AROUND AUSTRALIA

UNDER A BOAT
TABLE OF CONTENTS

                                                                  

		Page
Chapter One	Gold Coast to Midge Point	3
Chapter Two	Midge Point to Mission Beach	7
Chapter Three	Mission Beach to Cairns	14
Chapter Four	Cairns to Townsville	21
Chapter Five	Townsville To Katherine	31
Chapter Six	Katherine to Darwin & Surrounds	40
Chapter Seven	Katherine to Broome	55
Chapter Eight	Broome to Port Hedland	69
Chapter Nine	Port Hedland to Carnarvon	77
Chapter Ten	Carnarvon to Perth	86
Chapter Eleven	Perth to Norseman	96
Chapter Twelve	The Nullabor and Beyond	109
Chapter Thirteen	Adelaide to Melbourne	119
Chapter Fourteen	Doing Time in Tasmania	131

                                     

CHAPTER ONE

GOLD COAST TO MIDGE POINT

Thursday 14^th June 2007

Well it hasn’t been quite three weeks yet on the road and if the last, not quite three weeks, are anything to go by it is going to be a looong trip.  I only say that as we have really only travelled 1000 kms and only just past the halfway mark to Cairns.  When I study the map of Australia it dawns slowly on me just how bloody big this country is.  Our journey so far is like a tiny drop in a now trendy to have household water tank containing thousands of litres of water.  Although we will traverse the perimeter of this gigantic land we will see but a pittance of what it has to offer.  Hopefully within this journey it will stop raining at some point because as of yet it has done nothing but, only varying from how heavy.  To be fair, we have had 5 glorious days of sunshine but the rest…

We started our trip on Sunday 27^th May 2007 with a mileage reading of 164,350 km, it will be interesting to see what it ends up with.  So far we have had to replace not one but 4 tyres on the car (it needed it anyway so I was told) and two batteries in the caravan which had unfortunately started to stink in the middle of one night not so far into the trip.  The smell was of a strong sulphurous odour that had even the next-door neighbour coming out to see Jon & ask what was going on at 3am.  Turned out that they were both poked (the batteries that is).  Still, it’s all a learning curve.

The first week was spent in Noosa catching up with friends & reles, which was a rather nice easy way to start the trip and didn’t really make us feel we were embarking on a trip Wills & Burke would have thought twice about.  It wasn’t until we saw Noosa in the rear view mirror that it came upon us that maybe this was bigger than the two of us.  Still, intrepid as we were we pushed on to the next stop that was 20km north of Gin Gin called Monduran Dam, a rather peaceful spot off the highway in a basic campground.  Until recently it was a free one until someone saw the potential to put in a toilet block and start charging the sort of price 4 star grounds command.  Two nights were enough there although it would be a charming spot in the summer if you had the kids and a fishing rod as apparently the Barramundi were of a size too big to believe.  I’m not suggesting of course using the kids as bait but rather they would enjoy being there too.  Being there for the one full day we were already hearing stories from our fellow campers of how just that very day a huge bite snapped their 20 pound line clean off (several times I think) but were just too difficult to land. We meet a very interesting bloke that was consulting to the Indian government over oil.  He was a big vague over that but told us of amazing stories of his time in Libya, Syria & other exotic sounding countries and how he nearly died from malaria & other malaise. 

After that we happily left for a more exciting time in Rockhampton, or Rocky as we like to call it being in tune with the locals.  We spent a week there and discovered it was probably 5 days too long but we did get to cover most of what it had to offer.  Unfortunately the first three days it did not stop literally chucking down with rain so we were house bound for the first half but still managed to see everything in the next couple of days.  Rocky is the beef capital of Qld and everywhere you go they don’t let you forget it.  On every corner is a statue of every type of bull imaginable and some you can’t even imagine.  The pub in town even hold a rodeo (pronounced ‘ro-de-oh’ not ‘ro-day-o’ as some not in the know say it), and I’m not talking about the mechanical bull that some places have, this is the real thing with the bull ring in the middle of the pub and the living, breathing fire, bucking brutes racing around trying to kill the hapless soul on his back.  It’s all in good fun. 

On the first fine day we did the tourist drive from Rocky to Yeppoon on the coast, down to Emu beach and back.  We had our picnic on the shores of the Capricorn Coast, being both Capricorns it was highly appropriate, then took a short but fairly steep walk up the cliffs to see Turtle point lookout.  From there we could gaze down at the turtles far below bobbing up for air before diving down again for another munch on yummy looking sea grass.  Yeppoon was a nice little seaside town with the usual feral & trendy element and pretty coastline.  At Emu beach their claim to fame was a big white sculpture on the hilltop of a ship.  It was built to commemorate the bi-centennial of Captain Cook visiting the area in 1770.  As sculptures go it was a very nice one with a little quirk, when the wind blew it made a singing noise much like the sound of an organ so they have aptly named it ‘The Singing Ship’ .

We took a trip up to Mt Morgan, an old gold mining town started around the 1880’s when gold was discovered.  It had a very good museum giving a great account of the towns history and the stories that abound there.  At the beginning of the street was a statue of a bloke (looked a bit amateurish but rather amusing) in clothes of the day running with a billy can.  It was called ‘Running the Cutter’.  Back then the miners did a damn hard day at work and at the end of the day they had a boy go into town and fill the billy can up with beer and run back for the miners to ‘cut’ their share and ‘cut’ their thirst.  Not a bad idea overall.  There is still a gaping huge hole on the side of the town where a hill use to be but over the course of 100 years has been raped of gold & later copper and eventually closed in 1985 so the whistle blows no more.

Also of interest in Rocky was 20kms out of town were some limestone above ground caves discovered a hundred or so years ago with the usual hanging up & down things caused over the period of zillions of years.  They were lovely as caves go and were the home of thousands of tiny bent wing bats.  I could see how they bent their wings as the gaps they had to fly out of at a huge speed to prevent getting eaten on the way by the snakes & frogs waiting for their exit were rather lacking in a comfortable size.  We did manage to see a couple of these tiny mammals, one was right behind me which I hadn’t noticed until I put the photo Jon had took of me on the computer and thought ‘what the..’

We traversed the mountain behind the town, which afforded magnificent views of the town & surrounds but was blowing such a chilly blast of air that we took the photos, noted how lovely it was and scampered back to the car.

Alas with regret we pulled out of town a week later and headed for the northern climes of Mackay.  After checking out several campsites we settled on the only one that didn’t have any vacancies, well anything powered at least so we thought we would rough it and camp on a tent site.  This meant no power which meant no coffee machine, water cooler, TV and even worse – no wine cooler, not to mention electric blanket & heater that I had been relying on up to now, being how it was so cold at night.  (Single figures overnight).  This was truly roughing it and gave us an insight of the true camper.  We could still cook and have lights but what were we to do all evening – talk to each other??  The next day we shifted to a powered site and all was right with the world again.  Mackay’s slogan is ‘There is more to Mackay that meets the eye”.  After the day there we thought, better to spend a week in Rocky.  Try as we might there was not much more than met the eye but worth a stop over.  For our day we looked over the town then headed for the bush.  We drove to a national Park called Eungella NP (pronounced Young-g’lah) meaning in Aboriginal speak ‘Land of the clouds’.  This was approx 50km from town and was assured by the lovely lady in the information centre well worth a look.  I have to say it was a beautiful place and we sure saw some flora & fauna.  We took a 4km hike into the rainforest, which was just lovely but unusually devoid of life.  We were expecting to see or hear lots of birds & the scurrying of unknown little animals in the undergrowth but there was nothing until I almost trod on a black snake coiled on the path.  He wasn’t particularly big I must admit, alright he was very small but a surprise none the less.   He was surprised as much as me and tried his best to slither away but on my prompting Jon found a stick to poke him so I could take a photo.  He didn’t like that much and when I saw Jon was trying to flick him, much to the snakes’ anger I suggested maybe we should not tarry with him.

After that we set off to find the elusive platypus.  This site was promised to be the best platypus spotting in Australia if not the world.  Will of course it would include the world since they are found no-where else but in Australia and made that point rather mute.  Anyhow, true to its promise there we saw, much to our delight, several of the little creatures swimming happily around in the river.  They were so clear to see, not just ripples of where they had been as previously experienced but the whole animal.  They are smaller than imagined and just as bizarre looking and we were so lucky to see them as apparently they usually only appear at dusk & dawn, being more the nocturnal kind.  So that part of the trip was a thrill.

After driving back to town we thought we would have a look at the beach to see what’s so great about it.  We got there and just laughed & laughed.  There was the beach alright, nothing but the beach.  Someone had pulled the plug and there was the sea - way, way in the distance.  Going for a swim today dear?  Here is your cut lunch, good luck in making it to the sea in time.  Apparently they have 6 metre tides here.  That may not sound a lot until you see the huge expanse of beach it needs to cover in a 12-hour period.

Today, being Thursday 14 June and after getting our 4 new tyres on the car (in case I haven’t mentioned them) we headed off for more adventure and ended up at Midge Point, a mere 100 km north of Mackay.  It’s great being in the rain forest as it just doesn’t stop raining but we are hoping for it to clear a bit tomorrow so we can go for a hike in the bush.  Our campground is absolute beach front but in the middle of the forest with lots of walking tracks.  Our host has warned us that the creek walk does contain crocodiles.  He said only a little one has been seen but where there are little ones there must be big ones.  I find the further north we venture the more I’m thinking, snakes, crocs, stingers and becoming almost paranoid about them.  Think I will send Jon first up the creek track.

I find the signs here amusing, like a no swimming sign & a picture of a crocodile or at the end of a bush walk a sign with an arrow saying “that way” but my favourite so far is the one in the woman’s toilets at the Midge Point camp grounds that says ‘If you don’t want frogs in the loo please put the seat down’.  I find that before I venture there, I check the place out for snakes hanging in the rafters or a python in the toilet bowl and always flush the loo first just in case something is hiding under the rim.

Friday 15^th June

Excitement is running high in the camp ground this morning.  Very soon a bell will ring and us campers will go rushing over to the managers house with our cups in our hands and have morning tea.  We have been promised hot scones, this is the highlight of the day seeing it’s raining yet again.  Last night we had a huge thunderstorm and being under trees makes it for an extremely noisy night.  If you like to hear the sound of rain on the roof then a caravan is the place to be.  Couldn’t hear the telly above the noise of the rain.

CHAPTER TWO

MIDGE POINT TO MISSION BEACH

 

Sunday 24^th June

At last, at last, today it has stopped raining although the nasty weatherman has promised more from tomorrow on but today we will make the most of it.  I have not appreciated good weather for awhile having taken it for granted living on the Gold Coast but after a month of solid rain it’s so pleasant to go outside without getting wet.

Continuing from Midge Point, where it didn’t stop raining but we did have a very pleasant morning tea with the rest of the campers.  It was the friendliest place we had been to date and when we drove out the next day it was like saying goodbye to lifelong friends!  It would be such a great spot on a sunny day as you are in the forest but right next to the beach and very peaceful.  On one walk we did manage to do, we saw a group of wallabies grazing and one had a joey in her pocket, it looked so cute.  I did manage a photo but you have to zoom right in to see its head.

Next stop was The Whitsundays and Airlie beach.  The day was good as the rain had stopped & when we arrived at the campground a smidgen of sun came out & all looked very pleasant.  That was the last we saw of it until today.  The camp ground itself was 4 ½ star with lovely resort facilities, a huge swimming pool, tennis court, mini putt, jumping pillows, playgrounds and an outdoor theatre.  We did use the mini putt a couple of times until it got so full of water after the rain that the ball wouldn’t roll any more and there were cane toads swimming in the golf holes! That first night they were showing Charlottes Web at the movies so we took our seats down and watched some of that before going into town to hunt down a bit of dinner.  Even in the rain Airlie beach is a great place, very alive, buzzy and picturesque with lots of eating & drinking establishments.  We ended up at the main area for backpackers as food & drink tends to be cheaper there and had a good dinner washed down with a jug of Sangria, just as good as what we remembered from three years ago.  On leaving Jon couldn’t resist telling the DJ that his music was shit and no one here liked it.  Don’t think it made much difference but he likes to think it did.

Over the next week (sorry to go on about it) but it rained a lot so it curtailed a lot of activities we would have indulged in.  On the blackboard outside the office were suggestions of what to do on a rainy day, one of them was to visit Cedar Creek Falls, which are great after the rains.  Off we set to see these falls and do a bit of a bush walk.  We got to the turnoff for them and couldn’t go much further as ironically, the very thing that made the falls good to see was what was stopping us from getting to them, water.  There was a river going across the road and one depth marker showed it was nearly half a metre deep on one side.  Jon thought we could make it over as it was shallower at the other end but the water was running very swiftly and after reading about the couple that got swept to their deaths in their 4WD in NSW the other week I didn’t want to try it.

We did however, get to do a day trip to Whitehaven beach on the only day it didn’t rain very much.  We were picked up at 9am and delivered to the boat, which was also carrying a contingent of Italian school kids, well more like teenagers and three teachers.  They were from a school in North Italy and over in Australia for a three week trip so they were a lot of fun.  The boat moved pretty fast across the water but it still took over an hour to get to this island and not a dry trip, water was coming in over the decks and through the stitching on the plastic covers and anything left on the floor got soaking wet.  We stopped first on one side of Whitsunday Island to take a trek through the bush to a lookout that showed all the gleaming white silica sands on the beach, it was quite dazzling.  Then around to the beach itself where we had a BBQ lunch and stayed for a couple of hours.  The sand was so fine it felt like talcum powder and apparently very good for polishing jewellery & exfoliating your skin.  Next they took the boat around to another island where we had the chance to go snorkelling.  We opted not too as it was too cold for me so went in the glass bottom boat instead.  The coral wasn’t as colourful as I thought it would be, looked a bit grey to whitish to me but there were lots of different types of coral.  We also saw a giant clam that looked amazing, a lot of clam fritters out of that one.  Back on the boat and we were visited by a huge fish one of the crew was hand feeding.  It came right up and out of the water so people could reach out and touch him.  It was very colourful, had a big greeny blue face with a pinkish body and blue.  There were other smaller colourful fish & a turtle.  We got back home after 5pm, so thankful for the weather holding as the next day it was torrential again.

The night before going on the boat we went to a Mexican restaurant for chilli Tuesday.  Eat as much chilli beef as you like for $8.  It was the best Mexican food I have ever eaten, so tasty and plentiful.  It could have been helped along by the fact that I had sampled their fabulous Margaritas and was onto my 4^th one.  It was just the best I had ever had, a real sweet & sour taste.  The salt & lime made for a very face pulling taste then a sip of the tequila flavoured with strawberries had me absolutely addicted. I would move to Airlie Beach just to visit this restaurant every week.  That night I’m not sure if I may have had one Margarita too much, but I got so thirsty during the night.  It’s not easy to sneak around a caravan but I was sure I was doing my best.  I found a glass, poured the water, which unfortunately makes quite a noise from the water cooler and crept back to bed.  I put the glass gently down on the side table and suddenly a bright light came on behind me.  It was the TV as I had put the glass on the remote control.  Swearing softly to myself I turned the TV off then tried again to put the glass down when it caught on the side of my book and tipped the entire glass over my pillow and my side of the bed.  It was soaking.  I was sure I still hadn’t woken up Jon after swearing a little more loudly and set about trying to mop it all up.  Finally he asked what the hell was I doing as I got the big towel out to soak up the water.  He thought I was just being a drama queen until he put his arm out and it came away dripping wet.  It’s not always easy this caravanning life.

Tuesday was a big day as that was also the day we drove to Bowen, the home of the giant mango.  We had been there before and weren’t so impressed with it but we found out that was because we hadn’t seen it all, but thanks to my trusty brochures & maps we got to see more of it and very nice it is too.  It is also the place where they are filming a big Hollywood/Australian film with Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Brown to name but a few famous actors.  It is set in Darwin in the 1940’s and when Darwin was bombed.  The main street of the town was transformed into the movie set and there was carnage as the Japs had bombed the place, there was burnt out trucks and rubble from fallen buildings.  Just along a bit they were in the middle of filming so we weren’t allowed too close and couldn’t take photos using a flash or we got told off.  I chatted with a very informative local official who was on crowd control.  He told me the plot of the story and how Nicole is an English lady who inherits a cattle farm in Australia.  At one point the cattle had to be driven to port so they ran all these heads of cattle through the middle of town, several times for the filming.  We saw the photos at the pie shop of hundreds of the beasts running past the shop.  Looked a lot of fun.  We didn’t see any of the stars as they must have been busy but we did have lunch at the bakery they all visited.  I had a Hugh Jackman pie, which is chunky (chunky was crossed out & replaced with hunky) & rich, and I can now say I’ve eaten the delicious Hugh Jackman.

Another day we took a drive to Proserpine to see where we were about to move to nine years ago when we saw a management rights for sale for an old persons home.  I was really keen, being sick of Telecom, but when we saw a picture of the smoke stack from the local sugar mill that looked frighteningly like Huntley we voted against it.  After looking around Proserpine that day I have not regretted the decision.  The book (one of my many books & brochures that I lump around with me and drive Jon crazy with) said it had quirky shops, very different found no-where else but I’m afraid we found no evidence of them.  However, just down the road from our campground was a marvellous shopping centre with a Big W, Harvey Norman and lots of little shops so that sure saved the day (quite a few days actually) for us as it was a great indoor activity.  We even bought Jon a brand new bike from Big W as up to this point we only had one and didn’t use it as the other person got tired running beside the one who won the toss.  I said he was very lucky to get it as it wasn’t even Christmas.  Unfortunately it came in a flat pack so haven’t had the time yet to put it together as we got it yesterday before driving up here.  It will give him something to do in Cairns.

We pulled out yesterday, in the pouring rain leaving a very soaked & sodden campsite, so bad it was hard to walk on the grass without slipping over or getting covered in mud & water.  We can’t complain tho as much as the poor show people.  The show seems to be following us up North and every week we have had a public holiday, being the show day of that region.  In Rockhampton they were there, public holiday and soaking rain, Mackay the same and now the Proserpine show, Friday was the public holiday and sure enough it was pouring and cold.  Those poor people trying to make a living and every show has been a wash out.  Maybe they shouldn’t follow us anymore.  We are calling ourselves the drought busters and thinking of advertising to the drought ravaged areas of our services.

After driving for only a few hours as we were only going for about 360kms that day, stopping at Ayr (just below Townsville) for lunch, we were nearing our destination of Rollingstone, approx 60kms nth of Townsville.  We were looking for the Big 4 campsite and as our maps seemed very vague and my GPS did not recognise Rollingstone & asked me to be more specific (first time I had seen that message) we were unsure of just where we were going.  After taking one wrong turn off (and you may not appreciate just how hard it is to do a U turn with a 30ft caravan on the back) then taking the turn off for Rollingstone and still not seeing any signs we were a bit confused & did another U turn.  Back on the main road we had a rather lively discussion about which direction this park lay before finally finding a sign and the right turnoff (seems Jon was right after all) down to the park which is right on the water.  The road down to it is flanked with sugar cane fields on the one side & pineapples on the other.  A kangaroo hopped in front of us from the pineapples and disappeared into the cane.  We were lucky enough to get a water front site and drifted off to sleep last night to the sound of the waves after having a few pleasant wines to wind down from a hectic day.  This morning one of our neighbours who have a hoard of kids with them admitted they watched us with our little table set with nibbles & wine & us gazing wistfully out to sea and thought with envy as they yelled at the kids that will be them some day.

The park is very nice with what they call a water feature wrapping around the sites with coconut palms edging the waterways and the beach is fringed with coconut palms.  It’s what you would imagine a tropical beach to look like, even down to the no swimming signs because of the saltwater crocs!  A little boy of almost four warned me not to swim in the sea in case I got eaten by a crocodile, very kind of him.

Today we set off to see some more falls, (not actually more as we didn’t see the last lot) in the Paluma Range National Park, the southern end of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area called Jourama Falls.  The journey into the park was great, going through the cane fields first then having to ford a stream that came over the road (almost the first bit of 4Wdriving we had done apart from going over the kerbs of sidewalks) and drove through the beginning of the rainforest.  The falls were a 1.5 km walk into the bush.  Not a long distance but fairly treacherous as we had to climb over boulders and rocks of a river bed, still flowing so making it rather slippery but with help of a chain strung across and bolted into the rocks themselves.  Did you know that the wet tropics contain a wide variety of flora & fauna, it contains ¼ of all Australian frogs & reptiles, a third of all mammals, half of all birds, 60% of all butterflies & at least 70 vertebrate animal species that occur nowhere else on earth.  Also pleasing to know, is 5 of the worlds most venomous snakes are found here.  In the dry season (I am presuming that’s meant to be now) snakes are found down by the river that we crossed, sunning themselves on the rocks.  Lucky for us we saw none of this, maybe as we were concentrating on not falling to our deaths or at least suffering a terrible injury that all the signs along the way were warning of.  We eventually got to our destination without incident and 237 steps later.  It was worth it as the falls were quite spectacular cascading over granite rocks into rock pools below then falling again & again.   The rocks where impossibly huge with some balanced precariously against each other or one was just sitting on a tiny rock underneath, if you kicked it away it would have come crashing down.

Later today we took a drive to the little rainforest village of Paluma, which is, further down the main road from the falls but up a very windy, extremely narrow road that gradually wound up to almost 3000 ft.  The drive was spectacular with glimances of the valley below between tall, lush rainforest trees down a very steep bank.  Most of the time this road was really only one way although we met a few cars coming down, lucky they were on the drop side.  At the top, where the village is, was a heavy cloak of mist, I think almost permanently there.  It was so thick that even tho it wasn’t raining your skin felt wet and things were damp. I have read that even on a fine day the mountain summits of the wet tropics are often shrouded in mist.  It gives it a bit of an eerie look.  This is also the home of the cassowaries so we had expected one to pop out on the road in front of us, but none ever did.  We went to a lookout that opened up to the valley and sea below.  All we could see was the green, lush cane fields trimmed around the edges with forest.  We would have seen the sea if the clouds weren’t so low.  As it was getting late, around 4.30 –5 we didn’t get time to do any walks and the mist was descending further down so we thought we should head back.

Just a note about our fellow campers, on the whole, caravaners & campers are very friendly people and are only too willing to stop and have a chat but as with most people, they can be a weird mob.  Some really get into it and quite a few, mostly the older ones over 60, like to put their names on the back of the caravan, very cute.  Yesterday we got chatting to Merv & Jill, we knew their names were Merv & Jill because they were wearing t-shirts with their names embroidered on them.  I thought this was going a bit too far and took a punt that they also had their names on the caravan.  This morning we waved goodbye to a caravan called Merv & Jill as they disappeared down cane field lane, how lovely.

Thursday 28^th June

                

I really must wrap this up as 5 pages is starting to get ridiculous and you would have fallen asleep by now I’m sure.  I do have to tell you about the last couple of days.  We left Rollingstone on Monday 25^th and made the short journey to Cardwell, which is just north of Ingham and opposite Hinchinbrook Island.  I guess no-where is nice in the rain but it did look, as tho this place would be really pretty on a nice day.  It is right beside the sea and has a lovely long beach with the, by now, usual coconut palms fringing the sand.  It’s claim to fame is that Cardwell was the first port to be settled in Nth Qld and has the first Post Office & Telegraph station, built in 1870 and one of the oldest building in the northern tip.  I’m surprised it has survived all the cyclones they have had, as it is just a modest old timber hut really.  They have turned it into a museum and have lovely exhibits of how it must have been all those years ago.

Our campground was on the waters edge again.  Not a great camping ground as they go but it was sufficient.  Next day we took the Forest Drive just out of town and the brochures never did it justice.  I have found that brochures do flower things up and make them sound so much better than what they really are but nothing was really said about this drive.  It was all unsealed and you really did need a 4WD as it was quite rough in places but it was the most stunning scenic drive I think I have been on.  The forest was an open one, meaning the trees where tall with smaller leaves letting in a lot of light so it wasn’t as dense as some of the rainforests.  There were rows of tall trees lining the side of the road, which doesn’t sound that great but it was truly beautiful.  We went for a hike to see a waterfall, very pretty but the water seemed brownie muddy.  Further down the road we stopped at what was called the spa pool.  It was a natural pool in the middle of the river that looked exactly liked a spa pool and when the water is running (which is was) it swirled into the pool giving a spa effect.  It was great but what made it so amazing was the colour of the water.  At this point in the river, & I don’t know why, it was a milky teal colour, the most unusual colour of water I have seen.

That afternoon we drove to Murray falls & had a nice walk along a boardwalk to the falls that were different again.  It was falling over these salmon coloured granite boulders into pools below.  It’s hard to imagine just how different these falls are from each other but each one equally stunning.

After that we drove back towards Ingham and out to a fishing/sugar village called Lucinda.  The main purpose of this was to see the longest sugar loading jetty in the world, it went out for almost 6 km into the sea, quite incredible but not much else there apart from some delicious prawns we bought from a fish shed, very tasty.

We also saw a turtle swimming around the jetty in Cardwell and when we got back to the campground we had new neighbours who had parked this enormous bus right beside us and in between him & us he parked a trailer that was bigger than our van, certainly it was far taller and made us look like dwarfs. In this trailer he towed was a big 4WD and the top part contained a boat, fairly big one that came down on this hydraulic platform.  Very impressive and what money this must be worth.

On Wednesday (yesterday) we drove the 60km to Mission Beach, not a long day, so we were parked & set up by 11am.  Mission Beach is about 14kms long and actually consists of 4 little settlements, we are in South Mission Beach.  This is the true Cassowary country, there are Cassowary signs everywhere, to slow down and don’t kill them as there are only 1,200 of them left.  They are an ancient bird and funnily enough are related to the NZ kiwi & moa.  They are the largest flightless bird in the world, beating the ostrich & emus and very dangerous.  Hard to imagine, as they look tame enough but can disembowel you within a blink of an eye.  Don’t worry about the crocs & snakes anymore, look out for the Cassowaries.  This morning, to our delight, we saw our first Cassowary in the wild, he was just walking beside the road, looking like he might dart out in front at any given moment.  I can rest easy now I have seen one in the wild.

This part of Australia is really gorgeous, not sure I can describe the beauty to its credit.  The rainforest comes right down and literally meets the beach, the sea is a clear sparkly blue with islands scattered around like little jewels.  I have to say at this point that today was one out of the box.  Not only was it not raining but also the sky was the clearest blue, not a cloud to blot the horizon and it was reasonably warm so it has made an impression.  None the less, I like this part of the world, Mission beach has lovely little shops & cafes, very relaxed & so pretty.  The surrounding countryside is a mixture of sugar cane, banana trees, paw paws and other tropical type fruits.  One little town we drove through today had buildings on either side of the street & literally directly behind them were tall sugar canes, towering over the top.  I haven’t seen sugar fields like these ones, so tall & lush then further down they encircle a banana plantation.  You really have to see it to understand.

Disaster on the high seas today.  This morning we put the boat together, first time since Noosa, and set off for Dunk Island, only 4 kms away and so tantalising close.  The sea looked good but as we went further into the channel it cut up a bit rough so just before we got there Jon thought it best we turned around so back we went.  It was a fairly drenching ride, especially up the front (Shirene will know this!) and unfortunately we had the phone & camera in the nose of the boat.  We did have it sealed in a zip lock bag but somehow it must have opened and let in some water as now both are stuffed.  We can partially use them, like turn the camera on & off but can’t take a photo and can use the phone as long as I don’t want to ring anyone by pressing the keypad.  Bugger, looks like an insurance job to me.

Just down the road from here is a place called Tully that holds the honour of being Australia’s wettest place.  They don’t measure the rainfall in mm here, they measure it in meters!  The average rainfall in a year is approx 5 meters with the highest being 7.9 meters, I think in the ‘50’s.  To celebrate this they have a sculpture in town of a 7.9 meter golden gumboot.  I must say it is very green around here.

Will that’s it for now.  We plan another trip to Dunk Island tomorrow weather permitting and no camera or phone but I will finish this off on the 7^th page and hope you haven’t fallen off your chair & the coffee’s gone cold.

