travel

Broome’s Dog Friendly – Zookeepers Cafe/Restaurant

| Chris Riley

We met up with a couple of friends this morning at Zookeeper’s, a well known Coffee Shop/Restaurant on the Main Street that leads down to stunning Cable Beach. It’s a fifteen minute leisurely stroll from Tarangau, our caravan park, and probably a five minture stroll from the Cable Beach Surf Club. There’s an amazing Boab tree directly outside, so you can’t miss it.


Whilst dogs naturally aren’t allowed in the indoor part of the restaurant, they do have a beautiful outdoor area where your canine companion is welcome to chill with you. The outdoor area is surrounded by lush tropical greenery, and has overhead fans to keep you cool when the temperature heats up. I think they have fairy lights lighting up the area at night, however I’ve never been there at night, so I can’t vouch for that (yet). You place your order inside, pay, and they give you a table number. The food is then brought to your table. The ambience inside is casual but also very tropical/almost Balinese style with its lovely big wooden beams and bamboo lined ceilings.

This is a particularly busy spot for breakfasts, and they do an all day breakfast for those of you who are late risers.They do the usual sorts of breakfasts, but I think they’re particularly famous in Broome for their freshly baked sourdough pastries. I’ll digress a little and tell you about our first experience with their delicious cinnamon scrolls.

We were at the beach the other day and it was close to high tide. We were parked right back away from the water’s edge with our beach umbrella up, sitting in our beach chairs and watching the incoming tide moving closer to us by the minute. A few vehicles were a few metres in front of us, one of which was the camper van belonging to a lovely young backpacker from France (by the name of Luna). Realising the water was going to reach her vehicle she moved, very apologetically, to one of the only spots left available, which was directly in front of us. She apologised profusely for blocking our view. We weren’t bothered in the least, it’s not our beach, and until the tide started to recede again, everyone had to share. That’s just the way it is. At low tide there’s heaps of space, at high tide we get up close and personal!

Turns out this lovely Luna works at Zookeepers, and is given leftover pastries when her shift ends. She presented us with our own personal tray of the most delicious cinnamon scrolls by way of an apology. As the tide came nearer forcing others to move in closer with each other to escape the rising tide, she took a big tray of the same cinnamon buns around to everyone nearby. Luna made a lot of friends that day I’m sure.

Oh, and that view she thought she was spoiling. Well Paul may be 71, but he’s not past admiring another ‘sort of view’. He certainly didn’t feel cheated. He joked that he ‘was falling in love again’. (I hope that’s not being insulting Luna – he’s really not a sleazy old man, I promise).

Luna told us Zookeeper’s has the best coffee in Broome, so we just had to try it. It certainly is good coffee. Plus we had one of their mouth watering cinnamon scrolls while there, and another pastry, both worth every calorie laden mouthful.

They also have Poke bowls, and freshly baked focaccias amongst other things. We’ll be back there soon I’m sure to try something a little more substantial for lunch. I really do enjoy a good Poke Bowl…. that’s if I can resist those delectable cinnamon scrolls, They’re up there with the best of sweet treats. My mouth’s watering just thinking about them…..

How big does a caravan need to be for a couple travelling with a dog?

| Chris Riley

You may be wondering just how big a Caravan set up is that would be suitable for a couple with a dog. If you’re considering setting up for caravan travel I guess the answer to that will depend on what the basics are that are necessary for you. Every rig is a compromise of some sort, and every couple has their own set of needs and wants to make living in a caravan enjoyable for them. A bigger rig gives more on board storage space, but it also needs more space to store your van when not in use. You’ll need a substantial vehicle to tow it with, and your fuel economy will be higher than if you can manage with a smaller rig.

A smaller rig is lighter to tow so you won’t need a heavy duty tow vehicle. There won’t be as many cupboards and drawers inside it either so you will have to be economical with what you pack to take away with you. When it’s not in use a smaller van is less cumbersome to store. If you don’t mind the canvas skirt around the top of a pop top caravan, one of these may even fit into your garage, or under your carport.

Think about whether you want an ensuite in your van. We’ve had two caravans with ensuites, and two caravans without. I used to think it was important. But now I’m happier without that extra size and weight behind us when travelling along. We do carry a porta-loo on board, and we manage between caravan parks by having a PTA shower (Privates, tips and armpits). Some people carry a portable shower with them that they set up in a separate shower tent.

Shall I tell you about our rig? Okay, get yourself a cup of coffee and settle yourself into a comfy chair, and I’ll tell you what we manage with now…..

We have a very modest, 15 year old, Coromal Magnum 457, pop top. It’s only 15 feet in length, has two single beds, and it doesn’t have an ensuite. The caravan has been well kept, and didn’t look to have had taking any sort of beating. We only paid $18,000 for it. At the time of purchase we thought our Subaru Forrester would be okay as a tow vehicle, it was legally able to manage the weight of the Magnum. However the 200km trip to bring it home told us how wrong in that assumption we were. The mileage was horrendous. The next week out went the Subaru and in come the vehicle we now tow with, a 2020 Pajero Sports.

