Nov 19 - 25

19th November Sunday
Week 31
Leaving Hopetoun this morning and making our way towards Esperance, although our stay will be 25km North of Esperance, at Gibson’s Soak RV friendly 72 hr free stop over rest area for self- contained travellers.
The Gibson Soak Hotel is an iconic and popular bar, nestled beneath the Morton Bay fig trees with timber decking, jarrah bar tops and rustic barrel tables where you can enjoy the “Gibbo steak” one of Esperance’s largest steaks.
We ended up camping here right next to Richard and Andrea, who we have been crossing paths with on the road as far back as Port Hedland a few months ago now.
We took a drive into Esperance township which is only 20 minutes from camp that will be very handy for shopping in a few days. We had lunch then a scenic drive across the top of the Great Ocean coastline road stretching 40km with some of the most spectacular beaches in WA.
The first beach was West Beach, a hidden gem and only 3km from town, this extraordinary beautiful beach stretches as far as the eye can see. Access is via a winding 125 step wooden staircase spiralling down to turquoise waters and swimming lagoons between the reef and shore, as well as surf breaks between/ beyond the reef.
As we continued along the ocean coastline more beautiful beaches were seemingly unending and I have listed a few we saw.

Blue Haven 6.7kms from town very similar to West Beach with winding staircase for access to beach.
Salmon Beach 7.2kms from town- spectacular
Fourth Beach with sweeping endless ocean, very popular with surf and body board enthusiasts, paddle board and kite surfing.
Twilight beach 11.1 kms from town was one of my favourite and voted most popular beach in WA. Crystal clear waters, snow white sand and the ‘iconic rock with the hole in it’.
Our afternoon finished down at the Esperance Foreshore and the Tanker Jetty precinct where the iconic collapsed jetty stands broken.  This jetty is one of only three long timber jetties remaining in WA and is possibly being restored at some stage by state government funding. On the North side was a shaded world class discovery based nature playground, surrounded by a landscaped myriad of native plants, historical art installations depicting the history of the evolving beach front.
“Sammy the Seal” the historical sculpture shared a photograph with Billy.

We discovered the beautiful art work of “Direction” sculpture which is a manually revolving art piece of North, South, East, West in timber, inlaid with a mosaic turquoise pattern of tiles.

20th November Monday
Today we are continuing our Ocean Drive sightseeing, and will have many walks on the beaches.

21st November Tuesday
Left Gibson’s soak and travelled North to Noresmen which is only 184 kms for us today.
Will be staying overnight at Noresmen Recreational reserve camp in town with green grass to walk on, this quaint little town offers travelers free camps, so to spend a few dollars in the local IGA is our way to say thank you. If it wasn’t for the many travelers passing through these towns and spending money on a few items, these businesses would struggle to survive.
The weather forecast is very windy and cool, hoping it stays like this as we cross the Nullarbor on Wednesday.

22nd November Wednesday
Leaving Norseman this morning and this will be the start of our journey towards home on the Nullarbor- Eyre Highway. This section of the trip we will be conserving fuel and water even more so as there are few services available.
The caravan water tanks hold 320 litres. Diesel fuel 270 litres in cruiser and 10 litres for diesel heater, 20 litres of unleaded in jerry can for generator.
Lots of interesting things to see along the way including the Nullarbor’s longest golf course in the world being 1,000km in length. These roads climb and rise, and currently we are at a height of 426mtrs, so not as flat as some people think the Nullarbor is.

We have had no mobile phone service since this morning, so we are relying on Wiki camps for a place to stop for the night. About 240kms of driving today from Noresmen as we stop at Baxter which is just a 24-hour rest stop off the main highway. A sink hole was located out amongst this area following the GPS, and it would have been about a 5mtr drop. Apparently there are a lot more scattered everywhere here.

As usual with the majority of these off the road rest stops the rubbish littered everywhere is the same. Toilet paper is by far the worst followed by general waste of plastic bags, anything in plastic containers, cardboard and tins.
We had quite a few other travellers come into Baxter rest area throughout the afternoon and late night.
23rd November Thursday
15 degrees, overcast all day.
Back on the Nullarbor Eyre highway by 8.30 this morning and stopping as often as we can finding points of interest along the way.
We crossed a timeline whilst on the Nullarbor so all our clocks are 45 minutes in front now.
Following Wiki we located a few caves off the main road of which the photos are below. We stopped at Murra El Evelyn cave for morning tea and spent time taking photos and making sure Billy doesn’t get too close to the edges.

Pannikin Doline cave. Our camp for tonight was off the main highway, following a dirt track to a lookout aptly named ‘On Top Of The Ridge’. We can see the highway and the Madura Roadhouse.

24th November Friday.
Leaving camp this morning continuing onto Eucla to have a look at the Old Telegraph Station out here, as we remember it there is an old ruin half under sand. Tracks running all over the escarpment and out towards the Great Australian Bight, many would lead to great camping areas. We have crossed the border into SA now after leaving Eucla.
We have been in Western Australia for the last 5 months, a bit sad to leave it all behind with still so much we didn’t see.


This afternoon we camped on the Great Australian Bight, Eyre Highway Border village SA. A magnificent location and spectacular coastline views as far as you can see. There are some unstable edges on the cliff face, so we had to be careful with Billy so he didn’t run off the edge.


 25th November Saturday
Today we are spending another day here enjoying the views and relaxing.
Views of sunset.

Nov 12 -18

13th November Monday
Week 30
This morning we left Cosy Corner after five glorious days of sun, surf and sand to move onto another part of this beautiful WA coastline. Unfortunately, last night the weather turned rainy and a bit gloomy, but we shall drive to another campground and stay at Betty’s Beach [34degrees 56`13” S] [118degrees 12` 30” E] about 50kms from Albany.
There are five camp spots in total and we were fortunate to get the closest one overlooking the ocean. A few shacks are built along the ocean foreshore for when the commercial salmon fishing is popular from 15th Feb to 30th April but apparently anyone can use them to camp in when not in use.

After we set up we went for a drive around the sand tracks to have a look. We could see a house high up amongst the sand dunes and very well protected from the winds, but the track was private property, so we turned back.
We located another section of the beach named Norman’s Beach which also has free camping and only a few campsites here.

Betty’s Beach have toilets, bins, no phone or TV reception, no water or power so you need to be self-sufficient to stay.

14th November Tuesday.
The morning remained brilliant sunshine with a strong cool breeze throughout the whole day. We took a walk down onto the beach before breakfast, and with Billy ahead of us climbing over the massive boulders like a mountain goat, we ventured across the rocks and dropped down to the next section of beach here which was just as pretty.
Quite a few other people arrived throughout the day to try their luck at catching a fish and generally to enjoy the sunshine.
Billy had a serious haircut with the clippers today, he didn’t appear too impressed as his hair flew away in the breeze. He looks a lot neater and ready for the predicted warmer temperatures as we get closer to crossing the Nullarbor in few weeks.

A lazy day for all of us, nothing planned other than to enjoy being on holidays next to gorgeous turquoise water.

15th November Wednesday
A slightly overcast and windy day predicted but the sun is out, so we plan to spend time on the beach while we can and swim Billy.
We don’t have very good mobile range here at Betty’s beach, but we found if we walked back up the dirt road or placed the mobiles against the window in van, we could send and receive texts.
By midday the seas were very rough with increasing winds and we were forced to slightly turn our van around, so we would have less wind on the door and be able to open it.
Our last night here at Betty’s beach.

16th November Thursday
This morning we left this beautiful beach and will continue heading East and see what we find along the way. We had morning tea on the South Coast Hwy and Bremmer Bay just off the side of the road.
These roads had not much in between to stop to look at, so we continued through Jerramungup till we found Fitzgerald Road (old school site) for lunch. It was here we caught up with friends for at lunch, who were camped with us at Betty’s beach. We took a walk around this old school site and the community has set up plaques for past students and principals which was very interesting and very educational, about the history of the families that purchased land for farming, housing, schooling and often at times hardships.