CHAPTER THREE

MISSION BEACH TO CAIRNS

Wednesday 11^th July

Well, it’s been such a long time since I last wrote that I have forgotten most of what has transpired between then & now.  Jon flew to the Gold Coast at 6am Monday morning and comes back 12 midnight tonight.  It was one of my main goals while he was away to catch up on the last couple of weeks.  Now here I am, 9pm, only hours to go and nothing.  Must say tho I’ve had a marvellous 3 days, been most busy.  We thought we would save some money with only Jon flying back to settle on the new house & attend a couple of meetings but I’m not so sure that particular plan has worked.  After three days on my own with all these marvellous shops around - woo hoo.  It’s ok, as I’ve eaten all the receipts, he will never know, unless he reads this of course.

Today I went to get my hair done and thought I would get some insights on the area with the young hairdresser and what she recommended.  We got talking about crocodiles (one of my biggest paranoid fears when walking beside any body of water).  She came from a farm where crocodiles were abundant so she didn’t think twice about them.  She was even giving me hints on how to sneak up on them by being really quiet.  Here was a novel idea, I thought, here was me trying to think of ways to stay as far away as possible from them and she was telling me how to surprise them!  A suggestion I’m not likely to follow up.

My job now is to cast your memory (& mine) back to the 28^th June when we were at Mission Beach & had an unfortunate day on the water.  The fun didn’t stop there, back on dry land we thought we would go for a drive instead and further up the road we past a truck flying by the other way.  His wheels kindly picked up a couple of rocks (ok, stones then) and belted them hard into the windscreen.  Made us both jump but we were relieved to see no immediate damage.  This however did not last, as the next morning was a big crack from the top on the windscreen & moving down.  Over the next few days it ran right across my side of the window.  To make it worthwhile in getting a new screen there was also a hole at the bottom where the second stone had hit.  So all in all it was a pretty successful day for some major damage.

As most of you know, the next day we did manage the 4km trip over to Dunk Island and as a few of you very observant people noticed, some pictures were taken and sent as I couldn’t resist sharing with you all the wonderful sights on the island paradise.  But how, you said, where these photos taken with a stuffed camera.  Well, miraculously, it did work again the next day to record this event but unfortunately it has now been consigned to that big development in the skies.  Fortunately I have another so you can be continued to be enthralled by amazing photos if you so wish to see them – just let me know.  So Dunk Island was a success at last, it was beautiful and well worth seeing. 

The road between Cardwell & Cairns is called ‘The Great Green Way’ and is part of the Great Tropical Drive (they love these greats), which extends to around 2,000 kms.  The Great Green Way is described in the brochures as ‘one of natures most breathtaking & memorable journeys steeped in history & Charm.  The rugged mountain ranges flanked by sugar cane fields, tropical fruit farms and sprawling deserted beaches offer endless views….’ etc etc etc.  This is an apt description and couldn’t have said it better myself as we have found it all that & more.

Cyclone Larry came through this section in March 2006 and completely devastated the region.  At our campground were pictures of the aftermath at the campsite.  Lucky the tide had been out but all the same they had a massive storm surge bringing the sea up and sweeping through the grounds.  The SAS & police, fireies etc used the campground as their base as they helped to get the region back to rights.  On the first night we were there the sunset was looking amazing so we walked down to the beach to get a better view.  As we got there I saw a cat leaping along the sand, chasing real or imaginary things and having a lovely time.  It’s the first time I have ever seen a cat going for a walk on the beach.  Just ahead of him was a bloke, as it turned out the owner of the camp.  When they came back from their walk we started chatting to him.  He said he takes the cat for beach walks every day, sometimes twice.  Turns out this cat was left over from the cyclone and some fireies found her on the side of the road, only weeks old and a bit injured so the camp ground owner agreed to take her in and has had her ever since. As the cyclone was called Larry he naturally called the cat …… cyclone.

Monday 16^th July

Almost another week as passed & still haven’t finished this, hopefully by the end of today it will be done.  You may recall my relief of having another camera to fall back on when the original one died a salty death.  I gave this camera to Jon to take with him so he can photograph the new house for me.  Well, Jon came back from the trip but the camera did not.  He has no idea what happened to it as he claims he never saw it after it was put in his hands.  Unfortunately it had two weeks of photos on the card that some lucky person who finds it will be able to keep and see what a lovely time we had.

On counting up the diasters so far it’s almost heart breaking.  We have been through a phone, two cameras, a windscreen, 4 tyres, 2 caravan batteries and our walkie-talkies that we use to assist in the backing up of the caravan.  One developed a fault and starting to make a terrible hissing noise.  Also, Jon’s new bright shiny push bike that he finally put together a few days ago.  He tried to pump up the back tyre but nothing happened.  Turns out there was a huge hole in the tube & tyre wall so that’s gone back to the shop for a refund having spent an hour putting it all together. Oh well, I’m sure there is more to come.

All along this coastline are carts at the side of the road selling anything from famous homemade pies to exotic & tropical fruits.  One I had never heard of is Black Sapote.  They make ice cream & wine from this fruit as well as (so they say) makes great eating.  It is suppose to taste like chocolate so I bought one to try.  What I wasn’t told was it had to be ripe otherwise it is the foulest tasting fruit ever to be eaten.  Not sure how you tell if it is ripe but I can only guess it wasn’t when I had it.  It is round & green, apple in size and when you cut it, the flesh is white but almost immediately the air hits it, the flesh turns brown then black.  I have reserved my opinion on this fruit until I try a ripe one.

From Mission Beach we drove just a few kilometres to a place called Flying Fish Point, which is located on the coast approx 6 kms from Innisfail.  It’s only a small settlement, next door to Coconut (strange name for a town) and has a few houses, a caravan park & a couple of shops to its name, but it was a good location for exploring around the Innisfail to Gordonvale area.

Innisfail was originally called Geraldton, the same name as a town over in Western Australia, but had to undergo a name change when an unfortunate incident occurred when a shipload of timber was delivered to the wrong place.  Shortly after that in 1910 they thought it prudent to change their name.  In 1918 the poor town was hit by a cyclone and largely wiped out.  It was rebuilt again in the fashionable style of the day and now looks like the Napier of Australia with art deo buildings abound.  The recent cyclone Larry did cause some major damage to the town but most of it has been repaired although we still saw signs of it around.  There are still some flattened banana plantations and houses without roofs, just blue tarps on them.  The hotel in the middle of town was also still torn to pieces, no roof, broken windows and only pigeons as tenants.  I did take a great photo of it to show but it was on the camera that got lost (trying not to dwell on it too much).

Surprisingly the towns of Innisfail & Ingham are full of Italians or descendants as they were part of the early settlers who came to cut cane in the 1880s.  There are a few Italian restaurants needless to say, a great deli and they have an Italian festival each year.  Innisfail is quite pretty as it sits on the shores on the Johnstone River with the art deco buildings overlooking a river walk with a marble statue at the end depicting a cane cutter.

It’s sugar season in the regions now.  From July to November they harvest the sugar.  Up to now we haven’t paid much mind to the myriad of train tracks that constantly cut across and criss cross over all the roads for the sugar trains.  We have seen all the empty sugar carts but the other day we saw for the first time an engine on the tracks and the carts were full of sugar cane.  Next day we read in the paper a man in his 4WD was watching a sugar train down the tracks then did a U turn on the tracks and boom, was hit by another sugar train.  He had three kids in the car with him, wrote the vehicle off but fortunately no one was hurt. They also still burn the cane here so the city has had a few days of being blanketed with thick smoke.

One of our day treks while staying at Flying Fish was up to Josephine falls (sorry, no pictures – lost) which was a very picturesque stroll through the forest, all tarsealed with a trickling river following the path and three vantage points to see the falls.  They really do these walks well.  Then up to the Boulders, a local swimming hole in the summer, no crocs, and another great boardwalk through the bush to see these magnificent huge, round granite boulders strewn through this gorge.  Aborigines, like the Maoris, have legends attached to places and this was no exception.  I can’t remember the exact legend but it’s a bit like a Hiawatha & Mini Ha ha type thing, a forbidden love between two lovers from different tribes and tragic ending.  Gordonvale was our last stop, made infamous for being the first place to introduce the wonderful cane toad.  In 1935, 100 toads were released and now of course they are at plague proportions.  I went to a souvenir shop in Cairns and they were selling the tanned hides of these toads as coin purses or little bags, they are extremely gross but if anyone would like to have one please let me know and I will go & buy it.

Gordonvale hasn’t got much more going for it except a bakery that sold nice pies.  We ate the pies & walked around a bit thinking what a bit of a dump the place was before getting back into the car.  Just before Jon got in a local woman said something to him.  We were vertically parked and were facing her so when I asked Jon what she said, he said I’ll tell you in a minute because I don’t want your face to give it away.  We got around the corner & he said that she said to him ‘beautiful town isn’t it’.  Well, my face fell in sheer disbelief giving Jon justification for driving away before telling me.  I guess there is a town for everyone.

Another really nice drive was along the Canecutter way which was the Old Bruce Highway going through Silkwood, Mourilyan and ending at Innisfail.  It reminded me of England in some way with it’s narrow winding lanes and high hedgerows except the hedgerows are sugar canes.  In Mourilyan the sugar train tracks still run right down the main street (a bit like a wild west town), glad we were there before the trains started.  Of course all these areas also have their own sugar mills, either they are the oldest, the biggest, have the longest chimneys or process the most sugar, each one seems to have a claim to fame.  Sorry, still no photos of this very interesting area.

Ok, so now we move onto Cairns.  We arrived at our caravan resort on Tuesday 3^rd July and what a resort it was.  It had a huge office and little golf buggies dressed up as frogs or nemo’s that zapped around showing guests the way to their sites or cabins.  It had two jumping pillows (always important) and one was the biggest in Australia!, a 18 hole mini putt, kids playground, two tennis courts, two big resort type pools, hot & cold spa’s, TV/video room, pool table & table tennis and big outdoor movie screen that showed movies every 2^nd night as well as a restaurant.  The activities they had included free snorkelling lessons, aqua aerobics, massage by the pool, movie nights including the state of origin game, free pancakes on Thursday mornings, the list goes on.  A lot of them were to entertain the kids so needless to say there were millions of them running around.  It was the best camping ground I have ever seen but next time may come outside of school holidays, as much as I like the little darlings.

Next day we took the car to the glass shop to get a new windscreen so spent most of the day wandering around the shops and main streets.  Cairns is a great town, has a huge shopping mall as well as lots of little shops lining the streets.  A bit like Surfers but much nicer.  The beach isn’t as good as it’s very tidal, sea goes out for miles at low tide and the sand is more like mud.  As you can’t swim in it for most of the year, what with crocodiles walking on the beach and stingers in the water it wouldn’t be much fun.  They do have a lagoon pool, much like the one in Southbank which is very nice and people are even swimming in it now although it is very cool.

We were at the resort for four days before packing up and moving to where we are now being Lake Placid, at the foot of the Baron Gorge on the north side of Cairns, minutes from Trinity Beach.  We have been here for just over a week but as Jon was away for almost half of it we haven’t really seen much of the area except in the last couple of days.  The Baron Gorge is quite spectacular and even tho the first photos I have taken of it are on the lost camera, lucky we are still here to take some more so will post them on the web over the next few days.  It has deep ravines with rain forest down to the edge where the Baron River cuts through and tumbles over rocks before stretching out to a big river and heading out to sea.  They do white water rafting through here, starting at the top by the power station and ending at Lake Placid, just beside the campground so every day by approx 4-5 pm we are surrounding by dripping young mostly foreign folk abuzz from their adventures, rafts, paddles & shoes are strewn over the road until they are all packed up and whisked away on the buses.

On Friday we took a drive to Davies Creek falls, not too far from here but down a 6km unsealed road with ten million corrugations.  I have always thought a corrugation was one of those metal traps to stop cows & sheep crossing into another area but obviously I am mistaken.  It is little ridges in the road that when crossing at speed in a vehicle is enough to rattle out 30 year fillings in teeth or drop your dentures out.  Even going slow it’s a good way to shake up a fizzy drink to make it burst it’s top.  I’m not kidding, it’s vicious to cross.  On either side of us were termite mounds that looked like giant ice creams, dotted over the fields and open forestlands.  The park had a series of pools & waterfalls fed by Davis creek with the biggest fall a 75-metre drop.  The lookout was on these huge boulders up the top with just an open fence to stop you falling off the precipice to a nasty death.  On the way back we stoped at Kuranda, a delightful little village in the rainforest.  One of the main attractions in Cairns is to go to Kuranda either by the historic railway built over 100 years ago or by gondola on the sky rail, which takes you over the treetops of the rain forest and past the Barron Falls.  We shall do this trip with Jeni & Graeme so more on that later.  Of course you can also drive which gives a great view of the Cairns region as you wind your way up the hill shaded by the big trees.  We did a great walk through the treetops on a suspended walkway, which took us to one of the train stops that have a viewing platform to the Barron Falls.  In the wet season they would be so much more impressive but as it was they were pretty good.  I have to say that I now have a brand new camera (extended warranty has been taken out) and do have photos of these sights.   The historic train pulled in just as we were there on it’s way down the track.  It let people out to see the falls, then back in and away it went.  We walked back to the car and drove down the hill and as we got to the bottom the train went whistling passed.

On Saturday we decided to do a beach crawl and started from Palm Cove down as far as Trinity beach.  There are about 4-5 beaches that are just one way in and one way out so you have to keep coming back to the main road before driving down a bit and head out again.  I would have to say that Palm Cove is by far my favourite.  The main street that follows the beach meanders down from one end to the other.  Shops & resorts are on one side with these magnificent giant Paperbark trees (Melaleucas – type of eucalypt), the bigger they get the more gnarled they are, lining the roads and palm trees sweeping onto the beach on the other side.  The buildings are a little reminiscent of Hawaii or colonial Singapore type architecture with a plantation look about them, very beautiful and luxuriant type resorts.  The other beaches are lovely too but none are quite as beautiful.

That night we went off to the Casino to watch the AB v Springbok and were quite surprised to see a large contingent of Nz'ers baying enthusiastically at the screen.  The casino, although not huge is a lovely building with a rainforest & animals & birds encased in the dome at the top.

Sunday we drove up to Port Douglas or Port as it’s know to us locals.  You would think, being Aussie that they would call it Port Dougie or Port Dougo but no, it’s just called ‘Port’ just to be contrary with the names.  The drive from Palm Cove to ‘Port’ is just magical.  The highway opens out to revel sensational views of steep rainforest peaks tumbling down to meet golden strips of sand.  It is the only place in the world where two World Heritage areas meet, The Daintree rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef.   The road follows the sea so trees on one side and sand on the other as it winds & climbs its way around the hills.  Up the top was a look out where they did hang gliding, they just stepped off the cliff and away they went, most fun.  We went around one corner and almost ran over a very dead black pig in the middle of the road, not what you would expect to see.  I almost felt like yelling out to the car coming the other way “PIG” but thought they may think I was criticising their driving.

The markets were on in Port, down by the sea and beside a lovely old church built in the 1800’s called St Mary by the Sea.  The markets were great - selling all sorts of things from jewellery made out of coconuts, clothes, tropical fruits, crafts, paintings etc.  There was a very brown looking bloke, topless with sinewy muscles with an axe in hand and splitting the tops off coconuts so you can drink the milk and beside him was another guy on a bicycle contraption that crushed sugar cane, the harder he peddled the more sugar he could crush.  It was a bit like those old mangles in the manual washing machines.  He put the cane in one end and peddled, it drew it through the teeth and came out flat the other end and the juice ran off into a jug.  Limes were then squeezed into it and were sold at $3 a cup.  I had some and it was delicious, not sugary syrupy sweet like you would imagine, maybe the lime cut it down but you wouldn’t believe how much juice came out of a dry looking cane.

The shops were all up market types but the village still had a relaxed atmosphere.  It was even more posh than Palm Cove with 5 star resorts and health spa’s scattered discreetly around the place.  They also have a Marina Mirage, much like the one on the Gold Coast.   All in all I am impressed with Port Douglas and the very scenic drive up.

Part of camp life I guess is having to use the ablution blocks & laundry facilities, a task I try & avoid as much as possible.  I’m so glad we have our own toilet & shower, it helps but sometimes I really must use the public facilities like today.  It seemed everyone had the same idea & all toilets were full.  At last one door opened & out came a rather large elderly (as they all are in this camp) woman who had been hit with the ugly stick (Beaten with it in fact) and I thought this might be nasty in there.  I was right, it was most unpleasant so I didn’t dally.  I came out to wash my hands and there was another woman who had just came out and then proceeded to pop out her teeth and give them a good scrub under the tap.  What am I doing here I wondered.  The other day I had to do the washing and it’s a very serious business this washing.  You must get your clothes out of the washer once it’s finished and not forget for even 5 minutes or so otherwise you will be faced by a line of angry woman waiting for the machine, and they start so early here.  By 8am all machines are going and the clothesline is full of large bloomers looking like they are getting ready for the next Americas cup.  Even when you hang up your clothes you have to be careful as there was almost a full on fight the other day when one woman had lost a sock so went inside to look for it, when she came out another woman had started pegging her clothes right next to the first woman who hadn’t finished.  Hell hath no fury than a woman who’s had her knicker line nicked.

I shall leave you with that vision as I’m off now with my plate and fork in hand to join the line at the pool, as it’s Asian night tonight. We will all have a jolly good get together after a short fight to get to the noodles in time.

CHAPTER FOUR

CAIRNS TO TOWNSVILLE

 

Monday 30^th July

Before I start you will all be thrilled to know that no more diasters have occurred since the time of last writing.  I feel a little hesitant to say that, tempting fate & all, but it is true up to date.

I finished up last time saying we were waiting for our friends to arrive before doing any more incredibly exciting things so we were very happy to see them on the Wednesday looking pleased to be here and ready for their adventures.  What they didn’t know was I had their whole holiday sewn up and they had no choice in the matter as to what they were to be doing.  We saw them on Wednesday evening for a planning meeting where I had intended for all intents & purposes for them to have a say in the matter but it was a shallow disguise that they saw through almost immediately so I had to fess up & tell them just what I had planned.  That night we had a BBQ at the campsite where they could see first hand what camping life was like and what our fellow campers were like.  I’m sure they now agree with us and that I’m not exaggerating when I describe them.  That particular camp did not cater for kids which was a plus on one side but the down side is there was no-one under 105 or did not have grey/white tightly permed hair, disappearing hair – sight or hearing, bad dress sense & would never dream in a million years of wearing knickers any smaller than a 4-man tent let alone a g-string. Not that it is all bad as there are some very nice, friendly people that we got to know.   Sharing the BBQ with us was a know-it-all retired Butcher from WA who knew everything, (including how to run a B & B & claimed it was easy - I was pleased when Jeni said he can’t have been doing it right), except how to cook a steak as he kept flipping it over again & again until it was as tough as old nails. So there was the introduction.

The next day (Thursday) was an early start as we (ok then - I) had planned to take the train up to Kuranda.  It left at 9.45 am so we set off & picked up our charges by 9 am, as it was a 20 – 30 mins drive to the train station at Freshwater.  The station itself was lovely, very historic looking with a museum at the end showing how the line was made & the history of the area.  They started to build the track in 1886 and having to contend with dense jungle & sheer cliffs with a slope of up to 45 degrees it was no wonder that several men died in the attempt, 23 to be exact.  They built it by hand with the help of dynamite & removed 2.3 million meters of earth, made 15 tunnels, 93 curves, dozens of bridges and 75 kms of track later it was all complete by 1891.  It has been in use ever since.  With this in mind we climbed aboard the train, now pulled by a diesel engine, not steam as brochures said, and took our seats at the end of a carriage on the old red leather bench seats they must have found comfortable 100 years ago.  We were lucky to have got a bench seat seating 4 persons & the one opposite seating 2 people all to ourselves so we could look to either where we were going or where we had been.  The trip itself was very gentle, the sun came shining through the windows as it lead us up the gorge affording magnificent views to the valley below, the Barron river and we could even see our camp site at one point.  We went past a waterfall that started higher up and cascaded down the rock wall beside us, apparently in the wet season the train & passengers, if they don’t close the windows, are covered in water.  At this stage we were on a bridge whose supports disappeared into the jungle below.  No wonder men had died building this, it just seems an amazing feat.  We stopped at the Barron Falls to have a look then back on the train for the short hop from there to Kuranda.  The day had started off sunny & warm but by the time we got to Kuranda it had turned remarkably chilly.  Kuranda, as I have mentioned previously, is a very pretty village with big shady fig trees through the centre of town and colourful shops on either side.  There were a lot of eating establishments there so it took us a lot of discussion & team planning of where we were to have lunch before finally settling on a nice looking restaurant that had a big balcony out the back overlooking the rainforest & pleasant ambience.  The food looked reasonable so after further (a lot of, actually) discussion, Jeni & Graeme settled on sharing a pizza, Jon a burger and me something similar & we settled back to wait for our meals & we waited & waited & waited. Jon chased them up fearing they had forgotten, and we waited.  In the meantime we noticed other people getting their meals whom we glared at sharply if we thought that they had come in after us – as you do.  Finally after over ¾ of an hour later the meals arrived, mine not in a bad state but the pizza looked very overcooked, almost to the state of burnt.  By this stage we were also frozen as although the lovely big balcony was great it also tended to let in the very chilly air, made chillier by other disgruntled punters as we weren’t the only ones with a long wait.  A family beside us waited over half an hour just to get some drinks.  The father was sitting there getting more & more furious until he popped his cork and stormed out, taking the family with him & we think without paying for his drinks.  As we left other patrons had also given up the ghost and were walking out left, right & centre without their meals, one guy just was having his delivered when he stormed out hurling abuse, so that meal would have been fed to the wildlife - & I’m not talking about the customers.  All in all it was entertaining if nothing else.

After that we made our way to the skyrail, which would take us back down the hill in a gondola skimming over the treetops of the rainforest.  We had two stops on the way down one at the Barron Falls, on the other side from the train, which also had a visitor centre with info on the flora & fauna and the other further down that had a lovely boardwalk through the forest and views across the Barron river valley.  As gondola rides go it was very pleasant, bit scary in some of the high points, but gave wide panoramic views of the surrounding landscape & Cairns & the sea once we got over the last hill.  By the time we got back down we felt we had enough fun for one day & headed back home. 

Jeni & Graeme were staying in a great resort in Trinity beach overlooking the water so we spent many an hour on the balcony with a glass or three of wine over the next week, putting the world to rights and picking our highlights of the day.

Friday morning was up even earlier as today was a mystery tour although I’m sure they guessed as we were heading north & there is not much north except the Daintree & Cape Tribulation where the sealed road runs out.  We started with breakfast at Palm Cove, a very pleasant experience especially after lunch the day before, then headed for our next stop at Mossman, once again going through the beautiful scenery of the green lush forests coming down to meet the azure waters of the Coral sea & beyond to the reefs.  We took a short stop in Mossman town to do a simple job of buying a loaf of bread for the picnic Jon & I had packed (wishing to avoid the fiasco of the previous day).  We found a bakery that looked ok – only one in town I think, situated on a corner with a door at the front as well as a door on the side of the shop.  We all went in the side door & decided what loaf we wanted then while Jeni & I waited to be served the two boys left by the side door & disappeared.  We were eventually served, made our purchase & left the shop, also by the side door & walked back to the car, where we assumed the other two would be waiting for us.  No sign of them, so we waited for them to show up knowing it can’t be long as the town wasn’t that big.  Well, we waited & waited & waited (sound familiar?) and finally thought where the hell are they so we retraced our steps back to the shop.  Sure enough there they were, like the two old men on the balcony in the Muppets, sitting outside the FRONT of the bakery patiently waiting for their women to emerge not even wondering why it was taking so long and seemingly happy to wait for as long as it took.  After a barrage of abuse from us women to the poor, totally innocent? Men we left the town & headed to the Mossman gorge along with 2 shell-shocked men and 20 million other souls who also thought it was a good idea.  Even though it was Friday, the show was in town (of course since it’s followed us all the way up) and it was show day so all of Cairns had the day off & most of them went north.  It was a very pretty place and we took a walk to the old swing bridge, approx 1 km into the forest.  In my opinion it would have been nicer without the scores of other people but it did serve as entertainment when one girl, dressed in her jeans, top and handbag over her shoulder, tempted fate a little too far as she was trying to get the shot of a lifetime whilst standing on a wet rock in the river when the inevitable happened.  Down she went in a very graceful slide down the boulder face and into the water right up to her neck but she did mange to keep the camera above her head so it was saved while everything else was drenched including the contents of her bag.  We did admire the style in which she slid & told her so as encouragement for the poor girl.

Next bit of excitement was to come on the Daintree River.  They don’t have a bridge which crosses this river, not that it’s a particularly long stretch but I think the locals prefer it this way, keeps the numbers down.  So instead there is one ferry that loads up from one side, slowly moves across the river to the other, discharges it’s load, reloads and off again.  The entire process takes approx 15mins.  There was a long line of cars waiting, being show day, so we ducked into a big car park (all part of my cunning plan) where there were several tour operators offering a ride down the Daintree to spot crocs & other wildlife for a very reasonable fee of $20 per head.  We chose the one that was offering a cup of tea & biscuits while we waited for the next cruise.  We were very pleased we did, as our guide was a very informative & down to earth woman with very sharp eyes.  How she saw the things she picked out for us I’ll never know but we saw a wealth of creatures.  What also helped was there were only 4 other people on this long boat so we had the thing to ourselves and could swap from side to side depending on what was to be seen.  The boat was open all around with a cover over the top and a shelf of lifejackets up the top.  She warned us not to touch them if possible as they could have some snakes in amongst them.  I’m not sure if she was joking but didn’t try & find out.  Jeni is snake phobic and I could see that her senses where heightened the whole trip as she seemed jumpy & when the camera case she was holding dropped on her leg she jumped a mile.  It was all I could do not to sneak up & grab her arm from behind to see what would happen, funny!  The river was a beautiful deep green and flanked on either side by bush & mangroves with mud banks jutting out at the bottom of a small lip or cliff, this is where the crocs like to bask.  Our first croc was little at just over a meter in length, sunning him on the bank.  This is the perfect time of year for croc spotting, as the water is too cold for them so they prefer to bask in the sun.  All in all we saw 4 crocs including Queen Elizabeth who was a 4 metre unamused old girl to a tiny baby one clinging on to a branch floating in the water.  If a croc could ever be cute he was certainly one of them.  Apart from that we saw tawny frogmouth owls, two green tree snakes, a wild pig & numerous birds including my highlight of the holiday so far, a Jabiru, which is an Australian Stork.  He was flying overhead and had these incredibly long legs trailing out behind him. This trip was meant to take an hour but we saw so much that we were out for an hour and a half by the time we came in.  The best value for money. 

The traffic queue was still long so we decided to take the 7km trip into the village Daintree for our picnic lunch.  There we set up camp on a picnic table under the trees & feasted on prawns, smoked chicken, ham, tomatoes, olives, cheese, fruits and of course a delicious loaf of bread.  By now time was marching on and we had a long way to go so after feeding left over meat to the local kookaburras, we rejoined the ferry traffic for what we thought would be a relatively short wait.  An hour later and 4pm by this time we got onto the ferry.  I had originally intended to cross at 12 – 12.30 pm so we were running a little late.  Our main concern by now was I had promised ice creams for everyone as my hairdresser friend had told me about these delicious tropical fruit ice creams.  The shop was due to close by 5 pm & when we joined the queue it was only 3pm so thought we had some time to spare.  A desperate drive was now on as we flashed passed THE most beautiful scenery of the Daintree and World Heritage rainforest as the narrow road snaked it’s way through the overhanging canopy of trees & plants that have been around since the times of Gondwanaland, many are yet to be discovered and hold significant interest to the world of science, botanists, historians & to the human race in general the world over to get to the ice cream place before it closed.  We did briefly visit a look out but hurried back to the car after a moment’s reflection on the beauty that surrounded us.

4.45pm and we rolled down the drive amidst cheers from the passengers, we had made it.  After that build up I’m not sure any ice cream could have stood up to the hype but at least it was unusual.  We had 4 flavours, macadamia (not unusual by any standards), yellow sapote (more unusual & not related to Black sapote), wattleseed and damn if I can remember the 4^th one.  With that out of the way we headed for our final destination being Cape Tribulation itself.  It was named this by our own Lt James Cook.  He was also the first one to discover the Great Barrier Reef, or rather his ship did when it ran aground in 1770.  Thus came the cape’s name, as it was here where his troubles began.  He eventually managed to get it off the reef after several tide changes & without sinking limped into what is now known as Cooktown, coincidently, to repair his ship.  I digress, we made it to Cooks troubles just before dark and it did hold it’s own magic.  It is completely untouched apart from the road & a little rest & information area, but on the beach itself the lushness of the forest that had been there for millions of years tumbled down to the long deserted beach which would have looked the same when our friend Cook saw it and for thousands of years when the Aborigines had it to themselves.  It certainly was well worth the effort to make it. 

