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.

On the way to Perth

Nature's Window: a hole in a rock

After leaving Shark Bay we continued our journey South along the coast.  One thing we hadn’t realised when planning the trip was that at this time of year, this area of WA is notorious / famous for wind.  Re-reading our guidebooks we now noticed that this coast is described as ‘windsurfer and kite-boarder mecca’. Great news for the boarders I’m sure, but when your home is made from several square metres of heavy, sail-like canvas, not so much fun.    We arrived in Kalbarri, a twee little holiday town, and it was blowing a gale. The whole time we were there the trailer creaked and swayed ominously.   

We ended up staying in Kalbarri for four nights, which was probably a night or two longer than necessary (though it is actually nice to feel like we have stayed somewhere too long for a change!).  We had the idea that we could wait out the wind, just like we did in Cape Range, and so enjoy a few peaceful days by the sea.  Whilst we were there we saw dolphins playing in the bay, went fishing (and caught nothing but blowfish), fed the pelicans, drank coffee and mooched around the shops. We also went into Kalbarri National Park and went to the big attraction there; ‘Natures Window’, which is a rock with a hole in it. I was pleased to find a second-hand book shop to top up our reading supplies.  As we drove out of town, he wind was still strong enough to blow the car and trailer around the road.

We were heading to what we hoped would be a more sheltered camp in the lee of a headland called Sandy Cape, only a couple of hundred km’s north of Perth.  On our way we called into Geraldton; a fair sized town which we decided had a really good feel to it.  We decided that the kids were in need of a history lesson and so called into the Museum of Western Australia which was well organised and we all enjoyed.  As we walked through the door the kids were offered a museum ‘bingo’ sheet. This treasure hunt style game had them tearing around the museum at break-neck speed, hunting down a series of exhibits featured on the bingo sheet, clearly much to the consternation of serious museum goers. Of course Jules and I just frowned and ‘tutted’ along with everyone else and pretended that the boys were somebody else’s’ children.   That night we stayed in a free camp a few km’s outside of Geraldton, sheltered from the wind behind some big bushy trees (sheltered, that is, until the wind changed direction at one o’clock in the morning and once again we were out guying down flapping canvas in our, erm, nightwear).

The Pinnacles: Rocks in the ground

Next up we had what turned out to be another four night stop at Sandy Cape Recreation Park.  This camp area is on the beach but nestled in behind enormous sand dunes (which the kids had a ball sliding down on boogie-boards) and it was indeed a more sheltered spot than our last few camps. We got the best camp spot in the whole site – next to the beach, away from the main site and under a beautiful old shady tree (other campers came to describe it as the ‘rock-star site’).  We could often see them eying our site enviously as they walked past on the way for a swim.  We also made a day trip down to the Pinnacles, which are a bunch of rocks sticking out of the ground (The sky was a bit moody and overcast whilst we were there so I am not sure we saw them, literally, in their best light.  We walked through them, which was OK, and then drove through them, which was more fun). 

Yes, Yes, another white sandy beach...

Sandy Cape was a great place to relax for a few days and also gave us chance to adjust our mindsets about the rest of the trip: Over the last few weeks, the scenery has changed dramatically from desert to farmland.  We are now clearly out of The Wild Places and although the South coast we will no doubt again offer some relatively remote spots, we are feeling like the rest of the trip will have a distinctly different character.

Something to do with Gravity...

Talking of a change of scenery; rather than heading straight to Perth after Sandy Bay, we headed inland slightly and made for a two night stop in the small Avon Valley NP, 80Km’s or so north-east of Perth.  On the way there we decided that it was time for the kids to have a physics lesson and so we called in at the Gravity Discovery Centre near Gingin, which is the public education centre at the Australian International Gravitational Observatory (AIGO) full of interactive displays about all things gravity and cosmology related .  Though their eyes did seem to glaze over when I tried to explain to them the significance of the search for the Grand Unified Theory, they did seem to enjoy chucking water balloons off the top of a 45 metre tall steel tower (the leaning tower of Gingin), all in the name of science of course.

Can’t put it off any longer. Next stop: the CITY of Perth! 

Down to Shark Bay

Herald Bight - definitely a favourite

For the last ten days we have been making our way further south.  After leaving Exmouth we dropped back down below the tropic of Capricorn, which was marked with a little sadness.  I’ve noticed a couple of things have changed at these lower latitudes. 

Firstly, it has started to get distinctly cooler in the evenings – it has not been unknown for us to pull out jumpers these last few nights and retire to the tent to escape the chill.  

Secondly, I’m convinced that there is a touch less friendliness along the way now.  A controversial statement I know, but I have noticed that the ‘travellers wave’, that subtle raising of the first few fingers of the right hand from the steering wheel to acknowledge a fellow oncoming traveller, which was ubiquitous across Far North Queensland, The Territory and Northern WA, has decreased markedly as we have moved south.   (This wave, by the way, is not to be confused with the Yorkshire wave of my homeland, which is more of an almost imperceptible lifting of only the right index finger in recognition of a fellow countryside motorist). It’s an interesting point to note that even though the northbound southerners are clearly an unfriendly bunch, I am now so conditioned to wave at every car that comes our way, that each time we get to even a minor town, I feel a bit like Mick ‘Crocodile’  Dundee when he first hits the streets of New York and tries to introduce himself to every pedestrian he passes, with nothing but puzzled and suspicious looks in return.  Anyway, I digress...

Blowholes...

