It is an utterly glorious autumn day in Perth. Blue sky, light breeze, perfect temperature. I'm sitting on the balcony looking across the river towards downtown and have the English Antiques Roadshow on the TV in the background for company. Got the fish organized for dinner, have my delicious Carnarvon bananas freezing for treats, and just let a clever wine merchant talk me into ordering a case of wine I've never heard of. I am perfectly content. Time to share the story of our great adventures north.
After discussing various possible options Mike and I decided that for his birthday week celebration a road trip was just the ticket. This kept me busy organizing for a couple of weeks between research, booking the camper, planning our route, booking the caravan parks, etc. Not to mention the packing list making and shopping. Finally preparation was complete.
We picked up our camper and immediately headed out of town to drive to Geraldton for our first night adventure. And got lost. Before we even made it out of town.
My bad.
Turns out none of the maps we actually had in our possession were precise in exactly which highway to take out of town to go north. Turns out its the Brand Highway. Never heard of it before. Regardless we eventually made it to the right freeway...glancing warily at each other to see if we could manage this first hurdle without harsh language. We did.
Free of the shackles of city traffic at last we hit the open road. Which is a two lane rural highway. Driving a big old panel camper on these narrow roads required the utmost concentration and two hands on the wheel at all times. Except then there were these horrible rattles and clunks coming from everywhere...under the camper, inside the camper, from our bags of unstowed stuff. It was like driving from inside a child's rattle.
After about 5 hours we made it safely to Geraldton and found our camping site. Mike was ready to set up camp, I on the other hand headed immediately to a bottle of nice rose and poured myself a full glass of restorative liquid before getting down to the business of stowing our gear and identifying the worst of the rattles. We found that two paper plates folded over twice and jammed around the edges, plus a tea towel inside on the glass tray were sufficient for silencing the microwave. And two large pillows crammed in the closet stifled the worst of the rattling there. Duct tape on a spot or two outside silenced a bit more noise. :-)
Still and all, we were on our way and the stars over head were worth all the 'adventure' of the day.
Camped in Geraldton
After discussing various possible options Mike and I decided that for his birthday week celebration a road trip was just the ticket. This kept me busy organizing for a couple of weeks between research, booking the camper, planning our route, booking the caravan parks, etc. Not to mention the packing list making and shopping. Finally preparation was complete.
We picked up our camper and immediately headed out of town to drive to Geraldton for our first night adventure. And got lost. Before we even made it out of town.
My bad.
Turns out none of the maps we actually had in our possession were precise in exactly which highway to take out of town to go north. Turns out its the Brand Highway. Never heard of it before. Regardless we eventually made it to the right freeway...glancing warily at each other to see if we could manage this first hurdle without harsh language. We did.
Free of the shackles of city traffic at last we hit the open road. Which is a two lane rural highway. Driving a big old panel camper on these narrow roads required the utmost concentration and two hands on the wheel at all times. Except then there were these horrible rattles and clunks coming from everywhere...under the camper, inside the camper, from our bags of unstowed stuff. It was like driving from inside a child's rattle. After about 5 hours we made it safely to Geraldton and found our camping site. Mike was ready to set up camp, I on the other hand headed immediately to a bottle of nice rose and poured myself a full glass of restorative liquid before getting down to the business of stowing our gear and identifying the worst of the rattles. We found that two paper plates folded over twice and jammed around the edges, plus a tea towel inside on the glass tray were sufficient for silencing the microwave. And two large pillows crammed in the closet stifled the worst of the rattling there. Duct tape on a spot or two outside silenced a bit more noise. :-)
Still and all, we were on our way and the stars over head were worth all the 'adventure' of the day.
1 comment:
I love your updates! I'm living my life through you right now! :) How much fun I'm having. :)
Brandy
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