060 - Hamelin Station to Carnarvon (26/5/17)

Moving day (again) and we continued our sojourn northerly. We realised from this point onwards we were very rarely ever going to be going in a westerly direction. We had in fact reached the western point of the country so from here it was onwards and upwards towards “10 o’clock on the Australia clock”

The highlight of the day until the footy, for me at least, was the tailwind we received on our journey through to Carnarvon. We’d historically been met with cross winds and at times head winds, but this time we had it in our sails and didn’t the Rock Truck love the little bit of help. We sat comfortably on 100kph (towing limit in WA) and used much less fuel that usual. Oh to have a tailwind all the time!

Other than that it was uneventful and stress free.

Rolling out of Hamelin Station Stay. What a brilliant place!

Our site at Carnarvon. This was actually quite a bit trickier than it looked, trying to dodge the gum tree at the back, not hitting the van just out of shot in front of the truck and lining up the concrete pad. Normally I would come at it from the other angle but they were very adament on their "one-way" streets. But we got there with only a couple of Austin Powers moments.

We got to Carnarvon and pulled into the Caravan Park we’d booked in to. After a pretty cruisy set up we toured the town (didn’t take long….) and headed out to the Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum. I hadn’t realised the important role Carnarvon has had over the years as a link in both the communications and space industry. It’s skyline is dominated by two enormous satellite dishes located on the “hill” behind the township.

I wasn’t expecting much from this place as from the outside (other than the dishes themselves, it is pretty unassuming and almost run down in spots. But once inside the darkened interior we were met with information overload. Displays, simulators, memorabilia, plaques, posters and, of course, merchandise. The staff were amazingly helpful, if a little too excited by space by my accounts, and we absolutely loved our time there.

One of the original space control panels. Probably as powerful as the Fitbit on my arm now in terms of processing power, but it got the job done, albeit much harder to wear on your wrist.

Actual space junk! Touching rubbish that has been in to actual freakin' outer space!

Sam all suited up to ride the simulator to launch in to space enroute to the moon.

Evie in her suit, smiling now...

James kicking back in the Gemini module...

This simulator was cool, although I feel it could be so much more. Still, Moo and I made it to outer space and back safely. Much smoother than I would have otherwise expected.

Correcting the homework with the answer sheet provided by the front desk! 

Well almost. The staff had a worksheet that they obviously give kids and school excursions which asks lots of questions of the displays with the answers to be found around museum. B and I decided that this would make an excellent substitute for schoolwork and set the big kids off with the challenge to find the answers. Sam as you’d expect, revelled in the challenge which for him was pretty much a walk in the park. Evie on the other hand decided to have one of her “moments” where, despite her amazing intellect and ability to read, just waved the white flag saying it was too hard. We find this a lot with her schooling and is something B and I are trying hard to work through. It’s frustrating as I know for a fact that if it had been a school excursion with her class, there’s no way she’d act like that, and would have had the problems solved in no time. But it took quite a lot of time for me to bring her around and start working like she can. Meanwhile B had left me to this battle alone (as agreed) and took the boys off around the centre.

I think it is one of the things that these travel blogs often gloss over and never go into detail. The hard parts, the frustrating bits. The bits you have all the time at home. Somehow we all want to post a perfect picture of how it's awesome and without fault. I can assure anyone out there reading this, that it's not all chocolates. There are plenty of boiled lollies. And this moment was a particularly hard boiled one.

But it was all well that ended well, and we loved our time there. We made full use of the complimentary tea and coffee and were told on the way out that we could actually drive up to the big dish and climb it! So we did that in a howling gale and we can see why it was retired in the most stable position possible. The wind could certainly blow at this point of the coast.

The Rock Truck giving the Caisson Dish a bit of a size up. Certainly the weirdest dish I've ever seen...

The Rock Truck not even trying in this fight... Well out of this weight division. The dish was impressive!

Evie letting her hair down and out. I'm so glad she's getting big enough to look after it herself!

Back to the park and for the first time we busted out the TV successfully and set it up to watch the Hawks/Swans game, with a significant amount of trepidation.

But the Talisman, Sam, revelled in watching a full game and worked his magic, along with Roughy to somehow jag a win.

We can now confirm after owning the van for nearly a year, the outside aerial point works!

Goal scored! High Fives all round. Love James in this shot!

We celebrated whilst we enjoyed the squadron of flying pigs flying over in formation….