Day 103 Albany

Albany is all about relaxation.  Today was no different.  With only a trip into town planned to have a look for the elusive gear knob, Lisa and I set about the task of doing less than nothing.  The kids had been glued to cartoons from the 0600 television curfew, and hadn't emerged. 

Lisa was still trying to console me for the dog purchase so embarked on a chocolate cake baking frenzy...Hmmmm food bribes.  Rowan was very helpful and mixed the cake for half an hour giggling the whole time at being able to use the electric beater. 

I'm sure those little piggies went into the bowl on more than one occasion.  I can only hope there were no boogies on them.  Even baked boogies are gross.


The kids lounged in the spa again, and had a great old time whilst I went into town with Grandad to run some errands.  On the way home we picked up some pies from The Preacher's Shop (McKails General Store).  McKails is on the right hand side of Albany Highway as you come into town.

An absolute must to stop and get a home made pie whenever I am in town.

When we got back home, the kids had been busy building things with the toys. 

Emma and Ashley were building stables for the littlest pet shop toys, and playing quite nicely whilst excluding their little brother. 

Ashley has been much better with the animals he has met, and we actually caught him patting Zakkie at one point during the day.

In the afternoon, Lisa had a nap, and Rowan refused which was about to make the whole evening difficult.  We had plans to go out to dinner which meant a late night, and we were starting to fear for our sanity with Rowan overtired at 3pm.

Nannie Annie was too tired to come out to dinner after a long days work, so we bribed Rowan with chocolate cake and they stayed home for an early night. 

On the way out to the golf club, we passed the farm with the sculptures.  Last time I was here, there was only the Eagle in a nest up the big gum tree. 

More recently the walrus has appeared, and he changes outfit regularly.  There is a buzzard with his wings spread, but another 5 in the gum tree further back on the farm. 

The artist has also made the two giraffes out the front, and you can see old mate buzzard in the tree behind him.  This guy has some serious talent. 


At the Albany Golf Club for dinner, they had a Moroccan dinner night.  We had a lovely evening with Grandad, and great food.  Emma and Ashley got to spin the wheel for Grandad (Captain of the club) for the money wheel draw.  Emma was awesome and spun up my number, and I won back all $6.00 of the $10.00 I spent on tickets.  Hooray!

Another great day in Albany, you've gotta love the serenity down here.  I conveniently didn't watch or follow the footy at all, with the intent of not worrying about football until next week.  Poop.

Day 102 Albany

Oh blessed lady of sleeping in...We have a door on our bedroom.  A bedroom which was bigger than our whole caravan, and an electric blanket on the bed!  LUXURY!

When I finally did decide to drag my lazy bones out of bed I was enticed into the kitchen to cook half a pig of bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast.  So I was rested and full, and the kids had already resigned themselves to spending the whole day in front of the television in their pyjamas.  That left Lisa and myself free to take care of other important things.

We started on the caravan cleaning, and emptied all of the food cupboards.  There has been a perpetual ant problem for this trip, so we are trying hard to eliminate food sources for them.  We were able to scrub from the ceiling down to the bottom of the cupboards detailing the things we need to repair as we went along. 

Just before 11am, Lisa dropped the bombshell she had been saving up all morning.  There was a puppy for sale around the corner and she just wanted to "Have a look" with her purse obviously.  An hour later, and we have bought a dog.  Now I know what all the bribes have been about during the trip.

Off to the pet shop we had to go to get leads and food, and bowls and toys...and so on and so forth.


When we got back to Grandad's house, we found not a peep happening inside which meant grandad was victim to nanna nap syndrome.  The kids all decided to have a sit in the spa, and Lisa read a book whilst Gloria got a third look at daylight for the trip.

It has been one of the few disappointments for the trip that I haven't been able to play as much music as I had hoped, but the disappointment is far offset by the rest of the experiences that we have had.

