This will be my final post for this little travel and adventures blog. I am going to borrow some words from Dorethea Mackellar (I have always loved this poem) and pop in some favourite photos.
I love a sunburnt country.
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her Far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror-
The wide brown land for me!
#seeyouontheroad
October pretty much brought us to the end of our trip.
We had started the month in Esperance and we spent some time visiting one of the nationals parks nearby. National parks was something we mostly had to avoid because of out two furry travel buddies. But at this stop we were able to do a swap of some dog sitting with another traveller. It was a good way to get out into some of the areas where we couldn’t take the dogs.
Then we tackled the Nullarbor and headed into South Australia. This drive gave us some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen and I can honestly say it was our favourite campsite. Right on the edge of the cliff with no one around. This is what travelling is all about.
We had heard and read reports of the Nullarbor being so boring and just one long road, but I would drive it again in a heartbeat. It was a stunning part of our country.
The drone got a good workout in these few days and clearly we learnt a new function to use 😂
Ceduna, Streaky Bay, Coffin Bay and onto Adelaide for a few days. We weren’t sure if we were going to spend much time in Adelaide but decided if we were that close we should visit and again it was one of these unscheduled stops that was the best. A lovely little city to visit.
Next month could possibly be my last post. I think a year of rehashing photos is plenty. Not sure where to now for cassandthecountry but I do know my feet are definitely itchy for more travels. I’ve heard Queensland is lovely this time of year 😂
#seeyouontheroad
Firstly a recap of our whereabouts in September ‘19, we started off in Perth early in the month and I had a trip back to Sydney, while Joey enjoyed some fishing. On my return we enjoyed visiting Fremantle for a day trip as well as more fishing with some new friends. We celebrated Joey’s birthday at the casino. And enjoyed another day trip, this time to Rottnest Island. Most of the day was enjoyable, the boat ride over was horrendous and something I never want to experience again. Massive waves had the boat rolling all the way over to Rottnest.
A slight delay in our arrival time meant it was a very quick dash on our hired bikes to our Segway tour. We got to see so much of the Island and learnt some of the history too.
After our tour we made friends with the local Quokkas. And had a good laugh at one Quokka trying to get into a ladies handbag that she had left while she tried to take selfies.
We spent a few days at Margaret River as well as visiting Albany before continuing our way around the coast. We visited Cape Leeuwin which is the most South Westerly mainland point of Australia, and has Australia’s tallest lighthouse, which I climbed.
We managed to have another trip this year for Joey’s 40th birthday. We traveled up to cairns for a few days. While we are very lucky to be able to travel in Queensland, it certainly was different………
Hopefully there are many more trips to come.
#seeyouontheroad
We found ourselves in the beautiful town of Exmouth in early August. Swimming with whale sharks was a highlight of the month as well as spending time with friends who travelled from Sydney to meet our little convoy.
Exploring the local national park and the Ningaloo reef should be added to everyone’s bucket list. We will definitely be back to visit again.
There was lots of fishing time and lots of fresh squid was caught and eaten with our good friends.
We kept making our way down the WA coastline and found ourselves stopping at Wooramel where we saw an Echidna, the dogs were very excited about this little visitor.
Shark Bay was the next stop, with a day trip to Monkey Mia, and a visit to a wonderful dog friendly aquarium. Then Kalbarri for horse riding, A stop at a pink lake on our way to Geraldton and we finished the month at a place called Arrowsmith, a really lovely camp spot, which became one of our favourite stops.
The map above shows our progress up until end of August. We had covered a lot of ground in the 4 months we had been on the road.
Still working out when and where our next trip will be, so reminiscent re posting of photos is the best right now.
#seeyouontheroad
One of our last adventures in Broome last year was a great afternoon at Malcom Douglas Crocodile Park.
Then after leaving Broome in early July after a relaxing two weeks there, we headed off down the WA Coast line.
Some of the spots we visited in July were Port Hedland, Point Samson, and Dampier.
The salt mines at Hedland we’re a highlight to see, to me they looked like mini ski fields, just randomly popping up in the distance.
We had a few longer stays in a few places, which was really nice. We were able to relax a bit more. The wind at Point Samson interrupted all the ideas of fishing days. It also interrupted a bit of sleep, it was so strong, the flapping of the tent in the wind is something I will never forget 😠. The wind even ripped on of our tarps that we had set up to give us a bit of a wind break 🙄. Point Samson did deliver us a viewing of the staircase to the moon phenomenon.
