1. Know your vehicle
2. Ask you partner to look after the dogs
3. Only overtake a car unless you can not seen the gap between the head lights of on coming traffic
4. Give up Oranges not Apples at quarantine checks
5. Be careful of what you ask for!!!!!
6. Before you marry someone drive the Nullarbor
7. Take your own pillow
8. Maximum of 3 people on the trip
9. Step step security when hanging up phone from loved ones…..
10. Always carry peanut butter
11. If caught in an avalanche dribble so you know which way is up
12. Don’t tease others by sneezing constantly… every sneeze is a mini organism…

Our last day on the train was amazing to say the least. I didn’t have much sleep but Shaz & Kaz slept ok, the noise on the train is loud enough to keep the world awake….

We had our first train stop at 6am in Rawlina which has a population of 5 and a dog, it is used as a train stop and has a post master. Well I got woken up by Shaz with egg and bacon sandwich toasty in bed, but I decided to get up and have a look around. I had written the blog in the wee hours of the morning and told Kaz. Well she was sitting by herself trying not to laugh but as you will see from the video that was a failure. We listened to some music and boarded the train at about 7.30am and headed off again.

We also stopped at a place called Cook which is in the middle of nowhere, I had been asleep so Shaz woke me so we could stretch our legs and get some fresh air. Well Shaz didn’t mention the heat, OMG it was steaming hot. We saw some very small prison cells and empty buildings, was a bit boring until I asked Kaz if she wanted to get a photo at the front of the train, she said no….. but we knew she wanted to check on her baby THE CAR. Shaz & I watched her walk into the distance pretending to look at buildings and then cutting across and take photos of the bloody car, she couldn’t help herself. When she returned we asked if the car was ok, she laughed and said she looks ok.

We got back on the train but the train didn’t move for about 2hrs. An announcement come over the train for a doctor on board and we also see the flying doctors plane rolled up, its wasn’t until later that we found out an older lady had heat stroke. We finally got moving and decided to join our new found friends Bron and Corrina in the bar/lounge. The carriage had turned into a feast of card games and others that we hadn’t meet wanted to join in, it was fun to see all types of people joining us to play cards. After the days events we had Andrew the singer coming to our carriage at 8.30pm but there was some pre entertainment which was excellent to say the least….. I really don’t know what come over me but it was fun, (see pics and video below). Once Andrew returned I offered to be the back up but there wasn’t enough room for me….. By now there had many far to many drinks drunk and before we knew it people were dancing in the aisles, it was amazing to see everyone join in and have a dance. One lady who was very reserved got up and even asked for some slower music so she could swing her hips. We finally but ourselves to bed as we had to be up and off the train by 7am in Adelaide.

We arrived in Adelaide an to everyone’s surprise THE CAR was in on piece and survived the train rain, thank god for that. We were staying at Shaz’s brothers in Henley and we headed of for some brunch, after eating Shaz, Kaz and I took a long walk along the beach and guess what we chatted all the way. We went back to Gaz and Deb’s and had a rest until we went out for a nice dinner together.

We left Adelaide around 8am and headed for home, along the way we seen a Jeep on a pole and Kaz had to stop to get some more photos. We also seen the large Koala, this time I had to hangout the window to get the photo as Kaz didn’t want to stop. As we got closer to home the traffic hit us and added about 2hrs to our travel time, first out the car was Shaz we all had hugs and said goodbye 😢😢😢, Kaz then dropped me off to Jules and the puppies and Kaz headed home.

It was the most wonderful 11 days to spend together with 2 special friends and share some great memories and plenty of laughs.

We hope that everyone enjoyed or holiday, we have 1 more post which you all have to read after this one, for the last time chow bang bye xxxx

Our accomodation at Kulin was good considering we are in the middle of nowhere. We decided to cook dinner and started toasting the bread and the power goes off, I squealed like a little girl, we thought we would give it another try and power goes off this is the only downfall to our accomodation no toaster. We still got to have sensational hamburgers with untoasted bread.

We played a board game called 5 second rule and not being competitive at all, I secretly thought I should win this easily. Well after just 5 minutes into the game Kaz was on the floor rolling around laughing at my answers, I almost wet my pants and Shaz was crying, it was at this point I realised I might not even get to the finish line.

So here’s the question that I got, Name 3 thing you have taught yourself to do??? Now the answer to my question…. remember you only have 5 seconds and I don’t have much of a filter sometimes so I answered Brush your teeth, wipe your bum and have sex.