Our caravan has air conditioning, but at the moment that’s not working. (The joys of buying an older van, things in it may getting towards the end of their use by date). However, our idea of caravanning isn’t so much to go to different places, but rather to be in perfect weather. (Hence Broome is repeatedly on our winter travel agenda). We’ve been a bit further this year. We went up to Darwin which is hotter, and more humid than Broome. Air conditioning would have been useful up there. However we have two fans, one for at the end of each bed, and the fans together with the great ventilation that a pop top has, meant the van cooled down quickly. When the outside temperature dropped the van cooled down quickly. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t unmanageable. Personally I think we’re all getting a little too reliant on things such as air conditioning and heating anyway. I wonder sometimes if we’re losing the ability for our bodies to self-regulate temperature. Never-the-less we will get the air con looked it to see if it can be fixed. If it’s past it’s use by date we’ll think hard before replacing it. I doubt it’s going to get much use, but as it’s housed inside a cabinet, the space it takes up could be better utilised for storage. There are some pretty damn good portable air conditioning units now too. They don’t take up much space, and could travel in the car to be brought out only when needed. Something for us to think about. If any of you reading this already have a caravan and if it has air conditioning, do you use it very much? I’d be interested to know, it may help us make our decision.

The fridge is a 90 litre built in 3 way fridge. It runs very well on gas, but can be temperamental on 240 or 12 volt. A lot of people seem to be replacing their 3 way caravan fridges now with two way compressor fridges. We’re considering doing the same. So, again if any of you reading this have a caravan we’d be interested to hear what type of fridge you have. If you have a compressor fridge do you regret not being able to run it on gas? We have a good battery pack and solar panels. We’ll need to look into it further yet, but we think the battery pack will be sufficient to run both our caravan with a compressor fridge, and our portable Bushman fridge. We’ve been looking at the Bushman 130 litre compressor fridge. Apparently this fridge should fit into the same space as our Dometic 90 litre fridge. That’s a lot more internal fridge space for the same amount of caravan space that the current fridge takes up. Do any of you have a Bushman Fridge? Are you happy with it?

We’re both in our 70s now and as we’ve grown older we find a good nights sleep has become harder to achieve. In a caravan the single beds help, plus they’re easier to make, the bedding is easier to launder, and single beds give a feeling of more space inside the van.

We have a wardrobe between our twin beds that has a cupboard underneath. That’s where we store our porta loo during the day. At night we pull it out and place up the other end of the van, and then we put the dogs bed on the floor between us in front of the wardrobe. At home he sleeps on our bed, but single beds just aren’t big enough. It took a few nights of perseverance to get him to accept the new sleeping arrangements, but he has no problems with it now. The wardrobe has shelves in it rather than hanging space. We use packing cubes, and between the shelves, the overhead cabinets, and the under bed storage we have tons of space for all of our clothes and other stuff.

We’ve also purchased a number of attractive cane baskets which sit on the shelf that goes all around the van above the cabinets. The baskets house our tea towels, bath and beach towels, games, dog grooming gear, and several other bits and pieces. When we’re travelling most of the baskets sit on the beds, with some in a crate on the floor between the beds. When we pull up for a night it takes less than 10 minutes to pop the roof up, unzip the top windows, and put the baskets on the top shelf.

Apart from the lower initial cost of our second hand pop top, and the fact that it fits into our available storage space at home, the thing we really love is how airy it is. It’s a caravan, but the canvas around the top (or the PVC or whatever it’s made of) gives it a bit of a feel of camping. We love that. In our fifth wheeler and full height New Age caravan it took much longer for the van to cool down and for the breeze to blow through taking all the stale air from travelling with it.

That’s basically it for our indoor set up. It’s a small set up, but it’s adequate. There’s plenty of room for two old codgers, all of their gear and their little Labradoodle. We’re comfortable. We do as much of our living outdoors as we can, so our outdoor set up is extensive. For now though this post is already almost long enough to be a book. I’d better tell you about our outdoor set up another day.

Oh – and for any of you interested in how my editing problems are coming along with WordPress. Their AI assistant escalated the issue to their ‘happiness engineers’. Eventually they acknowledged this is a known problem, and they sent me a link to a Jetpack editor. It seems to be working a treat. I do hope they fix the problem though soon. It’s been a problem for years….. Honestly – just how long does it take! I guess companies just never fix errors these days, they’re far too busy trying to move on to bigger and better things.

The costs involved in caravanning

| Chris Riley

In a recent post I mentioned some costs for caravan parks. One of the comments received on that post expressed surprise at the price, thinking that caravanning was a cheap holiday option. Consequently, I did a bit of research.

