2017 The Lap

Tuesday 3 October   Well, some people should stay in caravan parks where fires are generally not allowed!  We drove into a 24 hour free roadside camp, set up and started to make a small fire.  Two women, who came in AFTER us and the conversation went something like this: Woman:  "Oh, you can't make a fire - I've got cracked ribs and I can't afford to cough due to the smoke!"  John:  "What smoke?!  Maybe you'd like to move your van back a bit so you're behind the wind." He then assisted her in reversing her car and van back a few metres but she objected to John telling her, "Right hand down ... left hand down ... right hand down." Woman:  "I know how to reverse I don't need you to tell me" and John watched as she jack-knifed her car and van into the bushes.  Karma!!! So we lit the fire only to have some old bloke come out and say, "You can't have a fire, the smoke will go into our van!" So we...

The WA/SA Border Village provided the next hole on the Nullarbor Links course. Lorraine's terrible driving on the range continued with her ball continually hooking to the left. Six strokes later on the par 3 hole she made it to the green - turned to watch John's third stroke onto the green turned back around ... and the bright yellow/green ball was nowhere to be seen. And we were the only people on the course! We can only assume one of the crows picked it up - perhaps angry with yesterday's result. Watch out for the crows! (It is only since we've returned home that I've remembered my message to Farina Faye and Dave about the warning on the Nullarbor Links brochure:  "Nullarbor Roadhouse - Hole 1 Dingo's Den par 5.  Watch the crow, he takes your balls!  Try spraying smelly stuff on the balls!")  So there we have it - it was a crow and a very sneaky one, neither of us saw him. The Great Australian Bight  is truly wild    and beautiful.   ...

The "Nullarbor Links" is an 18 hole par 73 golf course and it's said to be "the world's longest golf course".    "The Nullarbor Links" is a unique concept designed to get tourists to stop along the highway and bring tourism and money into some of the smaller towns.    Anyway, having not played golf for about 25 years we've decided to play this course on the way home across the Nullarbor.    So far, as at Thursday 28 September, we've played the two holes at Kalgoorlie and one at Kambalda and we're getting our money's worth!   We enjoyed playing the fairways at Kalgoorlie with their beautifully manicured lawns and finely cut greens - and the kangaroos enjoyed them too! The Kambalda Golf Club offered up gravel and rock fairways with fine black tar greens!    The Vice President of the Club kindly offered me the loan of a putter for $5 that was donated to the RFDS. We've scoured the op shops to date only managing to ...

We finished The Wildflower Way at Dalwallinu and intended staying the night here but the caravan park was a desolate affair with gravel as far as the eye could see and barely a tree in sight. The local arts and craft store looked inviting but alas, not one of the shops were open. We fear that might be the case over the next few days - it's the Queen's Birthday long weekend holiday in WA.   We pressed on late in the afternoon to Kalannie where the Dalwallinu council-run caravan park was a bit lonely - we were the only people in the park. The facilities were clean and there was lots of hot water but it was a bit unsettling being so far away from anywhere and anyone else.   And we were right, leaving Kalannie to Kulja, Beacon, Wailki and Mukinbudin - nothing is open so no coffee, no bread, no vanilla slices ... ... so on we go to Warralakin, Bullfinch and our destination for today - Southern Cross.   We decided to do The Wheatbelt Way Drive Trail and headed t...

The rain and wind squalls stopped around 6 o'clock this morning allowing us to get an early start out of Geraldton to Mullewa to see if we could find the "wreath flowers".   After checking in at the Information Centre we went to see the Rev John Hawes' church and museum.  Hawes was born in 1876 in England and trained as an architect.  He studied at the Lincoln Theological College following his conversion to High Anglicanism and o rdained in 1903.  After his ordination he went to work in the London slums. He then worked as a missionary in the Bahamas where he rebuilt a number of churches which had been destroyed by a hurricane.  Two years later, he became a Catholic and was baptized in New York in 1911.   Hawes studied in Rome and was ordained a Catholic priest and followed an invitation to come to Australia and arrived in Geraldton with plans for a new Cathedral already in his possession.  In 1916 he became the parish priest of Mullew...