We headed to Perth in anticipation of watching the grand final, which was nothing short of disappointing to say the least. Kaz And Shaz went to Kings Park and I needed to rest from all the laughing the previous night. So in the morning as we are about to leave I her Shaz and Kaz giggling up stairs and they call me up and I’m wondering what they are up to. I heard them say she didn’t see it, Shaz says pull the covers off on the right side of the bed and to my surprise there is a mermaid doll in my bed, they had found it and though it would be great to try and scare me, but I sleep on the left side of the bed hahahahahaha. Our accomodation was wonderful in Perth again

We had to be at the Perth Train station before 7am as we had book the car in the train, so it was an early start. Well if Kaz didn’t check the car once she checked it 10 times to make sure it was coming with us, Shaz and I was having a good laugh each time she went to check the car.

We were sitting at a table that had spare seats and a lady come over and asked if the seats were taken, Kaz said no… I leant over to Shaz and said there not taken but we didn’t say you could sit there, well the laughter started again. I almost lost our boarding pass, but lucky I followed my steps and found it on the ground slippery sucker had fallen out of my pants.

We finally boarded the train and have got our little sleeping pads for the next couple of nights, they are actually comfortable. We meet a couple of lovely girls from Port Melbourne and we have been having a good laugh with them. I shouldn’t mention what time Kaz started having a drink today, but it was before 11am and I must say it’s great to see her relaxed, our new friends encouraged her. The train is so long we are in cabin A which means the arse end of the train…. we are the last cabin and the train is about 700mts long, you can actually see the front of the train when we the train takes some corners.

I missed a couple things that happened on our drive over which I’ll share with you all now. Kaz has had her car for 3 years and we would have thought she knows the car pretty well. Kaz was driving and I noticed she was resetting the cruise control every time she hit the brakes, so I ask her why she was turning it off and then resetting it, she said “isn’t that what you do” well another almost wet the pants moment…. Once I settled down I showed her how to reset the cruise after you brake, she was very surprised and the cruising got a lot easier for her….

Another time and Kaz was drivingit had started to rain. Her car has an auto rain sensors for the wipers, but Kaz doesn’t use it because she said it doesn’t work as she can’t get the speed right, so she would turn her wipers on and off and it was annoying me to no end, so after a long conversation and some convincing I set the auto wipers and your all going to be surprised they worked and Kaz has now been converted to auto wipers….. Kaz is a very smart woman and I love her dearly, but sometimes you just need help. Until tomorrow chow bang bye.

We had a long day of driving ahead of us today approx 550km. We started by playing 2 golf holes at Kalgoorlie and we were very pleased that we finally had fairways and greens that was grass not dirt and synthetic. We also got to meet the locals on the fairways when we started. After finishing the holes we had to find the Information centre which was back in town, think it would be easy……. Wrong Shaz guided us out the town and finally said we need to turn around and go back into town it added at least 20km to our drive today…… We handed our golf cards in and received our Nullarbor Links certificate for completing the course, we all decided it was great fun and very memorable but we are not happy with the image on the certificate.

We finally started heading to Kulin and stopped at Southern cross and had our famous peanut butter sandwiches, it’s a real treat. As we were about to head off we saw our friends Noel & ?????, to fill you in we have seen this couple since Ceduna and have crossed paths all the way along our road trip. The many times we had seen them we never swapped names, except the wife mentioned Noel’s name but not hers so we all have a name for her which is either Betty, Joan or Mavis. So earlier Kaz had only mentioned that we didn’t get to say goodbye to them and then from around the corner there they were. When they stopped we found out they were heading to wave rock same place as us, so we would say our goodbyes there. So off we head with them following us, a little down the road we veered left but they kept going on the same road. Kaz was concerned and the map was in Shaz’s hand (god knows where we would end up) so I got my road atlas out and to my surprise Kaz and Shaz couldn’t believe I had not got it out earlier and waited until now, I simply explained to them I had forgot about it when we were lost previously….. it would be fair to say they couldn’t believe it lol.

We did a U-Turn and got back on track thank to the road atlas…. We passed our friends and got to Wave Rock safe and sound. There were cars and vans everywhere and realised that there was a music festival being held at the caravan park, so we parked and then had to pay for parking. To pay we had to either use cash or card, now you would think 3 intelligent woman could do this with their eyes closed, not to be after approx 10 mins and about to spit it, it finally accepted a credit card it was a nightmare. The Wave rock is a huge wave that is one big rock, it was a sight to see and something we will probably never see again. We took photos and walked over the rock and acted like real tourists. On the rock I squealed like a girl when I looked down and saw a spider on my leg, I thought I was a goner. We never got to say goodbye to Noel and Joan/Betty/Mavis and Kaz was very concerned that something had happened to them, if she said it once she said it 10 times what’s happened to Noel & Joan/Betty/Mavis. We stopped and had a cake and brought dinner for tonight which was yummy and we didn’t see Noel & Joan/Betty/Mavis not their dog again lol.