A sign there amused me warning people of a large Cassowary present in the area and had been approaching people.  It said that ‘any such bold behaviour should be reported immediately and if approached to back away and make loud noises (clap & yell)’.  He only wanted to meet some new friends.  There was also another sign along the roadside.  All along that strip of road were speed humps and before each one was the symbol of the hump (a long bit then a bulge then another long bit) and underneath that was a picture of a Cassowary.   On one of these signs some wag had modified it and painted claws on one end of the hump sign and a Cassowary head on the other so it looked like a Cassowary lying down.  On the picture of the Cassowary beneath they painted ‘Before” and the one above was “After”.

We turned around then and headed home, catching the ferry after 7pm where there were no long queues, got on straight away after having to wait a bit for it on the other side while they waited for an Ambulance, lights going ‘nd all, to load up.  On reaching our side the doors came down and the ambulance sped off in the distance behind us.  The only other notable thing on the return journey was we saw a cane fire, something I have always wanted to see.  It was a few fields away from the road but we saw the glowing red line and smelled the smoke as the field blazed.

Next day was lay day so we could do what we wanted but met up that night in the Casino to watch the test match then to a Greek restaurant for dinner. It was a lot of fun as there was lots of plate throwing; belly dancing, Zorba the Greek dancing and OPAH’s galore (at least I think that’s what they were saying).  They had a hen night plus a wedding so the place was humming.  Graeme especially enjoyed the Belly dancing as she swayed & gyrated her way towards him, wrapped her pink chiffon scarf around his neck and whisked him away in a swirl of chiffon & bells.  The last we saw of our friend was as he was disappearing down her buxom cleavage with a huge smile on his face.  He will deny it to this day but I have photograph evidence of the whole thing.

Sunday a big day had been planned, we were off to the Atherton Tablelands.  First stop was a coffee plantation at Mareeba.  There we indulged in the finest coffee, hand made chocolate from their own chocolate maker and cake.  They had all sorts of yummy products involving coffee, all grown from their fields beyond.  Before leaving town we stopped at a museum we were almost going to miss but decided to see anyway and pleased we did.  It was just small and free  - a bonus, and very interesting about the history of the area, a mine diaster, the explorers and early schooling.  The poor women teachers had a hard life, we read the rules they must abide by.  There shalt be no loitering in the soda shops, no fraternising with men (all teachers were single women), no skirts above 2 inches from the ground, no less than two petticoats, sweep out the class room every day & more that I’ve forgotten.  Also amusing was a school log book of the punishments dealt out to wayward school children.  Poor old Johnny got 10 lashes of the cane when he threw cow dung at the girls.  It was all written in very formal and neat handwriting.

From there it was down to Atherton itself, a town of approx 11,000 people.  It was in this area they used as a staging post during the war and over 100,000 troops were camped around the place using it as a base prior to and returning to the front line so there were still a few signs of this occupation including a large military museum just north of it.   Just out of town was a place called Hasties Swamp, a wetlands area with loads of birds.  They had a two-story bird hide there, very well built of hardwood timber.  From there we could look out to the dozens of different types of birds flying & flocking around the area.  We saw a very brightly coloured vivid blue kingfisher just outside our window plus whistler ducks, geese, egrets, herons & so on.

Now this is my fault but on seeing the adverts in brochures & hearing about it, I insisted we had to visit the largest Tea plantation in Australia and seeing how the coffee plantation was such a success I was eager to see the tea.  Admittedly it was a long drive out there but I assured everyone it would be worth it and ignored the grumblings coming from the back seat & drivers seat when we wound our way around narrow, lumpy country roads and drove for hours.  Excitement filled the car as we saw fields of nicely trimmed tea bushes and signs leading the way.  After making our way down a long driveway passing tea plants along the way we eventually arrived at the visitors centre and I have to say at this point that it has to be the most overrated and disappointing destination I have ever come across.  An ordinary teahouse does so much better than this place, which is, as mentioned, the largest plantation in the whole of Australia.  It looked like a prefab building with a counter selling scones & biscuits, a dismal display of their latest tea range, a couple of posters on the wall and a long room filled with tables & chairs with a distinct lack of character or ambience, much like a town hall set up with tables for a bingo evening.  We walked in and walked out again, my reputation was in tatters.  Everyone agreed that the best part of that trip was coming around a corner and seeing all these peacocks roosting in a milking shed with peahens wandering around another cow shed.  That was talked more about than the tea. 

We drove on to Yungaburra, a small historical village further up and had lunch in a place that could have given the tea plantation a few pointers as they had teapots hanging from the rafters, cute little tablecloths and knick-knacks around that did give atmosphere.  This town is famous for a tree and it is meant to be the most visited tree, not in Qld, not in Australia but in the world, can you believe that, we didn’t but we took a look at it anyway.  It is called Curtain Fig tree, so named from the extended aerial roots that drop 15m to the forest floor forming a curtain.  It was truly impressive and I got a couple of points back from that.  The tablelands are elevated, with Yungaburra 720 meters above sea level so it was cool to say the least, probably one of the coldest days we’ve had including Kuranda so we were very cold by this stage with Jeni’s toes almost falling off as she didn’t wear socks, preferring instead to wear very cute shoes not designed for the cold so we tended not to dally too much outdoors by now.

A friend of ours had previously mentioned a very pretty lake with an old teahouse on the shores that we had to visit so we headed off there.  This lake is a maar or Crater Lake formed by volcanic explosions and is indeed extremely pretty, the lake surface was very still & blue & reflected the green rainforest trees that crowded down to the shoreline.  A short walk into the bush brought you up to twin Kauri pine trees estimated at over 1,000 years old and they were a fine specimen of tree but we decided to have Devonshire tea first in case they closed which turned out to be a first rate idea.  Inside this tea house, which had been operating in the same family since 1927 so they had discovered the secret of making a very fine scone indeed, was a large roaring fire so we picked the table closest to it and felt very cosy indeed, with a view out to a picturesque lake, steaming pot of tea & scones in front of us and blazing fire behind what could be finer.  It was the cutest Teahouse too, which brought more disgruntled mutterings from the troops about the previous failure.

To end the day we visited another huge fig tree called Cathedral Fig, which was every bit if not bigger and more impressive than curtain fig, with it’s large aerial roots coming down and part of it formed a cave like a Cathedral that you could stand in, very much mouth dropping stuff.

Monday was another lay day to give everyone a rest before the finale of the piece, snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.   Unfortunately the weather wasn’t with us, we had delayed this event in the hope that it would get better but winds were still blowing 20 – 30 knots with lumpy seas.  After much thought we decided to take a boat that went to an island instead of a pontoon not far from land so we had as little time travelling on the sea as possible.  The tour guides were lovely and made the whole trip, putting a positive spin on things even when we left town in the pouring rain and black skies.  By the time we got to the boat, which was south of Cairns and left from a river, the weather had picked up a bit and after coffee & biscuits on the boat we felt a little better about it.  The island, called Normanby and part of the Franklin Islands is a National Park which means you can look & touch but cannot take anything off the island, no matter how pretty the coral or shells are Graeme.  There are no buildings on it and no camping allowed and this tour was the only boat allowed on it so we had the place to ourselves, which was great.  One side of the island on the beach was full of old, washed up coral that looked like a graveyard full of bones, bleached white in the sun.  It had amazing shells and loads of different types of coral that gave you an idea of the corals that lived around it in the sea.  There was a giant clamshell on the beach that was so big and heavy that we could not lift it up, it had to be at least 40-50 kilos.  By this time the sun was out & blazing so we lay in the sand while plucking up the courage to go snorkelling, as the waves were very wavy and current very strong.  Graeme went out, no fear at all having done this sort of thing before but the rest of us decided lunch was order of the day before any danger sport.

After lunch, being able to put it off no longer Jon & I took the plunge into the sea, flippers & snorkel attached.  Luckily they had a rope going from the beach and anchored out in the sea so we could hold onto this rope.  Just as well, as the current was so strong we would have been swept along the beach and the waves were big but not breaking.  I held onto that rope for dear life and tried to still my beating heart.  My breathing was panicky, like I was in heavy labour, with short shallow breaths thinking I was going to die out here.  I tried to calm down a little, enough to put my head in the water but not for long in case a wave went down my snorkel.  I eventually got the hang of it and with both hands on the rope, lying parallel to the beach I could put my face in enough to see the brightly coloured corals & fish swimming around.  Jon, further up the rope was getting drowned as water was coming into his mask and he swallowed half the ocean, we thought it was just low tide, so we had to give up the ghost on that one.  We were told later that it should be no more than 5 –10 knots to make it pleasant and, as we were in twice that it wasn’t ideal conditions.  To make up for it someone spotted a whale out there so Jeni, Jon, myself and another woman ran to the little boat they had and a crewmember motored us out there for a closer look.  There were two of them flipping flippers & tails in the air and once coming out or breeching as the term is.  All very exciting.  We also went in the semi submersible, like a glass bottom boat except you are under the water line to see the corals.  I must say that it wasn’t as great as I had expected, there were large parts of bleached coral or nothing at all but the coloured coral we did see was just stunning with it’s vibrant blues & reds, different kinds and swaying or moving in the current.  Next time we will go out on a calm day & out further.  The water was warm tho so that was a plus.

Here endth our odyssey in Cairns.  We had a few more days there after Jeni & Graeme went back but apart from seeing the latest Harry Potter movie, nothing eventful.  Saying that, just seeing the movie was a bit of an event.  We were running late, it was meant to start at 2.50 & we were just buying the tickets at 2.55. The girl gave us the wrong direction on which way to go but we sorted that and saw outside theatre #5 that it was showing Harry Potter so we ducked in there, me with my bucket of popcorn & Jon with his upsized drink.  It was really dark in there and we saw the movie was already on, so we stumbled to our seats and settled in.  The movie seemed to be in full swing and right in the middle of a big magical fight scene which I thought was a bit strange for the beginning of the movie but it was so long ago since I read the book I didn’t think much more about it.  Then the credits came up, along with the lights and everyone left the theatre.  Shit, we had come into the wrong one, so we dived outside, ran along to the next one and ducked it where movie again had already started but at least it was closer to the beginning and we now knew how it ended.  I loved Cairns & surrounding areas, so much to see & do and so beautiful, if you haven’t been you have to go before you die.

We are now in Townsville after arriving on Saturday, regretfully we missed the Saturday Devonshire teas at Lake Placid but I guess it was just as well.  Yesterday we had a look around the town, went to a couple of markets and I almost bought a goat.  It was the cutest looking kid you have ever seen with it’s long soft ears hanging down past his face, soft coat & doleful eyes that said, take me home Paulette.  He nestled his face into my hands and was so gentle & only $30 that I wondered how I could get away with taking a goat around Australia with me.  A lot of parks say no cats or dogs but none mention goats so it may be possible.  Jon took me away before I had any more thoughts on the matter.

Also in this market was a stall selling my favourite fruit, Black Sapote, remember the fruit that’s meant to taste like chocolate but not when eaten unripened?  Well, I thought I should give it another shot so had a long chat with the stallholder; she gave me two ripe ones and a list of recipes on what to do with them.  I took them home last night and made up the recipe for chocolate sauce, which was the fruit, lemon juice, sugar & whipped cream.  When I cut the fruit it was oh so different to the last one, which was green on the outside & white in the middle until it hit air, then turned black.  This was black on the outside and a rich, glossy brown/black like true dark chocolate inside.  I scooped the soft flesh out and mixed it up with the other ingredients and poured it over a small tub of ice cream each.  It was divine, this fruit is the chocolate lovers dream, to be good for you and just like chocolate.  OK so the cream negated some of that but I have definitely changed my mind on this fruit.  Don’t know where else you can buy it as only seen it on market stalls up here but if you ever see it, come to me for a recipe.

We visited the Town Common, which is not what you would think a town common to be.  It is an enormous area containing wetlands, open woodland, grassland, swamps & vine thickets just on the outskirts of Townsville & a 7 km drive takes you around to finish at Bald rock.  When you see this rock you can understand the name.  Throughout the drive are viewing platforms to see the birds & wildlife there and to finish off our Australia experience of birds we have finally seen the much coveted Brolga.  I had talked often of wanting to see this bird and Jon thought nothing of it but when he saw it I have never seen him so enthused over a feathered bird.  We were both fascinated with them, they are so big, Jon estimates over 6ft, long legs and a red head.  It is stork like but it’s not a stork (I don’t think) but impressive just the same.  We met a couple who had just come back from a long walk around Bald Rock, along the ledge and back, he had shorts on with these canvas legging things that you see lawn mower men wear to protect their shins.  He was telling us how good the walk was and we really should do it.  We had already done part of the walk but not the whole thing. Then he said don’t forget to take your snakebite kit with you.  We looked at each other & said “snake bite kit?’  That was it, we weren’t going on any more of that walk after that.  He said it was just a precaution but our precaution was not to go in the first place, hence minimising the risk even more.

On the way back we saw a couple of Cockatoos on the side of the road, one had picked up a can of lemonade and was drinking the last dregs of it, looked so funny.  Pulled up to the next intersection to wait at the lights and a van across the road turned right, into our road but didn’t see the car coming the other way and BANG, glass & bits of car everywhere.  No one was hurt but our last excitement for the day, we even gave witness statements to the police, whew this life can be harrowing.

It’s taken me the entire day to write this so I hope someone reads it without falling off their perch.  The only thing keeping me going is the thought that we are off to Cactus Jack tonight to see if their Margaritas are any better than at Airlie Beach, I hope so.  Tomorrow we are off to Magnetic Island, or Maggie as is known to us locals.

Tuesday 31^st July

Just to quickly finish off, I’m pleased to inform you that yes, Cactus Jack is just as good here & Margaritas divine.  A funny coincidence happened yesterday, friends of ours from the Gold Coast just happened to pull up into our caravan park and no less, parked beside us in the next site.  We didn’t know they were coming & they didn’t know we were here so how funny is that.

Today we went to Maggie for the day and it was great.  We hired a Moke which is a jeep like vehicle, canvas over the top and open sides, you have to strap yourself in otherwise it was possible to fall out the side when it turned a sharp corner.  Jon’s hat did just that & he realised several kms later his hat was missing so back we go and sure enough, there it was in the middle of the road on an intersection, very lucky this time.  The skies were blue & temp approx 26 degrees so it was very pleasant, sea was sparkly blue and so clear, you could see the bottom quite a distance out.  We got to one bay that I had read was good for snorkelling.  Another lucky find that day was a pair of goggles that had been left behind so we used them, unfortunately no snorkel, and went for a swim in this bay.  It was fantastic, the sea was calm & still, like it should have been at the Barrier, warmish and such bright coloured coral just off the beach.  We only had to stand up to our knees and put our head in the water & it was all there, bright green, blue, brown stick coral with white tips or a very white one, most unexpected & so much cheaper than paying for a snorkel trip.  It was a good day all round at Maggie and to finish off the day we have just had drinks around the caravan with our friends so now off to bed for our day tomorrow where we will head inland for the big 3,000 Km hike to Darwin.

Until then my friends, it will take you at least that to finish reading this.

CHAPTER FIVE

TOWNSVILLE TO KATHERINE

 

Tuesday 7^th August

Well that didn’t last long, our run of no disasters I mean.  Our latest one happened not three days after I last wrote.  On Friday morning we found out that for some reason our (brand new) batteries weren’t working.  It wasn’t so much they weren’t working but power was not getting into the van.  I have never understood the workings of batteries v power & just what they ran as opposed to the electricity, all I knew was that if we didn’t plug in, the essentials of life like the coffee machine, wine & water cooler, electric blanket, heater as well as the telly didn’t work, they all being my main concerns.  I have since found out that the batteries run all the lights, the clicky thing that lights the gas, the toilet flusher, water pump if you are using the water tanks in the van and most importantly, the hot water.  Even tho the hot water is heated by gas it obviously is regulated by the batteries.  It also runs the fridge when we are driving along.  Well, none of that worked, & it failed when we were in the tiny outback town of Hughenden.  It was large enough to have an auto mechanic but small enough to have only the one and he was flat tack so we had to wait until we got to Mt Isa, then of course it was the weekend so waited until Monday before getting help.  With his help plus two phone calls to Paramount in Melbourne we finally found the switch underneath the van, which simply need to be flicked back on as for some reason it had flicked off.  Only cost 2.5 hours of the mechanics time @ $60 p/h!  We learn something new every day.

We are now proud to declare that we are real Aussie’s as we have been to “The Isa” as us genuine Aussies call Mt Isa.  But I get ahead of myself.

We left Townsville last Wednesday 1^st August and made the enormous trip of 132kms to Charters Towers, otherwise known as Charlie’s Trousers.  Well, we had to break ourselves in gently to the outback.  Charters Towers was well worth an overnight stop but I would be hesitant to stay for the recommended minimum of 3 days as the guidebook says.  It’s claim to fame is gold, discovered back in 1871 by a young aboriginal horse boy called Venus Mosman, oops sorry, his name was Jupiter, knew it was something like that.  Soon it became the second largest city in Queensland, beaten only by Brisbane.  Business was booming and there were many rags to riches to rags stories abounding.  To fund the mines stockbrokers would be selling shares, mostly in the streets to willing investors but unfortunately a few shady ones were just funding their lifestyles and disappeared from the scene never to be seen again or the hapless investors money.  To help prevent this, get some order back and fund the deep reef mines they opened their own stock exchange, one of the few in Australia.  There are quite a few buildings, the Stock Exchange included, built in the 1880’s that have been well preserved, are beautiful buildings and still being used by businesses. In it’s hey day there were 92 hotels & 29 crushing mills.  After doing the heritage walk and reading about the town you get a real sense of what it must have been like and how exciting those times would have been.  A damn sight more exciting than now I can tell you, not much happens there by the look of it.  It is in a bit of a time warp, we went into a haberdashery shop to get some curtain cord for a cupboard (to prevent stuff from falling out and killing the person underneath who opened the cupboard after a bouncy journey) and it was like something out of the 30’s or 40’s.  A huge space inside one of these old buildings with bolts of cloth, hats for sale and bits of stuff, I guess you would call haberdashery, everywhere. 

We also visited the old pioneers cemetery there, in use from 1872 – 1895, which was interesting in itself.  They buried the Catholics in one part, Presbyterians in another, Jews in another part & never the religions shall meet.  What surprised me was there were so many unmarked graves, just a pile of stones around a mound, in fact most of the cemetery was like that, maybe a third had headstones.

Next morning we travelled from there into dinosaur territory.  Now we are starting to really go ‘outback’ or ‘bush’ and receiving our first taste of the Wild West, which it is to a large extent, just missing the tumbleweeds.  I’m not sure what I thought it would be like, very big and vast with nothing there.  Well, it is.  Surprisingly tho it is a lot more and I wasn’t ready for the beauty and the colours of the outback.  It’s not just brown or red but also blue, orange, bright & dull green, white, black and several different hues in-between.  There are also lots of trees, then no trees, looong flat land, then hills or gorges and constantly changing before your eyes as the road unravels.  The road is very straight most of the way, not a bend or corner in sight for 500 or so kms, easy to see if something is coming the other way, like a road train.  I was initially weary of these creatures as they are so big, some over 53 meters in length and towing maybe 4 enormous trailers behind.  The front three are nothing to worry about but the fourth one can get a bit of a sway on and almost knock you off the road after you’ve been sucked into the slipstream.  They are not so bad as I’d feared but then again we have only met them on so called good roads, if the road is narrow or broken up there is not much leeway to get out of their way apart from pulling up on the side of the road, which could be very rough & broken away.  All in all the roads haven’t been that bad but Qld roads in comparison to the rest of the world are shockers.  They are uneven, lumpy & bumpy, full of holes or badly fixed holes, fairly narrow and that’s just the main highway.

After passing through several towns like Stamford population 3, Torrens Creek population 20 and Prairie population 50, we arrived at the metropolis of Hughenden, population 1500 & 250 kms west of Charlie’s Trousers.  It is in this area & beyond, that a lot of fossils have been found of dinosaurs & the like.  My favourite one is a big leaf eating dino called a Muttaburrasaurus (Mutt-a-burra-saurus) as the name just runs off your tongue and sounds funny when you say it quickly.  There use to be huge inland sea approx 20 million or whatever years ago here, Hughenden would have been on the shores of it so they are uncovering loads of marine creatures.

We pulled into the campground, which looked fairly empty, but over the next few hours filled up to the brim.  We were lucky to arrive on this night, as they were going to have a sing-a-long & BBQ with a local folk singer & his guitar.  Only $10 each will give you a couple of snags, some salad and a jolly good time if you enjoy country music.  Our neighbour was abuzz with excitement.  She was ever so nice, a little too much for my liking, and merrily told me about her life, how they were going to upgrade their caravan and how you should stop for at least two nights to rest & relax from your journey before carrying on.  I overhead her say the same things to other campers over the course of the afternoon.  Later that night we saw her merrily tapping her feet and swinging her hands to the music and calling out the loudest to the musician and laughing the loudest of anyone.  Later that night, Jon had fallen asleep after all this excitement & I was watching telly when there was a huge row coming from next door.  It was so loud I couldn’t hear the TV so I put it on mute and crept to the window to see what was going on.  This ‘ever so pleasant’ woman was screaming abuse & obscenities to her husband and didn’t care who heard.  I gathered that he was a f****ng arsehole & a f****ng liar and possessed several other unsavoury characteristics and that she was so f*****ng mad he had no idea.  Well the rest of us campers had some idea of how mad she was.  She then stormed off to the showers to cool down.  This was good, I thought, better than the telly so I woke Jon up & told him what happened.  Soon enough she was back and it was all on again yelling & screaming then away she went again then came back for a third go.  Finally she told the husband that he had better go for a frigging shower as she had put clean sheets on the bed that day, then all settled down for the night.  The next morning they were up early, she was all smiles helping him pack up the caravan and ‘are you all right there dear’ then they were off before anyone could ask them about the night before.  We had a good chuckle with our other neighbours who were also by their window being highly entertained.  We observed that the two days rest she had obviously hadn’t worked.

While there we were sucked into going on a drive called the Basalt byway, which is 100 kms long, as it promised to be one of great interest & most remarkable country in the Outback.  It was interesting but not so much to sit in the car going over rough 4 WD tracks & opening gates for the next two hours but we did see 2 big emus and two really cute emu chicks as they dashed across in front of the car, 3 dead pigs (not sure what killed them), some big funny looking birds that we have no idea what they were (Jon thinks he has found a new species) some kangaroos and some big birds of prey.  It helped make the drive not so much of a waste of time.  The plants are different out here, there are a lot of very short trees, felt like we were in bonsai country, looked like real trees but only a few feet high.

We have decided that these small towns all need a point of difference, they find what it is then exploited it to the max with beautiful flowing descriptions in the brochures about this marvellous thing they have and you need at least a couple of days to explore the region and uncover all that it has to offer, when in reality it really isn’t much to write home about so I will be brief about the next few days.  We have worked out if it says you need three days, it means an afternoon should do the trick.

Porcupine Gorge was a ‘must see’ on our list for Hughenden so off we dutifully set, pamphlet in hand showing all the points of interest along the way such as an unmarked grave here, a lookout there, the longest dingo fence in existence over yonder until we eventually came to a gorge that has been 500 million years in the making, can you imagine that.  Long before Australia set sail away from the rest of the world and a few hundred million years before the dinosaurs, this beautiful gorge was being prepared for us to wonder at.  It was a beautiful gorge as gorges go.  The colours were layered down the rock faces so it was white, then orange/red all the way up then capped off with a topping of black where the basalt had formed a hard crust.  It was this crust that was slowly eroded away by water until it found the soft sandstone underneath and away she went, forming this picturesque gorge.  It is referred to as Australia’s mini grand canon, & like the Grand Canon I tried to walk down many years ago, we walked down this until we thought why are we doing this and walked back up after only ten minutes.  I’m sure it was lovely at the bottom and we will just have to go on the word of the brochures, as we will never know for ourselves. You do get a sense tho of the real ancient history of the place and how amazing it’s been here for hundreds of millions of years and what it must have been like.

There were no exciting fights that night so early the next day we hitched out and rode outa town.  First stop was Richmond, only 120 km further up the road to see Kronosaurus Korner, yet another museum with bones & fossils but after taking Nigel’s photo in the mouth of the big dinosaur out the front we declined to pay the $12 entrance fee and with nothing else to interest us (we didn’t want to fossick for fossils or gems, another exciting attraction of the area) we drove onto Cloncurry for lunch.  I recently read an Australian book set in the outback and centred around Cloncurry so I was interested to see the place.  Cloncurry’s point of difference is it was the birthplace of the Royal Flying Doctor service and the conception of QANTAS, also copper was discovered here in 1867.  To further liven up the town it hosts such glamorous events as The Stockman’s Challenge, Campdraft & Cutting, Merry Muster, Rodeo & Ute show to name but a few.  It is Rodeo time in the outback and seems to follow us like the Show did on the coast.  When we drove through Cloncurry it was on and this weekend it’s on at Mt Isa, making finding a spare campground almost impossible. 

When we drove through the streets of Cloncurry we thought what the devil is that noise.  It turned out to be country music blaring out from the speakers mounted all along the main street.  When the first words we heard in the song were ‘Down in the hayshed the sun was shining through’ we burst out laughing (my apologies to those who like country music).  The girl in the supermarket thought they were playing great music that day so I’m not sure what they had been playing previously and if it happened every day.  The town was not as auspicious as I thought & looked like all the other outback towns with these huge wide streets and I mean wide.  They could be a 4 or 5 lane highway but they are only two way with the biggest verge in a town street that I have ever seen, like land wasn’t a problem!  The shops looked a bit ramshackled, maybe half had gone out of business and the rest hadn’t had a makeover since Dino roam the land and the people, although reported to be ‘The friendly outback’ all look surly, unhappy and just a little bit short with you, not what I would term as friendly.  It’s been like this since we hit Charters Towers.  I’m sure it’s not all like this but what we have experienced so far.

Once again the landscape changed as we neared Mt Isa.  From long, flat very straight roads it slowly changed to a few curves in the road then these hills appeared as we arrived at the Selwyn Ranges.  The colours & scenery were quite dramatic, with the ochre coloured rock jutting out of the hills on the skyline, huge white gum trees, the kind that you see as a typical outback Aussie scene and blue, blue skies as we wound our way into Mt Isa nestled in this valley of red & white rock.  I had thought Mt Isa to be a bit more cosmopolitan and built up but really it’s just an outback town with more people in it and right at the end of town, at the end of the main street is this whopping great mine.  You can’t miss it, no matter where in the town you are.  There are two enormous chimneys, one is 273 meters and the other a bit smaller and the whole mine takes up the entire area at the base of the town.  The lease for the mine is 50 kms but underground it runs for 5 km Nth – Sth, 1.5 kms East – West and is 1.8 km deep.  The lift holds 92 people and goes down 1.2 kms at 63 k/p/h.  The rest of the distance to the bottom you go by truck.   Jon went on a mine tour today so is now a ‘mine of information’!  This town is not like Townsville or Cairns and by no mean looks modern but if you had to work in a mine there would be far worse places than Mt Isa.  We have actually had a nice few days here, our site is at the end of the camp and overlooks a paddock with these big white gum trees, birds abound and at night, strangely enough, we have been visited by three big draft horses that we don’t see during the day.  The nights have been cold (like 6 degrees) but days are clear & sunny & around 25 degrees. 

Eek, there is a big green frog that lives in the ladies toilet!  And I mean, in the toilet.  The sign says that he has always been there since they were built and despite the numerous times he has been relocated, within 20 mins he is back.  He usually lives just under the rim of the toilet so when you flush his legs lose grip a bit and he appears sliding down the bowl but he gets a grip and climbs back under the rim so you can just see his toes.  A bit disconcerting so I usually chose to use another loo.

