Day 134 04/08/2011 Esperance - Norseman

Day 134 04/08/2011 Esperance - Norseman

We were up early as the caravan of Peace, Love and Happiness had an appointment with the caravan Dr to have her brakes fixed!!.  Thankfully the mechanic had a courtesy car that we could borrow but we needed to stay within mobile range so that they could ring when the caravan was ready to be picked up.  We were hoping with fingers and toes crossed that all could be fixed today.



Esperance Beach



So what were we to do??  Firstly we went shopping to ensure that the caravan was well stocked with food before we headed off over the Nullabor in the next few days.  I had already check out the local movies – only three cinemas and only showing M rated movies – darn.  After we walked up and down every aisle in Woolies and checked out the local Target Country we headed off to find a park!!  Our plan was to go to the library for a few hours but it didn’t open until 10am!!  Esperance did not have a bowling alley or any other inside entertainment venue so we were a little stumped.

Fortunately the rain held off for an hour and the kids got to play in the park.  Yes we are nerds, once the rain returned we headed to the library and for a small period of time the kids were entertained reading books and magazines.  Whilst at the library Pete took a call from the mechanic who advised that he had fixed the caravan’s brakes (yippee) but the caravan had a broken spring on the right back axle. 



Family fishing trip.



Apparently this is bad news, I had no idea what it meant for us.  Pete explained that we needed to get a new spring but one couldn’t be sourced locally, we could get a new one from Perth but that would take about a week and we really didn’t want to stay in Esperance for another week in a motel OR we could get this one repaired (bodgied up!!) and then fixed properly once we got home.  We voted for the bush repair, just to get us back on the road and once again crossed our fingers and toes and hoped that someone could be found to make the welding adjustments today.

After lunch the rain had cleared so we set off for an afternoon of fishing.  Pete and Zac each caught a Zebra fish each, Zac also caught a Sea Gull that flew into his line as he cast out.   The rest of us just fed the fish our bait.

Thankfully late in the afternoon we received the call we had been waiting for – the caravan of peace, love and happiness has been temporarily repaired and we could continue our journey home!!  Yippee we all cried.

We left Esperance to the sound of rain on the car roof, choosing to travel for an hour before stopping for the night at a roadside stop near Norseman.