WEDNESDAY 23 JUNE   PERTH TO MULLEWA   550kms

We managed an early departure from Perth. I was feeling better than yesterday.

Returned north on the Brand Highway to Geraldton, stopping only for a couple of coffee breaks, and to eat our lunch in a roadside parking area. I think we both wanted to keep going, just to reassure ourselves that we were actually on  the way again!

Friend M phoned just as we were entering Geraldton, to check if our prior arrangements, to meet up, were still ok. Back before we left Melbourne, we had arranged to meet up with her in the coming mid-year school holidays and take her touring in the Pilbara. She had bought herself a mobile phone, so that should facilitate our communications.

After John and I discussed it a bit, I phoned her back to see if she would prefer to meet us in Exmouth, rather than Karratha, now that we were so far south of where we’d planned to be. But the hire car tour she had organized with a friend was too far advanced to change now.

We refuelled in Geraldton. $1.09cpl.

John decided we would continue on to Mullewa. Maybe, once past Geraldton, we would start to think we were making progress?

We had driven that way in 1993, on our way to try metal detecting (unsuccessfully) around Yalgoo. So it was not new country to us, but pleasant to travel through.

Went into the council run Mullewa Caravan Park. $16 a night. The park was fine for an overnight stop – the amenities were good, and clean. We did not need to unhitch.

There was a noticeable aboriginal presence in the township.

I was definitely recovering well from the cold.