Picture this!

Here's a clever little way to add a personal touch to your bathroom.

I like the idea of bringing back the humble shower curtain featuring a favourite holiday snap or image that suits the theme of your bathroom.

Get creative at PhotoShowerCurtain.com where you can send your digital image and turn it into shower art.
And they deliver to Australia. Awesome.


Source: Frankie

Moving to the colour city

Well well well. Nothing like the harsh reality of a dream vacation ending and back to work to stall blog post updates eh?

Now that the real world is flooding back in, I'm changing tact and this little blog is moving away from our adventures in Van Morrison.

In just one month I'm moving to Orange, NSW to see what life is like living in what is being called an 'evo-city'. If you've not been there, this country town (which is about 3.5 hours west of Sydney) is full of vineyards, nice places to eat, lots of agricultural and industry businesses and family.

I'll be getting a proper all four seasons in one year and I've managed to skip out on this years cold cold winter in time for spring where it turns out I already have flowers growing in the garden!

So I'm looking forward to sharing with you all kinds of  random and fabulous things that I enjoy as I settle into a country life. All the good things that make for a better Tuesday.
Yay.

Van Morrison: Bright Side of the Road

Well looky here, it’s been quite a few weeks since my last post. 
 

There's been quite a kerfuffle this last week or so and last Tuesday, we were driving a hire car to our last destination, while the Hilux was all bent out of shape on the back of a truck to it’s home.

And Van Morrison was towed on the back of another truck to be retired in a car port.

So we were a little busy that Tuesday due to factors out of our control.

In my last post we were still (only just) in Western Australia.

Since then – in just 2 weeks we’ve travelled over 3,000 kilometres across 3 states, flown in to Sydney for a friend’s wedding from Darwin, caught up with family in Queensland and found ourselves in a car accident.

So let me stop on some of the highlights of the last 3 weeks as we find ourselves over 100 days and 20,000 kilometres on the road and exactly 16 Tuesday’s after we set off.

Starting with Northern Territory, a state that we didn’t give the attention to which it deserves, due to lack of time on our part.

We spent about 4 days at Litchfield National Park, a place well worth a visit – only 130kms south of Darwin. It’s super impressive with waterfalls and crocodile free swimming spot. There were a good few days in the 32 degree heat sitting in ponds filled with freshwater from the flowing waterfalls.

The only thing that got me out of these freshwater pools – and very quickly – was a dirty big golden tree snake.

I was casually swimming along when about half a metre to my right I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was the snake as it headed OUT of the water… quickly explaining what had felt like reeds wrapping round my ankles moments before.

You would never have seen so much splashing about in the few seconds it took for me to get out of that pond.

After Litchfield, we headed to Darwin for a few days. I flew back to Sydney for a 48 hour round trip on 2 red-eye’s for the wedding of two lovely friends. It was gorgeous and fabulous and loads of fun – and completely strange for me to back teetering in high heels around the city.

When I got back, we left Darwin and had 5 days to get to the Queensland coast and drove for 8-9 hours a day. The best stop-over was a place in NT called Larrimah – if you ever find yourself there, do go in to the pub.

Not only is it totally outback, with various rusty car parts strewn around as decoration, a big old wooden bar bench and your average outback locals – they have their very own zoo.

The zoo has a variety of massive deadly snakes (in glass cages that did not look strong enough for my liking), birds, emus, wallabies and big old crocodiles.

It was not just bizarre, it was actually pretty awesome. Especially when this little wallaby gave me a smoochie:

Staying at a variety of outback roadhouses, we filled the car with very expensive petrol and changed a flat car tyre by the side of the road. It was by and large uneventful and we were very happy when we finally got to Mackay.

We spent a day in Mackay seeing my cousin Mark and his wife and their 3 little kids. So cute. Then headed south and spent a few days at Yeppoon – a gorgeous little beachside town and

another few days at Hervey Bay before heading to Noosa to meet up with my friend Megs, who is on her own little around Australia trip going the opposite direction to us.