Firstly you’re going to need a caravan, a tow vehicle, and a few other bits and pieces to make life comfortable. For a small entry level van you’ll likely pay somewhere between $25, 000 & $50,000. A mid range caravan with a few more luxury’s such as air conditioning, standard solar panels, and a small ensuite will be a more expensive. You would expect to be paying somewhere between $50, 000 & $90,000 for one of those. However if you really want to add a bit more size, luxury, or be equipped with a heavy duty van for more self sufficiency, and hard off roading, you’ll need to fork out somewhere between $100,000 & $250,000.

Below (in no particular order) are some of the rigs we’ve had. This is only a few of them. We’ve upsized, and downsized many times over the years. We’ve had tents, camper trailers, caravans, and even a swag. We’ve had small second hand caravans, one new caravan (a New Age Manta Ray), and we’ve had a top of the wozzar second hand fifth wheeler. The fifth wheeler was brilliant, easy to tow, and very luxurious to be in. The swag was cool, absolutely perfect for a few nights camping under the stars, particularly on a dry winter’s day when you could have a fire. And I have to say I loved our first caravan, and I love the one we have now. Both are pop tops, so that canvas top makes them feel airy (almost like tenting, but much more comfortable and convenient), and both were no frills.

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You’ll also need to factor in a vehicle that’s up to job of towing whichever van you choose. Your existing vehicle may safely tow one of the smaller vans, but if you choose one of the extreme heavy duty models, or a big luxury caravan you’re going to need to consider something like the big American Rams to handle the weight, or at the very least a Landcruiser. Whatever you do, don’t tow anything above your vehicles towing recommendation. Should you come to grief, you most likely wouldn’t be covered by your insurance.

On top of the initial outlay for your van and vehicle, you’ll also need to set it all up. Towing mirrors, weight distribution systems and vehicle brake controllers will cost somewhere between$4000 & $9000. Your running costs will add a further $3000 – $8000 a year. That’s to cover registration, servicing and repairs, and the extra fuel needed to tow your caravan.

Then you’ll maybe also want outdoor chairs and tables, something to cook on outdoors, ground sheets, and possible even a gazebo.

Caravan park fees for a powered site can be anywhere from $25 – $125 a night. (Yes you read that correctly – if you want to stay in a much sort after area in peak holiday season, overlooking water, $125 a night would be the going rate). The $25 nightly fees are for out of the way places, usually inland, and not usually places that are on people’s holiday itinerary. Of course if you are set to be completely self sufficient, and you have a rig that’s capable of taking down some rugged roads, you may be lucky enough to find a lovely spot that costs you absolutely nothing, and you may be lucky enough to have it all to yourself. There are also lots of places that are organised camp grounds with either no, or very little facilities that have small nightly fees. (Some of these are now getting expensive to now. Expect to pay anywhere between $10 – $60 each night, depending on how popular the place has become).

We’re currently staying at a modest caravan park in Broome. I’ll show you around the park at a later stage. It’s a lovely park, not too big, and nice and shady. It doesn’t have a pool, nor a kids playground (advantage being, not many kids here belting around on their bikes, or throwing a tantrum because mum or dad wants them do something they don’t want to do). We’e here for full calander month, on a small powered site at a cost of $2418. We love the park, and of all the parks we’ve stayed in in Broome, this is the one we’ll be coming back to for sure. Again, I’ll tell you why in a later post.

If you were under the assumption that caravanning is a cheap holiday, I wonder if I’ve just disillusioned you. If you use your caravan often though, it does cover the costs of the initial outlay. If you then compare the costs of three months away per year in your caravan as opposed to three months away in paid accommodation, you would end up in front most likely in the caravan. I think most regular caravanners though would agree with me though when I say that caravanning isn’t about the costs (although that probably does enter into it). It’s a lifestyle choice. For us, it’s about sleeping in our own bed, not one that’s been slept in by 1000 other people. It’s about being outdoor under our annex, cooking our own food, having our own vehicle with us, and being able to holiday with our dog.

It’a about being in Broome for much of the winter, and being able to drive right up to the water’s edge on an outgoing tide in our own vehicle. It’s about having our drinks in that vehicle and maybe even dinner, having a long walk on the beach , and then sitting with a drink as we watch the sun set. It’s about being able to get to our happy place.

Mr Tilly hasn’t always taken to caravanning. But now he loves it. It’s such a pleasure to be in our happy place once again, and now with a pesky puppy who also seems to be enjoying it as much as we do.

