Nullarbor Bound

Ok, quick one before we leave, as it could be up to a month until the next post depending on reception over the Nullarbor.

Just had a final shop for groceries today, totally clearing out the local IGA. The poor girl at the register looked heartbroken to see us coming to her aisle. $375 later and we are now pretty sure we've got enough food for the next month, if only we could say the same for the people of Norseman now weve emptied their only supermarket of all their good stuff, leaving the poor kids without any lollies or muesli bars for the next while.

Its going to be a tough few first days as have to cross a hilly range before we actually hit the Nullarbor, towing probably about 170kgs each. If all goes well there, then hopefully it'll be a smooth trip for the next month as it becomes a lot flatter and we'll be eating/drinking down the weight of the trailers gradually as we go.

That's all since yesterday, so goes without saying that theres not too many photos worth posting between now and then. But heres some anyways.

Therese (and Audrey), thank you so much!!!! After following through on a promise to pop in from a random biker in the first week of walking, we came in to Therese's hotel in Norseman just to say hello. At least $50 dollars worth of groceries, some great cooking ideas and one of the best lunches in history later and we left with pretty big smiles on our faces. One of the nicest people I've ever met, cannot say how shocked we were at the generosity you shown us. Please keep in touch!

Was going to post the actual load of food we bought, but forgot. Heres the shopping list instead. Didn't actually get it on the photo but on the bottom of the docket it suggests we saved $52. My card countered that suggestion, suggesting instead of saving $52, we had actually spent $400. Shall bring the docket into the next Commonwealth Bank to have my account checked.

Getting a few last minor parking infringements out of the way before the Eyre highway.

So goodbye, if you dont hear from us for the next few weeks it means we're taking it a bit slower than we planned. If you hear from us in the next few days it means we hitched a ride to the next town. Either way, you'll hear from us soon. Bye!

Trailer Mechanics 101

Still quite bad at knowing what people find interesting or not about the trip, I have got a few emails from people wanting to know what the trailers look like, how they work and all that. But most people just want to see more photos of us walking.
So here it is, the first and only trailer tutorial.


My trailer, the 'GC Love Trolley', almost fully packed. It fits 2x20L watertight food containers, a 10L container for toiletries, a portable butane cooker, 3x20L water containers and a milk crate (hidden) for all our clothes. All this was kindly and unknowingly donated by the Regatta Hotel.


The SlamWagon 12000 comes equipped with much the same but with a few added extras. The Solar Panel is connected to a battery, which is used to power most of our electrics. Also included as a built-in feature is the SlamoMeter, a standard speedo, the only difference is it's attached to the SlamWagon. The SlamoMeter's current reading says we have done 645.3 kilometres at the healthy rate of 6.7 kilometres per hour since his arrival, tallying the total trip up to around the 750ish mark. Mercifully it doesnt take into account our numerous breaks during the day.



Walking in the early morning, we have put a lot of reflective tape on the trailers so traffic can see us. To be honest we might have gone overboard and now it probably just blinds them.



This is how we move them around. Around our waists are elastic belts, and they carry 90% of our load. We loosely hold the handles just so they dont fall, as well as making us look pretty pro. The photo would've been pretty epic if it was taken on Abbey Road, not next to a random salt lake.



Not to say theyre not quick. Here's Sam dragging a truck up a hill.




After dusting the truck quite easily, he decided to take on a ute, with a 30 metre head start for added challenge. It turned out to be a no-contest, again.




So thats it. They're pretty simple, as is the premise of the trip. They're built for walking, we're going for a bit of a walk. It's a pretty good match. Any other questions or whatever, just send me an email at thomson-mathews@connect.qut.edu.au
I'll keep on posting that email address until I start getting some more emails! Either that or our phone number is 0419307323.