On what was inevitably our last day with Van Morrison in tow, we cruised into the Gold Coast in the early morning and parked Morrie at my aunt and uncle’s house before heading out. We were at the gold coast at this particular time so that Husband Man could join his man mates for a bucks weekend.
After picking up one of his friends at the airport, I drove us all to their destination for the weekend.

We only got five minutes up the road, when a car pulled out in front of me, in a place where I couldn’t slow down in time to avoid crashing right into it. It all happened very quickly and was quite horrific, but it could have been worse. All of us came out of the crash un-injured, the other driver is ok. Our bull-bar took most of the hit, but the whole incident meant the Hilux was no longer road-worthy.

So Van Morrison has been retired to the car port of my parentals on the north coast, until we get some more time and money for another little gypsy adventure.

On the bright side, we're super thankful that Van Morrison wasn't attached to the car at the time, that there wasn't a car behind us at the time, that there was an ambulance close to the scene and there in a minute and that everyone came away without injury.

In just a few weeks we’ll be back in old Sydney town – but as we travel there we’ll be seeing loads of family and friends along the way….

Not quite over yet and still so much to look forward to.

the shrieking woman

So we decided to high-tail it quite quickly across the Kimberley’s.

This is a place where you need to have mad 4WD skillz, heaps of time and a bit of cash for the tours and flights so you can see it at it’s best.

None of these we have.

So rather than waste time pining over what we don’t have, we figured we’d come back here someday when we can do it properly. And as such, we’ve driven almost over a thousand kilometres in just a few days to get to the Northern Territory.

You can’t drive without a few days rest now and then and every state border has a fruit fly quarantine so we pulled up at Kununurra for 2 nights, to recoup and eat vegetables. Kununurra is couple hundred kilometres west of the Northern Territory border.

The general routine when we pull into a caravan park is that I wait in the car while Husband man goes to organise a site and make payments. And there was quite a long line of caravans as we pulled up. As they slowly got placed, about 15 minutes later, I had inched our rig to the front of the line right outside the office door, waiting for husband man to step out.

It was here that I encountered the amazing Shrieking Woman.

It was about 32 degrees, a dry heat and smack bang in the middle of the day. So after pulling the van up to the office entrance, I opened the car door, stood up and leaned against the seat to get blood flowing to the legs and some fresh air after 400kms stuck in the car. Husband man was still inside the office arranging a site for us. I kind of stared blankly at the office door.

Pulling me out of my day dream with a jolt comes a woman – bursting out of the office. She makes a bee-line toward me, shouting all the way. I can hardly understand a word she is saying because her shouty is in some high-pitched frequency that only dogs could hear I was assuming she could not possibly be directing that kind of shouty at me.

When I realise she is getting closer to me and looking me in the eye – I start to try to understand what she is shrieking at.

“You’re not going any further right now” she shrieks.

I kind of stare blankly at her and then I figure that because of all the people lined up, the must have run out of sites so I’ll have to reverse out and we’ll head off to another caravan park. And before I can properly finish that thought, she’s shouting:

“You’ll just have to stay there”.

“Um, okay” I reply, staring at her blankly.

It’s about now that I am at a loss as to why this woman is shouting at me, it’s not like I knew they would be all booked out or anything. Meanwhile, where in the fark is my Husband man.

My apparent lack of anxiety toward the situation must have unsettled her, because she went from shouty into shrieking as she was saying:

“You’re going to have to stay there, you’ve got a flat”.

I am still standing there with a lack of bother, which was obviously the incorrect response.

“A flat!!!!!” she was shreaking. And waving her hands about the air. All very hot and bothersome.

So, as I understood it now, we were not refused entry, but we had a flat tyre on the caravan. Still, I wasn’t phased. Surely if one has a flat tyre, one changes their flat tyre and there is not need for incessant shrieking about it.

So I said – “Oh, okay. Well we’ll just put the spare on”.

Cause, duh, that’s why we have a spare tyre is it not?

