Week 4 of full-time travel - Margaret River to Beverley

 We knew we had no StarLink internet at the caravan park in Margaret River, so we packed up and headed off first-thing Monday morning (well, if you can call 9.45am first-thing!!) We started on the trip back up to Perth - remember the issue with caravan weight from our weigh in on Week 1? We were booked in to get the upgrade done in Midland on Tuesday, but because we don’t like to rush we split the return journey into two.

Monday afternoon was spent back at Pinjarra Free Camp to get my work done and for a quiet evening. 

Tuesday morning, we set off back to Midland, with a quick stop for Steve to drop me into my works office, so I could do some printing. It was nice to see everyone, but within no time Steve was done with the caravan ATM upgrade and back at the office to pick me up.

We made our way back up to Yanchep National Park, and got set up for a 3-night stay. Steve got me set up so I could work in the shade, instead of inside the caravan.

Office alfresco? Don’t mind if I do!

Not a bad view beyond the laptop screen 

Thursday, after work, we had invited my untie and Uncle (Barbra & Eric) over for lunch at the Yanchep Inn - the food was very good and then they came back to our campground for a little while. We had a great afternoon, catching up and having a laugh, but then they had together back home for their doggie Freddie.

Afternoon drinkies 

We packed up Friday morning and set off again (we are trying to get further south. I promise!!!) and decided that we would try to stay at as many free camps on the South Western Highway as we could. So to kick things off this time, we headed up the Great Eastern Highway to a little town in the hills called Wundowie. The free camp there is at the town sports oval and is excellent: with fresh water fill up point, dump point, gas BBQ and each spot has a concrete pad to itself. We stayed here before about a year ago, and the spot is really well looked after by the shire.

Thanks Wundowie, for the fantastic facilities

Saturday morning we headed over to York. We have stayed on the free camp here lots of times, because we love the town and how friendly the locals are. Even everyone on the free camp was friendly and chatty this time. Add to that that the Saturday night karaoke in the Castle Hotel is always good fun - and this Saturday night was no exception. Cold drinks, wood-fired pizza a chatting with some the campers made for a great evening.

Sunday we made our way just down the road to the town of Beverley. This is another place we have stayed at quite a few times, and the free camp is in a great location, just over the bridge.

The free camp is a big area, with plenty of room and only a couple of minutes walk back over the bridge to the shops and pubs.

We’ll head further south tomorrow no see where the next week takes us!

Week 3 of full-time travel - Busselton & Margaret River

 Let’s just say from the outset, that it’s a flipping good job that we were in a good caravan park at the start of this weeek!

Monday was fine: got my work done, then we went out to Dunsborough for the afternoon. We stopped at Clancy’s Fish Pub for lunch (which was lovely) and Steve tried a side order of their “fried mice”

No fried mice for me, thanks!

Then because it was a gorgeous afternoon, we  popped over to Simmo’s Ice Creamery. Gorgeous ice cream with too many flavours to choose from - definitely worth a visit

We had quite a late dinner that day because we had been on video messaging with Steve’s sister, chatting about our upcoming trip to the UK. We have been trying to eat the things we have had in the freezer for a while, but this time was not good…

I didn’t feel too good about an hour after we’d eaten and it just got worse from there. By morning we were both poorly with food poisoning - who knew that oat-based meat substitutes were as bad as meat if not stored correctly?! Well, we knew it now!!!! I put it down to the fact that the little freezer had been too full and th cold air couldn’t circulate properly, so not everything was properly frozen the whole time it was in there.

We have now gone through the contents of the freezers, and everything we have is fine - anything that looked like it had been there a while, went in the bin.

So Tuesday was  non-starter for us both.

The rest of our stay at Busselton passed without incident and ten on Friday it was time to pack up again and move to Margaret River.

I’d got a couple of hours of work to complete, for jobs to needed to be submitted that afternoon, so on the way to Margaret River we stopped in at Cowaramup, or Cow Town as it is also known.

Four and a half hours later, I’d finally gotten all my work finished for the day and we continued down to Margs. We checked in at the caravan park, got set up in our site and decided to go out for dinner.

Saturday was for a walk into town for a spot of shopping and a cheeky glass of bubbles. 

Rio’s bar is lovely

Cheeky bubbles while overlooking the Main Street

We’d been out until late afternoon and were on our way back to the caravan park when I got a message from my friend Kate, who had spotted us leaving a bar, and ended up getting invited to their place on Sunday afternoon for drinks and tacos. Kat and Rhys’s ‘place’ is a vineyard and it will be awesome when they have completed all their planned works.

