Because of the heat we decided to head off for cooler placed. We packed up at night for an early start when all the power when out. Not a good thing. After checking everything we realized we needed new batteries. (With the van being second hand the batteries were still the originals once and over 8 years old.) We rang around the next day and ended up going to Northan. Northan was a surprise. It seemed to be as old as York but while York is dying Northan seem to be surviving. We did a walk along the main street with a walking map that the school children had produced, telling us about the different old buildings. We found it very interesting. Northan is the start point for The Avon Decent. (For those that don’t know the Avon Decent is a big thing for WA. It is a boat race for speedboats as well as canoe. It starts at Northan and ends up at Perth. It is over two days; no matter how much water is in the river it is still held.   I have seen it where the people have to carry they boats or canoe over dry areas to get to the next bit of water. People come from allover the world to take park. It not for the faint hearted.

We had lunch, picked up our new batteries ($700 aw) and headed back to York.   We stayed another night just to make sure everything was ok before heading off to Dryandra.