Friday 7th December 2018 - 7am and its cooled down a bit at 28 degrees as we have breakfast and prepared to leave for the Coffin Bay National Park.

We leave this splendid part of South Australia and make our way to Locks Well Beach where the lovely high rugged limestone cliffs dramatically drop down to a soft cream and beige sandy beach with high and powerful aqua waves crashing onto the shoreline.

We had to leave our rig at the top of the hill, parked and walked down the zig zag of the road that led to a lookout that gave amazing views out across ocean. We continued on down the steep set of steps and walked along the beach and stood a while to watch the strong currents drag the waves back into the clear water before rolling back in towards us. This beach is also known where you can catch the biggest Australian Salmon.

After our detour, we set off again commenting that the landscape we are now driving through reminds us of the Yorkshire moors with its rolling hills covered in low lying shrubs and grazing sheep.

We continued on driving through farmland and salt lakes with clouds overhead, because it's dull and overcast today, different from the last few days of hot sunshine.

Finally, we arrived in Coffin Bay where we stopped for a coffee and to purchase some of their famous oysters for dinner before making our way into the National Park where Kangaroo's with their joeys and Emu's with their chicks either sat by the side of the road or kept running across the road in front of us.

The Emu's were funny as the parent also seemed to be aware of how many chicks they had as they would coming running back to herd the odd straggler forward and away into the bush.

We find our site and set up camp and then drove around a dirt track that led us to Point Avoid and the beach. We stood at the top of the high sand dunes and looked out across the clear aqua and blue waters over towards Price Island. We walked down to the beach admiring the layers in the limestone cliffs as we came across a small outcrop of rocks with the sun glistening off the ocean.

We scrambled over the rocky outcrop to the other side of the beach and looked towards more rocks within the ocean with one in particular looking lie a person standing waist deep waving their arms at us as if to get our attention.

With the tide coming in we made our way back along this beautiful sweeping cream sandy beach and back to camp to enjoy our dinner of Coffin Bay oysters and the kangaroos grazing by the beach.

As we settled in for the night the sky grew a strange purple and pink as a stillness came over the bay. Then there was a loud clap of thunder and a bright fork of lightening in front of us that was the beginning of the most memorable thunderstorms we had seen.

We sat in the dark watching the big bright lightning bolts shoot from the sky, illuminating the scene before us. As the storm grew closer the thunder became louder, when suddenly there was a deafening clap of thunder that sounded like it was directly overhead as it shook the caravan and lit the sky all around us. We thought that the lightning bolt may have struck the roof to the picnic area about 100m away from where we were sitting.

The storms continued throughout the evening bringing with it an odd shower of rain before it drifted into the distance. Nature certainly put on a show for us tonight.

Saturday 8th December 2018 - We woke to a damp and overcast morning, what a difference! A couple of days at 40 degrees followed by 21 degrees…

We had breakfast and packed a picnic and headed off further into the national park. The route is 4WD only so we deflated our tyres and made our way along the sandy and rugged track weaving our way between the lush green bushes with some plants still in flower.

We drove through some areas of dried salt lakes with pretty purple bushes growing around the edges. One area in particular was very sandy and led to an inlet to the bay with huge white sand dunes dominating the ridge behind.

The track in places departed from the soft sand and turned into a rugged and rocky terrain making the route interesting to drive. Once again we would stop to allow the Emu's dodging in between us and the bush to franticly run to safety before continuing on.

The track eventually led out on to the firm sandy Seven Mile beach that stretched out before us with tall white dunes scattered with vegetation on one side and on the other side clear aqua & blue water rippling in the now sunny day with small islands in the distance.

We kept driving for a while making our way around the shore before parking in front of a group of huge sand dunes for lunch overlooking the ocean before us.

After a while we noticed that the wind had got up and we were getting covered in in fine grains of sand blow of the tops of the dunes. We were still getting covered under the awning. We packed up and set off back to camp.

It should be noted that not every place to stop for a photo is the right place to do so. That a risk assessment should be carried out! I had asked Phil to stop so that I could take a photo of the bay that was running beside us and as we set off we became bogged in the deep soft and. With spade out for the second time this trip and use of our hands we dug ourselves out and continued on. Note to self - Do not stop in soft sand!

We were on the last part of the track where we had passed more Emu's when we came across a vehicle bogged in the sand being towed out by a passing truck before making it safely back to camp with kangaroo's feeding beside our van.

We reflated our tyres, prepared dinner and sat planning our next route as we leave tomorrow to continue our fantastic adventure around Australia.

Note: More photo's to follow when the internet connection improves!