Friday July 18

I write this blog we are sitting next to our fire which is cooking our dinner in our new camp oven. The is our first on the road meal from the camp oven full report tomorrow but I have no doubt that  it will confirm to Elaine's very high standards. We will be spending the night here at 'Paynes Find Camp' where there is space for a large number of campers/vans in pure bush surroundings but so far we are the only campers.

As usual today we were the last to leave our camp, which wasn't very hard as the farmers in the caravan left at 7 while we were both tucked up in bed. I went for a short walk, probably about 3 kms to to lower rocks (I climbed the main rock yesterday) which were reasonably spread out and still had view over the surrounding countryside. The other motorhome left around 9 and we left around 10.30, not bad eh!

Back into Wubin where we were quite surprised to see a huge Linfox yard with a few trailers in it. Judging by the size of the yard of it must be a busy operation way out bush. On the subject of trucks the road had become quite busy with the aforesaid Linfox, Toll in all sort of livery, Centurion and a few other smaller outfits. We are in wildflower territory but too early in the season for a major display. However the green, and a few yellow, farms and the extensive bushland was very pleasing to the eyes as we headed into warmer territory. 

The other point about today was the number of RVs heading south, camper trailers, caravans and a few motorhomes, presumably signalling the end of school holidays. However we are heading north to warmer climes and for the first time are still in shorts at this late afternoon hour. 

Saturday July 19

First a report on last nights dinner cooked by the very clever Elaine in her new camp oven. It was a very stew lots of flavour and well cooked even though we had it a bit too hot, we will do better next time. We finished up with van cooked stewed apples and shop bought cream......delightful. 

With another 10.30 am departure we once again proved that (our) life on the road is leisurely. I did however walk first although there was not much to see, the camp area is fenced off from the neighbouring property, limiting my exploration, by a fairly new fence.  There was an old fence nearer the road and a large number of dead trees, not burnt, just dead. 

The countryside that we are travelling through is bushland, I said forrest yesterday but bushland is more accurate. The ground is red dirt, powdery, reasonably flat and at the moment quite dry, although I am sure that it would turn into red mud with rain. The bushes are up to 2-3 metres high with anything over that being a stand out. The colours are the full range of greens with virtually no wildflowers at the moment, probably the wrong time of year. However there is a bit of ground cover, oddly enough more on one side of the road than the other. The bushes are spaced so that walking through them would be no issue and in fact there have been several spots where vans vans could, if it is legal, pull off the road and camp. 

We continued on tacking into a strong headwind which occasionally gave us even more trouble by becoming a strong beam reach. Our plan was a bush stop 16 kms north of Mt Magnet, which then meant a 16 km drive back to Mt Magnet before changing course to head west down to Yalgoo and points beyond. However we came across a sign that said 24 hr rest area and have stopped for the night about 60 kms South of Mt Magnet. This appears to be a new stop complete with seperate area for trucks, toilets, dump stations (2), a large camp area with gazebos and fire pits, very nice.........good onya main roads!