Col & Jenny

[Col49]

Been a while since my last post, we are camped at Cosy Corner tonight enjoying the wettest winter for 30 years, been to the Valley of the Giant trees and skywalk and the giant Tingle tree.
Yesterday we went on a WOW wilderness cruise on Nornalup Inlet run by a guy, Gary Muir, really good and informative cruise.
Working our way towards Esperance, it has been a trial to find free or low cost camps down here, the shire councils have signs up everywhere with $100 fines if caught. Not a RVFD is West Australia, dump points are not in all towns and can be locked I.e Margaret River and Northcliffe and none in Pemberton, no easy to get to potable water tap either, Shire of Manijup does not encourage the caravanner in some of their towns with parking for long vehicles difficult to locate.

[Col49]

Been a while since my last post, we are camped at Cosy Corner tonight enjoying the wettest winter for 30 years, been to the Valley of the Giant trees and skywalk and the giant Tingle tree.
Yesterday we went on a WOW wilderness cruise on Nornalup Inlet run by a guy, Gary Muir, really good and informative cruise.
Working our way towards Esperance, it has been a trial to find free or low cost camps down here, the shire councils have signs up everywhere with $100 fines if caught. Not a RVFD is West Australia, dump points are not in all towns and can be locked I.e Margaret River and Northcliffe and none in Pemberton, no easy to get to potable water tap either, Shire of Manijup does not encourage the caravanner in some of their towns with parking for long vehicles difficult to locate.

[Dot]

Wondered where you had been hiding. One of the reasons we have a spare cassette. How about some pics of your travels?

[Col49]

The info centre at Margaret River sends you out to Big Valley camp ground which is a farm stay to pay a donation for potable water, a 24 km round trip and we ended up spending close to $300 in this town, so many wine loving tourists that the local council does not seem to care about caravanners if not staying in a CP.

[Col49]

We do have a spare cassette for those times when a dump point is not available.

[Dot]

That is one of the reasons why people are not going over the west lately, getting like Qld was before they saw the light.
Geraldton was the worst we found for no dump points. Other than that we dig a big hole out in the woop woop.

[Col49]

Geraldton has just installed a dump point and a potable water point with 6 or so 24 hour stay over points at the harbour about 300 metres from the info centre, this area is lit up like a stadium at night though. It should have opened on 1st September, we used a point 15 km out of town where we camped.
Geraldton has 4 supermarkets but on a Sunday only one opens and it does a roaring trade, IGA in a suburb. The farmers market got our fruit and veggies money that day.
Quite a number of country towns in WA we noticed the supermarkets were closed on Sunday's and some pubs open at 5 pm
In Northcliffe the pub and motel shut down last weekend when locals found the pub would not open on Monday.
Dongara to the south of Geraldton has a dump point in the local park with potable water near the boat ramp.
Carnarvon has a dump point near the info centre although we did not use it as we stayed in a CP on 2 occasions.

[Toolman]

Geraldton Dump point will now open October 1st, or so the sign says, the have been having problems with the sewer!

[BruceS]

Problems with the sewer usually means sabotaged by some caravan park supporters.........
Seem to remember similar happened in Murray Bridge just prior to the Rally? Bags of Quick Set concrete usually the culprit!

[Col49]

Tonight we are in Varley which is about 120 kms from Hyden, may as well visit Wave Rock as well as Kalgoorlie before Esperance due to more rain forecast for the coast, had a shower of rain on dark as well as wind however at 9 pm stars and the Milky Way could be seen.
Varley is a donation camp with 10 amp power available.
We spent 2 days in Albany then a night at Bettys Beach then visited Point Richie but did not stay due to the forecast rain with 20 kms of dirt road to drive back on, today we saw the wildflower show at Ravensthorpe.