We left our lovely camping area at about 11.00 a.m. We wanted to enjoy being there as for the next little while we won’t be camping in the bush.

It was about 240kms to Geraldton. We enjoyed the ride through beautiful farmlands. Travelling after the winter rains means everything is very green, with some fields of canola providing colour contrast. We didn’t break for lunch until about 2.00 p.m. We took the detour through Port Denison. There were places with views of the sea to park up, but nothing in shade. We found a shady, pleasant parking bay about 10 kms north of Dongara.

From there, we arrrived in Geraldton at about 3.30 p.m. We had shared the driving, but it was still quite tiring. We didn’t fill up with water before choosing our parking bay and putting chocks on one side, which meant that we didn’t use our hot water system this morning, but relied on heating water in the kettle. It was fine, and we can fill up before we leave.

Our free parkup is at the Town Beach, next to a working port. It was noisy overnight, but a single, consistent noise that didn’t disturb our sleep.

When we arrived we saw a car parked in one of the designated camping bays. Stephen went to talk to the driver, but said he wasn’t making much sense. At one point the driver took his foot off the break and on the tilted bay his car inched forwards toward our van. I forgot I had a horn and simply shrieked, hoping that Stephen or the other man would notice. We gave up on that spot and moved to the other end of the caravan parking bay area. All of the bays were sloped and it wasn’t actually any worse. The man in the car was drunk and not making any sense. Eventually someone else was able to get him to move. There are only about 9 bays and they all filled up overnight, with late comers missing out.

I contacted Marie and we arranged for the family to visit us at around 5.00 p.m. We sat around on our outdoor chairs for a while before taking a walk along the little marina. They left at tea time and we went to a nearby cafe for takeaway fish and chips. It was some builder’s fences outside, but as it was getting dark we could clearly see it was open. There was outdoor seating where we waited for our food, but then took it back to the van, where we added a bit of salad. Battered fish doesn’t usually have much of it’s own flavour but the fish seemed very fresh. We were hoping it was locally caught.

This morning we’ve woken up to a foggy morning. Earlier we could even see the sea.