All of my friends with instruments better be prepared for some hearty jamming, cos I'm feeling a bit music deprived.  I think there may have to be a bit of a getting home do over the next week, in preparation for the big party in October.

Any takers?  I'm cooking the barbeque.


Grandad emerged from snoozing mid afternoon, and came to join us on the back porch.  He had told the kids that he was interested in reading their journals today, so they rushed to the caravan and came back with all 7 volumes for him to read.

I think he will still be going on them next week.

Here is the first shameless attempt for Grandad to be in the blog.  I guess as one of our most avid followers, he has earned the privilege.

As the evening set in, I did a bit of didge playing and we lit up the barbeque for some serious meat preparation.  The kids had returned to the television to watch Scooby Doo, so the serenity was marvellous.

The bourbon had just started to flow, and we had a fantastic time with throwing around stories of our trip, and things that Dad had done and seen in his younger years travelling around Australia.


Dinner at Grandad's is always a feast, and there is never a hungry belly leaving the table.  Nanny Annie makes her shameless blog debut here, and it truly feels like we are home already.

After dinner I retired to the men's lounge to watch the Eagles vs Collingwood game from last week which we won convincingly again on the replay. 

Looking forward to the next couple of relaxation days here in Albany before we pick up our puppy "Roadie" for the trip home. 

Day 101 Kalgoorlie to Albany...Yes that is correct

It was 0500 when Lisa woke up this morning which was unacceptable considering the alarm was set for 0600.  She was nice enough to come back to bed and gently cool me with her frigid feet and hands because I was apparently overheating in the sleeping bag.

The alarm went off at 6am, and we dutifully ignored it until the snooze alarm went off.  I have never seen such a quick pack up.  Perhaps we were eager to get out of Dodge this morning.  Breakfast was a flash, and we were hooked up and ready before the grey nomads.

We left Kalgoorlie prepared for a long day's drive, with the intention of getting to anywhere we could.  Our ultimate destination was to be Albany.

We drove South down the Goldfields Highway to Kambalda, and couldn't help but take a photo of us crossing the track to the West Side.

We were lucky to make it out of Kambalda with our lives as we saw another car on the road...just one though.

Onwards we drove through Widgiemooltha, and into Norseman where we stopped to change drivers.


Lisa took over the driving through to Esperance.  We arrived in Esperance at 11:30am and decided to stop for lunch.  It was raining when we arrived, so we decided against further sight seeing whilst we were there.  I did take the time to brave the wind and take a photo out of the car window whilst we were driving.

The kids actually remembered our last trip here, and that we had fish and chips at the jetty whilst looking for Sammy the Sea Lion who lives here.

Taylor's on the Jetty is a fantastic little spot in Esperance for breakfast, morning or afternoon tea, as well as lunch and dinner...kind of obvious as it's a restaurant, but the food is good and the atmosphere is nice.

Our lunch here was filling and satisfying, and there was an elderly couple that grimaced at us and the kids the whole time they were there.  I suppose we interrupted their Chi by sitting down in the restaurant.

The kids wanted to go into the playground, but Winter in Esperance equals rain and cold, so they decided to sit in the car instead.


After we left Esperance, we turned West towards Albany.  We were still on schedule, and Lisa took the first driving shift after lunch.  This time of year is particularly beautiful on this stretch of road as there are endless fields of flowering canola.  The contrasting green and gold is quintessentially Australian, and reminds me that we are almost home.

Lisa was falling asleep by the time that we were approaching Ravensthorpe, so we pulled over for a 5 minute break and I resumed the driving duties for the last 280km.

The drive got a bit long in the tooth by the time we were pulling into Willyung drive to head up to Grandad and Nannie Annie's house, but the autopilot had kicked in by this time.  At 860km, this has been the longest day's driving of our entire trip.

This is as home as we get on this trip.  It's only 4 hours back to Perth and we live here half of our holiday time.  It's great to be back in WA, and back with family.  We are going to chill out for the next couple of days, and hopefully relax...BAHAHAHA.  I've said that before I think. 

