24 Dec, Perth

Hello over there!

We haven’t written for a while because we have been too relaxed. However we haven’t missed the opportunity to send our well wishes and prayer for your safety - as you travel, exercise or try something out of the ordinary - during this time of celebration of the birth of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus.
We write from sunny Belhus, to the north of Perth, we are staying at Rob’s Uncle and Aunt’s.
After saying goodbye to Emily’s parents in Bunbury, we headed due south, to Augusta. We tried some fishing to no avail. But enjoyed the scenery and the sunshine. We stayed in Leeuwin national park, at point rd and Conto’s spot for a total of three night. Nice location but very windy coast. We did some Christmas present shopping in Margaret River after wish Rob finally tested out his new snorkel at Prevally Beach.
We headed from there to Busselton for a night and day. On Saturday morning we woke up nice and early (which turned out to be a wise decision) and headed for Mandurah train station. We were off to the cricket at the WACA. Day 4 was anticipated as the best day to go for the 1st test against South Africa. It started well, with keeper Brad Haddin fallinf just 5 runs short of what would have been a fantastic 100. We enjoyed the WACA atmosphere sitting on the grass of the west bank with a much un-MCG crowd of 10,071. We enjoyed it so much that we will return for some of the domestic 20-20 matches when Emily’s family join us for a week mid Jan. Turns out the cricket ended up being a good time for the Proteas not us, but that’s sport.

We found a caravan park to freshen up and sleep and in the morning we headed to the Gateway Community Church. There we met some friends who had moved from Melbourne. We spent 3 days with them and they took us through the Burke st mall equivalent and helped us relax.
We drove from there (west perthish) to Rob’s family on Tuesday and we will stay there for 3 weeks or so while we try to get some work and also get to know Rob’s cousins a bit more.
We hope you enjoy this Festive season safely with your family and friends.
Much love - Rob and Emily…. Ho Ho Hover and Out.

14 Dec - Bunbury

Morning All, Finally some warmer weather!! yay!! 26 sat, 36 sun (allegedly)

after trying out 5 different 4wd tracks on thursday and all of them being either gated or tree over track, it was decided to stick to the main roads. we stayed at falkland falls in a lovely little hut, with a pot belly stove. so warm and dry, nice to escape the rain. it had rained overnight everynight for the last 5..! On the same day we also went to the tree top walk and opted for the free ground level attraction... been to the otways, that bigger and better... we also went to the 'swarbrick' interpretive cultural forest part, basically: greenies putting art into nature and saying how great nature is and dont chop it down. nice walk though. good on them

in the morning on friday we met a couple travelling from belgium, and they were great, welcome, company. what started off as a "hello, how are you", turned into a lunch, dinner and late hour conversation. Man, this couple (Heikki and Sandy) had a wealth of information to give us, which is very valuable to us because they are going the opposite direction.

Saturday morning we drove from our rest area, 190km SE of Bunbury, to meet up with Emily's parents who are "on business" in the area. If anyone from the company is reading this, they are not having fun and are doing lots of work.... we stayed with them in bunbury and this morning (Sunday) we are going to go to church together. given the weather, the company and the town, it feels a lot like home.

Tomorrow Emily and i will travel south again to augusta area and work our way back up a bit slower. We have a lot of snorkelling to do.

Enjoy your day, whoever is reading this. Over and out

11 Dec - Albany to Denmark

Hi Everyone. Sorry its been so long. Time has been flying on by for us. We had a fantastic 3 days in and around Albany, and we had a dairy feast travelling thru Denmark.
We got to Albany, and for all us east coasters that’s pronounced Al - bany as the locals assert. We drove in on Sunday morning hoping to go to church ‘somewhere’. we followed the signs to the visitor centre until there were no more signs, then we got lost. So we turned around, heading for the car, when I stumbled across a bookmark lying on the ground, from a local family church Christmas carols. Coincidence? So we logged on the net, since we didn’t have any maps and couldn’t find the visitor centre, and googled our way to church. Great service, followed by a bbq at a very welcoming family’s house. Ended up getting a few mud maps on some great campsites around, which, eventually is where we stayed for three nights. Oh, to not have to set up/pack up for a while. Relief! While in Albany it rained, blew, rained some more, shone, then rained again. In amongst all that we got to see ‘Whale World’ (where we couldn’t stop singing the Wayne’s World theme song), where we found out that Australia has a rich whaling industry, finished not so many years ago! Notice how we don’t bring that up when bringing down the Japanese… We saw some pretty amazing rock formations, ‘The Gap’ and ‘natural bridge’. We went to the blowholes, and conveniently it was very windy, therefore being a great experience (except for the 78 step climb back to the car…)