After leaving Fitzgerald region, we continued to Ravensthorpe East RV town rest area on the South Coast Hwy for the night. It was a very basic park with toilets across the road and a short walk up town to the IGA, tavern, fuel, chemist.
Ravensthorpe town is located 190kms West of Esperance and is encircled by the rugged Ravensthorpe Range, amid tall Salmon gums which stretches for 45kms, abundance of plants, wildlife, scenic lookouts and an extensive old-time mining history. Today we drove an average of 270kms, a slightly longer day than usual.
Warm breezes into the night with expected forecast of increased daytime temperatures tomorrow.






17th November Friday
This morning as we packed to leave Ravensthorpe the temperature at 8am was already 28 degrees.
We don’t have many kilometres to travel to Hopetoun today and isn’t it a warm start to the day already!
Found the 48-hour RV rest stop in Hopetoun and beside a walkway down to the beach, we were set up and looking forward to being close to the ocean once again.
36 degrees at 12.30! The AC in the van has been on since we got here, and hoping for a storm later in the afternoon.

18th November Saturday
Glorious sunny day and no storm as it passed us by and went towards Esperance instead.
Up early for a walk on the beach at 5.30am and Billy excited as ever to run and play in the water.
Using the laundry here at Hopetoun to get rid of all the dirty stuff and start fresh prior to the Nullarbor crossing. We plan to be at Esperance tomorrow for all top up of food, fuel etc.

Nov 5 - 11

5th November Sunday
Week 29
This morning we shared a coffee with our camping/ travelling friends Mark and Julie, Teresa and Al at The Local Grocery Store coffee shop, before they continued further to the rest of their holiday.

Our plan today is to remain at Mount Barnett for another day and enjoy the sunny weather, sightsee the town and generally relax.
6th November Monday


Sue’s Birthday (gift from Russell)

Staying in and around Mount Barker today, and looking forward to a drive out to West Cape Howe winery for a wine taste testing. The presentation of this winery was spectacular, the grass was very green and so manicured, and the lake was an open invitation for Billy.

Yes, Billy couldn’t resist the water, but he had no idea how deep it was or how he was going to get out. In he went and a bit of panic set in when he couldn’t get himself out……but he did on his own.

After he finished the enjoyment of rolling on the soft grass we finally made our way to the entrance of West Cape Howe winery and what a place.


On entering the winery foyer the beautiful open spaces invited you to sit and relax either on the supple leather couch, or up near the bar area for wine taste testing. We chose the leather lounge and put our feet up on the wooden table with glass in hand, casting our eye around the award-winning estate.

Artists from around the vicinity have a lovely display of work including amazing iron wrought and laser cut images for sale. We spent a bit of time looking through some books they had on display aptly named Wine Dogs, which kept us amused for some time as we turned page after page reading the lives of how a dog’s life is on a winery, and the stories that unfolded.
We did finally leave the beautiful West Cape Howe winery and continued our drive to Mount Barker lookout for lunch, and the views were endless on such a clear day.

After lunch we drove back down into Mount Barker for the rest of the day and looked forward to dinner out to celebrate Sue’s birthday.

7th November Tuesday
This morning we leave Mount Barker and make our way towards Albany for the whole day as a lot of things to do. Our caravan TV aerial is faulty, so we shall be replacing that today and installing it somehow without a ladder.

Sue was just sitting at the coffee shop waiting her coffee when a complete stranger just handed her a King Charles Spaniel puppy to hold while she went into the cafe. Of course this dd not go down well and Sue just hatter the experience.   NOT.

Late this afternoon we returned back at Cosy Corner and plan to stay for the next 6 days.
The weather has continued to stay sunny and the beach and ocean beautiful as usual. We had friends drop into Cosy Corner for a visit on Thursday who we had spent time with at Mount Barker, but unfortunately there was no spare spots to camp.
These photos are the improvised version of what we used to access the caravan roof, by using the 4wd back tyre to stand on to reach the roof of van here at Cosy Corner. Billy of course found all this activity so exhausting he just lay down on the black sand and had a sleep.
On an afternoon we drove down to a very close section of track to another beach and what a gem! Turquoise clear water and no one else on the beach.

These are the views we always have when we go for our beach walks every morning.

Russell was not too excited about doing an oil change and then replaced the fuel filter, but we did go back to the beach as a reward.
On Saturday afternoon the weather forecast was predicting strong winds and possible showers, so that maybe the last of our sunny days for a while.