Day Two

You know you're alive when you're trying to pick up enough speed to get a six-berth camper van past a four carriage road train. I overtook my first one this morning and it was equal parts exhilarating and horrifying. I've never felt more like a "dad" as I drive the family all over the state. When you're navigating a house on wheels along highways peppered with scrubbers and red dirt, you feel pretty manly.

We camped overnight in Paynes Find, which wasn't as far as we'd hoped to get on our first day. To get back on schedule, we needed to get to Newman, which was now further away then we'd planned. It was 760km, which was going to take at least eight hours of driving...in a regular car. Add in the weight and drag of the motorhome, the difficulty of overtaking slower vehicles, a dog who has trouble giving off signals of when he needs to go toileting and all the fun and games of a family on the road and you've got a big day of travelling in front of you.

After breakfasting and packing up the van, we set off from Paynes Find at around 8:30am, feeling pretty refreshed and excited. Getting to Newman was going to be a big task, but our hearts were set on making it. Rhona was born there, and hasn't been back since she was eighteen months old. Reuniting Rhones with her hometown has been a big factor in this trip happening. We've talked about it for years and have come close to planning a trip there a few times, but nothing has ever eventuated. Until now...

Our first stop was the delightful little town of Mount Magnet, where we found a nice little playground for the kids to swing and run and spin and stuff. We initially took a small detour to try and check out some of the local attractions, but the road proved to be to tough for the van to travel on. We did manage to see a couple of haul packers tote their payload out of the gold mine though. That was pretty cool.

By the time we got to Cue our tummies were rumbling, so we took our freshly made sandwiches (thanks, mum!) to a gazebo in the town's main street for an alfresco lunch. Before we headed off, our camper van caught the attention of Miles, who ran the local town gift shop. He came over to us as we were puling out with a free map and pamphlet, and proceeded to mark out the best places in the Cue area to visit. We were a little gutted that we were on such a tight schedule, because he pointed out some amazing places, including a cave that apparently boasted some breathtaking Aboriginal paintings. Before we left he asked us if we could sign a petition he'd started. The local mining office is currently located over 100km away from Cue, so as to be close to the mine site. Miles had a proposal to move that office into the town, which would create 200 jobs for the unemployed people in the area. As Rhona followed Miles into his shop to sign it, she met a local lady called Sylvie, who was proved to be another lovely person we've encountered in our travels so far. As we drove away. Miles took pride in pointing out that Cue had won the Tidy Towns award for the last two years. There were some lovely stone buildings in the town, including a defunct Bank of New South Wales branch, a police station and a pub.

It was now about 1pm and we still had about 530km to go before we reached Newman. If we were going to get there at a decent hour, we needed to restrict our break times. After passing through Meekatharra, we hatched a plan to get to Kumarina for dinner. From there it would only be 160km to Newman. When we got there at around 5:30pm, we filled up both the van and ourselves. Our travels had now taken us 1,024km from home; a whole gig! He he he...

The light was receding when we went to make the last leg of our day's journey and we were warned by two likeable truckies to watch out for cows on the road. There were several cows coming up to the roadhouse to drink from a trough and eat from the hay that had been left for them. There was an hour and a half, maybe two hours of driving in front of us. Should we find a powered site nearby, or press on?

We pressed on and arrived in Newman, unscathed, at around 8:20pm. About twenty kilometres out of Newman was a large roadhouse called Capricorn. We didn't get the significance of the name until we saw a sign informing us that we had just crossed the Tropic of Capricorn! About three hours we drove past a similar sign that said we had reached the 26th Parallel, so we officially in the north west of WA. Pretty cool day.

So, after arriving in Newman under cover of darkness, we're quite excited about seeing the house Rhona and her family lived in, as well as the hospital she was born in. From here we'll be heading to Port Hedland to see my brother Andrew and his girlfriend Amy. Oh, and it'll be Lachlan's 8th birthday too! Another big day awaits us.

Alyssa says
"My favourite part of today was relaxing in the camper van while we drove along, because this is the life."

Lachlan says
"I liked being up the front driving with daddy. We talked about music and guessed whether it was a car or a truck coming in the distance. I also liked meeting the talking cockatoo who said 'Hey, wanna scratch?'."

Zappa says
"Woof woof woof...sniff. Atchoo!"

Team Bolgies out!