There are a few attractions in town beside the wildlife in the streets.  One I went to today was the underground hospital.  After Darwin’s hospital was bombed in the war the Superintendent of the Mt Isa hospital had a wee chat to the superintendent of the Mt Isa mine and consequently they dug out some tunnels behind the hospital and stocked it with medical equipment & beds in readiness for a similar fate as Darwin.  Mt Isa was never bombed so it wasn’t used as intended and I guess slowly disappeared.  They ‘discovered’ it again a few years ago by ‘mistake’ and said, look what we found!  I asked the guide how could they possibly forget it was there, considering 1942 was not that long ago.  Her answer was ‘because they didn’t ask me!’ 

Meanwhile, back at the camp another disaster but this time not for us.  The poor woman, we all said.  Here she was, standing on the triangle tow bar of their caravan, just a few sites down from us, and clipping up the roof of their pop-top ready to head on the road when she slipped & fell.  She lay in agony on the ground slipping in and out of conciseness until the ambulance arrived to whisk her off to hospital.  Lucky she was in a town that had a hospital and it’s not underground anymore.  Turns out she not only broke her femur in her leg but also broke the top bone in her arm.  Guess she won’t be going anywhere for a while poor thing.  Who was it that said caravanning was a doddle??

 

Thursday 9^th August

You may be interested to know that so far we have driven 9,977 kms since leaving the Gold Coast.  It certainly isn’t that distance to get here but with the extra running around it’s almost tripled our mileage, or is that kilometerage?

We pulled out of The Isa nice and early on Wednesday morning as that day was going to be our longest so far on this journey.  Turned out we did approx 560 kms which may not sound a lot but driving on these roads with the caravan took us all day.  We headed for the Berkly Homestead, a roadhouse about 170 kms short of the Stuart Highway, which runs from Adelaide to Darwin.  I had set our GPS for Katherine when we were back in Hughenden and it said to drive for 1,146 kms then turn right & drive for a further 669 kms!  I told you these roads where straight.  Usually there is a list of instructions of left & right turns and 2^nd on the roundabout but not out here.  Just past Camooweal is the boarder into the Northern Territory and you are onto the Barkly Highway and crossing the Barkly Tablelands, nothing like the Atherton Tablelands.  There are just miles & miles of nothing, except for Mitchell grass, as far as the eye can see.  This is cattle country and where the famous stories of the drovers come from.  Many perished on their hazardous trips from thirst or disease and small settlements sprung up at the crossroads of these journeys only to die again when the road was sealed and road trains where invented.  This is ‘big sky’ country, half of it is flat land & the other is just sky, my god so much of it. 

We eventually got to Berkly Homstead which is nothing more than a roadhouse with fuel, a pub and a caravan site, a bit dusty & not much to offer.  Sites here were $24 a night, a bit steep we thought for what it was so made the executive decision to head on into the void and see what happens.  We eventually pulled into an overnight rest area, these are approx 60 kms apart and are big areas on the side of the road and allow 24hr parking for caravans.  It was the first time we have tried these free areas so thought it might be fun.  No electricity or water but we had filled our tanks earlier thinking we might do this so no problem now our batteries were working again.  We found a nice spot, just behind another caravan and several were all around.  We set up our little wine table, got out the vino & nibbles and settled in for the evening.  It wasn’t long before the first lot of happy campers came wandering by so we had a chat with them for awhile, then talked to our neighbours who gave us a host of info about Darwin & a couple of brochures then the folk from across came over and it was a regular party!  We socialised more there than in any caravan park we had been too.  Then the sun went down and it was so beautiful, very red & silhouetted the trees all around us, this was truly ‘the bush’.  Once it got dark we ventured outside to see the skies and oh my goodness, we have never seen a night sky such as this.  There were no hills or lights to impeded the view and it was so crystal clear, the milky way ran across the entire sky and down behind a tree and there were so many bright stars on all sides and down to the horizon I couldn’t believe my eyes.  This is an outback sky and has to be seen to be believed, and all for free!

The next morning the sunrise was just as spectacular, touching the trees and bushes with golden fingers.  This was our prettiest spot yet and here we were in the middle of absolute nowhere so it was with regret we pulled away and headed for our destination for tonight being Daly Waters.  Now Daly Waters is iconic with travellers, everyone knows about it and stops at the pub for dinner & entertainment.  First we had to travel to the junction of the Barkly Highway and Stuart highway called Three Ways, another imaginative name from the Aussie’s.  From there we passed through small towns (like 10 people or so, 25 people is a metropolis here) with names like Banka Banka, Renner Springs (named after a medical officer on the overland telegraph line, Elliott – after an army captain from the war, Dunmarra named after Dan O’Mara who went missing and the aborigines looking for him couldn’t pronounce his name so that was the best they could do and other such delights.  Most of these towns either sprung up from the Droving days and were major junctions or were there from the war days as supply camps or personnel staging camps or had airstrips nearby for the war planes, now of course most are defunct with a few white folk & more black fellas left behind.

We were going to take the road to see Churchill’s head, which is a rock that is meant to look like Winston Churchill but we missed the turn so drove on.  I am pleased to this day that we did as we had a chat to some other Kiwis that night that took the turn and thought Australia was having a laugh at them.  They drove 20kms over narrow roads with trees scratching the sides of the van only to see an odd shaped rock that somebody had stuck a pipe in it and called it Winston.  My name would have been mud with Jon for days.  As it was I made him stop today for some of Fran’s famous homemade pies, scones & coffee.  She was mentioned in several brochures so I thought it must be good.  She was a local identity and she was a character I’ll give her that.  She somehow conned us into having coffee & a plate of scones each (4 scones altogether) when we thought we had ordered just two scones.  She had signs up advertising fresh damper bread with yummie written all over so we enquired about that, ‘nar, don’t make them now’. We also asked her about the famous pies and she said nar, don’t make those now but how about a camel pasties?  Sounded interesting so we ate the scones & coffee then went to pay for them when she said that would be $24 plus an extra $6.50 for the pasties (one).  Jon choked on his last crumb of the scone but she already had the camel pasties in the bag so it was too late by then.  I must admit the pasties was lovely but Jon had got the hump (excuse the pun) by then and nothing would pacify him.

We passed the spot where the last historic join occurred in the single wire Overland Telegraph, on 22 August 1872 which finally allowed Australia to have direct communication with Great Britain, an amazing feat indeed.  That called for a quick photo stop then it was onto Daly Waters where we arrived by 3.30pm.

Daly Waters claim to fame is that it was originally built in the 1930’s to service early Qantas passengers on a refuelling stop at Australia’s first international airfield.  From here they went to Darwin then onto London.  It also had great use during the war with it’s airfield so things went well for it for a few years.  Now all that is left is a pub and a big campsite that everyone knows to stop at for the night.  The old Qantas hanger is still there should you care to go and have a look.  There is also the old post office building.  It was the post office then was converted to a police station but has also been used as a courthouse, dental clinic, stock inspectors residence, community hall & school, now it’s just closed.  They had a sign outside giving the history of the place and a story about the 1961 Daly Waters races.  One jockey took a short cut through the bushes and won by 6 lengths.  The other jockeys protested & the punters were outraged.  The second place jockey suggested a round of fisticuffs to decide the winner.  Just when the crowd was beginning to enjoy the entertainment the local copper stepped in, stopped the fight and declared the race a draw.  The committee declared second place the winner and all retired to the pub!

The whole show there is very casual, Ken the caretaker shows you where to park, which is as close as possible to another caravan as he has to squeeze everyone in.  They never know how many will be there as they don’t take bookings, just first in best site and no-one is turned away.  Then you book your dinner for the night which is Beef & Barra, for a particular time.  The later you arrive the less choice you have until finally you just have to sit and wait until everyone is done before you can have what’s left.  We got there nice & early so we had a reasonable site, ordered dinner for 6.30 then wandered over to the pub for a nice cold pint.  Between 4 – 5 pm they have happy hour.  You order the beer and before you pay they ask you a single question, ‘heads or tails’, if you get it right the drinks are free!  Jon ordered the first lot and called heads, heads it was so two free drinks.  It was my turn next so I called tails, tails it was so the drinks were free.  This went on twice more & twice more we won so over the hour we had eight free pints of beer.  I was so pleased when it was over as I was floating.  This pub looks a typical outback pub, lots of character, bougainvillea over the front, chicken mesh for windows and inside cramped full of memorabilia, bit like the Puhio pub.

I was disappointed on the entertainment, as I had been looking forward to it.  The bloke is famous & I had seen him on telly.  He plays the guitar & sings and has lots of chickens running around of which he may pick one up and put it on his head while he sings.  He was there a month ago but for some reason he & his chickens had packed up their roost and flown the coop, leaving behind traces of where they had been.  Shame but it was still a good night.

We did get a bit of entertainment the next morning.  There was an older couple (surprise) in an even older caravan next to us, it was only small with a pop-top but outside it was an exercycle.  This was the strangest thing yet I have seen anyone take on tour with them as it’s not small and where does he store it?  Most people bring real bikes with them.  Anyway, bright & early the next day he was out there cycling to his hearts content.  At least he uses it, I thought, but how strange.

Friday 10^th August

It’s not a long drive from Daly Waters to Mataranka and once again the scenery changed a bit.  Still straight roads of nothing but a few more trees now and dead cattle on the side of the road as there are no fences.  Most were skeleton like with their hides stretched across the bones, like you see in the movies in the middle of the desert.  The termite mounds are also getting bigger, now they are several meters high and look like mystical castles in a lost city.  The fields are just full of them.

Mataranka is just short of Katherine and if you have ever heard of it, is in the heart of the Never Never.  A pioneer woman named Jeanie Gunn arrived over from England in 1902 with her husband.  She was only here for approx a year when he died of malaria so she moved on but several years later wrote a book of her time here called ‘We of the Never Never’.  It is now a classic of Australian literature.  This place has another treasure that makes it a must see and that is it’s thermal hot springs.  These pools bubble away at a constant 34 degrees, my kinda temp, flows at a rate of 30.5 million litres per day and are just so crystal clear.  There are two in this region that you can swim at so we tried both.  The second one, called Bitter Springs, was the best.  This wasn’t just a pool but a river.  I have never been in a hot river before.  We took our goggles (the ‘procured’ ones from Maggie island) and floated downstream looking at the strange life forms that lived in the river, no fish but an underwater garden of plants, some bright green, some dull green – a bit like the coral and others were a bit slimy.  The water was very buoyant and the current was gentle but strong enough to carry you away making it a struggle to stay in one place or swim against it.  The river was fairly narrow with big plants leaning over and dipping into the water.  What a magic experience it was.

We are camped at the Elsey National Park tonight (something we couldn’t do with a goat) so no power or water, another night of roughing it but it is cheaper at $13 p/n.  The battery is dying in the laptop so will wind this up and send it off when we get within coo-ee of service again.  It is a bit disconcerting having no mobile or internet connection as the world could be falling apart out there and we will have no idea.  

CHAPTER SIX

KATHERINE TO DARWIN AND SURROUNDS

 

Friday 24^th August

We are about to leave the lovely city of Darwin having spent a very pleasant week and a half here.  Jon has taken the car to be serviced yet again.  It was serviced last month but that was over 5,000 thousand kms ago.

I left you last time at Mataranka, the place of the wonderful hot springs.  Ten million school kids thus shattering the peace and tranquillity of the national park joined us later that day, not to mention pinched all the hot water that is solar powered.  The girls spent hours that afternoon having a lovely hot shower and as there was no more sun until the next day there was no more hot water.

We packed up next morning (cold shower) and went back to Bitter Springs for one last warm float in the river.  It is just divine and there seems to be not a care in the world as you gently float downstream surrounded by warm water & green plants.

We stopped at Katherine for some lunch & supplies but being a Saturday, most shops were closed so there wasn’t very much to see.  Katherine wasn’t as pretty as I had imagined but we only went down the main street so I won’t judge it yet.  Just past Katherine we turned off the main highway and headed down to Edith Falls or Leliyn in Aboriginal speak.  Edith Falls is part of the Nitmilik National Park or as it’s more commonly known as the Katherine Gorge.  There is a campground down there right on the shores of a pandanus palm fringed, what they call a, plunge pool where Edith falls fall.  It was advertised as a grassy campsite but the only grass they had there you weren’t allowed on it; instead you had to park in the dusty gravel and just look at the grass.  There was also no electricity or water being a national park camp.  Despite this, the place was amazing and what I had been waiting to see.  The cliffs rose from the plunge pool and towered above us in orange rock looking very dramatic.  We couldn’t see much of the actual falls; they were in one corner falling down the rock about a third of the way down the cliff.  I guess the rest was around a corner we couldn’t see but the pool was enormous, the biggest swimming hole in the NT and very deep and fairly cold.  It was ok if we swam fast, but once use to the water by floating on your back and looking up at the surrounding scenery was something special.   Next morning we did the 2.6 km walking trail that took us to the top of the escarpment and around the upper pools.  It wasn’t an easy climb but the views from the top were certainly worth it and it made breakfast taste really good.  We are coming back to Katherine, as that’s where the road starts to head west, so we thought we would leave the rest to see on the return journey.

Our next destination was the Douglas Daly Caravan Park, situated on the Douglas River about 200km north of Katherine and down a side road.  That’s all there is there, just the caravan park, no town or shops but several attractions, the main one being the Douglas hot springs.  They are not kidding either, this part of the river is shallow & it’s not tepid, or even warm, it’s really hot at a temperature of around 60 degrees.  Further downstream another stream of water joins it and this is really cold so if you sit in the junction of where hot meets cold it’s a very unusual feeling. Your back could be really hot while you feet are cold, then the water swirls around and it’s all warm, then hot again and back to cold so you are constantly going, ow, oooh, arrh, ouch!  If you go even further downstream it all mingles to be just right and it’s heaven.  To get to these springs the last 7kms of the road are unsealed and really corrugated so you have to drive very slow otherwise you get shaken to pieces, never mind what it must do to the poor vehicle.  The trip can be particularly noisy if you have a toolbox in the back!  Worth it once there.

Nearer the camp are other swimming holes from the same river, some are cool while others are tepid to really warm and each swimming hole is in interesting scenery, either surrounded by trees & bush or sandstone cliffs.  One is called ‘The Arches’ as you jump into the swirling river (careful not to hit the rocks as one poor chap did and was good enough to warn us about it) at one point and it sweeps you under this formation in the rocks that forms an archway and deposits you into the waterhole with a sandy beach.  Just the thing for a Sunday afternoon swim.

Around this whole area they grow watermelons and now is watermelon picking season.  The camp was full of backpackers who were working the fields.  It made such a nice change to have young people around and they were from all over the world.  We had a chat to a couple of them and asked what was it like to pick watermelons.  These days are extremely hot & cloudless and out in the field the temps would get around 36-37 degrees.  Each watermelon is around 10-15 kgs and each day collectively they picked around 4 tonne.  Some had conveyer belts to load them onto and some just lined up and passed them down the line manually.  There were no toilets and no food but plenty of water which they went through at several litres a day each. They set off by 6.30am and we didn’t see them again until 4.30pm looking really knackered.  All this for $16 p/h less tax.  They were pleased they got the campsite for free as usually they don’t.  The season lasts for a few months but each lot thought they could just handle one-month stints, can’t say I blame them.  When they came back home they had a nice dinner of noodles to look forward to, as that was all they could afford.  We cooked up a damper on Monday night, ate half and gave the other half, still hot, with some butter to the three Germans beside us.  They were very grateful and even came back asking for the recipe.  Guess it made a change from noodles for one night.  We could & did buy watermelons from the camp shop for $2 each and they were huge.

We had timed our run to stay at this camp on a Sunday night as we had read that Sunday night was buffalo roast night.  That night we turned up for dinner, our shining faces looking expectantly around for this marvellous roast. We paid our money and saw it all laid out there so picked up our plates and started helping ourselves to lots of buffalo, potatoes and veges for me.  Well, the cook came out as we were half way through, didn’t say anything but started to throw around the metal lids of the containers.  I thought he was being helpful as I could get to the peas easier after that but in fact he was extremely annoyed.  The girl said we weren’t meant to help ourselves but as there was no sign of the cook for quite awhile how were we meant to know.  Jon ended up calling him a useless bastard plus a few other choice words as he felt the cook was attacking me but we trotted off happy with the generous serve of roast we had given ourselves.  It wasn’t bad, bit tough is buffalo, at least the way he had cooked it so don’t think we will try that meal there again!

It is always entertaining watching our fellow campers and some such entertainment was provided to us when the folk in the caravan just down the way decided to see if they could get TV reception (there was no reception on our telly) with their big satellite dish.  This process entailed the husband to walk around the caravan with this fairly big dish maybe 1.5 – 2 meters in height while the wife inside yells out, ‘no not yet, just a little further left, no right now, no no go back, come forward…’ and so on.  This little drama went on for quite some time.  Every now and then he would put it down, go inside for awhile then back he would be to shift it around the back of the car or side of the van.  He must have circumnavigated his caravan several times.  Finally, after an hour or so of this performance we saw him come out and dismantle the dish.  We laughed & laughed, it was a good sport.

When we got to Darwin, after swimming happily around in the river, the first thing we saw on the front page of the Local Northern Territory News was a photo of a monster croc with a bull shark in his mouth titled ‘Crocs 1 Sharks 0’.  This photo was taken in the next river not too far from where we had been!

Sunday 26^th August

We packed everything up on Friday and left Darwin earlish Saturday morning and headed to Jabiru, the main town in Kakadu.  Doesn’t that sound so Australian? Meanwhile back to Darwin.

We really liked Darwin, despite the fact it didn’t have a Dan Murphy’s.  After being wiped out by the war and cyclones it has now rebuilt itself into a fairly modern, tropical city.  In fact, to me it didn’t feel like we were still in Australia, it was so tropical, as in heat and architecture wise, the CBD looked more like we were somewhere in Asia.  As it’s fairly isolated from the rest of Australia and closer to it’s Asian relatives I guess it would resemble Asia more.  There are so many apartment buildings too; they were everywhere and more under construction.  There was quite a bit of construction going on so in a couple of year’s time it will be different again.  Parliament House in town was magnificent as was Government House across the road where the Administrator lives.  They don’t have a Premier, being a territory not a state so I guess the Administrator is head honcho.  After Cyclone Tracy that wiped Darwin down to the ground, they have rebuilt or patched up a few of the historical buildings as best they could but most have gone.  The ones they have done look fantastic some constructed out of the locally hammered stone.  Across from the CBD is a wide & long park full of lovely trees and meandering paths with seats spaced along the grassy lawns.  This leads to the cliffs and several lookouts that you can stand and look straight out to sea, where the blue blue sky meets the darker blue sea and if you stay long enough you can watch the sun slip beyond it’s horizon in a red fiery ball.  After living in the east we are use to seeing the sun come out of the sea, seems strange to see it set into it.

I also didn’t realise how badly bombed Darwin had been.  I knew they got hit once or twice but it was much more than that and had all but destroyed Darwin in the end although nothing was as destructive as the first bombs.  These were dropped by the same aircraft as those used in Pearl Harbour 10 weeks previously but over twice as many bombs were dropped in Darwin & I think over 200 people were killed.

We arrived in Darwin from Douglas Daly and spent the next few days familiarising ourselves with the place as Wendy, our friend from the coast, was arriving for the weekend so we had to know where we were going and what there was to see.  She arrived just after midnight on Friday night/Saturday morning and I’m afraid wasn’t allowed to sleep in the next morning as we had an action packed few days lined up so there was no time to waste.

Saturday morning if was off to feed the fish.  This had to be done between 8.30 – 10am, as it’s dependent on the high tide.  Every day hundreds of fish come into this bay to be fed by hand.  You come in and pay your $8, are given a few pieces of bread and within minutes you will be surround by fish, mostly mullet who ever so gently take the bread from your hand.  Jon fed a batfish that had teeth like serrated scissors so he wasn’t as gentle.  We also saw large milkfish, catfish, and Barramundi to name but a few.  They also gave a talk for the whole time about what fish we were seeing, the history of the place and how the numbers & type of fish are not controlled, they just come in if & when they want too.

With that done we were off to the Parap Markets.  This is one of Darwin’s longest running markets and was full mostly of very tempting food stalls.  We walked around a bit first eying up the delicacies on display before moving in for the kill.  It was mostly Asian dishes and some I had never seen before.  All looked absolutely delicious so it was a hard decision.

After being sated we headed off to the Fannie Bay Gaol.  Fannie Bay is very pretty but imagine having it as your address!  There is one place worse and that is Humpty Doo, just out of town.  You could say ‘I use to live in Fannie Bay, now I live at Humpty Doo’.  Anyhow, I digress; this Gaol was opened in 1883 and used until its closure in 1979.  Just after Darwin was bombed the first time, they released all the prisoners to fend for themselves.  I’m not quite sure why they did this but there you go.  A lot of the buildings haven’t survived after termites, the war and the cyclones but enough were still there to give you an idea of what it was like to be locked up in Fannie Bay and may I say it didn’t look a pleasant experience.  We saw the gallows where they hung two young men in 1952, they were only 20 & 19, for the brutal murder of a local taxi driver.  There were other executions at the gaol but these were on temporary gallows erected on an as needs basis where all the prisoners could watch.  The best thing about this gaol was it was free to get into and as we were going to shout Wendy in I think we made on the deal.  We went to another free attraction after that, a cottage built in 1925 and housed the cream of the crop of society so we went from one end of society to the other.  This was built in the style of British Colonial days of India, Malaysia and Singapore and even had it’s own punkah wallah, ‘us British’ - aborigine not Indian.

Sunday was not a day of rest, we were up early and heading for Fogg dam, on the edge of Kakadu NP.  Fogg Dam was originally built to provide irrigation for the failed (heres that town again) Humpty Doo rice project.  Someone thought it was a good idea to grow rice there due to there being lots of water so the government went ahead in the 1950’s, built the dam and grew rice.  For reasons that weren’t quite clear but I think water levels being one and water birds partly the other the rice failed but the birds thrived.  We took the water lily walk first but didn’t see many water lilies and not many birds so thought it was a bit of waste of time.  Then we drove along the dam wall and lo – before us (actually on either side) were magnificent water plants with the big lily pads just leaping out of the water and millions of birds of all kinds of denomination, the main being Magpie geese and white Egrets.  Apparently this was also a place of very high snake numbers, supposedly 800 snakes per sq kilometre but do you think we could see just one?!  We only wanted one to take his photo but not one of the 800 obligated.  At the far end of the dam was a bird hide but I think the best place to see them all was the drive along the dam road, never seen so many waterbirds in my life at the one spot.  We had to move on from here as we had booked a jumping crocodile tour at 11am.

When we were at the Daintree in far North Qld the ratio of croc per sq km was one, here it is approx eight – ten, one female per 100 metres and one male to protect his harem every km or so.  To say these parts are infested would be understated.  This cruise was well worth it and only for $21.  We had seen crocs on the Daintree but only females, which are smaller, and they just lay there.  We set sail in a bigger boat than we had before, downstairs was long thick glass windows to the ceiling and upstairs you could look down a crocs throat.  We chose to go downstairs first to get an eye-to-eye view.  They told us if we wanted to go outside & upstairs (as the stairs were at the back of the boat) not to do it while the boat was stopped.  The reason for this is a croc can leap out of the water and grab you from a standstill but if the boat was going they couldn’t swim and leap at the same time.  This is a very handy tip and one to remember!  I had heard before that fishermen have had their arms chomped off as they had their arm extended over the boat and a croc has jumped up and bitten it right off. 

Just after we left the jetty there was a long pole hoisted off the top deck with a pork chop and pigs ear dangling at the end of the rope.  It dipped several times in the water & out again and within minutes Bogart, the male territorial croc, had seen it and swam ominously towards us.  It kept dipping & rising until he was right underneath it.  We were so lucky as it was on our side of the boat and right beside us so we could see his evil looking yellow eye and even more evil looking yellow teeth, my god they were big, as was he.  Suddenly he leaped right out of the water, almost his full body came out with the pork chop just above his snout all the time.  He came splashing down and swum around again, attempting to snatch it several times in front of us.  A fishing boat cruised by and he just submerged.  It was freaky to see him one minute, the next he was gone but somewhere he was there, you would never know.  Apparently they don’t like the noise of the boat motors.  He didn’t come back after that, obviously wasn’t too hungry.  The next one was a blonde female, (Bogart was very green) I can’t remember her name but they all have names and the tour guides are careful to only feed each croc one pork chop per day so they don’t become dependant.  They feed them pork and not chicken as pork is part of their natural diet.  They can snatch a wild pig from the shore but there are not many wild chickens running around out there.  Blondie put on a very good show and leaped out of the water time and again until finally she got her prize.  It’s amazing how far these big crocs can haul their frames right out and almost stand upright, all four legs out of the water with one flick of their powerful tail.  We waited until the boat started again then made our run for the back door and stairs before they stopped again so we were up the top for the next two feedings.  One was another female and the last was a rouge male.  Every male has his own territory and surveys it all the time, keeping an eye on his females & making sure no other bastard encroach on his patch.  A rouge male has no territory so he swims around taking his chances.  This one was big too and really evil looking with those sharp pointed teeth showing a wicked grin, never smile at a crocodile.  We managed to get a couple of photos looking right down this blokes snout and I was pleased it just a pork chop sliding down his throat, not us.  The good news, if you are ever taken by one of these monsters, is these guys need to come up for air before they can eat, the bad news is they can stay under water for over 2 hours so unless you had a air tank or an extra long snorkel the first fact doesn’t do you much good.  This tour took an hour, millions of camera shots and a vast amount of info for everything you ever wanted to know about a crocodile but were to afraid to ask.

We had lunch at this place and asked the girls (yes, all run by women) what else was there to see.  They told us about a place further up that had a white buffalo and a big croc.  This croc is kept in a pen type arrangement with his own waterhole & a tree.  A while ago the maintenance man was up a ladder on the other side of the fence and trimming the branches of the tree with a chainsaw.  The croc took exception to the noise and leaped out of his waterhole, grabbed the chainsaw out of the mans hands (man managed to fall backwards off the ladder) and took it back with him to his waterhole.  There it lay for quite sometime with no-one wanting to extract it from him.  Apparently it was in all the papers and caused quite a stir.  So we went on to see the croc and the white buffalo but all looked peaceful when we saw them, croc only gazed nonchalantly at us so we moved on to see the big termite mounds further down the road.  They were big we thought, until we saw the ones at Litchfield park the next day. 

We also went to see the visitor centre called Window on the Wetlands.  It’s an unusual shaped building with a big curved roof on the top of a hill.  From the top floor we had panoramic views of the floodplains and could see a plume of smoke from a far off bush fire.  As visitor centres go this was a great one and had displays all around explaining the ecology of the wetlands area.  Jon got the biggest fright of his life when he climbed up a small ladder to see the view of the world from a mud hoppers point of view.  There was a hole at the top of the ladder where you poke your head through and see a scene of mudflats from the ground level and trees in the distance. It was all larger than life as if you were a small mud hopper. If you turned your head around to take in all the view, suddenly, right behind you was a big Egret with his head and long beak pointing right at you and ready to snap your head off.  It certainly gave us great empathy for mud hoppers after that and whenever we saw an Egret with his head poised down in statue mode we thought ‘look out little mud hopper!’

We headed back after that as there was still more fun to be had.  The Mindil beachside sunset markets are on every Thursday & Sunday in the dry season.  We had gone on the Thursday night and thought this was something not to be missed by Wendy.  We got there around 5.45pm with deckchairs, fold up table and bottles of wine in hand.  We found a great spot on the grass, behind some of the food stalls and overlooking the beach, the sea and almost directly in front of us the sun would slip beyond the horizon.  The plan was we would each buy a dish and put it in the middle for all to share. Wendy & I went for a recky first, leaving Jon behind with the wine.  The food stalls where amazing and from all over the world.  There was Mexican, Indonesian, Indian, Shrilanken, Timor, Japanese, Chinese, Australian and more.  A couple of the Australian ones were Road kill (a selection of possum, emus, crocodile, Kangaroo & ostrich sticks) and the other sold jumbuck shanks.  What to choose.  We came back with entrée that was a bucket of calamari fried for $3.  Then it was every man for himself and we went in our different directions to choose the main course.  Wendy came back with a huge plate of mornay oysters, Jon with some mussaman curry & rice & I can’t for the life of me remember what I chose but it was a couple of things, one being a salt & pepper quail.  Whatever it was, all our dishes were just yummy, washed down with a bottle of wine or two as we gazed over and watched a magnificent sunset, the deepening red as spread it’s rich glory across the darkening deep blue skies.  What more could you want.  Well, I could have wished for less that night, at least less of what Jon ate as some of those Asian foods have a very nasty affect on him.