Rhys brews for Eclipse Brewing, and very kindly gave us a tour of his brew house and tastings of the beers on tap - they were very good and Steve will definitely be on the lookout for Eclipse in bars and bottle shops.

Met some great people and had fab food and drinks in amazing surroundings (with cuddles from Benny the Sausage Dog). Also, during the afternoon, there were a few hectic moments when the chickens escaped and Kate had to round them up. Time flew by and before we knew it, it was time to leave. Kate and Rhys were such awesome hosts that we were so busy enjoying ourselves, neither one of us took any photos!!

Week 2 of full-time travel - Busselton

The free camp at Bunbury was lovely, however, it’s a 2 night maximum stay, so onwards and southwards to Busselton.

We had stayed at Busselton Holiday Village earlier last year, and liked that it’s only a 10-15 minute walk from the town centre, plus it’s quite a quiet place to stay.

Our pitch was close to the ablutions and laundry, so we took the opportunity to get ALL the washing done that had been piling up since leaving Burns Beach (gotta watch that water usage when you only have what’s in your on-board water tanks!).

After 3 nights here, we moved a huge 6.3km down the road to the Lazy Days Caravan Park at the other side of Busselton.

Because I’m still working, albeit part-time, I’d gotten half my hours done before we had to leave Busselton Village at 10am, but because we couldn’t check in at the next camp site until after 12 noon, Steve found us a lovely spot for my new “office” view. He went for a wander long the walking path while I finished up for the day, then we tootled over to Lazy Days, checked in and setup camp for the next 7 nights.

The view from my “office”

Our friends, Karen & Peter have a place in Busselton, and we arranged to go over for a barbecue and drinks. We had a great afternoon and evening, with much food, drinks and laughs - thanks for being great hosts, guys! - and then at then end of the evening, we wandered back along the verge of the Bussell Hwy back to the caravan park.

We were surprisingly fine on Sunday, so after Karen & Peter had been over to see our caravan, we popped out to the local Aldi and Kmart to pick up a few bits ad pieces, then back to th caravan to relax.

As we were having a cheeeky afternoon drink, Steve spotted this out of the window, in the bay almost opposite us:

We know that giant logo from YouTube!

We follow Big Oz (Chris & Sian) on YouTube and knew that the car had gone to Sian’s dad when they upgraded their tow vehicle, so Steve decided to go and have a closer look and end up chatting with Ian, who is Sian’s dad. They had a good chat about cars nd caravans, and we ended up going over to his caravan for drinks and chat with him and his wife Toni (and Angel the doggo).

We had a great evening chatting and I dropped a DM to Big Oz to let them know.

Spotto! New friends :)

Week 1 of full-time travel - Yanchep National Park & travelling south

 Steve had his last official day on the tools on Wednesday 25th Jan, and it was my last official day in the office too. We had a good long weekend at Burns Beach Caravan Park, before we headed off, to be on the road full-time.

We had already decided to visit the South West first (but not until the kids had gone back to school!), but before we set off, we had decided that we should get the car and caravan weighed, to make sure we were safe on the road.

We booked 4 nights at Yanchep National Park and arranged for a local weighing company to meet us nearby. This did not go to plan.

We found out that we were about 300kg over weight in the caravan. 

So while we were at the National Park campground, we went through what we had in the caravan and decided if we definitely needed it onboard or whether it was something that could go into our storage unit.

Over the next few days, Steve did a great job of whittling down his toolbox and getting rid of things that we would not use. I went through the inside of the caravan to try and lessen the load inside.

We may have got rid of around 100kg of “stuff” - some of which went to the storage unit, some to the op shop no the rest went in the bin.

Steve also contacted a company that could upgrade our caravan so that we could get an extra 190kg, over the weight we were already allowed - he booked this in for a few weeks time.

Henry White Oval at Yanchep National Park is lovely - it’s an off-grid campground within the National Park - 10 minutes walk from the historic Yanchep Inn. The facilities are clean and the locals (kangaroos and magpies) are very friendly.

Our little camp

Some of the locals out for dinner

Once we packed up and left Yanchep, we started the journey south, stying at Pinjarra Free Camp on the Friday night, then Waroona Free Camp on the Saturday night. Sunday and Monday night were at a free camp on Bunbury Foreshore.

Big thanks to the Shires that provide free camping facilities - they are appreciated and bring visitors to spend money!!!

The suspended walkway bridge in Pinjarra

Sunset over the abandoned basketball courts at Waroona

An afternoon drink or two at Mojo’s Bunbury