of Hyden Rock (the larger rock that Wave Rock is a part of, and start to climb up behind the wave. There was a dam here, they had built a dam wall to catch the runoff from Hyden Rock, and that supplies the town of Hyden with its water. So cool to see sensible usage of rain water. Walking along the rock up above the wave was pretty cool, Hyden Rock rose up a lot higher behind it, and there were rock pools, wildflowers, trees and boulders scattered across the rock. There was a concrete wall built along the length of the wave, 20m or so from the edge, to stop people going to the top of it. We decided to do the short walk across Hyden Rock, which took us the length of the wave – then we had to climb over the concrete wall and walk down the sloping rock to the ground. It seemed a bit ludicrous, but that’s the way the trail went, and the climb down was fine. Cool to see yet another view of the wave (from the side as we sloped down next to it).

Back at the car we got some lunch ready, then finally headed off around 12.30. The countryside was beautiful as we drove south east. Lots of crops, green and yellow, lots of sheep and occasionally cattle. Wildflowers here and there, hills in the distance. The land was undulating, with areas of flat ground as well. There were lots of low lying areas that obviously filled with water when it rained – many of them were full now – with dead trees throughout them. As we’ve been driving around Australia we’ve seen lots of cleared paths running from the road into the trees or bush to the side, then suddenly stopping, and we couldn’t figure out what they were for. Here, those cleared areas were full of water, so it looks like they are drainage channels to help keep the water off the road when it rains.

The little towns we past through all looked interesting. Lots of them had done interesting things with their now out-of-use railway stations. One town (Lake King I think) had a tractor museum (a large open shed full of tractors).  We stopped in Ravensthorpe to go to the toilet, then drove mainly east from there – eyeing off the black clouds to the south and hoping we’d get to Esperance in time to set up before that rain rolled in from the ocean.

With a forecast for gales and lots of rain, we decided to stay at a caravan park that wasn’t right on the beach. I’d found the one that claimed to be the cheapest, and when I went to book in the girl said it would be $60 for unpowered – the kids were $10 each! That’s the 2^nd highest amount we’ve paid ANYWHERE, and by far the most for unpowered. I went back out to the car to discuss with Tony – the wind was picking up and it was feeling more urgent to get a spot and get the tent up, but we’re also still needing to be careful of our spending. I rang another caravan park and while they were giving me a price (which was even higher!) the girl came out and said that seeing as we had 3 kids, she’d only charge $5 each. So that made it affordable and we were happy to stay. She also said that there wasn’t much demand for the unpowered sites at the moment, no one else was game enough. She said we could pick either of the corner sites, whichever we thought would give us more protection from the wind.

When we got to the unpowered area, we were the only people using it. There was a fence surrounding most of the area, on 3 sides, so we were able to set up in a corner with a fence on 2 sides of us, and were mainly protected from the wind. We got the tent up as quickly as we could, and managed it before the rain started. I set up the beds while Tony and the kids went to the camp kitchen to start getting dinner ready.

The rain was quite steady throughout the evening, easing off occasionally, when we could make quick dashes over to the car or tent if we needed anything. We watched the Olympics and some ABC3 shows, ate a fantastic butter chicken dinner, filled in our Census form and hung out in the (slightly warmer – there was still a breeze coming through above the windows, its really just an enclosed shed) kitchen area for the rest of the evening. Tony, Caitlin and LiAM went and had a shower before bed, Millie was asleep before they came back and we snuggled into our beds – it was warmer than last night but the rain made it feel less comfortable.