YORKE AND EYRE PENINSULAS

Before I get carried away with my blog, I had better correct a mistake I made in my last one. In mentioning the movement of the sandhills on the Nullarbor Plains, it should have read 11 metres, not 11 kilometres. I have changed it but thought I’d mention it. If the sandhills were moving at 11 kms. a year, Australia would definitely be in deep trouble!
On one of my earlier blogs I put a photo of a lizard which we had seen in Le Sueur National Park. We had never seen one of these lizards before so stopped for the photo. Since then we have seen literally hundreds of them. They are always crossing the roads but amazingly we don’t see that many dead ones. We have seen lots of snakes over the past month, mostly tiger snakes, which are not to be taken lightly. It’s because the weather is getting warmer and they are coming out to laze in the sun. I have yet to meet one head on, and here’s hoping that I don’t.
I finished my last blog off as we arrived in Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula. This Peninsula is in a beautiful part of South Australia with gorgeous beaches, bays, caves and limestone cliffs. Streaky Bay is part way down the west side and is one of the nicest places we have been on this trip. Thank you Marilyn and Peer for suggesting it. The caravan park is right on the beach and in the late afternoon, the water in the bay looks like a millpond with amazing reflections. The whole peninsula is known for the seafood and we made sure we sampled our share of them. We had met Marie and Denis in Kalgoorlie and really hit it off with them When we arrive at a new van site, Jim & I both have our designated jobs to do to get everything sorted. Most couples work this way with the wife sorting out the inside and the husband doing the outside, like the power; water; awning etc. In Kalgoorlie Marie really impressed me with her ability to plug in the power and connect the very complicated water system they had on their relatively new van; that is until she went to walk away and the whole hose system leapt off the connection just as she walked past and water went everywhere. She got a hell of a fright but it was a great sight and I couldn’t stop laughing. I think she was only putting on a show for me! That led to an offer of a drink on our part, the replacement of the connection and a friendship. Jim calls them our “Second best friends” which tickled their fancy. They have followed us across the Nullarbor and all around the Eyre Peninsula. They had bought some oysters on their way from Ceduna to Streaky Bay so the first night there we quickly demolished them, along with a few wines. The next night we helped them eat prawns on the beach and on our way to Port Lincoln the next day we bought 2 dozen oysters for the four of us as an entrée. The oysters were farmed and not as big as our Bluff oysters but tasted just as good. While in Streaky Bay we drove to Cape Bauer where there is a sea lion colony. We stood on the cliffs and looked down on the seals which were all basking in the sun. There were about 50 of them and quite a few little ones as well. They were like lambs when it came to feeding time; the young ones would start making this really unusual sound and wait for the mother to answer them, then they would waddle over to Mum for their meal. They were fascinating to watch. Some of the seaside bays around the peninsula are really isolated with only a few houses, mostly owned by fishermen. The areas reminded me of views we saw of the Falklands during their war with little white houses on hills, no trees, and very wind swept.
Our next stop, Port Lincoln, was a real surprise. We had expected a much smaller town but it has a very busy fishing and grain port, a huge tuna industry and some beautiful homes with great views. One of the most beautiful homes we saw is owned by a tuna fisherman and is built to the same plan as “Southfork” in the TV series “Dallas” and overlooks the Spencer Gulf. He really is the master of all he surveys. While in Port Lincoln we had a day trip to Coffin Bay National Park. Like all national parks in Australia, this park had good sealed roads to lovely sea views, beaches, camping areas and the most amazing sand dunes. We saw an adult emu with 5 little chicks crossing the road in front of us. We grabbed the camera and got great photos. We have heard that once the female emu hatches the eggs she then passes the baby caring job over to the father who can then be responsible for up to 3 different families. It was a great sight, watching them walk so elegantly down the road.
The Yorke Peninsula was next on our list but on the way we worked our way up the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula visiting Tumby Bay, Cowell and Whyalla. It was quite a cold windy day and not conducive to longer visits, so we moved on to Port Augusta for a fuel and groceries stop and then on to the Yorke Peninsula. Our GPS which is normally very reliable, must have woken in a bad mood that morning, as instead of taking us down the coast as we thought it would, took us through little towns on the most awful roads. As dusk was falling, and we still hadn’t reached our planned overnight stop, we had a free stop in a little town with a pub and a church and nothing else and next morning moved onto Coobowie which is a little town beside the sea right down the bottom of the peninsula. It was very windy while we were there but we decided to have a day in Innes National Park, which had come highly recommended. I’m so glad we went as the scenery was fantastic. This park is right on the south coast and is wide open to the winds and stormy seas of the Great Southern Ocean. There are over 20 shipwrecks off this coast, some visible from the cliffs. The sea is eating into the land all round this coast and it won’t be long before some of the roads have to be moved further inland. We thoroughly enjoyed our day there.
The lock on our van door broke a few days ago,so the only agent we could find on the route we were travelling was in Murray Bridge. We booked in there for 2 nights and really loved our stay. Murray Bridge is named after the 2 huge bridges that cross the Murray River in the town. The Murray River was almost empty a coupe of years ago but after all the rain over the past 2 years is now full and flowing right through to the outlet at Goolwa. It is an amazing sight and it was great to see so many people enjoying it on Sunday. There were lots of boats and water skiers on it but it was the house boats that really grab your attention. There are hundreds of them moving slowly up and down the river, some privately owned and some hire boats. We saw a huge river cruise boat berth that takes customers on 5 night cruises up the river from Murray Bridge. It only takes 40 customers and costs about $200 per night. It looked very nice.
My photos this time show the emu chicks; the river cruise boat; wildflowers and the sea lions.
The van lock is now fixed and we are on the move again down the coast towards Robe and Mt. Gambier. There will probably be only one more blog before we fly home so look forward to that. See you all soon.