Grandad has a half dozen games of footy to watch, so Jack Daniels is visiting tonight and we aren't going to sleep until the Eagles have beaten Collingwood again.

Day 100 Kalgoorlie

After all of my sooking yesterday about sleeping in, today I didn't even open my eyes until 0800...Gotta take it all back now.  I had a wonderful rest, and woke up to eggs and toast with a hot coffee waiting.  My wife likes to remind me how wonderful she is, with justification too...Who's awesome baby?  You're awesome.

We sent the kids to the playground to play, but unfortunately it was locked and the park wasn't prepared to open it for them yet, so we decided to head into town instead.  The Mining Hall of Fame closed down in December, so we have scrubbed that off the to do list, and began our day by going to the visitors centre.  I received my last two stamps for the longest golf course, and a certificate to show that I have done it.  The girl was even nice enough to say that my score was pretty average to what she sees coming through...Hooray...there are heaps of us crap golfers in the world.

Outside the visitors centre is old mate Patrick Hannan, the founder of Kalgoorlie.  They have fitted the statue with a water fountain, that looks quite disturbing when you are in your car across the intersection and a bit behind him, but the kids and Lisa all stopped for a photo.

Very sadly, across the road is Judd's which is now shut, and up for sale.  I say sadly because this was my favourite restaurant and bar when I used to come up to Kalgoorlie for work.

We thought we would utilise our time as best we could, as the Superpit mine tour wasn't until 1:30pm, so we piled back into the car and went out to the airport to visit the Kalgoorlie RFDS base.  We had a look around inside, and waited for the morning tour to start.  The tour consisted of a half hour video, and then a bit of a talk on the operations and costs involved in maintaining a good service.



After the video and talk, we were escorted out to the hanger to have a look at one of the Pilatus C12 aircraft that has been purpose fit out for RFDS work.  It is essentially a flying intensive care or trauma unit, and is staffed accordingly. 

I think the kids really enjoyed the tour, if only to pat AV-CAT who has been the base mascot for the past 18 years after walking in across the airfield.


We headed back to the caravan to grab some rolls for lunch, and I had to fix the broken headlight (The opposite one to the one that was changed out in the last service) and then we were back out the door to go and have a look at Hammond Park.  This was interesting, as I didn't even know the place existed.

Look at my girls...100 days on the road, and they are still having a ball.


Hammond Park is a beautiful garden with a couple of lakes built into it.  There are ducks, geese, peacock (8 that I counted), Emu, and an assortment of parrots, galahs and cockatoos.  There is also a playground and an interesting miniature castle built near one of the lakes.

Lisa remembered coming to this park as a child, and the castle had a plaque on the back saying that it was completed in 1977.  The kids had a great time playing in the playground.

We jumped back into the Prado for a dash down to the new KCGM Superpit Lookout to watch the shot firing.  I got everyone to dash out of the car and make their way over to the fence line, but I think we got there just as they fired.  There was no earth shattering kaboom, and no subsequent shock wave.  In fact the blast was around a corner, and we didn't get to see or hear anything.  All up a bit of a fizzer.  

We did get to stand in the face shovel scoop though. 

It was finally time for the Superpit Mine Tour, which was a small fortune to be honest, so I was hopeful that there was some decent content to it.  To their credit, it didn't disappoint and for the next two and a half hours, we were bussed around the site to look at the pit and processes.  Our driver Grahem also gave us facts, figures and scintillating stories of the operation, history and some local stories as well.
The tour took us past the maintenance sheds for the haul packs and loaders, and we were given a treat of seeing the old and the new side by side. 

Any way you look at this truck, it is pretty big.  They can lug around 260 tonnes of ore at a top speed of 55kmh.  Powered by a 16 Cylinder diesel engine producing over 4000 horsepower.  Each haul pack is worth just over 5 million dollars.  Around the same price as the Pilatus C12 aircraft fitted out for the RFDS.

