030 - Esperance to Albany (26/4/17)

Waking up and pulling out of the golf course (still quite chuffed with the novelty of it all), we bid farewell to Joe and Teresa after a brilliant couple of days together. We are headed in the same direction still, but with slightly different timings and possibilities, we figured we’d just stay in touch and see where’s the easiest place to catch up. It’s our turn on the roast dinner roster after all.

We fuelled up and pointed the Rock Truck towards Albany. We still weren’t sure if we’d get all the way across there, but it’s still great knowing our house is hooked on the back and should we want to stop for whatever reason, we just pull over and unfold the chairs. It’s remarkably liberating and relaxing. Still, we hoped to get to Albany, and thanks to the early start, there shouldn’t be any reason why we couldn’t traverse the largely uneventful 500km or so.

The journey was largely uneventful to be honest.

That pesky engine light returned around 350km in but now knowing what was causing it, we trundled on happily and without issue.

We had a brilliant little lunch stop at Jerramungup, a small little town that had an awesome playground. Kids were actually disappointed to get back in the car, but a promise of a few episodes of Wallace and Grommit on the tablet managed to convince them.

An unexpected and awesome surprise was this playground. Very well presented and equiped, not something I was expecting to see in such a small town.

Sam writing his blog (which is also now being updated) whilst on the journey.

James and his "bible", the book "Are We There Yet?" On any big road trip day, he reads it again and sees how we are tracking against the fictional family in the book, also travelling around Australia.

Probably the highlight for me was seeing the extent of the damage this region took during some storms earlier in the year. Quite a lot of repair had been undertaken to the road surface in the spots and I think we were lucky to be able to get across from Esperance to Albany at all. We still had to take a significant detour at one point which include around 15-20km of truck shared dirt roads. Oh… so glad I washed the van the day before.

One of the river crossings west of Ravensthorpe (Phillips River I think) was now a newly constructed floodway after the bridge and associated road was completely torn apart and casually thrown onto the bank. The sheer power and volume and water to create this havoc must have been immense.

Immense destruction. Apparently the new causeway we were on had only just reopened. Otherwise we would have been taking quite the detour!!

But still, our little crew passed through without issue and we found ourselves a quite a unique little place around 20km or so outside of Albany.

Now, the younger camping families might get a chuckle out of this, as we’ve now clearly defined what is important to us in our longer stay locations.

Firstly, this friendly little park (Two Peoples Caravan Park if you were wondering) was cheap at $25 per night for a power and water site. For those not in the know, most parks down our part of the world wouldn’t give us much change our of $45-50 per night.

But don’t get me wrong… this is low frills. Basically a paddock with some taps and power turrets sticking up with a single shower, laundry and a few toilet blocks off to the side. The camp kitchen doubled as site office and was locked from around 6pm to 8am, which includes the hours we’d want to use it!

But really, when you are touring we don’t need too much more. And all facilities were great, clean and accessible safely from the kids.

But the HUGE carrot was the laundry. This laundry was “$5 all you can use”! And not some crappy little machine, this was a brand spanking new 14kg LG washing machine. It was like a beacon of awesomeness to a family who had been rotating clothes through the “smells clean” cycle for a while. And man… did we get our $5 worth! Like me at an “All you can eat” buffet at Sizzlers, we smashed that machine and the camp clotheslines. Everything in our van got a wash, regardless if it needed it. Clothes, towels, sheets, blankets… at one point I reckon the kids were worried that they’d get a spin cycle. Might have if we’d been fast enough to catch them.

So yep, we now know the value and drawcard of a cheap laundry to our accommodation. Whilst our little machine is great and we love having it, the modern convenience of having a large washing machine should never be taken for granted.

The afternoon pretty much consisted of floating between hanging up washing and kicking the footy with Sam and James. Where Evie was, I’m not sure. Probably off having a tea party with some pixies or hunting dragons knowing her imagination.