From the Chookpen: ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Hi there, yes we are on the road again. We loved our time back in Freo looking after the gallery, catching up with rellies and friends but, boy o boy, its great to be out in the bush again. After leaving "Chookpen Paradise" at Pam and Barry's, a couple of long goodbyes saw us making it only as far as Coogee Beach. For those of you who don't know, that's 8 klms from Freo. We loved it there so much we stayed for 3 days. Plenty of walks along the beach and a top spot for cycling.

It was then off to Toodyay where we had a couple of days relaxing in the bush camp outside of town.

Peacock came to join us for brekkie.

We then ventured off through Northam and stopped at York. What a great little town York is. They provide a free camp with power by the Avon River 100 metres from the town. We hope this catches on in other towns.

York, main street.

Leaving York we headed for Kokerbin Rock. The claim is that it is the 3rd largest monolith in Australia. Everyone knows what the biggest one is (go on, guess) and we are yet to get there. The second is in SA. Google it. It was 38 degrees when we got there and the summit was a 2 hr trek. You guessed this one, we didn't make it to the top. However, we can verify that Kokerbin Rock is a bloody big rock.

Camped nearby the Rock and a storm was on the way. We copped the lot, rain, wind, thunder, lightning and hail. The Chookpen survived and we headed off the next day. We tried to dodge the bad weather but we seemed to drive into it. We copped 2 more thunderstorms when we reached Hyden. As weather watchers go it appears we are failures at this stage.

The town off Shackleton is an interesting place. Just a few houses, a general store and the smallest bank in Australia. But, a few years ago a bloke called Steve decided to set up a gallery and put a few sculptures around the place. He created a sculpture park next to his place and told us his plan is to keep placing his creations all over the town.

Steve's Sculpture Park