DAK, DAk, Dak, dak, dak.....

Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th of July, 2016.

Mandurah to Norseman, by Will.

Kombi Tour of the Goldfields.

So far we have done 683 kilometres over 3 days, that's a huge distance of 230kms per day. Which equals 3 to 4 hours driving per day, our kind of traveling !

We decided to start our "holiday" early, so had lunch at the Silver Sands Tavern, the day before departure.

Thursday we camped at Gorge Rock, about 30kms east of Corrigin. We arrived a bit late just before 5pm, the sun sets at 5.30pm at the moment. We hurriedly got a feeble fire going, cooked up some chicken & slapped it between a bun with some cooked tomato & zucchini. Must say it didn't taste to great but never mind.

A quick stop at Corrigin for some petrol.

After dinner we chatted with a couple of part time Grey Nomads nearby until the rain started. 

Our first camp site was Gorge Rock, about 20kms South East of Kondinin.

Good place for an overnight stop.

The locals built a small dam in the 1950's and created a 100 metre long "Pool".

Nice views from the top of Gorge Rock.

Fields of canola.

The next day we did a quick stop in Hyden and ended up stopping 150kms east at the Breakaways. Arriving at the much more sensible time of 3.30pm. The nights are cold, getting down to 0 degrees celcius, so we had a roaring fire to sit next to until 9pm.

Will, loving the drive on the wide open road.

Team wiljen, pick up some supplies at Hyden.

Traveling along the Norseman/Hyden Road.

Camped at the Breakaways, halfway between Hyden & Norseman. Very cold night.

Cooking up some steaks at the Breakaways, in the Dundas Shire.

Dixybus has been driving great, I did top up the oil, half a litre on our second day. But hadn't checked it before we left so not sure if it's using much. 

The dirt roads across from Hyden to Norseman had been a bit chopped up by the rain & Road Trains so was a little rough in places. The van held together & nothing fell off.

On the secondary bitumen backroads (which is our preference) we sit on about 85km/h, on reasonable dirt roads we cruise along at 65km/h, which is quite relaxing. 

Jen & I arrived at our friends, Barry & Nicole's place about 1pm in Norseman. Where we'll stay for a couple of nights.

We catch up with our good friends, Baz & Nicole in Norseman.

Jenny pats their new Puppy, Bayley.

Nicole cooks us all up a yummy breakfast.

Our route so far, 683kms, next we head north towards Kalgoorlie.

It's all happening at the Reno House.

Blog update Wednesday 20/07/16.

By Will.

Jen & I have been struggling to get moving on these cold winter mornings. We even had ice on the Landcruiser windscreen a few days ago.

The Mandurah Reno house has been progressing along, I would guess there is another 5 months of work until it is ready to become Team wiljen's new "Travel Home Base".

This looks promising.

Jenny checks out the progress.

Sand Pads for the extensions.

Prelaying some riticulation pipe.

It's great to see it coming together, lots of work involved, glad to have the experts taking care of things. If it takes me 11 months to complete a VW Kombi interior refit, how long would it take to do a house.....5+ years ???

Concrete Slabs laid. The weather held things up.

Leave the slabs for a couple of weeks to cure.

The Sh*t Pile is getting bigger.

Uh Oh, we need to install some retaining before Peel Fencing will do the boundary fence.

Lots of obstacles in the way, like a couple of the neighbours car wrecks that don't have wheels or axels. Lots of tree roots & lime stone under the ground as well.

The Living area & Kitchen have been gutted. It took two blokes a couple of days to jack hammer up all of the floor tiles.

The walls in the old Bath Room are ready for removal.

Bath Room is now a lot bigger, laundry will be relocated on the end of the new Studio Room.

To the left is access to the Main Bedroom.

Main Bedroom has been made a bit larger by incorporating bedroom 3 & turning the rest of bedroom 3 into a Walk in Robe/Storage area.

The new Walk in Robe/Storage area has been framed up.

We have also decided we need a little break away, so are heading for the Eastern Goldfields for a week or so.

Jenny contemplating what bedding to take on our Goldfields Kombi Trip.

Looks like she has decided on lots of bedding to combat the 0degC nights. 

Dixybus is nearly all packed & ready for her first multi-day road trip in 3 years. We are both really looking forward to the change in routine & scenery. I'll post an update in a week or so.

Quick Update Wednesday 20/07/16:

Stopped by the Mandurah Reno house yesterday to pick up some camping gear & surprise, surprise. We now have bricks & a new wall.

Hello "DIXYBUS" .

Wednesday 13/06/16. BY Will.

"Never Say Never" ! Once I vowed never to spend our hard earned cash on personalised registration plates, I considered it a voluntary tax to the State Government. In a way it is, but a sign writer will charge you as well & we found ourselves in the mood for some thing different !

