Oh my goodness, what a whirlwind of a trip to WA.
Recently I got a call from Michelle at Coral Bay looking for
a couple of cleaners at the Peoples Park Caravan Park in Coral Bay. The thought of going back to Coral Bay was
very exciting as we loved the WA coast so it didn't take us a lot of time to
decide to accept the job.
We had less than a week to get our act together and a
wedding to go to in the mix, one day to pack the car and the tvan and Monday
31st March we were off.
We took 10 days of shared driving of 9/10 hours on the
bitumen, even though there was no sightseeing on the way it was so good to be
back on the road! We were on our way to Broken Hill when we saw our first wedge
tail eagle and being on the bitumen we had to tackle plenty of trucks, wide
loads and road trains most of the trip.
(One wide load while I was driving I
had to stop on the side of the road as the truck took up the whole road.) We had varied weather, the first night at
Narrabri was very warm and hard to fall asleep and the next night we had our
trackies and flannies on and were pulling up the doona.
We had a couple of nights in caravan parks, some free camping,
quite close to the highway
very close actually
one night with Milly,
Milly took us for a drive around where she lives, very interesting place...out near Southern Cross WA...
after leaving Milly's we caught, only the edge of a thunder/lightning storm but it didn't last very long for us thank goodness
and then we had two nights with Steve's sister, Jenny, in Gidgee. so good to catch up with her and Frank and Ida again. We had only planned one night at Jenny's but
after an oil change and a bit of lunch we hooked up the van and couldn't get
the van tail lights to work and found we had a broken pin connection,
so after
the one hour trip Steve did to Midland and back to get a new pin set, Steve got the
lights working again but it was a bit late to be on the road. We left early the next morning and had a 10
1/2 hour drive ending up driving after sunset
(not good on the open road) and
ended up in a rest area about 80km south of Carnarvon and setting up in the
dark, oh joy. The hardest park was
finding a place to park as this stop was a big area, with a toilet, (always
popular with fellow travellers) and there were plenty of others already camped
for the night. Chatted to 2 other couples from Bunbury and Mandurah for a while
but we were looking forward to a well earned rest.
It is Wednesday 9 April and we are on the home stretch
now...into Carnarvon to stock up, food, beer and wine...all the important stuff
(I wish we thought to stock up on extra fuel in the jerries and the gas bottle
that ran out two days after we arrived in Coral Bay). We were on the road into Coral Bay and over a rise and all over the landscape were willy willies.
and then the last couple of hours and
we arrived in Coral Bay.
We met Michelle and Matt, a lovely couple, and they showed
us to our site 113. Matt gave us some
shade cloth to put under our feet and to protect the lawn that he is trying to
grow and we spent the rest of the day setting up and unpacking. Steve keeps our grass well watered around the Tvan
Thursday we had a bit of an orientation by Michelle of the
cabins and what our work entailed...not rocket science but a few particulars to
learn. Then we had the day to ourselves
and it was across the road to the beach for a swim...what a life!!!
Friday morning we get our phone call about 7.45am, our trainers,
Sango and Cris, had arrived and we had 4 villas/cabins to clean, and ended up a total of 5
hours work and only needed one villa ready for a check in...easy peasy,
finished by 1pm, plenty of time to put our feet up and rest our weary
legs.
Saturday is the big day, the start of the school holidays,
(for the people that know me very well you may find it hard to believe but I was
awake by 6am) and we started work at 7.30am, four of us had five villas and
four cabins and lastly the penthouse to
clean. Being the newbies, Steve and I
made the beds and vacuumed and mopped mostly (now I know why nurses have bad
backs...not from lifting patients, it's from making beds hahaha). Well we had a huge day, we finished at 4.45pm;
it's been a long time since we have been on the go for 9 and 1/4 hours
non-stop.
First thing Steve and I did
after we finished was sit down and have a beverage
and then we went to the
beach and had a swim to cool off...by the way it has been in the mid to high 30C and
the water is beautiful right up until sunset, then the big fish start chasing
the little fish so it's time to get out of the water... for us anyway.
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| Coral Bay and the Easter Holidays! |
We treat ourselves to a fish, calamari and chips from Fins
Café at our shopping village
and we ate it in the park watching the sunset and that was the end of our
day today.
Now we are also working like some of you...sort of.
Life doesn't get much better!
PS. tomorrow we were supposed to have the day off but we
have to do 'one' villa but then we will have the day on the beach...might do
some snorkelling...ho hum.
PSS. and we have a golf cart to drive around in...how cool
is that!
We have got through the first week and we are quite enjoying ourselves (five days on, 2 days off with varied hours each day...depending on how much there is to do and we get to work in the air con) and the Easter Holidays are in full swing. Tomorrow, Easter Saturday is a huge day and there will be 5 of us cleaning cabins and villas and doing towel and linen changes, so it is an earlyish night tonight.
Happy Easter!!!