FAREWELL TO WESTERN AUSTRALIA

On my last blog we had travelled as far south as possible on the West Coast of WA so our route then turned eastward. Our first stop was Walpole, a small town surrounded by tall forests. The scenery was very similar to forest drives in NZ. but the trees were very different. There were tall karri trees, not unlike our kauri. They grow as tall and as straight as kauri but the girth is not so wide. There were marri trees, similar to karri, but with a red sap; and red tingle trees which can grow to a height of 70 metres. We walked the Tree Top Walk, an exhilarating walk that starts at ground level and gradually climbs to a height of 40 metres above the ground. You are walking above the treetops on a walkway that consists of sixty metre long trusses supported by steel pylons. The walkway sways, to give the impression of swaying like the trees. It’s like a huge suspension bridge but anyone who suffers from vertigo or motion sickness may not enjoy it as much as we did. It’s a magnificent feat of engineering. We visited another forest walk where the tingle trees have hollowed out bases and saw a photo of an old Holden sitting inside the trunk. We loved Walpole and the interesting forest walks.
It was then onto Albany on the south coast. When we were planning this year’s trip, our friends Marilyn and Peter who we met on the road last year, very kindly did a spreadsheet with suggested stops; distances; caravan parks etc. It has been most helpful and in most cases we have followed their suggestions, which saved us a lot of planning. We meet lots of people in van parks with all sorts of suggestions as to what and what not we should see and do. We have learnt to trust our own instincts and if we don’t like a place, we only have ourselves to blame. Luckily that hasn’t many times at all but as we were approaching Perth, some people suggested we not bother travelling further south than Perth and head directly to Kalgoorlie. I am so glad we didn’t listen to their advice. Albany was such a lovely spot and Esperance was better again. Albany is situated overlooking King George Sound. A lot of the buildings are very old but the waterfront is all being refurbished and the drives around the harbour were magnificent. We saw whales just beyond the breakers at Middleton Beach and the view from Mount Clarence on the beautiful sunny day we went up there, was spectacular. Mount Clarence is home to the Anzac War Memorial where the first Anzac dawn service was held in 1930. Albany was the last port of call for many Anzac troops on their way to Gallipolli. I will always associate Albany with the best iced coffee I have ever tasted. It was totally yummy!
We walked out to The Gap and The Natural Bridge. The Gap is a sheer chasm that is viewed from above from the safety of a wire cage where you can watch the seething mass of foam and crashing surf 30 metres below. The Natural Bridge is a large piece of granite, which has been eroded by huge seas to form an arch. This granite is similar to granite found in Antarctica and scientists believe it is proof that Australia was part of Antarctica 40 million years ago. The scientists also say that Australia is moving away from Antarctica by 5 centimetres a year.
We then moved on to Esperance. We collect glossy brochures from Information Centres when we arrive in a new town but no brochure prepared us for the beauty of this town’s beaches. The Ocean Drive and Cape Le Grand National Park were just beautiful. The beaches here are declared as Australia’s whitest and the sea is a beautiful turquoise. We had been enjoying lovely warm sunny weather and that added to the beauty of the area. We spent 3 days there just visiting beaches and sitting in the sun. There is a sea lion that has made the Esperance jetty his home and he really plays to an audience. The day we were there he was standing on his back flippers begging for fish before swimming back to the beach for a well deserved lie in the sun on his back.
Kalgoorlie was our next stop. It meant a deviation of 180km both ways but it was worth it. We had visited Kalgoorlie for a couple of hours as part of our trip on the Indian Pacific a few years ago but it was nothing like I remembered. It is now a very modern city with a population of 30,000. Life still revolves around the gold mine at the edge of town but it doesn’t dominate like Mount Isa or Port Hedland. Alan Bond, before he fell from grace, decided that if he could buy all the leases, ( about 6 I think) in the area, the mines could then form a huge super pit. Unfortunately things didn’t work out so well for Mr, Bond but his idea was picked up and a consortium was formed called Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) and we now have “The Super Pit” where gold mining is carried out 24 hours a day. Viewers can stand at the top and watch the dump trucks carrying the crushed diggings, slowly wend their way up the road to the top. There is still a long way to go and it won’t be till 2018 that the bottom will be reached. We were told that there was going to be a blast at 1pm on Saturday, so armed with camera and binoculars, we got a front row view. We knew it was all on when all the trucks, machinery and staff were all moved to the top of the hill. We could see where the detonators were placed and at 1 o’clock it was like a slow moving earthquake. The ground in front of us started moving in a rolling motion and then there was the explosion. Brilliant to see. Kalgoorlie in its earlier years had a reputation as a wild west town but it has been tamed a bit. The brothels now have daily tours and the Two Up Shed had closed. Pity really! Kalgoorlie/Boulder has hit with a 5.2 earthquake in April this year and a lot of the old historical buildings still have scaffolding and “Work in Progress” signs around them.
We have covered all the parts of Western Australia in our itinerary and it was now time to cross “The Nullarbor”. Having no preconceptions as to what we were in for, we started heading eastward. It was quite hilly and tree covered to start with but then levelled out to flat land. “Nullarbor” is an Aboriginal word meaning “treeless plain” and there was plenty of that for about a third of the trip but most of it was the normal brush and the last bit was cultivated land with beautiful green wheat crops. They have obviously had plenty of rain down in the south. We had 2 free camps while crossing and one night at a lovely little caravan park in Penong. If anyone is doing this trip, I recommend this park. Compared with the rest of the roadhouses across the Nullarbor, it was a palace. Beautiful amenities and the staff were so friendly. We stopped to view an old telegraph station in Eucla that has now been covered by sand. There are huge sandhills along this coast and at one part are moving inland at a rate of 11 metres a year! We also stopped at the Head of the Bight where the Conservation Dept. have put in boardwalks for whale viewing and photographing the Bunda Cliffs which line most of the coast between Eucla and Nullabor. They are a great sight and we got some great photos. We also saw 7 whales and 1 calf just playing around and giving everyone a great view. We can now say “We survived the Nullabor” but because of its length, 513 kms, it is a long boring trip in most parts. There is now a golf game called Nullarbor Links, which involves playing a hole of golf on 18 different holes at 18 different towns across the plains. You start in Kalgoorlie WA and finish in Ceduna SA. We were quite interested in doing this until we found the price, $65 per person!! You can’t share it either. We quickly gave that idea away.