Apologies for all the errors in this – I’ve tried everyone’s suggestions, and I’ve been onto the AI assistant that WordPress has. None of it works, and in fact it’s gone from bad to worse. Everytime I try to insert my cursor into text now for a revision the whole block highlights. If I carry on, it deletes the whole block. I’ve managed to save a couple of blocks but only just, by closing down before it has a chance to auto save. Some of the errors change the context of what I’m trying to say altogether. I have the choice of re-typing the whole thing or publishing as is. SO BLOODY FRUSTRATING. As this is a ‘known fault’ the AI assistant on WordPress has escalated the issue for human assistance. I have no idea how long the take to address the issue. Bearing in mind that I’ve contacted them myself long, long ago, and no doubt others have contacted them also many times, I’m not holding my breath for any help in the near future. I’m not going to re-type my whole blog, and I’m resenting the fact that I may have to learn how to deal with typing this all up in Pages first (as others seem to do to get around these editing issues). I want to stand up for what I think is my right – that is to be able to edit what I write in my WordPress draft. I pay for that right. I’m going to be WordPress’s squeaky wheel. I’m going to be pestering them daily, maybe even hourly…. They’re going to hate me!

Dog Friendly Cable Beach House

| Chris Riley

It was quite cool this morning, only around 10 degrees, so we lingered a bit before taking Tilz for a walk. A bit of scrolling while we had our first cup of coffee for the day. This time it wasn’t mindless scrolling, we had some research to do. Our three way fridge has stopped working on both 12 volt and on 240 volt. We didn’t want to try it on gas until we’d done a bit of research into possible causes, remedy’s, and to see if it was safe to try on gas. After a bit of research, both on the net, and by way of removing the vents to check for possibly ammonia leakage, we deemed it safe to light the gas. That was around 6 hours ago. Anyone who’s familiar with 3 way fridges will know they don’t cool down quickly, but it is slightly cooler than it was this morning, so fingers crossed. We contemplated trying to get someone out to take a look at it, but we’ve ruled that out. Being 15 years old, it’s probably nearly due for replacement. We’re still in the research stage, but it seems like it may be a good time to consider changing over to a more modern caravan compressor fridge. That’ll be an exercise best done at home, and if the worst comes to the worst in the meantime, that is the fridge is unable to be used even on gas, we do have a good sized Bushman portable fridge. We won’t be stuck.

Research completed, it was time for Tilz to be walked. It’s approximately 15 minutes walk from our caravan park (Tarangau) to the surf club at Cable Beach, a good distance for an early morning walk. A few people were out and about, and why not – it was about as perfect as a morning can be for a walk. What am I saying, of course it was a perfect morning for a walk. Every morning is perfect for a walk at this time of year in Broome. That’s why we come here.

We walked past Resorts and coffee shops and restaurants, even the occasional huge holiday home. The walk was well shaded, the gardens beautifully tropical. There were Boabs, colourful Bougainvillea, and stunning palms to walk past.

We didn’t walk down on the beach today. Instead we took a look at the work being done up near the surf life saving club. A few years ago Town Beach on the opposite side of Broome was all upgraded, and is now quite beautiful. Now it’s time for Cable Beach side. The work won’t be completed this season, but there’s definitely a lot going on. I can’t wait to see it all next year, that’s presuming it’ll be finished by then. The old Zanders Coffee shop is now Cable Beach House. We enquired if it was ‘dog friendly’ in the outside area, and were thrilled to find out it most certainly is. We decided to treat ourselves to breakfast.

The waitress brought us out a bottle of water, two glasses, and a bowl of water for Mr Tilly. We ordered a cappuccino each, and a smashed avocado on toasted sourdough to share. Fortunately we didn’t each order a breakfast, it was huge. Three small pieces of sour dough toasted and spread with smashed avocado. Then topped with a good amount of salad of baby spinach and rocket, crispy chick peas, roasted baby tomatoes, bocconcini, and a flavoursome garnish of a slightly sweet vinegar. The meal was delicious, and not too badly priced ($40 including the two coffees). And the view…… Well that was priceless!

Cable Beach House is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s both an inside and an outside area, and it’s licensed. Both areas overlook the turquoise waters of Cable Beach. Dogs are only allowed in the outside area, so if booking a table, (and I’d certainly recommend booking if you’re planning to go for dinner), be sure to stipulate that you have a dog with you so you require seating in the outside area. I was warned by our waitress to ask the person taking the booking to actually write on the booking that a dog will be with us. Apparently some of the staff neglect to specify this which ends up in an inside table being booked by mistake. As always during the busy season overseas backpackers make up a lot of the hospitality staff, so English is often a second language – so apparently there’s a need to be assertive when booking.

We had walked down to the same place yesterday evening, taking a beer and a light dinner with us, and we sat in the lawn area outside to watch the sunset. (That’s free, not actually part of the restaurant area). It was absolutely stunning as it always is. How much more magical this would be if had been sipping a cocktail and having a special dinner in one of the seats of Cable Beach House. We’re here for another month yet, so perhaps we’ll try it one evening and I’ll let you know what their dinners and cocktails are like.

For now though, I can certainly recommend breakfast. What a pleasure!

