We left Albany first thing this morning after saying good bye to friends Pauline and John who are staying at the Pararoma caravan park also. It will be a great sunny day with no wind for driving. This pleased us as having an oncoming wind can cause us to use a lot of fuel at times, plus it can also be very dangerous towing a caravan with winds. John checked the Windy weather app and found that we would have a tail wind.
We leisurely made our way to Ravensthorpe and parked up the caravan and went for a drive to Hopetoun . This small town is on the coast 55 km from Ravensthorpe. We had a drive around the town.
Came across this painted beach scene on the local swimming showers and toilets.
On our way into Hopetown we spot this lovely display at the entrance to a farm
We spent one more night at Bushlands caravan park in Esperance and collected our mail. We were waiting for the WA fuel card to arrive. The Western Australia government give pensioners a fuel card with $575 dollars on it to use anywhere in WA. This sure did come in handy for us in filling up the truck with diesel and filling the 200 litre drum in the back plus filling up the echo and two spare containers of unleaded fuel. 
This roundabout was in the centre of Norseman. The camels are made out of corrugated iron sheets. A very interesting array of camels walking around the roundabout.
Our first night on the road we did 565 km and found a sheltered area off the road to stay. We had a beautiful sunset.
First job after travelling . Pumping fuel from the drum in the back of the truck to our main tank
Beautiful sunset along the Nullarbor
Our second day on the Nullarbor John checked the weather and found that the winds were due to pick up. We did over 635 km today. We found a park quite a way off the main road and sheltered behind a couple of trees. We sure are pleased we did this the wind picked up that night and blew all the next day so we decided to stay another night . Marg decided to do some baking and fill in the time. Made 2 fruit cakes and two different biscuits which I’m sure will keep us going for a while . The wind seemed to settle around 9 o’clock in the morning so it was a quick pack up and start traveling again.
Sunset set on a very windy night
As we headed towards the quarantine boarder between WA and SA we came across a dozen camels walking just off the road, plus saw a few foxes. Wedgetailed Eagles were having a feed off a dead kangaroo, and sadly quite a few Wombats that had been hit by cars.
We visited the Head of Australian Bight in December last year on our way to WA to see where the whales have their young. The weather was beautiful today so we popped in there again and yes we saw half a dozen whales and there calves in the beautiful blue water. A very special time.
We passed through the quarantine inspection at Ceduna all good. We had eaten all our fruit and the veggies we had put in the freezer .
We drove just over 395 Kms and some of the time it was quite windy. When we arrived at Ceduna we fueled up because here it is only 109.9c/l It was late in the afternoon so we decided to park at a caravan park and have a lovely hot shower and relax and watch tv.
5th August
We leisurely made our way down the coast to Port Lincoln passing Streaky Bay. We stopped there just before Christmas. Stopped at Port Kenny for lunch then drove past Coffin Bay and onto Port Lincoln.The paddocks are full of beautiful yellow canola flowers which are used to make canola oil.
As far as you can see it’s canola.
We had once again driven nearly 500 km. We found a RV park for $10.00 a night per van with a stunning view. In the morning we are going into Port Lincoln for a look around. The wind was quite strong plus the temperature has dropped to 12 degs . Time to settle down with the heater on and cook a small roast for tea.
A beautiful view looking over Port Lincoln from where we are parked tonight
The wind sure did blow all last night . Both of us got very little sleep. We went for a drive into Port Lincoln and had a look around.
6th August.
At10.30 we drove up the coast to Port Augusta. We visited Tumby Bay where there are some beautiful beach homes A lovely area to spend a week in the summer and relax with a bit of fishing .
Saw a lot more fields of Canola and many unpainted silos with one only that was painted.
Then onto Cowell where we had lunch and topped up the Bumble Bee with Fuel $1.19 a litre.. From here we drove to Port Augusta. Total mileage to was 344 km. John found us a parking for the night at the Central Augusta Sporting Club for RVs that are fully self contained costing $7.00 a van. We went and had a lovely meal at the club of Chicken Schnitzel and John had a beef Schnitzel half serve each for $13.00 . Tomorrow we are going into town and do some sightseeing and stay another night here .
7th August.
We spent the morning in Port Augusta getting Centrelink sorted out . That was a mission in itself.
After lunch we visited the Wadlata Information centre . They have a display called “Tunnel of Time”.
Walk through the giant jaws of Max, the prehistoric Ripper Lizard, and be transported back to the great Creation of the Flinders Range and Outback. Learn about Aboriginal Dreaming stories and how the outback gets it water etc.
