Day 365 – Barn Hill to Port Hedland, WA (13 Sept)

Awake early at 5.30am!  So on the beach in 6.00am with Coco for our last walk.  We have had a wonderful time at Barn Hill and is hard to leave but have to leave eventually I guess.  Heading to Port Hedland 490kms south.  We have decided to head home via the inland route (Great Northern Highway) which is a little shorter than the coastal route and we are hoping to see some wildflowers along the way.  Were originally going to go home via the coastal route and stop in Exmouth but with the impending school hols and noticing the number of kids that were coming into Barn Hill decided to get home before the school hols start as it is always bedlam anywhere on the coast then.  And we have done the coast run twice this trip so wildflowers sound like a good option.  After 12 months on the road I discovered today that I can watch DVD’s on my laptop in the car!  Can’t believe I didn’t think about this before, when we are doing the big kms in a day time sure goes quickly!  We put $250 worth of fuel in the car today, two fills - that is scary!  We stopped at Sandfire about halfway between Barn Hill and Port Hedland and were surprised to see peacocks, about 15 of them wandering around the shop entrance and around the bowsers, not worried at all by cars, trucks or people.  An albino one had his tail on display, beautiful!  We stopped at the entrance to Pardoo Station for a celebration photo as this marks the exact spot where we completed the circuit around Oz! (this was as far north as we got this time last year before deciding we’d missed the window to go clockwise as it was then too hot and we turned around and heading South East via Kalgoorlie.  The Ellis’ and Smiths will remember Pardoo Station, we spent a few days there together before going our separate ways. 
We should be in Perth by the weekend and will spend a few days there before the final trek home.  We really are on the downhill track now and the ‘big dread’ of getting home and back to reality is biting hard!!  We really don’t want our trip to end (even temporarily) but a little part of us is looking forward to having some space again, stability (not packing, hitching and unpacking/unhitching the van/car every few days) and having our own clean bathroom again will be heaven!  Just hope summer will be kind to us and be warm.

Welcoming committee, Sandfire Roadhouse

What a display, Sandfire Roadhouse