We were all excited about being back on the road and camp for the night bought us back with a bump into travel mode… a road side pull off with road trains thundering past, but it was free so perfect! Next morning, we made our way to Lancelin to do some long tardy homework, under much protesting, before heading to the snow-white dunes for a quick play and for the kids to fill every nook n cranny with said sand. Unaware where the day had gone it was soon evening before we’d made any plans where to head next. A quick check on the watch confirmed we needed to do dinner first. So, as you do in pretty much the middle of town we opened up the kitchen and cooked up a yummy spag-bol whilst the kids played in the park. We knew this would mean driving in the dark, but with the destination of Jurien Bay just up the road we wanted to get some km’s under our belt.

Wikicamp talked of a few campsites, one labelled overflow. Quickly moving past the official town caravan park we tried this overflow, basically the outskirts of the local sports field. No one there, no one to ask, but it was already late in the evening, so we quickly decided to risk-it-for-a-biscuit and soon all were fast asleep. Up early we drove to the seafront and found a rather charming little park and over egg n bacon rolls we finally hatched out some plans for the coming days. I’d noticed a cycle track running along the foreshore and with the kids now hooked on Geocaching we decided the first order of the day was to get the bikes down and follow the trail and try our luck on the Geocaching. That was a lot of fun and we even managed to find our first micro-cache a tiny wee thing smaller than a thimble!

As the day disappeared we left for Nambung National Park, more commonly referred to as the Pinnacles, to catch the sunset. Alas the sky didn’t really perform for us, but the kids found another Geocache on the boardwalk to a few funny looks by the massed tourists. Unfortunately, there is no camping at the NP so again in dark we made our way to the nearest road side stop. Clearly marked as needing to be self-sufficient, pretty much every whiz-bang campervan and travelling backpacker in the area had also made a beeline for the small spot, the result being more than just surrounds of white-flag trees but also clear evidence of last-nights meals left in piles around the small camp. In other words, it was pretty damn disgusting.

None too disappointed to be leaving camp early, we returned to the Pinnacles surprising ourselves as the first car in the carpark! Pumped by yesterdays cycle, daddy announced we would be riding around the Pinnacles loop… a few stunned faces, we’d not even had brekkie yet! Undeterred, bikes came down and we a donned gloves & helmets. The Pinnacles park is formed by thousands of huge limestone pillars that rise from a stark landscape of yellow sand to form one of Australia’s most intriguing landscapes. There are various theories as to how they were formed, from erosion to fossilised trees. Whatever the cause, I can confidently report that riding a bike around the loop is THE BEST WAY to enjoy this landscape and we all agreed it was a top suggestion by daddy. We even made a musical ensemble in e-minor for your enjoyment, called “Pinnacles by Bike” and performed by TownsOnTour… hope you enjoy?

Being daddy’s birthday week and being in the crayfish capital of Australia, it didn’t take much persuasion to suggest Cervantes Lobster Shack for lunch. Now this little town has really capitalised on the little critters. As we’re finding out most catch is sent directly to Asia at crazy prices, Cervantes is trying to sell some of the product to the Aussie tourist market that frequent this coast, good for them. Boy have they got their sights set high. Shack conjures up images of a little rustic hut selling grandmas’ secret lobster recipe, but no this is more Disney meets fish n chip shop! Although near deserted when we arrived, large cafeteria style tables were already laid out with reserved signs depicting various well-known coach tour companies. Seeing we’d better be quick, we got our order in just as the tour buses arrived en-masse filled with Asian tourist who we all known love a bit of seafood! A good couple of hundred lobbies sacrificed themselves to the tourist industry that day!

Feeling like the last few nights had been somewhat bunked up by the side of the road, we set our sights on Sandy Cape to kick back for a few nights. Recommended by many locals we’ve met, it certainly stood up to the accolades. A beautiful spot just behind the dunes of a very sheltered beach of turquoise blue water, enhanced in the evening by magnificent sunsets of vibrant oranges. Rods came out to see if our recent fishing luck would prevail, alas no, but friendly conversations were struck with fellow fishermen. Obviously, someone once had luck on the fishing front as a couple of friendly huge rays glided up each evening waiting for the fish frames to be tossed back, but they went hungry during our stay. The kids befriended Joe, who had been visiting the area for many years, in fact his wife was the daughter of one of the cray fishermen who used to inhabit the shanty town that once stood in the exact same spot before the parks department evicted then levelled the area turning it into the now picturesque Sandy Cape campsite. It was really interesting to hear a little about the history of the area when it was a vibrant fishing community with only a terribly difficult track to connect them with the rest of civilisation. How times have changed! Seeing as though we were there to relax, convenient trees soon had the hammock strung up and the kids enjoying using it as a swing or somewhere to huddle together. Unfortunately, one too many an enthusiastic push saw Reo flip over and bounce off his bonce with a large scream. It was soon apparent that it was more than a flesh wound as a large egg sized bump rapidly sprouted from his forehead, poor thing.

