Off to Esperance

We awoke to another sunny day (definitely not like living in Dorrigo!). We breakfasted and packed and were ready to leave by 8.30. We drove through Norseman, a really pretty little mining town with ancient shops and quite an outback feeling to it. There are several lovely little touches to the town, like little gardens on the roundabouts and the famous Norseman camels.

We drove on through a beautiful landscape of red soil, salmon gums and saltbush. Eventually the landscape changed as we moved into some farming land - huge paddocks from which some really decent crops of wheat have recently been harvested. We stopped for morning tea at a tiny village called Scadden. There was a lovely little pioneer park with some beautiful murals on the walls. The one inhabited house in this little village had sheep in the back yard, and they came over to share some apple for morning tea. We were really impressed with the beautiful murals and the obvious sense of community in this remote rural setting.

We drove on to Esperance, arriving at a very civilised hour in time for lunch. We checked into a lovely caravan park - lucky to get the last two sites. It is school holidays here in WA and this coast is very popular during this time. We are not sure how difficult it might be to find sites when we get over to the Margaret River area because of its proximity to Perth - but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. We had a delicious healthy lunch and then Mum, Dad and I went for a swim in the pool - given that it was about 31 degrees and we felt quite warm. The water was absolutely freezing - I am sure they put ice blocks in it! Our swim involved a lot of gasping and racing for the steps to see who could get out first. Though we did feel really refreshed afterwards and it didn't take long to warm up again.

After this Dad and Uncle John fiddled around for a while (as men do) and Mum and I went out to do some sight-seeing. Esperance is such a beautiful sea-side town with white beaches, norfolk pines and a gorgeous, long pier. We drove up to the lookout and were just stunned at the beautiful islands dotted around the bay.

Now for the saga of Nerrida's swag......... dedicated with love to the staff at Oztrail....

Once upon a time, a lady planned a big trip away - all the way around Australia. She decided she wanted to really get out into the great outdoors on this trip - so she bought two Oztrail swags (one each for her and her lovely son).

The first four days of the trip went swimmingly, but then, alas, disaster struck. One of the poles for the swag snapped. This happened quite unexpected and gave the lady a nasty shock. Being a very resourceful lady, she grabbed the pole from the spare swag and used that whilst she sent an email to Oztrail asking for help.

The lady soon heard from Oztrail, who told her to go to their supplier in Ceduna - they were sure to help a lady in distress. She duly went along to the supplier who said, "I have a room of broken Oztrail stuff out the back - how do you think I can do anything to help you?" This was not at all encouraging, however the lady persisted and eventually the man said she would have to buy a packet of spare Oztrail tent poles. The lady noticed that these were a different size and asked the man what she should do. "Just cut them with a hack saw" he said, "they should be all right because they are fibreglass." The lady duly paid her money and went on her way.

Several nights later, the pole from the second swag snapped. The lady was quite upset about this and sat with her friends into the night, cutting a new pole using a bread-knife (given that she had left the hack-saw off her list of important things to take away). The pole didn't cut very well as it was only fibreglass on the outside and weak cane on the inside. Verily there was a lot of grumbling that night!

The very next night the lady returned for a lovely day out to find that the new swag pole had also broken. Now she really was distressed and was having very unkind thoughts about Oztrail. She sat at her computer and wrote a very stern email indeed - asking that Oztrail immediately replace all poles with good quality poles at no cost.

Unfortunately dear readers, this little tale must temporarily close here. Let us all hope that the next chapter will bring a happy ending when the (hopefully) kind man from Oztrail comes to his senses and realises just how naughty he and his company have been!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I am off on a boat trip to some of the islands - it should be great providing the weather gods are kind.

Thank you to family and friends who are reading the blog and sending emails and comments - its good to have you along for the ride with us