Perth, Boddington, Coolgardie, Nullarbor, Port Augusta, Balranald, Sydney

Final update below.

Final links for photos and tracker. Have rearranged the photos so the kids can show them at school in date order so you'll have to scroll to the bottom for latest ones.

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Monday 22^nd September

Well, after more rain and wind as well as some very good thunder and lightning (at one point we thought the roof was coming off) we’re off to the big city lights of Perth.

The closer to Perth we got the better the weather got thankfully, and the sun even broke out for a bit.

 We arrived into Karrinyup Waters Resort and immediately liked the park. There are a couple of small ponds and we were given the choice of a few sites and chose one with some good shade which backed onto the largest pond.

We then went to dinner at a friend of Trish’s, who she works with, and were treated to a very nice dinner with some very nice wine.

Tuesday 23^rd September

Today CJ was booked in for a service so we dropped him off and did some shopping in Claremont. Emily needed some new runners as hers had fallen apart so we found an Athletes Foot and got that sorted. We then jumped onto a train and headed into town for a bit of a look around.

We walked around a bit and found a dedicated Science Fiction/Fantasy bookshop and since we all like this genre we spent a bit of time in here. The young lady who was there was very knowledgeable and recommended a book for us all so with a book each under our arms we made it out without spending too much money. We had a look through the Visitors Centre and then had a hot chocolate at Koko Black before heading back to pick CJ up.

We visited Trish’s brother and family for dinner that night which was great to catch up and for the cousins to meet each other.

Wednesday 24^th September

Today we packed up, did a bit of grocery shopping and then headed towards Boddington which is where Richard’s sister lives. On the way we stopped into Toyota WA as Richard deals with a man here so we showed us around their new offices. We also stopped at the Pinjarra Bakery. This bakery has won many, many awards and while Trish thought her pie wasn’t as good as one from Beechworth, Emily and Richard thought theirs was better.

It wasn’t far too Boddington after that but we really did notice the change of scenery. There were green rolling hills, crops and sheep looked to be more popular than cattle for a change. There was also a lot of forestry, with jarrah and pine trees everywhere.

We did drive past the BHP bauxite mine which has a conveyor for their ore. We later learnt this conveyor runs 70km to the aluminium processing plant which sounds like a decent sort of distance.

We arrived around 3.30 and Cheryl came home shortly after. Cheryl had a spa so the kids partook of this before dinner. It was great to catch up with Aunty Cheryl and also see where she lived. Boddington had a really nice feel to it.

Thursday 25^th September

Today Cheryl had to head off to work early so all four of us enjoyed having a “proper” house to wander about in with a kitchen, inside toilet and washing machine, comfy couch and of course most importantly for the kids, a TV to watch. We did a couple loads of washing then headed out to the Quindanning Inn for lunch. Cheryl had recommended it and it was a really nice old English style of pub which served very nice food. We then drove onto Williams before heading back to Boddington as Cheryl was coming home early as she’d invited a few folk over.

We got to meet some good friends of Cheryls, Keira had another spa and we got to make some nice cocktails in the Thermomix! We did however not drink too much as we had a mine tour in the morning and we’d been told they can do a random breath test anywhere and anytime and people would get into trouble if visitors also had alcohol in the system.

Friday 26^th September

As the kids were not old enough to go on the mine tour, Cheryl took Trish and Richard to the gate at the Boddington gold mine where she works. She had tee’d up three friends who work at the mine to show us around.

We got to look at places and things most folk don’t and we both found it extremely interesting. One of the highlights was being able to drive right down into the pit and watch the shovel fill up the large tonka trucks right in front of us. The truck backs in under the shovel, the shovel drops 3 bucket loads onto the truck (around 220t) then the truck lumbers off to drop it either directly into the crusher or to a stock pile to be crushed later. Boddington is thought to have the largest throughput of any mine in the southern hemisphere. The reason it has to put so much ore through is because there is less gold in the rock however it is still Newmonts most profitable mine, they just have to work very hard to get at it.  The gold in this area isn’t in seams like other areas but part of the rock over a large area.  This means they need to crush the rock to get at the gold rather than break the rock away from the gold in other mines.  They also get copper out of the area which is a profitable by-product.

We got to look at the outside of the gold room, whilst driving past – you can’t even stop your vehicle outside the room which just looks like any other in the complex – there’s nothing to identify it as special. We also saw the water and sewerage treatment areas – an operation as big as this requires lots of water and with so many people living on site they also have a lot of sewerage to get rid of.  It is a challenge to maintain enough water to manage the plant  - every kilo of ore requires one litre of water to get it out.

Cheryl works at the mine “village” so we also got a tour of that.  A lot of people only come onsite when they are working so live in donga’s (demountable living containers).  They are like small hotel rooms with single bed, desk, chair and shower and toilet. Onsite there is a gym, bar, massive kitchen and dining area, outside pizza ovens, small shop and tennis courts.  They have very good facilities but most people work too many hours to enjoy them much.

We then headed back to Cheryl’s to pack up and head into Perth.  We were staying at the Crown Metropol (Burswood Casino) hotel for the next few nights – a very different experience to the camper trailer!

We had dinner on the way in and after checking out all the cupboards and things in the rooms we went to bed.

