We are on holiday!

Wednesday 7th September 2022

It was nice to wake up in beds with heating, knowing that we were heading back into the tent with cold nights! We had breakfast, packed our things, then headed across the road to a Cafe – one of the few places in town and quite lovely! On the way we stopped to look at some of the weird and wonderful Mallee vegetation growing around the caravan park – including crazy looking eucalyptus and quondongs.

The region is dotted with salt lakes, and we drove past quite a few in the way south. They are all different colours – pink, green, blue – quite beautiful. I had optimistically booked us a campsite yesterday to see us through the next two nights in Fitzgerald River National Park, though we continued to drive through patchy rain! We stopped at a sweet shop in Ravensworth, so brightly coloured against the rainy sky, we couldn’t quite resist having a look. The woman in the shop was so wonderfully cheerful and friendly, she must be living her dream! We gave the kids a $5 limit each, and they both chose lollies from the scoop-bins, Bonnie carefully choosing one of each lolly. We then headed off towards Hopetoun and into the park.

It felt a relief to be out of canola and wheat fields and back into coastal scrub! We stopped in at four mile campground – a gorgeous spot with only 16 campsites. The drive in sites were all booked out, so I had booked us a walk in site. These have a narrow path winding through the scrub to a private little tent site, very sweet! We chose the site with the shortest path so we wouldn’t be too far from the car, then Richie rushed into getting the tent up with rain clouds coming our way!

It rained on and off for the next couple of hours, quite heavily at times – so my approach yesterday of ‘ I don’t think it will rain that much’ was a bit off the mark! 😬 Anyway, there is a nice camp kitchen so we hung out there, had a cup of tea and waited it out! Around 4:30 it looked a bit clearer so we set off to the beach. Four mile beach is only a short walk away. The ocean was wild, it was blowing a gale!! Richie took off down the beach to try fishing, the kids and I pushed on through to Barren beach, getting sandblasted along the way! Barren beach is described as a calm bay, good for snorkeling and swimming. Today that is hard to imagine – the water is rough and it is incredibly windy! We found some rocks to shelter in for a break from the wind, then walked back via the road where it was a bit more protected . Richie returned with no success, having had trouble even casting his lure in!

Back at camp the kids and I stayed in the tent and Bonnie wrote some postcards we had bought in the NT! Richie cooked dinner which we were able to enjoy outside before more rain set in! We were all back in the tent by 7, which I think is a record for us! Though we read harry potter for an hour before Bon went to sleep – I know what our next movie will be! 😃