Our Adventure

Oh my goodness! It has been so long since I have been here. Time certainly gets away.
Christmas & New Years have been & gone. I didn't get to do any of the AD challenges for December as we headed off on an adventure on Dec 12. We bought ourselves a little 'home away from home' - our new Caravan.











We headed down to Melbourne to collect it on our way across to Western Australia for a surprise family visit.
It was amazing to see where flood waters had receded along our route. The Murray & Murrumbidge rivers were right up to the road level. Dubbo was cleaning up after being inundated.
We visited with the lovely Marie from AD where we spent the night and caught up with some other memberes of our AD family.


L to R: Laraine, Lara, Sim & Marie in front of Marie's upside-down Christmas tree.

After collecting the van on Dec 17 we headed off on our adventure. All went well until we reached Ceduna. We needed a new alternator for the car so had to stay an extra day so it could be freighted up from Adelaide. All fixed and we continued on our merry way.

We travelled all the way to Kalgoorlie without any more problems. We fuelled up and headed off after ringing our daughter to let her know a parcel should be arriving that afternoon between 4:00pm & 6:00pm.

126km out of Kalgoorlie the car decided it was going to stop. We were stranded on the side of the road between Kalgoorlie & the next nearest town, Southern Cross, 110km further on with no mobile phone coverage. Some lovely mining people stopped & let us use the phone to call the RAC. 4 hours later someone turned up. By this time the car had cooled down & we had no trouble following the RAC back to Kalgoorlie where we spent the night before setting out again the next day.

We rang our daughter to see if the parcel had arrived knowing full well it hadn't. We had to tell her we were stuck in Kalgoorlie. She was gob-smacked to say the least.

On Dec 23 we continued on our way only to be faced with the same problem as the previous day. The RAC arrived & said we had a cooling problem so just let the car cool & then continue. We did this for a while but finally it gave up the ghost. We were stranded once again.

Our Saviours, in the form of Trish & Toby from Kalgoorlie, saved the day. They followed us for 50km before Toby hitched us up behind his car & trailer and towed us 2km into Yellowdine Roadhouse. We contacted RAC & RACQ before finally leaving the car & van there. Trish & Toby, angels that they are, drove us into Perth with most of our gear on their way to Mandurah which was their destination. We arrived in Perth at the Motel at 1:30am. They then continued on to their destination.



Our car arrived at our daughter's place on the back of a truck with the van hitched behind at 3:30pm on Christmas Eve, after a 5 hour drive from Southern Cross. My brother lent us one of their cars to use while ours was being repaired. We stayed another night at the Motel before transferring all our goods to the van on Christmas Day. Our eldest grandson enjoyed sleeping in the van with Grandda. It was an adventure for him.

We spent a lovely Christmas Day at my brother's place at Yanchep, north of Perth. New Years Eve we dined at the Yanchep Inn.

Our trip home was very uneventful. It is so sad to see the devastation of the floods in Queensland and also in the southern states. Many of the places now under flood are places we passed through.

We are so happy to be home & safe.