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 →
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Hello to everyone back home Lake Fu Xian is one of the most famous in China – the water is so clear that on a good day it is possible to see up to about 25 feet deep. There is a legend that an ancient city is submerged deep beneath the surface. The boys tried to row a boat around the island in the middle but had to settle for just (and only just) managing to reach it.
Following the incident the other day I needed a final mechanical check by the local mechanics and once I’d had the all clear we were on the road again – target destination Yuanyang. A final drive through some amazing mountains we were headed to Mengla – the southernmost point of China – before the border with Laos where the tropical rain forests begin. Read more →
High Point : Appearing on the 7 o’clock news all over Asia.
Low Point : Not being able to hang out in a fire station everyday
It’s always nice when you pop over to someone’s house and they not only offer a cup of tea but a cheeky little biscuit on the side too. Well our day with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was the equivalent of my gran making her entire house out of biscuits for my visit.
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Like Hasslehoff in Germany, FTFE make their mark in Asia again
You stay classy Singapore ….
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