This is a must for everyone that stops in Port Augusta . Both John and I found it very interesting, When we brought our ticket to get in they informed us that is was for 12 months. You can come back any time for as long as you like and stay and also watch many videos that tell you about the history in this area. The cost was only $20.00 per person . We are going to come back in about 10 days time after we have visited our friends in Gawler,and watch a couple of the videos we have not seen.
This is a true size replica of a Ripper Lizard mouth.
We arrived at our friend Glen in Gawler on Saturday 8th August to a cool day .
It was good to catchup with Judith and Glen . We had a busy week there . John put a new reversing camera on the caravan and replaced all the cables under the caravan. This was done in between showers .. We went for tea at Judith’s home on Sunday night, had a lovely roast. John replaced a glass panel for her, that she broke in her glass cabinet . She was telling us that she rang around many glaziers and no one was interested in replacing the glass. John got the measurement and just went around to a glass place and got a piece.
I was able to go and visit a friend of mine Trish who is a Folkart teacher and she has a shop in Woodside, just east of Adelaide. Great to catch up with her. Yes I brought some outdoor Patio Paints, so i can do some pet rocks and paint some planter pots.
Whilst here we also decided to have a sort out of the stuff in the back of the truck and send a lot home that we are no longer needed whilst we travel around Australia. Marg had been quietly collecting a few Christmas decorations that were taking up room in the back of the truck. Now they are shipped back to NZ and will go into storage at Tania and Manie’s .
We left South Australia for Northern Territory on Saturday 15th August . John checked the weather app and it gave us 3 days of no wind. We travelled most days around 500 plus kms to try and get up to Alice Springs before the wind turned. It is not pleasant towing a caravan in
Wild Emu’s on the side of the road towards Marla
We stayed at Marla Roadhouse for a night, 150 k before the boarder and check point . They charged $20.00 for two and no power.
Assortment of wild flowers we saw driving up to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory
We were checked at the quarantine station on the boarder of Northern Territory. Had to fill in a form saying that we had not been to Victoria or NSW due to the coronavirus outbreaks that have happened in Melbourne and NSW. Sadly it is bad and to many people have died. We sure hope a vaccination is found soon to stop this Infection spreading and killing to many more people.
We have arrived in Alice Springs on a hot 32 degrees day with a hot wind also. We are parked up at the Truckers Hall of Fame just on the outskirts of Alice Springs. Cost is $25.00 a night which we felt was a very good price, as the Big 4 charge in the 40 dollar price a night . We are going to spend 2 days here, and do a little sightseeing and recharge ourselves, before the next 2 thousand km we have to go to get back to the farm at Malanda via Townsville .
The Todd River Alice Springs in its glory, it only rains here once a year if they are lucky
The trees are green In the river bed
These are photos of the wild flowers that we spotted along the Stuart Highway
This is our view for tonight as far as your eyes can see.We parked next too a old radio tower for the night which has been turned into a free RV park. It is 50 k from the turn off onto the Buckley Highway toward Queensland.
The lovely sunset we had tonight with a fire gentle glowing . A lovely quiet night it was.
Here is the130 km sign that now allows you to travel at this speed along the Stuart Highway. No we did not do it as the truck towing the caravan and that is way to fast to tow a caravan. Even marg stayed behind us traveling around 95 k which is more comfortable.
We passed through the border from Northern Territory to Queensland without any problems . Stopped at a garage for a stretch and a ice cream and I spotted this art work on the wall . Had to have a photo of it.
21 st August 2020
We had a good day traveling with the sun shining and very little wind around 23 degs. We made our way to Mount Isa Caravan Park arriving at 4.30 pm after driving 612 km . Cost for the night with power is $35.00.
We stayed the night at Richmond RV park $5.00 a van .A great clean and quiet place to stay. On the way out we came across this outside the information centre a full size dinosaur model.
22nd August
This is the old water tower that looks over Cloncurry , it was recently painted with this scene in 2019
We stopped off at Julia Creek for lunch here on our way to Townsville. It sure has changed from 5 years ago . A very popular Overnight stop.
This has been our scenery for a few days now the area is so dry. We have spotted the odd Emu , horse and a few cattle plus a few dead kangaroos.
15th August
We stopped of at Charters Towers for a couple of nights to see our friends Colin and WendyBlyth who are managing a caravan park. A great catch up we had.
This was our view in the caravan park . It was very dry when we were here .The river here is known to flood completely over the camping ground in the wet season .
From here we went to Townsville where we stayed with Bob and Dot Burdell For two nights and caught up with some friends from the tropical tourers. . It was wonderful seeing Sue and Les and Rae and hearing where they had stayed locally. Coronavirus sure has stopped a lot of people going on holiday interstate. Short trips locally have been wonderful seeing what in your own back yards .
