Walpole, Thursday, 26May2005
Thanks to Lesley Smith for passing on the news of Fiona Hampshire.
As her year adviser, along with Pat Cavanagh, I (and Libby and the girls) am very upset by this news. It is very hard to believe and we are very sorry for her family and all her friends in our town. We are sorry we cannot be there with you all but we will be thinking about all of you today.
Warwick and Libby and family

25 May 2005 Albany
Sorry for the delay, finally back on board.
Lots to tell you of course.
We left Perth and headed east to York. This is a very nice old town set in a lovely valley. It is the oldest inland town in WA. I enjoyed the motor museum. The park was nice as was the river Avon with its bridges (esp the suspension walking bridge)
Then on to the road due south. We made it to Broomehill which has some history and a neat little new van park. We were advised in Katanning, the much bigger town just before Broomehill, by locals that their van park was hopeless and we should go 20km further to Broomehill. Proved right as the other people at B'hill had looked at the K'ing park and left in disgust!
Unbelievably green here, they have had buckets of rain since March, looks like Ireland must look!
Made it to Albany on Sunday, a quite day so we could drive around with little traffic. Albany is a spectacular place with lots of hills in it and around it, not unlike Canberra, but with lots of harbour and ocean views. We had rain for much of the first day and overcast for the last 2 days but today, Wed, it has come out blue skies. The place is a picture now!
We stayed at the Big4 van park at Middleton Beach with the Esplanade Hotel close by. This was a terrific spot. Walked along the beach each morning and ate out at the Hotel 2 evenings. Visited the Bird Sanctuary yesterday, lots of very colourful birds on the kids' heads! So lots of photos. Then to the spectacular natural phenomena including the Natural Bridge and the Gap... yoiks!! Not for the nervous!
Today we went straight to the top of Mount Clarence and the views were wonderful, 360 degree view! Now in town collecting all our emails and blogging this, building up an appetite for morning tea.
We have used our GPS device, it is incredible, and the little UHF radios we purchased are great whenever we split up. Lib and I can go to the pub and leave the kids watching DVDs and maintain contact with them at all times.
I have backed up all my pictures to DVD and will post them back to myself when it is full so my laptop is not my sole form of storage, that would be tempting fate! Speaking of fate, those at school who know my habits will be amused to know that I managed to lose the total memory of my little handheld PDA. I am slowly getting over this!!
Must run, we are all well though Kelsie is suffering a head cold as we speak. She is surfing the web next to me with a lovely view of the harbour straight out the window in front of us. Lib and the twins are off up the street somewhere but they have one radio and I have the other so we will be able to find each other very easily!
Hope everyone fine at home, hi to Leanda and family, and can anyone give me news of Fiona Hampshire please. Email me on longwatacrdotnetdotau please. Regards Warwick.