At our campsite (Floodgates) we had a local bandicoot, which I think had a wife and child, but they didn’t always stay together for photo opportunities…

We also had some cool neighbours, who were helpful in teaching us about fishing and fish filleting etc. They also pointed out some great campspots on the north west coast, for which Emily and I both invested in snorkelling gear.
On Wednesday, we travelled in and around Denmark and thanks to some generous friends we were treated to a lovely cheese platter and drinks at the Denmark Farmhouse Cheese. From there we drove to the honey meadery and treated ourselves to some honey ice cream, and I got to try out my Dutch to the shopkeeper - admittedly my Dutch is very poor. We then travelled to the toffee factory, where we discovered we didn’t have much cash remaining, no surprises… but found enough to get a little. Banana toffee if you’re wondering.
After all the eating, we decided it was time to try catch some more food, in the ocean. So we drove to Boat Harbour inlet and found a nice spot off the rocks, where *coughEmcough* caught a Gurnard Perch, which we read is venomous, but we cooked it up anyway. No signs, of vomiting so its all good. After I tried and failed to gain some fishing cred we left and went to set up camp. Parry beach was our final destination, which is where we are writing from.
In the mean time we will meet up with Emily’s parents this weekend in Bunbury, then continue head back and keep going with the great south west. Until next time, over and out.

04 Dec- Ravensthorpe - thanks for your emails :)

BRRRRR. I (rob) feel like we’re in Melbourne. Sunny, overcast, thunderstorms, clearing, raining, cold, humid, hot. When we left esperance this morning, it was clear and blue sky, not as windy, just nice really- but we were leaving! The last 48 hours have been strong southerly winds, with heavy rain and electric light shows. Esperance is a lovely town, I just wish it was warm and sunny. Oh well, you get what you’re given.
We set off at 1030, had lunch at Munglinup where the flies were “relentless beasts” according to Emily. Then we headed to the tourist information centre to get some umm, tourist information, I guess. So now we have set up camp 20k south of Ravensthorpe and in the next few days we will explore fitzgerald national park and surrounds. But as for blogging, there really isn’t much to report. We are still enjoying ourselves, it certainly beats working, and enjoying each others company. It’s really quite nice to take time away from reality and actually get to see my wife and get to know her more.
Hopefully the next blog will be more interesting than this, so until then… over and out

01 Dec. Lucky Bay - Esperance

Hi there. We write from sunny esperance. It took us a while to get here on Saturday, driving through (no exaggerations) 150 sand/bog holes which was thanks to about 300mm of rain that fell the 3 days prior. We decided to take the gravel road south of Balladonia, taking us to cape arid national park, which upon arrival, found out it is closed due to flooding, thanks for the update parks online - NOT! So we drove on into the night, until we hit Cape Le Grande NP (some 12hours later). Which, unlike cape arid, wasn’t closed due to ‘impassable’ tracks. Turns out all the people heading to arid np did like us, drove to lucky bay, problem being, they all got there early enough, so we hunted, looked, and found a spot in amongst all the campervans.
Anyway, now we’re here and we are having a great time- really relaxing. We didn’t even drive on Sunday, RELAXING!!!. We have spent 3 nights at lucky bay (cape le grand nat. park.) where the sand is white and the water is bright blue. The only shame is it’s not hot. Sunny days, but only about 21-24 C. however no rain, so it still is quite nice. We have done some scenic walks and rob did a ride with a fellow camper.
We caught another couple of fish, sent one back and ate the other, not bad, but not as good as the flathead. We will try for some squid off the pier tomorrow.
That’s all for now, over and out.

27 Nov - Eucla WA!!

It’s official, Emily has been to WA, yes for the first time. Em was very happy to see this sign.