Cheers,
Leigh

Last Stop to Nullarbor

After opting out of a late arrival into Norseman yesterday and staying 5 k's out of town, thereby saving Sam's already overused wallet from more roadhouse related spendings, we ended up walking into town early this morning.
In the last few days we have finally ran into a few serious issues after very trouble free and blessed initial run. The first was a little problem with the power outlet connected to the solar panel (we totally fried it) and secondly was a wheel rim not just buckling, but combusting. Wouldn't call it spontaneously combusted as it was a build up over 2 weeks of running off the road into steep ditches whenever there was oncoming traffic. Looking back it was lucky that worse didn't happen considering how much those poor trailers have had to deal with. Once again, big thanks to Steve from Aly-Tek for making such awesome trailers!
Anyways, to be safe we felt we needed to have both those things replaced before we went over the Nullarbor, and as there is nowhere even remotely close to replace those things we thought we'd be in some trouble.
But luck always seems to be on our side. Well, luck and a supermum. So yes, she managed to find and express post us a power thing as well as some easter eggs for a nice added touch. And as for the tyres, we thought that'd be a bit tougher as they couldn't be sent by post in time. But a recommendation of a bike store in Kalgoorlie from a chance meeting with a guy cycling from Sydney to Perth a few days before led to us ringing Hannans Bikes, and they were brilliant. Managed to send us the tyres as well as some other needed parts within the day, all for much cheaper than expected as well. Not to mention the fact that they also ran around town just to grab us some things they themselves couldn't stock! Thanks so much, you guys were brilliant!

Ok, anyways this is our final stop before the Nullarbor, and it is 1200 kilometres or a bit over a month until we see our next town! So spending the next day brainstorming and working out how to fit a months worth of supplies into our already overpacked trailers. If anyone has any ideas for cheap, easy and lightweight food that we can pack please let us know, otherwise its going to be a months worth of rice, pasta and cereal for us!

Starting to run into a few interesting folk, some extremely helpful, some not so much, but all at least very entertaining. The backpackers we met in Coolgardie who gave us pretty much a trailer full of food for our trip, an awesome camping guidebook and our choice of downloaded TV shows and movies to keep, I have forgotten your names but you were amazing. All of that will come in handy, especially the entertainment as we are going to get incredibly bored over the next month! Write us an email at thomson-mathews@connect.qut.edu.au and we'll let you know how all your food tasted! Same for the "Timboon 4", the guys we caught up with doing the fund raising trip by playing the "Worlds longest golf course", a 1350 kilometre golf course over the Nullarbor. Was great catching up with you- provided great entertainment in an otherwise pretty boring day!
Less helpful was the guy who insisted on giving us a lift into Norseman at 6am in the morning so we could go drinking with him, even though he looked to have already been drinking quite an amount and I'm pretty sure had stolen his work's ute. Thanks anyways though.

Still getting random donations by people into our two money tins taped to the trailers, even though we are not saying its for any charities or causes. People might just think we cant afford the food. Either way, it has brought the totals to the Workers GGCC and the Fred Hollows Foundation to a very unimpressive $55.20 and $34.50 respectively. Still, its better than nothing.
Could almost buy a cricket ball with that...

Ok, that's it. Will post one or two more times before we leave, because after that there will be no internet reception for probably around three weeks.

Photo time...
Sam and I with the "Timboon 4", the guys playing the worlds longest golf course and raising $10,000 while doing it.





Flies at 5:30 in the morning, before they wake to do kamikaze runs into people's mouths. The reason we needed to buy fly nets and look even dorkier than normal.





Sam doing a sneak photo of both of us. Unfortunately it's probably the best photo taken of me in many years, hence my reluctance of taking photos.






Our much anticipated return to Widgiemooltha. There was a roadhouse there as well, but we found the level of service and helpfulness in this fake dunny much better. As always, Widgiemooltha has done their best to underwhelm.





In front of a massive lake on way to Norseman. Even though it had rained for most of the previous week, the lake remained strangely dry. Notice whenever both of us are in the photo the camera shot is taken from really low. Two options I can give you for that. Either we are really artistic and its a really powerful angle, or we don't have a tripod and we have to rest the camera on an empty Powerade container. Only one is true.





Sam hugging a tin horse.



After a couple of emails requesting to see more of the trailers, I'll be putting up a separate blog in a few hours to give the lowdown on the SlamWagon and the GC Love Trolley.