We finished off the month in Exmouth with some visitors coming over to meet us from Sydney. Exmouth was AMAZING. So many beautiful memories from our time here with our group of friends.
As Australia continues to battle against Covid 19, I’m forever grateful for our time away last year!
#seeyouontheroad
June was the second month of our travels. When the month started we found ourselves fossicking for garnets just out of Alice Springs. Layers of clothing were added to keep us warm in the cold weather, something we certainly were not used to. Trips to Kmart to grab some slippers for me and trackies and a vest for Joey. All these purchases became essentials as we endured more cold nights.
Fossicking, hiking, swimming in hot pools, fishing, night markets, Supercars, dinner cruises, rock mine tours, crossing into yet another state, Gibb River Rd driving, camel rides, sunsets, and beach swims were all enjoyed in June. Beach swimming was a favourite, it had been a long time between swims 😊 the dogs enjoyed this too.
I thought looking back through all our photos each month might help me with being able to choose a few to get printed to put up around the bare walls in our home. 🤔 no, looking through the photos has just confused me more and confirmed I have way too many to choose from.
We started the month in the NT and finished up in Broome, we will definitely be back to visit Broome again. It was one of my anticipated destinations and there is still more to do there. Once borders are open again in the country, Broome is certainly a place I can recommend people visit. It is a stunning part of our country.
Until next months review……………
#seeyouontheroad
At the start of May, it was one year since we set off from Weipa on our trip around Oz.
Wow, what a difference a year makes. We are so grateful that we are safely settled in our own house up on the Gold Coast. Obviously lots of peoples trips this year have been cut short, cancelled, or postponed for now. I have had many a thought of what life would have been like on the road if you had to hot foot it home or if you actually had no home to go to. As I said we are grateful and extremely lucky that we are nicely ensconced in our own home. Imagine if we were still flitting between all the relos houses in Sydney during this lockdown period 😲
So I’ve decided if I can’t travel anywhere for the time being, I am going to do a bit of armchair travel and reminiscing of our trip through the use of photos. As I’ve said before, there were lots of photos taken and each post here, last year only showed you a few of the best. So each month, I’m going to look back at where we went and what we did and do a bit more sharing.
The brolgas we saw were so beautiful. I remember singing a song at primary school about brolgas and they were as beautiful as I remember the song was.
Looking back at all the photos and my blog post from last year makes me realise how much driving we actually did. Setting off from Weipa at the start of May and seeing one of my highlights of the trip before the end of the month down at Uluru. It was a huge distance to travel!
Two highlights of the first month travelling were definitely the Devils Marbles and Uluru.
And of course, who can forget the fly nets………. 😂
Dinner time got delayed til after sunset, and on a few occasions I sat in the car to eat lunch because it was easier than trying to constantly swipe at all the flies.
This time last year as our travels had just started and now writing this as isolation is coming to an end I don’t know when our next trip will be, so for now it will be reminiscing through photos.
#seeyouontheroad
Back in early February, after spending time in Sydney with family and friends for Christmas and the New Year and of course packing up our belongings, we drove the final part of our trip to our new home on the Gold Coast.
While in Sydney, we decided to buy a small removalist truck to get our stuff up to the GC. Instant convoy created right there…………
We squeezed our stuff in…………… just!
And headed on our way. Thanks to our families who have stored our things at their houses for almost 3 years 😬. First stop was Coffs Harbour just overnight and we kept on trucking (🤣) through to Byron Bay. We had 4 nights which turned into 6 nights here. Originally I had grand plans of visiting the beautiful beaches and markets and just enjoying some time to ourselves. You probably remember the heavy downpours in early February and this was not missed at Byron Bay. In fact 283mm was recorded in less than 24 hours. Most of this rain actually fell overnight 😮.
Flooded, deluge, severe weather, engulfed and drenching were all descriptions used in regards to the heaviest rainfall in almost 50 years. We didn’t let it stop us too much, although there was no lazing on the beach like I was hoping for. We did get to visit some lovely places and managed to avoid most of the rain. The farm was a highlight and even better we are now only a short drive away so could easily pop down for a day visit or a quick overnighter if we want (although Corona virus may have put these types of plans on hold for a bit).