Being on the road for so long we have seen some amazing things with all the mining trucks and machinery that take up all the road and everything has to stop and pull off the road to let them pass. The most amazing thing we saw was two big rigs, one behind the other but joined together, towing a huge girder which was then pushed by another big rig. Goodness knows how they got on when they got to a bend. We had a real fright on the road to Kalgoorlie. We got in behind a huge truck with a big machine on board that took up nearly all the road. There was a road patrol car in front of them that told oncoming vehicles to pull off the road and another patrol vehicle behind warning following traffic. There was no way we could pass it and were quite happy to sit behind until the road was clear to pass. In the meantime another road train passed us and sat between us and the big rig. After about 10 kms. the road patrol waved the road train through and waved to us to follow. It all sounds very simple now but when it came to practice it didn’t work out that way. As we pulled out to follow the road train, he started to drive through red dust and we couldn’t see a thing. We had to pull back onto the left side of the road but the patrol car was right on our tail and he couldn’t see our indicators so it was a tight squeeze for a while. Luckily none of us were going very fast. It was quite frightening.
We are now in Streaky Bay in Eyre Peninsular so in my next blog you will learn all about the area. Only 4 ½ weeks now till we head back to New Zealand so I hope the weather there improves a bit before then.

PERTH AND HEADING EAST

We have now left Perth and we are heading south to the Southern Coast and starting the long trek eastward across this vast country to Melbourne.
Perth is such a beautiful city and I can understand why so many Kiwis have moved over there. Its biggest problem is its isolation. It takes longer to fly from Perth to Sydney than it takes to fly from Wellington to Sydney and more money too. We could have flown from Perth to Bangkok for 5 nights for $480 return. Not bad eh! A large majority of Perth people have never been to the East Coast of Australia. Perth has a population of 1.4 million people and there are only about 2 million people in the whole of Western Australia. Western Australia is the largest state of Australia and covers one third of the country. The whole of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Spain, France and Germany would fit into Western Australia. Now you know why we were travelling over 600kms. between towns and not seeing a house or a shop. It is so vast.
Perth has about the same population as Auckland but that would be the only similarity. The mineral wealth of Western Australia is very obvious in Perth with the infrastructure and the amazing number of huge homes and European cars. Perth has an amazing network of motorways and freeways that flow freely and bypass the city if needed. The rail system seems to run like clockwork and the city also boasts a great bus service with three different inner city routes being covered by free buses. I can vouch for it being a great way to get around the city and have a free tour. We had a day in Perth with Bev & Bruce, our friends from Kapiti. The weather turned wet so we just hopped on a free bus and toured around. I don’t think we did much observing though as there was too much talking going on. The CBD is very compact but it doesn’t seem to have the crowds that we associate with Sydney or Melbourne. It’s a very genteel sort of place. It has beautiful public gardens and parks, especially Kings Park, which overlooks Perth City and the lovely Swan River.
Perth was where we caught up with friends Veronica & Leo, who we met on the road last year. We spent a very enjoyable overnight stay at their lovely home overlooking the city and river and then they invited us to spend Father’s Day with them and their family in King’s Park. We all took our morning tea and there were hundreds of families doing the same thing. It was a magic day and we worked off our meal by walking around the gardens and looking at all the wild flowers.
There are plenty of day trips that can be done from Perth and we certainly did our share of them. One of the most interesting was our trip to New Norcia about 130 kms, north of Perth. New Norcia is Australian’s only monastic town. The whole town is owned by the Benedictine Monks who settled in the town in 1847. They came from Spain and all the buildings show a very strong Spanish influence. There are tours of the Monastery, chapel, bakery, flourmill, library, school, church, convent and hotel. There are 46 people who live in New Norcia as well as the monks, and they all work for the monks. The school and convent were used at one time as an Aboriginal mission but are only a tourist attraction now. The monks make their own wine and bread and of course we had to sample that! It was a most interesting day and the buildings were in such good order.
We spent a lovely day in Fremantle. It is over 15 years since we last visited and the place has really grown a lot in that time. The number of cafes has trebled and the waterfront has been totally revitalised. Huge ships were tied up at the wharves and a Dutch firm of dredgers were busy dredging the harbour floor from a depth of 30 metres to 45 metres so that larger ships can use the port. We came back into Perth by ferry, which is a great way to view the mansions that line the waterfront drives.
When we planned the trip this year I had meant to spend a night in a little town called Toodyay. We decided to bypass it on the way into Perth but make a day trip there later. I am so glad we took this option, as we wouldn’t have had enough time to do this town justice. This little town is about an hours drive north of Perth and is one of West Australia’s oldest towns. My friend Jude, from Christchurch, gave us the name of an old friend who works at the old gaol, which was constructed using convict labour in the 1860s. It’s a magnificent old building and Jim Page, Jude’s friend, was such an interesting guy. He is 76 years old and he just loved talking about the area. He has only lived there for over 50 years and still considers himself an outsider! He hadn’t had many visitors the day we were there and was very reluctant to let us go! We really loved talking to this old guy who was such a hive of information about the area. Toodyay is also among one of the wild flower areas and we loved seeing all the different flowers as we drove through the countryside.
