Thursday 12 May 2016

My first offline blog for this trip.

Today we have travelled a relatively short distance from Varley to the Fitzgerald National Park a mere 170 km. My walk this morning revealed Varley as a very small town, about 20 houses but with more depth than a lot of much bigger towns. Firstly a Rolls Royce, parked next to a prime mover truck, with lots of stickers indicating that it had benn out fundraising. Then around the back of the town to a huge general store/agbusiness on the edge of town. Then over to the rail area and huge ground based wheat storage, sort of temporary permanent, metal walls reinforced wall at ground level covered by enormous vinyl tarpaulins. Alongside these were the longest conveyer belt loading facilities that I have ever seen and the longest weigh bridge that likewise I have ever seen.

Onward to Ravensthorpe stopping on the way to fuel up at Lake King. The scenery remains farming and very nice. After that down towards the coast at Hopetoun chasing slightly warmer temperatures for Elaine's back. The scenery changed to dense bushland and is quite pretty in a pragmatic way.

Just before Hopetoun we turned right into the Fitzgerald National Park and this is a spectacular bushland park. We have driven along a very windy road about 20 km into the park to be camped, almost on the beach, at Hammersly Inlet on the south coast of WA. This is another well set up camp area and we have lots of neighbours.

So much for Elaine's back settling down, this morning it gave her absolute hell. I decided that we should head north to warmer climes but she disagreed and we continued as planned. Except that we knocked off nearly 300 kms today so that we would get down to the coast quicker. The theory is that it is warmer near the ocean than it is inland and the weather zone tends to support that theory.

So on the way we stopped at Hyden intending to visit Wave Rock, more about that later. The town itself had a very well executed historical tableau. It consists of a series of scrap iron statues depicting the history and development of the district. Very well done with light hearted story boards explaining the statues. Then we headed out to the rock just 4 km out of town. But there was a vehicle charge and we couldn't get close enough for Elaine to do the walk as short as it was. We could not see the rock from the parking area so we left without paying. Actually we have seen a few wave rock formations and they are all rather spectacular do we didn't feel to upset at missing this one.

The drive was very nice through farming country with a few rock outcrops to vary the scenery. Today we split the driving almost 50/50 which shows that Elaine is not 100% as she normally does nearly all the driving.

We are camped tonight at a small, very small, town called Varley about 80 km south of Hyden. Despite the size of the town they have a small camp area with a fee of a donation! We have 3 neighbours.

Well, well, well! We are finally on the move, Elaine's back is settling down just a little bit although there is still considerable pain. Anyway she felt ready to go so we unhooked from Karen's house and headed south. Hopefully the weather won't be too cold! Tonight we are at a bush camp 10km south of  Brookton. Quite a nice little spot with a water feature just on the edge of the camp, not much of a feature and it attracts mozzies. There is also a memorial to the local pioneers saying that this was the school site. Tomorrow we move east and south, more then.

Well guess where we are - correct, we are still on Karen's driveway!

However madam Elaine's back appears to be improving a bit and we are hopefull of leaving on Monday. When we do leave we will be heading to Esperance via Hyden then across the Nullabor to the Flinders Ranges. From there to northern NSW via Broken Hill then southern Queensland and western Queensland to Mt Isa. After that across the Barkley Hwy into the NT turning left at Katherine and heading to home via Kununurra. About 12500kms plus side trips.

We are still here in Perth. Today just a little bit of running around including a 'van' visit by our very nice doctor. At this point no action is expected before the weekend and maybe not even then. I will fill in the details including our intended route when we start moving.

Another day another dollar, in our case spent!

We are still in the metro area hanging around to make sure Elaine's back is ok. Tonight we have camped in Caversham. So there is nothing important to report.

Well here we are again and the blog she is up!!

We are still in the metro area having left home mid afternoon yesterday and spent the night in Karen's driveway. Elaine's back is still not fixed but, following last Wednesday's procedure seems to be improving a bit. Anyway we will see how we go and make our decisions based in her progress. Today has been spent saying goodbye to our family which is a sad happy occasion. Sad that we will miss all of them and happy that we are heading for the open road. Right now Elaine is resting her back after we have had lunch down by the ocean at Hillarys.