Go to Australia they said, it'll be warm they said!

Just not when you land in the south west in early spring time….brrr, what a shock after a year in Asia! A quick rifle through the lost property box in the hostel soon rectified that though. We'd done a bit of ground work on the car so managed to line up seeing on the day after we got to Perth. It was love at first sight I think! Nice big 4WD truck with a roof top tent - perfect for keeping me as far as possible from the spiders and snakes! All that sorted, we spent the weekend in Perth sorting bits out and working out what we needed to get, which wasn't much at all as the truck came pretty much fully stocked.

And then we were off! ROAD TRIP!!

First stop was to see a friend and change the oil and filter (saving money and doing it ourselves - easy once you know how!) …and that's as far as we got on the first day as we decided it would be a much better idea to celebrate our new found mechanic skills with a few beers. Margaret River could wait another day.

When we did finally set off, we became a 3 as Ben was tempted into coming along for the ride for a few days - handy to have our very own local bush man to show us the ropes!!

Unfortunately for us though, the weather was not on our side, so the first few nights were particularly wet and cold…not what we'd thought we'd get in Australia - it was like camping in England in the middle of winter!! Over the next 10 days, we gradually worked our way down the south west through Margaret River (testing plenty of wine along the way!) and all the way along to Albany then back up to Ben's place to dry out and have some well earned hot showers! It was a beautiful little trip, good for us to get used to the car and fine tune some bits before heading off properly, and nice to have a base to head back to for a few days. We managed to pick up some awesome little free camping spots around and even got some off road driving in, beach hopped down the coast to the most south westerly point in the country and the point where the Indian and Southern oceans meet. Ate many fire cook baked potatoes and lots of beans and sampled lots of different wine. We're in for a real treat if the rest of the country is as beautiful as the south west!

Tomorrow we're leaving behind the comfort and warmth of normal life and starting the journey north where hopefully the weather is a little kinder to us. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to keep up with the blog being on the road, I'll try my best but can't promise any regular updates!

Now please excuse me, it's time to cook a roast dinner (being a Sunday and all that!)