We made it across the desert! It wasn't really that hard though, we just had to make sure we had plenty of fuel on board and drive steady. After some quite adventurous exploring we've decided to name the van "Charlie", after the famous explorer Mr. Darwin.

I'm sat typing this in our little camping ground in the middle of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. We're surrounded by mountains, trees, kangaroos and there are wedge tailed eagles flying over our heads. I have a beer in my armrest and the sun is setting. Helen is setting up the campfire for tonight. This truly is a beautiful place.

We left the Perth Metro area as planned on Monday. We spent the previous night at Mundaring Weir, where we finally came face to face with a kookaburra. It's a funny bird that calls with a really loud laughing sound. He shared some crisps with us and was kind enough to pose for some photos before flying off to his friends.

We aimed to be at Kalgoorlie (Kal) by Monday night and hit the town, as we'd heard the nightlife was something to boast about. On the way we hit some torrential rain, which slowed us down quite a lot. It was so heavy we couldn't see more than a few metres in front of us. We found out that day that the roof box we had was made mostly of MDF, after it disintegrated in the rain and fell off the back! It only had wetsuits in, so we just picked them up and threw them in the van. The rain cleared about halfway and it was an easy drive from there. We arrived in Kal by late afternoon and checked into a campsite, then got to town in the evening as planned only to find that almost everywhere was closed! We spent some time in a dingy pub before hitting the hay.

The next day was really interesting. After some advice on roads from the Kal' visitors centre we went exploring some ghost towns. But not before visiting the "Superpit", Kalgoorlie's open cut gold mine that's visible from space. It was huge! The first ghost town we got to was Ora Banda, an old mining town that once had a population of over 15,000 and a regular train service. The only thing left is a 146 year old pub that's still open today! Of course, we had to pop in for a drink and a game of pool. We saw the graveyard too which was pretty spooky, we all got the feeling we weren't wanted there, especially when a tree seemed to throw some bark at us! We spent that night in Norseman, which is also known as "The gateway to the Nullabor". After looking into staying at a motel and coming across a crazy guy from Tasmania we opted to stay at the caravan park where we met some guys from Perth who were on a surfing holiday over east.

We aimed to get to Eucla, just before the state border, by dark on Wednesday. It never happened. There were far more sights to see on the desert than we had anticipated! We stopped at Balladonia for fuel, and found that they had a museum containing parts found from the Skylab space station which came down in the area. It was free to enter so we had a look around. After that we hit the 90mile straight, the longest stretch of straight road in Australia, which took us to Caiguna. We pulled up to stretch our legs and quickly got back on the road again after listening for a few minutes to a lady who was arguing with her hat. I guess living in such isolation with not enough water can do things to your mind… The next stop was Cocklebiddy, for lunch and an explore of an open cave, then we realised the time and tried to make a dash for the border but got cut off by the dark at Mundrabilla, about 65kms from where we were hoping to end up. Australian authorities don't recommend driving in bush areas at night as it's difficult to spot 'roo's and other animals coming into your path. This was evidently true as we have so far seen more dead kangaroos at the side of the Eyre highway than live ones in our whole time in Oz.

Thursday was a little more hardcore on the driving front; we'd lost time and wanted to make it up. We made a quick jaunt south at Penong to Cactus Beach, the famous surfing spot, but didn't go in as no-one else was there and we've heard the place gets really sharky. It's nice to be able to say we've visited it though. We made it to Ceduna for nightfall and stayed at a "Big 4" campsite. We've become members of the big4 chain, they have a lot of sites up the east coast and it means we will save money if we only stay at their sites.

The next day was a little more relaxed as we didn't have as far to drive. Helen had read up a bit about the Flinders Ranges and suggested that we visit, Laura and I agreed as the pictures looked pretty cool, so we aimed for Port Augusta which is sort of a gateway to the Flinders and was also not far away. We've spent the last 2 days exploring the Ranges, this truly is a stunning place, you'll see from the photos. The other night we had a pretty magical moment when two kangaroos came to share our dinner with us. We've visited a really "olde worlde" town called Blinman that's only accessible by unsealed road, and a couple of beautiful gorges. I can only imagine what it'd be like here in the spring when there's more water.

We're heading to Adelaide tomorrow (today) to upload the blog and have a look around. We may be fruit picking in Shepperton in Victoria next week, we'll see. Before that we'll be doing the Great Ocean Road, which I'm really looking forward to, and meeting up with Erik from Rottnest too.

Hope all is well back in the UK, speak to you soon.

Much Love, James, Laura and Helen xXx

NB: We posted this a day later than planned so it's actually Wednesday now not Tuesday.