Wheels keep on turning and we must keep on moving, so biding farewell we headed onwards to Cliff Head. We’d just clicked into 1st May and the significance of this date meant the state-wide fire ban season had finished – yeah! A quick roadside stop to load up with wood, we arrived at the remote Cliff Head to find a pretty full camp, it is free after all. A quick loop of south, then mid and pausing at north 4WD only track to check conditions, we found pretty much the last spot on the waters edge. Now we’ve had a few beach side camps and who can deny the peaceful serenity of falling to sleep with the gentle lapping of the waves, right? Well after a restless night of systematically crashing waves akin to water torture, I’ve decided I prefer about 10m back from the surf is probably more to my liking to soften the CRASH, as once you get it in your head all you can do is lie awake focusing on the waves. Nevertheless, it was an otherwise lovely camp, it even had the stereotypical Red Back spider in the dunny! We had a roaring fire around which the kids did their own interpretation of a fire dance/juggle that they’d seen back at Ayr Sailean (using torches instead of burning logs!) and through the wonders of technology we beamed it live via facetime all the way to the grandparents on the other side of the world in the little hamlet of Themelthorpe in deepest Norfolk, UK!

With the km’s clicking up we’d chosen Geraldton to give Minty a service as well as the numerous other now familiar errands associated with a big town stop… coffee, laundry, fuel, coffee, fill water tanks, food, grog, Bunnings/or equivalent, Target/or equivalent, BCF/Anaconda/Tackle World (you can never have enough fishing gear!) coffee. Now Geraldton marked somewhat of a water shed in the journey as we switched from bottles of fine wine to the goon. Now a case of wine is heavy and bulky, only contains 6x75ml of wine, susceptible to breakages on corrugated roads and when consumed you must still carry the heavy empty bottles around until they can be binned. Enter the camper’s friend the GOON. Compact, lightweight cardboard cartons which can be disposed of on the fire, 2L each (if you go for the premium drop) = 2.66 bottles, an easy pour tap, efficient stacking to leave no wasted space and priced to match a typical single mid-range bottle. They come in all colours and variants, so what’s not to like? Well let’s just say premium-goon isn’t quite the same as premium fine wine but when needs must. Nevertheless, I half-jokingly asked the chap at the bottle’o for his recommendation and he gave a complete auditory appreciation of each and every goon he had on the self! Wow – I was impressed. Buying to fit the remaining voids scattered about Tinfish and Minty we now had a full range of Chardy, Pinot & Shiraz to sample!

We knew Geraldton had free strictly one night caravan parking on offer so we didn’t need to rush off, however on arriving at the designated spot there were no spaces left – d’oh! Plan B was towards the lighthouse where a whiz-bang free overnight stop was also provided but according to the sign no-caravans allowed. Even though we are all now familiar with the concept that Minty isn’t technically a caravan, we weren’t sure if the rangers would see it the same way. For once we faltered in our commitment to bend a rule just as a Ranger rocked up. Taking the first offensive approach, I quickly got out of the car and walked up to ask for clarity on the rules? Trev mentioned the official spot down by the docks, but when I told him we’d tried but to no avail he decided that he’d not seen us, but just advised us to be on our way before the morning patrol just in case. What a superstar! That gave us another day in Geraldton, making use of the library and then daddy to get a haircut, accompanied by the kids as spectators, hopeful to get a free lolly, as is customary at the barber’s back home. Now I give the kids credit here as somehow they managed to get not just one but a whole bag of mini-chubbas by sweet talking the barber..!?!?