We were told that the diesel storage tanks on site hold approximately 800,000 litres of diesel and that the site uses over 5 million litres of diesel per year.  You would want to hope that there is gold in them there hills when you start juggling the figures of the operation.

Our tour guide then took us around to the East face lookout on site.  I have never seen the Superpit from this perspective.  Dimensionally the hole is now more than 3.5km long, 1.5km wide and over 450m deep.  There is also a decline operation which is now down to approx 1400m below ground.

It is at this stage that I am thankful for my Sony Nex camera which has one of the best digital zoom functions that I have had the pleasure of using.  The facing shovel here was on the floor of the pit, and is loading 4 scoops (240-260 tonnes) of ore into the tray of these haul packs.  The first picture today was the perspective from this lookout.  Amazing!

Everybody piled back onto the bus, and we drove around the top of the pit to the Western wall where they had the second lookout, and had only blasted an hour earlier.  You can clearly see in the photo the blast pattern with people walking over the area whilst the facing shovel is loading trucks just behind them.

It is hard to grasp the size of this shovel, but have a look again at the photo of us all standing in the mouth of one.


We lingered for a little bit and watched these guys being loaded up, before heading up to the top of the hill where the full trucks were going past at a crawl at the very top of the ascent.

We then drove around to the crusher where we got to see two of the haul packs dump over the ridge onto the stock pile only meters away from the bus, and then we took a drive through the operations area where the real work gets done.

They have several different grades of crusher on site, and I wasn't aware of their methods previously, but apparently they feed large metal balls into the rotating drum to smash the rocks up until they can be sorted through a sifting grate.

The metal balls go in at 125mm diameter, and come out the size of marbles.  The two piles here represent the new balls, and the finished iron which is collected by magnets as they are fed up the conveyor to the stockpile. 

I figure I could go on and talk about cyanide leach processing, and flotation separation vessels, charcoal bonding and the other processes utilised here, but I don't want you all to get bored. 

The site is producing roughly 22 tonnes of gold per year.  There is also an 8% content of silver, and a 2% content of copper which is extracted from the gold during purification.  Of that gold, some 55% is used for jewelry, and most of the rest is converted to bullion for purchase.  Some small percentage is used for electronics, dentistry and other such follies.

I really enjoyed the tour, and learnt a heap of things that I didn't know after all of my years working around the industry.  I have been on this site a dozen times in the past, and never seen past the electrical workshops, so I had a great time.  Lisa seemed to enjoy herself up until the kids got bored and a bit difficult, but they were really well behaved for most of the tour. 

Tomorrow is most likely going to be a ridiculous drive, so I am going to try and get a decent nights sleep.  Fingers Crossed!

Day 99 Balladonia to Kalgoorlie

 I have finally resigned to the fact that sleep in a caravan with kids is a futile pursuit.  Ashley was awake at 0545 this morning, and dutifully ensured that we were also awake before going back to bed.  The toilet is a short walk from the van, but this ensures that sleep is impossible after seeking relief.

 

Lisa and I decided to try and finish catching up on our journals because the last couple of days driving have been exhausting, and to prepare breakfast and get away relatively early.  On the way back to the caravan from the ablution block, I was informed by another traveller that we have blown a head lamp, so I went about removing the broken one only to find that they didn't have a spare here, and that I would need to get one in Kalgoorlie.

 

The van packed up quickly, and we got underway at 0745.  First things first though.  There was an untidy par 3 that needed my attention prior to departing the park.  This was a pure bushland hole, and after my tee shot, we played find Rob's ball sweepstakes bonanza!  I thought it best to circle my ball to assist in finding it.

I didn't really play at it in there, but sensibly took the stroke penalty and had a drop from this prickly situation.