On Monday we headed off for Litchfield Park, reputed to be better than Kakadu as it’s spring fed so there is water all year round as opposed to monsoon fed like Kakadu so it’s mostly dry at this time of year.  Trouble is, in the wet you can’t see a lot of things, as it’s then flooded.  Anyway, today was Litchfield, only 129 km south of Darwin.  After sorting out the seating arrangements, with Wendy refusing to sit in the front seat claiming she could see everything from the back seat.  Just after she said that we flashed passed a sight that made me exclaim ‘did you see that!’ to which she said ‘no, what?’  The timing was very funny.  It was a rather large dead snake that someone had draped over the white post on the side of the road.  We went back for photos.

Our first stop was to see the famous magnetic termite mounds, something I had been looking forward to as I have a fascination for termite mounds.  Did you know there are several hundred different types of termites, 90 are found in the Northern territory.  The ones that I thought looked like castles are in fact called Cathedral termites and later on in Kakadu we saw rock termites that make their enormous mound on the rocks.  So we pulled up in the car park labelled ‘Magnetic termite mounds’ and as soon as we hoped out of the car saw these two enormous termite mounds, even bigger than the day before.  We estimated that they were at least 5.5 – 6 meters high.  It was not quite what I thought a magnetic mound to look like as it looked like all the others only bigger.  So we had our photo opportunity and got back in the car.  Jon was just driving out when we saw an information board so thought he would have a look at that.  When we got out to read the board we saw a whole field of the ‘real’ magnetic termite mounds.  How could we have missed it and how nearly we did.  They were all, as their name suggests, facing north/south, were slate grey and looked for all in the world to be a big graveyard with lots of headstones.  I’m surprised someone hasn’t graffiti them with peoples names and DOB & DOD.  They weren’t as tall as the other mounds, maybe two meters at the most but looked very impressive altogether.

With the first successful mission down we headed off for the next one called ‘The Lost City’.  Now we should know by now that when a track is mark ‘4WD only’ that it will be bad but how bad could it be in the dry?  It was located just 10km off the main road and to give you an idea of how bad, it took over 45 minutes to get there.  The vehicle could cope with it but we had to go so slow, just above walking pace and now we think we had done our front wheel bearings in from it as after the service he advised us to get them fixed.  When we had gone forever we meet a vehicle coming the other way who told us that we had at least another 7kms to go.  We thought he was joking but apparently not.  After three lifetimes we finally arrived a bit shaken not stirred and alighted, me with trepidation as I was in trouble if it wasn’t good.  Turns out my life was spared.  We took a walk around the lost city and it did indeed look like some lost civilisation with these huge sandstone blocks and majestic pillars formed and weathered by the elements into looking like the ruins of a city.  Lots more photos were taken as every rock formation was different and one tends to get a bit carried away with the marvel of it all. 

There are several waterfalls in the park, some take a bit of effort to get to so we chose the one with the least effort, we could walk to it from the car park.  This was called Wangi falls. Of course everyone else was there too for the very same reason but at least it also had a kiosk where we could have some lunch.  This waterhole was similar to Edith falls with the big red rock wall towering above but it was smaller and had two waterfalls that were proper ones, falling from way above.  It was a beautiful spot, not too cold and we managed to swim over to both falls.  One had a rock pool a small climb up the cliff which was extremely deep and surprisingly warm so Wendy & I made the climb and clung onto the side of the pool, legs dangling towards the depth and looked out from the falls, across the plunge pool with many bathing beauty’s and over towards the trees and car park. If only we had our cameras. 

Our last swim for the day was at Florence falls, back towards the entrance of the park and in fact we had seen it from the top of the falls on the way through.  We stopped at the Buley rock hole first which was absolutely crowed.  It was difficult to find a park and in fact there was a sign announcing if the car park was full then the swimming hole would be too.  It was actually a series of small waterfalls & rock holes that flowed from the top and trickled it’s way down.  In the wet this becomes a torrent but for now it was ideal for a dip and if you liked big crowds.  There was a walk from here to Florence so Jon went that way and we took the car back to Florence.  It was a steep descent, made easy by the stairs and we got there well before Jon so were into it before he got there.  This spot was absolutely gorgeous, the cliffs were so steep on three sides, leading up to the top where two falls, close to each other were falling straight into a small but deep and emerald green water hole, trees were on the forth side. The water was very ‘refreshing’ so we didn’t stay in long, just enough for Jon to get there for a swim and to get attacked by the local fish.  These fish track you down and when you’re not looking make a dive for your legs.  Someone told us they like to chew any scabs you may have, they didn’t hurt but were most unnerving and between them and the cold drove us out of the water.  We took the long way back through the shady creek walk that meandered beside a creek for a while and was so pretty & peaceful before heading back to the car park.

We were due to go to the casino for dinner that night but we were so late coming back it was well after dark so a quick dinner was had instead.

After being in Kakadu for a couple of days I can see why people say go to Litchfield if pressed for time.  It is much closer to Darwin and most of the sights can be seen in one day and they run year round.  Kakadu has the same sort of sights but each one is further apart and the effect seems to be not as dramatic as being in a smaller place.

Tuesday 28^th August

This is our final night in the park and still I sit here trying to finish off these notes and I’m only up to last Tuesday.  I will try and be quick for the next week.

Tuesday morning I let the team have a bit of a sleep in, a late breakfast and chill out for a couple of hours before heading into town for a walk around the lovely park by the cliffs and the main Darwin mall.  Then we headed off for a place called Berry Springs Nature Park.  This is approx 57 km from Darwin so not a long drive, provided you don’t go the back way and get lost before leaving the city, but well worth it.  This place was another natural freshwater spring with what must be a little thermal creeping in as the edge was taken off the coolness and was quite warm once we got use to it.  There were several places along the river you could submerge your body but we went for the 2 km walk in the monsoon forest before finally succumbing to the bliss of submerging in refreshing waters from the heat of the day.  Most days have been around the 35 degree mark and it’s unbelievable how much water we go through, drinking I mean, not just swimming.  After a quickish swim we went to have lunch which was limited as we didn’t think like everyone else who bought along sausages to cook on the fire BBQ’s & smelt delicious & salad, no we had vegemite scrolls and chocolate scones.  The scones could have done with a little butter but they were very chocolaty and very yummy and most grateful we were to have them.  After a bit of convincing we managed to get Jon in for one last swim.  We got in one end of the river then Jon & I swam downstream while Wendy brought the gear over to the last waterhole which had a small waterfall.  The water pouring down this fall was actually really warm so if you sat with your back up to it you could get a warm massage.  Trouble with this place was it had more of these bastard fish that like to attack you when you’re not ready.  It doesn’t hurt in the slightest but gives you a fright each time.  As with all the swimming holes in the Northern Territory there are crocodile warning signs around.  There are always freshwater crocs that are not so aggressive and only take little bites but it’s the saltys you need to watch.  This place was deemed fairly safe but they warn they do a survey at the end of the wet season to check for crocs but can’t guarantee that more don’t enter the water system over the dry, as they don’t check again so it’s swim at your own risk.  We were discussing if it was possible to outswim a hungry croc and how to do it when one guy went past and pointed out that you only have to swim faster than one person.  We decided that from now on we would swim around small children.

Back that night for our seafood buffet diner at the casino at a very reasonable $20 pp.  We got there just on sunset and out the back with the wet edged pool & sea in the background with pink splashed over the sky it was just so pretty.  At the back of the pool they were having a function with everyone dressed to the nines.  It turned out to be Telstra High Achievers award night and Jon & I both thought thank god we don’t have to go through that political corporate garbage again but the setting was very nice and everyone looked great.

Wendy left that night at 1am so she could go back to work for a bit of a rest!  We spent the next few days going to the shops, packing up the caravan again and the sunset markets one last time before leaving on the Saturday morning for Kakadu.

Thursday 30^th August

I am determined to finish this off before we leave Katherine so we have 4 nights in Kakadu & one night in Katherine Gorge to get through.  Please feel free to open another bottle of wine.

We took the turn off which we had done the other day towards Humpty Doo & the Fogg dam and continued another 180kms or so to Jabiru being the main town in Kakadu and the only township in Australia located in a national park.  It isn’t a big town, has one supermarket and petrol station and a big holiday lodge built in the shape of a crocodile.  You can’t actually make out the shape unless you look at it from the air but you can see the big eyes on either side.  This town was set up for the miners in the big Uranium mine nearby.  Kakadu has very high levels of mercury, lead and uranium and parts of the park the local aborigines called ‘the sickness land’ which is hardly surprising.  I haven’t found out what Kakadu means but I do know it comes from an Aboriginal floodplain language call Gagudju if that is any help to you.  This park is almost 20,000 sq kms, to put it in perspective amounts to the size of Israel or nearly half the size of Switzerland so it’s pretty big.  It is also a place that, unfortunately, you cannot see out of your car window so in order to see what there is to see takes a bit of hard graft and walking in the hot sun.

The first of our sights we were told had to be seen was Ubirr, pronounced Oo-beerr, rock.  This was located 50kms back the way we came so after travelling over 200 kms to get to the campsite we now back tracked for a total of 100 kms (return journey) to see a rock.  We hit it at the right time tho as the time to see it is just on sunset.  We drove to the car park and from there did the 1 km walk up to the rock then scaled another 250 m up the face of it, actually it wasn’t that hard, to finally stand on the top and had these fantastic views from up there down to wetlands and floodplains below and watch the colours change as the sun slowly set.  Before getting to the top there were several places along the way that had ancient Aboriginal rock art.  Some were placed at 5,000 years old but one guide thought some were more likely 20,000 years old.  That’s another thing about Kakadu, there is a lot of free stuff.  They have free guided ranger talks of which was happening when we were looking at the rock art, explaining what it all was, free slide shows and free guided walks.  One of the gallery’s there had what they called the x-ray pictures, as it was pictures of fish & animals showing their skeletons and internal organs.  The experts are very excited about that.  I must say, from my perspective, the pictures do look very basic, I especially like the hand prints that have been spray painted & look like graffiti you would see on the side of any wall.  Apparently painting is a very important part of their culture so I can’t help but wonder why they weren’t any better at it but the significance of how old it is, wasn’t wasted on even us harden cynics. 

They had another great visitor centre there and pamphlets and information leaflets were everywhere, including at the beginning of a lot of walks giving the history of the park and of the traditional owners so we were saturated in everything Aboriginal and you just can’t help wonder at their history here estimated at over 50,000 years and how they survived and their understanding of the land.  Then you go to the towns like Katherine, and see them all sitting under the trees like they have just dropped out of them, drinking the grog and see what civilisation has done for them.

The top end, as we all know, has two seasons, dry & wet but the Aborigines have identified 6 seasons, they are - cooler but still humid, cold weather, hot dry weather, pre-monsoon storm, monsoon and my personal favourite, knock ‘em down storm season!

Next day we went back down this same road, yes another 100 km round trip, to see yet another wetland and do the Bardejilidji walk (I only give you these names as if I have to trip my tongue around them then so do you).  This promised to be one of the most interesting short walks and short to them is at least 2 hours.  I have say at this point that most of our walks are done in the middle of the day as it takes so long to get there it’s midday by the time we do and this unfortunate coincidence has nearly killed me several times especially when it involves steep uphill climbs, hanging onto rock with one hand and batting away 10 million flies who seem determined to fly up my nose, in my eyes or down my throat with the other whilst balancing water bottles and camera in either hands.  I do this to report back to my dear readers of these exciting adventures.

Anyway, as it turned out this walk was not too hard and very similar to the Lost City in Litchfield Park. Walking through layered sandstone outliers that my notes said were formed about 1,500 million years ago (1,500,000,000!), we came across some rock art that wasn’t even mentioned so we felt we had made a personal discovery, saw a little rat like creature running into the rock, came across a huge cave with more rock art and walked passed some very pretty billabongs full of water lilies. 

Next we went to Cahill’s Crossing (slightly easier to say), which is a dip in the road that goes straight through a river (strangely enough called East Alligator river, no alligators but plenty of crocodiles) and across the boarder into Arnhem land where you need a permit to enter.  We got out of the car and walked past a sign that said EXTREME WARNING, I have never seen an extreme warning before about crocodiles living in the river.  Well, they must be around we thought as we headed for the boat ramp and sure enough, just as we got to the boat ramp, there in front of us on the other side of a very small creek like river was a big female croc sunning herself on the beach.  It was the first time we had almost tripped over one in the open, the only other times we had seen them was at the zoo or safely on board the boat that went to seek them out but here she was in her full and natural glory just across from us.  There must be a male around somewhere Jon muttered nervously so we walked down to where the actual crossing was and Jon was right.  Just where the cars cross, which was several inches deep in water, was the male croc just swimming around within chomping distance of a stray leg or arm.  There was a guy on the rocks with his fishing rod casting into the river just near this beast, I thought he was crazy but when the croc headed our way then submerged the fisherman got a little nervous and retreated further up the rock face.

We drove back to the camp after that to swim in the only really safe place to swim, the camp pool.  Ooh it was good.

On Monday we picked up sticks and drove only about 50 km or so on the other side of Jabiru just passed Yellow Water to Mardugal, a small camp ground run by the national park which means no electricity or water but it did have hot showers in the afternoon.  It seems more like camping when we stay in the parks instead of a regular campground and a bit cheaper tho not much considering there aren’t many facilities.  It was a nice spot tho, surrounded by trees and you never know what wildlife you may see.  To my great delight we saw a dingo cross the road in front of us, he ducked into the trees so we pulled up and he sat there trying to hide, peering at us from one side of the tree, then the other before slinking away into the bush.  That afternoon we back peddled again to get to Nourlangie Rock, another rock art site and walk around this huge structure.  Thankfully we got there again just after midday so once again it was nice and warm for our trek.  These rock creations are just fantastic, they have these sheer fractured cliffs and big boulders balancing against large rock overhangs that make you hope that you aren’t there in an earthquake.  After studying the, this time not half bad rock art, we went for a little 2.5 km jaunt around Anbangbang Billabong, not far from the rock.  It was very picturesque, with the big rock in the background and big billabong full of waterbirds and lilies again.  Half way around we saw a Jabiru poking his beak around the lily pads so I was most excited to see him and made the walk all the more worthwhile.

More walks were lined up for the next day, the first around the billabong we were camped next too before breakfast then what we thought was a 60 km drive to a waterhole & falls.  After driving 85 kms we got to the turn off which was a gravel road and another 40 odd km to go.  After heading down the road a little way and getting shaken to pieces we thought better of that idea so turned around to head back.  To make the trip a little more worthwhile we stopped at a couple of lookout places, one wasn’t a far walk but the other lead us up a ‘moderate’ climb (we have also learnt the meaning of moderate and it isn’t as easy as what I would call moderate, more like you need to be a fitness fanatic to attempt this steep climb) to the top of a desolate looking hill to look out at desolate looking country through the haze of black flies.  Not one of our most successful walks, and of course undertaken at just before midday.  They said to allow 2 –3 hours for this walk but we did it in 1 hour, the fitness freaks we are.  Complaining bitterly just before passing out we decided one more try at another place that promised to be nice and only 10kms over a rotten road.  This was called Maguk plunge pool.  Even though a plunge pool sounds nice, don’t bother bringing your swimmers as the warning says ‘Estuarine crocodiles have been know to move into Maguk, swim at your own risk’.  We got there and the walk started nice, through a paperbark forest and meandered next to a crystal clear river with fish swimming around so easy to see.  They had a decent metal boardwalk over the mushy bits so you can walk right over the top of the water and not get your feet wet.  Then we came out on the side of a rocky riverbank, these were big rocks so easy to walk across then on the other side was a ‘moderate’ scale up the side of a cliff.  Once up the top were magic views of this gorge with massive cliff walls and rocks looking down into the plunge pool below which some brave soul was swimming in and it was so clear.  Beside us was the waterfall that fell into rock pools before heading down another cliff to another rock pool before eventually flowing to the one far below.  We could see the evidence of what it must be like in the wet and how the entire area where we were standing would become a gushing, cascading wall of water not to be messed with.  It almost defies imagination how much water must fall and come through in the ‘knock ‘em down storm season’.

That walk saved the day but we limped back to camp an exhausted mess.  Fortunately, just down the road near Yellow Water is a commercial campground with an absolutely fabulous pool made out of the rock we have seen around here so we slunk in there with our towels and had a wonderful refreshing swim.  We were also going to fill up again with LPG as we knew that they stocked it.  We pulled up to the pump and, as so often happens up here, it said out of order.  When enquiring when will it be in order the answer from three different people was ‘ don’t know’.  It is said the NT doesn’t mean Northern Territory, it stands for Not Today, Not Tomorrow, Not next Tuesday, Not next Thursday, and having experience NT we fully believe it.

This was all we could do at Kakadu, there was much more to see but we thought we have given it our best shot and next time we would see it in a helicopter.  Our last night there was one of the most magic nights we have had since being away.  We were expecting a full moon, or near enough to it and were sitting outside on a picnic table by the caravan, surrounded by the trees, with the last of the bird song screeching nearby, sipping our well earned glass of wine with our nibbles and saw the sun setting (well saw the effects of it as the sun was behind the trees) and at the same time the moon was rising.  We commented how the moon was peaking out through the trees and any minute now we would see it in the full.  We waited and waited but the moon didn’t appear in full, in fact it seemed to be disappearing.  It wasn’t until someone went by and said are we watching the eclipse that we realised what was happening, the moon was disappearing!  With all the dust in the atmosphere, when it finally fully slipped behind the earths shadow it appeared to glow in an orange & red fireball.  There were movies on the park that night.  There was a bit screen set up and 7.30pm we wandered over with our chairs and sat with the small number of people there while a local aboriginal woman took us through a slide show and explained all about bush tucker.  The photos were mainly of her family collecting and eating bush tucker and something I didn’t realise was this was almost all they ate, they don’t go to the supermarket for food they actually go out and hunt it down.  They ate flying foxes which she thought was the best bush tucker, very good for you especially if you have asthma as bats will cure it, she claims to have personal experience of it.  They also had photos of long neck turtles they roasted on coals (a kid was holding it by the neck and I couldn’t help wondering if it was a short necked turtle before that), a kangaroo strung up by one leg from a tree, file snakes roasting on coals as well as an assortment of yams and other vegetables growing wild in the park.  It was extremely interesting and all the while in the night sky the moon was glowing behind it’s shadow and the stars shone so bright, something we hadn’t seen until now as the moon has been so bright.  Sometimes there are moments in time not to be forgotten.

Wednesday we packed up and left Kakadu National Park all the more educated and fitter and head for Katherine Gorge or as it’s now called Nitmiluk National Park.  This is just 29 kms out of Katherine which is just as well as we are now in Katherine and I found out once we got here that I had lost my eftpos card and discovered it is back at the visitor centre at the gorge where I left it after paying for our campsite.  Poor Jon has gone back to get it after getting our wheel bearings seen to.  Anyway, we got there no dramas, set up camp in the no electricity area as there was more room but Jon immediately regretted it as he remembered the air con only goes on electricity.  Still, we had lots of room to be hot.  We finished the day off with yet another walk, not that I felt like it and complained but was overruled, up a ‘moderate’ (bloody steep that even a mountain goat would fall over backwards) cliff climb to the lookout.  It was really pretty, overlooking the Katherine River just at the point where it flows into or is that from, the gorge and over the floodplains.  The cliffs are sheer red rock and the water a lovely emerald green.  We staggered back to the caravan through a herd? Bunch of grazing wallabies, one had a wee Joey in her pouch, they were ever so cute.  That evening I was making dinner & Jon was outside reading the paper when a gorgeous little wallaby came sniffing by looking for food.  There are signs everywhere saying not to feed the animals so Jon calls out for a piece of lettuce for his new friend.  I refused saying he wasn’t allowed but was once again overruled so handed out the lettuce and took photos of this dear little animal taking it gently from Jon’s hand.  He didn’t think much of the lettuce so asked for something else, after another discussion about the legalities of feeding the wildlife I handed out a water cracker.  Well that was much better received and down it went.  He then hopped really close and looked Jon right in the eye asking for more.  Another one came his way and he so sweetly took it.  We then looked up and several more wallabies were heading our way, one was a rather large male and he didn’t look sweet at all in fact he was a little aggressive and intimidating.  Jon fled into the caravan and shut the door, that was the end of feed night for the wallabies.

At last we get to today, I thought I would never get there and only 14 pages later.  We were up early this morning as we were going on a breakfast cruise up the gorge and had to be there at 6.45am.  This was great value at $50 each, we had a buffet breakfast of eggs, sausages, bacon, baked beans, fruit, cereal, croissants, tea & coffee while cruising up the first of the gorges.  It was early morning light, the water was so still & calm and the sun was just hitting the side of the rock, lighting it up like a movie set.  Katherine gorge consists of thirteen gorges, separated by rocks & waterfalls in the dry but joined together in the wet, which was how they get the boats in each of the gorges.  We got to the end of the first gorge by the end of breakfast, got out and walked about 400 meters over big rocks to where the second boat was and cruised down the second gorge.  It is nothing short of spectacular; gliding down the middle of these massive ochre stone cliffs on either side with the river snaking around bends to revel even more awe inspiring, jaw dropping scenery in dawn’s light.  It was all I was hoping it to be and more scenery wise.  This took two hours, we were back by 9am and ready to go onto Katherine.  There is not much else to see out there except maybe some long walks, some taking several days or a canoe paddle around or a helicopter flight over more of the gorges but we are saving our helicopter flight for the Bungle Bungles so off we went.

The rest of the day has been spent writing this and still no sign of Jon, maybe he has gone on another cruise whilst on the pretence of recovering my key card or maybe the car is taking longer to fix than first thought.  Hope he’s home soon as he’s on dinner and I’m getting hungry.

Just to end this little missive, have just heard from Jon, it’s now 6.30pm and we had the car booked in for 1 pm to have the wheel bearings changed.  We booked it from Darwin and they couldn’t do it on Friday, the day we wanted, as it was admin day on Friday, there was only one guy that did wheel bearings and he never does it on the last day of the month, instead devoting the day to admin work.  Fair enough how about Thursday, yes no problem 1pm Thursday.  He got there on time today and they said they had no record of his job booked in and they were just going to lunch, come back in an hour.  He got back in an hour and they said they had missed lunch and just going now, come back later!  So he went to Katherine gorge to retrieve my card.  I had rung earlier and the girl said yes it’s here under the till; I’ll leave a note for the girls.  Jon gets out there, four girls and no knowledge of any card, no, it’s not here no idea of where it is, no knowledge your honour.  He suggested they looked under the till and lo – there it was!  Got back to car place, which is 8 km out of town, hitch hiked back to town after being told to come back at 5pm.  He walked from town back the 8 km in time for 5pm and they didn’t finish until 6.15pm!  What did I say NT stood for???????

CHAPTER SEVEN

KATHERINE TO BROOME

Saturday 8^th September

We have just spent a week in Kununurra, almost 5-6 days more than what I had planned, after all what is there to do in Kununurra ??  Can’t be much as it’s a small town in the middle of nowhere.  Turns out there are plenty of things to do here and a week barely covers it.  Sit back and I shall educate you about the East Kimberley but not before I finish off with Katherine.

We only stayed in Katherine another day since I last wrote and my first impression of the place still held.  Maybe it was the high concentration of drunk aborigines in Katherine that spoiled it or maybe it just wasn’t an attractive town, either way it held interest for the amazing scenery outside of town but is not somewhere I would chose to stay for awhile.  Wherever we see aborigines in high numbers we see rubbish littering the streets, their housing areas and the parks where they sit and drink (something they seem to do a LOT of).  Once they are drinking they are yelling, arguing & screaming at each other & in Katherine I found them to be intimidating especially when I was waiting for Jon outside the supermarket they were down right scary.  The other day Jon was watching a couple of women who were drinking when one got up yelling at the other then gave her an almighty slap across the face sending her flying.  No one else even stirred when this happened and he couldn’t believe what he had just seen.  They also reek to high heaven, you know when one is near before you even see them as the smell is overpowering.  I wonder if they all eat bats as the aboriginal woman who gave her talk on bush tucker in Kakadu said she loved eating bats, very yummy but she said you stink for days afterwards.

As there is a huge problem with aborigines drinking, the government is coming down even heavier on alcohol restrictions in the places where there is a high concentration of them.  When you don’t live in these communities and are lucky to be living in a civilised place with a Dan Murphy’s or equivalent nearby and no restrictions on alcohol you think, fair enough – good on the government for doing that for the good of these people.  It’s a different story if you live or travel through these places as the same rules apply to everyone and that’s when we get really cranky.  There are some strange laws like you can only buy a 5 litre cask of wine between the hours of 10am & 6 pm, after that you can buy three 2 litre casks but not one 5 litre, there are no takeaways (alcohol I’m talking) on Friday & Saturday after 6pm, in some communities there is an absolute ban so you can’t even carry it in your caravan (we keep well away from these places) and more rules that I can’t remember but it will get even harder soon with John Howard’s new laws.

On our extra day in Katherine we went to see the Cutta Cutta caves, located 30km south of Katherine and had a swim in the Hot springs right in town.  The caves were will worth seeing as they were so pretty.  We could walk straight, no bending double and the walls, Stalactites & stalagmites were white and sparkled like diamonds when the light shone on them due to crystals forming on them from the slow dripping water from above.  Some of the patterns on the walls were amazing too, it’s a shame photos can never show up the true beauty of some of these places.

That night after dinner we heard music drifting from the pool area where they also had a restaurant so we wandered over to see what was happening.  There was a guy playing a guitar & singing Johnny Cash type songs & music from the 50’s.  He was very good so we stood by a tree at the back to have a listen.  Several people offered us to sit with them but we declined, as we didn’t know how long we wanted to stay.  As he was good we stayed a bit longer then decided to have a quiet little dance on the grass at the back.  We were soon spied and were teased a bit & told to go and dance at the front.  We continued to do our quiet little dance and before long we were joined by at least 4-5 other couples with the men abusing us, saying it was our fault that they have been dragged up too.  It was all good fun.  

On the Saturday we packed up and headed off to Timber Creek, the last town for us in the Northern Territories, 285 km west of Katherine down the Victoria Highway and through the Victoria river region.  The first part of the trip to the Victoria River roadhouse was quite mundane & rather boring but just before we reached the roadhouse we got to the Gregory National Park which covers an area of around 13,000 kms sq and the landscape changed dramatically.  It turned from long stretches of brown grasslands to suddenly towering dark red rocky ranges and hills with red rock jutting out.  There was a range of hills with an escarpment about two thirds up that looked for all the world to be the Great Wall of China.  It looked purpose built, as it was a perfect line of a rock wall for miles around these hills.  Perfect if you wanted to defend the top bit.  We stopped at the roadhouse for fuel and it had a big sign across the front which read “Under new management’ but on top of the management sign was another that said ‘wife’!

We got to Timber Creek early afternoon and found the campground, which wasn’t hard as you leave Timber Creek before you even realise you’ve got there.  It consisted of a hotel, fuel station, tourist information and motel, which were all the same building, with the campground at the back.   There were nice shady trees tho and not too busy at that time so we set up in a lovely spot under a big tree then went for a walk down to the creek where there was a nice little bridge.  We stood on the bridge & looked down into the calm still waters of the creek with the trees dripping over it on either side and thought how cool & inviting it looked for a quick dip.  We went back at 5pm to this very same bridge and watched them feed the crocodiles off it and there were a lot!  Admittedly they were fresh water ones but they still have sharp teeth and would give a very nasty bite should you so dangle your legs near them.  Timber Creek was named back in 1855 when another great Australian explorer Augustus Gregory used timber from the banks of the creek to repair his expedition boat.  I don’t think the place has changed much from that time.  There are some lovely gorges to explore in the area but they were too far away for us since we were just staying the night so instead we went to a lookout point that had views over the sparkling blue waters of the very wide Victoria river and then to the old Police station museum.  Unfortunately it wasn’t open but we could walk around the outside & see bits & pieces including the old lock up which was a round metal cage approx 2 meters across and strangely had several doors that opened outwards around the circumference.