About a week ago, Jenny & I had one red wine too many. Which lead to us brainstorming a few ideas about our Kombi. So out came the iPad & Jenny started checking out possible names we could get from the Western Australian, Department of Transport (DoT we call them over here).

Dixie was not available, taken long ago I would guess. We tried a few other combinations and could of had D1X13, but that just looked dumb. So as we came to the end of our second bottle of Cabernet Melot we decided it was time for our VW Kombi Micro Bus to have a subtle name change.

Welcome DIXYBUS, may we have many grand adventures in you !

This morning I took DIXYBUS to Peel Tyre Service, Mandurah, where they fitted her with some new shoes..

DIXYBUS waiting for her Wheels.

I have a poke around the Peel Tyre Service workshop it's actually pretty cool.

There's a 1942 Indian Scout Motorcycle, it's 600cc I think, to keep DIXYBUS company.

The waiting room at the Tyre place. With free coffee.

Out the back is a mini museum with a Bar. Looks like the owner Matt is a bit of a collector.

Yokohama Delivery Star 818 

LT195R14C at $139ea fitted.

The ride is so much better now !

The rear view.

Spot the new scar.

Unfortunately Jenny's knee gave out & DIXYBUS copped a knock from a fully loaded shopping trolley. Slight bummer, but body work repairs are planned in the future after we have been on some nice long adventure road trips.

Mandurah Canvas did a great job fitting the Poptop head lining, there is insulation under it as well.

RnR bed all laid out. The mattress/cushions were covered by Mandurah Canvas.

The inside of DIXYBUS with the RnR bed in seating position.

RnR in bed position.

Looks nice & comfortable inside.

Last job for this part of the DIXYBUS Project is to fit a solar panel, I've made inquiries & the company I've decided to go through, Solar Camping Australia, are waiting for stock. The kit package I want is, 120w panel, with 20amp regulator & other fittings. They said their stock is sitting at Customs so shouldn't be too long.

The solar panel won't stop us going away, so a short shake down trip is imminent.

Coming to Grips with our Life !

Thursday 7/07/16. By Will.

Not to many photos from the past week & a bit... I've had other things on my mind.

My Moji telling me to "Get Motivated".

Need to fix the Steet Appeal.

We now have a new Bin Day, so I don't even know what day it is. Our new rubbish removal day is Tuesday (at the other place it was Wednesday), I woke up this morning thinking it's Friday !?!? Never realised before that our time at home revolved around our weekly rubbish collection... Bizarre...

The Kombi fits in the Shed, but the Landcruiser has to sit outside for now.

Jenny & I have spent the past week and a half getting our new place into some sort of order. We have met the lady next door & had a few visitors. 

The Shed was filthy with dirt, grease, old screws, etc. I hose it out, top to bottom and give it a tidy up.

The street has been nice and quiet, we went for a walk to the other side of the Community College, (High School) last Saturday to vote in the Federal election, then checked out the Community Garden, where we met Jeff & Wendy. 

Jenny's knee held up well during the walk, her post-op visit to the surgeon, who did the operation revealed a bit of osteoarthritis, that he had cleaned up.

We have been formulating a plan to make this house appear more presentable for sale in about 6 months. The real estate market is very depressed in the Mandurah area at the moment, so we don't want to spend too much. Current plan is to focus on "street appeal".

Our cosy Lounge Room.

Spacious Kitchen.

This Coodanup house is quite a small place, the area under the roof is 148m2. To put that into perspective the South Yunderup house was 380m2 and the Mandurah Reno house presently at 123m2.

After the renovation is completed that will increase to 230m2, of which 34m2 comprises of the new Studio Room & 73m2 of Indoor/Outdoor/Alfresco area. So still fairly compact.

The second stage of the Mandurah House fence going up.

The new fence looks terrific. The concrete slabs for the Indoor/Outdoor area & Studio will be laid on Saturday this week, weather permitting.

At the moment Jenny & I are in the doldrums, I know it's hard to believe but we are feeling pretty flat. There are some family problems in the background which I don't wish to discuss on this blog at the moment. 

These issues are currently holding us back from hitting the road ? Also I think preparing & selling our former SY house took a lot of energy. Being the middle of winter isn't helping the cause either.

Jenny has postponed her next bit of elective surgery until early August. It was supposed to happen yesterday, but she had some valid concerns about the procedure so sorted out a second opinion. The Doctor says she will be all good for our India Tour in October.

So it looks like we will just stay in this "holding pattern" for awhile. It's time to get back on our bikes (all of them) and explore the cycle trails & back roads of this new area. We also have to get our butts into gear and get back to our Gym. Which is less then a kilometre from our current home. 

The NBN installer, just about finished. We are back on line.

On a positive note we now are on the National Broadband Network & have excellent Internet .... yippee !