BARBARA'S KIMBERLEY ADVENTURE - GO!!!!!!!!

Ready Steady Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our Grand Adventure.......

Well it seemed ages ago that we decided to do this trip but the last few weeks leading up to it have been absolutely mental trying to get everything organised :-)  This is the reason we bought Barbara and all the little adventures we had were just practice runs to get us comfortable.  We'll just have to set another dream of another Grand Adventure when we get home.

GM quit his job in the middle of nowhere so that we could do this, and I don't know if I'll have one to go back to when it's all over.......I've got a nice young office bitch called Jake covering for me while I'm away
 ;-)

We left home at 11.52 on Friday 12th July after cleaning, washing and making sure everything was schmicko and all locked up securely.

Locked, Loaded and ready to go!!!

It was lovely and sunny when we left home, but there was supposed to be a few days of rain coming, we escaped just in time!! But we were about to drive into it.

We had a dream run through Melbourne and said good-bye to our city for a little while.

Heading into Melbourne on the Monash.... rarely is it this quiet :-).

Our Melbourne....the best city in Oz :-)

Domain Tunnel here we come!!!!

................and out the other side!!!!

GM looking pretty hot ;-)

Over the Westgate Bridge....

Bye Hinges, see you in a couple of months xxx

We had a dream run out of Melbourne and into Warnambool where we did the obligatory visit the kids night.....and it was a lovely night catching up with GM's eldest :-)

So cold and calm........The weather that is ;-)

Warnambool Surf Beach

A truly beautiful place :-)

GM and one of his gorgeous girls :-)

We spent our first night in Barbara where it was a little cold with a little drizzle outside, but so snug inside, we slept like logs and the caravan park (the surf beach one) was fantastic!!!! would love to spend a little more time in Warnambool....have only ever stayed 1 night at a time.

We packed up and had a hearty Macca's breaky and left Warnambool at 8.45 am for this.........

..................we finally turned the wipers off around 1pm about 1/2 an hour before we got to Keith in SA so it was a pretty long, bleak, miserable drive.....luckily for GM, he had my stimulating presence for the trip.

The roads were so quiet for a Saturday, so we put it down to a combination of the miserable weather, and schools coming back from hols on Monday....but it certainly suited us :-)

I have bought us an ipod classic that holds a gazzillion songs and one song comes to mind......"Wedding Ring" by the Easy beats.....this was to be the cause of our first argument for the trip......GM is convinced that the words are "wet dream"......his whole life, this is what he thought it was.....how sad ;-)  but I have since set him right, so now he is a much better person for knowing this.

We arrived in Adelaide around 4 and decided it was in our best interests to find the Ekhidna Winery and stock up on the worlds greatest Ginger Beer......(Sorry Veronica Walsh, you were'nt there to share it with us, because you were on holidays, so we will have to drink it all without you xxxx.....it will be tough, but we will manage)

We eventually got to Chrities Beach Caravan Park where we set Barbara up in no time at all and then toodled off to Fasta Pasta, where we did the Obligatory Parenting thing again and caught up with my eldest :-)

Me and my gorgeous kids :-)

 Up and out early Sunday morning......................HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU GM!!!!!  I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

We left Christies beach 8.45am and stopped at the worlds greatest playground so that GM could re-live his childhood.......

Me too.....note: don't wear thongs when you want to play on slides....OHS stuff ;-)

Leaving Adelaide :-(          I love Adelaide!!!!!

There is a huge amount of new infrastructure going on in the Northern Suburbs and we had an awe inspiring trip driving under the new bridgework they are building.....the Vic Government could take a good hard look at this work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 We drove through Snowtown.......we didn't stop and buy and barrels, but I had to explain why to GM......
...............and they reckon Moe is bad.........

I always thought Snowtown was a suburb of Adelaide but it's miles out!!!!

GM finally got to play with the camera and took a few happy snaps.....

The only house on the left hand side for about 200kms 

The Iron Ore Smelter at Port Pirie on the Spencer Gulf

and to the right were our beloved Flinders Rangers......our first camping trip away together  and my favourite place on the whole planet so far :-)

Iron Ore industry in Port Augusta

 It was a long boring drive to Port Augusta with just the occasional amazing thing like the Flinders Ranges thrown in.  Lucky we have an ipod full of music :-)

We finally reached Port Augusta around 4ish and grabbed a coffee at the most dysfunctional Macca's I've ever been to......lucky the coffee was good tho ;-)

We checked out the information centre for 5 mins as they were about to close, then decided we'd set up camp about 50/60kms out of town.

Heading out of town we came upon this sign......

It pretty much blew us both away.....choices, choices...........not the sort of choice we've ever been presented with before :-)

We parked up at a roadside stop that was alongside the railway line....thinking this would be a quiet spot in this part of the world, but hooley dooley a lot of traffic and trains go by here!!!!  The freight trains are enormous and were wonderful to watch....I don't think we ever grow out of this sort of stuff........and then along came the Ghan......amazing.......you should have heard GM swear when he realised there was a tree in his picture ;-)

The colours and the  scenery have blown me away......I've seen this in so many tv shows and photo's, but it's so much better being a part of it.  It's vast, so incredibly vast, and there's no other movement for miles/hours....except for the traffic which is amazingly busy!!!!!!

GM responding to his birthday wishes........he's very old now you know.........

 Oh yeah.....well GM set up this electricky thingy for me so that I could use my hair straightener.....which I have copped a fairly hard time from my "so called" friends.........haven't used my hair straightener yet, but his Nespresso machine has copped a fair hammering...........yes........he had an ulterior motive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This country is vast and breathtaking, but what never ceases to amaze or disappoint is the amount of disrespect shown by those who think nothing of trashing it.....we live in the most beautiful/diverse place on earth and only meters from this photo is dumped matresses, electrical goods, car tyres and general rubbish........shame, shame, shame!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well...................up and off to Coober Pedy tomorrow and hopefully see some amazing things........and maybe trip over that gazillion dollar opal than just happened to come our way..................but that's in the next section......stay tuned ;-)