April, we decided to take the caravan to our property in Northampton and live in it for three weeks as a practice for us travelling around Australia. I was supposed to write this blog post then, but alas was too busy working and trying to get our property ready to go on the market, so it never got done, it’s now in retrospect.

Geraldton is a 6-hour drive north of Perth, it’s a coastal city and often known to be windy. Town beach is great for walking or just sitting and watching the ocean. The shopping is not too bad, there are some lovely little boutique shops and arcades to explore and there is an array of jewellery shops. The esplanade, or boardwalk is also a great place for walking and people watching – and you can get the best Jaffels from the “Jaffle Shack”.

If you like Cathedrals, then pop in and see St Francis Xavier, it has the most eclectic decor for a Cathedral – it was not to my taste. There are many old churches around Geraldton and Northampton that are worth seeing and taking photos…. if that’s your thing.

As for us, our main aim was to live in the caravan for three weeks, eating, sleeping, cooking and generally living in close proximity to each other and most importantly get the annex up without too many arguments – lucky for me I worked so had an escape – but on my days off I’d come back to the van – Ian however had to at least sleep every night in the van. We took our dog Kookie as well, and she slept every night in the van as well – it was really to see if we could manage her – but each morning we would let her out and she had a 5-acre block to run on and she loved that freedom…… this would not be the same if we were travelling around the country. It was this trip that cemented that we could not take Kookie with us around Australia in the caravan – she really would find it limiting.

The annex went up, the wrong way, but we learned from this experience for the next time – sadly I did not cook in the van, it was much easier to use the house kitchen.

This trip was a great experience as we worked out how much diesel the car would take towing the van….and being patient when driving at 100km/per/hour when cars were lining up behind us. Ian got used to sleeping in the van and that was the main achievement – 5 months on the road, you have to know that you can sleep in the bed. We also weighted the car and caravan to see if we met the 3-ton limit which we did, and that included my hobby sewing machine… I have to be able to do my crafting, otherwise how will I stay sane.

We went home and prepared for our pending around Austral trip.