After a great night sleep, all exhausted, physically and mentally, we wake up fresh and with mixed feelings about the next part of our journey. We are a bit sad that we are now heading east, with our arrival home feeling way too close, but we are really excited to see what this place Esperance is all about. We have met many people throughout our trip that have told us "you must go to Esperance", or that "Esperance has the best beaches in Australia". Even friends from home who had done the similar trip, said "if you remember nothing else, remember Esperance". Well, we have remembered. Just quietly we are all thinking that we have seen some pretty spectacular beaches, can there really be beaches better than what we have seen???????? Only one way to find out so off we go! Todays trip is a big one as we have about 700klms to cover.
Our first stop was in nearby Manjimup for a box of cherries. Who could resist at $10/box straight from the farm.
E.C.S. We are also very sad at leaving the Karri, Marri and Tingle trees. But we must admit, as much as we have loved the mix of sun and cooler weather we are very much looking forward to hitting the beaches and perhaps the heat once more. Well, you know, we were all starting to worry that we might be losing our tans!!! Who would of thought that us Gore's (really only Linda!) could become so vain, especially while travelling in a caravan of all things!!!
Do you think they could give us some more choices?????? Perhaps we should take that road that leads you back to Manjimup. Linda tries convincing us that it would be a good idea as there was one more karri tree to climb the Diamond Tree.......
Alas we continued away from Manjimup. We are now driving through the wheat belt. It truly is incredible how the scenery can change so much. We have decided to take the inland route as on the map it appears to be slightly less kilometres to travel. We motor along the Muir Highway, which was named after the grandfather of our tour guide ( Gary Muir) from the WOW Wilderness tour of Walpole.
E.C.S
We get very excited when we enter each town, big or small, and especially so when the community make such an effort with their welcome signs. We honestly have no idea what this town is all about as we literally drove in and out very quickly.
Getting closer to Esperance. The kids are travelling so well today. This picture is taken just before lunch, so with all things considered we decide to head to Jerramungup and find a nice place to stop for lunch. After the refuel we should have no problems in making it into Esperance this afternoon.
This seemed like as a good a place as any to stop. The sun was starting to break through the clouds and we were beginning to get an incredible view of the Stirling Ranges. We never got there to visit, though we believe it is well worth the visit. But this wonderful silhoutte will have to suffce for now. 
We had a great time, Rob devised a great game, who could throw a pebble into the rubbish bin, and this kept us all entertained for ages. We finally all pile back into the car to discover that the car battery was completely flat. We have lots of gadgets, but the one gadget we do not have are jumper leads. But our Honda generator earns its keep by charging the battery, and within about 30 minutes we have power.
This is not Linda or Robbie or even the kids taking a picture from the back of our van, this is us taking a picture of our van being towed by a mechanic!! Once we had recharged the car, we headed off, but within about 100 metres our car went into limp mode, no acceleration at all. We had no mobile reception, but thank goodness for the sat phone and my lord, thank goodness for the RACV. When we broke down we were only 25 klms out of Ongerup where the local RAC rep lived and he happened to be at home. So he came down within 25 minutes, towed the van and we limped behind him to Ongerup. He made many attempts to solve the problem, but eventually admitted defeat. We were going to have to stay in Ongerup for at least tonight and sort out being towed. Our mechanic recommended Albany as they had the closest and biggest Toyota dealership.
Our home for the night. 
Some of our neighbours. 
This is Sandra, the temporary manager of the caravan park. The owner passed away back in July and Sandra was his carer. She had been waiting since then for his son to arrive. Something is telling us that she might be waiting for a long time!!!! She was so delightful when we arrived and she was extremely concerned that the kids would be bored so she bought us around a TV so we could watch Secondhand Lions. Admittedly she was under the impression that it was a documentary, but it was a movie. A very good and well casted one at that. She was so doting, perhaps she did not see many guests!!!!!
Timna creating some competition for Robbie and his nature shots.
The lady at the RACV was a champion, she even impressed herself with how quickly she co-ordinated everything, especially as it was a Sunday. She managed to organise everything, a dual cab tilt truck so we could all, car and van included, travel in one go. She even organised our accomodation in Albany at the Big 4 right on Middleton beach. Not a bad effort in peak time. We were later to discover that the Big 4 cost $110 per night. Yes, that was still in a caravan park, not that much different to the ones we normally stay in for $48/night!!!
It may not be the way we normally travel, but hey how good does the ECS look from the trucks' front seat!?
Our RACV Total Care has been the best investment we ever made and as far as the telephone service they provided, we cannot fault them. After our grand entrance into the park, and the very impressive parking of our van by a man in mini tractor, our stay in Albany, (for the second time) was very peaceful. We had some really nice neighbours and the boys even scored a few games of cricket. Good news regarding the car. Toyota was speedy in their service and had the car back to us Monday afternoon. The bad news, they think the fault was caused by our DP (diesel power ) chip. Perhaps it short circuited when we charged the car, who knows, but they removed the chip and the car is now working.
Esperance here we come!
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