Michaels Lap the Map | Personal blog

Michaels Lap the Map

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24.01.2022 And couldn’t get Alexander off the big flying fox.....turn sound on to get an indication of how strong the wind was while we were there!

23.01.2022 We’ve had some crazy crazy weather here the last few days....torrential rain, 50-60km/hr winds.....and then at 3pm today perfection. Of course the kids took the first opportunity to get into the freezing cold ocean

23.01.2022 What a rainy welcome QLD has given us!! Great news for the farmers though!

22.01.2022 Home state finally.....

19.01.2022 Hello again Nullabor....wish it had been longer between visits. Just left Norseman and now travelling in convoy with Catherine’s dad who was on his annual gold detecting trip in inland WA........who has ideas for keeping kids occupied in the car??

19.01.2022 When you don’t have a pretend cot to put your teddy to sleep in you have to get creative.....aluminium BBQ trays for the win

18.01.2022 School work this morning - mummy playing tricks on Sophie by messing up her number line so she had to fix it, Alexander using his dictionary and practicing double digit addition with the base 10 set I made from a nutrigrain box @ Esperance, Western Australia

18.01.2022 It is hard to comprehend just how barren the Nullarbor is and how flat. So we Thought we’d get the drone out to try and show just how flat and straight the 90mile straight is. Again it was really windy so I couldn’t get as high as I’d have liked... and apologies for the sketchy photography, newbie pilot in high wind and a moving car is not a good combo... Ps it’s a bit long...

17.01.2022 We don’t want to leave Perlubie Beach!! Apart from the afternoon wind blowing in at a whopping 40+km/hr for about 5 hours we’ve just loved it here. Loads of swimming, a couple of fish caught, our friendly neighbours taking Alexander and Sophie out on their boat, about 30 kids to play with and spectacular sunsets.....happy days! Tomorrow we start our Nullabor crossings......here we come W.A.!!!

17.01.2022 Bandicoot!!! So cute. Only got to see this little guy because I was child free for a whole 5 mins their noise would have scared him away for sure!

16.01.2022 Sophie loooooves a big slide!!

15.01.2022 Last night Aaron and I made the very difficult decision to stop our family’s big adventure and head for home. To say we are disappointed is a huge understatement. The kids are also devastated. However, it feels like the right choice and apparently FB agrees as this morning’s memory on my feed was the completion of our home in Brisbane 7 years ago (although we have tenants living in it till September!).....must be a sign. So now we start the long journey home and will spend time in isolation when we get back to our homestate. Big thank you to all the travelling families we have met along the way - you guys have made the trip even better than we imagined!! @pitty_trip @its_a_mccallum_thing @thegraynomads @macsonalap @where.the.wind.takes.us @hayles.onthetrails #coronasucks

14.01.2022 All along the path leading up to the main war memorial were many of these pillars with quotes inscribed on them. This one was particularly impactful - can’t imagine the fear the soldiers would have felt.

14.01.2022 And now our exhausted little one. Carried for the last 20minutes or so - she did so well given there were adults struggling with these walks!!!

14.01.2022 Well on the way to home. Poor kids are having a rough time with such long days in a row but they are doing amazing!! next time it’ll be slower and more leisurely..! We will be back though!! @ Broken Hill, New South Wales

12.01.2022 Kennedy Ranges 40 seconds to try and show the amazing time we had. we did two walks - The Escarpment and Temple Gorge walks. Both called for 7am starts and lots of water to be carried. We are lucky that our kids have always carried their own water - especially when the gorge temp gets to above 45 degrees and you are scrambling up rocks. Our kids love a challenging walk (thankfully) - and all three smashed these class 4/5 climbs Alexander joined me for two sunrise...s and the colours coming onto the rocks were amazing!!!! Super proud of the kids for smashing these walks - even little Lucy only needed to be carried for the last little bit of one of them second vid I’m post shows just how tired she was by the end of the Escarpment walk sound ON for that one !!

11.01.2022 Cocklebiddy caves were pretty cool and my first chance to get dronie up. Unfortunately it was bloody windy so I had to keep it down quite low... but this gives you a pretty good idea of the terrain around there.