Apart from that, its going to be 48 hours of preparation before we are off. Wish us luck....

Checkpoint 1

5 days and 189 kilometres later, we have made it to our first major point in the trip, Coolgardie. Major as in distance travelled, not in size. Coolgardie is unfortunately much smaller than we hoped, with probably less people in the town than a standard student share house. But still it is a time to celebrate with a day off and some excellent food at the main restaurant in the town, the Caltex Roadhouse. And by excellent food we mean dim sims and chips out of the Bain Marie. No sauce because thats extra, a lot extra.

Having the day off has given me some time to see how far we've gone and its starting to look pretty impressive, with 600 kilometres already under the belt and only 18 days in, with apparently easier walking to come.

This is what we have done so far. This looks really great until....

You see this view. The orange line is the route we have to take to get to Sydney. Still, at least you can see a bit of blue at the start.

But back to the last five days. The trip to Coolgardie from Southern Cross takes you through a Nature Reserve and two National Parks, making it both interesting and challenging in equal parts.
With forever narrowing roads, larger sized trucks, increasingly frequent and more steep hills and no roadhouses for us to spend all our money in, it has been our first true challenge since that first day.
Apart from the odd interested individual, most people have tended to steer clear of us in the National Parks, probably due to a combination of our smell and our unkempt look. Very wise choice really. Luckily for Sam, he seems to be quite happy with our daily routine of long periods of nothing, interspersed with flies, traffic and random quotes from favourite tv shows, mainly Stargate and Scrubs.

From here we are off to Norseman through the great town of Widgiemooltha, a family favourite from many years back.
Norseman is about 170 kilometres south of Coolgardie, and from there it is pretty much 6 weeks of just Sam, me, and the Nullarbor Plain. The Nullarbor will be a big test of the depth of our TV show quotes, many might have to be recycled I'm afraid.


Our first mildly daunting sign. 131 kilometres before the next roadhouse. In other words, four days.





Some dude passed out over a pipe



Sam getting a bit excited about making it to Coolgardie. Didnt matter to him that the actual town was still 120 kilometres away.




After four days of walking we finally get to what we hoped would be a megastore. In some ways I guess it was mega, just not in the ways we were hoping.



The inside of the Bullabulling Tavern, the first stop in four days. Including us there were six patrons in the Tavern, the six being us, the Barman's Grandmum, a dog, cat and a dead snake, freshly killed of course. Sam's just talking shop with the cat. The barman after some gentle coaxing managed to microwave us up some frozen pies, The microwave didnt manage to unfreeze the centres unfortunately.



So thats all we have got here for now. Anyone who has my number, don't bother calling it for the next 2 months as I'm pretty sure Virgin Mobile doesnt recognise the Nullarbor as a part of Australia.

We have a Telstra number, and we should get mildly good reception over the next few months with it, definitely a better bet! It is 0419307323. Either that or send me an email, my address is thomson-mathews@connect.qut.edu.au

Will throw a few more photos up when we get to Norseman, but from there the updates might be a little less frequent due to anticipated lack of reception and power.

Until then,
Leigh


To Sister Tess, thank you for your prayers, mum has been telling me you are reading our blog. Keep her on the straight and narrow please, she is a real worry!

To 10 High street, I miss you all, you should all just come walking, gingerbread too.

And to our Aunty again, one of these days I will answer when you call! I should probably turn my phone off silent, that'd probably help a bit.

Merredin to Southern Cross, Express

Going to quickly try and do a post now, as Sam has shotgunned the computer for the next two days, which are coincidentally the two days in this next week where there is internet service.

Had to deal with a few losses in the last few days, one being my wallet which is no surprise to anyone who knows me. Only problem is this one was given to me by a friend. Sorry Kyle, I think it's gone this time! Another loss equally hard to take was the loss of our beautiful wide roads with their shoulders, wagon roads or 'fat flaps' as they were affectionately called by some (us). So now we have to veer off the road whenever there is oncoming traiffic, and that happens quite a lot as we are on the main highway in WA. The final loss we will be able to deal with, and that is the loss of flies in our mouths and various other facial orifices, due to our amazing fly nets over our hats! Was definitely worth spending that day in Merredin getting one. Just strolled into Southern Cross around 30 minutes ago, found the nearest power point and started plugging in all our electrics. Might need to buy a double adapter to maximise power drain from each roadhouse.

