New Norcia, Perth, Fremantle 29 - 31 October 2013

After the excitement of the Pinnacles, it was onwards towards Perth with a stopover in New Norcia. New Norcia is a monastic community which was established by the Benedictine order of monks in 1847 and has a strong Spanish influence. The monks still run things today, producing and selling bakery products, herbal infusions, wine and religious paraphernalia etc

Well, Geraldton may have been a bit of a practice run, but Perth really is the big smoke! Nearly as many cars on the road as Cranbourne, with five zillion traffic lights. This was always going to be a service stop for the truck, but we also had to organize a replacement shock for the camper :-( The seal had gone on one of our big red Pedders. Unfortunately we could only get this done on our second day in town, so we had to set up for the first night only to pack it all away again and take everything to the Pedders shop the next morning. Both Pedders and Aussie Swag were great help with organizing this, but Murphy had his part to play as well when the replacement shocker missed the delivery truck from the warehouse and had to be sent over in a second run, which added another wasted hour to our day.
Drove out to Freo to see the sights. I really wanted to have a look at the Duyfken which is a reproduction of a 16th century Dutch ship of exploration. It was built in Fremantle and is reputably the most accurate reproduction of one of these ships anywhere in the world. The thing is tiny when you think that the original sailed around the world. It is only 24 metres long. Glad I'm not a 16th century sailor!!!

Typically, we arrived at 3:30 and the tours stopped at 3:00. Happily however, the ship is moored right next to the Little Creatures brewery. Guess where the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent :)

Next day it was service time for the Patrol. I had arranged for this to be done as close to the city as possible and we dropped the truck in and walked into town for some serious retail therapy. I managed to find Perth Hobbies and invested in some new plastic, while Hazel picked up some clothes and a manicure. All very civilized. After a full day walking the streets and malls of the CBD in the 36 degree heat we had just about made it back to the mechanics when my mobile rang. It seemed that Murphy had come to town with us as the hoist which our truck was on was refusing to come down! We were leaving the next morning, so this was problematic to say the least. Anyway, the manager was very good at customer service, and offered us the use of a loan car straight away, and informed us that a hoist technician was on his way and that they hoped to have everything fixed by morning. Biggest problem was that all our booze was stuck inside the fridge in the back of the Patrol and we couldn't get the back doors open wide enough to extract any of it while it was up in the air.





Anyway, almost as soon as had we made it back to camp, we received a call to say that the hoist was fixed and we could collect the Patrol, so back into town again..... I had a look at the hoist in question when I got there and it is rated at 2.5 tonne. The Patrol weighs 2.4t empty!
Wonder why it had problems????

Found another candidate for the coolest rig comp. It may be slightly smaller than the Pilbra Princess, but it's way cool: