Hi everyone. As always we hope you are all well and that things are good for you and you families. We are both well, apart from having a cold for a few days but that is to be expected on a 12-day 
The cruise has been great- we had the same room as our previous cruise so we settled in very quickly. Over the 12 days we visited:
Mykonos, Greece. We were here about 3 years ago so we didn’t take an organised tour, preferring to just wander around the town and enjoy this beautiful place.
Katakolon, Greece. This is only a small town with its main claim to fame being the home of the Olympic Games about an hour away by coach. Instead of an organised tour at Olympia we guided ourselves amongst the almost 3000-year old ruins. We could imagine the athletes training, competing and living in specially design facilities, just as they do now. The Olympic torch still starts here each time Games are held.
Corfu, Greece. After 4 days of really nice weather, rain fell all day. As we had both developed a cold we stayed on board so we still have not seen Corfu. 
Split, Croatia. The Dalmation Coast is very interesting – and yes, it is where Dalmation dogs originated. Just 20 years ago Croatia emerged from the horrible war amongst the previous Yugoslavian countries and this area has recovered very quickly. Although northern Croatia is still struggling in its recovery from the war, the southern coast is quite beautiful and is very popular with tourists. The town of Trogir is a small fortress town on an island that has been inhabited for 5000 years and, like many other old towns that we have seen, is very interesting. We travelled through rugged coastal mountains and had lunch on a working farm.
Dubrovnik, Croatia. Another very nice city, it was badly affected by the war with Serbia but has since been restored. A high wall surrounds the old town, providing great photo opportunities. The streets are narrow and very steep, lined on the ground floor with dozens of restaurants and souvenir shops and on the upper floors with hotels and apartments. The main street is the only flat area of the city and a few days before our visit rain has caused knee-deep flooding so we were lucky. Not just a tourist town, thousands of locals live here too. It is probably the best of the places we have seen on the cruise.
Athens, Greece. As we had seen the Acropolis and Parthenon before, this time we visited the ancient city of Corinth, the home of the Corinthians of Bible fame. St John the Baptist lived here for 18 months. Again we marvelled at the engineering skills of ancient times.
Kusadasi, Turkey. Nearby Ephesus was first inhabited 5000 years ago and was either destroyed or vacated for various reasons, such as earthquake, war, malaria disease and receding coast line. We visited the most famous, Ephesus version 3, which used to be on the coast but the coast is now about 20 km away. About 10% of the city has been excavated and,although we had seen it before, we were still amazed. St John was buried here so we visited the ruins of the basilica built to house his grave site. 
We spent 3 days at sea, getting to know new friends, a few drinks, a couple of formal dinners and many other nice meals – not too stressful. The Mediterranean was in a good mood with the biggest seas being 1.5 metres and most days being less than 1 metre. Temperatures were usually about 19 deg min and 25 deg max and we had very little rain.
We are now at Istanbul airport waiting to commence our 21-hour flight home. We have had a great holiday but now we are looking forward to getting home and enjoying life at Brighton
Love to all from Ted and Jo
 

After enjoying a Roman lunch

Amongst the ruins at Ephesus, this public toilet (a 42-holer) was found

This house at Ephesus was found in excellent condition during excavations.

Beautiful Dubrovnik on the Croation coast

A typical Dubrovnik street.

A donkey and his mate.

Civita Bagnoregio! Perched on its mountain top for 5000 years

The very nice town of Alerona

Autumn colours, a vineyard from our room near Ficulle. Orvieto in the background.

The cathedral in Orvieto; the city is so nice we went twice

Hi again. Still having fun in fascinating Italy. Things are generally going smoothly although occasionally we have a major problem, e.g a few days ago at a restaurant a request for 1/4 litre (un quarto liter) of wine was actually for 4 litres (quartro liter). Luckily the waitress realised the mistake and we joked about it.

We drove 200 km from Mondavio to Ficulle and the weather improved to clear skies and 25 degrees. On the way we crossed 2 mountain ranges of up to 500m above sea level and climbed a third range to our rural house, also 500m high. On the way, in two different areas we saw young women seated alone in remote vantage points beside the road – waiting for friends or perhaps for a bus? They didn’t wave to us so we didn’t offer them a ride.

Our timeshare house is large, with room for 10 people. It is very old and the decor matches the age of the house, although we have mod cons like electricity and wifi. From the garden and balcony we can see across a large 300 m deep valley to Orvieto about 20 km away, looking over olive orchards, vineyards and woodland. Ficulle is a nice hill-top town, quite small and hundreds of years old. We came across the local Sunday market and shopped with the locals.