After Cape range we spent a night in Coral Bay, which is a sweet little seaside town, followed by a few nights at a good free camp at Point Quobba.  The weather by this point was getting pretty wild and wooly at times, but that did help to add a bit of gusto to the nearby Blowholes.

We’ve spend the last week or so in and around Shark Bay World Heritage Area. I have to admit to having my doubts before we arrived. The headline act for the area is of course the world famous dolphin feeding experience at Monkey Mia.  Sounds great, but we had heard a few stories of hundreds of people attending each feeding session and of course only very few being picked to actually feed the dolphins.  

The boys feeding 'Puck' the dolphin

However, as it turned out, when we were there, there were probably only thirty or so other onlookers and as luck would have it, the boys were picked to give a dolphin its fishy breakfast.  There is also a coffee shop on site – some development can be a positive thing.  All in all we had a really good morning there. 

We've had worse camps....

Better still, our next stop was a camp further along the peninsula at the (relatively) not as well known François Peron National Park.   This National Park is criss-crossed with 4WD only sand tracks (I like this form of ‘natural selection’:-) ) and after travelling along 50 km’s or so of these tracks we arrived at a perfect white sandy beach called Herald Bight where we pulled up right on the dunes and spent three days in what was probably my favourite camp of the whole trip!  Most of the time we either snorkelled, fished or just relaxed.  We even had company as John, Maggie, Fabien, Milly and Broughton, a family we had befriended along the way, were camped with us for part of the time

Fish...

Between us, we caught so many Garfish that we twice had fresh fish for dinner and on our last day I had to persuade the boys to take a break from pulling them out of the water (I really prefer to catch fish to eat, rather than for ‘sport’ and there are only so many Garfish that we could swallow, not to mention fillet!)  Even Jules got in on the action one afternoon, pulling out another nice little fish.  A truly beautiful spot.

Of course, as previously mentioned; the laws of Ying and Yang dictate that there has to be a balance in life and so, predictably after such a serene few days, we had to have a little drama before we left...

Too busy digging to take photos, so here is a shot of
the boys on a mission

That beautiful soft white sand that we had so enjoyed, obviously did not want us to leave so soon, and once again, the trusty anchor-trailer lived up to its name.  Having hitched up and jumped in the car to depart,  our wheels immediately dug themselves into the deep soft sand and we moved forward not an inch.  It took us a hot and sweaty hour and a half of digging, removing a fair bit of the weight from the car and trailer and using the car mats as traction-aids, before we were able to finally extricate ourselves.  So, several hours after we planned, we arrived back in the pleasant little town of Denham, where we quite rightly treated ourselves to lunch (with dessert!) and lots of cold drinks. 

Of course, getting stuck is all part of the fun of off-road travel, and in truth I’m sure none of us would have minded getting stuck in such a great spot for a little while longer...

To Exmouth and Cape Range

Try this: find yourself a map of Australia, a pin, and a piece of string.  Fix the string to the pin and put the pin in the map through ‘Sydney’. Now draw an arc with the string ‘til you find, the furthest  you can get from Sydney as the crow flies. 

Can’t be bothered?  OK then, I’ll tell you;  It’s Cape Range NP just below Exmouth, which is, of course, where I’m writing this update from.  We are also pretty much halfway around in terms of time – three months gone already!  I did feel a bit melancholy when I realised this.  I mentioned it to Jules and she said, “Excellent, we’ve still got three months to go”.  Probably sums up the differences in our personalities perfectly.

It terms of actual kilometres travelled, the keen sighted will have noticed that I stopped recording daily distances travelled fairly early on.  Deadlines and statistics seem to have become increasingly unimportant.  We leave when we leave, travel ‘til we stop and stay ‘til we feel like moving on again.  It’s rare that I know what day of the week it is anymore.  That said, I can report that since leaving Manly Vale in August, we have travelled just short of 16,000 km’s and that may well be around half way in terms of distance as well... so each kilometre we do from here on in is taking us closer to home.

Anyway, time for a quick update of the last week or so.  It will have to be quick though as I’m being plagued by enormous flying ants that are crawling over my lap –top screen like some kind of funky screen saver.

We left Karijini and headed to the mining town of Tom Price. We only stayed on night, but did take a tour of the Rio Tinto mine of the same name.  It’s hard to appreciate the magnitude of these types of operations until you see them up close.

Next we headed North to Millstream Chichester NP.  It’s not a particularly well known national park, but is a great place to spend a few days relaxing. The temperature touched 40 degrees, but we didn’t care as we were camped on the banks of the Fortescue River and alternated between sitting in the shade of a tree, reading, and jumping into the river to cool off whenever all that activity became too strenuous.

Finally we headed West again, via the dirt road to the mining town of Pannawonica until we hit the coast -road again and then onto Cape Range NP (with a quick stop in Exmouth for supplies and coffee).

Ningaloo Reef runs just offshore of Cape Range NP and has some excellent snorkelling and fishing.  Unfortunately, we had some big winds on the day we arrived. Even the most beautiful white beaches and aqua-marine water is difficult to appreciate when even a quick walk along the beach results in a layer of skin being sand-blasted away.  On the second day the wind dropped and what a beautiful place this became.  We snorkelled every morning and fished every afternoon.  

At first the Ospreys that often hunted by our beach camp were catching more fish than we were, but once we found our mojo, we managed to pull out a few good sized fish.  In the end we stayed for five nights and could have probably stayed longer.   

To be honest, it was only  the need to replenish our food, drinking water and alcohol supplies, and the desire to wash (in something other than saltwater) that made us leave.