• Kevin Dinn
  • Rebecca Dinn
  • Kevin Dinn
  • Rebecca Dinn

Bec & Kev's Big Lap

A 363-day adventure by Kevin & Rebecca Read more
  • Pink Lake (Hutt Lagoon Port Gregory)

    November 13, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    A mixture of very salty water and algae gives some lakes in WA this pink colour. Mid day when the sun is high gives the deepest pink hues. Stunning.

  • Geraldton

    November 17, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 27 °C

    Geraldton was the first reasonable sized town we have been in for months. If was really windy again, with few things to explore but a nice foreshore and reasonable beaches.

    We really appreciated being able to shop though and stock up. Woolworths, Bunnings, Aldi and Kmart all got a good workout!Read more

  • Cervantes

    November 23, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Cervantes is a nice little costal town with beautiful beaches. It’s not far from the Pinnacles Desert and was lovely and quiet during the week …….until Friday when every man, dog and boat came up from Perth (2 hours away) for the weekend!Read more

  • Jurien Bay and Sea lions

    November 24, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Up the road from Cervantes (where we were staying) was Jurien Bay.

    It had more amazing white beaches which we and the dogs got to ourselves for a while.

    It is also renowned for its islands with sea lion colonies. We flew the drone (2.5kms!) out to one island and saw some just hanging out. We also went on a boat tour out to one island and snorkelled amongst them. Having them swimming right up to you was a bucket list experience!Read more

  • Wongan Hills

    November 28, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 25 °C

    Wongan Hills was a nice quiet country town. We spent our 3 working days here which worked out well as there wasn’t much else to do.

    We appeared to be the only tourists in town! The town is surrounded by 3 hills so there were good lookouts over the central wheat belt of WA.Read more

  • Albany

    December 2, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Next on our odyssey we decided to bomb down to the south coast and visit some of the iconic beach side towns before the school holidays were unleashed! So our next stop was Albany.

    On the way we saw lots of wheat! I mean, about the bottom fifth of the whole state seems to be a wheat field.

    In Albany we got a very diverse array of experiences. We saw amazing coastlines from craggy cliffs to azure beaches. There were some awe inspiring geological features with sea bridges and huge granite boulder formations.

    We also experienced humanity at its most diverse from watching the local Christmas pageant from a rather delightful Italian restaurant, to a forest full of chain saw sculptures, to a historical whaling station which was equal parts interesting and awful.

    BTW: the tracking went a bit wonky for a week or two but it's back now
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  • Hopetoun Farmstay

    December 9, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    We stayed 10mins inland from the pretty little costal town of Hopetoun on the edge of the Fitzgerald National park on a wheat farm.

    5 ‘off grid’ campsites were available, and ours was completely secluded in amongst the bush with a short walk to a river. It was very quiet, beautiful and relaxing.

    We explored the coast and stunning beaches and bays and enjoyed the National Park with wonderful scenery and diverse flora.

    The Royal Hakea plant grows prolifically throughout the park.
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  • Wave Rock

    December 11, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Wave Rock is an iconic destination in central WA.

    It is quite a spectacular rock formation which was formed over millions of years. Essentially, the land was at the level of the top lip of the wave, underground the rock got eaten away more by the water than the drier surface layers. Then the dirt got washed away exposing the wave shape.

    As well as the Wave Rock, there were a bunch of other interesting and quirky things to do like exploring other rocky features, floating in a salt pool, and seeing a museum of old lace and toy soldiers!
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  • Rottnest Island

    December 17, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 21 °C

    We spent one of our Perth days cycling around Rottnest Island with our friends Stephan and Kate. The dogs were in kennels for the day. We loved the island and the Quokkas. They were everywhere just living their best life untroubled by humans or predators. The island is stunning and not a car in sight. We enjoyed the cycling but didn’t realise it was quite so hilly!Read more

  • Perth

    December 20, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    Perth was more of a practical stop before we headed down to Bunbury for Christmas. We did manage a bit of exploring of the city, Fremantle and surrounds and also caught up with friends which was lovely but also had to get the car service and finish the Christmas shopping. Nice city and easy to get around.Read more

  • Bunbury (and Christmas)

    December 25, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Chrtistmas in Bunbury was awesome!

    We had family and friends join us, and Rebecca performed miracles to cook up and serve her usual full Christmas dinner despite doing it all in a Webber bbq and out of a caravan! All the family loves how special she makes Christmas, but this was especially memorable.

    We also went on a boat tour where we saw more dolphins in one place than ever before. And explored the local towns like Busselton and more amazing and picturesque beaches.
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  • Margaret River

    December 30, 2023 in Australia

    Unfortunately we didn’t get to spend as much time in Margaret River as we wanted as it was really busy due to school holiday.

    We explored some areas of the northern section of the area with the kids over Christmas so now we ventured into the town itself and explored the southern part of the coast.

    The town of Margaret River was lovely and the costal areas stunning.
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  • Maranup Ford

    December 31, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    Maranup Ford is a working farm and Homestead on the Blackwood river near Bridgetown in central western WA.

    The farm was established and the homestead built in 1889. The gardens run down to the Blackwood river.

    We spent a quiet, relaxing 4 nights here over NY. We explored the Margaret River region and the nearby towns.
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  • Narrogin

    January 3, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 21 °C

    Narrogin was a quiet little town in the central wheatbelt area of WA. It was still quiet post Christmas and most of the town was shut and deserted! We didn’t stay long. Our site was next to a nature reserve with a variety of walks to explore which was just as well as there was little else to do 😁Read more

  • Bruce Rock

    January 7, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Bruce Rock was another quiet country town on the our way east across WA.