On our way to Kulin I screamed again like a girl as I ran over a bloody snake, Shaz and I checked in the mirrors to make sure it was still on the road and not become a passenger and we both saw the snake, but Kaz was very concerned the snake might be under the car, again if she asked once she asked twice “are you sure you saw the snake” Shaz and I both replied YES…..

Our accomodation has been great until we went to use the toaster and the power keeps going off, we have a faulty toaster damn it…..

Until tomorrow chow bang bye.

Thanks to the stand-in bloggers for yesterday’s post xxx

We started the day by playing a our first golf hole at Balladonia and then headed off to Fraser Range.

We hit our straps at Fraser Range Station, it was a cute little town that had Camels and cattle with a lot of red soil….. Shaz and I meet the local Camel and we were both surprised how soft it’s fur was. We decided it was time to bring the cricket bat out and have a hit for the good old times. Hit it we did, we tried the cricket ball but that didn’t go far enough for our liking so we hit a few golf balls, it’s fair to say Shaz hasn’t lost it and could still give the ball a good wack. We also had a local Emu watching us in anticipation, the pressure was truly on.

We stopped for lunch at Norseman and was happy to see some civilisation, as we had not seen to many people for the past few days.

We stopped at Kambalda to play our last golf hole which Shaz and I had a surprise for Kaz. Upon starting the hole we presented Kaz with some new attire to play this special hole in, Shaz had also kindly got me and her some attire to support Kaz so she didn’t feel out of place. I must say I almost went my pants playing this hole, as Shaz and I felt that Kaz actually liked her new attire and was prouncing around like a queen. Apparently I was dressed like the messiah and Shaz was a Byron Bay hippy. Refer to the images and videos below

We arrived in Kalgoorlie at around 3.30pm and have found our accomodation to be very good. At dinner Kaz was pouring a drink for Shaz, but couldn’t understand why the wine wasn’t coming out of the bottle until she realised the top was still screwed in, don’t think she needed anymore drinks…..

We have a long driving day tomorrow, so until then chow bang bye….

Guest bloggers Karen and Sharon for this day. Sorry we were all too tired to blog last night. On reflection today we are struggling to know why we were so tired but it may be as simple as how much talking we are doing. We have a lot of years to catch up on. If you have ever played cricket or golf with us there is every chance you have been the topic of conversation!

The start of the day had Tammy emerge in an old Richmond rugby jumper that we all used to wear when playing cricket for Richmond. We also jumped in a boat with a big Moby Dick chasing us.

We left Eucla, headed for Balladonia, looking forward to driving along the straightest stretch of road in Australia. On our to do/see list today was a beer at Cocklebiddy and the elusive, live wombat. Our first encounter of the weirdest kind was the herd of cattle crossing in front of us on the road and then crossing in front of the green we were playing. How rude they didn’t ask us to play through.

The beer was had at the very classy Cocklebiddy Hotel. The artwork displayed may have said it all. If you are over 18 and would like a photo of the phallic tree stump on display, please submit your request.

We got very excited when Shaz at the wheel realised she was turning the wheel for the first time in two hours, following the straight stretch of highway.

We arrived at our destination, Balladonia, in need of a coffee and chocolate. Despite us being the only customers in the roadhouse with hundreds of kilometres between us and the next customers, the French man serving us still announced our drinks as “Number 6” and we were stupid enough to look around before claiming our drinks.

Tam didn’t have much luck with gluten free choices at the Balladonia Roadhouse even after her interrogation of the chef. He was so scared of Tam by the end of her interrogation he was not prepared to say yes or no to whether there was gluten in the meals she was asking about.

Shaz stuck to cider and Kaz stuck to beer as the “classic white” was too much of a risk. At least the sculpture was a step up from the R rated Cocklebiddy, with a piece of Skylab on display. It hit Balladonia in 1972 putting it on the map.

At our accomodation we had a greater sense of other travellers as we had at other roadhouses as it was such a beautiful evening. Many of us were sitting outside our rooms. This beautiful evening followed quite a warm day and we are all a bit sunburnt but we could not afford the sunscreen on sale in the Roadhouse at $24 a tube.