Most nearby towns have a town centre that is very old. Etruscans lived in this area 5000 years ago, then the Romans took over and many of the towns have buildings dating back to that era. In Mediaeval times they were rebuilt and remain largely in that style. Check out on google Earth or Google Maps such towns as Ficulle, Montegabbione, Orvieto, Chitta del Pieve, Chiusi, Sarteano, Alerona – they are all within an hour of us and are wonderful examples of 600- to 800-year old architecture. They have castles, cathedrals, theatres, piazzas, and of course, caves. Ficulle, 3 km from our house, and Alerona are the smallest of the towns that we mentioned. The buildings were originally made with stone quarried from beneath the towns and now most of the buildings, either private or public, have cellars used for wine, food and other goods. Our house is at Via Amelia 5, Ficulle (Google it) with a swimming pool that we can’t use because the water is too cold, even though the daytime temperature has been in the mid-20’s each day.

American travel writer, Rick Steves, reckons his favourite “old town” is Civita Bagnoregio, about an hour away. This place is amazing, a tiny town perched on a steep mountain, originally inhabited 5000 years ago, rebuilt by the Romans 2000 years ago and rebuilt again 1000 years ago. Now only a few families live there but lots tourists visit every day, served by about a few small restaurants. Everything needed to support the locals and tourists has to be carried or carted by tiny trucks across a steep narrow path from the main town of Bagnoregio. We prefer Ficulle because it is not a tourist town.

In the towns and amongst the farms near Ficulle we can see everyday life – tiny trucks, tractors with grapes, people chatting to each other as they pass in the street, men having coffee in, or in front of, bars and tabachis; people closing stores at lunch time for siesta or re-opening again at 4 or 5 o’clock. Locals are always quick with a smile and greeting and often they are happy to chat, in Italian of course as hardly anyone speaks English. We have had meals of local products, wines from Ficulle (Vitalonga winery) and Chianti and of course wonderful breads and pastries. Occasionally we have spoken to English speaking people, such as a couple from Philadelphia who we met at a parking ticket machine and spent the next 2 hours having lunch with – but generally most of the tourists seem to be Italian. We spent a few hours in Cortona, the town where “Under the Tuscan Sun” was filmed, including a really nice lunch in a restaurant that was full of Italians.

The weather has been kind; 4 days of overnight and morning rain then fine afternoons with temperatures in the mid-20’s. We have been very lucky.

The past week in the Umbria region has been the best week of the 4 weeks that we have spent in Italy but it has to end. Tomorrow (Saturday) we will leave here and drive all day to Milan where we will return our wonderful Peugeot 208 after about 2500 kms. The car has been great and driving has been good fun – for the driver but a bit scary for the passenger, especially in the first few days.  The car and passenger have handled steep, narrow, winding roads and mountain tracks both rocky and muddy – the car and passenger are both keepers.

On Sunday we’ll fly to Istanbul and leave on Monday for a 12 day cruise through the eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea. Wifi is not so reliable on cruise ships so we are not sure whether we’ll do another update before we arrive home.

Love to all. Hope you are all keeping well

Ted and Jo

At last we have reasonable wifi so here are a few photos.

From our room in Volastra (Cinque Terre)

Yes the Leaning Tower really does!

David is bigger than expected

From Volterra in beautiful Tuscany

Near Mondavio, our house is in the cream building at the front

Pasta and seafood near Mondavio, with Tineke and Eddie

Our house near Ficulle, 20 km from Orvieto

It’s big enough for 10 and very comfortable

From our balcony at Ficulle

Enjoying the local Sunday market in the centre of Ficulle

Love from Ted and Jo

Hi from Mondavio – well actually about 10 km out of Mondavio, in a quiet cottage amongst quiet small towns and farms. It is quite beautiful and very peaceful. The house has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen/lounge/dining room – it’s not large but very comfortable. The temperature has been lower than in previous places, yesterday only 14 deg, but the thick stone walls, double glazed windows and central heating have kept the indoor temperature warm and constant. The worst feature of the cottage is that we have no wifi and now that we are addicted to wifi we have to go to a bar or restaurant and have wine, coffee or a meal whenever we want access to the Internet. It is a tough life.

