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.