Monthly Archives: July 2026

Getting Started…

I have a lot of scraps of material in my sewing room, and I wanted to make a quilt for “Scout” using them. I spent a morning pulling them out and trying to put them into some kind of order. As it turned out, I had a few four inch square blocks left over from other projects so that was a start. I looked at lots of patterns but, in the end, decided that four inch blocks for the whole quilt was the way to go. I was determined not to plan the colours, I would just cut lots of blocks in whatever material I had, but sort them into darks and lights. Actually that was my first problem; some were a mix of dark and light and some were medium. But I wasn’t concerning myself with that. This is not going to be a family heirloom, it is going to be a quilt to take camping!

Four inch squares cut from material I had on hand

I was excited to start creating the quilt even though I had no idea how it would turn out. I wasn’t terribly concerned; I just wanted it to be bright and cheery. I thought of making up four patch blocks but I found it just as good to randomly sew the blocks together in rows then sew the rows together.

Putting the blocks and rows together was fairly quick but I admit I wasn’t being a perfectionist. But I had to break the rule I set myself which was to only use material I already had at home. I couldn’t find anything nice to use as a border so I had to force myself to buy some extra material.

None of the materials I had at home were suitable for the border

Living in Kalbarri, we don’t have much of a choice in fabric shops, so I drove to Spotlight in Geraldton to find something suitable. I chose some nice green material to make two borders and while I was there, I picked up some pale green block out fabric with a daisy pattern that I thought might be nice for curtains.

I found some green materials that I thought would look nice

I couldn’t wait to get home and get started!

I was really pleased with the result. I liked the two borders and I felt that I had definitely made myself a bright and cheery quilt top!

 

The next thing to do was to find something from my material stash to use for the backing. My first idea was to create a backing made of large blocks but I found some fabric that was almost big enough. And it was bright too! As I mentioned, it was almost big enough but not quite. My choice was to add some other material to make it the same size as the quilt top or reduce the size of the outer border. I really like the broad border but I decided to just make it smaller. It was only for the camper.

When I went to my bag of wadding, I realised I only had literally scraps. I picked out the biggest bits and tacked them together. I wasn’t going to drive another two hours to Geraldton for wadding. So the padding is made of several bits of wadding so it is slightly lumpy and uneven but I kind of like that for this project.

I had some fabric set aside for the binding of the quilt but by the time I had finished, I had decided I didn’t want to use it. After trying a few, I decided to make the binding the same as the outer border.  I thought it would work better since I had had to make the border smaller.

 

My quilt is finished and I am pleased with it, even though it is quite roughly made.

 

Scouting Around

At Barn Hill Beach Camp, I got chatting to a lady who parked next to us. She and her dog were camping in a regular car with the back seats down to form their bed. She had used some wet suit material to attach storage to the inside wall of the car, and her roof rack was full. She had been sitting on a camp chair at the back of the car with a folding table and dog bed next to her. When we got talking, I told her I liked her set-up. She told me she had just turned 70 and had decided to head off with her dog and spend her birthday year travelling. Her children are scattered around the country, and they had each decided on a place they had always wanted to visit and would meet her in those various places. I loved that idea! As I turn 70 in eight months, I decided I might do a similar thing. Forget parties and dinners, this is the way to go.

Now that we have the camper van, I will do lots of trips next year, visiting family and friends, or going to places I haven’t been. Hopefully John might join me on some. Maybe friends will come along with their swag or tent.  Meantime, I want to make the camper a bit more homely. Inside it has the double bed, a fridge and a slide-out camping cooker. There are some storage areas under the bed and under the fridge. It is quite dark inside as the walls are carpeted in brown and the curtains are of grey block out material.

The first thing I did was give the camper a name.  I wanted to give it some kind of literary name and came up with a shortlist of three – Holly Golightly, Gulliver Travels and Scout (the character from To Kill a Mockingbird). I decided on the latter as I plan to scout around the country. I ordered a “Scout” sticker online from Etsy for the back door of the van.

I also want to make a patchwork quilt in vivid colours to brighten up the cabin. We bought the van with bedding included but I want to put my own stamp on it. I’d also like to replace the curtains and perhaps make some bunting to hang. Other than that, a few colourful baskets to hold food and kitchen needs, and maybe something to cover the ceiling might work. Let’s see. I’m looking forward to getting creative.

 

 

 

The end of the road

Exmouth to Kalbarri is an eight-hour drive so the logical thing to do was drive it over two days. We shared the driving on day one and headed to Carnarvon . I didn’t really want to camp in town, so we pulled into a BP truck stop on the outskirts. It was a bit of a come down from some of our previous camps, but they allowed us to camp alongside the trucks and it was a 24 hour service station with clean toilets, hot food, hot coffee and pleasant staff. What else did we need?