27 th August
We arrived in Cairns around 1 o’clock after leaving Bob and Dots at 7.45am . We popped into Flight Centre Cairns to see what flights were available to New Zealand in October . We had to first get a clearance for John to leave Australia. After filling in a lot of forms online and sending it off on Thursday night we got the ok for John to travel on Friday morning at 9 o’clock. We have booked our trip leaving Cairns on the 21 st October at 12.45 pm flying to Brisbane where we will stay the night and fly out to Auckland at 12.45 and arrive at 7 o’clock that night. Where we go to do our two weeks isolation because of the coronavirus. Hopefully we will get sent to Wellington to do our isolation.
We went and stayed at mums Thursday night and had tea with her . Then on Friday we took mum to Kuranda for a few days holiday . We are staying at Anne and Paul’s for a few weeks on their farm . Johns going to give Paul a hand to do a few things and I’m crocheting some dolls for Anne’s fund raising for the Rural Doctors .
We have not done a lot since being at Anne and Paul’s just relaxing and slowly sorting out the truck and caravan. We found a secure lock up in the Tolga estate to leave our truck and caravan while we are over in New Zealand for the next 12 to 18 months . They are only charging $60.00 a month per vehicle.
Anne and Paul and their friend Kevin in their Bee suits ready to check out how much honey there is
Marg also went and visited the Kuranda Bird sanctuary. Wow the colours of the birds are so bright and beautiful.
Maisie enjoying the trampoline
We celebrated Anne’s 60 th birthday on the 18th October. It was a great time for us to get together before we flew out to New Zealand, plus meet up with cousins etc. The theme was to wear something purple.
Looking out over the farm at Kuranda from the BBQ pit area
John and his bestest sister Anne as he calls her . Being his only sister
John and Margaret
John and Fiona . They are cousins
Anne and Paul McCorry . Birthday girl.
Mum and Anne
Glen and Anne Drury ( John’s brother)
Before we said good bye to John’s Mum we went and visited Dad at the Malanda Cemetery. They had just recently put his headstone up. Photo below.
Margaret was also able to go and say good bye to her friend Anne with whom she work with for many years in the community doing home help, and also have a coffee with a customer from Bunnings Jayne .
(Unsure how to edit this photo of Anne and myself as I took it of a video)
We flew down to Brisbane on the 21 st October and stayed at the Ibis Hoel at the Brisbane Airport. We decided to have a treat and have a meal in the restaurant . Rogan Josh and a couple of glasses of James Squire Cider, very enjoyable meal. We both had a good night sleep.
Cheers everyone from Marg and I. We will see you soon in NZ
This is the view from our room upstairs Room 233 overlooking a garden
We were allowed to keep a trolly with our bag on it in our room which made it a lot easier for us especially with having 3 large bags and two cabin bags .
We left around 10 o’clock and made our way to the International Airport at Brisbane. Airport via the train. Once we got into the airport it was so empty . It was like a ghost town. Once we got to the Air New Zealand booking in area . We were asked so many different question regarding John leaving Australia. We had all the correct forms filled in etc but they still asked more. This took half a hour. Finally said John had the clearance to go through. We were very surprised with the weight of our bags. One was only 18 kilos and the other two were 22 kilos.
We decided it was time to go and have some breakfast or brunch as the hotel was quite expensive for breakfast, Subway was the only food outlet open other than a coffee shop for food. Sadly there were so many different shops closed due to the coronavirus.There were a couple of duty free shops open but now one was selling things .I think with so many people out of work people were watching there dollars.
There was only 50 people on our flight from Brisbane to Auckland . The plane looks so empty .
Yes the plane is very empty
John having a sleep before we land in Auckland New Zealand
The flight was a 3 hour and 15 minute but somehow we arrived half a hour earlier. We had to wait on the plane, for the plane that had just landed in front of us. It took half a hour before we were allowed to get off the plane . Then we had to queue for another good half hour whilst the people in front of us got their medical check done.
There were 5 nurses checking your temperature and making sure that you felt ok. Once this was done we were then told we were going to Naumi Hotel which was 10 minutes from the airport. It took another two hours to finally get registered and allocated a room. Ours was 233 with a balcony Yah. We had two queen size beds in and a lovely view of a garden.
We both got our day 3 tests back this afternoon 26th October both Negative yah . Our next test is on the 3rd November . Then two days if that comes back negative we are free to go.
are in isolation with us. 5 circuit equal 1 km
We have found isolation at time to be very boring. We have filled in the time doing quite a bit of reading and talking to the neighbours across the balcony ( yes and wearing our masks) . Having the neighbours to talk too was also very helpful in making the day pass quickly.