The promenade along the foreshore of town has been well architected with parks, paths and BBQs so we decided to cook up some dinner whilst letting the kids hoon around. As the sun slowly set, who should walk by but our friendly Ranger Trev. We got chatting and let him know a bit more about our little adventure. When he asked where we planned to stay tonight we said I guess not back where you didn’t see us last night? Luckily, he agreed he wouldn’t see us there again tonight. Top bloke! I’m glad we took the opportunity to cook dinner in town, as back at the lighthouse it was blowing an absolute gale… not for no reason is this place known as the kite surfing capital of WA! Another peaceful night sleep and a day planned to visit the free Geraldton Museum.

I must say what a great little museum it is too. They even have a free guided tour of the shipwreck gallery and the kids learnt more about the grislily history of the Batavia. Incredibly they found in the hold of the wreck the complete stone gateway that was being shipped to the Dutch fort in Jakarta and has now been reassembled as part of the display. They had a quiz sheet for the kids to hunt for answers around the museum and an incredible 3D movie on the fate and eventual discovery of the HMAS Sydney and the German raider. This is a significant piece of Australian military history and Australia’s worse ever naval disaster. Both ships were destroyed in the half-hour engagement and the HMAS Sydney was lost with all 645 hands to lay undiscovered until 2008. There is a memorial on the hill overlooking town and a plaque with the names of each of the crew. In an attempt to make sense of the tragic numbers for the kids we equated it to the number of children back at school and quickly ascertained it was as if the entire population of the school instantly disappeared with the sinking of the ship. That resonated, you could see two shocked faces processing the information whilst we read off a few of the sailors names. Part of the memorial is a woman staring longingly out to sea. When the final resting place was eventually discovered they decided to rotate the figure to look towards the actual wreck but when it transpired it was miraculously only 1 degree out of alignment they decided to leave it as it always has been looking forever towards the brave souls that perished.

Time seemed to disappear and before we knew it, it was time to slip back to our favourite overnight spot for another peaceful night’s sleep. We were 100% leaving in the morning this time or were we! Bugger a flat battery! Not for the first time our starter battery was dead. This has been plaguing us now for some time and we’ve not been able to get to the bottom of the root cause. Cursing I started to rummage for the jump cables when oh-no the Ranger turned up! Phew it was our mate Trev. With a smile he helped give us a jump start and we said a fond farewell, thanking him for allowing us to spend time discovering Geraldton. With one last stop at Bunnings for an important something, we watch Geraldton slowly disappear in our mirrors, next stop Oakabella.

Oakabella is somewhat legendary on the travellers circuit. An historic homestead that offers very cheap family camping with modern amenities with an onsite café. The old homestead is said to be haunted with spooky accounts of some of the unfortunate deaths that have happened in its time. We parked up near to a van I recognised as a family I’d been chatting to whilst filling up with water back in Geraldton… Cyndal and Brenton with their two boys Ashton & Flynn. Of course, the kids became instant besties and we shared a glass of our now favourite goon. It was a great place to stay for a few nights and we sampled Oakabella’s delicious BBQ ribs, whilst listening to Karaoke although I think they should enforce a curfew come 9pm as the sounds of ‘singing’ into the late hours at full volume kinda distracted from the charm of the place.

Either by complete chance, or with the shrewd planning of a devoted husband (I’ll let you be the judge) Oakabella were hosting a Mother’s Day luncheon during our stay and I made sure we were booked in to celebrate the #1 travelling mum. The kids loved wrapping up a few pressies and sharing these with mummy in the morning, then we headed over to the feast with this time thankfully a professional singer to serenade the crowds. A beautiful sunny day and as the kids disappeared to all play together the parents settled into a few glasses expertly squeezed from the goon. I think the day went well.

Australia had an election looming. With more prime-ministers in the few years we’ve been here then I’ve had hot dinners its hard not to take it as a bit of a joke. Nevertheless, if you don’t vote you get fined, so wanting to avoid a fine and to have our say we needed to ensure we managed to cast our vote. Stupidly the nearest place to pre-vote was back at Geraldton, d’oh! Having no idea where we might be on election day, we basically had no choice but do a run back to town, so on leaving Oakabella after a pleasant 4 nights, we turned south rather than the customary north and retraced our footsteps for a quick dart into town. Votes cast and the kids confused about what the pirate party was all about, we couldn’t resist one last coffee back at the promenade. And who should we bump into but no other that Trev! I ‘think’ he believed us that for the last 4 nights we hadn’t been staying back at our favourite one-night stop by the lighthouse where he didn’t see us before, honestly! So with coffees in hand we said a second farewell and this time pointed north towards some of WA’s top adventure destinations…