Perth to Geraldton

We had a wet pack up today as it decided to rain most of the night again. Sara and I awoke to mum and dad having already packed their van due to a lull in the weather. We began the process of packing up our site as well, in the rain, before heading off. I have to say, this caravan park had the worst speed humps i have found yet in a caravan park, even the car, unburdened by the van, scraped going over these. Why do they put speed humps into a caravan park???

Anyways, our first destination today was New Norcia, a Monastery outside Perth. We did not have much of a look around as we missed the tour time but we did manage to snap up some great fresh bread that they make. Most of this was consumed in their car park for our lunch

With this done we began the trip to Geraldton. This began with a great trip through some quiet farmland with no other traffic, they were back roads. Once we hit the freeway however we got stuck behind a series of 4 wide load trucks, two with machines and two with portable homes. the portable homes were all over the road and we could not pass them until we encountered an overtaking lane, over 1 hour later. Even with the extra lane i spent a fair amount of the time on the wrong side of the road getting past.

We arrived in Geraldton around 5pm and went straight to the beach before the sun set. Tomorrow we head off to Denham after visiting the HMAS Sydney memorial. We are nearly at the half way mark in our trip. The trip has so far seen us drive 4500km.

Perth

We have spent only two days here in Perth, we thought that would be enough for a taste. Unfortunately the weather was working against us.

We had only planned two things, one being a tour of the Perth mint and the second being a ghost tour of the Freemantle jail. Sara had also wanted to visit the gardens and also get a nice evening picture of the city skyline.

Well..... We made it to the Mint. The first night here was ok, just a bit windy, but by morning the wind had picked up a bit and the clouds had settled in. We first went for a trip out to Bullsbrook, where dad was stationed when I was 3-4 yrs old. We saw my old house and the kindergarten I went to.

From there we drove back towards the city with the aid of the tom-tom. It seems tom-tom and Sara were working together as it took me straight to the Margaret River Chocolate factory. We went in and it was wall to wall chocolate with viewing windows through to the manufacturing areas. The kids found the sample bowls and disappeared back to them every now and then. We purchased some nice truffles for dessert.

Back on the road we went past lots of cellar doors that mostly seemed closed, possibly due to it being a Monday. Anyways, into the city we found the Mint easily enough but not so a car park. Once we found that it was a brisk walk to the mint, just in time to see the gold pouring demonstration. unfortunately it was no photos in here or in the gold vaults but the kids loved the show. Caitlyn was particularly interested when some of the gold spilled out of the mould and onto the floor

After the pouring we went back to the start of the gold tour and moved through the exhibits. they had a collection of gold bullion, which would be a nice collectable to get into i would think, then a display of all the various forms of gold nuggets found. We even got to lift up a real gold bullion that was valued at $600000.

After all this we moved into the viewing are of the precious metal coin stamping. some of the machines were highly automated but some still had an operator loading a coin blank into a press and then unloading at the end of the cycle. We bought a souvenir silver and gold coin with all of our names engraved in the back.

After the Mint we moved onto the main city malls where we just strolled in and out of the various malls as the weather had turned very cold and windy. we did this until we had to return to the car.

Our second day in Perth, due to the bad weather was spent indoors at a local shopping mall. All the girls got their shopping fix and we stocked up for the next leg. We ended the day with a great dinner at Scott and Nicole’s in the evening. Thank you

Kalgoorlie to Perth

Well what a day we had in Kalgoorlie. After much advice we rang ahead last Tuesday to book our seats (7) on the super pit mine tour. The booking was for Saturday. I was lucky that I had the confirmation email sent to my phone, but I should of read it as the lady that booked us in had actually booked us in for Tuesday, the day I rang :(

This meant that when we arrived keen and early for our tour at 9:15, we found that our names were not on the list. We were not very happy. I should of read the confirmation email. Anyways the lady that served us on the Saturday was very helpful and managed to squeeze five of us onto a special session. It turned out that the Tuesday tour had been cancelled due to bad weather anyways.

This also meant that our day had been turned upside down as the second tour left at 1:30 so we had not quite half a day to waste. We walked the main street for a while before descending on Coles for some supplies for the next few days and then heading back to camp for some lunch.

1:30 found us back down the main street and boarding the tour bus for our tour. The tour was very informative and the guide really knew what was going on. We loved the tour and the inside view it gave us. One funny part was when we came back on to the bus after an outside viewing and the driver, after doing a head count, looked down the bus at Caitlyns seat and asked if anyone was in it. Caitlyn had to stand up to show she was there ;)

After the tour we returned to the camp for a great barbecue dinner before starting our packing for the next days drive. The night also turned out to be very cool and windy.

Sunday found us driving from Kalgoorlie to Perth. Even though this was supposed to be a long days drive it turned out to be quite nice and we pulled into the caravan park at 4:30pm. We stopped for lunch in southern cross and again at Cunderdin where we let the kids out for a play whilst we had a look at a gathering on vintage cars.

The caravan park, Karyinyup waters resort, seems nice enough, but we were a bit disappointed since we booked this place in advance, for two sites, and when we arrived we were told we could have our pick of grass sites down the back, all the slab sites were taken, and we could not be together as where no double sites available.

Tomorrow we are off to the Perth mint and a walk through the CBD.

I am doing many of these short blog posts using bloggsy on Bianca's iPad the software works well but since all the photos are on the laptop it is easier to do the photos with windows live