Last night we decided to push through and get home a day earlier than planned. So we got up and left when we woke. An upside of this is that we have an extra day to get things in order before returning to work next week. The downside is that the dinner that Ryan is cooking for all the family isn’t happening until tomorrow night so we thought we would have to wait to catch up with everyone. However, Tani contacted us about 30 seconds before we arrived home to ask what day we were coming. In the space of 5 minutes she and Daniel had arranged to come over tonight with Ryan and Emily and cook us dinner. Happy 🙂 . Tomorrow Ryan is still cooking and we are looking forward to catching up with Dad and Lynn as well.

Where to start with my ‘concise’ appraisal of the last 4 months..? First some stats. We have travelled 22160 km in 18 weeks, surprisingly a few thousand more than our 2023 trip. We have been on the road for 126 nights, 124 in the van and 2 in the swag. We have been off grid for 75 nights. This number could have easily been much higher, but sometimes it’s just easier to stay at a caravan park when convenient access to town is desired. As I’ve harped on about repeatedly, with water being the precious resource this trip, Bob and I always took a powered site (as they come with water – which means decent showers and the washing machine can run) whenever we stayed in a caravan park. The electric capability of the caravan has been exceptional. Although we have dragged a generator around the continent with us, it was not required at all (although I reckon another day of clouds at 40 mile beach near Karratha might have made Bob a bit toey).

Planning for a trip like this is such a delicate thing. There are the big ticket items that form the backbone of the experiences we wanted to ensure we managed. But we also wanted to leave a bit of flex in the programme to allow some free form. Some places and experiences were booked 6 months in advance and others we just decided on the day. Overall, I think we did pretty well. Only a couple of times Bob and I were prepared to walk away from bookings when we had a strong preference to experience something alternative. A small cost in the overall scheme of things.

With regard to the experiences over the last 4 months, I am struggling to quantify amongst a sea of truly exceptional times. Some incredible landscapes and experiencing animals in their natural environment. Further, the high level of physical exertion required for some of these only added to the overall buzz that I experienced so many times over the months. I can’t go past swimming with whale sharks and snorkelling with turtles and fish at Ningaloo, the incredible gorges at Karijini, the south western coast of WA (and all the southern right whale calves that we saw) and the unbelievable colours and water in the Esperance region. I would really like to spend more time in the Margaret River and Albany areas as I felt I hadn’t done them justice when we had to move on due to forward bookings.

It doesn’t get any better than sharing these experiences with friends. We were so fortunate to spend the majority of the tour with both the Allen’s and the Scott’s. We all did our own things at various times over the course of the holiday, which I think is really important to make sure we all have those experiences that are most important to us – but there were still so many amazing adventures that we shared. I really loved catching up with Mel and Doug a few times in WA as we crossed paths on our independent travels.

About half way through the trip I decided that this would be the swansong for the blog. The amount of work it took just didn’t seem worth it. I started resenting that I had to sit up for hours every night while everyone else got to relax or even sleep. Over the last few weeks I’ve reinvented how I do it and have come to appreciate that I don’t have tens of thousands of photos (literally) to go through now I’m home, so maybe it is worth the discipline? Plus we get a blog book out of it that we will have forever. So, maybe I will resurrect it in the future, who knows?

In the meantime, thanks for following along. I hope the daily happenings kept you interested. This country has so much to offer us all. I can’t encourage everyone enough to get out and absorb what interests them. We are all so fortunate to live with this on our doorstep.

Until next time.