I have wanted to visit crystal for some time now and finally got to go. I was not disappointed and to make it even better I convinced Joey to join me in a sound healing that was offered. I don’t think he was impressed with the whole experience as me, but it was nice that he joined me for a bit of the woo woo hippy type things that I do enjoy on occasion 😀
Once we got to the Gold Coast, we arrived at our new home for the real estates final inspection. And Joey’s first visit to the house. I was able to view the house on a trip to Brisbane I had last year before we put in our offer. I was a bit nervous for Joey to see the house, thinking what if he doesn’t like it? What if there is something that his builder mind notices that I didn’t see when I saw the house 🤯
Well, he saw it and he liked it, it was a bit different seeing the house with no furniture, the carpets were older than I remembered but all in all it already felt like home.
The carpets were still a bit damp from being cleaned the day before, so we decided to set our mattress up on the wooden dining room floor. We then pretty quickly decided to replace the carpets so we camped out on the dining room floor for a week and a half.
We slowly started shopping for big items we needed, mainly a lounge and a new bed. It was then that we were quickly met with wait times of up to 16 weeks. That’s 4 months was my response to one sales lady 😲
I had expected to come across some wait times for furniture because I have experienced this in the past. But 4 months seemed a bit crazy. Most places we visited explained that the extended wait was due to this corona virus that was only just making an appearance back then because most stock was coming from China. We shopped around and Joey did some of his best bargaining and we managed to get beds and a longe within two weeks. We got a lounge that was floor stock and beds that were available in Australian warehouses. The longest wait we had was for our dining table, which arrived late last week. Thank goodness for camp chairs and one of our camp tables from our trip 🤗
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A few photos of our new house to finish off, and I am planning to post regularly over the next few months, sharing some of the photos from our trip that were not seen here originally throughout last years travels.
I don’t know when our next trip will be right now, but I know it is coming.
#seeyouontheroad
We are currently in crazy Sydney catching up with family and friends. Since my last post we finished off our travels in WA and made our way to South Australia for a brief visit.
For our last part of WA we visited the beautiful Esperance, which had several national parks as highlights. Rather than missing out again because of the dogs we organised to swap a day of dog sitting with a fellow traveller. We looked after Victoria’s dogs for the day in return for her looking after our two dogs the previous day so we all got to enjoy the beauty of the Cape Le Grand National Park. The weather was in our favour to finally use the drone again. We saw a the resident kangaroos at Lucky Bay and a few of the other picturesque beaches in the national park and around Esperance.
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And now I have left it so long To write this that I can’t remember where was next 🙄.
But eventually we ended up heading east along the Nullarbor. Did you know there is an 18 hole cold course that runs along the Nullarbor? You can start at either end and make your way along the various holes at truck stops and small towns along the way. We didn’t play any golf, but it is certainly in the back of my mind for next time ⛳️.
The Nullarbor, while most people will be quick to tell you how long it is (which is true) or how boring it is, was really one of our favourite parts of our whole trip. Some of the cliffs along the Great Australian Bight area were unbelievably stunning. One night we had a camp spot on the edge of the bight, completely to ourselves.
We spent three nights along the Nullarbor and each camp was so different, each place was a free camp, one was a bush setting, one was behind some sand dunes and the final one of favourite on the cliffs.
We spent some time in Ceduna, and Port Lincoln before quickly visiting Adelaide.
Here we visited a whaling station, and a short drive to Coffin Bay so Joey could sample some of the famous oysters. In Adelaide we enjoyed our day at the 4wd and camping show and I went a saw a T20 cricket match and climbed up on the roof of the grandstand at Adelaide Oval. We visited McLaren Vale and enjoyed another wine region.
After Adelaide we had a pretty quick drive back to NSW, with a stop to visit a friend of Joey’s in Griffith, then onto Joey’s brothers place in the Southern Highlands for the weekend before making it back to Sydney. Where we have been visiting family and friends (spare bedroom surfing) for the past 6 weeks. Counting down til Christmas and then to our move back to Queensland. While the road trip is on a pause for the moment we are looking forward to our next adventure and we have had the most amazing time, visiting some wonderful places, ticking things off our bucket lists and covering lots of our country.
#seeyouontheroad
As promised earlier, I am adding some of the professional shots from our wonderful swim with Whale Sharks in Exmouth. We did our tour through Exmouth Dive & Whalesharks Ningaloo, we had a fantastic day out and these photos that were taken by Scott Plume were too good not to share, we have them all on a USB stick, but really when will we ever get that out of the bag and plug it into the computer!
May as well add some to the blog to look back on at a later date and to share………………
Cass & the Country 