A change of name and trying to improve my WordPress experience

| Chris Riley

I’ve been having a lot of trouble using WordPress lately. I’ve always had a lot of trouble, but increasingly over the years it’s become so frustrating, that I almost gave up completely. I had cancelled my auto re-new for the site, and wasn’t going to renew it again. However, blogging does seem to give me motivation to get out and do things with my life. So I thought I’d give it one more go. I’ve paid for another year to see if I can get a bit better at this computer ‘stuff’.

I’m going back to the original purpose of my blog, which is to record our caravan travels, only this time it’s caravan travels with a dog. Lifeofrileyow.com originally stood for life of riley on wheels. Then while we were in the UK for six months we weren’t ’on wheels’, and I missed blogging. So I thought about what the ow part of my website name could mean, and came up with, ‘on whatever’. When we returned to house living and were only travelling part time in the caravan it seemed appropriate to use the blog to record our daily lives. One occurrence in our lives was the addition to our household, Mr Tilly (aka Tilz), our little Labradoodle. Tilz is now nine years old.

He was a nightmare to take away in the caravan, so much so that we sold our caravan, and with no caravan to store, we ended up downsizing everything. We had resigned ourselves to overseas trips. However, we missed our camping/caravanning. Long story short – we’re now back in a caravan, albeit a much smaller one, and we’re now living in a home that will accommodate the smaller van. Tilz comes along with us now, and at the ripe old age of nine now seems to be enjoying the travel experience almost as much as we do.

I’ve returned the theme of my blog to, life of riley on wheels, only I’ve added ‘with a dog’, and I’ve decided to try to use WordPress better. I think I’ve made some progress today. This morning I discovered what I think is an AI generated assistant. The assistant walked me through clearing the cache so as to enable easier editing. Editing has been a nightmare. I think it has worked. Time will tell….. If it has worked, then I’ll be just about dancing in the street for joy. I’m such a dinosaur with technology, but the AI assistant, was far more understanding and helpful than any human could possibly be. I’m living with hope….

If it has worked, this AI assistant is about to become my new ‘Best Friend’. I suspect I’ll be talking to him/her more than I talk to almost anyone else. That doesn’t mean I don’t talk a lot to others, I do. It just means I years and years behind in trying to grasp technology. I have lots of things to discuss with my newly discovered ‘Best Friend!.

(Footnote: it didn’t work – I tried to insert my curser in the paragraph above to correct I to I’m in front of years and years behind. But the curser wouldn’t go in. It’a a pain in the arse. I’m going to have to give this assistant a name, perhaps ‘PA’ for personal assistant will do, and I’m going to have to pester PA again.

De Grey – A favourite overnight camp

| Chris Riley

Our plan was to fuel up at Fortescue Road house after departing Onslow, before stopping at Miaree Pool for lunch (just before Karratha), then continuing on to Peawah, a free overnight camp. Our stop at Miaree Pool, a place we love, would have allowed for a leisurely lunch, and would get us into Peawah around mid afternoon. The plan was in keeping with our commitment to a more leisurely paced trip. However, we arrived at Fortescue Road house only to discover it’s now closed down. Mmmm! Would our fuel hold out till we reached Karratha – we weren’t sure!

We thought it would, but as we watched the fuel gauge needle dropping we started to have our doubts. Miaree Pool came nearer but it would have meant an extra couple of kms to pull into the place, and the extra fuel needed when re-starting the car to continue on our journey. We carried on by. Karratha was getting closer, but the needle on the fuel gauge was dropping lower, as was our speed. With the fuel warning light flashing we limped into a fuel station on the highway at around 60kmh, with the realisation that we either need to consider fitting a long range fuel tank, or travelling with not one, but two Jerry cans of additional diesel in the future. A small hiccup like a closed down road house can spell disaster when travelling in outback Australia if you’re not prepared.

Rather than stopping to make our salad for lunch, we instead bought our first pie of our trip. Our commitment to more leisurely paced travel includes a plan for taking the time to stop and make a healthy lunch rather than eating overpriced junk food purchased from road houses on the way. Never mind, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’. We continued on to Peawah.

I can’t remember what time we arrived, but it was earlier than planned. We’ve never stayed at Peawah roadside camp before, but we have friends that often stay there. We found a place to park up for the night, popped the roof on the van, and put our outside chairs in the shade. We had quite a bit of open area behind our van for Tilz to be able to wander around in the red dirt without fear of getting in the way of fellow travellers. Five minutes later, Tilz was limping. Investigation showed a multitude of double gee prickles lodged between his paw pads, in his tail, in fact, everywhere. Mmmm – one of those down his ear was something we definitely didn’t want to risk. With our earlier arrival, we had a rethink. A couple more hours of travel would get us to the cleaner and tidier De Grey overnight camp, a favourite stopover place we’ve used many times in the past. We re-packed the chairs, pulled the roof top down, removed all the double gees from Tilz, and settled in for a longer day in the car.