Saturday 27^th September

Trish and Cheryl went to the gym first thing as it was raining so a walk along the river was out. After breakfast we headed out into the hotel to see what was around.  This place is amazing, aside from all the restaurants and bars in the casino there are several outside as well.  After a walk around Trish, went off to get her hair cut while everyone else spent the afternoon in the pool (inside) and spa.  Richard and Keira braved the outdoor pool but everyone agreed it was the coldest water they’ve swum in since we started the holiday!

That afternoon Richard and Cheryl’s cousin Sven and his wife Melissa came in to visit for dinner.  We had dinner in one of the restaurants at the hotel (which was very good) and a few cocktails and beers in the lobby and it was great to catch up.  There was some great people watching in the lobby as the whole place never really slows down.  The kids went to the room early and lay in bed watching tv – not something we can do in the camper.  Richard and Cheryl won a few dollars at the casino later that night, but sadly not enough to extend the holiday!

Sunday 28^th September

Today we had a buffet breakfast in the hotel.  I think we stayed for over two hours trying all the different options!

We then went back to Trish’s brothers to look after their kids while they had a childfree lunch.  Trish took all the kids to the park and the big cousins had a great time looking after their little cousins (three years and seven months).

That night was a quiet night in the room watching a movie before an early start the next day on our drive back to Sydney.

Monday 29^th September

Today we packed up and headed out to get the trailer (we had dropped off at some friends of Cheryls) before starting our journey towards Sydney. It wasn’t an early getaway but we managed to get on the road at around 10 so it wasn’t too bad.

We made it as far as Coolgardie where we stopped in for the night.

Tuesday 30^th September

Packed up and on the road by about 8.30am, we drove onto Norseman where we turned left towards the Nullarbor. On the road we encountered some interesting road signs, 3 signs, one warning of, what Richard reckons looks like a dancing camel, an emu and a wombat. Not something you see every day that’s for sure.

There is a stretch of road on this drive which is the longest straightest road in Australia. At 146.6km, it did certainly seem pretty straight but did seem to pass fairly quickly and while there were a few rises in it, there were no hills as such. The scenery hadn’t changed much, rolling hills covered in low lying scrub and smaller trees.

We stopped in at Eucla for dinner and were surprised (although it was dark) at how nice the place looked. We had become used to the roadhouses which are all fairly much the same having a small restaurant, fuel and generally accommodation and maybe a campground out back, but most are fairly rundown affairs and while the majority are pretty clean, some could do with a coat of paint.

We drove about another 100km over the border into SA and stopped at a really nice little free bush camp Trish found on Wiki Camps. We had to slow down here though as there were many many kangaroos on the side of the road. Thankfully none committed hari kari in front of us however we did see many “sleeping” ones on the side of the road. It is a very windy area being just on the Australian Bight but there is enough shelter from the surrounding bushes to dampen most of it. Richard went for a walk in the morning and found there were spots to camp even further down the back which were all great spots too.

Wednesday 1^st October

Packed up and on the road to Port Augusta, we decided to stop in a cabin the night as it was going to be a long day and we’d be arriving later that night. The kids thought this was great and almost as good as staying at the Crown Metropol since it had flushing toilets.

On the drive we did notice how the landscape had changed. We were now into more open rolling hills and crops as far as the eye could see. Both Trish and Richard did wonder how they watered as the crops looked good and there didn’t seem to be any kind of irrigation around. Maybe being not far from the sea there is a reasonable rainfall at the right time of year? We did also see most of the storage silos were owned by Viterra Australia which is a large grain company who took over ABB Grain in 2009.

We arrived into Port Augusta around 8.  Port Augusta is famous for having the major roads from WA, NT, VIC & Adelaide intersect in it.  Not really a great thing to be known for but it seemed like a nice enough place.

Thursday 2^nd October

We left Port Augusta on our way towards the northern part of Victoria which we had to drive through to get to NSW but had a stop at a fruit place on the side of the road. When we stopped we all noticed an unusual smell like oil burning. It looked like oil leaking from the front of the transfer case so we headed on into Port Pirie about 10km off the main road to have someone have a look. Eventually we found a garage and he had a look and found it was the pinion seal on the front of the transfer case. It wasn’t leaking too much and after checking the oil level, it was still full, he reckoned we’d have no problem getting home.

We passed through the top part of Victoria and then into NSW at Mildura before stopping the night at a free national park campsite beside the Murrumbidgee river just outside Balranald. This campsite was one of our favourites. Not only were we on the river (with no crocs!) but we also had a fire BBQ, firewood supplied, a table and the drop toilet was the best we’d come across too with a sink and running water, paper towels and a solar powered light.

When we arrived, a man who was camping in the next campsite (about 100m away) came over and brought some more firewood for us. After dinner, we invited him back for a drink and we found he was an army chaplain who was down in Balranald cleaning up his wifes’ fathers house after he’d passed away. It was a very interesting evening learning about what a chaplain does within the army.

Friday 3^rd October

Today was our last day on the road. We still had around 850km to cover but it did seem like it was all downhill as we’ve driven most of this road many times before. We stopped in Narrandera for a toilet break at the info centre and stumbled on a very large guitar. It turns out this guitar was the largest playable guitar in the world in 1991.

We carried on to Wagga Wagga where we filled up for the final run into Sydney. With one final stop at the services at Marulan for dinner, we arrived home at around 8.30.

We are all happy to be home but at the same time sad the adventure has ended. The kids are excited to be home to catch up with all their friends and are looking forward to school to see everyone again.

Some friends asked us if we’d do it all again, ‘in a split second’ we said........