We also were able to do research in regards to which power company we would go with. We did not realise how many power companies there are. We decided to go with Powershop . We also looked at joining Grey Power as they have good discount for seniors in many things.
We had our second covid test on day 11, because it had to come back negative before we left isolation on the 5 th November. Yes it came back negative. We were allowed to leave the hotel on the 5th November but due to it being late when we were allowed out , we were allowed to stay the night for free. We left the hotel at 8 o’clock on the 6th November and hired a rental car from the airport and drive down to Wellington in one day. We stopped at Levin at Val and Jan’s for a hour and had a cuppa with them .
Then from here we went to Whitby and collected Tania and drove to her place in Upper Hutt.
It was good to be back in Wellington .
On Saturday we went and visited Ross for the afternoon and met our 2nd granddaughter Rose . It was lovely being able to give her a cuddle .
On Sunday 8 th we all went up to Waikanae to visit our home and remove the cover that was on carport which protected the Bus . At the same time John brought a chainsaw he saw on trademe which will come in very handy in the next couple of weeks as we are having to get some firewood shortly.
Our tenant told us she was moving out on the weekend of the 14 th .
On Monday we went and brought a automatic Nissan Wingroad 2011 station wagon. The rest of the week we have been doing some errands for Manie and Tania whilst they have been at work and collecting Maisie from day care and having that special time with her which has been wonderful.
She is calling John poppa now .
Tania and Manie got married on the 21 st November 2020. We had a beautiful afternoon with just a few of their friends and family. Tania asked John to walk her down the isle. The smile John had on the day he was so proud to gave her away .
Proud parents of the bride
Just a few random photos of the family taken in 2021.
Tania and Maisie Ross and Rose
Christmas Day 2020
Manie and Maisie
Mr and Mrs Pretorius
Pretorius Family
Tania in her beautiful wedding dress
We moved back into our house in Waikanae in the 18 th November . Peter and Barbara came down for a visit that weekend and gave us a hand to move in to the house which was very much appreciated. Manie , Tania. and Ross also came up and gave us a hand with the heavy stuff which sure did make it a quick job for us .
John and I sure did appreciate all the help we got that weekend. We have been in the house now 8 weeks and in that time we have had a kitchen designer from Bunnings called Marko come and see us and design a new kitchen for us.
We will be putting this in towards the middle of January. Margaret started work at Bunnings Poruria on the 18 th December doing two days a week , Friday and Saturday . They have made her very welcome there especially as she has had experience with the registers and information counter.
We had a catch up with Greg ( Margaret son ) which was great.
Tania and Manie invited us to stay Christmas Eve so we could see Maisie open her Christmas present. The excitement in her little face was lovely to see . On Christmas Day John cooked pancakes and bananas and Manie cooked the bacon . A delicious breakfast was had with Tania and Maine’s neighbour, Kevin and Sue who came over for a visit. It was lovely to finally meet them.
Manie and Tania relaxing after putting Maisie playhouse together with John on Christmas Eve
We left Upper Hutt and came home to Waikanae and prepared for the evening Christmas meal with Manie and Tania and little Maisie who stayed with us the night . Ross and Liz and little Rose came up for lunch on Boxing Day. It was as fabulous day even if the morning started out with rain but the sun shined through from mid morning and stayed with us until after three when the kids left for there homes.
Yes John and I are so pleased we are back in New Zealand living seeing our lovely grandchildren and kids
Plus not having to deal with Covid like a lot of other countries are having to do . Here hoping 2021 Covid vaccine is a good one and stops it from spreading the world, and we will soon be able to travel the world again comfortable.
Liam, John and Cade when the boys visited us on a weekend Liam had swimming competitions in Wellington.
Poppa holding Rose on Christmas Day
Black swans enjoying a swim in our creek at the bottom of our garden
2021 will be a year for us to renovate our home in Waikanae and work in the garden . I am going to have a break from doing the blog for a while. It does take a lot of work to keep it update and with working 3 to 4 days a week at Bunnings . We don’t seem to be doing a lot of visiting. So we have decided that our next blog will be either the trip up to Darwin and down the coast to Perth where we will be selling our caravan and Truck or our trip to England, Scotland , Wales with Maureen Darby and Sheryl Patterson within the next two years once the Covid bubble allows us to travel again and we have had all our vaccinations .
John and I have enjoyed doing the blog . There have been many highlights to many to name and hope that our grandchildren enjoy what we have done and it gives them encouragement to travel and see our wonderful world we live in .
Safe travels everyone and remember to have fun in what ever you do.
Love Margaret and John
