2009 HARVEST - BACK TO MULLEWA

We arrived back at Mullewa earlier this year so got to see all the wild flowers in their splendour. There were fields of all different colours. Arriving early also meant that we had a while to wait until the crops were right. So Steve ended up doing a couple of weeks deep ripping.

This year during the 2009 Grain Harvest our son Pete came over to work with us as a "change in life stage" to see where he wanted to be.

Having Pete with us for 3 months was great although sometimes a bit cramped. Luckily we had the use of the Farm House so Pete actually slept in there, but he was always with us to eat and watch telly (even though he had his own telly in the house) and of course, mum got to do his washing.

It was a really good experience for him driving tractors and trucks and anything else that moved, most of which were worth more than his first house will ever cost. Except maybe this one haha...

Pete had only been at the farm a couple of weeks and the boss, Peter Freeman, asked him to do a tip run. This entailed taking the old GQ Patrol ute a about 200 metres up a sand track. Meanwhile, Peter Freeman had gone out past the tip checking the Crops driving his GU Patrol ute. When Peter Freeman was returning to the shed, he was driving down the same track in the opposite direction whilst looking out at the crops when our Pete came around the corner of the bush and forever they bonded.

The joining of the Utes destroying both to write off. The GQ was bent in the middle and the GU was buckled across the front. Luckily they weren't travelling very fast so both drivers escaped any long term harm thankfully, only bumps and bruises. But now we were down 2 utes before the season even got started.

After all the drama they had to be taken into town to be assessed, so each ute was put on a tandem trailer being towed by Joels Navara (one at a time of course ) but this didn't stop the amusement as the boys pushed the ute on with the old front end loader and as weight goes, Patrols are heavier than Navaras.....LOL.

We worked together on the day shift kickin' arse getting the grain off, unfortunately the season wasn't the best so things ran a bit all over the place and fairly slow. This also contributed to Pete deciding to remain a Plumber to which he returned to Melbourne with us and landed a really good job with Water Pro's which do all the major irrigation for the big stadiums as well as other work, Variety is Pete's forte.

Dianne ended up getting a part time job as a Professional Dishwasher at a Restaurant in Geraldton. She had had enough of sitting around and just wanted to get out. It got us a bit of extra Diesel money and her a bit of sanity!!!!

The harvest finished up about the middle of December which gave us plenty of time to drive the bus home.

Exmouth to Carnarvon

We moved on to Exmouth and visited the "Big Prawn" and enjoyed the best Prawns in WA, in fact the only place I had found decent fresh Prawns anywhere in our WA travels. After leaving Exmouth we had travelled about 30 kms out, I pulled over to let the dogs out for a run and found we had made a major blue when hooking the car up by leaving the handbrake on, consequently burning the rear brake pads out. ( Live and Learn eh ).

Rolling along we headed for the Blowhole north of Carnarvon stopping at the beachside Caravan park run by the shire and caretaked by the fella whose been there the longest...LOL.

This place was pretty interesting with plenty to see and do . The actual Blowhole was amazing. When the waves come in it forces the water up through the hole with a whoosh and a whistle - it was a very eerie sound.

We saw men fishing with Balloons, yep you read it right (the white spot in the middle of the photo below). They would float their baits out so they skim on top of the water to attract mackeral. While we were watching the fishermen one morning, a whale slid past them below the cliff so we followed it up the coast for about 5 kms taking a few photos.

Unfortunately the hygeine in this park was pathetic, all the toilets were pit toilets in the sand hills and the place smelled like a sewer. The dunes were scattered by small old long term fishermans huts and you felt like you were tresspassing all the time.

From here we drove down to Carnarvon trying to travel slowly to avoid the cold weather we were catching up to. We stopped at a Caravan park that was built in the 50's I reckon with so many trees and little tight spots for tiny 50's style caravans which I had to wriggle a 40ft Bus into, I am good, you all know that, and I think I proved it this time haha...LOL (picture is of Carnarvon at night).

Got sick of going slow and the rain was comming so decided to head down to Geraldton and the farm and wait for the work to start as we were also just spending money we really shouldn't have been at that time.