11.01.2022 Nullabor here we come!!

11.01.2022 Woot woot....off grid for a few days. Swimming, fishing and exploring

09.01.2022 Today Aaron caught the first squid for the trip....and 4 seconds later it decided to let go of the hook

09.01.2022 Ahhhh those Perlubie sunsets.....no filters needed!

08.01.2022 We had a huuuuge day on Friday in Kalgoorlie. Everyone slept till 6.30am and we were out of the van by 8am....visit the Superpit lookout, then did a tour of the Royal Flying Doctors centre then lunch and a run around in a park then spent 2 hours at the Hannan mine museum/centre. The Superpit was both amazing and horrifying at the same time. Amazing engineering/geological feat but horrific given the area of land impacted. Mind you without mining there would be no Kalgoorlie/i...ndustry. The Royal Flying Docs tour was SUPER interesting. We had no idea just how big the role they play in providing healthcare to WA/SA/NT. Really interesting and we even got to go on one of the planes for a little looksie. The Hannan mine museum was the highlight for the kids. Climbing on mining trucks was the highlight for Alexander, panning for gold and gem stones was the highlight for Sophie and drinking and sitting in the water we were panning for gold in was the highlight for Lucy The panning for gold/gemstones held AA’s attention for about 15 mins but we finally managed to drag Sophie away after an hour. The two big kids collected some gemstones and Sophie’s little bottle would have been full to the brim but she kindly donated some to Lucy who probably drank all of her gemstones along with the skanky muddy water

08.01.2022 I remember when I was a kid we went to America twice, hired a car and drove around seeing the sights. And we saw lots of rocks and I can remember my parents constantly saying oh my goodness kids! How amazing are these rocks!!!! Well I apologise to Alexander, Sophie and Lucy but I am now doing the same to you. But let’s face it..... they are pretty amazing!!

07.01.2022 Only a three hour drive today.....back in a Brisbane. Tonight we are in a caravan park to give us time to empty and clean the van before we close it up for a while. Tomorrow, Airbnb for two weeks then a rental.

06.01.2022 Honeycomb Gorge in the Kennedy Ranges.....gets its name from the pattern in the rocks caused by water splashing the rock when the waterfall is running. There was a small, but scungy, pool in the gorge that was home to many many little frogs but was not exactly swimmable (much to the kids disappointment). Runaway Ryans

04.01.2022 Some people don’t really rate the Nullarbor plain and race through it, but we spent four days crossing it and even though it was windy and raining (it NEVER rains on the Nullarbor), The different scenery and animals we saw were amazing! Highly recommend it! (Long post warning - feel free to just view some pics... ) We stayed at ... 1. cactus beach just past Ceduna and even though we couldn’t swim there, watching the surfers on the big stuff was pretty cool. They also have a windmill museum there where we saw the biggest windmill in Australia, and was cool for the kids to learn how the pump mechanism works by pumping water when swinging on a swing. 2. Border village which as it sounds is smack bang on the border at the quarantine station. But getting there we saw the bunda cliffs (90m drop to the ocean) and many, many kilometres of treeless plains. And we also got to fill up the car at $2 a litre. $250.... 3. Cocklebiddy. We took the time to visit the cave which was really quite impressive. Even though we couldn’t go into the cave it was impressive enough, especially knowing that there is a 6.5km underground cavern / lake that divers can access. Catherine also got to drive 90mile straight, the longest straight stretch of road in Australia. It’s hard not turning for that long..... 4. Fraser range station. We’d highly recommend this camp as even though it’s on the Nullarbor, it looks nothing like the rest of the plain. Great little bar with slightly expensive food but Alexander thought the name was excellent - the Nullabar... we also got the feed the animals with the owner or manager of the place - Camels, goats and cows. The kids had a ball! A bit over 1,400km in all over a few days. From there we moved on to Kalgoorlie, but that’s another story...

04.01.2022 Much needed car sleep

03.01.2022 We had such an amazing time at Lucky Bay. We met up with some other travelling families and had a ball - kids and adults. We loved Hellfire Bay....amazing beach! Sophie has truly mastered boogie boarding now and can keep up with the big kids, all the kids (including pocket rocket Lucy) conquered Frenchman’s Peak (a category 5 walk.....ok basically climb) and Alexander caught, karate chopped (killed), cleaned and cooked a squid.....thus providing a meal for his family! @ Lucky Bay

02.01.2022 Sunset on the Nullabor....thankfully our kids love veggies so it’s not too hard to get rid of them before we go through quarantine in Ceduna! Today we drove close to 700km - kids were amazing and we only gave them the iPads for about an hour of it! Little champions.

02.01.2022 Bit of a gloomy day today when we arrived in Albany. Quick stop at the visitor information centre then straight to the war memorial @ Desert Mounted Corps Memorial