Christmas in The Red Centre

After our stay in Lincoln NP, we pointed the car north and started the big drive to the centre of Australia. The first day we only did 300km’s or so and, on the advice of a fellow traveller, stayed at a picturesque free camp at Fitzgerald Bay.  We spent the afternoon trying, unsuccessfully, to catch Blue Swimmer Crabs.  

Another hole in the ground

The following day we did one of the biggest drives of the trip, over 600km’s to the eccentric opal mining town of Coober Pedy. Knowing what a hot, dusty and desolate place Coober Pedy is, I warned the kids in advance and prepared for a short stay and a lot of complaining.  As it turned out, our visit here was unexpectedly fun.  We went on a tour of an old opal mine and one of the underground houses that many ‘towns folk’ favour.  Then we went ‘noodling’ (digging through piles of rock discarded from the mines) for tiny pieces of opal.  Most of what we found was plain white opal – known as potch, and is worthless, but the boys had to be dragged away and spent the next day’s drive discussing what they would buy with their new-found riches.

As If...

We bush camped that night about half way between Coober Pedy and Uluru.  The big skies and the quality of the light make bush camps in the NT outback beautiful, and, unbelievably, much less fly infested than WA or SA. Perhaps because the temperature is often a fair bit over 27.5 degrees?

One more drive and we reached the township of Yulara, where we planned to spend two days admiring yet more big red rocks.  It’s beautiful to watch the sun set on Uluru. It is also predicably busy, even though we were there in the off-season. We waited until the sun had completely set and the bus loads had vanished and enjoyed Uluru by a full moon (and for a short time as it rose a red full moon due to that evenings lunar eclipse) We also got to watch sunrise against the rock in peace as we were the only ones who walked up to the campground lookout at 5.30am - I’m not sure what was more surprising; that nobody else was there, or that we were up and out at that time of the morning.

Valley of the Winds

Later we walked the 7.5km Valley of the Winds trail through Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). The stunning scenery made the hot, three hour trek well worth the effort (unless you are 6 years old, apparently).  It is also slightly less famous than Uluru and marginally less busy. 

SunRISE over Yulara

Despite the crowds and the long distance we travelled to do this last minute ‘detour’, we were really glad we came.  It is still holds a strange fascination. 

Just in time for Christmas, we made the five hour drive from Yulara to Alice Springs. We were amazed quite how green the red centre is at the moment thanks to the last few months’ unseasonable rain. 

We’ve been wondering what made us decide on Alice Springs for Christmas.  It may seem like a bit of an odd choice of destination, but I think that that was a big part of the appeal. We’ve been to ‘The Alice’ before and knew that the people are friendly and easy going, the weather is warm and the place has a generally good feel to it.  Also, according to a tourist brochure I read, one of Alice Springs' notable attributes is that it is the town nearest to every beach in Australia J  It was a rare marketing genius who thought that one up...

Ultimately though, our Christmas day was filled with plenty that was comfortably familiar; being woken long before we wanted to be by kids too excited to sleep for another second, hurried unwrapping of too many plastic toys and over indulging on food and drink sufficiently that a bit of a mid-afternoon siesta was necessary.  

One cool car...

Daniel's new radio-controlled car got plenty of use around the caravan park, and not just by the children... No TV though, so no Queen’s speech or ‘blockbuster’ movie.  Oh Dear.  Instead, the afternoon and evening were spent lazing around the pool and having the odd ‘sun-downer’ or two with our fellow travellers (until well after the sun had gone down).  Boxing day started slowly for some...

The Eyre Peninsula

After leaving Ceduna, we turned South and headed down the Eyre Peninsula. Famous for it's seafood, though we saw more wheat than anything.

Spotting Sea Lions

We stayed for a night, at a very small township called Baird Bay, 100km’s or so down the coast.  The campsite was a small car park on the edge of town, but it did have a great view of the bay.  It also made a good base to visit nearby Point Labatt which is home to the only permanent colony of Sea Lions in mainland Australia.  The protected colony is at the base of fifty metre high cliffs but a lookout gives a good view of them.  Not sure why, but it was fascinating to watch all these lazy beasts lazing around.  

Boston Bay.  Beautiful, but cold...

