OhdearRia

road tripping is more than just driving, it’s wander lusting

For some of you who follows my Instagram perhaps you have known from my photos that I had been on the road trip couple weeks ago.  If I’m not wrong it was about two weeks ago, on school breaks, the four of us went on road trip from Western Australia across to South Australia, and Victoria.

In this post I’d like to share our on the road and camping stories.  This is not our first time long road trip across Australia, couple years ago we did the same route and then continued to Tasmania. We spent five weeks total back then, and this time was just two weeks.

We left our home on Monday morning 26th of September, the weather was quite cool 17 C.  We packed enough food to consume for our about 10 hours driving.  Boys were in a good mood, not fighting…yet.  Our first stop for coffee and toilet was at Coolgardie, after about 6 hours driving.  From here we just kept continue driving until our first destination of the day, Fraser Range.

So, first night we camped at Fraser Range.  It’s a pastoral lease and sheep station, about 100 km of east Norseman.  Besides power and un-powered sites, they also have cabin accommodation.  We like this place, every road trip we always make sure that we stay here.  The facilities including camp kitchen, shower and toilet. If you choose to stay at their cabin, they can also provide you meal for $30 per person including main meal, dessert, coffee and tea.

dinner is cooking

But of course, we stayed at un-powered site (my hubby didn’t think we need power except for charging our gadget) and I cooked dinner 🙂 Dinner was burger and dessert was tim-tam cheesecake (left over from home) and tea, so fancy huh 🙂  We all had a nice shower and ready for bed.  For your information, the shower in Fraser Range need $1 coin to put it in the slot and you can have the shower for 5 minutes.  If you need more than 5 minutes then you have to insert another $1 coin.

good morning!

The next day as early as 6 am and it was so cold we all rose and shined.  I still got my coffee made and served in my “bed” though 🙂 We had bacon, egg, and avocado on toast for breakfast.  Then packed every thing and off we went.

We had quite a big and long drove on the second day.  It was very bad weather, with flood and hail warning every where on our way.  We crossed the Nullabor plain for 96 miles and by 6.30pm we were already in South Australia’s time.  Mind you there are time differences between Western Australia, South Australia, and Victoria.  Various states and territories in Australia have daylight saving, except for Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.  Nullarbor plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the great Victoria dessert to its north.  Nulla in latin means no, arbor means tree.

Because of the weather warning we decided to stay at the motel for the second night.   Yay, nice bed and meals served at the restaurant 🙂

the storm is coming

Third day, the weather warning became even severe.  It was very very windy and started to rain too.  Some of the roads were closed because of the flood and also there was no power for the the rest of  South Australia, can you imagine that???!!! We listened to the radio and it was a big chaos in Adelaide, some people got trapped in the elevator and the traffic went crazy since the traffic light didn’t work.  Tonight we stayed at the country club in little town called Clare. The wind was pretty severe, many trees fallen, the lake behind our cabin was very very full.  That night I couldn’t really sleep, I was worried the whole night if the tree would fall in to our roof or the water got up to our room. And of course we didn’t have electricity too in this nice country club, thanks God we had our lamp/light from our camping gear and even used our gas stove to make coffee and breakfast the next morning.  It was kinda like glamping that night!  We ate our dinner at the country club restaurant with candle lights every where.  The menu was very limited due to no power.

g l a m p i n g

The next morning we continued drove to Mt.  Gambier where my sister in law and her family lives.  The weather was still awful.  Some areas still has no power and flood every where.  Thanks God we arrived safe and sound at my sister-in-law and she has electricity and nice warm food and comfy bed, yaay!

it’s nice to be back to the civilization 🙂

same place different years , blue lake – mt.gambier

The following days, we traveled around Victoria, we visited my husband’s birth place and where he grew up, visited the farm, some family and relatives.  During this travel around the Victoria we stayed with relatives.  My boys got life experienced working with the sheep, playing in the muddy, rode on quart bikes, they really love all of it.

some vitamin needed!

working hard!

We spent another three days at Mt. Gambier before headed back home.  We left Mt.  Gambier on Saturday morning and first destination was Crystal Brooke to camp for a night.  It was a bit windy evening at Crystal Brooke, but we managed to cook our dinner and had our dessert as usual.  The shower facility at Crystal Brooke caravan park is pretty good, bigger shower room and no need to pay!

crystal brooke caravan park, the shower and the laundry

On the second day traveling back home,   from Crystal Brooke to Coorabie it took about 8 hours. Today we camped at the farm.  The camp area was a bit rough in my opinion and lots of mosquitoes, but I did love the camp kitchen and the shower.  The shower was again free and so spacious and clean.  There were only two family that night camped over there, an old couple and us. While we prepared our dinner, the owner of the farm came over and we gathered together at the camp kitchen with the fire on, drank beer and wine and chatted, and ate our meals together. I cooked mango chicken curry and rice for our dinner, which was very nice!

Coorabie

butt warmer 🙂

morning view at the farm

someone made us pancake for brekkie 🙂

Third morning, after having pancake for breakfast we continued our journey back home. We drove along the Nullarbor again, and after almost ten hours we finally got to Fraser Range again!  Since we arrived at Fraser Range quite late, almost 6.30pm so dinner was just an easy and quick pasta.  We were pretty knackered that night, so after shower straight away hopped to our bed…I meant tent and the back of the ute 🙂

long day on the road….

last dinner at fraser range

Finally we were home at around 3.30 in the afternoon, ahhhh…..home sweet home!  I miss my bed and my comfortable shower and our dog, Sammy! He was very pleased to see us, jumped around like little kid and made a funny noise 🙂

home sweet home

Now, kids back to school and I’m back to work and life goes back as it is.  Our day to day life is pretty hectic at the moment with boys’ activities, school, and social life.  That’s why it took me a while to up date this blog, it’s been a while, I know.  Summer is around the corner in this part of the world, as much as I’m loving the cooler weather I’m happy to have a warm sun shines on my skin and that I can wear dress and go to the beach again.

I’m sorry if this post is pretty long.  Hope you enjoy reading it.

Until next post!