Thanks Tam, for letting us be guest bloggers.

Kaz and Shaz.

PS – Still no wombat.

We had a long day ahead of us, with many things on the to do list today. As per the other days, we named a couple of things that we wanted to see so today it was an Emu, Camel and live wombat.

Our first stop was Penong and 1 golf hole. Penang is known to have the largest windmill and many other types of windmills. We where looking forward to playing the par 4, 260mt hole until when we got to the tee area, there where trees everywhere the it was difficult to define the fairway and we couldn’t see the pin or synthetic green either. We completed the hole and it would be fair to say that this golf course is going to be an experience.

We then headed to Nundroo and played the par 5, 530mt hole. It was a very long hole and we had a lot of fun playing it. On our way to the next hole, Kaz is looking at the map and says “we need to stop at Nundroo and play the next hole” I said “for the love of god please give me strength, Kaz we just played that hole 10 mins ago”…..

Our next hole was in Nullarbor and another par 5 which was actually an air strip, we kept our eye out for snakes and planes. Kaz is not to comfortable with lizards and as we start walking to the tee she jumps and scares the heck out of us because she thought the lizard was a snake, I laughed so much I almost peed my pants…. this hole was again very long and into the wind, but we managed to finish it and Shaz hit a great long putt on the beautifully prepared synthetic green.

We headed off to the bight to hopefully see some whales, Kaz was very concerned about missing the rangers hut as we need to pay a fee for entering the national park, Well if we heard it once we heard it another 20 times, “have we missed the hut” from Kaz in the end I was ready to mute her….. Shaz and I got the fright of our lives as Kaz screamed “OH FARK” as she almost ran over a lizard crossing the road, there where many more along the way and Kaz did a great job in not running over any of them.

As we started to hug the bight, we finally found the rangers hut that’s was closed….. but to see the whales you must enter through a shop and that’s where you pay, Kaz was happy once we had paid, thank heavens. Well it was an amazing experience to see about 5 mums and their calf’s in this very blue water, they where very close to the shore and to see this huge animals just frolicking and swimming in their own environment was great for all of us. We also seen an emu…..

As we left the whales, there where many photo opportunities coming up and Kaz wasn’t going to miss any off them. First stop we seen cliffs and water which was a great sight, so off we go to the next stop which on the sign was stop 1. I decided to stay in the car as Kaz and Shaz took more photos of the cliffs. So Kaz was driving and her maths wasn’t great today as we needed to explain 2 comes after 1 not before 1, I think it was the lizards that upset her……. or she was just so excited about taking more photos of the cliffs.

On our way to Border Village, all at once we spotted Camels and I screamed like a little girl. I couldn’t believe to see camels and more importantly strike it off our list. We got to Border Village and played the par 3 hole which was let’s say very bushy. We also seen the enormous Kangaroo that was holding a vegemite jar.

We past a sign that showed WA 5kms, so I asked what does the sign stand for??? Well my friends laughed uncontrollably as they couldn’t believe I would ask such a question, the sign meant WA border 5kms, I need to say when does a sign show a border distance….. We hit the border and had the car inspected, but we got the all clear to pass through. We are staying at the Eucla motel and looking forward to what tomorrow may bring. Until then chow bang bye xx

Well what a day, so much to tell so hold onto your hats.

As we left Port Augusta Kaz made a comment that went something like this “today will be an easy drive as all we have to do is turn right and follow A1 highway” so off we go to Ceduna……

We start following A1 and reach Whyalla which is on the coast line. We decided earlier that we would have morning tea in Kimba which was approx 2hrs out of Port Augusta. Approx 40kms out of Whyalla I checked the map on my phone and realised we were heading in the wrong direction. We had noticed a sign that said Kimba approx 20km back towards Whyalla, so Kaz did a u-turn. There was a debate on whether the driver or navigator missed the turn to Kimba on the A1…. As the navigator was me I don’t remember seeing Ceduna turn off but I took the blame.

So head down the road towards Kimba and now feel comfortable that we are heading in the right direction. Kaz passed a sign that said Kimba and apparently asked me (the navigator) if we should turn there, as I was looking at stuff I responded no…. this minute I still say I don’t recall hearing Kaz ask the question. So as I look at the map, I realise we are heading in the wrong direction again, so we do another u-turn and turn at the road I said no too. By now we are laughing but when Kaz see’s the dirt road we are about to drive on she says “FARK”…… the road was actually not to bad, but Kaz keeps asking how long to go..? Kaz has realised that cars a made for dirt roads as she was concerned that we may get a flat tyre, but was even more concerned what would we do if we get to flat tyres….. God give me strength this caused Shaz and I to laugh for a little while.

