Hi again,  It is hard to believe another two weeks has passed since my last post and we will be home in another 9 weeks.  The time is certainly going fast.  A few snippets from the past couple of weeks. The town of Cowaramup which is only about 2k from our caravan park in Margaret River certainly trades on its name.  There are pretend cows in front of most stores, in the park basically everywhere.  I felt sorry for the ones outside the butcher shop!

Of course you can’t visit Margaret River without a visit to one of the wineries and having lunch.  A taste plate for Tony

Then onto Albany via Walpole where we found a nice tree walk to stretch our legs.  Our couple of days in Albany were spent driving around taking in the scenery and a visit to Whaleworld – we didn’t go in because we would have had to wait an hour for next tour but here you can take yourself back 30 yrs and board the last whaling boat used by Australia. After our Albany stay it was back in the car and a 340k drive to Wave Rock passing many salt lakes.  Settled into the park which is a very short walk to the large granite outcrop known as Wave Rock and then did a 3.6k walk up and over the rock. The rock is used as a catchment area for the local water supply so there is a wall built on the rock channeling the water into a dam. Then another 1k walk and home for the night.

After a lot more walking the following day we headed south via Esperance and then up to Norseman to start our Nullarbor journey.  We free camped for 4 nights on our way to Ceduna.  Free camping is certainly a much more relaxed way to go, nice starry nights, camp fires, crisp clear mornings, no-one parked just next door – the list goes on.  The downside of course is if no-one else is there you don’t sleep as soundly!!

We called into the Whale Centre along the Great Australian Bight after waking up to a very foggy morning and 6 degrees. (where is that power point for the heater!!). After paying our $12 each admission (that’s the oldies price) we set out for the viewing platform.  What a treat it was – there were at least 20-30 whales and their babies lolling around which could be easily seen from the boardwalk.  One showed us his tail occasionally.  They were close enough that you could hear their sounds and air blowing.  They weren’t all that playful but after reading the signage we learnt that the babies are still too young to be too playful just yet – mother and baby stay together very closely initially – so close actually that sometimes it was only by binoculars you could see the baby near its mother. The coastline along here is just spectacular.

and here we are now at Ceduna having made a successful Nullarbor crossing.  The first day I wish we had counted the road trains we met along the way.  Our guess was at least 40-50 and every time one went by Tony had to put his arm out and hold on to our mirror because the wind drift was so strong it was blowing the mirror off the suction at the car – he had a tired arm by the end of that day – our longest driving day so far – 480k.  Even after buying the recommended mirrors they have been the most hassle along the way.  The crossing wasn’t as boring and tedious as I had expected with changing scenery along the way, even the treeless plain was something different to look at.  There were lots of Wedgetail eagles along the way.