It was quite an adventure driving the last 11km to WA. We stopped at the 11km peg rest area, which had a narnia-type back door, to the beach (3km). We ate all our fruit n veg, before the check point, then kept driving. Begin rabbit warren!! I’ll gladly admit it, we were lost. What Em and I did know was that we needed to drive west. We knew that we were in between the eyre hwy and the ocean, so if we just keep driving, eventually we will end up in WA. Turns out CS Lewis had us covered. We drove back into the fruitfly checkpoint via the back entry to the random caravan park. Happy days.
From here we drove to a destination highly recommended by our good friend James, and I think I (rob) owe him one. The photo’s that I took hardly do it justice. This is an amazing part of God’s incredible creation that few have seen, and only the daring will… I’m very glad we stopped and asked for directions, because there certainly aren’t any signs telling you how to get there, for obvious reasons. So, what am I talking about?? Weebubbee Cave. If you turn your screen brightness up enough, you can see the difference between rock and crystal clear water. I couldn’t capture (being pitch black) the continuation of the cave, but it keeps going. I estimate that I descended approximately 100m to get to the start of the water, and only now wish I packed my wetsuit and snorkel (and waterproof light, camera, flippers, epirb….) Whenever you come out to WA on the Nullarbor, and think you’re up to it, ask me for directions!!

Entry Shmentry!

A few things I’m glad we packed, helmet light.

Car recovery gear (used to absail down, climb to car.)

After this, I was sick of seeing my mtb covered in dust looking lonely, and Emily wanted to wear in her new boots. So I went for a ride, and Em went for a walk. I discovered two things. 1, there’s a lot you don’t see driving along the main road (see photo) and 2, if you ride for 15mins with a blistering tail wind it hurts to ride against it in the same time frame!!
that’s all for now, as for us, we are driving into the not so pleasant smelling west end of the road kill covered Nullarbor. Over and out

p.s. if you feel inclined to do so, please email us, we’d love to hear how Melbourne life is, how good the water tastes, what we shouldn’t miss…
emrob06@bigpond.com

26 Nov - Yalata

Hi there. We have crossed the rabbit proof fence in Yalata. For those of you who don’t know, a group of us, and mainly one man, Damian, crossed the country on pushbike in the name of charity (raceacrossaustralia.com). The grate in photo, which is the road part of the nation long rabbit/ vermin proof fence, has special significance to myself (rob) and damian. I thought I would take the opportunity to measure the length of this because on a 40degree day, when all was not well, we decided that it would be too difficult to ride slowly over this so with 100m metres to go before it we sped up to 40-45km/h and bunny hopped it, in true mountain biker fashion. So here it is damian, all 4.5 metres of it, with gaps big enough to lose your leg in. for everyone else, you probably wont get this, but that’s ok, you can read the rest of the blog.
After all the fun of the grate, we drove on in to Yalata. It was really quite awkward for us, as we normally have a purpose to be here. And with our contacts, Jonny and Trish on holiday, this was all the more awkward. We ended up going into the shop and getting lunch, sitting around, when finally, we saw someone we knew. Ivan, Richard and Ernie were all happy to have a chat, Richard mainly wanted to tell us how excited he was about the postie coming tomorrow (in house humour again, sorry), Ivan was telling us about the 36 pallet loads of instant turf he laid on the sand/rock oval, that should be fun to maintian!! And Ernie was happy to say very little. I think he was a bit shy with none of his peers around him.
Once school had finished we met up with some of the children that we know through the holiday programs that the Wantirna mob have run in recent times, we played catch-catch (tiggy), and the boys got me (rob) to throw them into backflips for about 10 minutes. These kids have got some energy!
Enough catch-catch for Emily and I. We left, back to the roadhouse campsite for dinner and an early night. Little sleep and about 20 road trains later it is breakfast and now we are off again, off to see the coast of the ‘Great Australian Bight’.
It should be noted that although allegedly quite good, Telstra reception is really quite poor, until about perth, from memory, but we’ll try to keep things updated. If you don’t see any changes, we are probably not dead, just out of reception. Over and out.