Becoming minor local identities along the Great Eastern Highway, seem to be passing the same truckies daily who break several road rules each time they see us to accomodate us on the road, followed by a quick honk, thumbs up, wave or flash of the lights to let us know that they think we're alright , even though we're a bit crazy. We went through a little town called Moorine Rock today and had a chat to the owner there who already knew who we were before we got in the front door. Over an icecream he shared some stories about all the crazies who had done similar things, all of them ended with the same shake of his head. Was good to know we were now one of his head shaking stories anyways.

It's been a tough few days, having to deal with a lot of hills and still getting through an average 40kilometres each day, but slowly it is starting to feel easier and getting into a daily rhythm with it all. By Norseman, the last main stop before the Nullarbor, we should both be in peak fitness.

Ok, heres some more photos, none too enlightening unfortunately.

The spaghetti I cooked a week ago, totally laced with detergent. Still served it up, as didnt really want to waste the water, or the 50 cents worth of pasta in there. And surely detergent isnt toxic, right? Still, waited a week to post this one, just incase we both keeled over. Dont worry mum, I'm a good cook. And all the dishes pretty much cleaned themselves that night.



Sam doing a superman pose. Either that or sniping a bird with his imaginary crossbow.



The amazing Gwen from Burracoppin, who took us in for a much needed hot breakfast and coffee. Best breakfast so far!




Had to show off the new addition to the team, the 5L Insulated Water Bottle. Given to us by a guy in Kelleberrin as we were just about to leave the roadhouse, and has proved to be invaluable. Didnt know what we were missing until we got it! As you can see in the photo, even George approves.



Burracoppin, 25 people, 0 shops- 1 public phone. Last call for 90kms, as Virgin Mobile does not seem to approve of rural towns.

Standard camp we set up roadside most nights. Behind the trailers is the 'Golden Pipeline', which has followed us the whole way out of Northam, and I'm guessing will follow us the whole way to Coolgardie. Very impressive, has been a constant companion for us, not to mention a valuable windbreak at times.


Sorry theres nothing much to report on, next time hopefully it'll be a bit better. But it'll probably just be more stories of walking.

Leigh

The Quest for a Fly-Proof Hat Cover and $19 Worth of Showers

Only two days on, but some 85 kilometres further down the road, we have stopped at Merredin Caravan Park for the night, with plans to use all of our $19 site fee on electricity and showers. We had initially decided to stay roadside tonight but the flies that have decided to join us on our walk, although friendly, have driven us to the point of spending all of tomorrow in Merredin to find a fly proof hat cover (sorry, not sure of the actual name they have)
On arrival, the caravan park owners stopped us for a free icecream, drink and chat. So have definitely got our moneys worth from the place already. They like us now, but not when they get the utilities bill next month.
Planning on making it to Southern Cross by Thursday, so at the moment we are in no rush to be leaving Merredin tomorrow.

Thats all I got sorry. Heres some photos.


For some reason Sam insisted on 1- Taking a photo of this and 2- Me putting it on the blog. So here it is

So because he insisted on posting the last photo, I insisted on posting this one.


What happens to servos when they don't open on the weekends. Squatters move in.



After three days in the 35 degree heat without a shower, and getting there in the middle of the day, we were both set on going for a swim. Unfortunately that was as far as I got as I'm pretty sure the water was somehow below freezing without actually freezing. Sam lasted another 30 seconds, tops.

