Warburton to Docker River
High Point: Visiting an aboriginal school in Warburton
Low Point: The heat. It was the hottest day in Martha so far today and boy did we feel it.
Quote of day: ‘Mr Steve’
Bugging FTFE: The biting ants all around our camp site
Night highlight: The stars at our remote camping spot near Docker River
Embarrassing moment of day: We needed a police escort as we got lost in Warburton – it only has two roads and no, I wasn’t navigator, it was a boy
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Laverton to Warberton
High point: Driving through the stunning outback at sunset
Low point: An introduction to one of Australia’s larger eight legged friends in the camping block
Mo point: Steve looks like he should be in a Will Ferrell movie, Barham would be at home commanding an army of soldiers on the battlefield and Fuad resembles a Mexican sombrero seller. Lou and I are still working on our tashes
Pee point: Lou and Amy are now Shewee professionals, boys go one side of the road, girls go the other, job done
Roo count: A disappointing one roo spotted
Dish of the day: Beef Bourginon with tinned potatoes and baked beans, mmmm
Pink thought of the day: The girls are trying to introduce a tiered ‘no swear Friday’ scoring system after Lou was unfairly crowned princess potty mouth. Boys are much worse than girls, everyone knows that Read more →
HO, HO, HO!! Nearly half way through November…it’s time to start writing your letters to Santa! But more importantly it’s time to start writing your Christmas cards! We’re pleased to announce you can now purchase specially designed, beautiful FTFE charity Christmas cards – so you can spread some Christmas joy AND do your bit for Charity! Find out more by following the link below…
Bonfire night arrived dark and rainy but there were definitely no damp squibs at the Follow That Fire Engine Fabulous Friday Night! Many months of hard work were topped off with a last few mad hours of all hands on deck, getting Glaziers Hall all togged out in FTFE colours and making sure everything was ready to play host to all the lovely guests attending. And what a night was in store for them!
Kalgoorlie to Laverton
High Point : Martha getting to stretch her legs on the incredible road to Laverton
Low Point : The bottom of the Kalgoorlie Super Pit
No Point : I have been wearing one of Paul’s socks for 4 days
Dish of the day : Camping style hot dogs and pasta
Excessive Caffeine Intake : 3 coffees, 3 diet cokes and a V Energy Drink.
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Esperance to Kalgoorlie
In life you can’t wrap yourself in cotton wool and worry about the if’s and maybe’s. You would be safer if you never left the house but that is crazy as life is for living. In fact the health and safety brigade have pushed things so far the other way that I’m sure you could sue if it rained and you got wet. I’m not a great fan of flying but it would never stop me from flying to get somewhere. The chances of something happening are less than getting into a car. It would be irrational not to get onto a plane as it would be not to drive Martha through central Australia for the very real threat of being ambushed by a gang of knife wielding delinquent Kangaroos. No for me there remains one last bastion of anarchy that flies in the face of health and safety and that is the ocean or to be more specific the shark. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-shark. There are magnificent majestic creatures, natural born killers, top of the food chain and I respect them. They own the ocean and the coastal waters that surround the incredible Australia and I deem putting myself at their mercy to be an unacceptable risk. It would be like playing frisbee in a minefield or playing Russian roulette and I won’t be Russian to do either of those. If they got me they wouldn’t need to eat for a month. It is my problem not the shark’s .
High Point: The cake at the Albany Fire Station.
Low Point: Louise’s potty mouth on No Swear Friday.
No point: Getting upset about 2 mosquitoes in the truck.
Panic of the day: Fuad panicking about a couple of mosquitoes and refusing to drive on until they were dealt with.
High Point: Our fire truck convoy escort, leaving Perth for the beginning of Stage Five
Snack of Day: Burger Rings
Chat of the Day: The Perth Firemen
Dance Move of the Day: The Box
Gift of the Day: Perth Firemen Calendar
So there we were driving down the Perth freeway sandwiched between an old service fire engine and new fire engine in a special convoy, whilst being followed by a cameraman from the GWN news channel. Just a normal day down under 😉
High Point : Clearing quarantine in a world record time
Low Point : Getting lost in Morley
After a day of panic yesterday, today was a big day. The number of inter dependencies on this expedition is insane. Frankly it is a house of cards, a donkey on the edge. The fear of 4 weeks stuck at the port was not even funny. Louise, Fuad and Amy have arrived in Oz to dominate stage 5, spending 4 weeks in quarantine would have been a disaster.
Perth : High point: Luckens, Luckens, Luckens!
Low point: Realising we’d have 7 days to drive 9,000 km
BBQ point: Burgers in Luckens fumigation centre
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It was an early start for my induction into how things roll on the FTFE expedition. We were excited and apprehensive (but mainly tired) as we headed to Freemantle Port at 6:45am to welcome Martha from her trip across the Ocean on Melbourne Cup day. As we pulled into Lucken’ s Fumigation Services http://www.luckensfumigationservices.com.au/ (who would be unloading Martha and managing quarantine clearance) there was a slight problem… Martha hadn’t arrived yet and nobody seemed to know where she was! Steve got on the phone to Richard Dexter of Bluefreight and there were various calls backwards and forwards as they tried to locate her. There was no joy and we missed our slot with the Quarantine Officer, who would be inspecting Martha to see if she was up to the very strict Aussie cleanliness standards for importing vehicles. Read more →