With Eddie and Tineke, our friends from The Netherlands, we have explored the many small villages and larger towns within a couple of hours all around us. They range from tiny hilltop villages such as the one closest to us, to quite large coastal cities. Most have origins in Roman times and have had major renovations in Mediaeval times, e.g. Mondavio has a fort and other buildings erected in the 12th to 15th centuries on foundations that were Roman buildings and roads. It is quite amazing to see that now they are being restored and renovated in original style but with modern plumbing, electrical work and sewerage works.

Walking through these towns, or in the case of the large towns and cities through the old city centre, is very interesting. We usually spend more time in the small towns where we can be amongst locals as they go about their normal lives. Here the peak tourist season is over and the region is quiet, with the beachside areas almost completely closed for the winter. The weather has been a bit bleak, especially yesterday when it rained lightly for most of the day, but that is to be expected at this time of year. We saw a news flash (in Italian) which showed “cyclone” damage in Sardenia, on the western coast of Italy, so we on the east coast are lucky the weather has not been worse.

For those who would like a little more detail, probably the best, most interesting, oldest, or least touristic towns that we have seen in this region are Mondavio, Corinaldo and Urbino. These are very well preserved old towns, with churches, theatres, bars, pizzerias, ristorantes, and pastry and fruit and vegetable shops. Urbino is larger than the others and is a large university town but it maintains its historical atmosphere.

Being close to the Adriatic coast the local cuisine is largely fish-based but there is a the full variety of other foods as well. From deep fried seafood to squid ink pasta with clams, we have enjoyed it all. We try to be adventurous and the staff are very helpful in trying to explain the menu but sometimes the meal that arrives is quite different to what we thought we had ordered.

We have had fun with language. Because most of our time has been away from the major tourist centres such as Florence and Pisa we have found that not many people speak English. We (Ted) has enjoyed experimenting with the Italian language and people have been very patient with us. As an example we asked in a chemist shop for a product that they didn’t have but 2 women told us in Italian where we might be able to get it a few kms away at an alimentari macrobiotico (which of course means health food shop). We eventually found the shop and, even though they didn’t have the product, we enjoyed the search and were quite proud of ourselves.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we will leave the east coast and return to the centre of the Italian peninsula, to the village of Ficulle for our second week in time share accommodation. We are looking forward to seeing places like Orvietto, Assisi and Siena which you might have heard of or even visited.

Bye for now. Please keep sending newsy emails; we do enjoy hearing from home and other places. We are both well and we hope everyone else is also.

Love from Ted and Jo

ps. Still having trouble transferring photos

It seems such a long time since our previous update from Cinque Terre. We have seen so many interesting things in the intervening 10 days that it has become blurry. This update has been delayed a couple of days due to internet problems and for the same reason there are no photos this time.

After leaving Cinque Terre we drove for only about 1.5 hours to Lucca where we had booked into a small hotel only a few minutes walk from the old city centre. The old city was inhabited by Etruscans before Roman times and is surrounded by a huge earthen and brick wall built by the Romans and reinforced by Napolean 1500 years later. The old town is flat and easy to walk in, with narrow streets, 3 – 4 storey buildings occupied mainly by locals because the hotels are mainly out of the city centre, and of course, shops and restaurants. We climbed 230 steps to see a great view of the city. It is a great place for a few days and we used it as a base to visit Florence and Pisa.

Pisa is less than 30 minutes by train from Lucca and from the station in Pisa to the Leaning Tower is only a 20 minute walk, but the walk took us 3 hours. On the way we did lots of window shopping, people watching and eating lunch. We took a guided walking tour of the Miracles Square, including the duomo and the Tower – the duomo was closed because the archbishop decided to conduct mass and we chose not to climb the 290 steps to the top of the Tower because the view would be similar to that from the tower in Lucca.

Florence was a 90 minute bus ride from Lucca finishing within a 15 minute walk of the first guided tour; Accademia, where we saw the statue of David which was pretty good, and the Duomo which also was interesting. During the tour rain started and kept falling for about 4 hours, the first rain we have had for almost 2 weeks – so we had to make a drastic change to our plans and instead of eating outside we ate inside. Then we had a 3 hour guided tour of the Ufizzi museum and the Vassari Coridor, both huge art galleries. We were the only group in the Vassari gallery but the other 3 places that we visited had millions of people, or so it felt. By the end of the day we had had enough of tourists and back at Lucca we were exhausted after a 17 hour day.

