Caravan life



The seats are very comfortable for reading and sewing, the table folds back to 1/3 the size when you don't need it. We haven't used the van shower here at Venus Bay as the water is all bore water & it is not recommended to put through the van, but the facility's here are excellent even a small bath in the ladies which I have made the most of. When we are free camping we do use the shower but not as normal, you wet down first, turn the water off while you soap everything then a very quick rinse to finish off. Tried to get a photo of the shower (empty of course) for George but too hard in a confined space. The bed is fabulously comfortable and we don't tend to get up early and the sound proofing in the van is good, we very rarely hear outside noises.



Bryon's turn to cook, sometimes the bench can get cluttered but housework is minimal and you just learn to put everything away. Doing the dishes is easy as everything is within arms length for putting away.

Love the BBQ, we have had a roast pork and lots of yummy meals done on this, the standard is Bryon cooks the bbq's & I do the salads or vegs.

Crispy skin Atlantic Salmon with a tossed salad served with a nice red wine, so it seems restraunt Porteous is still open!

this is our view from the van. The only drawback here is the Pacific Gulls like to perch on the roof so it sounds like people are wandering around up there & they leave lots of big deposits.

Haslam Sunset

Sunset over the jetty at Haslam!



Bryon took these snaps. We have really enjoyed our stay at Haslam and will be back again next year.



unbelievable colours in this sunset, but was bitterly cold at the time.

Haslam

Friday 25th Feb;

Have been camped at Haslam since Tuesday, about 12 other camps in here at the moment including some couples we have met at several other camps coming across the Nullabor, good facilities, a flushing toilet after long drops & plenty of water to fetch in buckets, so able to shower every day. Very social & one of our neighbors’ has given us some beautiful big crabs already cooked & cleaned, yum! Bryon is out fishing as I write this & also planning on putting our marron nets out after we do some modifications to them to suit crabs.

Congratulations to Caitlyn for getting Head Girl at school, we are very proud!

Sunday 27th;

Went to Smokey Bay yesterday, has a normal caravan park but no free camping & a well stocked general store, prices not much different to Albany. All the coastal towns seem to have long jetty’s left over from the days of sea freight. Off to Streaky Bay tomorrow for groceries & washing & to visit some other camping places to pick out our next stop. Hoping they have a second hand book shop there as we are getting through the pile we have. Have been fighting mosquitos at night in the van until we found a vent behind the microwave that was not screened, much better since Bryon fixed that. Went to a oyster factory today & got shown the grading & sorting they do there, the oyster boats are out most days and we have had a lovely feed for $6 per dozen.

Thanks for the comments everyone, George I will get back to you soon with some details about life in the van. I am doing this update standing against a washing machine in a laundromat in Streaky Bay where I have the laptop plugged in to recharge. Just had a feed of whiting & salt & pepper squid for lunch, was yummy! Have been to check out some other camping site but still not sure where we are going after Haslam.

Fowler the cat

Fowler the cat

Fowler and Lulu

he moved in with us for the three days we were in the park and freloaded on whatever food he could get! Very smoochy & loving.

Fowlers Bay

Saturday 19th Feb; Arrived at Fowlers Bay at about 6.30pm after losing 2.5 hours in the time change but with the daylight saving was still light till about 9pm. Very friendly park & the bay is just beautiful. The park has new owners, a young couple from Denmark just down the road from Albany. They have been here since October & the park is very well kept. Also met the resident park cat named Fowler who has made himself at home in our van( see photos), he slept the night on one of our chairs & seemed please with the polony he got for breakfast, I wonder how many breakfasts he went around and collected from various cat lovers! Have limited mobile phone reception here but still no internet, last connection was Norseman & until now we haven’t had the TV hooked up since we left Esperance.

Talked to Chelsea last night & their move into our house yesterday sounds like it went well (have to call it their house now )

Nullabor Plain

Border Village.

Friday 18th, Camped the next night at Moodini Bluffs on the west side of Mundrabilla & met up with two couple’s that we had met also at Fraser Range so had happy hour with them. After leaving there the next morning we discovered the wide variety of different trees nicely decorated in individual themes which kept us amused for ages, unfortunately I was not able to get photos of these as by the time we spotted each of them we were already past & Bryon wouldn’t stop. This is the list of the ones we spotted & we may have missed a few; underwear, stuffed toys (yes stuffed toys & they all looked in good nick), thongs, shoes, bottles, cups, Dolls including a cabbage patch, hats & last one was gloves. Very entertaining. These were all west of Mundrabilla.


Couldn’t have asked for better conditions for crossing the Nullabor, cool temperatures, mostly no wind and overcast, heading to Fowlers Bay for a couple of days.

Awesome cliffs in the bight, to the right.

and to the left.

Fraser Range Station

Thursday 18^th, Stayed one night at Fraser Range, lovely park, great facilities and a nice walk that takes you up the hill to the water tank and gives a great view over the station and surrounds, saw a couple of big red kangaroo’s while we were up there. The lovely park dog Lewis kept us company whenever we went for a walk. It also has a big fire pit for communal gatherings but is not in use this time of the year due to fire restrictions. Still raining on & off.

The communial fire pit

lovely gardens.

The rig.