Tues 22 Oct 2013 – Finding Rodger’s First Home

It’s time to leave our friends and move on today, but first, as they are home schooled, we did a bit of homework help, just to keep ourselves in practise! I listened to Magenta read and tested Ethan on a chapter from the bible that he had memorised. Rodger and Eliah looked at words that begin with the letter R together. After all this hard work, the kids helped Rodger to fill the tank of our van with water and put the surfboard on the roof. It was too hard to say "Goodbye", so we went back inside and had one more cup of tea together and then we really had to go. The children ran beside us waving as we drove up the road.

Our first stop was the Shopping Centre, to buy food, vitamins and a watch band. We also found an optometrist who was able to get a grain of sand out of Rodger's eye. It's been bothering him for a couple of weeks now, and he feels so much better now it's gone.

After stocking up, we drove to Claremont, to look at the house where Rodger lived when he was a baby - it has now been remodelled and split into two houses - very tastfully done. 

Next we drove to Nedlands, to see if the Tresillian maternity hospital, where Rodger was born, still exists. After asking a few people we found it. It's now used as a Community Centre and for art classes, so we were able to go in and have a look round. 

As we came out, we saw a pretty, green parrot, feeding on the nature strip.

By now it was 4.30pm so we needed to get out of Perth quickly, before peak hour traffic started. We set off towards the South but we were already too late and soon were bumper to bumper on the freeway. We decided to camp at the first place we came to with a beach. This was Rockingham, which sounded nice from the description in the guide book, but is actually an industrial area with a naval base too. Yet again, no surf beaches!

We went to a camping ground, but they had no space as they are almost full with people who live there permanently. As we drove along the beach front, looking for another one, we noticed that there were BBQs, playgrounds and toilets all the way along, so we thought we might just free camp for tonight. However, we stopped to go to the toilet and saw a notice that said we weren't allowed to camp there, so we were about to drive off, when a man told us there is a good free camping spot just a bit further up the road.

We followed his instructions and found several other vans here, so we drove back down the beach to cook our dinner on the BBQs and use the toilets, then we came back here to the camping spot for the night.

I bought kangaroo steaks for dinner tonight, because they were on special and I thought it would be interesting to try them. The taste and texture was similar to rump steak, but it was very tough and needed lots of chewing!