Perth, Australia

Dear Ethel, Family and Friends,
It has been 2 weeks and some 4800km latter and we are now in Perth. Our trip started Monday 2 weeks ago when we left Melbourne in the rain and a mild 28 degrees. We hired were delivering a Toyota Hiace van with a fixed high roof for this leg of the journey. It was a comfortable van aprox. 07 model, but with more than 300,000km on the clock they re-badge them from Appolo to Cheapa Camper. Fitted out with a fridge, microwave, stove, kettle, toaster etc, it was similar to our own van, except the sleeping position was in the rear of the van and not very comfortable in the sitting position. Our first night was spent just before the start of the Great Ocean Road.

As I mentioned in the last post, it has been 21 years since we were last in this part of the world, the biggest change being that there are not as many Apostles as there once were and one of the London Bridge land arches has collapsed. This 30 km stretch of road follows the coast cliffs with views of the 12 Apostles, sandstone pillars left in the ocean by erosion and the London Bridge and the blowhole are tunnels through sections of the rock faces. New fencing, board walks and other well placed lookouts are a great enhancement. We stopped a dozen or more time as we found yet more vantage spots to view the spectacle from. It is well worth taking the time to do and can be done as a day trip from Melbourne.

We stayed overnight at Mt Gambier and stopped to gaze at The Blue Lakes, the bluest water imaginable, it has something to do with them being volcano craters. From the ocean to volcano craters our third night has by the banks of the Murray River at the appropriately named Murray Bridge. Only 50km outside Adelaide we enjoyed our stay by the river and exploring a marina full of house boats, it’s always about who has the biggest and best and some were floating mansions.

That afternoon and the following 2 days, the temperature soared to 43 degrees with a very uncomfortable hot dry wind blowing strait in from the desert. We crept into Adelaide to find Louise’s school friend Trish and her husband Derrick. Fortunately they had aircon and a pool and we had a couple of quite days keeping out of the heat. We really enjoyed catching up with Trish again after so long and hope it not another 20 something years.

We picked up our second campervan on Saturday morning and fortunately a soothing cold front moved in to cool things down to about 23 degrees which was a blessing. However our next campervan turned out to be a bit disappointing. It was a Backpacker van and very basic. The van was a Mitsubishi, new enough with only 30,000Km, but really very basic with no fridge or microwave and a stove that makes cooking too difficult, we chose to cook in the camp kitchens where possible. With no ceiling height it made manoeuvring in the van when the bed was made up a little like a beached whale flapping about, still better than a tent, but we had a week to look forward to in this van. The rain came down as we started out on our Nullarbor crossing.

This was the beginning of the really big driving days, 700km to Streaky Bay, 850 to Madura Pass in WA and a further 750km into Esperance. We particularly enjoyed Streaky Bay and we had a couple of good viewing points along the Nullarbor of the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. The cool conditions remained with us for the whole trip across and by the time we got to Esperance it was a mild 28 degrees again. We loved Esperance and decided we had to live there and get jobs there immediately, but in hind sight it was just an extreme reaction to crossing the Nullarbor and then finding this Jewell at the end. We found we were just as impressed by Albany and the Margaret River region. We did a spectacular tree top walk outside Walpole and I did a light house tour in Augusta at the intersection of the Southern and Indian Oceans. We spent a full day visiting wineries in Margaret River and we stayed in another nice town we would like to live in, Mandurah last night before rolling into Perth this morning. It’s certainly cheaper and quicker to fly across the bottom of Australia, but if you have a couple of weeks to spare, it’s a road trip to remember.

We are booked into a very ordinary apartment right in town in Perth. It’s cheap and the position is great, we have a hire car to explore the area for the next week or so and see what fate has in store for us. All the best for now.
Ric & Louise