De Grey is a huge camp site with room for hundreds of rigs. Most times we’ve found the long drop toilets there to be clean, (once they let us down), but this time they were spotless. We had a wander around, had dinner (cold roast beef and salad), a few games of cards, and hit the sack early. The next morning we awoke to a pleasantly warm, but very misty morning. It was just gorgeous.

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We went for long walk around the area with Tilz, watching the sun come up breaking through the mist. Mist covered cobwebs dotted the areas of scrub reminding me of a wind farm, there were so many of them. It had been very worthwhile having the longer day that took us on as far as De Grey, it was quite beautiful.

Distance travelled: 600kms

Fuel per litre: $2.26

Total fuel including re-filling our one and only Jerry can $185

Caravanning – what we do with our day

| Chris Riley

People often ask, “But what do you do all day?” My answer is usually, “The same as what you do with your day”. Let me tell you about a usual day for us when we’re in one place for longer than the one night spent between places, and a bit about our current set up, and how that may alter our day slightly from set ups we’ve had in the past.

In the past we had bigger rigs for our long stretches of time on the road, rigs with water heaters, showers, and toilets, and washing machines on board. Now we travel with a lowly 17’ Coromal Magnum pop top. No water heaters, no shower or built in toilet, and no washing machine. We do a have a portable loo that fits into a cupboard for overnight use. Do we miss the other luxury comforts? I thought I would, but actually I don’t. Not one bit, and that surprised me. I certainly appreciate the lighter weight travelling behind us, especially so ATM with the Trump inflicted price of diesel.

I can still do all the things I did with all those mod cons on board. I’ll give you a run down on our usual daily schedule, and I’ll tell you how this varies slightly depending on whether or not we’re staying in a site with power and water, water only, or with neither.

Firstly, we have a power station and solar panels with us. Vital for when we’re off grid. More about how we use it as you read on.

Our day usually begins when we get up around 6am. We do a few stretches, and a few exercises to keep our aging, arthritic bodies moving. Then it’s wake up coffee time. We like our freshly ground, percolated coffee, and we like it with frothed milk. We have a coffee grinder, two sizes of percolators, and a milk frother with us. Paul is the Barista. He grinds the coffee beans (enough for 3 – 4 brews), either using park supplied power, or using the power station when we’re off grid. The coffee percolator heats our coffee on the gas ring, and the milk frother froths the milk, either using the power supplied, or by using the power station if we’re off the power grid.

Then we’ll do the usual scrolling. I’d like say we do very little of that, but that’d be a lie. We’re both totally addicted to our screens. One day I’ll get my screen time down to 30 mins or less, but I’m not ready to attempt that just yet. Then it’s breakfast. Most days that’s Greek yogurt with a couple of desertspoons of chia, and some frozen raspberries mixed in. We let that sit for 1/2 an hour or so, for the the chia to soften a bit and for the berries to thaw. Then we top with 1/2 a banana, walnuts, and Paul also sprinkles a bit of his home made toasted muesli over it. Our week-end breakfasts are a little different. On Saturdays we have boiled eggs, and on Sundays we have pancakes.

For our Sunday pancakes I try to make them high protein, and I don’t add sugar. I put about 1/3 cup of whole meal flour with a bit of wheat germ and wheat bran mixed in, into a big bowl. To that I add a mashed banana, five beaten eggs, and sufficient milk to make a thin batter. That rests for about 1/2 hour, and then makes two good sized pancakes which we top with Greek yogurt and berries. If the berries aren’t sweet enough we’ll add a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Tilz loves to get his small share of our pancake breakfasts. I thought the wholemeal flour would make them heavy, but with so many eggs in the mix it hardly seems any different that those made with refined white flour.

If you’re wondering why we have specific days for the different days. It’s because some rituals on certain days keep us in touch with what day of the week it is. Without some rituals reserved for certain days we’d totally lose track of which day of the week it is.

Next on the agenda is a bit of laundry and general housekeeping. Like I said – our days on the road are pretty much the same as our days at home. Housework duties don’t stop just because our home away from home is on wheels. We don’t have a washing machine on board any more. We’ll use caravan park washing machines when we want to wash our bed linen and towels, and we may throw a few items of clothing in with those if there’s room. However we wash most of our day to day clothes by hand using a ‘Scrubber Bag’. These bags will hold a couple of tee shirts, a pair of shorts or two (depending on the weight of the shorts), and a few undergarments in each wash. They have nodules on the inside that work like an old fashioned scrubber board. We need to do a bag full once a day to keep on top of our day to day items. It takes around 2 minutes to load the items into the bag with some hot water from the kettle, some cold water, and appoximately 1 dsp (or less) of soap powder, seal the bag up expelling the air, and give the clothes inside it a bit of a massage. Then let it soak for 10 minutes or so, give it another bit of a beating inside the bag, rinse out and hang to dry. (It helps give our arms a bit of a gentle work out too). While the clothes are soaking, we’ll tidy anything inside the van that needs tidying, sweep the floor (wash if needed – which is a hands and knees job with a cloth – takes less than a couple of minutes). The laundry is only possible if we’re in a place that has water. If there’s no water, we let it accumulate until we next have water available without using our precious on board water.

