1st Half of the camptastic fun - North of Perth all the way to Carnarvon....

Day 1, Perth to Geraldton 545km

We pick up Carlos, introducing our camper van that will feature greatly in the story that follows. So after a painful hour at the camper hire place, the women repeat everything twice! we head on our way. 25km north of Perth we hit scenery that will be pretty standard for this part of the trip. Roads that literally go on for miles, lined with red sandy dirt tracks and then again as far as you can see bushes, heathers and the occasional tree breaking the otherwise incredibly flat terrain! We break our journey on a slight detour (well only 100km, most people over here would drive that far for a beer!) with a quick exploration to the pinnacles desert. The pinnacles were quite bizarre, big bright yellow limestone columns petruding from the ground a fabulous contrast with the colour of the sky, some amazing photo's. Lots of straight road driving later, avoiding some emu's that appeared to want to play chicken and stopping for a picnic in Carlos of chesse and ham sandwiches (we do this everyday from here on in!) we arrive in Geraldton. We use our first communal BBQ and settle in Carlos for an evening of red wine drinking and card playing (also a standard element of this holiday!). We were very grateful to have tried out the transformer element of Carlos before the wine drinking commenced we turn our lounge to bedroom with ease and ZZZZZZzzzzzz.

Day 2, Geraldton to Denham 429km

Another day of lots of driving, Mums please note, we have decided to be prudent and always have 1/2 tank of petrol plus we are carrying 7 litres of drinking water and if that runs out there are always the 2 boxes of wine! We stop only for some batteries for the I-pod speakers as the radio over here is patchy and when you do get it frankly questionable contents and the Stramatolites. The stramatolites are still really a bit of a mystery and we weren't 100% sure what we were looking at, but, the guidebooks tell us they are brown rocklike formations made from modest microbes almost identical to organisms that existed 1900 million years ago...interesting?!? Anyway Denham was small, one road infact most like alot of the towns up here! but we found a fish restaurant that came highly recommended. I was truley beaten a seafood platter of Whole red snapper, 4 giant shrimps, 1 pot of chilli prawns, 1 pot of chilli squid (cream, chilli and lemon juice dressing, which was divine but probably a heart attack on a plate!), 3 oysters and the biggest crayfish I have ever seen. The only thing left for it was a cup of tea in Carlos and bed!

Day 3, Geraldton to Carnarvon 432km

Early start to get to Monkey Mia home of the dolphins, well home to where they wade into the sea to feed them to please a tourist audience who hang around in the hope of being given a fish to throw in. 4 hours later, 2 more petrol stops and a flooded road crossing later (Carlos did us proud!) we make an unscheduled stop in Carnarvon, they closed the road behind us (literally) and the one north is already closed thanks to the recent cyclone so techinally we are what you would call "stuck!" We do take the opportunity to check out the tourist sites which consist of 1 mile Jetty which thanks to the amount of water present was pretty impressive. The gascoine river (red colour) meets the Indian ocean (obviously blue) which provides a crazy line of colour change and red waves! Then still distraught to not have seen live kangaroo's by now and only the road kill version (loads get run over here! ahhh) we find some to wack on the BBQ instead! It was very tasty and we decide to wash it down with a night out drinking in Carnarvon. What an experience, the people here have no teeth, bogans being the technical term (Aussie for Chav!). We visit 3 drinking establishments each one more scary than the last, drink way to much whiskey and pass out back in the safety of Carlos.

Day 4, Carnarvon 0km

Yes, ok we did have a hangover, but actually the roads were still shut and we had already done the unextensive tourist attractions! I made it out of bed a total of 5 times!

Ist - to cook breakfast
2nd - to make lunch
3rd - toilet stop
4th - to plan our escape from Carnarvon
5th - to the cinema and to get ready for bed.

So our plan is, to Haul ass back South as quickly as possible, put a tale on it and call it a fox our new route is cunning! The film was aptly Australia and was definately a good choice, although the cinema in Carnarvon only shows the same film once a day for a whole week and then changes it so there wasn't really any choosing involved!

Day 5, Carnarvon to Rockingham 998km

We made up for yesterday! and drove for 11 hours so really not alot to share with you. Although I will furnish you with some of my general Australia driving observations! They have road trains here which can be up to 38.5m long, so you have to excerise caution when overtaking. Navigating "major" (well In Aussie terms atleast) cities with our road map was very much more down to luck than judgement as road signs helpfully use road names and not places so it's hard to work out what direction you are going in, we did shout out of the window at one point to check with a passing car. Birds and flies like to fly at you, but all petrol stations are helpfully armed with squidgy's. Lastly, a day when the temp hits 40 is not a good day to spend 11 hours in the car and even the wine tasted like it had been bolied.