July 25, Day 457 Ora Banda

Hello everyone, sorry for the delay in updates, I've been a bit slack, not to mention busy.

We made it away last Monday 19^th as planned and free camped at the old Kulyaling townsite near Brookton. It was a nice little spot perfect for a little campfire and marshmallows to toast our first night back on the road. We had the whole camp area to ourselves and woke to the sound of bleating sheep instead of noisy neighbours and traffic.

We splurged the second night and stayed at a caravan park at Kondonin, $15.50 a night powered and we were the only people again, beginning to think we smell. Lovely hot showers and free washing machine, nice town.

On Wednesday we visited Wave Rock, Hippo's Yawn and Mulka's Cave near Hyden, many people had told us it wasn't worth the visit but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We took the gravel road from Hyden to Yellowdine (near Southern Cross) and the van handled well, expect for a bit of bulldust coming in the back window.

Free-camped again at Boorabbin, this time sharing the camp ground with half dozen grey nomads' vans so we are now back on the tourist route.

On Thursday we lunched on the side of the road at Coolgardie – immensely wide streets, it kind of reminds me of Camooweal. We took the back road to Ora Banda from Coolgardie, another well kept road, easy travelling, though more bulldust in the back window, even though I tried to stuff the gaps with paper towel.

We have now caught up with our friends, Terry and Shelley and their daughter Maddy, from Sarina, QLD, they left Fremantle just after Easter. We are staying at the back of Ora Banda Hotel in the caravan park. Shelley and I are working as housekeepers for the hotel, there's about a dozen "rooms" (dongas). Geoff and Terry are going out everyday prospecting, Geoff has borrowed a detector and Terry has had a little bit of luck finding gold.

In 2000 the hotel was bombed by bikies in retribution for a murder. One of the walls in the hotel remains showing the damage. The retired police officer that owned the hotel was later killed in Perth after they had also firebombed his house.

Today (Sunday) we took a touristy drive around the area and Terry showed us the open cut mine nearby, it had a few old mine shafts exposed in the wall of the pit and showed how deep the old timer's went with just a pick and shovel (see photos). The two pictured range from 100 – 150 feet deep - impressive. Some of the shafts along side the road were also pretty deep, wouldn't catch me going down one, not on purpose anyway, few of them are fenced off because of their depth but most are not.

Shelley and I gave Terry and Geoff haircuts today with the clippers and an old ex-army guy came over and asked me if I could cut his hair next, so I did, then I packed up quickly before anyone thought I had an open shop and wrongly thought I knew what I was doing. He was pretty chuffed though and left a happy camper.

We have updated our photo album, finally, hope you like the pics.

Cheers for now.

Shelley, Geoff and Erin

July 12, Day 444 Fremantle

Greetings everyone.

Well the World Cup is finally over – loved the action, hated the vuvuzela's, sounded like being stuck in a beehive while we were watching the matches, as I'm sure everyone would agree.

We are almost ready to hit the road again, our ETD is Monday 19th July, end of WA school holidays. I don't know if you've been following the weather over here, but it's blowing a gale and rather wet. This makes it a bit harder to pack up than anticipated but also makes us grateful that we aren't in the camper trailer anymore.

Geoff and I both finish work at the end of this week. We delayed a little as the clutch decided to play up and had to be replaced last week. All good now, glad it didn't happen on the Nullarbor while we were towing.

We fully intended to explore down south of here as we had heard so many great things but the cold and being homesick for the east coast has postponed that. We prefer to free-camp with a solar shower and porta-potti and a very cold winter down south is not at all appealing. We shall return though, never fear.

We are excited but also a little apprehensive about travelling again. The van is a lot bigger than the camper trailer so we have to make some allowances – can't just go bush like we're used to and have to watch for low branches!

Geoff is currently setting up the van for 12 volt lighting – he's got 2 deep cycle batteries and all the lights and is in the process of installing the wiring – little holes everywhere. The fridge is 240 volt so we'll have to use the car fridge again when we're mobile. Just got used to having a freezer again too.

I think Erin is looking forward to heading east the most. Unfortunately it hasn't been the best caravan park for her, it doesn't cater for kids so most families stay further south at Coogee and Woodman Point, but they don't take long-termers so we had to stay here at Fremantle Village, convenient for work and grocery shopping though.

Hope this finds everyone well.

Cheers for now