The amenities block may be old but it's cheerful!!
The weather is getting changeable, sunny, though cool days with a cold 'lazy' wind and the nights are quite chilly.
We walked around Ceduna - which didn't take long, and did a little shopping. We walked out to the end of the jetty. We are not fishermen but even if we had been it seems we'd be out of luck, no one was catching anything other than a couple of squid.
Time to leave Ceduna and continue west, as we drove out of town it was grey and overcast with a very strong wind blowing.
As we neared Penong 'The town of windmills' the wind was really blowing making the whole area into to dust bowl. You had to feel sorry for the farmers, watching their topsoil blow away to neighbouring farms but as Michael said 'it will blow back this afternoon'. We carried on and found a little shady spot for the night. No sooner had we settled in and we were joined by 2 4WDs and caravans, obviously the right time and place to stop. There was another really amazing sunset - with pinks, purples and orange.
Through the night there was very little traffic and we had a good rest.
Next morning it was up and onward to the SA / WA border. We detoured to The Head of the Bight whale watching centre but the whales hadn't arrived yet - they were expected at any moment! The season is from May to September, so we missed them on the way east and now we're too early on the way back!
We stopped for an early lunch break to eat the last of the salad and the potato salad so that we were totally vegetable free to cross into WA.
Then we did just that - we crossed into WA!!!
HOME!!
It may be home - but we still have a long way to travel.
Just 5kms from the border is Eucla, the caravan park there is cheap and clean so we checked in for 3 nights. We are trying to pace ourselves to get to our rendezvous with friends. We, of course, forgot the time difference and thought we gained an hour and a half - in truth we gained only 45 minutes, (gaining another 45minutes at Balladonia). We thought we were right because the phones and the tv programmes agreed with us, but it did explain why we were the last up in the morning and why the toilets were being cleaned at what we thought was 9.15am!!
By 6.00pm that first night there were over 20 vans scattered around the park. I say scattered because there are no bays marked, you just park near a powerpoint. We grabbed the same spot as we had in October. It's a narrow strip between 2 trees, on one side is another bay but it too is narrow and bigger vans tend to park out in the open. On the other side is the corner of the large parking area so no one parks there, it's too exposed.
Despite the roadhouse being open 24 hours, there was very little traffic noise because there is a short distance between the two areas.
The next morning dawn arrived really early - (11/2hrs early!!) That was a shock ! We were awake and up at 8.00am. by 8.30 there were only 4 vans left in the park.
We enjoyed another day at Eucla, the wind dropped and the sun was glorious, we sat outside and rejuvenated our tans.
In the afternoon a couple from Queensland pulled in near us and we got chatting to them. They were enroute to WA but had 'lost' a week of their holiday because he had got sick after eating oysters on the Eyre Peninsula and had spent 4 days in Ceduna Hospital.
Thursday morning it was time for us to leave - naturally we were the last to leave - well it was 8.45am.
As you leave Eucla you drive straight into the Eucla Pass - with it's fantastic long sweeping views.
We had intended to dawdle across to Norseman but Michael was raring to go after the 3 day break and we drove on until 4pm, when we reached Balladonia.
The fuel prices had been gradually dropping as we travelled west and just by not filling up until Balladonia we saved 4 cents a litre. We asked about staying at the caravan park at the roadhouse but were shocked by the price $28 for a powered site (we could have gone unpowered at $18) so we backtracked 5kms to a roadside rest area just 5kms east of Balladonia and settled in there. Another really quiet night in the bush, no traffic noise which I'm sure wouldn't have been the case at the roadhouse.
These early dawns are so annoying, we were awake before 6.00am, but managed to cling to the sheets until 7.45am. Over breakfast we checked out the map and our options and decided to turn left at Norseman and spend a few days in Esperance. After all this travelling we feel like a holiday!!!
We stopped for morning tea at a lovely rest area, one not mentioned in our book as it's relatively new. It overlooks a dry lake and is set well back from the road so we've marked it for future use.
Then we stopped in Norseman to get some lunch - not at the cafe this time - we bought rolls and made our lunch in the van before making that left turn and heading down to the coast at Esperance.
We went straight to the caravan park that we'd stayed in just after we got the van, it's small, clean and fills our main criteria of being walking distance to town. (and we get discount).
We booked in for 4 nights and settled down for a good rest in familiar surroundings.
we took a stroll into town on Saturday morning and got fresh WA vegetables -
do you know that it's so hard to get Royal Blue potatoes in other states and they are really THE best potato, and there really isn't any yoghurt quite like Mundella!
The weather in Esperance is lovely - there was a thunder storm during the night leaving the days warm and sunny. We have walked into town, along the beach and had a lovely relaxing time.
The town feels open and friendly - the last time we were here was at the start of summer and it was busy and people were crazy, and noticeably unfriendly. Obviously they don't like their town full of tourists, a few at a time is okay though. We really enjoyed our stay.
Tomorrow we'll head north, back up to Coolgardie and then through the Goldfields area back towards Perth and our rendezvous at Karalee Rocks. This part of the trip is backtracking on our route outwards, but after Karalee we will take a few days to tour around some country towns and bush camps before finally turning onto the road home!!
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