Step 46 Fraser Ridge Station – Esperance via Norseman 326 km's

Sunday 20^th February

Still struggling with the time change, looks like van lag is worse than jet lag? Anyway it meant we woke up early again this morning, but you know me, I have enormous perseverance in things like this, so I just stayed in bed.

Only a short drive into Norseman where we ducked into the Info Centre to get our certificate for crossing the Nullarbor. Come on people, it's a big thing crossing the Nullarbor of course we stopped for the certificate! Yet again the information Centre was a wealth of information, hence the name I guess. So as well as picking up some brochures on things to come we got a run down on the local area from the volounteer there.

Hopefully not too many readers having fantasies about camels - but the fact is they could carry a lot of baggage a long way 

The town seems to have passed it's peak but there still seems to be some activity at the gold mine so who knows. 

Gold mines are not as attractive as gold jewellery

Interestingly here is another case of a faithful animal companion bringing fame and fortune to it's owner. In this case legend has it that a miner returning from an unsuccessful expedition to Coolgardie, stopped here overnight. When he woke up in the morning his horse (Hardy Norseman) had uncovered gold nuggets while pawing the earth overnight. Now maybe if Lulu had pawed the earth outside our house and found gold we would have been much better friends than when she pawed a hole in the laundry door.

This statue will be 21 the day after Elke - we won't be at his party either :-(

Drove up to the Beacon Hill lookout to eat our pies that we bought at the local shop. The view from the lookout gives you a 360 degree perspective of the surrounding area, so while Di chatted to Vicki on the phone Steve did the scenic walk and snapped off a few photo's.

After lunch it was 200 km's down the road to Esperance, not sure what it was but it seemed longer, but not to worry we arrived in Esperance at a reasonable time. After a quick drive around town we discovered that Esperance is closed on Sundays. Well all the shops and supermarkets anyway, so we ended up just checking in at the Top Tourist park on the esplanade, another V & H recommendation. Thank you. Our site has views straight out over the bay and all the islands, here we go again, another million dollar view.

Back at the van the excitement really started. Now hero is a word that is thrown around a lot these days, but if saving a little girls life makes me a hero well what can I say. Well to be perfectly honest I probably could say I didn't actually save a young girls life. So maybe not hero but I would definitely qualify as a good samaritan. Well whatever, I took a couple of blankets down to her mother to help keep little Emily warm while she was laying on the ground badly concussed after an incident while “playing with her brothers on the see-saw”. What can I say, I'm just a caring guy, Di is caring too, after all it was Di who looked up from reading her book on the bed and said “I wonder what's going on down there?”

A working MM - ambulance

Despite my new found hero status, due to the dirth of shopping opportunities (or as normal people say, “because the shops weren't open”) we feasted on baked beans on toasted english muffins for tea.

Lesson for today – If it's Sunday and you are short on options for dinner if you find an open supermarket (as we did in Norseman) buy stuff there in case the supermarket at the place you are going to is closed (as it was at Esperance). Lucky I like baked beans.

The van is rockin again tonight and yet again it's because it's really windy. Outside. But the view is still pretty good

Monday 21^st February – one more sleep

It's a bit overcast this morning but the wind has dropped so we walked into town. Decided to check out the restaurant on Taylor's Jetty for my birthday tomorrow but unfortunately they are closed on Tuesdays and didn't think my birthday warranted opening for – what happened to country hospitality?

Given we were in town and it was lunchtime we ducked into the local bakery and shared a chicken salad wrap, which luckily left us enough room to have a cream cake each.

Back at the van Emily's mum arrived with a pack of Ferroro Rocher as thanks for the blanket yesterday. Wasn't that nice? Why do I have to share them with Di and why am I still not losing weight?

Tuesday 22^nd February – Happy birthday to me – Hip hip hooray

In celebration I did what I enjoy most of all, had a lazy morning. In a bitter sweet moment we finished off the last of our Jean Leary fruit cake, nooo, what do we do now for morning teas?

Obviously being the popular lad that I am I was inundated with phone calls and texts and then we headed off for lunch at the Ocean Blue Cafe. It turns out the other restaurant being closed has worked in our favour, this place is closer, cheaper and has a nicer view. Quite the trifecta. Given the area we are in we opted for the seafood platter – grilled fish, calamari, prawns and scallops – with a side salad and chips. That will do nicely thank you. Oh well if you insist maybe we could just share a slice of pineapple cheesecake and a cappucinno for the lady and an affogatto for me. And could you see if that ambulance from the other day is available I don't think I can walk back to the van now.

I knew a girl like this when I was younger - wish there had been a warning sign then.

Back at the van, eventually.  Today was just like being back at work, lots of phone calls and texts and a three hour lunch. 

Despite it being 27 degrees the wind has really gotten up, an occupational hazard here in Esperance apparently.

As an aside, we started chatting to the couple next door as they felt they had seen us before on the road. Turns out they may be stalking us as they were next to us at Strathalbyn and also at Port Lincoln. Need to keep an eye open in the future.