We were also going to have a stay in Mandurah on the south coast from Perth but as it was only an hour’s drive from Perth we decided to go down there for a day. This new city has a population of over 60,000 and has made a feature of the Peel River, which flows through the town. They have built apartments, cafes and homes along canals but have still kept walkways and bridges so that the locals can walk along the riverbanks. On the road down to Mandurah we drove through huge industrial towns of Kwinana and Rockingham. There were aluminium plants, granaries, gas plants, mineral sand storage, ship building and others we had no idea of what they did. There were wharves with ships loading and others waiting out at sea to get into port. It is mind blowing the resources available in this country and they are still building more!
We had to spend a day in the Swan River region of Perth as we never managed to visit it last time.. This is a wine growing area about 45 minutes from the centre of Perth. There are wine cellars, breweries, chocolate factories, cheese factories, cafes,
B & Bs, country retreats; hotels etc. We caught up with Bev & Bruce there again as they were having a break from their golf games and also Trish & Llew who we spent an evening with way back in May in Noosa. We shared a few beers at a brewery and it was good to catch up with them again.
We had a few friends to catch up with in Perth, some from NZ and some from Oz, most of whom we hadn’t seen for years so there was a lot of chatting to get through!
After Perth we moved onto Busselton which is the gateway to Margaret River which is the largest wine producing area in WA. Busselton is quite a small town but there are so many places to go to from there, it was a good place to base ourselves. The weather wasn’t the best for the first 2 days but we had Sunday in Bunbury and nothing was open, not even the information centre! Not very impressive for a city of 33,000. Busselton is at the end of Cape Naturaliste, a national park, and we drove up to the lighthouse and walked around the park where we saw whales playing just off the coast. We haven’t seen so many whales this year. Today we went to Margaret River which is similar to Swan Valley but on a much larger scale. We saw some lovely wineries set in beautiful grounds but I think NZ can more than hold its own in that department. There are lots of caves on this coast and we visited Lake Cave today.
We had to go down 362 steps, which of course we had to come back up again! But once below ground the scenery was just beautiful. The lake inside the cave acts like a mirror with reflections of the white crystalline formations. Stalactites and stalagmites and a fantastic lighting effect made this a really magical place. It was worth having to climb back up all those steps, well almost worth it! We were both breathing rather heavily when we reached the top. We then drove down to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse which is in Augusta at the very bottom of Western Australia’s west coast. There the Indian Ocean meets the Great Southern Ocean. This will be the last time we will se the Indian Ocean as tomorrow we leave for Walpole and we will be following the Southern Ocean to Melbourne.

BACK INTO CIVILISATION

Before I bring you up to date with our latest travels, there are a few things I would like to comment on. First of all most of you will be aware that Australia has just gone through a Federal election. What a farce!! Initially Australia had Kevin Rudd as PM and when we were over here last year, he could do no wrong at all, practically could walk on water. What a difference a year makes! When we arrived this year he was in deep strife and seemed to be grabbing at any straw that would save him from being dumped as PM. It didn’t work. Julia Gillard stepped into the breech, supported by a group of union delegates and Labour back room boys and stabbed Mr Rudd in the back. Meanwhile the Opposition leader was only elected a few months earlier with a majority of one vote so he was a new boy on the block as well. Ms. Gillard called an early election and the fun began. The Labour party thought she would shoo in, as her popularity went sky high after her takeover, but they didn’t reckon on the backlash of the way she became leader. Tony Abbott, the opposition leader, was an unknown quantity but he really came to the fore and was a formidable opponent. The whole campaign was the most negative I have ever seen and people switched off in their droves. It is compulsory to vote in Australia so as a result there were a lot of informal votes (blank voting forms) and nearly 15% of the population voted for another party other than the 2 main parties. Election night was most interesting as the majority switched from one party to the other. As I write this there is obviously going to be a hung parliament so the 4 Independent members are holding the balance of power and holding the country to ransom really. There is something to be said for MMP after all! All electioneering can be done up to the last minute on election day and there are even people outside polling places stopping voters on their way in to vote. The election hoardings that have to be taken down the day before the election in NZ, can stay up until someone gets around to taking them down. In fact there are still some up around the area, and that is 10 days after the election. The Electoral Commission is now saying that if there is no solution soon and a government can’t be formed, there will have to be another election. God help us!! I’m so glad we won’t be here to have to go through it all again.
The wild flowers are now out in force and they are so beautiful. Lovely little pink, purple, white and yellow daisy like flowers are all along the side of the roads and in the paddocks. We are hoping to see lots of more on the drive into Perth on Saturday. The golden wattle is everywhere and so are the banksias. The wild flowers are a big money earner for Western Australia and there are hundreds of tours bringing in visitors and tourists from overseas. I hope to have some photos of the wild flowers to add to my blog.
Kalbarri was one of the nicest places we have stayed on the west coast. It is only a very small coastal town and is situated in a lovely bay. The road into Kalbarri from the main highway has only been sealed since 2000 so that has increased the tourist input and also the permanent population. There are some beautiful homes there and most of them have amazing views of the Indian Ocean. There are great walks along the cliffs and down into gorges that have been worn away over thousands of years. We walked along the hills and saw lots of limestone cliffs that have broken away from the mainland. Kalbarri is also well known for its wildflower displays and we visited the wildflower centre where we walked among hundreds of species of wildflowers. It is a bit early for some of the more colourful plants but we saw kangaroo paws, tiny delicate orchids and a beautiful bush called a smoke bush that adds a lovely grey haze to the landscape. There is a national park in Kalbarri and on the day we visited it, the weather was just superb, not too hot but sunny enough to get just the right amount of light to view the different colours. There were some lovely walks and climbs and we got some great photos of the Murchison River way below us.
I have mentioned the vast distances of WA but the driving doesn’t get boring as the scenery changes all the time, however most of it so far has been of brush, red dust and no cultivated fields. That all changed as we approached Kalbarri. It was as if there was a line drawn across the land and one minute we were in dry arid country and the next we were in farming country with paddocks of bright yellow canola, green wheat and sheep and cattle. It was amazing the difference.
