June 3 – Seabird to Guilderton

Time is so subjective… 6 weeks… It seemed like such a long time while we were on the road, travelling every day, but the 6 weeks since we got back to everyday life has simply flown past! It has been great seeing family and friends again and sleeping in our incredibly comfortable bed everynight! But with Blu in having some much needed post-trip attention, the kids back in school and extra-curricular’s and work back in full swing, we haven’t had a chance to get out on the road since we returned and we have all been missing it a little (or a lot, it just depends on the day).

Blu came back to us this week after some major post-trip surgery including a rebuilt diesel injector pump, new keyway (The old one is pictured below,it is supposed to be square), timing gears and harmonic balancer as well as a full service (Huge thanks to Dave at Lehman Mechanical for another amazing job!) And while the whole long weekend wasn’t clear (I had work on Sunday and there was a family birthday celebration as well) so we couldn’t go away for the weekend, we had no commitments Saturday and Blu was feeling better than ever and itching to go on a new adventure, however short.

A bit of research yielded an interesting looking track a couple of hours north running along the coast between Seabird and Guilderton. Soft sandy tracks with and amazing views of the coast sounded like a perfect one-day mini-adventure.

Despite the sky looking grey, we threw our chairs in the back and some food in the fridge and hit the road.

Seabird is about 40kms south of Lancelin and is a beautiful little fishing town that was incredibly quiet even on a long weekend. We paused at the local park so the kids could stretch their legs while we aired down ready for the soft tracks ahead. The bottled up energy from the drive soon led to a game of “Launch off the Swing” at which Zach excels, while Rissa is still building up her confidence!

As we headed off through the dunes, the sky had cleared, the views over the limestone cliffs were magnificent and the tracks were fun for me at the wheel but not too scary for Chelle and the kids. They were very reminiscent of some of the inland tracks on Fraiser, just with a handful of steep limestone hills scattered throughout.

As we got closer to Guilderton,  the cliffs gave way to more accessible beaches and our stomachs were telling us it was time for lunch, so we headed down one of the steep dunes toward the beach and found an perfect little spot just above the main beach (We even saved the co-ordinates in the HEMA app to return in future).

Hotdogs on the grill on the beach, it doesn’t get any better!

We spent an hour or so chilling while the kids played in the sand and discovered the joys of dune jumping. They were also very excited to find a wrecked yacht keel at the water’s edge!

Just as we were starting to get ready to go, a Triton with fishing rods on top came barrelling up from the beach and, after 3 attempts to clear the hill to the main trail, he got himself thoroughly stuck in the soft sand. While he had a shovel onboard, that wasn’t going to get him far on the steep soft hills, so our Maxtrax came down off the roof to assist (I should have taken photos, but we were to busy trying to help him get unstuck). Eventually we had him back on the main trail and it was our turn.

While I began the slow, mutli-point process of doing a 180 turn on a narrow stretch of soft sand, the kids decided to use the Maxtrax as sleds down the dune… They worked much better than expected, but now they want Sandboards!

Having seen how soft the sand was when trying to get back up the hill, we decided to keep the Maxtrax accessible and put them into action as soon as I felt the wheels starting to dig in, it saved a whole lot of time and digging and the kids loved being the recovery crew!

Once we were back on the main track, Blu put in a mighty effort in First Low to pull us back up the dune and on our way. The Guilderton Lighthouse was now clearly beaconing in the distance signalling the start of proper roads again and the end of our awesome little adventure for the day!

It was great to be back on the road in Blu and to realise that just because the big trip is finished (for the time being), there are still plenty of adventures to be had in between the day to day demands of everyday life!

So stay tuned, because Big Blu’s adventures are far from over!

Adrian