Step 60 Perth to Jurien Bay - 225km - We're baaack

Prelude - 31st April - Tuesday 5th May

Spent another 5 pleasant days at Eric's re-acclimatising and getting over the Jet Lag. In Di's case the time was also spent in getting over the cold she bought back from England and making sure that she passed it on to Steve and Eric.

First task on return was to replace the "house battery" in Mighty Merc. That's the one that died just before we left due to a slight maintenance problem. Anyway the guy at Battery World was very helpful and helpfully relieved us of about four hundred bucks. That's put a a bit of a blip in the maintenance column of the magic spreadsheet.

Editors note: the slight maintenance problem being that Steve didn't maintain it properly. For future reference: wet cell batteries need to be kept wet! that is they need to be topped up every now and then with distilled water.

Second task was to un pack the suitcases and repack MM. First attempt aborted after Steve spent an hour standing in MM trying to work out where to start. Second attempt much more successful when Di took charge.

A rather more pleasant task was unpacking the food parcel that had arrived the day before we got back. Yep, many many many thanks to Vicki and Herb for the Sultana cake and Jean Leary for the world famous Jean Leary fruit cake. Special mention to Herb for the packing

Deserves a picture too - another HH garage creation.
Now that's the way to transport cake undamaged!

On the road again - 10th - 12th May - Jurien Bay

Aaah, the Great Australian Coastline. It's good to be back.

Easy start to the trip with the new Indian Ocean Drive just a couple of km's from our starting point. The road was only finished in October last year and now follows the coast all the way through to Jurien Bay and beyond. Boy does it follow the coast, in places it is only metres from the water.

 So we are back to the white sand and blue seas of Western Australia.

For this our first day back on the road again we beat our previous first day record by thirty minutes. We lasted an hour and a quarter before our first stop. Iced coffee and sultana cake (thanks Bic Bic and Herb)

Not far up the coast are the strange limestone rock formations known as the pinnacles. That's some of them next to MM (Note: the formation in the black top is Di)

Less than 3 hours on the road and we are off it.

The Pinnacles - truly amazing, thousands of little limestone pillars just sticking up out of the desert.
You can't help but stare at them, just like the hairs on an old European woman's chin

 Breaking with the system from the previous leg of the trip we had actually booked ahead. In fact in a real break from the way were travelling previously Steve has planned out the stops right up to Broome. (OK with quite a bit of help and advice - many thanks to all concerned). We haven't booked all the sites but we did decide that we needed to book a couple of the more popular spots like Coral Bay and Broome. We also decided to ease back into things gently so we have booked in at Jurien Bay for three nights.

Jurien Bay Top Tourist  Caravan Park did not disappoint, nice and neat, right on the beach, easy walking to shops and pub and under budget too.

View from the walking path out the front of the park

 Western Australia continues to treat us well, days in the mid to high twenties, clear skies and lovely walks.

Not to mention brilliant sunsets (albeit a little early with it getting dark by 6:00pm)

The night skies have also been clear and star filled and Thursday night we could even see the planets align.

Editors note: For those of you not completely in touch with celestial happenings:
A rare celestial event was seen over Sydney, Australia on Thursday and Friday.
Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were aligned together in a pre-dawn spectacle that only occurs every 50 to 100 years.
[Geoff Wyatt, Sydney Observatory Senior Astronomy Educator]:
"It is unusual. The last time we had these four planets together was in 1910, but they were too close to the sun to be seen with any detail.” It was made more difficult to see since none of us reading this were alive.

Di did want to break into a quick rendition of the Age of Aquarius while running naked around the park but I managed to settle her down with a bottle of red that we had picked up in the Coonawarra and thereby averted a major international incident. Heaven forbid the other residents of the park, average age 68, had wanted to join in.

When the moon is in the Seventh House

And Jupiter aligns with Mars

Then peace will guide the planets

And love will steer the stars

Altogether now

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

The Age of Aquarius

Aquarius! Aquarius!

Editors note: For our younger readers, Age of Aquarius was a song from the stage show Hair. A show infamous for the nude scene at the end of Act 1. There was a time when Steve could relate to the Title song: 

Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair

Shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer

Here baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy

Although now it's just:  here baby there momma, everywhere but on my head daddy, daddy

I seem to have got off the track there a bit, never mind, normal service will be resumed shortly

Now how does this all work again???