Camping at the BP Service Station in Carnarvon

 

Despite the comings and goings of road trains, we slept well! Rather than have breakfast in the car park, we wandered over to the shop, had a quick wash in the bathroom and ordered some hot food. Then we set off for home.

Isn’t it strange how you love being on holiday but as you near the end of the road, your thoughts turn to home? I always want our trips to go on forever. I loved our caravan and I love our camper.  But I’m fortunate enough to love being home too.

Our plans for the camper were a bit of an unknown. It made sense to buy it and save accommodation costs on the way home. John’s idea was that we could sell it on our return to Kalbarri. We had agreed that we had no need for two good cars now that we are both retired and living in a small town where I can walk to wherever I need to go. John had plans to buy a cheap runaround to take him up to the golf club. We would keep my Rav 4 and use that for trips to Geraldton for shopping and Perth to see the kids.

John is not planning to do any more long trips but I love life on the road. The thing that had worried me about the caravan towards the end of our trips in it, was that John might get sick or really hurt his back and I would be responsible for hitching and towing the caravan. I can tow and could hitch too if I had to but I didn’t want to. Also, our bedroom was one that folded out and I didn’t have the strength to lift it back in. These were the things that had been in the back of my mind over the last year or two. So, I was sad but relieved when we sold the caravan and bought the campervan. The camper, although a six-gear manual, is great to drive. Yes, we both hopped around a bit at the beginning because we are used to automatics, but it didn’t take us long to get back into the way of it. At the end of every day, we just climbed into bed, no unhitching. It was so easy.

So, while John was intended putting the camper up for sale the following week, I was dreaming of taking it on trips, with or without John, and making it my own. As the kilometres raced past, I imagined making a colourful, patchwork quilt, replacing the boring grey curtains, and filling the van with knick-knacks to make it cheerier and homelier.

As we neared home, I broached the subject with John. He knows me so well and he knew exactly what I was thinking! He agreed I could keep the van and use it for trips. I was ecstatic.

It might be the end of this road but hopefully not the next or the next….

Into the Pilbara and Gascoyne

During our two months in Darwin, John mentioned a few times that his denture plate was breaking. More than a few times I suggested he go and have it repaired but he told me it would be fine until we got home in two or three months. Fast forward to Cape Keraudren and I heard John exclaim “oh no!”. Yes, his plate had snapped in half. He had half a mouth of top teeth; the other half were in his hand. Beautiful Cape Keraudren was on the beach, miles from anywhere with no phone range. What to do?

Port Hedland was the nearest large town so we took off for the two hour drive. As it was a Sunday, we thought it best to see if we could camp at the South Hedland Golf Club where we had stayed previously. It turned out to be full due to a golf competition – the competitors had brought their caravans – but, maybe because of John’s lopsided, gumsy grin, she allowed us to stay. The only place to park though was next to the bins and it was very smelly.

We were keen to get away from the smell and sort out John’s teeth so we had early showers and drove into Port Hedland for breakfast and then the emergency denture place. It wasn’t a great morning for us because all the cafes we drove to were either closed or non-existent. Someone pointed the way to The Dome so we ended up there. Breakfast was fine, coffee was awful.

We arrived at the denture place right on nine o’clock. The girl was lovely but explained that she would have to send John’s dentures away to be repaired. We thanked her and tried a local dentist and got the same response. We couldn’t hang around for a week or two; John was unable to eat anything other than scrambled eggs. We asked where we would find someone who could fix his plate on the spot and were told – Geraldton. Geraldton is less than two hours from home! It looked like we had no choice but to cut our trip short and head for home.

We had made some plans we didn’t want to change. First to visit the small town of Marble Bar which we see on the weather map on tv every night because it is usually the hottest town in Australia.  And to meet up with friends in Exmouth. We didn’t want to cancel so we decided that we would keep these arrangements and from Exmouth we would head straight home.

It was a three hour drive to Marble Bar, passing nothing but long road trains heading to and from the town which mines lithium, gold, iron ore and manganese.

We didn’t know what to expect in Marble Bar but it was a very small, quiet town with very little happening. We had hoped to find a supermarket but there was just a small shop that only opened for a few hours on certain days. Sunday was not one of the days. So we headed to the Iron Clad Hotel (which had been around since 1893) in the hope of some lunch.

We walked into a very warm, friendly and quirky bar. It almost felt like going back in time. The barman was very welcoming. We sat out in the beer garden with John enjoying a cold beer and me a white wine. As John was very limited in what he could eat, we decided to share some Thai chicken curry and rice (with John mostly having the rice) and some Tiramasu for dessert. The chef assured us it was the best Tiramasu in Marble Bar! Of course it was the only Tiramasu in town, but it was delicious. We dragged ourselves away to get back onto the road as there was nowhere to stay or shop. We really enjoyed our couple of hours in Marble Bar and can tick it off our bucket list!