    We certainly had things to ourselves. The caravan park was beautiful, but basically empty, and the same could be said about the town :-)

    But we found some cool things to do. There were many amazing natural wonders, like a granite rock we drove out to which is the 3rd biggest monolith in Australia (Uluru being the 1st). We also saw some beautiful wildflowers, as well as a lot of wheat!

    We saw Australia's smallest bank and had nice drinks and meals at the town pub. The caravan park also had a great public pool which was one of the neatest pools we'd ever seen. We went there for a swim, water sliding and even mini-golf!
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  • Westonia

    January 10, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    Westonia was a funny, quirky and very hot outback country town.

    While we were there the temp hovered around 40 degrees in the day which meant it was hard to do much!

    The town embraced its history with a fabulous museum and replica historical building facades. It was very well done.
    It had a good Tavern too!
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  • Kalgoorlie

    January 13, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 39 °C

    Kalgoorlie was awesome! Big trucks, big diggers, big holes, big pipelines! (You may have gathered already that Rebecca isn't writing this description 😊 )

    Kalgoorlie is an iconic old gold mining town. It has gone from thousands of prospectors descending on it in a gold rush, to one of the largest gold mines, and holes, in the world.

    The result is not exactly picturesque, but it is quite fascinating. Some random points of interest:

    - There were many beautiful old pubs and other buildings
    - There were many goldmines dug over the years, some of them are in the town and fenced off so people don't fall in
    - An Australian billionaire (Alan Bond) was the impetus to combining all the mine rights into a single entity and digging a huge open pit mine instead
    - Many early miners simply died of thirst as they were from places like Ireland and they had no concept of a place with no water
    - Water was brought in on camel train, now it is pumped in through a 566 km pipeline from Perth!
    - The main street is so wide to allow a camel train to do a U turn
    - Out of 6 huge truck loads, 5 are just waste rock, and the one with gold ore has a total of a golf ball sized amount of gold

    On our second last day there were some big storms which caused a power outage, which turned out to be quite severe. We spent a very hot night (28 deg) and next morning the entire town had no power, mobile or internet. And hence no shops, petrol, or even Google maps! And it was going to be 42 deg!

    Thankfully we were leaving that day, and filled up with fuel the day before. So we got out and to Esperance OK, but it turned out to be a multi-day fiasco for Kalgoorlie, worst in 30 years apparently.
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  • Esperance

    January 21, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    Esperance was another town on the south coast of WA (like Albany) and it was our last stop before heading to SA.

    The distinctive feature of Esperance was it's amazingly beautiful beaches. With white sand and super-clear, azure water, they were quite incredible. In fact one survey has given one of them (Lucky Bay) the title of best beach in the world. On top of that you can drive on most beaches which takes a bit of getting used to, but it is super convenient too.

    We also checked out other cool features of Esperance like the local brewery, and a full sized replica of Stone Henge made of granite blocks!
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  • Three days across the Nullarbor. Day one

    January 25, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 21 °C

    We planned three days to do the Nullarbor crossing (Eyre highway) at Norseman WA and drove through the day past the Balladonia roadhouse and picked a camping spot in the bush down a dirt track. Totally quiet and isolated. Great stop for the first nightRead more

  • Eucla - Second day across the Nullabour

    January 26, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    We left the bush camp and headed along the highway, a few hours later to arrive at the historical township of Eucla.

    It’s about 20 mins down a dirt track off the main highway to the old beach settlement. No one lives here now (how anyone ever lived here I’ll never understand) but in the late 1800s there was a telegraph station and a small township.

    Supplies were shipped in hence the old jetty. It really is ‘isolated and in the middle of nowhere’ in a very harsh environment. We felt quite vulnerable walking along the massive deserted beach
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  • Bunda Cliffs -Third day across Nullabour

    January 27, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    The Nallabour National park incorporating the Bunda cliffs is amazing.

    We were overwhelmed and so lucky to be able to camp on the cliff with such an awesome view.

    We crossed the WA SA border and stopped initially at the Nullabour roadhouse to refuel then carried on just managing to find a dirt track leading to a free camping area on the cliffs.

    After spending a peaceful night here (we didn’t want to leave) we carried along the highway to Penong and the windmill museum before our next stop on the Eyre Penninsula in SA.
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  • Eyre Peninsula. Venus Bay

    January 28, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Our first stop on the Eyre Peninsula was Venus bay. A tiny town consisting of a shop/tavern and a small caravan park in a beautiful bay with a stunning cliff top walk.

    Close by was Port Labatt seal colony and the amazing Talia limestone caves.Read more

  • Port Lincoln

    February 2, 2024 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Port Lincoln was at the southern tip of the Eyre Peninsula (the very right hand end of the Great Australian Bight). It was a bit of a surprise package.

    We had heard it was known for fishing and oysters, and it was certainly good for fresh sea food. But it was also brimming with beautiful scenery, wildlife, and even some very nice fench cafe's and wineries!Read more

  • Tumby Bay

    February 5, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 20 °C

    Tumby Bay was a cute little town on the way to our next stop at Port Gibbon. We were told to stop here to view the street art and we weren’t disappointed. You had to seek out some of the art as it wasn’t always obvious.Read more

  • Port Gibbon

    February 6, 2024 in Australia ⋅ 🌬 20 °C

    We loved our 4 days off grid, beach camping at Port Gibbon. A great place to spend our workdays with fabulous views and walks and the whole beach to explore. We had a small campsite to ourselves on the edge of the beach. It was really quiet with the long mostly isolated beach to ourselves.Read more