“You’re going to have to stay right there and change that flat” she shrieked “You can’t park a caravan like that”.

“OK, no worries” was all I could be bothered to muster up. And finally, finally, Husband man walks out of the office. He walks over to me and I tell him that we need to change the tyre before we go to our site because the Shrieking Woman over there insists. He asks who the Shrieking Woman is.

Shrieking Woman begins shrieking the same things at Husband man, so I need not further explain.

And so this is the my first EVER encounter with having to change a tyre in my 12+ years of driving.

Once Husband man had safely got away from the Shrieking Woman, he asked me where the jack is. I frown and say – “well what the fuck is a jack?”

Good start.

A jack, for all you would be tyre changing experts out there, is a metal implement that makes the vehicle rise off the ground in order to give you space to remove the failed tyre.

I vaguely remember Husband man’s brother showing us the location of said item and we dig it out. However, it’s some sort of special Hilux one for new Hilux’s and not for vintage caravans. It won’t work so we need a vintage jack for Van Morrison. We don’t have this item.

Now, yes, I am sure the helpy smurf in you is, right about now saying to yourself, that you wouldn’t travel for 20,000 kilometres around Australia without a jack for your caravan. And to that I say - well we got the last 12,000 kilometres without needing it.

So whatevs.

Husband man had to go back to the office to ask if they had a jack we could borrow. Having already infuriated me with her shouty hoo haa about the discovery of the flat – there was no way I could go and ask this woman myself.

As it was, I could hear the conversation from where I was.

Husband man “Do you have a jack we could borrow for the caravan?”

Shrieking Woman “YOU DON'T HAVE A JACK FOR YOUR CARAVAN!!!”

Husband man (far too polite) “No, can we please borrow one?”

Shrieking Woman “You mean YOU DON’T have a jack for your CARAVAN!”

Not only is she shouty, she’s captain obvious as well.

After a few more times of the same rhetorical question, she proceeds to witch cackle and tell Husband man that we are “not very experienced travellers” with an upward inflection, as though is a question. He kind of laughed politely because he is far too nice a person.

But see, now was where Shrieking Woman really came into her own.

She promptly walked out of the office, shouted something in my direction about driving without jacks and then proceeded to shouty her way around the caravan park, shrieking:

“Do you have a jack we can borrow? These people have a flat tyre on their van and no jack – can you imagine it, ha ha ha ha”.

This went on for about another 10 minutes.

Thankfully, a very kind and handy man had heard her shouty from somewhere within the park and appeared to rescue us. He was your regular maintenance guy and while Husband man was shifting his feet, looking at the tyre, willing it to change itself – maintenance guy got on the ground and got to work.

The tyre was completely shredded. We had remembered, some 100kms before getting there, the caravan feeling like it had lifted in the air as we drove. We’d stopped, checked for flats and damage and found nothing. So we drove on.

Then we had arrived with not just a flat, but a tyre shredded right through the tread and the metal rim resting on the limp rubber across the ground. It had also somehow completely destroyed the mud-guard connecting to inside the caravan, to the cupboard where we kept the canned stuff, so theres a few tins of baked beans strewn in our wake.

We were actually rather lucky to have arrived without running ourselves off the road or the sparks flying off into the van and setting it alight.

So my advice is, don’t be scooting around the country without a jack that works for your caravan, as this type of behaviour causes spontaneous anxious shrieking from complete strangers.

In any case, the tyre is changed and we got a new one before we left town for the other wheel and a new spare. I never had to see the Shrieking Woman again and thankfully our site was far enough away from the office that I didn’t have to hear her either.

And we now find ourselves safely in the Northern Territory, heading north toward Darwin.

Van Morrison: Don't Start Crying Now

We've spent the last week travelling the Coral Coast. The name gives away what you'd expect from a place like this.
Now, I'm not really in a position to start whining - given I am indeed surrounded by turquoise waters and the beauty of what lies in coral - but I am feeling a little sorry for myself.


