Our Trip

Day Eighteen

Day Eighteen found us in the little

town of Leonora. 

Leonora is a mining town in the Goldfields

region of Western Australia, 833 km northeast 

of Perth, with a population of around 550 people. 

When we awoke on Day 18, it was 

freezing, as it was the night before.

This was the first night in a long while

that we were unable to have a campfire

so we huddled around our camp table, 

shivering and drinking hot cuppas. 

There was a fire drum/pit quite close

by that you could BYO wood and stand 

around, but half the caravan park's permanent

residents were doing that, so we opted out. 

We all slept in a little longer than usual,

with the cold keeping us under the warmth of 

our blankets just that little bit longer.

Then Dave and I walked down to the local

Coles Express and did the morning coffee run. 

There was some interesting permanent sites

in that caravan park, as seen below. 

Well, as Dave and I needed tyres for our

cruiser, we headed out to look for somewhere that 

sold them and fitted them, or something anyway. 

We were able to find (after a LOT of looking around,

waiting, asking etc), a local fella who had tyres

in his 'everything' yard and who would sell us

a brand new set of tyres! They weren't going 

to be the chunky big things we had on previously,

but they would do the job, and his prices

were actually very reasonable. 

Once the others found us,

we left Dave, Emilee and the tyre fella 

busy changing the tyres. 

(One at a time, with a jack,

no hoist here, but he was a real

friendly, chatty fella).

Maddy and Chloe and I 

set off on foot to explore the little town

and grab a few groceries and supplies

to see us through the next couple of days. 

I fell in love with the little town.

Everyone me met was really friendly

and all of the shops had some sort of 

vintage feel to them (which of course was

just my cup of tea)

The buildings were beautiful

and had lasted the ages. 

There was actually an old ghost 

town, on the edge of town, that you 

could explore, for free, but we didn't have

time, unfortunately, so I just looked longingly 

at the turn off as we drove on by.

(our friends had gone on ahead to the next

town to wait for us)

All too soon, our Leonora adventure

was over and we had to be on our way.

Armed with freshly baked homemade

sausage rolls and another coffee,

we headed down the road, vowing to return

and explore some more another day. 

The next stop was Laverton, 

another little town in the Western Goldfields.

With a population of 340, this town

was to be where we turned off and headed inland

towards the Northern Territory border. 

Our first stop was the local information

centre, where we met up with our friends again,

 who were in the process of sorting out the 

permits we would need to cross into the Territory. 

This took over an hour, so we had time to 

look around the info centre

and plan out the rest of the day. 

We travelled on, with our friends 

taking the lead, to make it to 

Tjukayirla Roadhouse for the night before 

they closed at 5pm. 

The road surface changed constantly

from red to white and back again. 

It was a good road though

with no major dramas, and only 

some minor roadworks in operation. 

Of course, I loved photographing

all the trucks that passed by. 

With the sun setting rapidly,

we pushed on as fast as we could,

our friends now out of radio range,

to make it in time, but we arrived 15 minutes

after closing time, even though our friends

had made it in time and asked the owners to 

keep the park open a bit longer. 

So, we were obliged to pay an extra $20 

for  'after hours call out' fee

for them to open up again and take

 our site fee etc. 

Our friends had opted for a cabin,

the weather was freezing cold,

but they didn't have a cabin big enough

for us, so we set up in the dark

and used the camp kitchen 

as our dining room, minus our campfire again. Sigh. 

But we didn't complain as the showers

were huge and boiling hot, so the girls

and I made the most of our expensive

site fees, and had the longest showers

known to man! 

I made some nice hot custard,

which we ate with some bought biscuits

and a hot cup of tea for dessert,

then we climbed into our beds,

weary, but clean and well fed. 

I won't say warm, because it was the first

night of our whole trip that I just couldn't get

warm, no matter what I tried. 

It was FREEZING. 

We had done just over 400 km

that day, which was a big day for us 

after the Canning days. 

And so ended another day.

 To be continued...……..