Following a few days of busy towns we drove to Volterra a small mountain-top village only 70 km (1.5 hours) away. It took 2 hours to find the hotel – tiny streets, one way streets that our GPS didn’t know about, squeezing between cars with our mirrors folded away, then having to reverse out because our little Peugeot doesn’t like going down steep steps, phoning the hotel but not being able to understand the Italian instructions. Eventually we arrived at our tiny hotel to find it was really nice and right in the heart of the old town. Volterra was inhabited as long ago as 5000 years and there is a very good museum of Bronze Age and Iron Age artefacts. We stayed a couple of nights and loved Volterra. There were certainly tourists but not many and before 10:00 and after 4:00 we and the locals and the few tourists who stayed overnight in a handful of small hotels had the place to ourselves.

Yesterday we drove the 4 hour trip to Mondavio, near the Adriatic Coast on the eastern side of Italy – except it took 6 hours because we drive slower than the locals (speed limits are treated as minimum speeds). After trying in vain to find the address of the local contact person, her brother found us and escorted us about 10 km out of town to a nice cottage in the middle of farms. We have no close neighbours and it is very peaceful. We found a supermarket a few km away and have stocked the fridge and wine cabinet so we couldn’t ask for more. Tomorrow our Dutch friends Eddie and Tineke will arrive and we look forward to spending a few days with them, 20 years since we met them on a camping trip from Alice Springs.

We should mention the food; it is wonderful. We have had lots of varieties of pasta, pizza, gnocchi, cheeses, breads, pastries and of course, gelato. We’ve eaten seafoods, meats and sauces of many kinds and loved them all. Sometimes we have eaten in tiny pizzerias on the side of a street or in a small piazza and often in lovely restaurants, both indoors and outdoors. And, in case you are wondering, the wine is great too.

That’s all for now (did somebody say “about time”). We are both well and hope you are too.

Love from Ted and Jo

Hi again.

After leaving home last Saturday 12 September we travelled for 24 hours and landed in Milan Malpensa airport ready for some fun in Italy – then spent an hour and a half on a queue to go through passport control.  Never mind, customs checking was non-existent and the car hire process was fast and painless so we were soon on our way.  In our brand new Peugeot 208 with its easy to use GPS we drove  65 km through narrow, winding roads (in 2 hours) to our hotel at Lezzeno on the shores of beautiful Lake Como.  Words can’t describe how beautiful this 100 km x 2 km lake is – and we had a room almost right beside the lake with a great view.

Hotel Villa Aurora is small and the rooms are tiny, as with most traditional hotels in Europe.  The staff were very friendly and most, not all, could speak very good English.  We ate breakfast in the main building but dinner was in the hotel’s restaurant across the road.  Staff had to carry meals across the road from the kitchen to the restaurant, even in the rain.  We did have some rain while we were there but it didn’t bother us.  We would happily stay here again, especially with a lake view room.

Ferries operate all over the lake, with a stop near the hotel, so we took a ride to 3 towns then to the famous town of Bellagio where we enjoyed a pleasant few hours.

From our room on Lake Como

From a ferry on Lake Como – many beautiful mansions as well as the small villages

Our dining room at Lake Como

After 3 nights we started off again for the 3.5 hour, 320 km drive to Cinque Terre – it took 7 hours because we chose the shortest route rather than the fastest route.  The first 80 km took more than 2 hours, then we found ourselves in the middle of Milan – Oops!  Getting through Milan took anothe 1.5 hours so we changes our minds and took the fastest route for the remaining 240 km, using 2 freeways were we sat in the slow lane doing 110 km.  The final 20 km was along another narrow road, high above the Mediterranean Sea with spectacular scenery, to the tiny village of Volastra, near Manarola.

Our hotel is Luna di Marzo, more like a B&B, with only 11 rooms.  We stayed here in 2012 and really enjoyed it.  The village has about 4 B&B’s, 2 small restaurants and a small mini- market.  The view from our room and the hotel terrace is amazing and the food in the restaurants is wonderful.  We have walked and taken the train to other villages and general enjoyed this very interesting region which is famous for its 5 towns that are joined by walking trails.  Unfortunately a couple of trails have been closed for repairs since heavy rain in 2011 but we have still found plenty to do.  Of course great food, wine and coffee help, along with good company from like-minded travellers.

Corniglia, one of the 5 main Cinque Terre towns

Enjoying one of several walking trails

From our room in Volastra

That’s all for now.  Hope everyone is well, as we are.

Love from Ted and Jo

Hi again from sunny WA. At least today is sunny and calm, 25 degrees and probably the nicest day that we have had in 9 weeks. Storms are forecast for tomorrow.