Another strange feature of this landscape is the Boab tree.  It’s the strangest looking tree I’ve ever seen & doesn’t fail to fascinate me every time I see one (and they seem to be getting more common the further west we go).  It looks like a giant disfigured turnip with branches coming out at odd places or an extra trunk or two.  Some of these trees are several hundred years old, the oldest I’ve heard of is 1500 years and they seem to be very versatile in their uses.  Most parts of it can be eaten and what isn’t can be used for artwork.  The nut can grow quite large and within minutes a local aborigine artist can whip out a carving on it, some are extremely good, and sell it to you for $25 or more.  I have also seen them made into goblets or candleholders, varnished up they look a treat.  We bought some boab & lime marmalade and I must say it’s very tasty.  These trees are also found in Africa & Mauritius, where they think the seed floated from to Australia.

We left Timber Creek for Kununurra on Sunday and nearly met with a very nasty end.  We were driving down the very straight road so we could see for miles ahead when I saw a truck way in the distance.  I mentioned it to Jon to get ready, as even tho it was far away it looked big from where we were.  Several minutes passed & it didn’t seem to get any closer so I thought I was mistaken and maybe it was a billboard on the side of the road.  It wasn’t, as it turned out it was the largest road train we had seen to date with four extremely long trailers.  There are signs warning of the road trains being up to 56.3 metres long, up to now the longest had been 53 meters.  I think this relates to running from the try line to well over the half way line on a rugby field.  The road wasn’t that wide and the edges were broken giving the road a severe lip down to the hard dust below it.  As the roadtrain drew closer we realised this was one big mother and the last carriage had a big sway on it, swinging from his side of the road to well over the line onto our side with not much room on the road for anyone else.  They don’t drive slow either (speed limit here is 130 kph) but rather thunder down the road at over 120kph creating an enormous wind tunnel.  We got to his bumper bars when it dawned on us we were in trouble as we saw the last carriage well on our side of the road and at the speed we were going it would have been impossible to drive off the road without losing control or flipping but if we stayed there the carriage would swat us like a fly.  My face must have drained of colour and I don’t think either of us breathed as we were drawn into the massive slipstream of this road monster that didn’t seem to know or care we were there.  The next few seconds was a blur except for the roar of the truck and the swinging of both car, caravan and truck carriages over the road and then it was gone, leaving us swinging wildly across the road which was very fortunately empty after the truck as Jon needed the entire width to bring everything under control.  I can tell you it took a lot longer to bring my beating heart under control again.  After the initial few seconds and back on track we looked at each other and said ‘F……aaaaaar out’!  We were lucky that the last carriage had completed its swing on our side of the road and had swung back to the other side just as we crossed.  Our first job when we got to town was to find the nearest laundry.

After Timber Creek and  “Poo Crossing” we reached the boarder of Western Australia where we had to pull up at boarder control & surrender our honey, vegies, fruit, nuts, seeds and my bonnie mint plant that I had nurtured for months as well as turn our clocks back 1.5 hours.  We did know about the quarantine so had tried to eat most stuff the night before and we noticed in the campground several pot plants that had obviously been abandoned.  I must check the campground directly after we cross the boarder into SA, maybe I can pick up a free plant or two from west bound travellers.

Then we reached the lovely town of Kununurra, pop approx 6,000 and growing.  Having not been brought up and schooled in Australia we had no knowledge of this area and the hugely impressive project that was undertaken in the 1960’s to dam the Ord river and irrigate the surrounding farm lands.  To give a very brief history of the area it was once all cattle stations with the Durack family, coming out from Ireland in the 1890’s, owning 7 million acres and were known as “the cattle kings”.  A descendant of the original Durack family called, funnily enough, Kimberley Durack rode around on horseback in the 1940’s doing whatever it is cattle farmers do and surveying the land around the Ord River thinking what a good idea it would be to dam it.  He took his ideas to the government and after a lot of procrastinating and getting passed the greenies they finally started work on the diversion dam in the early 1960’s, hence Kununurra (meaning ‘meeting of the waters’) was born.  It was originally spelt with a ‘C’ but people kept confusing it with another town of a similar name so they eventually changed it to a ‘K’.  This diversion dam created Lake Kununurra and diverted the Ord River into the irrigation channels where, at that time, they grew mostly cotton.  Depending on the seasons the Lake’s level rose & fell so it never stayed constant until they built the Ord River Dam some 55kms further upstream in 1971.  This caused the Ord River to burst it banks in the wet season and created Lake Argyle, the biggest man-made (while the women made the scones) lake in the Southern Hemisphere.  The original Durack station now lies at the bottom of the lake. The effect of the second dam was it constantly feeds Lake Kununurra so the level stays the same which in turn feeds the irrigation channels to the farms and giving this area enough water to last over three years without another drop of rain. They also built a hydro station that feeds electricity to Kununurra & Wyndham as well as the Argyle diamond mine.  The statistics are huge but vary depending on what brochure or who you listen to at the time.  They measure the capacity of the lake as so many Syd Harbs meaning how many Sydney Harbours you can fit in the lake.  It is sitting now at around 20 Syd Harbs but at full capacity or flood level (and here is where the figures vary) it can hold anywhere between 40 – 60 times the size of Sydney Harbour. The lake is so big it is classified as an inland sea so if you want to go boating on it there are the same restrictions and licensing requirements as there are on the open seas. The cotton failed after a few years but now they grow various crops from sugar cane to melons, mangos, bananas and pumpkins with the biggest thing lately being Indian sandalwood trees.

As briefly mentioned above, also in this area is the Argyle Diamond mine, owned by Rio Tinto & is the largest producer of diamonds in the world, producing approx ¼ of the worlds diamonds.  It is the home of the pink diamond, a most expensive type of diamond as it’s fairly rare.  I, of course, had to go on a tour of this place to see where & how my favourite stone is mined and hopefully maybe pick up a diamond or two.  Jon went on another tour that was a flight around the Bungle Bungle Range leaving me to attempt to acquire a little jewel or two.  Alas it was not to be.  The trip was great, I was picked up from the park at 10.30am and dropped back off at 5.30pm.  We were taken to the airport for our flight out to the mine.  For some reason that I still don’t understand, they had to take two planes for the flight out.  They took a bigger 13 seater and a very minute, mosquito looking 4 seater.  I was lucky to be picked for the 4 seater with another couple, which meant I got to sit up the front with the pilot.  I watched very carefully how he worked the radio & what buttons and levers he pushed & pulled in case I would be called to task should something happen to him.  As I have cousins and a nephew who are pilots and I myself have personally flown a helicopter, I had full confidence that I could land that baby in an emergency so with that worry gone I could sit back and enjoy the wonderful view of the land below.  It only took half an hour to arrive at the landing strip at the mine, which by the way, is the longest private landing strip I think in the world but certainly the longest of any mine in the world.  It could land up to a 737.  After the second plane landed we all got on a bus and the pilot of the second larger plane was also our bus driver & tour guide, he was very versatile and very good.  He drove us first to the village where the miner’s accommodation, the tavern, small shop, gym, swimming pool, tennis court, running track and restaurant were located.  We went into the shop first and saw trays of cut diamonds as well as the finished product in jewellery form.  I didn’t bother bringing out the credit card I had slipped into my pocket as disappointingly so these diamonds where no cheaper than you can buy in any shop in the world and some stones were very small, made to look even smaller by the large price tag beside them.  I can only dream of my pink diamond now, which has been known to fetch over a million dollars per carat.  Once we got a taste for the gems we were taken next door for a taste of lunch.  This is where the staff has breakfast, lunch & dinner all laid on for them.  It was buffet lunch with cold meats, salad and fruit & ice cream for desert so helped to fill a hole, so to speak, then we ventured out to see a larger hole in the ground.  It is an open cut mine, has been operating for over 20 years and in its peak produced 20kg of diamonds a day, now it’s down to 12kg per day.  It has only a couple of years left because they can’t cut into the hillside much more so to extend the life of the mine for a few more years they are going underground and building a couple of tunnels.

We were taken to the edge of the pit & looked down to see the absolutely enormous trucks drive up & down a scary looking switchback cliff with their loads of diamond filled rocks.  Most drivers are women as they look after their trucks more than blokes & I can understand the concern.  Each tyre, which was higher than the roof of our bus, was worth $100,000 and there were 8 of them on one truck making each truck two tyres short of a million dollars before taking in consideration the rest of it.   We were then taken around the crushing machines and explained the process of the different crushers taking the rocks from so big to so small.  They have got so refined in their processing that they have taken their margin rate of missing the odd diamond or two from 65% to 99%.  Of course we couldn’t get out of the bus, except to look down the cliff, and in fact were warned that if we even picked up a couple of rocks from the side of the road we could get prosecuted up to $200,000 fine and enjoy a term in jail.  Security is their biggest issue and they were hot on it.  In the sorting room (a place we weren’t allowed) the sorters who bagged up the raw diamonds had a personal bodyguard each who accompanied them everywhere including the toilet & showers.  A few years ago they had a major theft that occurred over a period of time and was perpetrated by no other than the head of security himself.  It was estimated he stole approx over $60 million worth of diamonds over the time.  They were never recovered except for one diamond that turned up in Belgium so they could only get him on conspiracy.  He did seven years jails, just got out last year and funnily enough, illegal Argyle diamonds are starting to appear on the black market all over the world.  As he can’t be tried again I would say he would be laughing.

After the drive around the operations we went into a showroom where they had the story & history of the mine around the walls and fabulous jewellery behind thick glass panels to drool over.  So we didn’t feel left out, our guide then produced little ring boxes and told us inside was a souvenir of our trip, our very own Argyle diamond.  Excitedly I ripped open my box and peered inside.  There was another clear, round plastic box and inside that was a fairly small piece of rock.  That’s not bad, I thought, a little small but then was informed that what I could see was the piece of lamproite (host rock) the diamond came from & the actual diamond was beside it.  Well, I had to wait until I got back out in the sun so I could hold it up and just caught a glimpse of a tiny speck glinting in the light.  I would hate to open the plastic container as if I breathed on it the diamond would fly away, never to be seen again.  Still I can say I have an Argyle diamond ha ha.  I know a lot more about the diamond mine that is even more tedious that what I have said already so if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

After that it was back on the bigger plane where once again I got to be co-pilot and got a marvellous view out the windows.  From the mine we flew over to Purnululu National Park where the Bungle Bungle range lies.  This range is made up of beehive dome shaped sandstone towers and spectacular gorges with a tiger-striped skin of orange and black bands. We flew past one cliff that had a big white splotch on the side, looked like a huge bird had dumped on it but it was what the colour of the sandstone is like under the thin skin of orange & black and was where a lightening bolt had struck it 7 years ago.  It seems amazing to hear that no-one knew of the existence of this spectacular range except the pastoralists & local Aborigines until 1983 when a film crew came out to do a documentary on the cattle stations, was shown the Bungles by a helicopter pilot and did the doco on them instead. It is now a world heritage park.  You can also drive into the gorges but it takes serious 4WD and 2 hours to drive 50kms, unless you pay another small fortune for a tour in so unfortunately we did not get to see it from the ground.

Before we headed back into town we flew over a couple of the cattle stations, saw the enormous amount of land each one had then just a group of buildings that made up the homestead.  These two, along with three other stations cover a total of 5.2 million acres!  There is generally only a caretaker there until mustering time, what a lonely life that would be.

Jon also did a flight for 2.5 hours covering what we did after we left the mine and he too got the co-pilots seat so we were both very chuffed.

The second day we got to Kununurra we took a drive up to Wyndham, the ‘top town of the West’.  If you look at a map of Australia it is below Darwin on the left in the scoped out gulf of Joseph Bonaparte leading into the Timor Sea.  It’s not exactly sea front although the sea is there somewhere.  There is a lookout above the town where you can see the point where 5 major rivers join the Cambridge Gulf, an inlet that then opens out to Bonaparte Gulf.  This lookout is called, wait for it, five rivers lookout how clever is that.  It is a good lookout as you can see for miles but I just wasn’t sure what I was seeing.  There was a large landmass of what looked like mudflats and yes, you could identify the 5 rivers with the help of the little map there.  The slogan for Wyndham is ‘see it to believe it’ but after seeing that place I still don’t believe it!  It was small, seemed very remote, hot & dusty and we weren’t sure why people would want to live there.  Saying that, our friends on the coast have relations there who own the local supermarket so that was the main reason for our visit.  We didn’t phone them first as we thought we would surprise them but as it turned out, they surprised us by not being there.  It was all bad timing really but we did get to speak to the husband for awhile who seemed very busy, I guess as he was the only supermarket in town.

Wyndham had been a busy town in it’s day with the boom of the gold rush in Halls Creek approx 300 kms sth in the 1880’s thousands arrived by sea, the growth of the pastoral industry and the building of the meatworks it had been all go for this little town in the middle of seemingly no-where but then most towns around here seem to be in the middle of bloody no-where.

I also insisted to Jon we go and see the old Afghan cemetery where the Afghan settlers & cameleers where buried (1890’s).  The Afghan’s played an important role up the top of Australia with their camels as they provided the main means of transport between the cattle stations & towns.  The Ghan (train between Adelaide & Darwin) was named after these guys in recognition of their work.  There weren’t very many graves there, maybe half a dozen and none where marked but a few of them where quite large due to the fact, it is believed, that the lead camel was often buried with it’s master.  Poor bloody camel I say.  We also saw the pioneer cemetery where, among others, 12 men were buried who had died in the construction of the meat works there back in 1913 mostly from heat stroke or heat related problems and it wasn’t hard to understand why.

Wyndham did however have an excellent bakery so lunch made it all seem worthwhile.  On the way there we stopped off at ‘The Grotto’, a swimming hole that was at the bottom of 140 unnerving rock steps down the side of a cliff.  It was beautiful at the bottom, looking back up the soft orange rocks with trees clinging to the sides with their tangle of roots twisting down the sheer cliffs to the bright green moss covered rocks below and a pool of green water.  It wasn’t tempting to go in however as it was cold and a bit murky and still there are warnings of crocodiles even tho it is a swimming hole.  On the way back from Wyndham we went off road for about 10kms to Marlgu Billabong that had a boardwalk & bird hide to watch the comings and goings of all the birds on this very pretty, lily-covered billabong.  There were three brolgas wandering around, huge birds even without the binoculars.  When we got there we were the only ones but within minutes another car pulled up.  I recognised it as being one at the bakery in town where we just were.  We got chatting to them (seemed rude if we didn’t as there was no-one else around) and he recognised us from seeing us at a shop in Kununurra.  After that we saw them 3 more times in different spots around the place including another day trip we took on a boat down the Ord river.  It’s amazing whom you come across in your travels and meet up with again.  We met a couple from Holland back at Edith falls, before we got to Darwin and saw them again the other day in Fitzroy Crossing, over a month and 2,000 kms later, just happened to be in the same spot at the same time.

The day trip we did on the river was part of the flight over the Bungles, which didn’t have to be taken on the same day.  We were picked up by the bus and driven out to Lake Argyle, stopping at the old Durack homestead that was re-located from it’s original spot, now at the bottom of the lake and set up as a museum to the family & history of the place.  We were dropped off on the other side of the dam wall from Lake Argyle, the bit that joined it to lake Kununurra and in a super horse powered boat (2 x 300hp engines) we skimmed along the wide bit of the river, fringed with large overhanging trees and that was relatively shallow and fast moving until we got to about 15 kms downstream where it met the high cliffs of white & orange rocks of the gorge.  The bit that we rocketed down first only came into being when they built lake Argyle & dam releasing the water to feed lake Kununurra.  If they stopped releasing the water, that whole waterway would dry up in 15 minutes, according to our guide.  I found that a bit difficult to believe as there was lots of water along with lots of freshies (fresh water crocs to us locals), so what would the poor crocs do?  The whole boat trip was 55km to get us back to Kununurra and it covered the prettiest waterways with the forests, flat lands and gorges that we got to just on sunset so as the sun hit the rocks it turned them a brilliant glowing red.  A highlight was afternoon tea with fresh made scones, jam & cream on the banks of the river, an important inclusion for any tour.

Unique to this area is a rock called Zebra rock and it looks just like that, a Zebra.  It has a white background with brown bands of striped and spotted patterns and when sanded & polished looks amazing.  There were several shops in town that sold the rock and products made from the rock, anything from letter, candle or clock holders to wine racks.  I would dearly have loved a wine rack as it was beautiful & unusual but the thought of humping this great stone rack in a caravan around the rest of Australia didn’t appeal so I have to be satisfied with a rock paperweight and very nice it is to. You never know who else may end up with a piece of Zebra rock, you could be one of the lucky ones.

We did one more day trip from here and that was to El Questro Wilderness Park.  It use to be a cattle station and has now been turned into a tourist station and private park.  To get there you head down the Gibb River road, which actually goes for nearly 700kms of unsealed rough 4wd road all the way to Derby, just above Broome on the west coast.  You don’t have to pay if you just want to drive on the roads around El Questro but if you want to stop and have a walk around or swim in the hot springs that’s when the cash register rings.  It cost $15 each but admittedly that is for seven days, not that we wanted it for 7 days but there is no choice.  You can also choose to stay out there either in the Station Township or Emma gorge in a standard or going up to a deluxe tent.  Prices start for the most basic tent from $139 per night, a little bit posher tent with ensuite for $248 p/n to the super duper cabin of them all for $1,980 per night, minimum of two nights ($4,000 for two nights in a cabin!!).  This is of course plus your $15 each to get in. 

We headed for Zebedee springs first as it was only open to us plebs until 12pm, after that it was only open to those who had spent the equivalent of a years salary of a poor chinaman for a cabin in the outback to soak their bones in.  I guess you would want something for your money.  The hot springs where very nice all be it a little crowded so we could only just sit in the crystal clear warm water & look up to marvel at the cliffs and trees towering about.  After about 5 minutes of this I got a bit bored, only amusing myself with the little suckerfish in the water that grazed on the algae covered rocks and sometimes mistook my leg for a rock.  I tried to scoop them out of the water but they were damn quick so only managed to get a little wriggling fish to the surface once before he took off again.  It was also here Jon decided to let down the tyres a bit as the roads are rough and we have such a bumpy ride.  Well, it worked a treat, after all those miles of bone shattering roads and all we had to do was flatten the tyres made me wonder why we didn’t do it 5 fallen out fillings ago. 

We got to the station township, which had a shop selling the usual outback souvenirs some food and more tours to spend your money on, a large restaurant, the campgrounds and large grassy area to have our Pearl’s picnic lunch.  You can take your own caravan or tent out there & camp (for a fee) and I think you need to do that for a couple of days to see all the area had to offer as it sounded quite nice but for us we only had the day so we chose one other thing to see and that was Emma Gorge.  We had to wait until it was the hottest time of the day, that being our normal time to undertake any physical activity in this heat filled climate so after lunch we headed to Emma Gorge.  The walk notes said it was an ‘invigorating’ 1 hour walk one-way partly shaded so off we set.  It followed the river all the way, now only a trickle but evidence of it being a raging torrent in the wet as the riverbed was wide and huge boulder stones were strewn down the length of it.  It was these big stones we had to clamber over, sometimes requiring all four limbs to help negotiate.  The first part of the walk was shaded and easy walk on the side of the river but the rest consisted of the boulder river rocks in the hot open.  As we clambered on the walls of the gorge started to close in, rising up to 120 meters of quartz sandstone rock with interesting ripple patterns on some of the rock, made millions of years ago.  We got to the first waterhole after ¾ hour and thought this is very pretty, it will do and no need to go on as the next part of the track climbed up a steep hill through the trees.  Often we have almost given up on a place but pushed ourselves to go on and are seldom sorry so we made the extra effort to complete the walk and once again were rewarded with spectacular scenery of the towering orange, white & black sheer rock cliffs surrounding us on three sides with a droplet waterfall falling into a big crystal clear green waterhole and water trickling from overhanging shelf rocks around the sides of the pool.  Well, this was it, we had come for a swim so a swim it was going to be even tho the water felt a smidgen below freezing.  Jon jumped in first and I followed with a few howling protests and mutterings of how could this be called ‘fun’.  Anyway, once I had succumbed to the freezing waters and dog paddled my way around extremely quickly to get the warmth flowing back in my body, we discovered several patches in the water that was warm.  It seems that this had thermal waters trickling into it from the rocks on one side.  It never ceases to amaze me the contrast of this landscape, the vastness, the beauty, the wastelands, the colours, the hot & the cold of it all.  You can travel for miles through dead looking flat country & straight roads when suddenly there are cliffs of red rock all around and you think, where did that come from, who put that massive rock on the side of the road there?  These parts are full of hidden beauty and wonder, trouble is there are so many miles in between to see it.

 That’s about all I can tell you about Kununurra, a must place to visit at least once in your life.  We saw the sunset from Kelly’s knob, a lookout up the red rock over the town and when the sun hits it as it’s setting the rocks flame a bright red like they’re on fire.  We gave 4 girls a lift back down into the town for which they were grateful as the backpackers had driven them up and said to find their own way back & as they had only just arrived in the place they had no idea where that was.  They were the United Nations, one girl was from France, another from Germany, another from Ireland and last girl from England so they kept us entertained for the short trip back to town.

Friday 14^th September

Last Sunday we left Kununurra with the thought that it will take us several days to make the 1,000 km trip to the coast.  Little did we realise that there was virtually nothing to stop at or see within that 1,000 km so we arrived on the coast at Derby by Monday.  I do exaggerate slightly when I say there is nothing to see but without deviating over unsealed roads there is not much.  About 200 kms from Kununurra is an aboriginal community called Turkey Creek or Warmun where most people stay before embarking into the Bungle Bungle range but as we had seen it from air we didn’t even stop there.  Between these places are the great cattle stations and each one has its name in big white metal lettering near the side of the road at the beginning and end of the property.  Next town was Halls Creek, where gold was discovered in 1885 but 4 years later it was gone and the beginning (or end) of the legendary Canning stock route when they drove the cattle 2,000 kms south through some extremely harsh countryside.  Just south is also the Wolfe Creek meteorite crater, second largest in the world but after the horror film with people getting murdered there I declined that one so on we went until we got to a 24hr rest area on the banks of the Mary River.  It seems this is a well-known place as we weren’t the only ones there and as the afternoon went on it became very full.  Now when I say on the banks of the Mary river, we were but there was no river to speak of, just a couple of puddles but it was an extremely wide river bed & I bet must thunder down when it rains.  As the causeway goes over the river I would doubt it is open during the wet but for now it was and a lovely place too.  This is just the second place we have stopped at that’s free and both have been great, wonder why we don’t do it more often.  There were lots of shady trees, fireplaces and two, not to go near, long drop toilets.  A couple of cows wandered through the camp at one point and someone said there was a Freshie just on the banks a short way from us.  We saw for the first time some red tailed black cockatoos who look magnificent, larger than a crow and a change from the sulphur crested type & not as screechy but still noisy. 

Our neighbours were a young Spanish couple in a van and had started a fire early, she tended it while he went to hunt & gather the firewood.  Every now and then he came back pulling these huge logs of trees and with no axe set about breaking them up.  At one point he was using a tree to wedge the branches in then twist them around until they snapped.  This worked for a while until a huge branch from this tree came crashing down nearly pinning him to the ground.  She screamed & we laughed, it looked so funny.  He was a bit embarrassed about what he had done and dragged the branch down the steep bank side to hide the evidence.  We heard a yell at one point as he missed his footing and disappeared once more under the branch.  There was a stunning sunset that night, followed by a massive starry sky and all went quiet.

Fitzroy Crossing is 150kms from Mary Pool and we had intended to stay there the next night and see Geikie Gorge but when we got there Jon said empathically that he wasn’t going to stay there.  You know when you near an aboriginal community, as the rubbish is everywhere & piles up along with broken bottles and general unkemptness of the place.  There were several at Fitzroy Crossing giving it a very unappealing look.  The town gets its name because it’s at the crossing of the Fitzroy River, another clever play on words.  The old town and original crossing was further up and in the past travellers were stuck for months in the wet as the river raises an extraordinary 16.5 metres.  In 1935 they built a concrete bridge but still too low and still closed for months.  Finally in 1974 they built a nice high one further down, it’s very long and still only one lane, don’t ask me why they would build a one lane bridge on the major highway used by everyone but they did, at least it is above the flood waters.

We had planned to take a boat trip down the river & through the gorge but the timings weren’t right since we weren’t going to stay the night.  It was 11am and the next was at 3pm so as it was the middle of the day again we decided to do the two hour walk along the gorge wall and back over the dry, sandy, heavy-going, no shade riverbed.  There is water in the river but only using about 1/8 of the entire riverbed.  Once the wet comes, seven metres of water flood through this area and you can see the stain on the gorge walls several metres up.  It’s white from the river to the tide mark then black & orange the rest of the way up.  This gorge is actually an ancient barrier reef created not by coral but algae back in the Devonian period before reptiles or mammals evolved, far older than anyone I know.  We stood on the banks of the river and yelled across to the cliff walls and a perfect echo came back.  It was an attractive gorge with the white rock going up to the orange with the green river flowing pass.  Once back at the car we had a plan, I was to get the beer out of the fridge in the caravan and Jon would start the car to get the air con going and we collapsed inside just sitting in the car with the air jets blasting on our faces.  It took me about half an hour to get over my heat exhaustion.  It was here we met the Dutch couple from Edith falls again and we also saw the Spanish couple from the night before.  I think the boat trip would have been preferable but it was done now so we headed onto Derby, getting there just before 5pm.

Next day we took a drive around the place to see what there was to see in Derby.  The streets are very wide, designed to accommodate the mule & camel teams from yesteryear and are lined with the weird looking Boab trees. The first place we went was out to the wharf, a long narrow drive down the mud flats causeway.  Derby has some extreme tidal variations, up to 11 metres & second only in the world to some place in Canada.  Hence, at low tide the wharf is left high & dry but the incoming tide rushes in at a gallop and makes for great fishing off the side of the wharf.  As we begun the long drive down we saw a young couple walking it so we stopped and asked if they wanted a ride to the end.  They were most grateful as it was getting very hot outside & they were pleased for the air con in the car.  They were from England, she was just out for a few months and he was a permanent resident & lived in Brisbane.  This wharf went in a semi circle around the harbour so we could drive on one end and drive off the other.  Originally it was used to export wool & pearl shell then in the early 60’s live cattle was exported & now they export lead & zinc from the local mines.  We stopped and had a look out at the long drop to the water, tide was on the way in, and the English guy was caught into having a chat, or rather an ear bashing listen, to a woman from the Gold Coast who was fishing.  Within 5 minutes he had her life story, the state of her finances and was in the middle of her children’s story when we took pity on him and called him back to the car. The relief on his face told the story all too well.  So we drove off and offered to take them to the prison tree as they came in on bus so didn’t have a car to get around.  In the end we took them on the tour of Derby too and I told them which sights they would be seeing.  They just nodded in the back and accepted their fate.

There are several prison trees around in the Kimberly’s and this one was the easiest to get to, being only 7 kms out from town and down a very short road.  They think the tree, which is a boab, is around 1500 years but as they are hollow it is difficult to date them.  It’s the biggest boab we had seen to date, and we have seen some pretty big boabs.  Its girth is around 14 metres and was used during the 19^th & early 20^th centaury as an overnight rest point by the police patrols with their bundle of prisoners, all aboriginal.  The tree is hollow so they must have poked them through the hole, easy to guard the entrance.  After reading the history of the tree, of Derby and of the old lock up I must admit that I felt more than a little outraged with the treatment of the Aborigines over the years and can begin to understand their gripe with the Europeans.  These guys were kidnapped from their families, tied up with chains and marched for miles, generally 24 – 48 kms per day to be put to work where ever, in this case the diving and pearling industry.  The kidnappers were called blackbirders and were sometimes helped by the pastoralists who also had slave labour on their stations and thought by getting rid of the young guys it will help settle down the older ones.  A gaol was built in Derby, a basic building consisting of two cages with a roof over the top and surprisingly was used up until the 1970’s.  It still has the ringbolts in the floor, which the prisoners were tied to from their neck chains.  Thousands of aborigines were locked up here over the time for so-called crimes of killing & eating cattle (on their land) or waiting transportation to hospitals, institutions or missions.  They were taken from their families and often the families never saw them again or ever knew what happened to them.  It was only in the 60’s they were even given citizenship and counted in the census and the 70’s that they were allowed to go to a pub or consume alcohol if they didn’t have citizenship.  In 1905 the Aborigines Act was passed and remained until 1960’s.  Up until 1954 the, what they called, chief protector was legal guardian of all aboriginal children and could re locate them whenever & wherever he so wished.  I did know a bit about their harsh treatment but reading it here where it happened and seeing photos of these men in chains ready for the slave market it brought it home with sobering reality.  The more I read about them the more horrified I became.  I didn’t realise to what extent slavery & segregation was carried out here in Australia and up until recently.  Even though I dislike seeing their communities trashed as they are and drunken aborigines rolling around the parks yelling & screaming at each other and the smell that wafts around them, it upsets me to know of their violation of human rights for so long. 