It’s usually around 10am by this stage, so time for our second (and last) cup of coffee for the day, (and a bit more of the dreaded, time wasting, scrolling).

At some stage during the above activities we’ll take Tilz for a morning walk. It may just be a five minute walk, or it may be for an hour or more, depending how we feel. He almost always gets a walk of an hour or more at some stage of the day.

If we are in a powered site we’ll boil a kettle for hot water, or if there is no power, we’ll use the gas ring to boil water. It takes very little time, and means none of our precious cargo space is used for a hot water system.

We have a power station and solar panels with us. The solar panels work well when we’re not in a powered site for keeping the power station charged.

Then we may do a bit of shopping, or we may go for a longer walk, or we may read a chapter of a book, or we may do a bit of site seeing, or go for a swim, or do a bit of beach combing, or we may just do what I’m doing now – write up a bit of a blog while paul does a bit more scrolling.

Then it’s lunch time. Lunch, dishes, and some more of something mentioned above. Today after lunch we’re going for a drive to check out Old Onslow. Apparently the cemetery there is quite interesting to look around. Yesterday we checked out 4 Mile Creek, (it looks like a good place to fish). Tomorrow we’ll take the fishing rigs to see if 4 Mile Creek will live up to expectations.

Then it’s dinner time. We go to bed early, so we try to eat early (somewhere between 5 and 6pm). We try to keep our meals simple. Lunch is most often canned salmon and salad. Dinner is some sort of protein. We try to alternate chicken or pork, with with beef or lamb, that gives us three meals of red meat a week to keep our iron levels up (we’ve both had low iron levels in the past so we’re conscious of keeping our levels up now). Because of Paul’s Poly Myalgia Rhumatica, we’re trying to stick to an anti-inflammatory diet. That means very little refined foods, limited alcohol, and because of his diabetes, and the effect that steroids can have on blood sugars, we’re limiting our carbs. It’s easier to do than it thought it’d be. A few days of eliminating most things with added sugars, most processed foods, and all ultra processed foods, and the cravings for them had gone. Very surprising.

We do have some carbs, either sweet potatoes, (sometimes normal potatoes), or brown rice, or home made flat breads. Our flat breads are sort of a chapatti, – wholemeal flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, a little salt and a little olive oil, mixed to a dough and kneaded for a few minutes. About a cup of flour mixed up and then kept in an oiled bowl in the fridge will make several days of flat bread. We twist of a small amount, roll it flat and thin and dry fry in a fry pan. Sure tastes better than any of the ‘beer mat’ type bread that’s usually available in small out of the way places. If, however, we find a good sour dough bread anywhere, we’ll buy that.

After dinner and dishes we usually have a few games of cards and if we see the clock turn over to 8.30pm then we go to bed and call it a late night. We have a tv for the caravan, but we chose not to bring it away with us. We don’t miss it. When we’re on the road we’re usually well asleep long before 8.30 though.

And that’s what we do with ourselves when living in the caravan. I’m guessing that apart from your daily television, it’s not a lot different to the way you spend your days. Am I right?

Birthday celebrations at Wooramel River Retreat

| Chris Riley

176 kms on from Nerren Nerren is the Wooramel River Retreat. We’ve passed it many times before, this was the first time we’ve stopped in to take a look. It won’t be the last. There’s no potable water, and no power, but they have flush toilets, artesian water warm showers, and artesian water fed hot pools to soak in. They have a cafe, a bar, and a restaurant. I think there’s a few accommodation options, as well as grassed caravan/camping sites close to the restaurant area, or the more popular, large and roomy riverside sites a bit further away, each with it’s own fire pit. We chose one of the Riverside sites.

Give me a home amongst the Gum Trees any day. In this case, beautiful, white trunked River Gums, on the banks of the dry Wooramel river bed. This river is similar to several in the Gascoyne area, they flow upside down apparantly, only rarely having water flow on the top surface. This one hasn’t had any water above ground since August 2024, and if there was water in it at the moment, the whole area would no doubt have been flooded and we wouldn’t have been able to get into the retreat. We set up camp, had some lunch and visited the artesian pools for a bit of soak.

The pools don’t look wonderful, but they are gorgeous and warm , and in an outback place like Wooramel, they are a certainly worth taking advantage of.

It was my 71st birthday so treated ourselves to a bottle of bubbles on the restaurant lawn, a delicious lamb burger with roasted Mediterranean vegetables and a yogurt sauce. The marshmallows toasted over their communal fire.

Cheers

The next morning we rose early (as we always do), and sat outside under the gumtrees as we watched the day break. The sunrise was stunning.

