We thought that since today was our last day in Perth, we would try to have a sleep in. William had other ideas. We were woken up by him at 6am; we tried to keep him amused so we could keep sleeping, but we only managed to get another hour in bed. We were up having brekkie and packing up site. We definitely didn’t want to leave. The Barnes’ were all ready to go by 8am but since we didn’t think we’d be travelling home together as they need to be back early next week, we said our good byes and they took off. We had packed up and checked out by 9am.
We had to get petrol and pump up our air shocks before we left, which proved to be harder than we thought. All the servos we pulled into had the same machines where the pressure wouldn’t go high enough for what we needed. We were heading for Kalgoorlie, but figured we’d see how we went and pull up where ever we wanted. Neil drove the first stint, we worked out we’d make it to Merriden on a tank of petrol, there wasn’t much to see on the way there, it was very flat and monotonous. The one thing we saw the whole way was the pipeline that runs from Perth to Kalgoorlie and was originally constructed for the Gold Rush, but has since been upgraded.
We made it to Merriden at about 12.30pm and grabbed some lunch and petrol and found a nice park. Will had a great time on the play equipment and it was hard work to get him back in the car. Kelley drove the next stint to a town called Southern Cross. Again, nothing much to see on the way. We were driving through the main street when we received a text message from Tamara telling us that David had passed out and they were taking him to see a Dr and they were in Southern Cross, we rang her and found where she was. She didn’t know much except that luckily Jean was driving and David had told her he wasn’t feeling well and was going to pass out. Steven & Tamara turned back and Steven drove their car into town. They managed to find the Medical Centre, but they told him to get to the hospital. We figured since David was probably going to be in hospital for a bit, as the nearest Dr wouldn’t get to see him until 5pm, we would all pull up for the night in the Caravan Park that was conveniently across the road from the hospital. The Dr came to see David and said he was very dehydrated; luckily it wasn’t anything more serious. They had him on a drip and decided to keep him overnight. He was also lucky it had happened today and not yesterday as there was no doctor between Kalgoorlie and Perth and they would’ve had to have turned around.
It is a lovely night, not too cold. We are lucky to be in a site that has the wheelchair ensuite between us all so we don’t have to travel far for a shower and more importantly the toilet during the night. We are heading for Kalgoorlie tomorrow and think we’ll do some sightseeing.