Austin Downs (14 August - 30 Sept)

We're living and working on a farming station in the middle of Western Australia, miles from anywhere! Rory is doing farm labouring (mostly putting up and fixing fences) and bombing around on motorbikes and old utes. He's got boots, jeans and a hat and thinks he's some kind of cowboy or something. Caroline is helping out around the house: teaching the kids and tidying the house, and in last few weeks gardening, despite not knowing the difference between a flower and a weed.

We have our own little cottage to live in, which seems like a palace after 6 months of hostels, shacks and dodgy guest houses. However we share the toilet with a gang of frogs who fall from the rim after most flushes and line the bathroom wall.





It's pretty deserted out here (the nearest village is 10 miles away on a dirt road, the nearest big town a few hundred miles away) but great living out in the country. The sunsets are great and the horizon glows for ages afterwards and the stars at night are amazingly clear and bright.




We have also bought a big estate car to travel round oz in. It's pretty big and has a huge 4-litre gas-guzzling engine that might yet bankrupt us, but it's great to have our own wheels and go where we like, when we like. No more waiting aroud for buses for now!

Lancelin, Pinnacles Desert, Geraldton (10-14 August)

After a crazy day sorting out buying a car we drove up the coast after dark and escaped to Lancelin, where we were lucky to find a lovely youth hostel, with friendly owners who had stayed up to wait for us. Next day we had a look at the seaside and went sandboarding. Kinda like snowboarding, but slower, Rory got the hang of it but Caz was content to use the board as a sledge.


Next stop the Pinnacles Desert. This place was covered in hundreds of pointy rocky outcrops and it looked really cool at sunset and we had really long shadows!











Our mascots are Kenny and Spenny - a pair of Singapore chilli crabs (of course) who adorn the dashboard of our car and scare away evil spirits.

After a night at a caravan park (noooo!) we headed further up the west coast, stopping at some little towns and bays on the way to Geraldton, our last stop at civilisation (and Chinese takeaway) before heading out to work in the outback.