Day 07 / 2025 - Bunbury to Esperance

Finally we are off on a caravan adventure which is longer 1 week. Time to head across the 'Bour' and up the middle to Darwin. Plan is to visit some of the sights we missed last time around but also revisit a few of the favorites as well.

Getting underway we left Bunbury at 2pm in the afternoon. We hadn't planned to leave at any particular time as we wern't worried how far we got on the first day, the goal was to just leave. We decided to follow the track through Donnybrook onto Kojonup, Broomehill, Gnowangerup with, at some point during the week, ending up in Esperance. We met up with Bruce and Gina just south of Donnybrook on the Boyup Brook Rd. They're going to be our travelling companions for as far as they wanted to travel with us. Although we had a rough idea of a route we would like to take and a time frame to do it in, it was by no means locked in stone and could change at any time.

We were unsure where our first night would be, somewhere past Gnowangerup was my first though but soon realised that would be a bit too ambitious, our first night ending up being in Kojonup. They have an RV Rest Area pretty much in the middle of town with the only requirement's, a $5.00 per night fee and your recreational vehicle had to be self contained. After the first night we wern't really interested in moving that day and decided to stay another night. I think all the work we had done in the lead up preparing to leave had worn us out so it was good to just take a rest day. We generally find having rest days normally re-envigorates you to look forward to moving onto the next leg. Kojonup was not without its tourist sites. There was a small museum located at the information centre you could look though. There was information about the Indiginious history as well as how the land was developed after European settlement as farmland with the main agriculture being sheep. There were also narrated and written stories from the local aboriginal peoples and how European settlement had an impact on them ant their culture.

Next day we moved on further towards Gnowangerup stopping at Broomehill for a look. There was a museum with artefacts and historical memorabilia from the local area. The town isn't big but worth a stop. I did not realise but it is the western starting point of the Holland track which was forged as a shortcut to the eastern goldfields. I had always assumed Hyden further east was the starting point of the track. Next we headed towards Gnowangerup, this was to be our first fuel stop as it will proberbly be the cheapest fuel along our journey, at least until Port Augusta in South Australia. Fuelled up we again got underway. Our next destination was to be Hopetoun on the south coast of WA. We did not think we would make it that day so decided we would stop at the Fitzgerald Old School Site Rest Area. Unfortunately Bruce and Gina's car had other ideas and had developed fault with the Diesel Particulate Filter putting the car into a reduced power mode. There was a rest stop on the highway not far called Fitzgerald River Rest Area so ended up there for the night instead. Trouble struck again, our Fridge decided to stop working on gas during the night. Checking that the gas bottle still had gas in we still couldn't diagnose what the problems was. All that happens is when the fridge try's to start on gas it just times out and flags a problem. You couldn't even hear any ignition noise when the fridge was suppose to be trying to light.

The ambient temperature was cool that night so we decided to stay but booked into a caravan park at our next destination, Hopetoun. I was pretty sure the fridge would work on 240 Volt as it still operated on 12 volt. Next morning we left the overnight rest area. Bruce and Gina's car started to play up again forcing them to stop. They ended up unhitching their van and took the car for a fast run to try to regenerate the DPF (that's what the manual calls it). They also added some fuel additive to see if that helped. This seemed to fix the problem and they were up and running so we the journeyed on stopping for a break at Ravensthorpe's sweet shop for an Ice Cream and a selection of lollies.  

Rolling into Beachside Caravan park we were given our sites. They were a bit small but enough room for our caravans and cars. The only problem was we were directed in the wrong direction, to get in we would have to back around a 270 deg angle, we should have come in from the opposite direction but the road was blocked that way so ended up doing a 3 point turn in an empty site. Once in the right direction we were able to back in with relative ease.

Once we had setup and connected the van to 240 Volt the fridge started to cool down again which at least proved 240 Volt mode was still operating. my attention then turned to trying to get the gas side fixed. This is not my expertise and the last time I tried to fix a gas problem Anne reckoned I nearly burned down the caravan. I called a Dometic agent in Esperance, the closest major centre but unfortunately they were booked out and were unable to look at it until sometime May. Even if they had the time to diagnose the problem there would still be longer delays in getting the parts and fitting. I guess this is one of the downsides of caravanning trying to find someone in the regional areas who has the time to fix urgent problems. I did have a read of the manual where they do give you some test points and expected values so i think I will give diagnosis a try again myself. It is most likely either the Burnner Control or the PCB fridge controller.

We had decided to stay in Hopetoun for a couple of days as stormy weather was approaching. We thought that it was better to ride out the wet weather in a van park rather than a rest area or remote campsite, at least we had power as there would be no sun to charge the batteries. Hopetoun is a small seaside village south of Ravensthorpe. There is a heritage hotel established in 1901 which will be celebrating 150 years in 2026. The main tourist industry revolves around fishing, swimming and visiting natural sites such as bays and ridged top lookouts as well as just general relaxation. We took a walk along the the beach which is easy accessible from the park and walked around to the rocky groyne then into the township. The caravan park has more of a campground feel with the addition of power and water and there is a number of permanent and semi permanent sites. 

Sunday in Hopetoun the weather was quite wet. It pretty much rained for 24 hours non stop till Monday. I believe the offical rainfall reading was 47 mm but seemed like a lot more. Further down the road Munglinup had received a total of 119 mm which caused some flash flooding especially across the South Coastal Hwy. Bruce and Gina had a swimming pool in front of their van and ours had one underneath

 By the time we started to pack up to leave the rain had pretty much abated. We headed out of Hopetoun towards Esperance via the Jericuttup road which saved us having to go back into Ravensthorpe. The road was sealed all the way although there were some rough areas where there were lots of potholes we had to dodge. The water was quite close to going over the road in places but was still passable. Joining the South Costal Hwy again we headed towards Esperance. There were many creeks that were swollen and rapidly flowing but the road was still passable. Arriving at Munglinup we were surprised to see the road had been closed in the direction we had just come from. There were lots of Cars and Trucks parked up waiting for the road to reopen back towards Ravensthorpe. Although vehicles were coming from Ravensthorpe and getting through main roads still hadn’t officially opened the road in the other direction.

 Arriving in Esperance we booked into the Pine Glade Caravan Park previously known as Croakers, Anne and I had stayed here before in 2005. It is in the industrial area and although being school holidays we didn’t think this would be booked out as it is not walking distance to the beach or town like the RAC park. We booked into for 2 days and used this time to see if we could rectify our Fridge’s problem with gas. I had diagnosed the fault lied with the Gas Burner Controller based on the Manuals fault and operating guide and a multimeter. I even tried to make the igniter work with a 1.5 Volt battery 

 Visiting the local Caravan Repairer we thought they may carry the part or at least be able to order one in for us as they were a Dometic agent. It was quite disappointing when we found out that part was no longer made or were there any in stock… anywhere. Basically a $250.00 part changed a $4,000.00 three way fridge to a two way Fridge with no way of fixing it. This put a dent in our travel plans as we were hoping to do a fair bit of off grid camping this time but has now confined us to sites with power. We tried a few other Dometic agents in Esperance but all saying the same thing and there didn’t seem to be any second hand ones either. We even thought about purchasing a small generator, around 1 KVA to run the fridge on 240 V but all we could find were large ones, 2.2 KVA and greater. Hats off the all the people and business that tried to help us, we appreciated your time.

 A bit disappointed about being unable to repair our fridge, we used the rest of the days left to stock-up on groceries and do any running repairs before heading off again. We did go to a Chinese restaurant that evening to celebrate our Anniversary and Gina’s birthday.