The highlight was the Margaret River region, where we wined and dined for free. Wineries were only a few hundred metres apart, all offering wine tastings. And taste we did! We visited cheese factories that had a variety of cheeses on offer. The nut factory had some delicious assortments of sweet and savoury items. One of the wineries had bread, olive oil and dukkha. And to top it off we pigged out on free chocolate at the chocolate factory.

The south of Western Australia was pretty miserable. Wet and cold, so we didn’t spend too much time there.

The route so fat and we’re not even half way!!!

Just a short drive today, still on the south coast of West Australia. We had driven past so many wineries it was time to stop and do some wine tasting.

We stopped at Old Kent River winery, as we didn’t have to detour. As soon as we walked in we were greeting and handed two glasses and they just kept of pouring us wines to try. We tried sparking, sauvignon, un-wooded chardonnay, wooded chardonnay, 3 types of pinot noir and two Shiraz. The drinks just kept coming. I was rather tipsy by the time we finished.

The pinots were the best of the reds, but I decided the sparkling was my favourite so we bought a bottle of that. It was as good as Bollinger. I have a limited budget for buying wines so we have decided on only one bottle per winery.

We headed down to a caravan park in Peaceful Bay. It was only about 26 degrees, not warm enough for me to swim.

We tried out our new mozzie net and we think it will work a treat when we put it up the correct way. I think it will be a lifesaver when we get up north with all the mozzies and flies.

We cooked up some meat burritos for dinner.

We headed off early as the ranger told us they were burning off around the area.

It was a magnificent day, beautiful clear skies and temperature in the 30’s. We stopped in Albany and picked up some supplies, brochures and a mozzie net. It was for a specific gazebo, but we will make it work somehow. Albany was a nice town, right on the water. There were many shops and cafes so we decided it was best to move on before any more money was spent.

We found a free camping spot right on the beach in a place called cosy corner. We ignored the “no camping” signs and set up camp.

It was a gorgeous spot and about 34 degrees so we headed in for a swim (first time in the sea since Surfers Paradise).

We cooked up a Mongolian lamb stir-fry for dinner and it was pretty damn nice.

We did a morning walk around Wave Rock, Hippos Yawn, and some salt lakes. Afterwards we headed to Stirling Ranges national park to camp for the night.

Still haven’t free camped yet.

We forgot to buy fresh meat, so we fried up some salami and onions and had it with garlic mash and salad. It was dark by the time we got around to washing up and we boiled up some of the water from the camping ground, and when we shone our torch on it, it looked like we had just boiled up some mud. Yuck! Luckily we had our own water.

We met a couple that were travelling around in a house truck (kiwis obviously). They had taken 2.5 years to get from Melbourne to here. Guess they have a lot of spare time (and cash).

We had no camp to pack up so we were on the road by 8am. We stopped at the shell shop in Norseman to refuel (cheapest fuel in town!) and they offered free coffee. So we filled our mugs and were on our way.

Esperence is very much a beachside town, similar to Poole but not as nice. We took a 56km drive to the Cape Le Grand National park, where some of the nicest beaches in the country are. The beaches were beautiful. Snow white sand and brilliant turquoise waters.

It was unfortunate that the school holidays had just started and the camping areas were overflowing with campers. We took one look and trotted off outta there.

We stayed the night in an Esperence camping ground where we met this nice couple that have been caravanning around Australia for 30 years. Well not continuously. They know all the tricks and told us about free camping. Apparently there are loads of places you can free camp in Australia. They had come down from Brisbane and free camped all the way. This was their first night in paid accommodation. I really wish I had known about this before hand, we would have saved a fortune.

As we are on a very tight budget now (due to spending too much in the first half of the journey) we went out and bought the Camps 4 Australia wide book they recommended. It has all the places to camp, including free camps. We have stopped and looked at a few places and some of them look quite good. Usually there are no facilities, but sometimes there are toilets. We have potti so we are fairly self-sufficient.

We might try one out tonight.

We took a detour to Kalgoorlie to see the Super Pit. We also did some shopping and stocked up on essentials such as food, booze and DVD’s. (well, there isnt much to do in the evenings when you’re on a budget!)

We decided not to stay in Kalgoorlie and drove back to Norseman for the night. We arrived late and couldn’t be bothered getting our cooker out, so we went out for dinner. I had garlic prawns and rice and Mike had chicken schnitzel. We chose a bottle of wine that seemed to have a strong hint of capsicum. As we both despise capsicums, this was a bad choice. We still drank it though.

Or was it stolen…

The quarantine man stopped us as the West Australian Border and took our cucumber, carrots and our beloved garlic. They are worse than Kangaroos. They probably take all the confiscated fruit and vegetables home and have a feast. I am sure this is their excuse for taking it as there are no supermarkets or shops out here in the middle of nowhere.

I’m glad we had the good sense to eat our watermelon before we got to the border. We had managed to illegally smuggle the garlic through 4 states already, so I suppose it was time to get caught.

As there were no shops and we had no vegetables we had garlic-less seafood pasta for dinner. It just wasn’t the same.

We drove the Nullarbor Plain. This is a 2000 km stretch of straight road with no trees. The name comes from the Latin “nullus arbor” meaning “NO TREE”.

Anyway, with 2000km of straight treeless roads not a lot happened. Mike drove, I read my book, I drove, Mike read his book.