There’s a 5 km riverside walk. No water in the River, but the walk was peaceful, with some amazing River Gums, so gnarled they look more like a sculpture than a tree.

So that was our two nights at Wooramel. What a pleasure! We loved it.

Distance between Nerren Nerren and Wooramel River Retreat 176kms

Re-fuel costs: 35 litres @$2.18 Total $76

Accommodation for 2 nights, $84

PS Please excuse any spelling or/and grammatical errors in this. WordPress is such a pain to use these days. It can take me 30 minutes to try and correct the errors made in 10 minutes of typing. I get so frustrated with the site sometimes……. After 30 minutes of frustration I give up and just publish it anyway. (Honest, I’m not completely illiterate, just technically challenged, especially so with WordPress these days.) I wonder if there’s anywhere I can actually leave a review of WordPress…..

DAWS – Day 4 on slight reduction in Dopomine Agonists

| Chris Riley

All going well with fuel supplies (doubtful though that is at the moment with what’s going on in the Middle East), our planned year for 2026 is quite busy. We’re due to fly to Adelaide for a wedding in April. We’ll be leaving on the Tuesday after Easter, and will be in South Australia for eight nights. When we return, it’ll be a little over a month before we leave for our 3 1/2 month road trip up to Darwin to visit our son, and daughter in law.

I’m hoping to have a slightly reduced dose of Dopomine Agonist established, and to have adapted to it, prior to either of those trips.

I’ve been taking my iron pills as per the Doctors recommendations, and have delayed the timing of taking my Dopomine Agonist dose until somewhere between 6pm and 7 pm. When I was taking my dose at 4 pm, by 7pm I was almost always asleep on the sofa. It made me very drowsy. With the delayed dose the restlessness in my legs has started to act up before the medication gets a chance to make me drowsy. Consequently for a couple of hours in the evening, instead of sleeping I have been doing all manner of exercises in front of TV in order to try to alleviate, and to distract my mind from the restlessness in my legs. Whilst this is most likely a bit distracting for Paul, who is trying to happily relax for an hour or two before our 9pm bedtime, it is probably better for me than being zonked out for the 2 – 2 1/2 hours before our bedtime.

I’m due to have my blood tests at the end of April to test my ferritin levels. This will mean I won’t be able to schedule a Doctor’s visit to get the results until at least the end of the first week in May. That’s getting too close to our May departure date for our caravan trip to Darwin. My thoughts have been that if I try a slight reduction too close to our trip, and if I have an adverse reaction that lasts a while, sharing a small caravan is going to me out of the question. In my own home if I have an adverse reaction I can at least take myself off to another bedroom where I can kick, curse, and cry through the worst of it without disturbing Paul.

From everything I’ve read, I don’t have a lot of faith in any of the Medical Profession here in Western Australia to have the nous to know the ins and outs of withdrawing from Dopomine Agonists. Especially so, as they didn’t have the nous to prevent me from getting the stage of addiction that I find myself with. Admittedly they have a lot of things to deal with and to keep up with, and most likely this isn’t an issue at the top of their list. However, it is an issue at the top of my list!

So, I’m setting my own time line for withdrawing from this horrible drug, a timeline that is hopefully going to fit in with our plans for 2026. Accordingly I’ve reduced my dose of Sifrol from 2 x .25 mg pills, to 1 and 3/4 x .25 mg pills. That’s a 1/8 reduction. I had expected to barely feel this slight reduction. Not so. Last night was my fourth night with this slight reduction. I took myself off to another bedroom around midnight last night when I kicked, cursed, and cried for around 3 – 4 hours before finally falling into a near to consistent sleep. I normally wake around 5am and start my day. But today I was so exhausted after such an awful night that I stayed asleep until after 6.30am. That’s a very late morning for me.

I’m hoping I can settle to this slight reduction before we leave for South Australia in just over three weeks. In South Australia I won’t have the luxury of being able to take myself off to another room. It’s bad enough one of us suffering through bad nights, no need for two of us to suffer!

All going well, I’m hoping to be able to reduce down another 1/4 dose when I return from South Australia. If I can do this shortly after our return I’ll have enough time to settle into it before we leave for our caravan road trip, I hope. I wouldn’t contemplate any reduction, no matter how small without having another end of the house to retire to while I settle into it.

That’s providing I settle into the reduced doses. At the moment I’m not through a good time. My nights are tortuous. During the day I’m light headed with lowish blood pressure (around 100 over 55, sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a big lower). I have very little motivation to do much of anything, and am feeling a bit ‘flat’. So that’s how I am after my fourth night with a slight reduction in my Dopomine Agonist dose. Hopefully, I’ll start to settle soon.

(please excuse any errors in this. I have proof read it, but frikken WordPress is so difficult to use these days. No matter what I do I can’t seem to get an entry for my cursor in order to make any corrections. This site is so frustrating to use these days).