Anyway, so that was the prison tree and beside it was Myalls bore & cattle trough.  The trough is 120 metres long and could handle up to 500 bullocks at one time.  They watered the cattle here before their final journey to the wharf.  We went to the wetland after that, English still in tow, created by the Water Corporation near the wastewater ponds.  Hmmm, lucky birds.  However we mistakenly drove straight past it and found ourselves on the mudflats.  These stretch on for miles but we could see water in the distance so headed for it, thinking that must be the wetlands.  We kept going and kept going, all 4 of us sure we could see water, could even see the reflection of the trees in it.  Turns out it was a fair dinkum mirage that had us all fooled.  We must have gone for about 3 – 4 kms before we realised there was no water, how weird is that?  We found the real wetlands on the return journey but they were no-where near as exciting as the mudflat journey.

Our final point was the old gaol where we read how the natives were treated and our English friends took their leave before I could bundle them back in the car for some more adventures.

Later on we went to the pioneer cemetery and it was the most unusual one I had seen.  The things they wrote on the headstones were strange like ‘killed by a means we cannot talk about’ or the local copper who was killed by his Aboriginal tracker read ‘killed by blacks’.  A few of the graves were almost overcome with huge termite mounds, the headstone partially or completely covered by these big red mounds.  The aboriginal section at the back was mostly unmarked with one or two marked (appropriately?) by upturned bottles.  That night we indulged in fish & chips on the wharf as we watched the sunset below the sea and produce a blaze of red & orange across the sky thus creating 10 thousand more sunset photos.

The reason we came to Derby was to take a flight out to the famous (we had never heard of them until this trip) horizontal waterfalls.  This is a natural phenomenon created by the big tides of up to 11 metres (as previously mentioned) trying to squeeze through a small gap between two land masses, there are two of them approx 1 km apart from each other. At it’s peak about 1 billion litres per second (don’t ask me how they measure that) flow through the gap creating swirling, whirling, washing machine type water that has an effect of a flat waterfall that can flow in either direction.  For us thrill seekers they have a boat with high horse powered engines that shoot the gap over this swirling water mass.  At one point our driver held the boat steady in the face of this water and said we were actually going 38kph just to stay still. 

We had decided on the overnight option as it was only a $50 upgrade each in which we got dinner, accommodation & breakfast so we thought that was a bargain.  We packed up the caravan Wednesday morning and parked it at the back of the campground, all hitched up & ready to go when we got back.  We were picked up at 2.30pm and were taken to the airport with only two other couples so we had an intimate group.  We flew out on a seaplane as he landed the plane on the water beside the houseboat we were to stay on that night.  It was only a half hour flight north of Derby.  The flight was great as we saw the extent of the mudflats below, some great scenery then the bluest water surrounded by green where we were to land.  The houseboat was new and was in its first year in the water so it was a bit of luxury.  We had our own cabin and the absolute luxury of a proper bed (for those who have not slept on a short caravan bed for months on end you may not understand), it had the fluffiest feather duvet, soft sheets and light fluffy pillows that were just heaven to lay on and I could stretch my feet without them coming off the end of the bed.  The crew on board consisted of a young girl from the far south of NZ and two Australian guys who were all very nice.  We had coffee and a chat before they decided to take us off fishing before the sunset.  We took two dinghies and headed out to try our luck.  I had not expected to have such fabulous scenery around, not sure what I thought but maybe just water until the falls.  The boat was moored in a dead end piece of water and to get out we had to drive through a gorgeous gorge that rivalled Katherine Gorge, my favourite so far.  Once again it was towering orange rock that plunged down into the sea with a black high tide mark that at this time was several metres above our heads and getting higher.  Once through the gorge it opened up into what looked like a sound, bit like Marlborough and it was passed here that we went to the falls the next day.  We fished for a couple of hours, I caught three fish, one we kept but he was only just legal and poor old Jon caught nothing but jealousy at his clever wife.  The other guy however caught this big fish, a type I had never seen before.  It was so pretty with bright blue down its body and around his eyes and blue peg like teeth.  He was a blue boned groper I think, goes under another name too, but is a delicious eating fish, which we found out later that night. That was really the only decent fish caught although Jon did have a whopper of a bite but it got away as most big fish do.  As we fished, the sun set giving a pink glow to the sky and all was beautiful & peaceful.  Back to the boat for pre diner drinks (BYO) & nibbles then BBQ dinner of fresh fish and frozen Barra & salad.  It was just glorious to sit up the top of the boat, a warm balmy evening, stars shone brightly, almost as brightly as the crocodiles eyes our crew picked up with a strong torch.  That answered my question on whether I could have a swim the next day, that and the sharks in the bay.  Next morning after a wonderful nights sleep we had to be on deck by 6pm for our boat trip to the falls.  It was a bit like the shot over jet but we sat astride the seat, one behind the other and hung on for dear life to the metal handlebar in front.  We didn’t end up going through the second gap as the tide was at it’s peak on running and as the gap was half as small again (seven metres across) as the first one it was considered too dangerous even for us brave souls so he just sat the boat in the flow of the water instead and couldn’t even measure how fast we were going to stay there due to the tumultuous water churning.   Back to the houseboat for breakfast then the seaplane came back to pick us up by 7.30am.  Before it got there someone called out there was a big shark circling the boat.  We rushed out and sure enough there was a 3.5 metre shark swimming around the boat.  Ok, so it was only a grey nurse, which is the most docile but a shark none the less.  One of the guys got a fish and held it over the water and sharky soon got the idea and came up for it.  He didn’t let the shark have it at first and kept pulling it away so the shark had to keep coming back until finally got the fish.  The overnight stay was well worth it as the boat trip to the falls didn’t take long and I think I would have been disappointed on the quickness of it all.  The flight back was longer as the pilot took us on a sight seeing tour of the coast, over some pearl farms and back over the mudflats where she pointed out the mud art.  The tide had taken most of it but I could make out a big brolga and a barramundi sketched out in the mudflats below, they must have been a couple kms long each.  I guess you need to do something to keep you amused in these tiny places.

We got back to the park around 9am Thursday morning, had a shower and pulled out heading for Broome approx 200 kms south.

To be continued…

CHAPTER EIGHT

BROOME TO PORT HEDLAND

Sunday 23rd September

From Diamonds to pearls, what more could a girl want except more credit on her card to afford them both.  The magnificence of a Broome pearl nestled at my throat could only be surpassed by a one carat pink Argyle diamond perched on my finger or a combination I have come up with combining both in the one piece & suggested to my strangely deaf husband with the glazed eyes.  I could only conclude from this that he doesn’t love me anymore otherwise he would have made more of an effort to satisfy my gem desires.

Apart from this huge disappointment of acquiring neither of these life necessities, Broome offered no more disappointments only surprises and mysteries.  The main surprise was just how beautiful this place was and made all the more intriguing by it’s unique & diverse history that you can’t help feel when you wander the streets.

We stayed at the Cable Beach caravan park, just meters from Cable Beach so named (due to a great imagination) back in 1889 because the cable was brought ashore here.  Twenty years earlier they had of course already laid the cable from Britain all the way to Australia via Java to Darwin but due to the volcanic nature of the sea bed in this particular area it broke the cable constantly as well as the second one they had laid so they decided to lay another from Java to Broome.  This is not Broomes first claim to fame, that belonging to the pearling industry, which started in the 1860 -70’s.  Even earlier than that, one of Broomes first inhabitants were dinosaurs who have even left their prints behind and can be seen at low tide on the very rocky foreshore at the end of Cable Beach.  We were going to go down and see them but it looked very tricky climbing over the rocks and as they had plaster cast three of the footprints and put them on top of the cliff which was much easier to get to we were happy with that.  Apparently they even had their very own dinosaur called Megalosaurs Broomensis along with 9 other types of dinosaurs identified there.  I thought it was rather coincidental that the dinosaur had the same last name (with a nsis added) as the Governor whom the town was named after.

I think the first bloke to have noted in his journals that there were pearl shells in the area was in the 1680’s when a former pirate but come good (don’t you love it) and now revered British explorer William Dampier and for whom several places are named after, visited Broome but it still remains contentious that he did actually get here as he had written down different co-ordinates that Broome actually sits on so who knows.

A couple of hundred years on another bloke was wandering along when he noticed the local aborigines wearing these ‘adornments’ made of Mother of Pearl shells.  They wore them like a loincloth so I guess it was handy (for some more than others) that these shells were rather large and from then on pearling in Broome took off.  It was the pearl shell they were after as this was used to make buttons, cutlery handles, faces on instruments etc, if there was an actual pearl inside the shell it was a bonus but not necessary.  The aborigines came in handy again as they were used as forced labour to jump off the boats in up to 13 metres of water to retrieve the shell.  They were given clothes and a promise of a return journey home at the end of the season but not of course always granted.  A few were murdered or the lucky were dumped on remote beaches when they were no longer required.  It was also fairly hazardous as the pressure of the water use to burst the odd eardrum or two along with cruising sharks & crocs as well as just plain drowning, the aborigines decided they didn’t like doing this very much so a lot ran away & hid.  This treatment of our native people caused a bit of an outrage so eventually a law was passed to protect them but this just served to make the more unscrupulous pearler to be more devious.

Here is where blackbirding came into it’s own when they were kidnapped, taken to an island and sold in the slave market there, not only the men but women & children too as they proved to be very skilful at this diving caper. 

Eventually in the late 1870’s the deep diving suit came to town along with the Asians and Thursday Islanders and so releasing the aborigines from their duties as they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) work out how to use the suits and so the Japanese came into their own as they were experts at it.  Amazingly these suits were used for 100 years, only giving way to modern methods in the mid 1970’s.

Broome, in the early days and around the turn of the centaury sounded a right royal swashbuckling town with it’s pearl shed’s, opium dens, brothels, saloons, gambling houses, mixtures of Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Indonesians, Aboriginals and upper class British men in their white suits, white hats and white shoes strolling around town and doing pearl deals on the wide verandas of their colonial bungalows.  These guys got their suits from Singapore & some even had them laundered there due to the red tint in the local water.  One bloke had 16 pairs of white shoes as he had to change them 5-6 times a day from walking up & down the main street with it’s red dirt.

It was at this time that Broome differed from the rest of Australia as at the turn of the century saw a new act introduced that essentially was the White Australia Policy.  This meant that all non-white (particularly Asian) people weren’t allowed to work & had to leave Australia at the end of their contracts.  This of course panicked the Pearl Masters as most of the workers were Asians and without them, the whole industry would collapse.  They furiously lobbied the Government and were successful, making Broome exempt from this law and the only place in Australia to employ Asians at that time.

Chinatown is still the heart of town and it is here where most of the shops are as well as some very high-class pearl shops.  I worked out fairly quickly that if the entire shop had glass cases displaying their stock then it wasn’t wise to go in.  Only if they had stands on display on top of the glass case then I could have a small hope that I could afford what was there as they were the freshwater pearl not the revered South Sea Pearl.

There are no traffic lights in Broome and it does have a very relaxed & casual atmosphere along with it’s still multicultural mix and warm days with blue skies, all in all it has to be another must visit before you die place.

Back down on Cable Beach is a glorious place to spend a few hours.  Here (along with the rest of the coast) the tides goes in & out 4 times a day with up to 9 – 10 metre tides, the sand is white and the sea is a fantastic turquoise/emerald green colour that laps over your feet at a very warm 25 degrees.  Further down the beach are the bright red sandstone cliffs and sand dunes that run down and meet the white sands of the beach.  The northern end of the beach is for sunset camel riding and nude bathers.  Rather odd that they take the camel riders passed the nude bathers but it does make for a very interesting ride!

Jon went for an afternoon swim (on the seemly side of the beach) and just as he was heading down the stairs to the beach an aboriginal man calls out to him.  He said ‘hey, could you keep an eye on my kids for me down there, they’re the black ones’!  Jon hoped he was joking but sure enough, just like he said, there were several unclothed & unsupervised black kids playing on the beach and in the ocean.  It was funny that the guy thought to mention what colour they were just in case Jon was in any doubt.

Jon has had several incidents with our native friends like the time in Derby when he was lining up to pay for some much needed wine and the aboriginal guy in front was paying for his cigarettes when he discovered he was 20 cents short.  He turned to Jon and asked if he could ‘borrow’ 20 cents so Jon flicked him the coin.  Well he was so grateful that he threw himself at Jon, hugging him and thanking him profusely while wafts of unwashed stench drifted up & swirled around him.  I think if Jon had known it would have provoked this sort of reaction he might not have done it, either that or tossed him the coin and stepped back very quickly.

On the Monday night we went to the movies, not really to see the movie but rather to see the movie house.  It is an open-air theatre, a roof covers some of it and the rest is outside.  There are rows of deckchairs joined together with movie memorabilia scattered around the foyer & walls.  This theatre has been showing movies since 1916, making it the world’s oldest operating picture gardens.  Yet another claim to fame for Broome.  In the silent movie times they had a pianist called Fairy due to her wild blond hair and bizarre clothes then in 1933 the first talkie was shown “Monte Carlo”.   It use to take half an hour to change the reels so they played a song to entertain the audience, trouble was they only had the one song. Once the talkies came in it was requested that people left their dogs at home as the dogfights that regularly occurred under peoples seats became a bit distracting.  Also distracting was when the bi yearly equinoctial high tide came in, over the banks through the streets and into the theatre so people had to roll up their trousers and take their shoes off to avoid getting them wet.  Back then and up to 1967 the seating was segregated, the whites had the best seats and the rest came in a separate door and had the cheap seats.

It was great sitting back in the deck chair in the open, looking at the stars & moon and watching the odd fruit bat flap across the screen.  The movie was a chick flick, one Jon hated but the atmosphere helped make up for it, particularly with the passing planes.  The airport is literally in town, the runway starts at the end of the street and about half way through the movie a rather large passenger jet roared overhead as he was coming in to land, the wing tip just about brushed passed the screen and the wheels were dangling just above our heads.  The movie took second place as we assumed the brace position.

We were given a mission to find out what happened to a Dutch family who were one of the last to be evacuated from Java in the war but never made it to Australia so we took a trip to the local museum and scoured their records for the name but to no avail.  Just as Darwin had been bombed in Feb 1942, several weeks later so was Broome on the 3^rd March 1942.  Just before that in Feb, over a two week period they were desperately evacuating people, mostly Dutch, from Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies) to Broome then onto Perth.  They managed to move more than 8,000 refugees before the morning of March 3^rd.  At 9.30am nine Japanese Zeros and a ‘Babs’ observation plane swooped onto Broome destroying aircraft on the ground in the airfield and 15 flying boats on the water crammed full of mostly women & children Dutch refugees.  In all 22 planes were lost and almost 100 people were killed.  The survivors spoke of swimming through oil burning seas, dodging bullets and sharks.  The dead were buried at Broome but were later disinterred to Perth or back to Java.  The remains of the flying boats can still be seen at very low tides several times a month.

In town is a local brewery that specialises in brewing different flavours of beer.  We went along on a Sunday afternoon to see what they were like.  We bought a taster board that consisted of eight little glasses of different flavours for $8.  The nicest one was a mango-flavoured beer and the worse one was the chilli beer.  I thought it sounded quite nice until my mouth caught fire and I couldn’t put it out with a glass of beer since it was that what started it.

One of the saviours of Broome is a chap called Lord Alistair McAlpine who landed in Broome in the 1980’s by mistake on a redirected flight and fell in love with the place.  He jazzed it up, did some marketing and helped turn it into the tourist mecca it is today.  One of his achievements is the building of the Cable Bay Resort, which was just in front of our caravan park so we had a wander through.  I’m not sure what the room rates where but I think you would need to have a bit of money in your back pocket to afford it there.  As well as motel style rooms there also were these chalets, made with corrugated iron and very different looking.  There was waiter service around the pools and flash looking restaurants.  Outside the reception and shop were five statues and it turns out they are part of the original terracotta Chinese Warriors.  How the hell he managed to get hold of those was not explained but was most impressive all the same.

On the Friday night we went to the local RSL, big night as WA was playing Collingwood so a big turn out with everyone wearing the teams colours.  It was the most unusual RSL we have been to.  There are no pokie machines and it isn’t dark & dingy or bright with artificial lights.  This could be due to the fact that there are no walls, only a big corrugated iron roof over the top of the main bit and an open type roof over the dining area.  We ordered dinner and were given a meat pack each.  This consisted of 2 sausages, a chop & a steak and was told to go over to the BBQ and cook it.  The first time I’ve had to cook my own dinner at a restaurant.  There were salads & bread to go with it so all in all a very unusual evening.

Most of the buildings in Broome are made from corrugated iron as back when it started there was no local stone to quarry and building materials were difficult to get up there until this new material arrived, cheap, lightweight & reasonably robust so that became flavour of the century and everything was made from it, giving Broome a very corrugated & unique look to it.

One day we headed to the northern beaches, talking about corrugated as most of the road was unsealed & definitely corrugated.  Some paths we took were very narrow with bushes & scrubby trees on either side scratching down the side of the car so that was a lot of fun.  The beaches tho were incredible, so remote, no one there and large stretches of white sand with the stunning pindan (red) cliffs, blue skies and teal green seas.  Washed ashore were bunches of corals so there must be a reef out there somewhere.  We also saw Rainbow Bee Eaters, a small very colourful bird, darting around catching bees & insects.  The coast is a bit windswept and even tho the water looked inviting it seemed a little dangerous with a heavy swell and big dumping waves so we didn’t venture in.

As the week went on the temps started to climb amazingly quickly.  By the end of the week the temps were in the high 30’s early 40’s & humidity is going up.  Something I found out on the last Friday as I biked the 3 kms into town after dropping the car off to be serviced, yet again.  The bike into town at 8am wasn’t so bad but when it came time to bike back again just after midday was a killer.  The first 2 km were hard but the last one really got me.  I biked past the Japanese cemetery with over 900 pearl divers buried there showing what an unsafe sport they had, then past the Chinese cemetery then past the town cemetery at which point I almost joined them before pushing on as I had lunch in my back pack & knew my poor partner would be hungry and finally got back to where the car was.  I left the bike outside while I went into pay, by the time I came back the bike was burning hot making it hard to handle as I bundled it inside the back of the car, then I climbed up to the drivers seat and burnt my leg on the metal running board and eventually got back to the caravan pleased, for one brief second, I had made it back alive until I fell out of the car and was regaled with abuse from my loving husband for bringing the lunch back so late.  He got the cold shoulder from me that afternoon.

One of the last things I had to do was go on a camel ride along the beach as that is the thing to do and the most highly photographed image of Broome.  There are three companies that operate these rides and are identified by their different coloured saddle blankets, I chose the red one for no particular reason except they were the first ones there and had nice looking camels (only joking).  For the most part the camels just sat on the sand very placid like until someone climbed on their back and then they made the most dreadful noise like someone was killing them.  It looked funny as they loaded from the back camel first, two to a camel, and as the line progressed each camel in turn let out a bellowing noise in protest at this treatment.  Turns out they can actually carry up to 500kgs so although I saw some women there that may have come close to it they weren’t being overloaded.  My camel’s name was Kaloolee and, according to his keeper, was very affectionate.  I don’t know about that, have you ever seen an affectionate camel, but he didn’t protest when I climbed on board so I was grateful to him, maybe I don’t need to diet after all.  Then it was time to stand up, another bit of excitement as they throw their arses in the air first before finding their front legs that rocks you back again into the camel’s neck behind who had already got up and was standing over you.  They lead the whole train of approx 20 camels down the beach, as previously mentioned full of nude bathers, some sporting better humps than the camels, before turning around and coming back again, a half hour ride in all.  They are very majestic creatures and the gentle plod up & down the beach was yet another way of saying goodbye to $30. Jon took some good photos of camel toes in the sand.

Monday 24^th September

It was with regret we said goodbye to Broome on Saturday as we headed south to colder climes but we leave with the impression that Broome is definitely very unique.

We didn’t make it very far as we headed for Port Hedland, nearly 700kms south, when we stopped halfway for the night at Eighty Mile Beach.  Jon was hesitant to come here as it’s 10km from the main road over a rough, unsealed road.  Driving just the car is one thing but pulling the caravan that isn’t an off-roader is another but I convinced him it was a good idea.  We bounced and jostled down the road & eventually got to the campground, which is the only thing here apart from miles (eighty of them I guess) of beach.  When we opened the door I looked with trepidation inside and all looked normal so I thought well that wasn’t bad.  It wasn’t until I got inside when I noticed a red stain running down the floor from the bench to the bed.  I thought oh no, a bottle of red wine was fallen down & smashed on the floor and has rolled away somewhere but search as I might I couldn’t find the bottle.  It took me awhile to realise what happened.  It was a bottle of red wine (something we very rarely drink so hardly ever have let alone keep in the wine cooler) that had broken inside the wine cooler and leaked its contents out.  Luckily I had wrapped a big beach towel around it and the coffee machine to cushion it and that had soaked up most of the wine and lucky the glass was contained inside the cooler.  Unlucky it wasn’t the half drunk Riesling that I didn’t like anyway or any of the other white wine bottles that broke, just had to be the one red wine.  It took awhile to clean up and lament it’s lose but that was the only casualty so not too bad I guess.

I have to say it was worth it tho, we have fallen in love with this place and have stayed an extra two more nights and would stay more if we could.  It is a fisherpersons paradise and gorgeous to boot.  We wandered down the first evening to see what was happening and people were pulling fish out of the sea left, right & centre.  The fish-cleaning table was choked with people scaling & filleting fish so we thought we have to have a piece of this action.  We have brought our fishing rods over to Australia from NZ and halfway around this continent but as of yet have never used them until this day.  We watched the most magnificent sunset to date, bought fish & chips from the small shop to get in the mood and later that evening wandered down the bright moonlit beach with the sounds of the waves lapping onto the shore and even Jon had to admit it was romantic.

By 5.30 next morning Jon was up and out with fishing rod in hand, never seen him so keen.  By 8am I wandered down to see if I could use the eggs in an omelette or did I have to save them for the fish.  He had caught one fish and was in the middle of catching another when he lost it.  The photos on the wall of fame in the shop show huge fish being caught off this beach and three more have gone up since we’ve been here.  They are mostly Blue Threadfin Salmon or Mulloway if that means anything to anyone but they grow very big.  Unfortunately Jon’s fish didn’t have time to grow that big but he was big enough for a small feed for lunch.  I had a go then and caught a fish quite by mistake.  He was too little to keep so I liberated him in the waves.  It was the first time we have ever fished from the beach and quite a different experience from off a boat.  Also in the small shop, they were very clever and sold surf rods.  By the next turn of the tide Jon was the proud owner of one of these rods and was straight back down the beach to try it out.  I went down with him and was the first to make a catch with the old rod.  It was the strangest catch I’d ever had, didn’t know what it was but damn heavy to pull in.  I knew it wasn’t a proper fish when I could see my trace and it was headed straight down into the sand.  I had caught a stingray and he was the prettiest stingray I had ever seen.  He was smallish with a very spotty back and long tail with no barb so he was fairly harmless except I still got Jon to stand on his tail while he cut the line off him.  He then sat in the shallows for a while to recover before heading back to sea.  Then Jon caught a fish on the new rod and hence christened it making him as chuffed as a bag of wheat.  We had him (the fish that is) for breakfast today. 

As I mentioned, there is nothing here except the caravan park and a long white beach.  As you come from the campground and up a little sand dune then spread before you is the amazing colour of the sea and a deep beach as the tide goes out a fair way.  It is also a turtle rookery so come October the turtles will be shuffling up the beach to lay their eggs in the sand dunes.

Tonight I caught a catfish so that’s one small threadfin, one stingray & one catfish, not one I could keep to eat.  The tide here is quite strange as this afternoon we went out to fish on the turn of the tide and had to walk almost to Timor to get to the sea.  It was so far out we could barely see it from the start of the beach and once at the water we had to walk at least another 300 meters into the water before it even got to our knees.  The trouble is we have to leave the bait & bucket on the shore but the tide comes in so fast that within minutes it is submerged even tho we left it high & dry before making the trek in the water.  It doesn’t seem to get any deeper so while we are still up to our knees, the water has gone further up the beach without us noticing.  You almost have to run to keep up with the incoming tide.  Also you don’t know what is swimming in the water around you.  People are pulling in sharks in the same depth of water we are standing in.  I saw jellyfish swimming near my legs, not sure if they stung but wasn’t game to find out and this morning I saw a thin head raising above the water swimming around just a couple of meters away.  I pointed it out to Jon & said what’s that.  He very causally said oh it must be a sea snake.  I thought he was joking but then he told me of a woman he had just been speaking to who said she saw a lot of sea snakes swimming passed her so she withdrew from the water. What???!!!!  Dangerous business this fishing.

Another amazing coincidence since we have been here happened yesterday.  A guy & his wife walked passed us as we sat at the caravan and started chatting & asking questions about our boat on the roof of the car.  A lot of people do ask us about it so we thought nothing of it.  Then he said that he had one and carried it on the side of his caravan.  As we kept talking to him it dawned on us all that we had met before.  Turns out that we had met them at a small place called Toronto, just north of Sydney, when we had first bought our van last November.  Not only that, he was the man that inspired Jon to buy the boat in the first place as we had never seen them before so this was the original couple that was responsible for us buying our boat.  How amazing is that. 

Wednesday 26^th September

We left Eighty Mile Beach after one last try with the fishing yesterday morning but no further luck so we packed up our rods & left.  I stayed in the caravan while we went back down the rough road just in case something else decided to shatter itself.  It was a very hairy ride I can tell you and just about shook my teeth to pieces.  I’m glad we didn’t take the cat with us as it’s terrifying riding back there and I’m surprised the caravan has managed to stay in one piece thus far as everything shakes and moves and rattles.  I was pleased to get back up front with the driver but happy to report nothing else broke.  Well that is until we got to Port Hedland.

Once set up at the new campground, I opened the hatch above the toilet and a couple of minutes later I heard Jon call out.  The plastic hatch, which closes to keep out dust & rain had come completely off and was sitting on the ground, so now we have an open hole in the ceiling.  Apparently Perth is the closest place to get this replaced so Jon has done a temporary repair,  It’s amazing what duck tape can do.

The trip is long between Broome & Port Hedland with nothing to see as the Great Sandy Desert is on one side and the Indian Ocean is on the other but you can’t see it as the road is too far back.  Apart from the odd dead cow on the side of the road, there is only scrubby short trees & Spinifex grass for as far as the eye can see.  There are other beach places like Eighty Mile but the side roads to get to them are all unsealed and the shortest one is 10km.

Then we got to Port Hedland, hardly an oasis in the desert.  It is an iron ore town and the colour of it is a rusty brown.  Everything is brown, even things that originally weren’t brown are now brown, from the footpaths to the buildings to the sand to the fences & cars – brown.  We have now named this particular colour Port Hedland brown.  There is the BHP iron works in the middle of town, which looks depressing and what shops there are is not worth mentioning.  The only thing that isn’t brown is the pure white salt piles, another industry they have going here.  Close by is another town called South Hedland, this is a little more modern, not quite so brown with nice houses and a nice shopping centre so we did our grocery shopping there and met up again in the supermarket with the people we first met with the boat.  It’s funny to see people you know in the middle of nowhere.

We only stayed the night in this brown place and are just about to head off to waters uncharted that I shall cover in the next report.

