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.