Gidgegannup til now

Its been six days since that infamous first day, and quite a lot has happened since. I'm going to keep it as short as possible as I do not have the gift with words that James has. But here goes.
The last six days have been eventful, ranging from the unexpected with James having to pull out of the trip for personal reasons, to the unexpected with a surprise guest walking appearance from 'Slammin' Sam Thomson-Mathews who has brought to the trip, among many other valuable things, a much needed hairbrush. Stace 'The Mace' Grimshaw in all her retail experience and wisdom graciously decided to commemorate Slam's arrival by leasing her name, kind of like the football stadiums do. So the trailer Stacey Grimshaw will now be known as the "SlamWagon 12000" for the duration of Sam's time walking. The voting process was rigorous and tense, but the SlamWagon eventually beat out other strong contenders such as the Slamatron, SlumMobile and the StrumMaster Deluxe.
After six days we have found our way to a roadhouse just outside of Tammin, around 190k's east of Perth, bringing the weeks distance to approximately 205 kilometres. We were just planning on stopping in for lunch, but after already having done 25 k's for the day and seeing that they had food, airconditioning, power and hot showers decided that we might stay for a bit longer, as we both have not had the pleasure of a shower for 4 days now, and the smells picked up along that time have not been all too pleasant. Flies seem to enjoy it though.
James and I managed to find our way to Northam after just three days, taking the longer but more pleasant way, around 120k's. Realising Sam was on his way, I waited in Northam for a day and a half for him, and from there we were back on our way. First day out of Northam we were only able to walk around 20k's, due to a bout of mild (he would say severe) cramping by Sam. No surprise really, as I'm not sure if he had totalled 20k's in his life previous to then! But next day he powered on through, walking 45 kilometres in 9.5 hours and making it to Cunderdin before the shops closed. That has taken somewhat a toll on his body, as the normally spritely Sam has been more subdued today, up until he saw the roadhouse we have stopped at, and the vast array of beverages and hot food available there.
There's been a lot of great people already who have stopped roadside for a quick chat, have had some roadside workers outside Meckering who not only let us 'run' a stop signal and saving us a valuable minute, but gave us twenty dollars for breakfast at the local roadhouse. So thanks for that, was an excellent feed! And to Owin, the Croatian truckie who gave us both free iced coffees and valuable life lesssons, thanks as well. There's been too many nice people to mention without making this blog a bore, but it is amazing how nice people are if you give them a chance to be. Hopefully we wont tire of that by the end of the trip.
Had a really nice lady (forgotten your name sorry!) who stopped us on our way to Cunderdin to give us $50 to donate to a cause of our choice, and although we explained we were not doing it for that she would not take no for an answer! So we have bowed to both popular demand and peer pressure and decided to take donations along the way if people feel like they need to donate money to a cause we believe in.After thinking all day, we came up with two causes we felt worthwhile and we believed in. This will still not be a charity run, but already we have knocked back donations that people were willing to give, and these causes could all do with the money. No fanfare about it though. Please.
First is the Fred Hollows Foundation, and it goes without saying how fantastic that cause is. The second is a personal one and might not be understood, but it doesnt have to be! Workers Gol-Gol Cricket Club has been part of our family's life for 14 years now and if we could repay a small part of the fun, enjoyment and belonging we have felt there then I'll try. At the very least, thank you, only wish we could all still be there!

Anyways, that should do for now, tried to keep it short but quite a bit has happened this last week. I'm sure I've missed a fair bit as well!
Heres a few photos, not many to pick from sorry.

Packing the gear, Cottesloe Backpackers 6th March, 1am

Where it all started, Cottesloe Beach, 6th March 4am


First day. James and I posing for a photo. You can see Perth right in the distance. Little did we know that Perth was only 50ks away at the time, not 70. 5 hours later up more hills and we finally stumbled into Gidgegannup.

Mr Sam Thomson-Mathews strolls into Northam, 10th March 11am


Waking up from first night roadside camping. Feeling and looking great. Not. 11th March, 7am

Airconditioning, free showers, couches, TV, power. Heaven. Will probably never leave. 12th March 2pm


So until the next time the SlamWagon12000 and the GC Love Trolley roll into the next internet reception area, goodbye. And to our worrying Aunt, all is well here! The only thing you should be worrying about is if you have enough soap and deoderant for us when we finally reach Adelaide!!

