Seconds out, - Round Two

Week One, 4th November 2009

As Willie Nelson says - On The Road Again. I'm off on the second leg of my travels around this big, brown, beautiful country. This time, I will be travelling a lot slower, with many more stops along the way and hopefully, spending several nights at each stop rather than the one-night stops so common in my last circuit. I imagine that it will be two years this time before I return to Perth.

Well, I spent a pleasant two weeks in Perth, getting a lot of house-keeping issues out of the way, re-registered the van, had the van and the Kia serviced, filed my (final?) tax return, got some new specs and re-stocked the pantry and freezer. I've learned some important lessons while on the road, and not the least important was the make up of food stocks. I ended up after ten months with several items I originally packed untouched, whereas some things I ran out of all the time. Quite a different cross-section this time.

I called in to see some of my former work colleagues and I copped quite a razzing for turning up as brown as a berry at this time of year while they were all still in their winter plumage. Suck it up, Guys.

I was hoping to head straight for the south coast of WA, but summer is a little tardy in coming in this year. Still quite cool during the days and chilly at nights with typical winter pattern weather, cold fronts sweeping across the south-west and still plenty of showers around. What I have done is headed north for a couple of weeks to wait until the summer pattern comes in with big high-pressure systems sitting in the Bight.

I'm currently at Wannamal (population 4) about 30kms north of Bindoon and I'm going to make a big north-easterly loop through the wheatbelt and will come out about Southern Cross and then head down to Hyden. I'm looking forward to an area about which I have heard a lot of good things, but have never visited and that is the road from Hyden to Norseman called the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Trail. I also hope to make a side trip up to an area called Cave Hill and then down to the south coast. That should take me about three or four weeks and hopefully, summer will be here by then.

I promise faithfully to keep the blog updated a lot better than I have in the past. See you soon.