Our next stop was Geraldton with a population of about 25,000. There were malls and shops! This is where I celebrated (if you can call it that) my 70th birthday. I had a lovely day with lunch on the waterfront and dinner out at night. Jim had to tell the waitress at dinner that it was my birthday and when they bought out the panacotta for my dessert, they put a lit sparkler on the top and all the waitresses carried it out singing “Happy Birthday”. I thought it was a very nice gesture.
Geraldton has a memorial overlooking the town to the 645 sailors who perished on HMAS Sydney in 1941. It was known that the ship went down in the vicinity of Geraldton but the wreck of the ship was only found in March 2008, five days after the wreck of her adversary, German cruiser Kormoran. The memorial takes the form of a huge globe made up of 645 copper seagulls, one for each of the sailors lost. The names of the deceased are written on a huge wall surrounding the memorial. It is a very moving monument.
Cervantes was our last stop before we hit the city of Perth. This little town’s main function is as a gateway to the Pinnacles in the Nambung National Park. The Pinnacles are limestone formations formed underground thousands of years ago and exposed when the sand dunes moved and exposed them. It was like walking around a moonscape. There are hundreds of them, all shapes, colours and sizes. I have put a photo of them on this blog. Cervantes is a very small town but next month all that could change when a new coastal road is opened from north to Perth directly to Cervantes. That will be a saving of over 100kms. Locals have been waiting for this road for over 30 years. Sounds like somewhere else that I know of very close to home!
We arrived in Perth on Saturday and checked into our caravan park in Karrinyup. The park is only about 5 minutes from the beach and is close to about 5 shopping centres! I have forgotten how to shop so I will have to get into practice again. WA doesn’t have Sunday shopping, only in tourist places, so we had to get set up and shoot down to do some groceries and sort out some TV repairs before everything shut. One advantage of no Sunday shopping is that families spend the day together. We went down to the beach at Sorrento yesterday and families were everywhere having picnics; barbequing; walking etc. Of course the fine weather helps. Signs of the wealth in WA are very obvious by the type of homes built in the northern seaside suburbs of Perth. There are some huge mansions along the coast and beach fronts.
We are probably going to stay in Perth for 10 – 14 days as there are lots of things to see and do in the area and we have friends to visit and friends from NZ coming over. It is all go. I also want to do a bit if cleaning up of the van as the red dust has got in everywhere. I don’t think we will have to put up with any more of that.
We are now 2/3 of the way through our trip and still enjoying everything.

HEADING SOUTH TO COOLER WEATHER

We enjoyed our 4 days in Exmouth and had our first meal of prawns while we were staying there. Considering we have had the sea all around us since we arrived at Broome, we have had very little seafood. Like New Zealand, fish is very expensive in Australia. We had planned to stay at Coral Bay but with all the “grey nomads” on the move, we couldn’t get into a van park there. We decided to stay at a working cattle and sheep station instead. The station is called Bullara Station and is just off the highway between Exmouth & Coral Bay. There was cabin and van accommodation available and we got used to having sheep, goats, cows and horses wander by at any time of the day or night. The sheep and goats were quite tame but a couple had a very strong tendency to give you a good butt if they felt so inclined. Not a very good feeling when you were walking back to the van after drinking around the campfire in the dark! There was no power available but there were showers, well sort of. Outdoor showers with no roof, surrounded by thick brush, and the water was heated by a “donkey”. The things you learn in bush camping! A donkey is a water tank heated by a wood fire, and after you had your shower, you were expected to add more wood to the fire for the next person. It was a lot of fun and we met some great people there, including people from Palmerston North. Joy made some great lemonade scones for us all around the camp fire one night which were greatly appreciated. We find that people are much friendlier in bush camps and it’s amazing the stories that are told around campfires.
We decided to drive to Coral Bay for a day, as we couldn’t stay there, so as usual we had to be up at the crack of dawn and on the road early. We were following 2 vans when a car coming over the brow of a hill toward us flashed his lights, obviously warning us of something. We slowed down and saw all this debris on the road and the two vans in front pulled off the road. We both thought that one of the vans had rolled over but luckily he managed to control it and bring it off the road. The van had either lost its step and this hit the tyre causing it to blow out or it just had a blow out causing the step to fall off. Whatever caused it, the result was the explosion from the tyre had blown a hole in the floor of the van and all the debris on the road was contents being sucked out through the hole in the floor. There was clothing, drapes off the windows, electrical wiring, parts of the step, all over the road. The water tank had gone completely. There was this huge hole in the middle of the floor and inside the van it looked as if a cyclone had been through it. It was amazing. The van was an English van and we have been looking at them in NZ, but there’s no way I would buy one now.
Coral Bay is on the Ningaloo Reef and consists of 2 van parks, supermarket, bakery and gift shops and not much else except for the most beautiful beach I have even seen. I thought Mission Beach in Queensland would take a lot of beating but Coral Bay is equal to it. The water is crystal clear and calm with lots of fish to be seen when snorkelling. We set up the deck chairs about 9.30 in the morning and stayed there till 3.30 in the afternoon. We had about 3 swims as it was so hot but we didn’t get burnt as the ozone layer doesn’t seem to be so bad over here. It was a lovely day and one we’ll remember for a long time.