Also, huge thanks to Steve from Aly-Tek, the guy who made and spent way too much time on the trailers. The trailers are absolutely sensational and we have been getting more comments about the trailers than the actual trip! Can absolutely recommend him for any welding or manufacturing job you may need, especially if it is walking trailers!


Ok, thats definitely it now.
Leigh

George goes to Gidgegannup

This post may be fairly delirious in spots, due to two reasons: I am incredibly tired, and there are children running around with solo highs.

In case you were wondering, George (our mascot taped the the trailer. He has one new comment to say every day) had this to say today. And I quote "It could be the scotch, but you sure do look good in that shirt". He's a bit of a character. I would explain but I've had some complaints that some of you are getting a little confused with these posts. Fantastic, I said, until it was pointed out later that this was apparently a 'bad' thing. So here we go; one moderately sensible blog post. And yes, this does count as selling out.

Pain. So much pain. Think of the worst pain you've ever had. It probably wasn't as painful as that. But it still hurt a bit. A 53km day turned into close to 70km of walking, including an uphill stretch of 28km walked along a dirt shoulder. Party time (that actually means walking, I hope you're still with me. normally I don't do these explanations) commenced at 4am, and finished around 7.30 pm. Yes, James Moore, that is a very long time to be walking. As George and I reminisced later "We made it to Gidgegannup, but at what cost?" Leigh and I knew the first day would be tough, expecially with the task of walking out of Perth. We had no idea it would be THIS tough. Basically at the moment we are licking our wounds, as well as each others.

Gidgegannup is a quaint little town. I'm pretty sure it's the same as all the other quaint little towns though. To be honest I haven't even been in it yet... amongst the many people that pulled over to talk to us during the day, two told us there was a festival happening on the outskirts of Gidgy, and that we should camp there. So... we are. I'm too tired to explain it, but it's at the football grounds, theres some sort of music act, and I tried to high five someone earlier. Or at least I wish I did. Speaking of which, people are ridiculously nice here. Everyone has been giving us advice and offering to help us out. They all seem quite impressed with what we are doing, and almost all of them keep warning us about the desert.

And now to some lesser seriousness as I'm way too tired for this seriousness. We had a puncture today. Well, I had a puncture. It almost sounds like a birth when you write it like that. It should be added then that we walked past a family birthing centre today, which sparked a fierce argument; is it a place for you to birth an entire family, or for your entire family to birth together? I voted for the latter, while Leigh maintained that it was for people to birth different family members at different ages all at the same time. But the puncture. What happened as far as Leigh will tell anyone is that I screwed a screw into the tyre when I was trying to turn stace the mace (my trailer) into a vehicle out of Mad Max. He has since banned me from touching any of his tools, and for the rest of the trip I am only allowed to refer to round objects in the third person.

Also, 30 cars honked at us today. Exactly 30. Ah and we witnessed a car accident at a petrol station right in front of us. A guy backed into another car, and straight away got out and yelled at the other person saying it was their fault. He said
"How was I supposed to see you there? I was reversing."
" You should have looked"
"Listen you #@!$ I was too busy reversing, I didn't have time to look."

And finally, for Tolstory and Brian, we had a run in with road pirates today, although they appeared friendly. They were two guys on a harley davidson, who stopped to chat to us and tell us about the nullarbor. They hold little hope for us. Great guys.

Leigh and I are extremely sore and tired, but hopefully we will still have the energy to make it to Baker's Hill tomorrow. It's supposed to be 34km but, after today, who knows. I am actually very worried that this trip is getting out of control in terms of distances. But.... it's only been a day. The first week is training anyway right?

Lots of love to my amazingly incredible Granny (I am eating and drinking plenty of food and water, and so far no waterholes. Also have a photo to send you of the two of us with Geoff) and the family. And of course, a massive manta ray hug to Beccy D.

From the Gidge,

James

Shepherd's Pie and Soy Milk

Dear Listeners,

Today I'm going to start the ball rolling with what LTM-Feelgood has to say about the current state of our Perth-Widgiemooltha sojourn. I figure this will be a good way to get the ball rolling.

