• raspberry
• maple

“ploppers” – good rocks for dropping in pluddles to make a big splash

“plops”- verb – act of above

Eyre Penninsular SA

Stirling Ranges WA

Baladonia WA

Fraser’s Range WA

Albany WA

Best pillows: Kalgoorlie

Most revolting digs: Esperance

Best night out:  Legionaires’ Club, Broken Hill.  Close 2nd – Pier Hotel, Esperance.

Banoffee Pie IRL, definately a high!

I first backpacked on my own through New Zealand when I was 19.  I have done a few trips – my biggest solo effort was 3 months across Canada from coast to coast.

And then I started travelling with Selwyn.

As you may well know, he has itchy feet and together we have backpacked Portugal, China, Russia, the Baltics, Central Asia and more.  EXCEPT Selwyn like to eat well.

Admittedly in Asia eating out is easy.  Easier that finding facilities to cook for yourself.  And a Russian beer-tent is just THE place to be on a summer evening.

But last night we needed to cook our own meal in a shared kitchen and I had to think.  It wasn’t just a reflex thing.  (We had sausages, chops and veges BTW).  I watched all the travellers’ classics of noodles and pasta and eggs and veg and was ashamed.

Then, this morning as I stuffed more dirty washing in the washing bag, ready for the laundromat in Kalgoorlie, I remembered stomping clothes in the shower as Dad taught me and realised that, while not so immediate, the laundromat was just easier.

Have I lost touch with my inner adventurer?

We had an awful time moving him from the bassinette to the cot as a baby, and we were befinning to suspect it would be a repeat of the baby sleeping with his legs hanging over the side.

Then, the other night, when we walked into the hotel room in Eucla, he put his pillow and Duckie down on the spare single bed.  When I sat on it later he told me to get off “his bed”.  And later again when I set up his cot he told me he didn’t need it – he was sleeping in the bed.  And he did!  All night!

The same thing again last night (on the base of a bunck bed, too.)

How bizarre.  How amazing. Just shows you they do things when they are ready and they will undoutedly catch you out.

Maybe it is a WA thing?

Note:  This was written (on paper) some weeks ago.  So far he has slept in a big bed every night since then.  I wonder what will happen when we get home?

Cappacino ice-ocoffee, espresso iced-coffee (yummy, btw), sweet iced coffee, standard iced coffee (non-premium), banana, banana-fizz, minty-fresh, spearmint, honeycomb, choc-honeycomb, chocolate, choc-malt, vanilla… and finally strawberry.

Wow!

As we drive into Norseman there are all manner of alluring signs: “Supermarket – in town”; “Bank-ATM – in town”; “Cafe – in town”; “Newsagent – in town”; “petrol, information centre…” they continue, evey 15m down the road.  It was lunch time and our anticipation was rising.  I had been fantasising about camp meals I could cook as I drove in.

It was Sunday.  As we drove into the town it became apparent that this definitely was NOT Ceduna (editor’s note – the SA end of the Nullarbor) I would say that it is a one-horse town, but that would just be a shocking pun… (in case you are not up on such details, “Norseman” was a horse credited with finding a nugget of gold in the area and causing the settlement.)

Having toured the two streets of the town centre we soon discovered everything bar the petrol stations and the information centre were shut.  I  guess the difference here was that we had a choice of roadhouses to hang out in.

Still, we had lunch, the boys had a run, we picked up some maps and the petrol was “cheaper than Hawker” (134.9 per L)

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.)

Usually, if we have a double bed, both boys end up joining us.

A queen size will find only one of them.

On the one occassion when we were lucky enough to have a king size bed they both stayed firmly routed in their own beds!

Go figure!