At Denham, a lovely little seaside town that was hosting their annual fishing festival while we were there, I had myself a little encounter with a big old serrated steak knife.


I cut the inside of my left index finger in a kind of deep semi-circle.
There was blood everywhere - including all over my steak.


I have an absolutely ZERO pain threshold and when I get a hurty, I am quite possibly the worst version of myself.
I have to admit to shrieking, crying, hyperventilating and remaining in a state of total convinction that no one in the history of the world has ever been in as much pain as I am.


So my chop chop in Denham was all of these things.


Coupled with the sight of about 47 litres of blood spilling out of my finger and I went into a state of panic. Somehow in all of this distress I managed to remember elevation, compression and ice-pack application to the wound before Husband man transported me to the medical centre.


And here I met Nurse Hayley.
She was really kind and really calm and really not at all understanding the limits to my pain threshold. When I wasn't blacking out from forgetting to breathe, I was, in my head, cursing this poor woman and her non-knife-hacked hands.


Hayley made the correct assumption that I "obviously haven't experienced childbirth". As though that was meant to soothe me. I spent my state of shock asking her - 
Why on earth would something like this happen to me? Why could it not happen to someone else? What did I do to deserve this?


And various other dramatics.


After some basic damage control - Hayley sent me off and told me to come back in the morning for a lookey-here and most likely the application of some stitches. The very thought of this terrified me and I was only able to sleep on account of pain medication.


So back in there the next day, Nurse Hayley begins to remove damage control bandages and was, I am sure, ripping apart what little of the wound had healed.
Husband man could here my shrieking and yelping from the waiting room.


A second nurse was called to hold my hand and try to distract me with breathing excercises.


They applied some steri-strips instead of stitches. I assume this is because they couldn't stand what I would become with the application of needles and string into my flesh.
I then went home and called my mum, my shnanny and mother-in-law for sympathies.
All were oblidging.


What fabulous timing this all was as we embarked on a week of travelling the Coral Coast and all these pristine beaches and the Ningaloo Reef.


In what was an even more awesome eventuality, the only way I could participate in water based activities was to keep my hand covered, splash resistent and out of the water. No plunging into the depths of the sea.


Here's what the beacches look like, so there was no way I was missing out.

The only available option was to carefully put on a rubber glove and then stick that to myself with electrical tape. I heard little kids that we walked pass saying 'what's wrong with that lady' and calling me a freak.

It was really just the boost that I needed.


Then once in the water I had to snorkel with my hand sticking up out of the water. Husband man was literally dragging me along the coral beds as I held on to his toe with my good hand.


And so, I braved being a freakshow at Turquoise Beach and then again at Coral Bay.


But it was all worth it because this is a place where you can just swim about 10 metres from the shore and then follow the reef right there.
You don't have to get on some boat and be taken to the reefs - you can literally just walk out to it.


If you haven't heard of the Ningaloo Reef before - it's truly stunning and worth a a big old hike to Western Australia. There are hundreds of fishies and we even saw some turtles.


What we didn't do was swim with the whale sharks - the primary worthwhile activity in Exmouth. It was for this gypsy trip just a bit too cost prohibitive (about $400 each), but we intend on coming back some day cashed up.


We're now at Broome, spending our last few days enjoying the coastline. My chop chop is healing well and will be all ready to plunge into water just as we hit the outback.


From here we travel east to Darwin through the Kimberley region, about 2,000 kilometres in around 10 days. Yikes.

Van Morrison: Gypsy In My Soul

When I last wrote, we were down the southern end of Western Australia - some two weeks ago.

We're now about 2,000 kilometres from there and half-way up the West-Australian coast at Exmouth.

We loaded up Van Morrison's storage parts with some delicious Margaret River wines, all from hazy sunny afternoon tastings.

Then we went on to spend our final night there at Losari Retreat - in a boutique spa villa farewell gifted from Husband man's workplace.
Van Morrison is the size of the balcony alone, so it was odd to be living in so much space for the night. But it was just divine with it's outdoor jacuzzi, rain shower, super king size bed and television.

