January 27th 2020
21st December 2019
John has been emailing a cousin for some time now and we finally got to meet Robert and Jenny Drury. They live in North Perth . We spent quite a few hours talking about the family tree etc, it was interesting Jenny is also from New Zealand.
The weather has been very hot here since we arrived. Most day have been in the high 30s early 40s.
It has been very relaxing just sitting around catching up with our fiends and playing the odd game of 5 crowns .
We went for a drive around the area and came across this piece of art.
24 th December
We all went out to Penny and Dave Clark for a pre Christmas bbq. Penny and Dave Re from South Africa. It was interesting hearing about the Tawa they came from. Penny and Dave have offered for us to leave our truck and caravan parked up at their place when we go the England which is very much appreciate.
Christmas Day was very quiet . John cooked on the bbq a lovely roast of pork and also made a lovely steam fruit pudding. As it was so hot we had salads. The temperature on Christmas Day was in the high 30s.
Beautiful sunset on Christmas Day at Beverley
John planing our next place we are going to stop after we leave Beverley on the 18 th January. We are going to Wagin for a couple of weeks .
30 th DecemberJohn and I went into Perth for the day. IKEA was the first port of call . It sure is a big shop. We managed to return and replace our shower caddy and buy some plastic bags which double seal. You can only buy them at this shop. Then Kmart for lunch and Bunnings, Spotlight, Supercheap , Autobarn and lastly Spudshed. Wow the Spudshed sure has a lot of different things at a cheap prices. We brought ice creams for 29 cents .
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31 st December
New Year’s Eve was spent playing 5 crowns from 7 o’clock to just before midnight with a few drinks. We played a lot of kiwi music in this time . Yes it made us a little homesick . The time sure went quick.
Happy New Year everyone and may 2020 be a year that many of your dreams comes true.
1 st January 2020 brought another beautiful sunny day. Sadly there are still many fires burning across
New South Wales and South Australia. Over 800 homes have been destroyed and 4 firefighters lost their lives very sad.
View from space satellite of the Australian fires
The Nullarbor road has been closed since 16 th December, with only the odd few hours when they allowed a few truck and trailers to go through since the fires started there last year.
7 th January 2020
Police started escorting the truck and trailers, cars , then the cars towing caravans through the Nullarbor this morning leaving the boarder at 7 o’clock. The press mentioned that there were over 400 truck - trailer then 100s of vehicles and caravans. It was over 500 k distance they had to travel and they were asking that no one stops even to go to the toilet if possible unless it was a emergency. As they had only a few hours clearance to get through whilst firefighters still fought the fires.
They are expecting more lightning strikes tomorrow .
John has been fitting a new diesel heater to our caravan before winter . It was a time consuming job as he had not done anything like this before. . It sure will keep us warm when the cold nights arrives here in Western Australia.
15 th January
As we are leaving this area tomorrow we decided to go to York and visits the local museum this morning and deliver a couple more of the crochet dolls I made for a local gift store.
Our neighbour Don and Jackie Green had one of these cars in England.
This was Margaret’s first car except hers was a Manuel
Children’s peddle cars
Susan from Oma’s Cottage Creations who brought four of these dolls I crocheted. She has a lovely gift store in York
16 th January
We left the property today where Anne and Keith have been house sitting and made our way to have a look around Beverly. We have been here for a month now and have not had the opportunity to have a look around the township together. John has caught up with doing things in the truck and caravan with Keith’s help.
Beverly was founded in 1838 , it is one of Western Australia’s oldest settlements. It opened up for agriculture.
There is Avondale Agriculture Machinery Museum here but sadly it is not open in the summer due to the fires etc.
Time to pack up the caravan after a month
John and I are going to Wagin tomorrow after we are stay in Beverly tonight .
The artwork is done by James Giddy when he visited the town in June 2017.
Like most small towns in Australia they have there bowling club , a golf club, Football club , Horse and pony club and there market day first weekend every month so the lady’s can show there craft wares . It is a very friendly town. John and his team at the Post office make you most welcome and will help you out where they can . A large RV Freedom park for 48 hours at Apex Park across the road from the Avon River.
Photos below of the Avondale Agriculture Machinery Museum courtesy of google . It sure did look interesting sadly it will not be open whilst we are here.
We stayed at the Beverly RV park just near town a very quiet area to park and in the morning fresh coffee was right out side your door. We went for a walk in the evening down by the river. John woke up early and decided to go for a hours walk around where we were parked. He enjoys his early morning walks.
We thought we would have a treat. Not what we expected it to taste like. John had a taste and said no not him. So there is enough for Margaret to have a drink tomorrow night . Don’t think we will buy it again. But you have to try these things sometimes.
The Avon river in Beverley . Well what’s left of it .
Our park for the night at Beverley RV
Our lovely cup of coffee made by Janet and guess what she is a kiwi from Akaroa in the South Island. We had a lovely chat with her.
These photos are taking on the edge of the a small town called Brookton .
John is standing by a replica of a Clydesdale
We arrived in Wagin this afternoon and are staying at the RV Showgrounds park. $10.00 a night. Nice and quiet here.
The Giant Ram is the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere, measuring 13 metres in length and 9 meters in height . The area around the ram has been turned into a lovely picnic area.
23 rd January
We decided to go for a drive within a 50 k or so of Wagin area. Found some interesting sites.
26 th January is Australia Day .
John and I decided to go and join in with the locals at Wagin for a early breakfast of bacon eggs tomatoes and sausages at 7.30 am in celebrating Australia Day. A great turn out for a small country town. Plus there were presentations for many of the locals for achievements etc in the last year.
We spoke to a volunteer firefighter and did a swap of tops from NZ . My brother Ian now had a tea shirt with Wagin on it for his collection .
John and I celebrating Australian day 26th January 2020 at Ram Park Wagin
This month sure has gone fast. It is quite a warm day here at Wagin 33 degrees. Too hot to do much so John and I decided to go out for a drive and have a look at the salt lakes near by.
A large piece of sea salt John found on the lake. As we walked out further onto the lake it became very soft and we sunk down up to our ankles . We turned around then and made our way back to stable ground. There is a 12 k walk you can do around the edge of this lake. John was going to do this but found the sand very soft where the track was so it would of been very difficult. Time for the walk was 8 hours on the sign post.
We had a visitor on the truck this morning one very large prying mantis. My hand spand is 8 inches . Yes it is a large insect. I put him onto a tree as it was hanging off the truck.
This is the view over Wagin from the top of the rock
We finally got our two battery’s for the truck . John spent Wednesday morning moving a few things around as the new battery’s are somewhat larger than what we had in it. The battery’s are called
Go Green costing us $470.00 each. Hopefully we won’t need any new battery for a while now as we have Go Greens in the caravan for the last 4 years and we are very happy with them .
We are leaving Wagin this Friday 31st January and slowly making our way to Albany. We have found Wagin to be a very friendly town and the locals are only to happy to help you with directions to see this area. John went for walk every morning for a hour and had the enjoyment of meeting a few locals on his walk and even got invited to a farmers coffee break with 8 retired farmer