Basically, Leigh wants me to say this on his behalf; he has nothing to say, and he's sorry. Not very sorry, probably not even a little bit sorry. If anything he is so unsorry that James Moore should launch into a state of panic-induced excercise should he read this blog.... which he never could. This begs the question of whether or not we should continue funding his reading lessons.

Today has been a very productive, all intellectual handicaps aside. Mary and Geoff, whom I am sure at least some of you know, have been immensely helpful to us. They've shown us the sights of Perth and Freo, driven us from shop to shop, given us plenty of advice, worried about us... we even have a lifetime supply of sheperds pie stocked in the fridge right now. A massive, massive thank you from Leigh and I.

Fortunately while we were out food shopping Leigh bought a really expensive bottle of soy milk, which then packed up our things for us. No, I have no idea either. I don't even like soy milk. He didn't even buy soy milk. But somehow our things were packed by an expensive soy milk bottle. Ask Leigh about it. Unfortunately our trailers are still sitting in a storage room on the ground level of the hostel with the wheels off, so we are going to have to get up at some ridiculous hour of the night to take them outside, set them up and figure out how we are going to pack all of our things in them.

This brings me to the next item of interest; what we have decided to take. I've given this some hard thought, but as a journalism student I naturally have no good ideas of my own. As such, I decided to steal ideas off other people, with the two major suggestions thrown my way being enourmous cable ties, and ultra-reflective triangles. Two trailers, two items. It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that Leigh and I have decided to take one trailer filled with cable ties, and one trailer filled with rave-inducing triangles. The down side was that, because of the enormity of the quantities in which we bought those two items, there was no room for anything except George, who is now a firm member of our party. And no, member is not a dirty word here. Regardless, I'm not worried. I've been ensured by various people that taking large cable ties and reflective triangles is of great importance, and so I figure the more the better.

And so yet another comprehensible and informative blog post ends. In case you were wondering, we travel to Gidgegannup tomorrow. It's 53.4 km from here. Look at it on a map if you like. And please don't tell James we're we are going, he gets so frustrated trying to read the names of things on maps.

Chau for now,

James.

PS, here are some pictures of us fiddling with a light that isn't actually broken:

From Perth to Perth

What an exciting day in Perth. I bought a shovel, Leigh found some jerry cans on a bus, and both of us were nearly conned into buying a $7 piece of toast.

The GC Love Trolley

We've made it to Cottsloe, Perth, the starting point of what will inevitably be a very, very long few months. Of course, there were a few hiccups along the way, as always. First of all, after weeks and weeks of Virgin telling us that we would indeed be able to include our hiking trailers as baggage, when we arrived at Brisbane Airport they suddenly decided to change their minds. "You want to put those on the plane? Really? They'll never fit". To make matters worse, they also told us that they had no record of anyone ever phoning them... apparently ever. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it wasn't until Leigh threatened to "get dangerous" that they put them on the plane at all. He really didn't have to break all that furniture though.

Our luck started to turn once we realised that on the plane there was a channel featuring Bear Grylls. Both Leigh and I then decided that watching this would constitute our training for the entire trip. Thanks to Mr Grylls we now know that should we become stuck in mud in a river, the best way forward is to pull out 10 metres of string, tie it to a canteen, and throw it at a tree. We would know what happened after that, except Virgin insisted that we had to pay $$9.90 for the channel. The next 4.5 hours were instead spent watching the only free channel..... which was really only the map that shows you where the plane supposedly is. Here's hoping that we don't get stuck in a river somewhere, because I have no idea what you're supposed to do after the canteen throwing.

With no Bear Grylls to enlighten us, we quickly put our heads together and brainstormed about the trip, and about things that needed to be done. Two hours later, and we had decided that the in-flight magazine's cover featuring George Clooney would be put on Leigh's trailer, and that both trailers should be named Stace "The Mace" Grimshaw and The G.C. Love Trolley. All things considered it was very productive.

I've asked Leigh what he has to say, and he replied with "Nothing."
"Nothing at all?"
"Nothing at all."
"To anyone?"
"I've got nothing to say to anyone."

So there you have it folks. Leigh has nothing to say to any of you. Especially YOU James Moore. Clean up my house.

- James