Dwarfed by the Pinnacles

Sandy Cape, 20 km north of Jurien Bay

Looking for her husband, a sailor on the HMAS Sydney

Sunset at Geraldton, from the beach at our caravan park

On the way to Eyre Bird Observatory, near Cocklebiddy

Can’t believe that it is 3 weeks since our previous update. We have been so busy that we haven’t had time or perhaps we have been having too much fun to write. Since the last update we have visited:

Perth, 4 nights. Stayed in a caravan park at Gwelup, had a day at interesting Fremantle, a day in the city and beautiful King’s Park and a day with Auntie Wendy. Also spent time with an old friend of Jo’s (from 1964!). Whilst Perth was good we were glad to leave the city again.

Guilderton, 2 nights. Only drove 80 km to get to this old fishing and surfing beachside town at the mouth of the Moore River. So peaceful that we stayed an extra night and toured the local countryside.

Cervantes, 2 nights. This is the base for vising the Pinnacles, thousands of ancient sandstone spikes that stand up to 4m tall in the desert, a few km inland from the coast.

Sandy Cape, 3 nights. Drove 40 km to get here, a very nice national park camp area on the beach just north of Jurien Bay. Had hopes of a swim but didn’t have time – too busy relaxing and talking to neighbours. While here we heard that the start of June was the hottest on record for this region.

Geraldton, 3 nights. We saw lots of very nice beachside towns along the coast all the way from Perth. The 2 main attractions here are the memorial to 645 sailors who died when the HMAS Sydney was sunk off the coast of WA during WWII and a very good museum containing artefacts from the Dutch ship Batavia which sank near here in the 1600’s – 100 years before Captain Cook’s 1770 voyage along the east coast.

Since leaving Geraldton we have spent 5 nights in bush camps, travelling 1700 km through Mt Magnet, Leonora, Kalgoorlie and now near Cocklebiddy on the Nullarbor Plain. Today we visited the wonderful Eyre Bird Observatory, which was a telegraph station from 1877 to 1927 on the southern coast along a 1.5 hour 4WD track from the highway. We are camped alone in a very peaceful site about 500m from the main road, about 16 km from Cocklebiddy, just within mobile range

That’s all for now – time for a pre-dinner drink. Hope you are all well. Love to all from Ted and Jo

It’s been almost 2 weeks since our last update and we have lots to talk about but we’ll get the weather out of the way first. Rain has fallen on many days, luckily only showers so not all day and we have had little wind so the 16 and 17 deg temperatures have not been chilled by cold wind. The nights near the coast have been relatively mild but very cold inland.  The last couple of days have been calm and sunny 20 deg.

Next topic – trees. The whole south-west corner of WA has huge areas of trees; huge karri trees, even larger tinglewood trees, ever-present peppermint trees (called peppi trees). Last January and February bushfires burned out an area larger than the Perth metro area but already the regrowth is amazing. Grasses, bushes and small trees and giant trees are all recovering and have fresh green foliage all over the place.

Next – grass. Wherever trees are not growing, beautiful bright green grass is. Farms are covered with it and sheep, cattle, horses and deer look very happy.

Next – places. After Albany we spent a couple of days at Denmark, a really nice town with great meals available at the many wineries, e.g. Castelli. Then to Peaceful Bay, a small fishing and holiday town with a fabulous fish shop where we ate fish caught by the caravan park owner. From there we enjoyed the treetop walk. Next stop was Walpole where we went on a cruise through 2 inlets to the ocean and were entertained by a very knowledgeable and personable cruise skipper. We stopped for a night at Pemberton where we thought about climbing the 75m high tree that has been fitted with a spiral ladder and platform at the top; thought about it but didn’t do it. We spent a couple of nights at Hamelin Bay, the beach where eagle rays feed amongst tourists in ankle-deep water. From there we visited the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, the south-western corner of Australia where the Southern and Indian Oceans meet. Margaret River, or more accurately a bush camp about 12 km out of Margaret River, was a great place to stay for a few days. We took a full-day winery tour today that included 2 wineries, a cheese factory, a chocolate factory, a venison farm, a nougat factory and a brewery. There must be a couple of hundred wineries and most have restaurants; we visited 3 and had wonderful meals.  We have also seen lots of surf, really good waves at 2 to 4 meters high.

Now we are at Dunsborough staying in the yard of an old Army friend and his wife, giving us about 10 days in the very interesting Margaret River region. On Tuesday we’ll move to Perth for the next leg of our trip.