Carnarvon was our next stop on our trip south. Carnarvon is known as the “fruit bowl of North Western Australia” and boy does it live up to its name. The town is situated on the Gasgoyne River, which supplies all the water for the horticulture in the area. There is a difference between this river and others we have seen though, all the water is stored under about 3 metres of red sand. When you look at the river all you see is a dry water bed but this river manages to support a huge acreage of mangoes, bananas, grapes, citrus and vegetables. I have put a photo of it on my blog. Carnarvon has quite a few winds so all the properties have huge netting around and over all the plantations to protect them. We bought the most juicy mandarins we have ever tasted in Carnarvon (sorry Wendy and John). They were easy peel but much bigger than the ones we normally see and so juicy. It was in Carnarvon that we saw the second Bledisloe Cup game. We went to a local pub and most of the attendees were Kiwis so it was a good atmosphere. Except for one woman ( a Kiwi) who was three sheets to the wind before the game even started. She shouted at the players, referee etc. and as the game progressed and her alcoholic intake increased, her voice and language got worse. I know I scream at rugby games but she left me for dead. We thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle though. About 70kms. north of Carnarvon are blowholes. These are quite amazing and make Punakaiki look really tame. The roar of the water forcing itself up through these tiny holes sounded like an earthquake approaching. It was awesome.
Our next stop was Denham where we had the most awful gale force winds we have experienced in the van. My thoughts were of how cyclone prone this whole coast is, so there was not much sleep that night. According to the tourist brochures, Denham had been a derelict town in its earlier years, well, I’m sorry to say we didn’t see much difference to that description today. None of the houses have lawns as we know them, but instead everything is covered in crushed white shells. The glare from the sun shining on these shells is almost blinding. Our caravan park was covered in these shells and it was worse than the sand or red dust. It stuck to shoes, mats etc. so there was always a gritty feeling about the floor. Monkey Mia is only 26 kms. from Denham and as that was our main reason for going into Denham, on the first fine day we set off at the crack of dawn for Monkey Mia. Now we had heard differing stories about Monkey Mia; some said it was very controlled; some said it was a waste of time and others said it was over-rated, so it was with a feeling of trepidation we headed off to see the dolphins. We loved it! The dolphins come in to Monkey Mia every day about 8am, and the females, who have had calves, are fed about 5 or 6 fish by members of the public who are picked out by volunteers. There are 3 feedings a day, usually between 8am and noon. Until about 1998 feeding was open slather and all dolphins were fed, but it was found that the dolphins, which are still wild, were losing the will to fish and suffering and dying from over feeding. The Dept. of Environment and Conservation have now taken over the project and they are doing a great job. The males aren’t hand fed because they are too aggressive and the calves are fed by the mother for about 2 years so they don’t need hand feeding. The dolphins can’t be touched but they are very friendly and come right up to the water’s edge. In the afternoons they are left to their own devices and most days they can be seen in the bay catching their own fish in the sea grass. We were lucky enough to be there on a lovely sunny day and all afternoon the dolphins were darting in and out among the swimmers and boats and just having a great time. It was a lovely way to spend a day, just sitting on the beach and watching these graceful creatures splashing and diving among us.
On the road out from Denham we stopped at Hamelin Pool where there is an old telegraph station, a quarry where they used to make blocks from cockle stones, and stromatolites. These are living fossils that build in the highly saline waters of Hamelin Pool and are similar to the earliest forms of life dating back 3000 million years. A viewing walkway allowed us to walk above these ancient forms of life. It was so interesting.
The West Australian wild flowers are now starting to bloom and we have seen lots of them growing alongside the roadside. They grow in places where you wouldn’t expect anything to flourish, like gravel, red dust and sand. We even saw a tiny little pink flower growing in the rocky sand by the blowholes. Jim spent ages getting the right settings for the camera to try and catch a good photo. I have put it on my blog for you to see. He was so proud of himself when he finally got it right and then proceeded to stomp over the top of it, unknowingly of course. I couldn’t believe it!
We are staying in a free bush camp at the moment and tomorrow we move onto Kalbarri where we will have 4 nights and hope to do some walking in the Murchison River Gorge. We were greeted on our arrival by about 25 policemen, all armed and wearing bullet proof vests etc. I thought this was a bit of an overkill for testing for drugs or alcohol. They never took any notice of us at all. It turns out that a really nasty bikie gang from Perth was on a tour up the West Coast and on the way decided to rough up a few pubs and their patrons; run a road train off the road; and visit a few off road caravan parks to frighten the locals!! Really nice types! Their breakdown wagon had broken down just a few kilometres from us so they had parked up in the bush till it was repaired. The police were just keeping an eye on them and us, I hope. They had made a couple of arrests but they all left with a lot of noise in the morning. The bikies I mean. The police just kept to themselves most of the time but it must have been really boring for them. Two of the vans had electronic organs with them so the owners kept everyone amused with music all day, mostly tunes from the 40s and 50s. I don’t imagine the police would have recognised many of the tunes, judging from the age of them.
We will be in Perth on 28th August so my next blog will come from there.

WEST AUSTRALIAN MINERAL WEALTH

In my last blog we had just arrived in Port Hedland and I said it looked an interesting town. Well it certainly was that. It has a population of just over 14,000 and 80% of those who work are employed by BHP Biliton. The houses all have orange/red roofs and walls but these are not painted this colour, it is the result of the iron dust that permeates the whole town. Initially the iron ore was freighted by rail from the mines in Newman, a new town 426 kms. away, and crushed on the site at Port Hedland, but it is now crushed in Newman and railed to Port Hedland where it is stockpiled before being sent overseas. The iron dust covers everything and even though all the new houses have white or silver roofs when they are built, within a couple of years, they will all just be covered with iron dust. It’s a waste of time cleaning cars, caravans etc.
We went on a tour of the BHP facility in Port Hedland and the size is amazing. A typical iron ore train travelling from Newman will have 6 locomotives pulling 336 wagons carrying more than 42,000 tonnes of ore. These trains are up to 3.75kms long so you don’t want to meet one at a railway crossing I can assure you! BHP operate 12 loaded and unloaded trains every day of the year. The biggest train ever had 632 wagons and was 7.35 kms. long. That was a world record. The ore is then shipped overseas, mainly to China, from the wharf in Port Hedland. At the moment the wharf will only accommodate 4 ships at a time but plans are underway to allow another 6 ships to load at the same time. Most ships take about 30 hours to load and there are always about 12 – 20 ships sitting offshore waiting to berth. Port Hedland ships 100 million tonnes of iron ore a year.