24 Nov, Nundroo

Hello again. Emily and I are doing well. On Saturday morning we arranged to meet with a friend, Pastor Dean and his wife Louisa, who I (rob) have come to know through Yalata mission trips (and other brief Ceduna ride-by’s). We arranged to meet at their house at 10:30am. We arrived, knocked, called, sat, waited, gave up. Thought, oh well, maybe something came up… Turns out Dean was taken off by ambulance to hospital. So we went to visit him there, briefly (supposed to be resting). We agreed that we would catch up in better conditions. All the best Dean, thanks for your friendship, Get well soon.
From there we travelled to a quiet spot called Davenport creek for 2 nights. Drove up to the carpark, Em and I agreed, this will do. At this stage I will mention that the car brakes have been feeling very spongy for the last 500km, to add to my workload it turns out the front left wheel bearing was as loose as a… it was loose. So for the next 2 hours, I had the tools out in order to find just what was wrong. I was getting very frustrated pulling the front wheel apart, as only 3 weeks prior did I pay a mechanic to fix it, was I doing it again…
see photo in my left hand, for the typical 2 cent part $35 labour!! Not to mention the you-beaut tool I bought was left at home. By this stage I’m ropable. Lucky for me I have a great friend to calm the frustrations. Thanks for your help Em, who might I say, got her hands greasy for the cause! Needless to say, 250k’s on and we are stopping very well and cornering without the wheel trying to wobble off.
Mechanics aside, sitting down watching the real worker work (cooking dinner), the “unofficial ranger” (UR) drives around and says, ‘this isn’t the best campsite mate, this is where you wanna be’ (pointing on a map). Ok, I feel like a goose now, thanks buddy. So over dinner Emily and I discuss the option of packing up the tent and driving to the actual creek site. Agreed, we will take out the pegs, flatten the tent, throw it on the roof and go flat chat over sand before sunset.

Ok, ‘UR’ was a bit vague on directions, and I was a bit nervous on the sand, turns out we drove 5k’s too far and ended driving with lights on to find this creek. Aaaaaaghhhh!!! Now we’ve been driving long enough, its getting dark, no wait, it IS dark, lets just stop. We did. I don’t know what it is about the south coast of Australia, but there is no such thing as consistency in the wind. Using the car as a windshield at due south, by 3am wind was due easterly and vicious, so up and out of bed, re-peg the tent, move the car, try and sleep.
We both woke up miserable and groggy at about 845. Should we go to church?? Yeh, ok. Bang, they’re off. Packing up sandy tent, and stuffing in breaky, driving off to the local. By the way, what church starts at 9am?? If you didn’t already guess, we are an hour late. Ok, next church, ooh, 1030 start, lets go there!! I might say things were a bit different than what Emily and I are used, but how shallow of us to think every church is the same. Drove back to D.creek
This time, with plenty of time to drive, we looked at that map, got our bearings and found that it was actually very simple to drive to this creek site. Quite a site too . Out with the rod, and fishing for a while. No bites. Back to car, set up tent, cook dinner, relax. Lovely evening walk along the sand - saw little orange jellyfish, and some crabs, and lots of fish coming to the surface for some insect delight - so wish we had a floater hook!! Tried again with the rod, but same no-result. Slept very well Sunday night. Through rain and wind, Praise God.
We decided we have had enough of Ceduna and we want to go to Yalata and then get out of SA. So we drove past fowlers bay, to see what accommodation might be like. 50k winds blowing southerly, not that again. We up and left driving past a Yalata trip favourite Mexican hat beach - see photo for explanation of location.
From there we drove to nundroo road house. We drove past a salt lake with water. Not something I expected. Then we got to the road house. When we got there, a lone aboriginal man asked for a ride up to his car, he didn’t want to walk back with a full jerry, fair enough, I wouldn’t either (but that’s why I carry enough fuel). Anyway, willingly I obliged. Was only ‘up the road’. 52kms later (by the way, Emily is at the road house, having a drink, shower, feet up) I am driving into Yalata a good 18hours earlier than anticipated. Mark is up from Adelaide for a funeral and we had a good chat along the way, sharing stories from past trips. Leaving Yalata I saw Ernie, one of our friends there, he rode over with this puzzled look on his face, “what are you doing here”. so I explained and said see you tomorrow.
Arrived back at the roadhouse conveniently too late to prepare dinner, so we gladly waltzed into the restaurant for a no effort required meal. Thanks for the fresh seafood! Yum.
That’s it, you’re all up to date. See you next time on the adventures of Rob and Em. Over and out.

