Another walk/ride this morning before packing up for our move to Esperance. We miss Aaron’s muscles when it comes to pulling everything down and folding it all up. He was such a fast, organised camper. 
Our trip to Esperance, Western Australia, today was 390km. It was easy driving, pretty much in a straight line. (Says she who doesn’t drive much, but it looked like nice relaxed one handed driving to me). 
About halfway, at Norseman, I got another phone call from the Home Schooling Unit. They are the department responsible for overseeing the home education of students while they are travelling. Ensuring that they are receiving the correct education and covering the required curriculum while they are absent from the traditional classroom. They always seem to catch us at a petrol station where there is Telstra Service. The hiccups that we had with Caleb’s enrolment have turned into a cough. Hopefully they can work something out. 
The phone call was the highlight of the trip so that should be an indication of how eventful the journey was. A good chance to chat and think.  
We bypassed the actual town of Esperance and headed straight for the Cape Le Grande National Park. We had planned on staying here and exploring the area. It was nearing 5:00pm when we pulled into the National Park and noticed the signs that said “campground full”. We decided to go and have a look and see just how full it was. We had met the campground hosts (Dot and Gordon) in the Stirling Ranges National Park while they were on their way down to host for the month of February. They had mentioned that they could probably squeeze us in if need be. 
Dot remembered us, and just as we were deliberating on what to do as the campground was really full, Mike, a camper with plenty of room on his site said we could share his for the night and see if there were any vacancies in the morning. Dot revealed that she knew of someone who was perhaps leaving, but she couldn’t promise the site to us we just had to be first in line in the morning. The alternative was driving 43km back to the township and booking into a caravan park, then being back as early as we could in the morning. Dot said that sometimes people are lined up from 6:30am. 
There was no choice really. We thanked Mike and Barb profusely, reversed the van in as close to theirs as we could and tried to be as quiet as possible. We will part with a bottle of our special Margaret River red to thank them. 
Early to bed to ensure we woke up early.