There is another huge mining complex in the Pilbara area of north western Australia at Tom Price. This is a mining town of about 5,000 people. It reminded us of Twizel with its shopping mall and everything tidy and neat. The mine is about 5kms. from the centre of town and all the single workers and fifos (workers who fly in, work for 3 weeks, then fly out for a week) are stationed in quarters out by the mine but all the families are housed in the town. This complex is run by Rio Tinto and all their ore is railed to Port Dampier about 600kms. south of Port Hedland. The Pilbara region supplies 34% of the world’s sea-borne iron ore trade. As you can see the resources in this area of Australia are mind blowing with reserves for another 30 years.
The wages paid to the mine workers are among the highest paid in Australia but there are some side issues that are contributing to other problems in these mining towns. There is a serious shortage of housing, especially in Port Hedland, and the rental asked for an ordinary 2 – 3 bedroom house in the area is $1500 - $2000 per week! Temperatures in the summer rise to+40C so the air conditioning costs can add another $1500 per month, depending how much time is spent in the house. The mine workers can afford these rentals and sometimes have them included in their wage package deal, but the locals who work in the shops etc. and don’t get paid the high wages, can’t afford these high rentals. As I stated at the beginning, Port Hedland is a very interesting town!
We then went bush for 3 nights in Karajini National Park. This is the second largest national park in WA and consists of lots of amazing gorges. The land above is just normal bush country with Spinifex everywhere and you wouldn’t know these gorges are even there. They all require a measure of fitness to get down into such as vertical ladders, rock walls etc. but when you get down, the scenery is amazing. There are about 7 gorges in the park with differing levels of fitness required. We never attempted the more difficult ones as they require river crossing and rock climbing up vertical walls. We watched 2 girls attempting it; one girl was fairly competent and confident but her friend was totally out of her depth. We were watching them from a lookout and my heart was in my mouth as I was sure they were going to plunge into the river below. The more confident of the two finally made it on her own but it was pretty nerve wracking watching I can tell you. There is no water or power in these bush camps but they are very popular; so popular in fact that in peak times people are queuing in their vans and campers waiting for people to leave so they can get a site. We had a lovely time in there and it was while we were there that we drove to Tom Price for a day trip. There is a fantastic lookout from Mount Nameless in Tom Price that overlooks the mines. The road to this lookout is 4WD only and is the highest accessible road in WA at 1128 metres. While we were up there we heard a huge explosion. It was a planned detonation and we caught it on camera. Very exciting.
Our next stop was Roebourne. The camp was pretty basic but it was a great base from which to explore the area. Roebourne is the oldest town in WA and looks it! These little towns try very hard to hang onto their identities and Roebourne had an old gaol; post office and a sobering up centre! Further out on the coast is Point Samson, where there are lovely beaches, and another old ghost town called Cossack. Cossack has kept a lot of its old existing buildings but though no-one lives there, the town has lots of visitors. It was here that we finally saw “Staircase to the Moon” . This is an illusion created by a full moon rising over mudflats on a low tide. The effect is breath taking and creates the illusion of a staircase leading to the moon. It can be seen at a few places around the top west coast of WA, especially at Broome but the moon wasn’t right when we were there. There were hundreds of people at the lookout in Cossack about 7.30pm waiting for this sight. Some had bought dinner, wine etc. so it was a real party atmosphere.
We visited Karratha and Dampier when we were in Roebourne. Karratha is a growing town which is now the hub of the Pilbara. Dampier was something else. This town houses port facilities for salt, iron, petroleum, fertilisers, niclel, copper, ammonia and sea foods and is now the highest export port in Australia. It is a very pretty town with sheltered beaches, brilliant sunsets, etc. and is the gateway to the Dampier Archipelago so there are lots of water recreation activities. We visited the visitors centre of North West Shelf Venture which is Australia’s largest oil and gas resource development. This venture supplies oil and gas to Australia; 65% of Western Australia’s domestic gas supply and international markets from gas and condensate fields located about 130km off the coast. We could see some of these rigs from the
shore.. If Asia ever suffers from a very serious recession, I don’t know how Australia would cope, but at the moment they are living the life of Reilly!
We are now in Exmouth at the top of Cape Range National Park and surrounded by
the Ningaloo Reef. There are some of the most beautiful beaches we have seen in this area and the waters within the reef are a real turquoise. We had a day out there yesterday and there were lots of snorkellers. The fish come right up to the shore and can be viewed just by paddling out. On our trip yesterday we saw about a dozen emus; lots of kangaroos, an echidna and an osprey with her nest and chicks on the top of a power pole.. Not bad for a day out eh!
I thought that once we had got past Broome the camps would not be so busy. How wrong I was. They have got busier. We are having to book at least a fortnight ahead now which is a real drag as we can’t get the number of nights we want in some places and in others we can’t get in at all. We had planned 4 nights in Coral Bay but no sites are available there until at least 10th August so we are going to have a farm stay and visit it on day trips. I think we are now in the group of Perth people who have had 3 months in Broome for the winter and are now on the homeward trek. The distances to travel between towns is beyond belief to most New Zealanders. Between Broome and Karratha it is 690 kms and between Karratha and Exmouth over 600kms. There are no towns, and I mean nothing, in between these places so we just have to stay over in roadside parks along the way with about another 20 or so caravans as it is too far to travel in one day with the van. It also means you have to keep an eye on your petrol as there are only limited places to fill up on the way.
The west oast of Australia is very prone to cyclones and all towns down the coast show photos of previous damage done. None of the houses on this coast have spoutings as they wouldn’t be able to hold the water and also because of the high winds. Port Hedland seems to be one of the more cyclone prone areas with one at least every 3 – 5 years and when you see all the growth in this area, it must give cause for concern.
