Thursday 27th August 2020: It’s goodbye to Anna Plains this morning, we are booked at Pardoo Station Stay for a couple of nights.  We stop at Sandfire Roadhouse for our morning break – it’s pretty busy and a bit quirky in the outdoor area. The 13km road into Pardoo is a well-formed gravel road. Obviously plenty of water here as well, as there is lawn everywhere and sprinklers going all the time. 

Pardoo Station is a 200,000 hectare working cattle property covering a diverse range of landscapes from rich tidal flats to rolling spinifex plains – we won’t get to see this or the beach as it is some distance away, without a 4WD. It is now owned by Singaporeans who have changed a few things about the park – you now have to book either online or by phone and it is cash free – even an ice-cream at the shop goes on credit card and non-contact to the park with code numbers etc to enter – worked well for us. 

At 5 each day the fire is lit and it becomes a gathering point – only about a dozen there last night as the Eagles were on – those dozen have been coming for years and come in May/June and go home in Sept. Fishing, the warm climate and now the friendships made keep bringing them back. There’s a lawn bowling green here in bad repair, not sure that anyone uses it and a good swimming pool.

Friday 28th August 2020: Relaxed day today - few jobs done and then we actually play cards in the van in the air conditioning - it's getting quite hot up here now. Five o'clock we join the crowd around the fire and meet some interesting people (the Taylors) who know Darryle (hockey) and Warren (Kalgoorlie).