As we are driving, we start talking about kangaroos and I said “we shouldn’t hit a kangaroo in the day as you should see them coming” Kaz also says we haven’t seen any at all and then from the bushes a Kangaroo jumps in front of the car, it was unbelievable….. all we could see was an endless dirt road. From our experience note to others keep an eye on the map and don’t be fooled by following A1 as you might have to do a u-turn……..

We finally get back to A1 and reach Kimba for morning tea, we were looking for the bakery but couldn’t find it as the town was huge so we found a little cafe which was still very nice. On the way out of town we found the big Gallah and the bloody bakery was right next to it.

After about 4.5hrs we reached Ceduna and our comfortable accomodation. We had a bite to eat and headed to the golf course to start the Nullarbor Golf Links course. We have 2 holes to play here. On arrival there is only 1 car in the car park and noticed the course was a little dry. We all hit off and thought it wasn’t to bad until we hit the greens, sorry sand scrapes, they are horrible. We had fun and we are looking forward to the rest of the holes.

We had a walk along the water and dinner in a place on the water, Kaz was in her element taking photos of the sunset. Until tomorrow chow bang bye.

We had a later start to the day today and headed of out of Adelaide around 8.30. Happy to get out of Adelaide as it was a wet and gloomy morning.

Kaz started driving and Shaz was the navigator. You would think if you had a map showing directions that it would be pretty simple to find our way, well let me say we where stuck in the one place going up and down the same road trying to follow the blue line on the phone but couldn’t seem to get in sync with the map. As I was in the back seat, I didn’t want to be a back seat driver, but I had to get the phone from Shaz and help out to get us heading in the right direction. We finally hit the freeway and was out of Adelaide.

As we started the day I had mentioned that we had 2 things find, 1 was an UFO and 2 was a pink lake which I thought was an impossible task to set.

So approx 1.5 hours out of Adelaide we saw an UFO, it was the most amazing experience for all of us, unbelievable to see the UFO and the little Martian in the middle of a paddock just waiting to beam us up Scotty……

Once back on the road we stopped at a little bakery that had great food as most of these country towns do. We saw many wind turbines which was a long topic of conversation.

We where heading to Snowtown and hit Bumdura lake and the lake was as PINK as your bum…. Our 2 goals have been achieved for the day, we where all very happy and couldn’t stop laughing. We stopped at Snowtown which if famous for the bodies in the barrel. Well Snowtown was a ghost town and actually felt a little eerie to be there.

We veered of the highway and went through Port Pirie to take a photo of the local police station as Shaz’s sister once worked there and wanted to now if it had changed, it was surprising to know it hadn’t changed.

We got to Port Augusta around 3pm and went for a walk before having a restful arvo. We had decided to have dinner at a local pub and as we get out the car, we where greeted by a very drunk local lady being pushed into a car and swearing, my virgin ears where horrified…. the pub was not serving dinner so we went to another pub and had a nice meal.

We are off to Ceduna tomorrow and the start of the golf course, we are all looking forward to seeing the golf holes and getting activate. Till tomorrow chow bang bye.

We left Melbourne in the morning and headed to Adelaide for our first over night stop.

After Karen picked me up, we headed to get Sharon and started the drive to Adelaide. We are driving Karen’s car, which is very comfortable and not that I experienced it today, plenty of room in the back seats so Sharon told us…..

We stopped for morning tea in Stawell at a very popular cafe, I was very excited to get a gluten free lemon tart, meringue and rich river Portello I was in heaven.

About 4 hours into our trip, Karen spotted a Pink lake, I wasn’t convinced that the lake was pink, so as I was driving I did a U-Turn and yes it was a pink lake. So plenty of pics where taken of the pink lake. When we where planning the trip, we had to skip the pink lake that was supposed to be in W.A because we didn’t have time to visit, so Karen got to see the pink lake and was feeling very happy about it.

We chatted pretty much all the way to Adelaide, didn’t even listen to any music as we had so many things to discuss and many world issues to solve.

We are staying in a nice place and enjoyed a Mexican dinner. Tomorrow we head off to Port Augusta and look forward to whatever we discuss and see along the way, we need to keep an eye out for UFO’s……