On to Perth and it's surrounds.
We pulled up at Fremantle, walked the cafe lined streets, visited the city and then enjoyed an afternoon brew at the Little Creatures Brewery.

I really liked this city and I especially liked that, without knowing it, people were going to invite us to their houses.

Husband man's family friends had us over for dinner one night and then the next night we went to my friend Doni's parents place for Greek treats and dinner out.

I had never met any of these people before and their hospitality was amazing - they just invited almost strangers into their home and we all chatted as though we'd known each other for years. Best.

Just north of Perth we stayed at Quinn's Rock. Which highlighted for us AGAIN, that caravan parks sometimes have the best views around for on average $30 a night.

This seesms to be a common theme - in small towns, where somehow, the caravan park is perched on a hill, overlooking the glorious sea.
We had this again when we headed up to Denham.

So not at all bad living like a gypsy.

But its not all beaches here in Western Australia.
There's a whole heap of red dirt.
Red dirt gets in your clothes, in the van, in the bed, on the couch.
Everywhere.

There's also some brilliant gorges, which we started to discover at Kalbarri National Park on a 10km loop walk.

While at Kalbarri, we stayed at a caravan park that is exactly what i had always imagined staying at a caravan park would be like. It only took over ten thousand kilometres and about sixty days to get this feeling, but I finally got it.

The air there was all balmy with a warm breeze that was coming in the windows and bringing with it the smells of barbeque cooking and sea mist.

It was noisy until the late evening - people having conversations, beer cans opening, laughter, kids playing chasy, footsteps on gravel roads, distant waves rolling in and crickets chirping.

There was sand and dirt and eucalyptus trees and moths and dogs scattered all around.

I wish all the places we stayed were like this, because then it would feel like even more of a perpetual summer holiday.

So now we're here at Exmouth, the thing to do is swim with the whale sharks.
Unfortunately, it's rather cost prohibitive for this particular taster gypsy trip - so we'll have to do it another time.

There is however, coral reefs all along the Ningaloo reef bed - and you can snorkel right on out to them from the beach.

I approve of this kind of island living.

a brief kiki moment

WARNING: this is a post about my cat.
Stop reading now if you're not a fan of cats in general, my cat or me talking about my cat.




I have to admit that I  harbour crazy cat lady tendancies.

I spend vast amounts of time at icanhascheezeburger.com laughing at pictures of cats doing dumb stuff with captions that someone has made up.
I am convinced that my own cat, Kiki, has an internal monologue that is the same as these captions.

So it should come as no surprise that I very much miss my Kiki the naughty kitteh as we travel around the country.
I've taken to stalking every cat I see for a pat - I almost had to miss the royal wedding last week for some cat patting at the caravan office we were staying at.
They wouldn't let me take the cat to the TV room. Rude.

Kiki is a very small (only 3kgs), brown burmese. She's lived indoors with us in Sydney for the last thre and a half years and she could be describes as a crazy cat.

This is a cat who likes to sit in boxes, likes to eat holes in all your socks, likes to get to the very most highest places she can in the house.

Originally we had intended to bring her along - I had done much research on caravanning with cats on board and it seemed possible.

It was going to be the Cat-avan of courage.

But it wasn't possible for our kitteh cause she's far too sociable and there was warranted fears from her vet that she could be traumatised by the constant moving and/ or, run away.

So Kiki has been having a vacation of her own with Husband man's brother, sister in law and their two young daughters.

When good people have done a spot of cat sitting in the past, she's got up to all sorts of mischief.

This is the cat that once chewed the ends of every single pen in a big bowl of random things that my friend Melissa had on her bench top. 

She and her husband man discovered this about 2 weeks after she had left their care. 
All of their pens had little chew marks on them - because our trixy little kitteh had put them all back in the bowl - under things - and so covered her tracks until she'd left the house.