Next we headed for the tip of the peninsula to Lincoln National Park, which is only a short drive from the Port Lincoln.  We camped for a couple of days on a point with views to beautiful Boston Bay to the east and the west.  We spent time fishing and caught a couple of undersized Sweep and a lot of Rock Cod (Jules hooked the first two on one cast after about 30 seconds of fishing).  No fish for dinner unfortunately.  

Yeeeeeeee!!!!

One day we went for a look at the giant sand dunes above Wanna.  There was vehicle access and we just couldn’t resist a little play... 

The original plan had been to find a nice beach somewhere on either the coast of the peninsular to spend Christmas. This could have been a great spot, but, we realised that though the Eyre Peninsula is beautiful and peaceful at this time of year. It is also a bit wet, cold and windy.  We were not inspired by the picture of us all sitting in a wind buffeted camper, staring out at the drizzle whilst we opened our pressies.  Sounds a bit like Christmas in England... but in a tent.  Time for a quick rethink of our Christmas plans...

...Time to head north again. But where? A quick look at the map and there was only one logical choice.  Alice Springs of course!  Should be warmish there at this time of year... and only 1600km’s away...

The Nullarbor

Long Road.  The Eyre Highway.

As we turned on to the Eyre Highway at Norseman, at the start of the Nullarbor, the GPS told us to continue straight ahead until the next roundabout....in 1199km’s.  (And even then we were to continue straight ahead!).  It is a long, long straight road.  At one point we drive along a stretch of road for 146.6km’s without a turn (guidebook moment: “The longest straight stretch of road in Australia”).  There aren't too many bends in the rest of it either.  We took three days to make the crossing. 

Big Cliffs.  The Great Australian Bight

Along the way we enjoyed bush camping under huge starry skies. We enjoyed the warm evenings.  We enjoyed the wide open spaces. And we enjoyed watching dolphins swim in the cold waters of the southern ocean whilst clinging on to each other to avoid being blown from the towering cliffs of the Great Australian Bight.  We didn’t enjoy the legendary flies too much. I have a theory that the reason people do such long hours in the car across the Nullarbor is not because of the distances and the, at times, featureless landscape, but because they can’t bring themselves to get out of the car until the sun goes down and the flies, mercifully, disappear.  Our very fashionable fly proof head nets came out quickly whenever we were forced to be outside in daylight hours.   At times it was like moving through a thick black fog... Buzzing black fog.

On the second day we crossed from Western Australia, where we have spent the last two and a half months, into South Australia.  Sometime before we hit Eucla, way before the WA-SA border, a sign instructed us to move our watches forward 45 minutes to Western Central Time.  Western Central Time?  What’s that?  We had never even heard of it.  It was only on subsequent research that we discovered that there is a tiny slice of coastal, eastern, Western Australia that seems to have invented its own, unofficial, time zone.    At the border we obviously missed the sign to move our watches forward again to Australian Central Standard Time and think we should have taken into account daylight saving changes that had happened in some other states whilst we were in WA and for the first time in the trip, not only did we not know what day it was, but now we were no longer certain what time of the day it was either.  In the end I think we moved clocks forward by a couple of hours or so and decided that would be close enough... what did it matter anyway J

Big Wind

On the third day, surprisingly we woke up to a cold, windy and cloudy morning.  I’m sure people who spend a lot of time on the Nullarbor, (as well as going slightly bonkers), would know that it gets cold and cloudy on the Nullarbor at times, but it seemed strange to us.  In some ways it made the landscape even more impressive.

One upside was that the cold helped to keep the flies at bay - Australia bush flies are at their most active between 12 and 27.5 degrees Celsius. (For this and other fascinating facts about Australian bush flies (and dung beetles) check out this that I came across on the internet (In a quieter moment). Fascinating stuff (well, fascinating to me)!

As usual , when we emerge from a few days in ‘the wilderness’ we had mixed emotions when we started to see the farmhouses, fields of wheat and increased car numbers  that signal our return to civilisation.  Still, can’t say we weren’t happy to reach Ceduna and head to the bakery for coffee and iced buns.

Kalgoorlie

A seriously big hole.

