10th October - Home

Home Sweet Home

Enjoying the last campsite

We made it!

Mandy and Caroline Adelaide

Luke, Christopher, Hamish, Sam BMX Track Adelaide

Cliffs of the Nullabor Plain

Yeah, we're home... after alot of driving and 18,354kms we have made it back to Main Ridge. and yes, although its been a fabulous trip its nice to be home... we live in a great part of the world.

We made it across the Nullabor and to Adelaide in 2 days which was a great effort by all. We called in at the Nullabor cliffs and caves which the boys really enjoyed exploring but apart from that, it was pretty much hitting the highway.. the hobbit, surprisingly kept the boys interested. We arrived late in Ceduna, as we had lost 2 1/2 hours due to daylight savings, so we stayed in a cabin. You have never seen 2 more excited kids at the prospect of a bed and TV. They didn't even mind watching the Commonwealth Games. We left early in the morning and did 760 kms during the day to arrive in Adelaide at 6:30pm where we had dinner and beds waiting thanks to Caroline and Peter.

We had an enjoyable day off the following day in Adelaide, where the kids had a wow of a time on the BMX track, right in the centre of Adelaide, followed by a swim in the pool, playstation and going to the movies. Who couldn't asked for a better day! We enjoyed spending our time with Caroline, Peter, Hamish and Sam but headed off the next morning after a brief play in the park. We made it to Victoria, to great excitement in the afternoon. We were going to bush camp in the Arapiles? State Park, but were shocked to find about 100 other people there. There must have been a climbing convention on or something. So we headed back down the road to a little bush reserve which we had passed which was perfect. No one else was there, we camped by a small lake, had our last campfire and enjoyed the stars talking about the trip. We headed off the next morning and were struck by how green and wet Victoria is. We stopped briefly in Horsham and Ballan for lunch, the boys were very eager to get home and very excited to see the city of Melbourne.

We arrived home at just after 3:30pm. 16 Kangaroos greeted us, more than we had seen on the trip! The place is very green and the dams full. We're all very excited at being home and realise how lucky we are to live where we do. We've had a great trip with so many highlights and its really hard to say what our favorite spot was after visiting so many amazing places.

We hope you've enjoyed following our adventures, not as much as me as we have. Until our next one. Au Revoir.

5th October Nullabor

Sunset on the Nullabor

Wildflowers on the Nullabor

Camels on the Connie Sue

Connie Sue Highway?

Sturt Peas on the Connie Sue

Sleeping out under the stars

Junction of Anne Beadell and Connie Sue

Travellers on the Connie Sue

Camels on the Anne Beadell

Dingo

Mesa's, Anne Beadell

The Thorny Devil

Having a true bush shower

The Anne Beadell Highway

We made it! Just.... out of the outback, like really outback. We left Laverton on Friday around lunch and headed off on the Anne Beadell with huge expectations of big corrugations, big rocks and a slow bumpy ride. We were wrong again and had a very cruisy trip to Neal Junction where we met the Connie Sue hghway. The scenery was so beautiful, with green spinifex, rock mountains, forests and lots of wildlife including Camels, Roo's, Dingoes, Repitiles including a Thorny Devil. The first night we camped at an old homestead, a very little one, and the boys got to experience a true bush shower. They filled buckets from a nearby well of water, heated it on the fire and then had a shower using another bucket with holes in it, in an old tank. Perfect, they were very impressed. We got to the Connie Sue the next day and headed south. We were lulled into a false sense of security by a wide sandy road with very few corrugations that wove around some old sand dunes. We slept out in the bush in the swags under a huge sky. Sunday we continued on our merry way seeing more wildlife, until we came to a turn off where the Connie Sue disappeared into a single lane rocky track and the other road continued off to the west. Then it was slow, dead slow. We had hit the Nullabor plain. It was rocky, we must have been on private land. Burnt out cars and cattle appeared on the side of the track. Vegetation disappeared. We were very glad we had track notes as tracks came and went all over the place. It took us 3 hours to cover the last 80kms. We met the owner of the cows on the track. Our first sign of humanity since leaving Laverton, the best part of this part of the trip was the complete solitude and real feeling of being nowhere. He asked us where we were going and said did we know the way from Rawlina to Cocklebiddy our destination. No was the answer as the Connie Sue ended at Rawlina. He told us most of the tracks marked on the maps didn't exist anymore and how dangerous the maps were as people could get lost out in the Nullabor on the wrong track. We were down to Jerry Cans of fuel so didn't want to go wrong. His directions were follow the dog fence along the train track until it ran out. Turn right and follow the track from there. Head South East. A junction around 30kms keep left, Head South. Probably about 96 miles and take about 5 or 6 hours and we had the wrong tyres. Goodbye. So we followed the dog fence headed right into some ones property and about 5k down came to a homestead, well better description some metal containers acting as houses. The family there Sally and David were very friendly but not very knowledgeable as they had only been there 3 weeks ago. Yes they believed you could get through to Cocklebiddy but it was very rough, someone had come past 2 weeks ago. Probably about 100km. David took us down to a junction where he was checking the water and we said goodbye. We went left and continued for about 10km before stopping next to a massive field of wildflowers and camped under the biggest sky ever. Its very flat on the Nullabor. The boys had a great time riding their bikes on the plains. The next morning, we headed off again all optimism that we would be in Cocklebiddy in a couple of hours as the road wasn't rough as expected. Wrong, 5 1/2 hours later we turned up after doing 100kms. Well there wasn't one junction, there was several, going South and East. Lucky we were guides and scouts. The compass and GPS came out (it couldn't get a position), but could tell us the direction. We slowly continued South as much as possible. Saw hundreds of Kangaroos but nothing else. No trees. Yeah, it was a bit stressful, The road, correction, track(s) were terrible. Rocks all over the place and we were continually expecting a puncture. Nobody around for literally miles. But, we made it. We eventually arrived on a bigger track that looked more promising and turned out to be the Cocklebiddy / Rawlina road. Why the farmer bloke sent us out into the middle of nowhere after telling us it was dangerous how people could get lost with misinforming maps we don't know. Apparantely the road/ track had been bad the week previous with the rain and someone had got bogged for a couple of hours. Anyway, we made it. Had lunch and are now on good ole tarmac for the rest of the trip. Well, maybe. We bushcamped by the Eyre Highway last night just west of the border in the swags, listening to the road trips whistling past. We're now heading to Ceduna, caravan park and showers. HAave just visited the Nullabor caves which the boys really enjoyed. We are definitely homeward bound, just the state next door!