In this same mini-break Melissa woke one morning to find that Kiki had collected all her elastic hair bands from around the house and lined all 20 of them up at the bedroom door, as some sort of offering.

Weird much?

By all accounts at her new place she's been having just as great a time.

Kiki is getting carted around in the dolls pram, carried in shopping bags, being dressed up (having met her trixy match in my nieces), hiding in cupboards, chewing on moving boxes and sleeping in the many sunny spots around the house.


Not even missing me at all.
Not even one bit.


And especially not missing me now as she explores the great OUTDOORS...!


Yes.
For those of you that know Miss Kiki - you know her as an indoor cat.
But now that she lives in the country, she's been given some space and an open door to explore things like grass and trees.


For years birds have been prancing on the windowsills tormenting her with their butts against the glass, knowing that she couldn't get out and chase them.


Not anymore.


Now she's doing the low crouch butt wiggle attack on them. A mission always spoilt by her clanging big old collar bell.


To prove she's still alive - our sister in law (bless) sends pics of Kiki the naughty little kitteh. Here are some of her escapades while we've been away.

Pram time with my niece.

First attempts at grass.

Yes, on the roof! Had no bright ideas for getting herself down and had to be rescued by Husband man's brother via ladder.

Obviously she's not lost any of her chutzpah in this last 2 months and remains a picture of innocence at the end of the day.

Van Morrison: Magic Time

So we're here in Western Australia.

IN fact, today we visited the most south-westerly point in the whole of Australia down at Cape Leeuwin - where the Indian ocean meets the southern ocean. Not that you can see where they meet. There isn't a big old line pointing it out or anything. Pretty much looks like more of the same windy ocean you see anywhere.

But whatever.

You can imagine that we are very much at the edge of the earth.

The good thing about being at this particular edge of the earth is that we're surrounded by the wine of the Margaret River region.

To get here - we've been travelling through the south-west of WA.
Coming off the Nullarbor, we headed straight to Esperance and out the Cape Arid National Park. It was quite seriously the best bush camping you can probably do in this country (big call) and we had a great time. There's a whole lot of pics from there in the post below.

Then we spent about 4 days in Esperance.
I have to admit that I had been looking forward to Esperance for a very long time.
It fit all my criteria for choosing a location - good sounding name (like schweppervesence), close to nice beaches and not like a mega city.

But Esperance should actually have the word 'Port' in front of it,because the refinery and the overcast weather we had, really spoilt the vision I had conjured up in my head.

That said - everything around Esperance was amazing, it was a a very good base for getting to Cape le Grande National Park (50kms away), a number of stunning beaches and some damn good bogan spotting.

Check out this little gem - Twilight Beach:

Once at Esperance we stayed at a caravan park about 3kms out of town. It is easter holidays, so this was our first sort of encounter with people who put hang about in tents.
People OUR age!!

Except, that the tent people clearly don't like to talk to the caravan people. There was also a good collection of people who play their music too loud and let their annoying children run about the place unattended.

Sound like i've become a 65 year old much?

Well it gets worse.

I've been drinking wine from a cask, Husband man has been buying slabs of beer cans and we've been walking around outside the van in ugg boots.
So not only have we aged 35 years, we're also assimilating with our bogan surrounds.

This is worrying.

In between all this weird behaviour, we've been seeing awesomeness in WA.

Let's start with Cape le Grande. Here we drove and walked around each of the bays...

Lucky Bay:

Thistle Beach:



And then we decided it was time to hike our sorry arses up Frenchman's Peak, which not suprisingly, was named by the French.

The tourist guides said that this spot provides commanding views of the Esperance region, in particular the dazzling beauty of Cape Le Grand National Park and the 110 islands of the Recherche Archipelago.

It stands at 262 metres above sea level.

And we climbed it in bare feet.

Not that we intended to climb it with bare feet, it's just that we'd gone to all the beaches in our thongs (flip flops).

I was also wearing a dress. Which made for interesting conversations on the way up the almost vertical cliff face with foreigners exlaiming 'where are your shoes?!' as though we were some kind of lunatic.

