A big thank you...

to all our family and friends over the last few weeks. Your calls, emails, texts and fb posts have given me the strength to get through this tough time. Now that the funeral is finally over, we can start to pick up the pieces and try to get back to some semblance of normality. We have a couple more weeks in the UK to tie up the loose ends, then we will be back to Oz to re-commence our trip. There's been a change of plan re our itinerary, but more on that later.

Thanks again, from both of us.

Coming home...

We found out this morning that my mum passed away, so we're heading home tomorrow. We'll resume our travels at some point in the future, but for now, it's home to say goodbye...

Esperance - the start of our journey

After spending 10 hours on a bus, we arrived in Esperance to pick up our new home. Tommy and Sue Druce (who sold us the rig) made us extremely welcome. Tommy met us from the bus and drove us the 65kms to their home, where a lovely meal was waiting for us (Sue is an excellent cook). We listened to their stories of places visited and made notes so we can do the same. In the morning, they took us to the beaches and showed us the reasons they had decided to settle there.

 

Beautiful turquoise water and super fine sand was what we found. We will definitely return in the summer for a closer look (and to catch those extra large squid Tommy told us about) when the wind isn't blowing straight up from the arctic!

After an emotional farewell (as we felt like we had been adopted), we set off for an 8 hour drive to our friend's farm in Narrogin. On the way, we passed through Wagin (see Mark's post for the giant ram).

We spent a relaxing few days with Vicki and Robert on the farm, took Mark around to see the thousands of pigs they currently have in their sheds, fed the lambs and I learnt to reverse the Ute onto the van and also tow it down the gravel road off the farm :-)

Tomorrow we start shopping for everything to fill the van, from a tin opener to pans, plastic plates to
a generator. Oh, and food...

The biggest bollocks in the west...

The 'famous' Wagin Merino ram. 9 x life size and anatomically accurate really does mean testicles the size of space hoppers.....

Meet the Tigger rig...

Back from Esperance with the rig. Maria won't let me call it Thunderbox 6 or DunnyRoaming, and its a bit bouncy on the rougher roads, so the Tigger Rig it is...

Its a 27' vision in beige inside and out, but comfortable and spacious and we've lived in it for the last 4 nights. It also wobbles a bit every time Maria turns over in bed - she really does need to learn to be a delicate flower

Tow vehicle is a Nissan Navara 3.0 turbo diesel which is about as different from the Boxster as you can get. Maria used to struggle getting into a low slung sports car, now she struggles climbing up into this. Never satisfied. And yes, that is her practising her reversing technique against a shovel tied to a washing line - I figured that would be cheaper to repair if she got carried away.

She did later hitch it up properly, and towed it out of Vicki's farm and to the end of the dirt road, then I got to drive the rest of the way back to Perth and reverse it onto Harry and Jenny's front garden after a few attempts. Should piss the neighbours off for a few days while we stock it up

We managed most things on the journey up from Esperance - road trains going the other way don't affect it at all, and I didn't notice the one overtaking us until he came level with the drivers window- rear view mirrors are not big enough to see round the beast. Even managed a U-turn in the cemetery overflow parking when I missed the turning for Narrogin....

we'll do a video of the inside in daylight sometime and post