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The last bit - Alice to SW Queensland, central NSW, Blackheath to HOME

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  The line on the left is this bit of the trip - the right-most lines were heading north in May.  From Alice to Home there were 2 options - south towards Adelaide and then east, or the more interesting east into Queensland and then south-east across NSW.  Having ignored the "best time of year to visit the outback" instructions a month ago, we continued to drive on super-quiet roads in unreasonably hot conditions.  After 1500km of dirt roads, and passing 10 cars in 5 days, it took a few hours to adjust to driving on the left again and dealing with oncoming traffic!  There was a lot of rain in this region a few weeks earlier and some roads were 4WD-only as they were still wet. Just before Uluru we started to notice that 5th gear was getting noisy.  (For the interested: most likely the rear layshaft bearing, which is a known weakness on these boxes.)  This meant driving the last few thousand kilometres in 4th gear which, at 20km/h slower, allowed plenty of time to appreciate the
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Down the coast to Esperance, north to Kalgoorlie & Wiluna, east Uluru to Alice Springs

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After spending 3 weeks in Geraldton we headed along the coast, past Perth, to Esperance.  Then 900km north to Wiluna and 2100km east to Alice Springs via Uluru and the West MacDonnell Ranges. Down the west coast (sort of) and then east to Esperance We skipped Perth (except Cottesloe Beach for lunch in the cold drizzle - we stayed in Cottesloe for a few months 25 years ago). As we headed around to Esperance we spent some time on the amazing (and varied) coast and some in the bush with massive Kauri and Jarrah trees. The Pinnacles - We were here in 1996 and were a bit surprised to find that WA National Parks have since spent a bazillion dollars building a massive carpark, visitor centre, cafe and concrete paths over the dune.  Once away from all the concrete, however, the amazing pointy bits of rock are still pretty cool.  31/10 Busselton has a wooden jetty that, at 1841m, is the longest wooden jetty in a southern hemisphere town called Busselton (or something like that).  Pretty impress
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