 

After the golf hole, Lisa took the kids into the museum to have a look at some of the fragments from skylab which fell in the vicinity of Balladonia.  There were some great displays including this piece of heat shield, and a wiring loom melted into another heat shield tile. 
I was refuelling the car with jerry cans as Diesel was over $2.00 litre here.  These roadhouses know how to get the buck out of their captive audiences.

Back in the car, we drove around 100km until we reached Fraser Range Sheep Station.  This property has been established since the late 1800's, but had diversified into eco-tourism more recently by establishing a caravan park, and being included as a stop for the longest golf course in Australia.

You wouldn't even know the property existed if it wasn't for the tourism signposting on the highway.

 

The hole here was fantastic, and my little minions went darting off up the fairway to find my ball and make sure no cheeky crows made off with it.  Pity I can't get them to be quiet when I'm ready to hit, or stand behind me before I swing. 

 

Anyhow, we drove through to Norseman, which excited Emma because it is a town named after a horse.  Emma ran around everywhere pawing at the ground trying to uncover gold.  We headed over to the golf course after a brief stop at the visitors centre to get the kids their official "I followed in Eyer's footsteps" certificate for crossing the Nullarbor.  Norseman Golf course is the typical bushy golf course.  Clay with tufts of grass, and oiled sand for greens. 

 

Having said that, I played pretty well through these two holes.  We got our injury for the day, and Rowan had minor toe surgery to remove a particularly nasty double G spike that took both mum and dad to extract.  We followed up the golf with a nice lunch in town, and stopped by briefly to take a photo of the luckiest horse ever...Imagine waking up to find your horse had uncovered  a gleaming pile of gold instead of covering you with a steaming pile of ...Well you get the picture.

 

The trip to Kambalda was longer than I remember, and there is a couple of new roads leading into mine site developments. We drove through West Kambalda to the Golf course where we had one hole to play.  No grass here, all clay flat for a fairway, and instead of bunkers filled with sand, they have moguls.  Just as tricky to traverse.

From the golf course, we took a quick drive up Red Hill to take a look over Kambalda, Lake LeFroy, the Kambalda Nickel Concentrator and St Ives Gold Mine.  Even the lake has a different look about it now with the St Ives mine extending further and further into the salt pan.

 

It was time to head up towards Kalgoorlie though, and we made the quick half hour hop without any major dramas.  We did have a little trouble finding the golf course as the new course wasn't listed on the maps or GPS, but eventually found our way there.  I would talk about the last two holes on the pristine grass fairways of the new Kalgoorlie Links, but I didn't see much of the grass, and spent a lot of time in the bush and on the beach.  Typical.

The best way I can explain what happened here is that I was too weak to focus on golf, instead of worrying about what my kids were doing to the golf course.  At one point, Rowan and Emma went running into a bunker, and stopped short of making angels in the sand, but left me an extensive raking job to do.

 

I can imagine that the course is beautiful to play, and challenging to say the least. You can still clearly see how the land has been formed for the course design, and that the grass has been laid on topsoil that has been brought in for the purpose.  In many ways, the course reminded me of The Vines with similar vegetation, and fauna loping around the fairways.

 

 

The shop was our next stop, as the cupboards have been looking bare for a couple of days now.  After getting some essential groceries, we drove back to Hannan Street to get to our caravan park.  Not to fancy, but not a dump either, it is comfortable and we are near the amenities which is good for the kids.

 

We got everyone to catch up on their journals (Including Emma) and have a nice relaxed day tomorrow.  The mining museum and tour has closed, as has Judd's sadly, but we will find ways to fill up our morning prior to the Superpit Mine tour tomorrow afternoon.

 

Can't wait for that one.

Day 98 Scenic Lookout Number 1 to Balladonia

 

It was a day that began like many others in recent weeks.  Lisa and I awoke at 6am, freezing cold and busting.  We knew that we had to get up early, so crawled reluctantly out of bed to be greeted by -2 Deg C at our camping spot on top of the cliffs.  No power meant no heater, or electric kettle, no Nespresso and no toast for breakfast.  It was so cold in the van that our breath was misting.

