January 16th & 17th- Geraldton- Fig Tree Crossing in Chapman Valley

Monday January 16th saw us back on the road to Geraldton for some additional repairs on our caravan. We ventured out to a free camp ($5/night actually) 12km NE of Geraldton. We got there in the early afternoon and found a few other campers set up already. Nice large campground with toilet block and quite a bit of shade. We found a somewhat shady spot. Unfortunately the dust/dirt was incredible. Sandra ended up cleaning the floor 3-4 times during the day. You would wipe off the table and 15 minutes later you would hear your glass scrape on the grit again.

It was quite a scenic site with views of farm fields and hills. Got a few sunset photos after tea. We had an early night as were taking the caravan in early to be worked on.

Tuesday morning saw us packed up and into Batavia Coast Caravans by 8:30am.We reviewed the list of repairs that they were completing before setting off for some sightseeing and shopping. Highlight of the tourist activities was a visit to Geraldton's Maritime Museum. Entry was via gold coin donation and was a very well laid out and interesting museum. Much was concentrated on the Maritime and Shipwrecks of the local area but also of the general history of the area. Well worth a visit for travellers. We enjoyed a nice open air lunch at the Freemason's Pub which has a reasonable gluten free selection. Afternoon was spent shopping and preparing for our trip to Perth.

Our original plan was to pick up our caravan in the late afternoon and travel a short distance down the highway towards Perth before finding a free camp for overnight. Unfortunately, the caravan wasn't completed by 4:30 and we decided to take it for the evening for accommodation and return for completion of repairs on Wednesday morning. We returned to Fig Tree Crossing for the night. Tried a different location and seemed to get less dirt although we didn't leave too many windows open.

Wednesday morning we were back at Caravan place by 8:30. We left caravan and went for another scenic drive through the Chapman Valley. Ended up getting a bit lost but eventually found our way back to Geraldton via the Mount Magnet Highway. The countryside is beautiful and such a change from what we have been experiencing for some much of our trip through the NT and WA.

We grabbed a gluten free pizza from Domino's and ate it down on the waterfront. Lovely grassy area along Town Beach with a number of shaded tables. As we finished lunch we got the call that the caravan was ready. Reviewed with them what work still needed to be done in a future location before hooking up and leaving Geraldton for hopefully the final time (at least on this journey). While the original work was definitely not done up to standard we were happy that they accepted responsibility and have addressed most of the deficiencies.

We hit the highway south about 1pm. We ended up making it almost all the way to Perth before finding a free camp about 80Km North of Perth. It was a long and tiring day as we didn't get setup until 6pm and drove through some very heavy rain and thunderstorms. Saw a number of lightning strikes and fires started. Sandra took a number of photos as we travelled. This was the first significant rain we have encountered in our travels since Cobar some 8 months ago.

The rest stop we stayed at was a good size with shade trees available around the edges. No facilities and right on the Indian Ocean Drive, so it was very noisy. We managed to sleep fairly well despite the noise.