Before we head off along the long and not-so-winding road across the Nullarbor, I wanted to quickly put up a short post about Kalgoorlie.  Some people said that we wouldn’t want to spend too long in Kalgoorlie, but I really like the place.  This historic gold-rush town 300km’s north of Esperance has lots of character (and characters).   OK, it does now have a K-Mart and the big supermarkets, but, if you were so inclined, you could still buy a gun in the camping store, get a saddle for your horse from a shop on the high street and then pop to one of the local ‘bordellos’ (as I say, if you were so inclined), so it hasn’t lost its entire ‘wild west’ feel!  We, on the other hand, went to see a seriously big hole in the ground -  the ‘Super Pit’ - which is the largest open cut mine in the southern hemisphere,  we went deep underground on a tour through one of the original mines and we also saw a gold-pouring demonstration which was pretty hot!  Certainly worth a few days visit.  

See you at the other side of the Nullarbor!

Another big truck

Gold!

Downt' pit.  Game-fully employed at last.

A Trio of National Parks

Moody Stirling Range National Park

Leaving Albany, we headed north for 90km’s or so to the Stirling Range N.P.  If we thought Albany was cold, it had nothing on the Stirling Range.  It rained for most of the journey and as we arrived the whole chain of mountains was shrouded in cloud.  We were planning to climb Bluff Knoll, the highest mountain in the range at 1073m, but taking one look at it that afternoon and we quickly decided to make camp and try again the next day.  We were set up by 2pm, and already it was cold enough to need to wear more layers of clothing than we had for 4 months.  The range is the only place in WA with regularly occurring snow in winter.

A bit less moody on top of Bluff Knoll

The next morning we were up and raring to go (well we were raring to go – the kids were mumbling to themselves and kicking stones sullenly around the camp-site).  Bluff Knoll was still topped by cloud but the weather was looking a lot better.  

The walk up was steep and cold with some fantastic views along the way. Even the kids started to enjoy it...especially on the way down...  The scenery was so different to what we have become used to, it was easy to forget what country we were in.

At the bottom of Bluff Knoll.
The boys are happy now!

Once down and warmed up we headed east with no fixed plan for where to stay that night.  We settled on another National Park, this one the Fitzgerald River N.P. about halfway between Albany and Esperance.  We didn't know anything about it other than it has been designated a UNESCO ‘Biosphere’ and as we drove through 50km’s of barren heath land, we were asking ourselves what all the fuss was about, but we reached the coast and soon changed our mind.   We camped right next to (another) beautiful white sandy beach at St. Mary Inlet, with the barren Barrens mountain range as a backdrop.  And we had the whole place to ourselves.

Lucky Bay at Cape Le Grand NP

The next day we cruised into Esperance and picked up supplies before moving 60km’s further east to yet another national park, this one called Cape Le Grand.  We stayed here for a couple nights.  This park was also blessed with stunning white sandy beaches and aquamarine seas.  If only it was about 10 degrees warmer, it would have been perfect...well nearly perfect.  If I was going to split hairs... This national park has sealed roads all the way in and showers (!) and so feels a bit more like a caravan park than a bush camp and when we were there was attracting plenty of  backpackers in campervans who had to be asked politely to turn their music down at midnight.  At least they had better taste in music than the crew at Lane Poole Reserve!  Still a stunning park to visit. Just need to dig up the bitumen.  The boys found cliffs to ‘rock-climb’ on and one day we walked over to the next bay and found an enormous whale jaw-bone on the beach.

Trying their hand at rock climbing

In the jaws of a whale...

Beautiful though this southern coastline is, eventually the cold damp weather got the better of us.  A quick look at the map and a check of the national weather forecast and we were heading quickly north to the historic goldmining town of Kalgoorlie for some heat and flies!

Perth to Albany

Whoops, I’ve been a bit lax with the blog posts recently.

Trees

For the last week or two we have been making our way from Perth to Albany.  A few years ago we spent a couple of weeks over this way and so for the first time since leaving Cape Tribulation in North Queensland, we weren’t ‘breaking new ground’.  It was a bit strange to drive into places that we recognised and in some ways a bit disappointing too.  After the wilder places we’ve been used to, pottering around this neat  south west corner of Australia was, perhaps, just a little bit too civilised for my liking!  Very much a blur of wine and cheese, Devonshire teas, trees (lots of trees) and twee little towns that looked a lot like England, only warmer. I never actually saw a lace doyley, but I was always fearful that they were not too far away.  