Lisa and I boiled a pot of water on the stove, and stood near it trying to warm our hands, whilst making coffee and hot chocolate at the same time.  I cooked pancakes for everybody, and had a good, hearty, warm breakfast.

The kids heard us shivering, so they too arose in need of bladder relief, and we set about the day's business.  For some stupid reason, I got it in my head to go and watch the sun rise from the lookout.  There was a fairly strong wind pushing the fog over the Eastern Nullarbor Plain, and over the cliffs to the Southern Ocean.  Ashley and I stood at the lookout watching the sun rise whilst our fingers and toes went numb with cold.  I think the experience was worth it though.

 

Packing up was fairly simple, and we were underway quickly at around 730am.  The fog was still quite thick and impenetrable over 100m or so.  We passed the 2nd lookout because the fog was still in and we didn't think we would see anything, but a couple of hundred meters later, the fog had burned off, and it was a beautiful clear blue sky that greeted us.  Murphy has a lot to answer for.

 We drove on to the third lookout, which isn't really cliffs any more, but more steep coastal plane.  We were greeted by Southern Right Whales in the water having a fun old time of things.  It's funny how a couple of whales can change your everyday beach into something quite amazing.  Whales are pretty cool.

Next stop was to be the WA/SA border crossing village and quarantine checkpoint.  This is the stop we had been dreading for a while.  The BIG Roo stood proudly waiting for us, and a couple of photos.  We pigged out on all of our leftover fruit and vegetables, so we didn't have to throw anything away (Lisa can’t stand wasting food...Thanks Oma.)   Border Village was to be the first hole of golf for the day as well.    A particularly nasty par 3 at 160m.  Nasty because I am only carrying a 9 iron, a 3 iron and a sand wedge along with my putter. 

I played up the fairway (Densely wooded clay pan) with my 9 iron, and left a tantalising shot over the cattle loading ramp to reach the green.  Not the ideal way to start the day, but still fun. 

After the hole, we took the car to the quarantine station.  The official was very kind to inform me that the Eagles flogged the Pies last night, and that I had good reason to be happy today (And why not, I am playing golf.)  We didn't have any fruit or veg, but we did have a new bottle of honey that has only been used once or twice, so we did have to surrender that.  After our quarantine check, we went over to the border and had some fun.

 

 

 

I taught the kids how to time travel…10am, 0830, 10am, 0830...and did you know that if you made a bad smell on the left side of the line, you could smell it on the right hand side an hour and a half before you had even done it?  A man could go crazy thinking about things like that.  The Prado Delorean Time Machine strikes again. 

 

 

Next stop was to be at Eucla.  We had planned to top off the fuel tanks in Eucla, play golf and visit the old telegraph station.  I am happy to say that we achieved all of these things.  The Golf course is 5km down a dirt track opposite the roadhouse.  The course itself shares it's fairway with the Eucla Amateur Pistol and Rifle Club.  The tee shot is over the target panels, so you have to hustle between loadings on club shooting days.  I was able to utilise my golf buggy on this hole, and had Lisa ferry me up the fairway on the bull bar of the Prado.  The kids were begging to have a try, but that's a doctor's visit that I don't want to explain.

We returned back to the roadhouse, and went on to the old telegraph station.  The road down had just been graded, so we didn't shake the caravan too much, and after the trip out to the golf course, the dust was only settling on previous dust.  The sand dunes are trying hard to reclaim this building.  I had a chat with a couple who had been here before, and they were very sad to see how much had been swallowed by the shifting sand. 

The stone work on this type of building is really quite incredible, with the pieces fitting together with intricate accuracy.  In some places, you would struggle to get the blade of a butter knife through the cracks.  All of these blocks would have been hand hewn by the labour force of the day. 

On the way back out of Eucla, we had a look at the war memorial, which is next to the Eyre memorial.  Just around the corner from this was the Travellers Cross.

