Here we go, the first part of our dramas.
So I did forgot a very important detail about our stay at Albany. We had tried to get our caravan registered there, as it was coming close to when the registration was going to expire. We got to the registration inspection station, expecting a ten minute check, and waited for the inspector to come out. He walked out, and Joel's sharp eyes immediately spotted the clipboard in his hands. Immediately the thought popped into his head “we're done for. He'll never pass us” He slowly walked around and inspected it, frowned a few times, stood up and dropped the bombshell. “Sorry, I can't pass this, you need to fix your lights (Which we knew were temperamental), your brakes, your bearings need changing (we only changed them in Port headland), and you need reflectors. Excuse me? The cost of those repairs alone would probably cost more than the caravan.
So I did forgot a very important detail about our stay at Albany. We had tried to get our caravan registered there, as it was coming close to when the registration was going to expire. We got to the registration inspection station, expecting a ten minute check, and waited for the inspector to come out. He walked out, and Joel's sharp eyes immediately spotted the clipboard in his hands. Immediately the thought popped into his head “we're done for. He'll never pass us” He slowly walked around and inspected it, frowned a few times, stood up and dropped the bombshell. “Sorry, I can't pass this, you need to fix your lights (Which we knew were temperamental), your brakes, your bearings need changing (we only changed them in Port headland), and you need reflectors. Excuse me? The cost of those repairs alone would probably cost more than the caravan.
As we climbed into our car, our brains
started to whirl with the ramifications of us failing the rego check.
We can't drive the caravan without it being registered, and they
won't register us. What to do??
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| Lucky Bay |
Our Game Plan:
Cross the country in 8 days, getting
our caravan registered in NSW, where it appears to be slacker.
Get to the snow and ski for 2 weeks
Pretty Simple? I wish!!
So we left Albany and headed out to
Esperance, another 500km down the road. Just 10km out of Esperance we
popped a tyre, first since Exmouth (I think). We made it the rest of
the way unharmed and went to bed with plans whirling through our
brain. Luckily, we had already done the momentous job of planning all
the accommodation across the Nullabor (it is quite a big task,
finding places, ringing them, getting prices, writing it down,
choosing the cheapest.. Now we just had
the rest of our across country trip to plan.
After planning, we headed out to Cape
Le Grand. Bay, was it beautiful! It has apparently the whitest sand
in Australia, and it was definetly the whitest we've seen. The
water was also this lovely green colour, contrasting perfectly
with the white water. Definitley a winner on our list!
We also picked up two spare tyres in
Esperance, replacing our spare and another really old one.
We left Esperance after spending 3
nights there and headed up to Norseman . We were only staying in
Norseman for a stopover, planning to head up to in the
afternoon. Just a bit out of Esperance, we popped a tyre leaving us
with one spare. Our first stop in Kalgoorlie was the Western
Australia Musuem. We learnt about the early history of Kalgoorlie,
including the gold discoveries and life on the goldfields. We also
went up on the headframe, getting some stunning views over the city.
After the WA musuem, we went to the
Super Pit. We had heard all about it, and were quite interested in
seeing it. It was simply amazing in it's size!! The super pit is the
largest open-cut mine in Australia. Seeing some of the tyres for the
trucks, double the size of Chloe, was amazing.
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| The Super Pit |
The next day we set off across the
Nullabor. Now, we had heard all sorts of bad stories about the
Nullabor, but the whole experience for us was altogether not too bad
(well, the scenery anyway). We popped one more tyre over the
Nullabor, leaving us with no spares, but it was our last stop before
hitting civilisation again and we were all frantically praying. We
hooked up and headed off, but just as we headed out of the caravan
site, there was an onimous bang, and we pulled up. WE got out of the
car,and immediately saw that we had popped a tyre. When we had
jacked it up, we were shocked to find our actual rim had broken. A
bit had snapped off the rim, popping the tube. 150Kms out of Ceduna!!
Now, i'll leave you on a cliffhanger, and you will have to come back to read all about the dramas.
Now, i'll leave you on a cliffhanger, and you will have to come back to read all about the dramas.
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| A storm is approaching (taking through our front windscreen, not too clean sorry) |
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| We did it everybody (well the 90 mile part of it)!! |
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| Sunrise at Nundroo, The last stop before Ceduna |
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