So, here in nutshell is a summary of of the last couple of weeks...

In Perth we picked a caravan park at random. It turned out to be in the Swan Valley, just north of the city.  As we drove in, we realised that we had stayed there for a night on our last visit.  We were staying next to a ‘village’ called Guildford, which was a lot like, well, Guildford.  Village greens and quaint churches abound.  Down the road were some pretty vineyards, but the kids were most interested in the Chocolate Factory which offered free chocolate tastings.  It was probably a mistake to go there before lunch...

One afternoon we drove down to Fremantle and had dinner in one of the restaurants there.  We liked ‘Freo’. It has plenty of beautiful old buildings and plenty of enticing cafes, restaurants and bars.  We should have stayed longer!

We were trying to avoid visiting all the same places that we went to on our last visit and so we headed south to a camp site amongst the Jarrah trees in Lane-Poole Nature Reserve. This place had been recommended to us by other campers we met further up the coast.  They probably should have warned us not to turn up on a Saturday.  Being so close to Perth, it can obviously get very busy on the weekend and is obviously a popular spot to come and compete with fellow campers to see who can play their music the loudest and the latest. (80’s Thrash Metal seemed to be a favourite when we were there). 

However, out if shear bloody-mindedness we stayed for another night and what a difference a day makes.  By Sunday afternoon the place was transformed from a place where you would want to keep a very close eye on your valuables, to a peaceful woodland camp with almost no other soul in sight.

Our next stop was the Margaret River region. We have been before but in an attempt to not repeat our last visit, we stayed at a different camp site and tasted different wines!  One day we drove down to Cape Leeuwin, the far South-East and did a walk from the Indian Ocean to the Southern Ocean, which was all of about fifteen metres J

Moving on swiftly, we headed towards a national park called Shannon NP, primarily because it was about half way between where we were and Albany.  On the way we stopped in a small town called Pemberton, for tea and scones of course. 

Shannon NP is a beautiful forest, but we found ourselves at a bit of a loss for something to do for the afternoon.  We decided on the 48km scenic drive around the forest, complete with audio commentary for those who tuned in to the appropriate FM frequency...  Jules and I found the whole thing fairly interesting and at a push could now tell a Karri from a Marri from a Jarrah.  The kids, on the other hand were far less impressed and were heard to mutter not so subtly, that it was (and I quote); “all just a bunch of stupid dumb boring trees”.  I guess that scenic drives are not yet their thing. 

The next day we continued our drive through the forests and, deciding that it was time for the kids to have an Environmental Science lesson and become more tree-friendly, we called in at the Tree Top Walk in Walpole-Nornalup NP.  Here you wander along a metal walkway suspended up to 40 metres above the ground, designed to sway in the wind to emulate the movement of the rare tingle trees that it threads through.  There is also a ‘discovery centre’, for the kids to become more educated about and therefore supposedly take more of an interest in these stupid dumb boring trees.  We did visit here on our last trip, but this one was worth the return  for a bit of fun. 

That afternoon, we arrived in Albany.  I remember thinking on our last visited here that it would be a really great place to spend a few days, if only it would stop raining and warm up.  After a few days here this time, I still think the same thing! And I am not talked dramatic, awe-inspiring rain as you do sometimes experience in Australia.  The weather forcast actually used the word ‘drizzle’, which I can’t remember ever having seen being used here before...  Even though it rained for most of the time we were there, we still had a good time.  We happened to be there for the Christmas pageant and watched them turn the Christmas lights on.  It was strange and yet familiar to stand and listen to Christmas Carols in the cold and wet.

The boys at the helm of the Cheynes IV, one of the last
whale-chasers to operate out of Australia

We decided it was time for another History lesson for the boys and so we made a visit out to Whale World which is built at the site of the old Cheynes Whaling station, the last whaling station in Australia to close down (as made famous of course by Chris Pash in his excellent book, The Last Whale J ). At Whale World we took a tour around the series of exhibits which give an interesting and balanced view of the whaling industry in Albany.  I could tell that Elliot wasn’t convinced that anyone could ever have thought that whaling was an acceptable industry and was eyeing the guide suspiciously throughout the tour.

The next morning we headed north out of Albany, on a road we’d never been on before,  towards a mountain range we’d never visited before...Ahhh...Happy again.