That’s all from us. Hope you are all well, as we are. Love from Ted and Jo.

65 metres high on the treetop walk at Valley of the Giants.

The Giants – beautiful Karri trees.

Amazing red Tinglewood tree.

Pelicans enjoying late afternoon at Walpole.

An after lunch drink at Leeuwin Estate winery, Margaret River.

Small surf on the west coast – we saw much bigger but didn’t bet a photo.

Hi again. Hope you are all well. We are both well and enjoying ourselves in sunny Albany for about 6 days.

It was a damp, dreary day as we left Esperance but we did have a bright spot when we caught up with our cycling friends, Jenny and Brian, who had left Esperance a couple of hours earlier. It will be interesting to see if we meet them again; although we drive faster than they ride, we stay in different places and for longer periods.

Next stop was 2 nights at Bremer Bay, a small town on an amazing bay and nearby peninsula. Nine beaches with 10 km are stunning, with more beautiful blue water and white sand.

100 km further on we spent a night bush camping at Cape Riche, about 20 km off the highway. There is a small caravan park for about 15 caravans or tents, no power or water for caravans but there was a toilet. Met some other South Australians and enjoyed wines around the campfire.

Cape Range National Park was another 80 km away and we stayed 2 nights in Cape Range Retreat, another bush caravan park. It had power, water and a good ablution block in a bush setting, with a communal fire site. The drive through the park was interesting, great scenery, lots of emus, parrots, kangaroos and wallabies. After parking the car at 400 metres high we climbed another 500 metres almost to the summit of Bluff Knoll. Unfortunately we couldn’t do the final 100 metres because the clouds rolled in and we couldn’t see well enough to continue. Even so we enjoyed the almost 4-hour return trip; it was very steep but we both did it without major after effects.

Albany was only another 80 km drive through green hills, finishing at Kalgan Caravan Park, which is situated on the banks of the Kalgan River. Although about 15 km out of town, we prefer this park because of it’s natural setting and less formal atmosphere. We have a riverbank site with a fire bucket and sufficient wood for 3 or 4 days for $10. It is very pleasant.

Although we planned a 4-night stay the weather forecast has been for storms with lots of rain and very strong winds so we decided to stay an extra couple of days. Albany has plenty to see and some nice restaurants so we have been quite happy here – and yes the cyclists have caught up to us so we had a few hours with them. We hope to leave tomorrow (Monday) morning, as long as the weather has settled.

Love to all from Ted and Jo

Climbing Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Range National Park.

Stunning Salmon Holes bay near Albany.

Near the top of the Granite Skywalk in Porongurup National Park.

Made it – she’s an accomplished climber.

Cape Le Grande national park is only about 50 km from Esperance so we thought it might be crowded and spoiled – not so. We camped at beautiful Cape Le Grande beach in one of only 15 secluded campsites. The sea was calm and blue – really, really blue – and the powdery, squeaky sand was an amazing bright white. Hiking over the granite hills was good exercise with fabulous scenery as a reward. We climbed to the top of Frenchman Peak with Jenny and Brian, who were riding (bicycles, not motor bikes) from Melbourne to Perth and still found energy for the 2-hour return climb). 3 days here could easily have turned into a week but the road beckons.

Next stop was about 150 kms away at Cape Arid national park. The campsite at Thomas River has 17 secluded sites and for the first 2 nights we were the only people there. More beaut scenery, interesting 4WD tracks and good hiking along the rocky coastline and sandy bays. We don’t actively seek out company but we did enjoy a couple of hours with a young couple who camped near us on the third night.

6 days after leaving Esperance we are back again so that we can wash some clothes and fill our water tanks. On arrival we still had more than 50 L each of washing water and drinking water so we could easily have stayed another couple of days. Although the skies were cloudy for a lot of the time our solar-powered batteries did not go below 12.3V and usually by afternoon they were over 13V. Unfortunately campfires are not allowed in these parks but that didn’t worry us as the weather has been quite mild; one day the max was 27 deg and at night it was still 20 deg in the caravan when we went to bed.

We’ll stay in Esperance until Tuesday morning, then head west toward Albany. Apparently there are plenty of nice beach camps on the way the 500 km (approx) will probably take a week or so.

Hope everyone is well. Love to all, from Ted and Jo

Cape Le Grand national park.  He eventually did have a swim (with a wetsuit).

At the top of Frenchman Peak.

Beautiful Hellfire Bay

Typical “highway” in Cape Arid National Park – without the caravan.