Geraldton was the furthest point we had travelled north on our previous trip to WA nearly three years ago. As we had seen quite a bit on the previous visit, I originally only booked two nights. Then I checked the weather forecast and it was looking like being as terrible a weekend as the previous one. Adding to this the fact that the weekend was a long weekend and the start of the school holidays, we ended up opting to stay over the long weekend until the Monday morning.
As it turned out, the weather forecast wasn't anywhere near as bad as originally forecast,
Apart from Jim trying unsuccessfully to do some fishing, we also headed out to some areas we hadn't been to before. We went south to the mouth of the Greenough River, although were a bit put out to discover the mouth was closed and there were signs warning about any contact with the water. The ocean side was a bit rough so also not Jim's idea for fishing.
Osprey nest the the caravan park
Monday morning we finally left Geraldton (or so we thought). Our idea was to head inland for a little to escape the school holidays with their crowds and inflated prices. We didn't go far the first day, wanting to stop at Ellendale Pool, about 40 minutes out of Geraldton, a very popular picnic and low cost camping area. We stopped on the way at Alinta, at a very large wind farm. There was an arm on display, and it was amazing to see just how big they are. When you look up at the towers, and see the three arms, your perspective is quite warped.
By the end of the afternoon we discovered just how popular it was at the camping area as it filled up. We counted 12 vans, a motorhome, a camper trailer, and a tent in the top area where we were and many more in the lower area. We doubt another camper could have fitted in. And this wasn't even peak season and we had waited until after the long weekend.
However the next morning didn't go to plan. Very early on in our travels we had a mishap with our awning which required an insurance claim of over $6000 as they had to remove all of the side to replace the awing. The awning arm attaches to the van with a metal plate, and a few weeks ago we had noticed that this seemed to be moving at the bottom. Then a week or two ago Jim thought that the panels under this did not seem to be attached. On Monday morning when we put the awing back up, we could see that the plate had now pulled out from the wall. It wasn't hard to decided that our best option was to head back to Geraldton.
When the repairer looked at it, he felt that the only way to fix it was to again remove all the panels from the side of the van, around $5000 of work. Contacting the insurance company we were told that the repairer would need to put in a rectification quote, as this was considered ongoing from the original claim. Understanding that the van was our home, the repairer had the quote in within about an hour, and checking the next morning the insurance booked an assessor to come on the Friday. Unfortunately I got a phone call early afternoon on Thursday from the assessors to say they did not travel any further north than Perth, so they were going to do the assessment from the photos the repairer had supplied.
But we cannot fault the insurance company. Friday morning they rang and asked for a few more photos and within an hour we had the approval for the work to proceed. The fact that we live in the van also made a difference as they understood that there was more urgency for the work to be done.
The repairer originally thought he could do the work by the end of next week, but has now decided to start it Monday week. That works out OK for us, as we are now pretty much over Geraldton and its frequent strong winds. Just over a week now gives us time to complete our originals plan and do some discovering of the inland area and its gold mining history.
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