WA is well known for its wild flowers and we are now starting to see signs of them on the roadsides. The most famous of these is the Sturt Desert Pea, a beautiful bright red flower that just grows wild but we will see lots more of them as we head south toward Perth. There were some photos of them on TV recently and we should see hills covered in wild flowers within the next few weeks. Looking forward to that.
We should be only a few weeks from Perth in my next blog. We are going to catch up with friends we met on the road last year and friends from New Zealand while we are there so, depending on availability of sites, we hope to spend about 2 weeks in Perth.

BROOME TO PORT HEDLAND

We are now on the trip south from Broome toward Perth. Broome is a lovely little town of about 14,000 people but the population rises to about 50,000 over the dry season which is April – November approximately. It is an old town which was formed in 1883 when the largest pearl shell in the world was discovered. In the first decade of the 20th century Broome produced 80% of the world’s Mother of Pearl shell. This was used mainly for buttons. The pearls themselves were only a small part of the business as not all shells held a pearl. At one stage there were 403 pearl boats working out of Broome. The divers on these luggers had a hell of a life. Aboriginals were used first and at one stage pearling masters were going into the communities and abducting these men to work on their ships. Most of the pearling masters were English and lived the old British aristocratic lifestyle in Broome. A law was passed that Aboriginals could not be taken forcibly so Japanese divers were bought in. These men were fearless and although the dangers of drowning, sharks, cyclones and the “bends” were always there, the Japanese worked on the pearl luggers until the 70s, except for the war years, when they were put into internment camps. The divers suits were very heavy and as well as all the warm clothing that had to be worn underneath, the extra weight was over 165kgs. Most of these men would only weigh about 75kg so it was not an easy job! When plastic buttons were developed in the 1950s that sealed the fate of the Mother of Pearl industry but with the advent of the cultured pearl in the 1970s, Broome was back into pearl production. We went on a tour looking at the life of a pearl diver and then visited a cultured pearl farm. It was all so interesting and it is now obvious to me why pearls are so expensive. There are dozens of shops selling cultured pearls in Broome. I have enclosed a photo of me holding a pearl worth $100,000!
As this is the “dry season”, rain was the last thing on our minds, but with climate change anything is possible and in the first 10 days of July, Broome had had its wettest July ever. Water was everywhere with roads flooded and caravan parks under water. Unlike at home, the water just wouldn’t drain away. Friends, Carole & Laurie, who were in the same caravan park as us, were in the middle of a lake with their annexe under water. It made it very difficult getting in and out for “happy hour” but it’s amazing what one can do in an emergency!
Broome is famous for its sunsets and camel rides on the beach. We had to be there for 8 days before we saw a sunset owing to the cloud, but it was worth waiting for. Jim & I also had a camel ride on the beach. It was lots of fun as long as you held on very tightly as the camel stands up and sits down. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
We went to the local outdoor cinema in Broome. The theatre is very old and all the seats are deckchairs where you can lie back under the stars and watch the movie. We saw “A Bran Nue Dae” which starred Ernie Dingo, who some of you may have seen on travel documentaries. It was a great “feel good” movie.
We had booked to take the tent and travel up to Cape Leveque on the Dampier Peninsular for 2 nights, but that plan had to be abandoned as the road was closed owing to the bad weather. We were really disappointed as we had booked that trip way back in February and worked our time in Broome around the dates. We can’t control the weather though.
Our next stop after Broome was Barn Hill Station about 120kms south of Broome on the coast. We had heard only good reports about this unique place and they weren’t wrong. We had to drive 10kms. along a red dirt road with the van on the back to reach the caravan park. The camp is on a working cattle station and we often had Brahman cattle wander through the park looking for greener pastures. It is really a place to be seen to be believed. It sports a bowling green, which is always busy, a reception area and a little shop that sold limited groceries and the most amazing lamingtons and sausage rolls. There are no marked sites as such, you just squeeze them in where and if you can. The ablution blocks are something else. Some were unisex and some not but most of them had no roofs and were made of corrugated iron. The doors were most ingenious as none of them fitted at all well with large gaps leaving nothing to the imagination. The water for the showers was heated by either lighting a wood fire in a chimney or by black polythene hoses utilising the heat of the sun. A very basic solar plan. One night we were there over 200 vans were in the park. Some of the sites had beautiful sea views for which they had to pay extra but the beach was magic. Just blue skies and azure seas as far as one could see and lovely warm water to swim in. I don’t care how basic the camp was; it was worth every bit of it. They had entertainment on a couple of nights a week; roast dinners and BBQs. We loved it so much we stayed there twice as long as we planned.
It was then on to Eighty Mile Beach which is self-explanatory really. Another 10 km. trek on a dirt road but the approach to this camp showed us the damage done by a cyclone in December last. 285km an hour wind gusts hit this camp and palm trees and other vegetation are still lying where they were thrown. I have posted a photo to show the bare trees. Luckily no-one was at the park when the cyclone struck as it is closed during the wet season so no-one was killed. It’s shocking to see the damage that was done. It is now business as usual again and the camp was full the whole time we were there. It is a very popular fishing spot but no swimming is allowed as there are stingrays; sharks; and stingers everywhere. The beach is covered in shells and we have collected quite a number of beautiful shells to hopefully take home.
We are now in Port Hedland which is the main port for iron ore from the Pilbara region. Even though it is mainly a mining town, it is a very interesting town and I look forward to telling you all about it in my next blog.
Travelling in the same direction as we are around Australia are hundreds of others doing the same thing and lots of time you meet up with the same people again and again. It’s good to catch up and swap notes and often make life long friends. We have done this again this year and my Contact List is getting bigger.
Lots of caravanners have names for their vans or different titles on the back. We have seen some very clever ones like “Runaway Grandparents”; “This is the kid’s inheritance” and the funniest (I think anyway) “Adventure in Dementia” Love it.