Exmouth to Carnarvon (360km): Friday 20 Sept 2013

Back to Perth in a Hurry.

We have just had a phone call from Dave's brother Alan in Perth. Their dear 91 year old Dad has had a bad turn and is quite unwell, and "fading". After some extra phone calls we have decided to pack up our tent and get riding home, a journey of over 1,200km. We are going to take a cabin at Carnarvon for the first night, then next night a cabin in Geraldton, before arriving home in Perth on Sunday afternoon. We explained to some surprised caravan campers near us in Exmouth that we can't ride at night because of the real danger of hitting kangaroos and other animals that are always out at night. This cuts our holiday short by a month, but we can't have a good time while we don't know how old Pop Carroll is going to be. We can come back up the WA coast another time, when the weather is warmer.

So today was a ride with a special purpose, with perfect weather and flat ancient inland-sea type country to see. We pulled in at Minilya Roadhouse for a snack and got a big surprise: several patched up Coffin Cheater bikies were also there fuelling up their Harleys (as well as the obligatory support truck to help fix their Yankee chaff cutter bikes) and the bikies came over and spoke to us. Nicely! They wanted to know about the petrol mileage range on Dave's Honda and they even smiled and said nice things to me, a mere woman! Wowsers Penny….wonders will never change….maybe the big boss has told the bikies to be friendly to bikers, in an attempt to drum up support for banning the anti-association criminal bikie laws. But maybe I'm being too cynical thinking it's a public image upgrade they are doing.…it's just that we are usually treated with moody derision whenever we've come across bikies before.

After lunch we had to deal with strong headwinds which cut down on our motorcycle fuel economy a bit. It was good to pull into a Big4 caravan park in Carnarvon and get settled into a little cabin with our own bathroom and a TV. But shame about the overpowering stench of a room perfume…why do they put these smelly treatments on us travellers? It almost makes me have asthma, and hits the back of the throat with a horrible clingy feeling. And makes me homesick for our clean and fresh air tent! Never mind…we are away early tomorrow with no big pack up to deal with.

Carnarvon to Geraldton: Saturday 21 Sept

The first half of today's riding was boring: flat country all around. Then as we came into the Northampton region, the scenery changed to a motorcyclist's dream: swooping bends and sweeping green views of country, with lots of spring wildflowers. We stopped for a delicious lunch at a café in the main street of Northampton, after chatting with a motorcycle cop on one of the brand new Yamaha bikes that they are now using. He was very happy with his machine and it did look lean, mean and very snazzy.

We arrived in Geraldton smelling the briny ocean, as we had booked a cabin at Sunset Caravan Park, right on the beachfront, where we could see and hear crashing waves. This cabin was brand new and thankfully, no smelly room deodoriser in this place. After a short walk to stretch our legs to buy food for tea, we cooked up a nice little meal in our room. We prefer to do our own cooking whenever we can as it's a lot cheaper, and we are both good cooks, so why pay someone else to do a less than perfect job?

Throughout the night we heard a storm whip up with big winds. Checking our laptop weather forecast site showed we would have to deal with some windy squally weather on our ride to Perth tomorrow.

Geraldton to Perth: Sunday 22 Sept.

A quick check of the weather made us realise it was more prudent to ride home via the inland Brand Highway, rather than the more scenic coastal road. The winds would hopefully be less blowy this way. Never mind, we are intending to come back when the weather is warmer, and we have no more family dramas to deal with. We were lucky with the weather today…dodging most rain fronts, catching only a few brief drizzles under dark moving clouds. And the winds were ok. We stopped at a Cataby Roadhouse (there are 2 roadhouses in Cataby) to gobble up our lunches…we were both famished for some reason.

Finally we were back in our home territory. We pulled into Amaroo Aged Care Home in Gosnells to see a very frail and confused little old Dad who was pleased to see us in between bouts of falling asleep. He was hale and hearty when we left 3 months ago, but it seems as though he's had some kind of stroke. All to be expected at the autumn stage of his life and he is in good care. I'm so glad we are home to see him at this part of his life's journey. He's been a wonderful Father to Dave and Alan. And I guess he must be missing his true love wife of 66 years, who passed away 6 months ago.

The rain storm held off right till we got to the entrance of our 33 metre driveway in Kelmscott, then the heavens opened up and lashed us with rain as we rode up into our big shed. Just in time!

To conclude this part of our journey: We spent 3 months instead of 4 months on the road, and it has all been a really happy adventure with lots of amazing different kinds of country to see in both WA North West and the Northern Territory. We dealt with extremes in weather; from a massive hailstorm in Kalgoorlie to oppressive heat and sand flies in Darwin and Kakadu, and all sorts of weather in between. We noticed how each area we travelled to had people attracted to regions dependent on their own interests and hobbies, ranging from fishing to gold detecting. We met lots of other grey nomads, mostly in their big caravans, and many brave young European backpackers working their ways around our huge interesting country. But all the young Aussies seem to be travelling elsewhere; Bali?

One day we plan to ride up to Coral Bay and back again via the West Coast highway when the weather is warm enough for us to go swimming and snorkelling in the waters there.

A most enjoyable holiday so far! And there's no place like home!

Mrs Intrepid Inlaw (Not Outlaw!)