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.
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