21 Nov - Ceduna

After having an encounter with a disgruntled Coffin Bay local ("do you know you're not supposed to camp here?!?") we headed north west to Streaky bay - nothing suss just a nice little beachside town. Best camp site ever! On a cliff overlooking the ocean and a stunner sun set. Decided we needed to take it easy and relax so….. Rob bought his first fishing rod and Em a hand reel, some bait, extra hooks and off we trotted to the beach. So in 2 days we have caught 6 fish! Rob 5: Em 1. We only kept one of those and that was the one I (Em) caught, a 40cm flathead,

for breaky tomorrow. So that leaves us in Ceduna (40km south easterlies Damo) where we will be heading out of reception for a while - possibly a month. Lets see how Telstra go.
Over and out (apparently)

9pm 19th Nov - Coffin bay

no one told us it was going to be cold windy and wet in SA late spring. whats going on??!! ok, so we havent been sleeping well, warm enough, just windy which makes the tent awful noisy. it really sucks when we pull into a site and there two greynomad caravans sitting still in the wind. oh well, the joys of travelling.
whinging aside, today was fun. We got to experience our first sand driving (photo still on camera). that was quite hard work really, rocky, dirty, muddy 4wd is fine, but trying to not bury ourselves in sand...? lets just say it got the adrenaline pumping. good time though.
i dont know who has been to port lincoln N.P., but apparently its breathtaking, today, being overcast, kind of did the same for our thoughts about it. we did see a seal though :)
see you soon...over and out.

up to 17th november. flinders ranges

Blog, 17th November
Left Broken hill after stopping at the Silverton pub (popular movie hotel) to have a beer and chat and then a random MTB ride (rob) with Ces, who is the 14yo son of the publican and current junior champion of broken hill cycles. So he took me for a tour on the heritage trail. At one stage he said “there’s a corner down here you have to watch out for” so riding along expecting him to point it out (he didn’t) I almost dropped into a valley. Anyway, I smashed him up the hills so its all good.
We didn’t want to pay for a camp that night so we found a spot just inside the nsw border. Awesome sunset, really windy, but good sleep (except for the truck firing his engine up before sunrise).
So we are now in SA, drove 351km to Arkaroola. This is pretty much to top of the flinders ranges. After driving for 3 hours on washboard roads, past ruins and sheep stations, our destination surprised us. No farmers, or utes!! Where are the locals?? Just glossy magazines, Small wheel drives and fees!
Ok, whinge over, we went for a walk to a lookout nearby, it was nice, then I (rob) noticed it was an 8km loop. I thought, this would be awesome single trail, and it was- so glad I brought the bike!! After that we had dinner, then went to bed. In the morning we had a shower and freshen up and left, we went to begin our first 4wd adventure. (planning to stay bush as much as possible through the F.R.). We saw some pretty nice water holes and gorges (all dry though- false advertising I reckon), not to mention the ancient rocky mountains, WOW!
One track along the way was very eroded and even though dry, was quite difficult to negotiate, (thanks for the training rob b). Once we left that track, that was pretty much it for flinders ranges (4wd wise) so we pumped the tyres back up and high tailed it through the remaining bitumen. Staying about 60km out of port augusta tonight at Warren Gorge… Over and out

the beginning - 13th nov

We finally left Melbourne. Our departure date was a week later than first thought, but when thinking we didn’t realise how long things would take. So we headed for the NSW border at Mildura. We didn’t get that far so we camped in the final 10 metres of Hattah national park. We poked our nose into the official campsite but they wanted $13 for some dirt. Turns out the dirt is the same up the road only free.
We made OJ in the morning to use up our 3kg and obey the fruit fly zones. Tastes great but is really sticky! From here we drove into Mildura.
We decided to stop here and shop for a few things. As if we haven’t spent enough in the last 2 weeks getting ready! If you look at the car fully loaded, 110L diesel, 30L water, house… you’ll see the back end is a bit ‘saggy.’ one job we didn’t get around to doing back in Melbourne was fitting the polyair springs. Lets just say not one bump went unnoticed.

So we chatted to some people who knew some people who had a workshop. So we drove to the workshop and chatted to these people, in particular, Paul, manager at Mildura auto/ Shell servo benetor rd or something. He pointed out the jack and stands and I (rob) got to work. Once fitted and inflated, we gained 50mm suspension travel and a much more comfortable ride. Just ask Emily, I was so much happier.
So the new hiluxury took us to broken hill, which is where we will spend the night and day tomorrow. We will catch up again on the other side of the flinders rangers. Over and out.