The last posting that I did was in January this year and a lot of water has been running under the bridges since then.
I said that after North Queensland that "whats next is whatever" and did I not know then what I now know especially travel wise.
We arrived in North Queensland in Mid March and stayed up there for three weeks and visited numerous places including and not in order but by memory, Cairns, Forrest Beach, Ingham, Atherton Tablelands, Mount St. John, and a really outback town called Einasleigh - great little place.
We also went to Douglas, Mareeba, Stuart, Bohle, Ayr, Aitkenvale and Mission Beach.
We had a day excursion to Magnetic Island across on the ferry and back and looked around the Arcadia Village. It really is a place to stay if you ever get up there.
We had an absolutely brilliant time in the North and actually caught up with a friend of the family at Townsville.
Then it was time to head South to Mount Buller.
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After leaving the far north our travels took us down to Victoria at a very leisurely pace and we decided that we would go down the inland highway through NSW in lieu of the Coast Road.
We only like to travel about 400kms per day and sometimes up to 500kms but rarely, so our first stop was at Charters Towers and then we went through Emerald, Roma, Walgett, Dubbo, Wagga, Seymour and then onto Mansfield which we used as our base for Mount Buller.
We stayed around Mansfield for a couple of weeks and then decided to head back to SA and home for a spell. Or so we thought.
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We left Mansfield and drove North to Wangaratta, Cobram and Finley in NSW. We then headed to Bendigo where we stayed and met up with friends for a couple of days. North again to Thyra and through Kyalite NSW and then Mildura.
After Mildura we then drove to Renmark, and Lyndoch Hills before heading home to Ardrossan.
Home again all is well but it is now June 2018 and its getting cold.
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Mid June 2018 and it is getting too cold so we decided that we would head to Darwin and like all smart people we thought the best way to get there was via WA and the West Coast. A trip that we have dreamt about for many years and the West Coast to Darwin is the only trip we have never done in our travels in Australia.
So we packed the caravan and got ready for a mammoth trip from Ardrossan to Perth via the Nullabor, Kalgoorlie, Margaret River, Perth and the West Coast of Australia.
A trip into the partial unknown for us.
Late June sees us heading towards Ceduna in SA and off to the Nullabor for our next stage of the journey. Darwin or bust. We drove from Ceduna across the Nullarbor through Penong, Coorabie, Yalata and the Nullabor Roadhouse.
After a night at the roadhouse and a nice relaxing time we headed further west through Eucla, Madura, Caiguna, Fraser Range and Norseman.
All of these little places are great little stop of points with the exception of the cost of fuel. The highest we paid was $2.04cpl and we were lucky as we carry a large fuel tank on the car 140 litres plus 40 litres in fuel drums on the back of the caravan so we only had to pay the higher price once and then we averaged about $1.70 a litre.
We then headed North from Norseman to Kalgoorlie/Coolgardie where we stayed for a couple of days and then drove South towards Margaret River.
We drove west to Merriden and then to Bokal and the Margaret River. After spending a couple of days in the Margaret River region we then headed North to Fremantle where we stayed for two weeks in a nice little caravan park near the beaches and the fish markets where we bought and ate local fish which is world class.
After exploring bothe Fremantle and Perth over that period it was time to head north and the next leg of our journey which I will explain in my next posting.