As though we hadn't noticed that we weren't wearing any shoes.

Thank you helpy smurfs.

We were at one with nature, okay.

We were all instinct and primitive.

Kinda like our friend Ben, who climbed Machu Pichu in South America in thongs cause he wanted to look cool. But now he has to wear compression stockings on plane trips, which is clearly the antithesis of looking good.

On top of having no shoes, I was also wearing a loose summer dress.

Obviously climbing mountains is not an expected part of one's day when island living!

Here's me schlepping it on an incline:

Yeah!

I do have to say that toes have awesome grippage.



As promised, the views from the top were spectacular and there is this kind of cave like hollow that is also a great look-out, even though a mere photograph will not do it justice...

And then we had to climb down, barefoot and me in a dress trying not to flash unsuspecting tourists.

I am pretty sure that on that particular day, we were more of an attraction and will be in more memories of the climb up that mountain for everyone that saw us. All those, special shoe wearing proper travellers were beside themselves.

Then we caught some sunset at le Grande beach, our first of western sunshine setting over the waters...

We left Esperance and headed west to Albany, a gorgeous little ex-whaling town.

We stayed at Middleton beach, which was perfect for watching young Kate Middleton get married to Prince William. 

I visited Whale World and Husband man set about cathing us some dinner at a place called Salmon Holes. Name gives it away really:

Don't mind the shirt, Husband man doesn't usually get about sporting bogan beer brands across his chest. This was picked up as a freebie from a nice man at a liquor store at Streaky Bay in South Australia.
It was intended as a fishing shirt never to be seen. But clearly it brings luck and dinner and therefore warrants a special guest appearance.

As we headed toward Margaret River - we entered some beautiful rainforest/ national park area.

We walked amongst the tree tops 40 metres high at Tree Top Walk in Valley of the Giants near Walpole and then Husband man climbed the 60 metre Gloucester tree. Nutter.

A little way down the road was an outdoor art gallery, where a bunch of folk have put up some installation art along a path in the national park.

Here's my favourite - an oversize feather floating in the space between the trees.

And now we find ourselves at the Margaret River - lording it up on a sunny Tuesday, wine tasting our way around the surrounds.

Husband man's workplace gave him the farewell gift of a night at a lovely retreat.

In protest, Van Morrison's electrics short fused the Hilux on the way into town. Another trip to the van doctor for us.

So I'll leave you with this pic of Husband man at Hamelin Bay - where the sting-rays come up to your feet for you to feed them.

Western Australia is, so far, sensational.

Cape Arid... just quietly!

Arriving at Esperance, Western Australia on the eve of Good Friday is not a great idea.

This place is packed with Easter holidaying families and there isn't a nook of availability in town for camping, caravaning or sleeping.

We could get a booking on the Sunday, but not a moment before.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It forced us to do some 'free-camping' at Cape Arid National park.

Admittedly, our first choice was Cape le Grande National Park, 50kms east of Esperance (a hot tip from nomads met in Robe, John and Linda) - but it was already full up with campers when we got to the turn-off sign at lunch. 

So we drove another 120kms east to try our luck with Cape Arid. And we got the 2nd last free camp spot there.

How is this for a front door view from Van Morrison:

We camped here with Morrie and about 30 other people scattered around for 3 days and it was just absolutely STUNNING.

The beaches are the most beautiful white sand, the water aqua and salty, the sunsets were very pretty and the sunrises are worth getting up for.

We spent the days doing long walks, swimming, chasing an emu and soaking up the sunshine.

So please, be patient while I indulge in a little picture blog post - because there really isn't anything more that I can say to try to describe the beauty of the stunning Cape Arid....

Sunrise on the first day, mist over Yokinup bay.

Dolphin Cove

Tagon Beach

Sunset at Yokinup Bay.

Okay, now please enjoy this sun rising on our last day with me.

It's amazeballs!

We're off to a good start Western Australia...