Thank you so much to Cruisin’ Motorhomes. Nearly 27,000 km across and around this amazing country of ours without so much as a flat tyre! What an adventure we had…

Our last border crossing as we head home 😢 As should be the case after a lot of travelling, feelings are very mixed. On one hand your looking forward to the familiar- your own bed, bathroom, space in general… on the other hand you’d like the adventure to continue.

But how’s this weather?? Seems like only yesterday we were in shorts and t-shirts on the beach!

Sovereign Hill. An amazing recreation of an 1850’s gold town. The attention to detail over acres and acres of land was incredible! We ventured underground to experience a ‘collapsed’ gold mine, tried our hand at panning, watched a gold pour (and held a $220,000 gold bar 🤑), wandered through the different living options from tent, to cottage to mansion, enjoyed the street theatre (even if the guy playing a criminal was the same guy who was a soldier 30 minutes ago 😂), saw some children in their lessons, bowled and watched (and tasted) some sweets being made. Best Friday 13th ever!

Some more seaside camping on the Eyre peninsula. We were hoping to see the local dolphins that follow boats into the harbour area but sadly it was a pretty quiet (and windy) time so nothing except a seal was about. Thought we were due for some history so we checked out the Maritime museum where they had the HMAS Whyalla on display- the first ship built at the Whyalla shipyard in 1941. It was used as a minesweeper in WWII and because of the flat bottomed hull meant that it would lean up to 40° either side… a vomit inducing thought! They also show a short video on how they moved the ship from the water to the museum 2km inland. We really enjoyed the museum and tour and recommend it to anyone passing through.

Not a bad spot to shake off the Nullarbor dust!

Nullarbor Cruisin’…

Great Ocean Drive. This is a 40km looped drive from town centre along the coastline, out past the wind farm (working overtime with the wind we’ve had these last few days) past the Pink Lake (not actually pink) and back to town. Amazing beaches and spectacular views!

Lucky Bay. On one hand, not so lucky for us- Emma broke a thong, Michelle got stung by a bee and it was the windiest day we’ve experienced since our time in Adelaide 💨

On the other hand it really is beautiful… and unlike Hellfire Bay, Thistle Cove and Le Grand Beach, it was actually open. I’m sure this National Park is amazing (and packed) in spring and summer- I guess not getting to see much this time gives us a reason to come back one day!

After leaving Margaret River we stopped off at the Valley of the Giants. Here you get to do a tree top walk 40 metres up through the awesomely named Tingle trees. Back at ground level there is also an Ancient Empire walk where, if you’re lucky, you might get to see a quokka. (We were not lucky 😢)

We then continued on to Denmark where the caravan park gave us two of our favourite things- plenty of kangaroos and the sound of waves crashing as you sleep 😴

Denmark is famous for the Elephant Rocks… you do have to use your imagination but the whole area is undoubtedly beautiful!

After a week checking out the cities of Fremantle and Perth it was nice to get back to a more rural environment, embracing bush walks and camp fires in Margaret River. On our way down we stopped at Busselton and walked the nearly 2km out to the end of the jetty. After quite a few months of t-shirts and shorts it has been a bit of a shock to have to discover dressing in layers again!

PS Being in Margaret River is like being in the Hunter Valley in NSW- you have to buy some alcohol! So we stopped in at Giniversity and ‘graduated’ with a lovely honey whiskey liqueur 😋