 

We looked for somewhere to camp on the side of the road but it was very hot and the flies were horrendous. We thought we might stay at Nanaturra Roadhouse, do some washing and use their wifi to try and book somewhere for the next night. However, they did not have wifi or a laundry so we kept going. We found a free camp with toilets and pulled in there. It was busy with caravanners and John got chatting to a few. As usual, we went to bed with the sun and woke up with the sun.

It was school holidays and we know how busy Exmouth gets with young families. It is one of the very few towns that does not allow free camping within its shire so we had no idea where we would camp. Everywhere we tried was full. Luckily our friend, Emma said we could camp in their driveway so that is what we did.

We have been to Exmouth before but not really explored it. Emma remedied that by taking us for a scenic drive which we really enjoyed. I particularly liked the visitors’ centre in Exmouth as it had a lovely shop and cafe.

It was lovely to catch up with Emma, Beau and the children as we hadn’t seen them in a while.

Emma had a rare couple of hours away from mum duties, and the three of us went out for dinner. It was great to catch up with all the news.

We left the next morning but decided to check out Turquoise Bay before leaving town. We had been there some years ago on a very windy day. The weather was perfect so off we went. It did not disappoint. The beach and the water were beautiful.

 

Back Through The Kimberley

This Crocodile is at the entrance to the town of Wyndham

I had always wanted to visit Wyndham. Someone I knew had worked as a teacher there and it sounded like quite the experience. We had planned to visit when we did our big trip in 2021 but, while we were camped at Kununurra, Darwin was going to lock down due to Covid-19 and we had to rush onto the track to Nhulunbuy. So, we missed out but on this trip we made a point of going to Wyndham. What surprised us both on the road between there and Kununurra was the number of Boab Trees! We lost count. They were everywhere.

Loved the Boab Trees

On the way, we stopped off at a lookout called Maggie’s Valley named after a white lady in the 1920s who drove a Chevrolet into that area with an Aboriginal man to go bird catching. No-one else had ever gone into the valley.

 

 

We continued on into the town which really had nothing going for it at all! However, I found it interesting to read that the first Indigenous people arrived there in 45,000 BCE and the first Europeans in 1819. In 1886, at the time of the gold rush, Wyndham became a town. We drove around and found ourselves at Five River Lookout overlooking the rivers and mudflats. What a view! Quite spectacular.

 

I had noticed a tiny sign that read “Deamtime Statues” so we went looking for them and found them in the middle of town in Warriu Park. They were definitely worth hunting down.

Incredible Dreamtime Statues in Wyndham

We left Wyndham, happy to have visited, and headed for Doon Doon Roadhouse. We had stopped here for fuel before but hadn’t camped. It was a pleasant stay as the camp was basic but quiet.

Vanessa had recommended we stay at Larrawa Station which was between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. It was a good suggestion. To access the camping area, we drove a couple of kilometres off the highway on a dirt road. Larrawa is a working cattle and horse station and the camping area was a paddock with two corrugated iron toilets and showers. It was lovely and peaceful with just the mooing and neighing of the animals in the distance.

 

We camped the next night at Willare Roadhouse. Again, it was a pleasant enough stay. The surprise was that, in the evening, we heard large drops of rain and thunder in the distance. The staff said they hadn’t had rain for more than three months so they would have been delighted that it poured down for most of the night – but we woke to blue skies.

John suggested we spend a couple of nights at Barn Hill Beach Camp near Broome. We had never been before but followed the 12km dirt road off the highway. Wow! What a lovely surprise this place was. It was packed with all sorts of caravans and campers but it didn’t feel crowded. There was lots of space. The camp is so well set up right on the beach with a café which offers pizzas in the evening and freshly baked bread in the morning. It has a play area for the children and some farm animals for them to pat. We didn’t realise that a dog and trainer from the tv show Muster Dogs were giving a performance. People told us it was fabulous and they hold the shows two or three times a week. What a pity we missed that.

On the first evening, the State of Origin game was shown on their large screen at the café and they had burgers for sale. I wasn’t interested in the rugby but John went down to watch for a while. The following evening, our  football team, the Dockers were playing the Sydney Swans and we watched the first half before retiring to the camper for the night. There was also a bowling green at the camp which was in use every time we walked past. Apparently they run competitions which are extremely popular.

For us, the best thing was walking on the beach. It seemed to go on forever, with soft sand and lots of rockpools. In the evening, the sun set over the water and it was just beautiful.

 

We could have stayed longer than the two nights but John wanted to keep moving. He suggested spending the next two nights at Cape Keraudren in the Eighty Mile Beach Marine Park. We had never been before and I had never heard of it. Once again, we were surprised by a beautiful camp area at the edge of the Indian Ocean.

And again, the amazing sunsets!