 

It wasn't a very long drive to the next golf hole at Mundrabilla Road House.  I finally started playing better golf shots, and  really enjoyed this hole.  At least the fairway was wide enough for me not to get lost.  On the way back, I spotted a gem in the scrubby bush and ran over for a photo opportunity.  There is nothing like relaxing by the pool after a good day's golf.

 

 

Madura roadhouse was to be our next stop, and because of the time difference became our lunch break for the day.  Lisa and the kids were all passing out from hunger.  The golf hole here was a pretty par 3 up through the trees and scrub.  I didn't get onto my tee shot, and left a fairly long chip to make the green.  I think I mentioned before that the greens are impossible to stop a ball on.  You add this to the fight about who was going to get the flag out, and what the appropriate time to do this was, and I ended up having a pretty bad hole after losing my Chi.

We bought lunch from the roadhouse, and it was either pretty good, or we were near on starvation because everybody ate all of their lunch.  Lisa took over the driving after we got to the lookout at the top of the Madura Pass.  The view was expansive over the sweeping grassland flats down to the waters edge.  Lisa asked if I wanted to be in a photo, but I declined because the scenery was just too PLAIN!

Onwards we drove to Cocklebiddy which is just a cool name for a place.  The hole here is called Eagles Nest, and there were pictures and statues of Eagles everywhere.  I really enjoyed this hole as well, apart from  losing a ball in waist high scrub.  I think Lisa was setting me up though, because she continued driving to Caiguna which is the beginning of 90 mile straight.

 

It was around 4pm when we got to Caiguna roadhouse, and the green was nowhere in sight.  They are kind enough to put road marking posts (White post with red or white reflector) to mark the fairway, although at this hole there didn't appear to be any difference between the fairway and the bush.  Unfortunately for me I had to take a drop on this hole...There is no way I was going to be able to play this shot...Where's the ball?  Trust me, it is in there.

 

We had a tough decision from here.  It was too early to stop, but we didn't want to free camp for a second night in a row.  It was agreed that we would drive and see where we got too.  This looked ominous from the outset with the sighting of 6 bloating roo carcasses within a kilometre.  Whilst we were discussing that an Emu darted in front of the car and scuttled off into the bush.

Twilight driving on country roads is never a good idea, but the further we went, the less wildlife we saw.  There was the wedge tailed eagle that we spotted from over a kilometre away, and the second wedge tail that stood defiantly on his prey until we were almost next to him...cheeky sod tried to take off with it as well.  Hasn't any one ever told him there is a 4 kilogram limit to CARRION BAGGAGE!

It was this road that is affectionately known as 90 Mile Straight.  At 145.6 kilometres, it is Australia's longest straight road.  I did notice that Lisa handed the driving back to me here...Setup or what?  There is something quite un-special about driving 145.6 kilometres of treeless, featureless, fauna riddled straight road at dusk.  Especially when you are the only vehicle in sight going either direction. 

We passed the first of three free parking areas which had about a hundred grey nomads in it, but kept driving.  The second and third passed as well, as did the last of our daylight.  Curse time zone changes.  It was only 5.30pm when the sun dropped off the horizon.  I was determined to get to Balladonia tonight so we at least had power if nothing else.  Power means toast for breakfast, heaters, coffee and i-phones charged for the kids so fewer arguments in the back seat.  All make for a much happier driving day. 

 

It was 6pm when we pulled in to the roadhouse at Balladonia, and it was completely dark.  We have a nice, mostly level camping site with power, and forked out the dough for a pub dinner instead of cooking.  We even got to have a 3 minute shower which was very rewarding.  The kids were knackered and all went to bed without any arguments, and Lisa and I tried to write journals, but followed the kids lead without actually accomplishing much at all. 

We only have one or two more nights in the caravan now depending on where we are able to get to today.  It is a bit sad, but also very exciting.