Fraser Range Sheep Station, WA September 16, 2009

5 September

I am not a shared bathroom kind of girl.  General rule of thumb for me is, I don’t mind too much where we stay as long as we have an ensuite.  (Okay.  Now I DO care.  I must be getting old.  I like to be pampered with fluffy quilts, and carpets, and giant spa baths and lots of space, but the ensuite is the real clincher.)

Tonight I am in a room in the shearers’quarters on a sheep station with a small electric oil fin heater as the only heating, stone floors, and arctic gale blowing outside and the shared bathroom in a completely different building.  And I don’t mind.

I am so cozy in this bed (queen size, extra high, continental quilt – at last!) that I don’t want to sleep.  I just want to lie here and enjoy it.

I think it is such a relieft to have the big days of the Nullarbor behind us and to be moving into the so-called relaxed pace of the WA lef of the journey.  The next few places, at least, we will get to spend more than one night.  The days in the car will also be, in theory at least, shorter.  Reality has a habit of biting me on things like that, ‘though, so we will have to wait and see.

I have disappointed myself a bit, ‘though, I do have to admit, by how much I am looking forward to civilization.  I am saddened to learn just how urbanised I am.  Today was a tough day in the car, with virtually no snacks, spare a packet of teddy-bear biscuits, and a high dependancy on road houses.

As you may or may not be aware, you cannot take any fruit, vege, nut, soil etc products into WA.  In hindsight I don’t think this applies to processed goodies (eg tinned, maybe even frozen and dried) but we didn’t think too much about it.

We didn’t realise we wouldn’t be able to replenish supplies until Norseman (editor’s note in hindsight – ha!  what wishful thinking!)

We are also pretty desperate for some more botty wipes (eating a couple of kilos of fruit to empty the care before the border is showing in the boys’ nappies).  And I want to buy and exercise book.  And post a letter.

Actually, I just want to be womewhere where I can have a basic understanding of the commerce.  I also would like to stop paying $1.78 for a litre of petrol (and with a headwind, too!); $5.80 for a small cannister of ground pepper and $6- for a hot dog (yes, just a frankfurt on a roll with sauce.)

I think I am getting old.

(I also wish I had gone to the SA and WA Tourist Bureaus and collected brochures when we were planning, but, sadly, the thought didn’t even occur to me until tonight.  Dang internet.)

Camping? September 7, 2009

So just what IS in that top box?

As you may recall, we bought ourselves a bigger car with extra boot space for this trip (among other things).  We also had a top box fitted.  Our plan was to put all our hard purchased camping gear in the top box and have that as an option for approximately half the trip.

Saturday night.  The boys are in bed.  We are supposed to be leaving in the morning, and, in a flurry of uncharacteristic preparedness, we decide to pack the car.  We pack all the camping gear in the top box – that is easily done as we have tucked all those bits aside during the planning period.

Then we put the bags in the boot.

And then we look at the other half of our bags, sitting forlornly beside the front door.

It is time to make a hard call.

Do we toilet train the boys tonight before we go?  Do we put them both in beds?  Do we take no toys?  Or food?  Or maybe clothes?

Or do we can the camping.

Yup.  You guessed it.  We are not camping on this trip, much to everyone’s disappointment (astonishingly, even mine!).  I am very much looking forward to the family reunion the weekend after we return when we should finally be able to put our gear through its paces.

What I was pleased about with this decision was it came through Selwyn and I solving a problem together.  Too much of the preparation has been run as a solo mission by one or other of us and it was starting to not feel like a family holiday.  Even ‘though we were unhappy with the outcome, it was nice to reach it together.

Still, maybe next family holiday we can go to a nudist colony and not have to take all that clothing!

15 Days to Go… August 8, 2009

Wow!  Only  15 days to go, now.  It is all moving very quickly.

It has been a tough week.  DH and I have been so worried about all the things that we had to do, that we didn’t realise all the things the other was worried about.  It all exploded, in, of all things, laughter, on Wednesday as we realised.

We have since attempted several times to have a meeting about it so that we can make a comprehensive list of Things To Do and an Action Plan.  Our youngest has happily thwarted all such organised attempts with a little cough developping into a respiratory infection; a swollen and ulcerated throat; a fever lasting several days; a reaction to the prescribed medication and generally being a very sick little boy.  He is rapidly on the mend now – we know this because he spends every waking moment seeking out mischief again.  The upshot is that we have had a few brief exchanges over the heads (and lungs) of screaming kids, in doctors’ waiting rooms and notes on the dining table.

And now there are only 15 days  to go.

On the up side, I think we have done our dash in camping shops.  We seem to pretty much have all the gear we are intending to leave with – whether or not we need to purchase more along the way is another matter.

• Our tent is weathering in the backyard, and we have extra poles and guy ropes for an awning.
• We have a really neat mini camp stretcher and sleeping bag for our big boy (our little boy has a thermarest and sleeping bag as part of his port-a-cot)
• We all have seats
• We have a light and a groovy wind up torch
• and we have the important luxery items sorted – our inflatable mattress for visitors can be used for camping (we now have a pump that runs off the car to inflate it) and, much to my surprise, we have pillows.  We also have a plastic egg carry case.

Everything else is coming out of the cupboards from the years of backpacking and hiking.

Now, if I could only sort out clothes for the kids, buy myself some underwear, plan our activities, organise the house-sitting, clean the house for the house-sitters…

Camping Shop August 6, 2009

Today we went to a camping shop.  Now let’s be honest – these places do nothing for me.  They are not browsing places, they are purely functional.  You go in; everything seems out of place (well it is all designed for outdoors, now, isn’t it?); you get what you want; you leave.

Well, my kids love them!  Previously we had gone to camping shops with display tents set up and they would go crazy climbing in and out of the tents, giggling like hyenas, so I had thought that it was a tent thing.  Apparently not.  The shop today has nothing to recommend it to adults (unless you want to buy stuff, I guess) and even less to recommend it to children but they had a blast.  It was almost impossible to get them out of the shop!

I just don’t get it.  Let’s just hope they are still this enthusiastic when we are doing the real thing.