CHAPTER NINE

PORT HEDLAND TO CARNARVON

Friday 5^th October

Exmouth

Cape Range National Park

Forget Fiji, move over Maldives and you can toss your typical, tropical island and come west young man to Exmouth.  We have found THE most beautiful place not just in Australia but also in the world.  I have not seen any photos that compare with the beauty of this coast.  The water is a very tropical temperature that doesn’t make you gasp as you collapse into it’s embrace, the colour is just not of this world, it’s the clearest water I have ever seen, for miles it is a lightest aquamarine/teal hue, the sand is a pristine white with rolling sand dunes and no-one for miles and in the sea is a coral reef that can hold it’s head up to the Great Barrier and not feel embarrassed where the most amazing tropical, multicoloured fish abound.  And all this within meters of the shoreline so all you need to do is don on a mask, flippers & snorkel from the beach, wade into the sublime waters and before your very eyes is a garden paradise.  Not only that, but you can fish in it as well, what more could you want. 

We came here for a couple of nights and stayed a week and are sorely tempted to stay another but time pushes on and we have to cover the 4,000 kms to Adelaide (as the crow flies, for us no doubt it will be double that) in the next 2 months so paradise found will be paradise lost very soon.

To continue from where I last left you, we headed out of Port Hedland brown as fast as our wheels could carry us and drove the long (it wasn’t that long, just seemed it) fairly tedious, monotonous journey south to the Pilbara Coast & Dampier Archipelago.   This area encompasses 6 small towns of interest and has a multitude of industry that keeps it alive & busy such as a couple of iron ore port facilities (owned again by Rio Tinto of Argyle diamond fame), solar salt fields, fishing and a big gas works that supplies gas to industrial & domestic markets, LNG to Japan and LPG, condensate & crude oil to the world markets.  Ironically enough it is the most expensive place to get your gas bottles filled (around $37 as opposed to $20 normally) and to fill the car with gas, how is that?  Our first stop for three nights was Point Sampson, this area held 4 of the towns being Pt Sampson, Cossack, Wickham & Roebourne.  Roebourne holds the distinction of being the oldest surviving town on the Northwest coast (not even the whole of Western Australia so nothing to get too excited about) dating back to 1864.  The visitor’s centre is in the old Roebourne Gaol, built in 1887 and a very interesting & ‘captivating’ building.  They have a small museum where the cells were and still had the chains and ringbolts in the floor where they use to chain up the captives (most of course were Aboriginal) at night.  During the day the prisoners went out working, still in these heavy chains around their necks and ankles.  There was a manuscript in the museum interviewing the head gaoler at the time.  He sounded fairly compassionate, as he made sure that the chains had covers around them so it won’t burn the prisoner’s skin in the heat of the day.  That was about the most interesting thing in Roebourne, there were a couple more old buildings of a great character but nothing more.

Cossack is just down the road and is a very historic town albeit now a ghost town.  It was dissolved as a town in 1910 but wasn’t abandoned completely until 1950. It was the original pearling port before Broome ever took off and has it’s own Japanese Cemetery full of ex-pearl divers.  There are a number of buildings still there, now restored for all to enjoy.  I must admit I love the architecture of the buildings, sort of square in red brick with white cornerstones down the edges and around the windows & doors.  The courthouse is a magnificent building with white pillars supporting a wide veranda, white roof & chimney with the dark red brick.  It now houses the museum but still has the judges, prisoners & jury benches just as if court were in recess.  It was here we saw the phenomenon called the staircase to the moon.  This happens a couple of nights a month from March to October.  We thought we had missed it as Broome is well known for this special sighting but didn’t realise it happens down here as well.  It is when the full moon rises over the sea on a low tide so the pools of water reflecting in the mudflats give the illusion that a stairway is leading all the way up to the moon.  Well, that’s the theory.  We got to the look out point about half an hour before the event and found we weren’t the first there.  Here we were, out in the middle of nowhere again, by a town that isn’t a town and there are crowds.  Then a voice calls out and said ‘are you following us’ and there were our old mates with the fold up boat again (they didn’t have the boat with them).  They had been there for two hours with their wines so were well on the way to seeing several staircases by this time.   There was a shout in the crowd and we all looked over just as the moon started to rise over the sea.  It was a big orange red glowing ball when it popped up and took a little while for the staircase to form, which it did, in a golden reflection on the sea.  It wasn’t quite a staircase, more like a golden carpet but it did look great.  The next night I went out by myself to see it again just beside our camp at Point Sampson as we were right beside the sea.  It looked better the 2^nd night and felt quite magical.

Wickham was the biggest settlement, which doesn’t make it that big, out of the four and was originally built to house the workers at the huge Iron Ore facility.   It had a few run down looking shops, a supermarket & the liquor store with the usual aboriginal cliental lining up outside waiting for it to open.  About 5kms down a rumpty old dirt road was ‘The Yacht Club’.  I don’t know why it was called the yacht club, as there were no yachts and the building looked old and closed up.  Notwithstanding that there was quite a nice sandy beach and some rocks at the end of the car park dropping down into the sea.  We thought it looked a good spot to go fishing so came back with our (new) rods and cast out to the blue yonder.  Jon got lucky first cast as no sooner had it hit the water than a big golden trevally took the bait and was hooked.  It was a great catch and a beautiful fish, especially to eat.  Unfortunately after that all we caught were the rocks and lost several of our traces.  Not to be beaten we came back at low tide and actually managed to find all but one of them so were pleased to have retrieved them all back.  It was amazing what else we saw on the low tide, right out on the edge of the rocks coral was growing and left exposed for a short time.  Some were extremely colourful and very much alive.  There were also giant clams that spat out a big stream of water if you got too close, all this and we didn’t have to get wet to see it (except when we got too close to a clam).

Finally we have Point Sampson, which isn’t much to write home about so I won’t go into it much.  It has a restaurant, a ‘world famous in Western Australia’ fish & chip shop, a pub, a supermarket and two caravan parks.  The beach is very nice and apparently coral is just off the shore by 50 meters, too far for me especially when we saw speedboats zooming past.  They also have a fishing marina with a fairly big fleet and a wholesale shop that sold cheap prawns & fish to which we availed ourselves. 

The Pilbara landscape is a desolate looking affair with brown Spinifex grass and scrubby looking trees but it has a backdrop of big hills with bright red rocks cascading down the sides looking like red snow from a distance.  Then there are what I think are snappy gums, they are tall & wild looking with glowing white bark and dark green leaves.  Disbursed around, and you really have to look hard to find them, are the occasional wildflowers, the most common that I can recognise is the bright red Sturt’s desert pea.  We took a drive out to the local dam, 27kms of gravel & rough road, but the trip was worth it.  The dark blue of the lake contrasting dramatically with the red rock hills rising from the shores had quite a startling effect.

On the Saturday we packed up and drove the 60kms to Karratha to spend a couple of nights there for a look around.  Karratha has approx 10,000 people so was the biggest town in the area with all the normal shops like Kmart, Target, Harvey Norman etc but it still had a small town feel and was very hot.  If you look at an Ariel view of the town you can see buildings in a very orderly manner built in the middle of a red desert landscape, more red than Port Hedland was brown.

This is also the first area where the campgrounds have allowed you to wash your car in the car bay but charge you $5 - $10 for the privilege.  Jon was going to ask if they actually washed the car for us for that absorbent price.  He has had to resort to giving the car a quick hose down in the middle of the night but the caravan is starting to look a bit sad all covered in red dust.

This place has the longest trains I have ever seen, all to do with the iron ore production network, carting iron ore from 10 mines on 1,200 kms of track ready to ship off from the two ports.  Just one of these ports is being upgraded to go from an annual capacity of 55 million tonnes to 80 million tonnes, that’s a lot of iron ore.  We were going to see the lookout over the salt fields when we had to wait for a train to go past, and we waited and we waited and we waited.  The train was already half gone before we got there and we still waited for over 10 minutes.  I finally thought I should count the carriages just to pass the time away as Jon had already got out of the car, readjusted the boat on the roof, checked the car over, got back in and waited some more so I guess I counted the very last carriages and that came to 37.  There were some more trains just sitting on the tracks and they were of an unbelievable length.  A brochure said some of the iron ore trains are 2.4 kilometres long with 230 cars.  If you don’t think that sounds long, try measuring the distance next time you’re in the car.

Dampier is just a short distance down the road and has a memorial to a red dog on its outskirts.  We had to look it up on the internet to read his story, as there was no mention of it by the memorial.  He was a cross between a kelpie & a cattle dog and came to the area as a puppy with his family but got the wandering spirit.  He travelled as far away as Perth in the south and Broome in the north (a trip of around 4,000kms) but he always found his way home.  He befriended a Hamersley Iron bus driver and would regularly accompany him on bus runs.  The driver reserved the seat directly behind him for the dog, no one was allowed to sit there.  One day a new bus driver came along and refused to allow the dog on the bus.  The workers were so incensed that they all threaten to go on strike if the dog wasn’t allowed back on the bus.  They won and back the dog was.  He had his own bank account and was made a member of the transport union.

Apart from the dog, Dampier didn’t hold much more interest, it has the big port for the iron ore, salt, gas & fertilisers but that just gave it more of an ugly look.  The Dampier Archipelago was just offshore with it’s 42 islands which I’m sure are very nice but we didn’t have time to explore them.

We did go up the peninsular to see the Woodside Natural Gas Visitors Centre to find out all about the Gas plant and hopefully to see why they charge so much for it here but it was closed for Sunday.  To make up for this I took Jon down into Hearson’s Cove where it is reputed to have more than 10, 000 aboriginal rock art pictures and considered to be among the earliest art in the world.  Well he was thrilled with that idea but went along with it anyway.  The actual gorge was quite pretty with hundreds of little Zebra finches flying around, first time I have seen them outside an aviary.  In fact I have seen a few birds around here in the wild that up to now I have only seen in aviaries.  Anyway we went on the hunt for this rock art but there were thousands of these red rocks lining the gorge walls and although we thought we saw some examples we weren’t quite sure if someone was just taking the piss.  They were very basic stick figures and some odd symbols so we couldn’t help but make our own to get the experts wondering.

On the way back from here we went up to a lookout that the guidebook said ‘gets a little bumpy near the top’.  A little bumpy!!!! We almost lost the whole car down some of the potholes and rivets, it was the worse track we had ever been on so a little bumpy was a tiny bit of an exaggeration and we got to the point were we couldn’t turn around so it was all very exciting until we got to the top.  There was not much to look at and one of the most disappointing lookouts we have seen.

After that we thought we had covered this area as much as we wanted so on the Monday we left with high expectations of the next place and we certainly weren’t disappointed.

Monday 8^th October

On-route to Carnarvon

I may have mentioned this before but we have come across nature’s paradise.  The drive here was long once again, there are many long straight roads here but the journey was certainly worth it.  It is unfortunate that we hit this part in school holiday times as the best parks are full and we had hoped to stay in the Cape Range National Park, where they have several campsites but they were full every night so we stayed in a caravan park just down the road from the entrance of the national park.  It was a bit of a dag of a place as it was the converted homestead of a sheep station called Yardie Homestead.  Our site was just opposite the old sheep-shearing shed and they had converted the shearer’s quarters (which incidentally, still looked like shearers quarters, not a lot of upgrade had gone on) to accommodation and they seemed full too.  The water was undrinkable so they had a couple of tanks and the electricity was generator powered so we couldn’t use small appliances such as kettles & toasters otherwise it would blow the system and no TV reception but it was cheap at only $120 for the week.

Exmouth is approx 180kms from the main road and is up on the east side of a peninsular.  To get to the National park it’s another 40kms where you travel to the top of the peninsular before heading back down on the west side.  We were 10kms short of the park entrance but the beach was just across the road and there are several access points to get to it.  The Ningaloo Marine Park stretches from the top and along the coast down 260kms south to Coral Bay.  It is filled with amazing colourful corals and fish life and if you are here at the right time (which we weren’t) snorklers & divers can swim alongside the huge whale sharks, the biggest fish in the world and by all accounts harmless as they only eat plankton. Other animals include Dugongs, manta rays, sharks, dolphins, potato cod, humpback whales and three kinds of turtles.    All along this coast are turtle rookeries where they come up to lay their eggs on the beach. 

Yesterday, our final day here was the best day we had in regards to nature spotting & catching.  We managed to take our boat out a couple of times fishing so this was the last chance to go out and catch the big one.  We launched the boat off one of the many pure white sand beaches into the turquoise ocean and motored over the coral reef.  The water is so crystal clear, the best clarity an ocean can ever have so it’s not hard to see the bottom when you’re whizzing along.  The reef creates a calm lagoon with big breakers crashing far out to sea where the reef begins, although there is a strong current that runs through, so it makes for fairly safe boating & fishing.  The deal is you take the boat down one end of the beach and drift to the other end and see what you can catch on the way.  For the first time I wasn’t to interested in fishing, preferring to look over the side of the boat to see what was down there.  Every now & then we heard & saw a big splash but had no idea what caused it so that freaked me out a bit, but during this trip we saw turtles swimming around, stingrays, heaps of colourful fish and a family of five dolphins who swam close by us. We tried to catch up with them but we were sure they were teasing us as they disappeared then reappeared further out & by the time we got there they were back at the original spot.  We did catch some very tasty cod, Jon wants me to mention at this point that he caught the most, so dinner was safe that night.  On the drive back to camp we saw some emus (they are a common sight around here, along with the kangaroos), a sea eagle and a couple of wild horses.  Later on we went for one last drive around, up to the historic lighthouse & lookout where we saw whales playing out to sea then to the wreck of the Mildura, a cattle ship that ran aground in 1907 and it’s rusting hulk just sits offshore before a last visit to the beach and it is here we saw the best sight yet.  Further down the beach Jon spotted some turtles just in the breakers and on the beach so we headed down to have a look.  Well, it was a turtle orgy we had come across, there were turtles everywhere and they were big, all having sex in the waves.  It looked a bit of an effort for the male to clamber on top of her big shell, maybe that’s why they were in the waves to help him onboard, they stayed together for a minute or so then he slipped off to look for someone else.  Every now & then a female would come up for a bit of a rest on the beach then she would get back into it.  They were mere metres from us and completely oblivious to our presence until I got too close to one and she gave me a big splash with her flipper, can’t say I blame her.  It was the most amazing sight we have ever seen.

We went snorkelling a few times, something that is not one of my strengths having not completely overcoming my fear of water, I must take after my father.  We had bought super duper snorkelling gear in Darwin in preparation of this place so that really helped.  I had a snorkel that didn’t let in any water as the top shut off before the water could get down and the mask had a special bit that you can blow out any water should any leak into it so that gave me a bit more confidence that I wasn’t going to drown too soon.  That and the fact that the water was calm and only knee deep in some places so should I think I was just about to die I could stand up.  With all these safe guards I was still nervous to go out and it took me awhile to stop panicking as soon as my face was in the water but the minute I saw the coral and the amazing fish I completely forgot to panic and become so engrossed at the wonderful gardens of corals, hundreds of nemos scooting in & out of the anemones, bright rainbow coloured fish, angelfish and snapper swimming all around me.  At one point, just before I set off for a snorkel I was sitting in the water up to my waist while I struggled to get my flippers on.  When I finally managed to get these stupid things on I put my face in the water to check that the mask didn’t leak and was startled to see all these fish, of such a size you won’t throw back if you caught them, around me in a semi circle regarding me with interest.  I felt like we were in an amphitheatre & I was the entertainment!  That is how close to the shore these fish swam, beautiful looking snapper & big too, enough to make your mouth water would be in close to the beach.  There were several beaches you can snorkel from and a couple where you would get in one end of the beach and drift snorkel over the reef as the currant was fairly strong & ran parrel to the beach.  It was great if you went with the current but if you wanted to stay in one spot or turn around to follow a fish it was a real struggle.  I saw one rather large fish with several small, long blue striped fish all swimming around him and swimming into his gills and around his mouth.  They were obviously cleaner fish and the big fish just stayed in one spot to let the little fish give him a beauty treatment. 

We watched a video later filmed on the Ningaloo reef and it showed fish in these ‘cleaning stations’.  These are stations where cleaner fish were and the bigger fish swam in to get an all over detailing.  It is considered neutral territory so they had no fear of getting eaten by even bigger fish while they were getting a clean down.

The water, as I mentioned, is so clear that we had no trouble seeing what was going on below us, there was no sediment swirling around or gloomy spots so I could spot a shark at a hundred paces and be out of that water so fast he wouldn’t even know I had been there.

As well as all this fabulous snorkelling and boating we also managed to do a couple of gorge walks and even did them at a decent hour not in the midday sun as normal.  It was hard going as the tracks weren’t clear due to the very rocky terrain so we had to keep our eyes out for the white markers but once we clambered up the steep side of the hill the views were magnificent, looking down into the multicoloured gorge where the cockatoos were vigorously defending their nesting sites from larger birds in the holes in the cliffs and over to the azure Indian Ocean.

Part of our plan was to stay at Coral Bay, about 180kms south of us but as it was the school holidays we couldn’t get in so we went for the day instead.  Coral Bay is a small settlement with a couple of caravan parks and some touristy shops & supermarket.  It is more of a resort town where people come for their holidays.  Once again it has the protected calm beaches, teal clear sea and coral snorkelling.  It was an extremely pretty place and I can see the appeal for families to come for their holidays here.  We did some snorkelling here too but the coral had been damaged so was bleached & dead looking, I guess because too many people had been there.  There were a few fish but nothing like what we had seen.  They had glass bottom boat tours so I’m sure further out the coral would be more untouched & prettier.  Further up the coast there was a big garden of sea grass that means lots of turtles & dugongs and they had tours to that as well.  We have done our budget on tours for awhile so we just do the free stuff for now so after our snorkel and picnic and a look around we headed back home again and had a competition of how many emus we would see on the way.  There were five all up and they are the funniest looking things, especially when they run and man, can they hoon.

Wednesday 10^th October

On route from Carnarvon to Denham

It was with the most regret to date that we pulled out of this little paradise after deciding we could live here very easily in the caravan and just go boating & swimming every day.  It is cheap living and the least amount of money we have spent so far in one week.

Our next few destinations are only about 320kms apart each but the landscape is long & uninteresting in between which makes for an opportunity to write this script.  I was expecting to see verges on the side of the road and fields full of wildflowers as that’s what WA is famous for in the spring but either we are too late or it didn’t rain in the autumn, essential for wildflower making in the spring.  Either way there is no blaze of colour as promised so I feel a little disappointed at that.

Speaking of disappointments, we had a two-night stop over in Carnarvon, which, before we got there, I thought might not be enough time as there seemed lots to see & do.  We dumped the caravan at the park and drove into town to check it all out.  We got to a small group of shops where the visitor’s centre was so in we went to get a map of the town.  I asked the woman where was the centre of town and she said ‘your in it’.  Not quite what I was expecting.  After a drive around that afternoon we had almost done everything there was to do and we tried to leave a couple of things so we had something to do the next day.  I wanted to drive up the coast to see the blowholes I had read about but it would be a 140km round trip and we decided a blowhole wasn’t worth the drive.  Despite this Carnarvon does have an interesting history and a couple of worthwhile things to see. 

Carnarvon is known as somewhat of a fruit bowl and as soon as we hit the outskirts we could see why.  There were fields of plantations growing anything from bananas, mangos, grapes, avocados, citrus to tomatoes, beans, capsicum, sweet corn and asparagus.  We went for a drive around the main roads where these plantations were and some had shops out the front selling direct to the public.  We stopped at a couple and bought beautiful fresh bi coloured sweet corns, tomatoes, beans, cucumber and jars of mango & ginger chutney, banana jam & marmalade and a mango choc dipped ice cream, yummy.  These plantations, as does the town, get their water from the big Gascoyne River and when you drive over the bridge and look down into the big, dry, dusty riverbed you wonder how that is.  The river actually sits beneath the riverbed in underground reserves and so is protected from evaporation.  On high rainfall it occasionally runs on top but soon sinks below the sand again, very unusual.

The town also has a big satellite dish that played a part in the first moonwalk and brought the first satellite television broadcast to Australia.  I thought Forbes was the only place that did that but obviously Carnarvon had its part.  After assisting in tracking Halley’s comet in 1987 it closed it’s doors and now serves as another tourist mention in the brochures.

As there was not much more to do in town we decided a fishing excursion on the jetty would help pass the time away.  This jetty is heritage listed as it was built in 1897 and was used to export wool & livestock to Freemantle.  It was the first port in the world to load live stock on board ships to markets and had an animal race the length of the jetty along which the sheep were driven from holding pens.  Now this is no short jetty, they call it One Mile Jetty and with good cause.  By the time we had got to the end with all our fishing gear I was ready to pack up and go home.  The good thing about it was we were now way out to sea where the waves were big and the wind was blowing a gale.  Surely, we thought, the big one will be caught this time as we had heard stories of monster fish being caught out here.  After two hours I had caught 7 fish who unfortunately all had to be returned to the sea and Jon had caught none.  We did see three turtles swimming around the jetty but after the orgy the other day we were most blasé about them.  By this time we had become chilled as the temperature has dropped somewhat since reaching Carnarvon and that morning was the first time we had seen rain in almost three months.  After being use to temps in the mid 30’s it feels decidedly chilly when it hovers in the low 20’s so we were off home for a nice bowl of warm soup.

It was interesting around the jetty as they had the old light keepers cottage on display and a museum with the old trams and steam engines they used to transport the goods from town to the jetty and there is still a small tram that travels up the jetty now for a mere $7 a ride.  I would happily have paid double that as we trudged back down the long walk, empty buckets in hand and wind blowing around our ears.  They had an old camel cart on display, used by the camel teams to transport the bales of wool from the stations to the port.  On the trek they use to take are now growing date palms as the Afghan cameleers always had dates with them.

It was here too that Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, before he became a Sir, ran a trucking business for 2 years and delivered mail to the outback.  On the proceeds of the sale of the business he bought a couple of planes with some mates of his and made his name in the aviation business.  He was known to love his drink & music and ended up in the local nick several times for having fist a cuff fights in the pub.

It has been said that you can’t leave Carnarvon without first having a Carnarvon banana, which are about the size of your finger, so we bought and ate them and felt happy to leave town knowing we had done the lot. We are now headed for Monkey Mia with no sign of Monkeys but will report what is there next time.

CHAPTER TEN

CARNARVON TO PERTH

Saturday 20^th October

Jurien Bay

If I was to give one piece of extremely useful & simple advice to anyone contemplating taking the big trip around Australia it would be this; buy a fly net hat.  Our best investment to date on this whole trip has been two $5.00 fly nets.  In times of heavy fly infestations we continue to be grateful and just a little bit smug as we waltz around these fly blown gorges behind the netting and see the underside of 10 million flies while other less fortunate folk walk passed swatting them away with growing exasperation and look at us with a little envy.  Once I got passed the fact that it looks stupid and thought people would laugh I was fine and I have seen no laughing going on at our expense, quite the opposite because if they did 5,000 flies would be sucked down their throats. ₍₁₎ I’m not kidding, on the rare occasions we forgot to bring them with us I almost breathed them up my nose while they take dive bombs into my eyes & Jon has swallowed a couple whole, cough cough choke glub – gone.

Now, don’t get me wrong, they are not everywhere and we haven’t had them all the way but I think it must be maggot hatching time and they have come out in force in their millions to wreck havoc on us hapless campers.  I heard one woman cry out in exasperation the other day ‘these bloody flies are driving me mad’ and I second her sentiments.  They only started in the last two weeks and, according to local knowledge, last for a month so hopefully only two weeks to go.  It’s worse than the school holidays.

We left Carnarvon & arrived in Denham on the Wednesday of last week, the largest settlement in the Shark Bay World Heritage area after visiting two important points of interest on the way.  The first one was Hamelin Pool where the world famous stromatolites are. ₍₂₎ You can be forgiven if you have never heard of a stromatolite before, I myself would have be none the wiser if it had not been for Bill Bryson.  These ancient fellas have been around for a number of years, these ones estimated at 3,000 years, although they resemble the oldest & simplest form of life found on earth around 3.5 billion years ago.  They call them living fossils and are formed by microorganisms called cyanobacteria (or like the artist formally known as Prince) formally known as blue-green algae, much easier to understand.  In reality they look like a bunch of flat rocks and had you not been told the significance of what they are you wouldn’t look twice at them.  They are far from being the highlight for Jon; try as he might to get excited over them he failed miserably.  They only grow in super salty water and according to one brochure Shark Bay is only the second place in the world where they are found.  We are now in Jurien Bay and yesterday we went to Lake Thetis near Cervantes and what did we find there, yes – lucky for Jon, some more stromatolites, this time saying it’s one of five places in the world where they are found so you will need to make your own investigations into this matter should you so desire.

What did get Jon’s interest up was the shell quarry nearby (back at Shark Bay).  Another creature that can live in this highly salty water is a small bivalve shellfish, a bit like a cockle only tiny and pure white.  Further down the road was our second stop of the day at the aptly named Shell beach.  Here the beach stretched out for miles absolutely chocka with millions of these beautiful small white shells glowing in the sun in rippling dunes before dipping down to the clear teal ocean below.  The shell quarry near Hamlin pool was made up of these shells, which had compacted & hardened through some technical & natural processes including something to do with lime & water to form solid.  Back in the 1800’s they didn’t have many building materials so they quarried the shell, carved it into these blocks and built houses with it.  There were a couple of buildings in Denham, including a church and a restaurant, built in these shell blocks and they looked great.

The drive along this narrow peninsular cuts through nothing but desert, it is flat featureless land with low shrubs and a road that stretches for as far as the eye can see.  Shark Bay was named by our friend William Dampier back in 1699 due too, you may be surprised, the large population of Sharks.  Denham was named after Captain Denham who charted the bay in 1858 and I can only guess who Monkey Mia was named after as none of my brochures mention this. This is also another pearling & camel port, a novelty I have grown out of after the last 2,000kms of it, but despite all this is still very scenic and well worth a day or two here

Our caravan park in Denham didn’t have a blade of grass but instead was entirely laid out with this crushed shell.  It made it soft underfoot and no dust.  We continue to fall for these promises of caravan parks advertising large shady grassed sites.  When you have travelled in the dust & dirt for several months the thought of a grassed site is heaven.  We make our choice based on the promise of grass but every time to date I still haven’t found the grass.  When we pull up to the site it’s either a dry dust bowl or if we’re lucky it could have a layer of leaves to keep down the dust.  Occasionally they may have a concrete pad you can step out on but never grass.  The only grass I have managed to see is behind signs saying ‘keep off the grass’, lovely.

Denham is a picturesque little town beside the sea.  The shops are lined up the foreshore & overlook a large palm fringed grassy area that goes down to the water & jetties.  The beach is thick with washed up sea grass, which is also lying heavy in the sea with channels mowed through for the boats to come in & out.  This gives the atmosphere a rather rich salty smell reminding you the sea is there.

The next day we drove the 25 kms to Monkey Mia where the dolphins are famous.  I thought we could swim with them or the very least touch them but they were strictly to be looked at only, no touching or handling by anyone.  They feed them three times in the morning but can’t tell you when, it depends when the dolphins come.  They are wild dolphins but have been coming in for a free feed for several years.  We were told to be there by 8am as that was the best time.  We weren’t told it was also the busiest so by the time we got there everyone was already in the water, knee deep and watching about 6 dolphins that had come up.  The ranger was there giving her talk on them and said when it came time for the feeding everyone had to move out of the water so as not to frighten the dolphins.  Righto, I thought, I would stand at the very edge of the water now so when everyone had to move back I would be at the front.  This strategy worked well, although at the displeasure of a man who was shuffling backwards and expected to remain at the front while people behind where expected to move back too.  When I didn’t he got quite cross and leaned heavily into me so I would.  I’m happy to say I stood my ground and good a couple of good photos to show for it.  Needless to say that he got some great shots of my back! Some volunteers came down with buckets of fish and people were chosen from the audience to feed the dolphins.  I couldn’t help but notice they were all Asians and a couple of kids who were chosen.  No one who was at the back and now at the front were chosen but what could I do? 

Monkey Mia isn’t a town exactly, more of a resort with a caravan park, restaurant, visitor centre, tour office and small superette.  They did day tours from there for fishing or turtle & dugong watching.  We went on the walk that took you around the sand dunes then onto the beach.  The beach had the white sands leading up to the usual red dunes, which is always a stunning contrast.  Back to Denham after travelling behind a car & trailer that had three camels on the back who looked like they were really enjoying their camel ride. 

Different parts of Australia have different wildlife signs on the road warning you to slow down in case of hitting them.  In the outback they don’t fence the stations so often there are cows, live & dead at the side of the road ready to leap out in front of you (only the live ones) at any given moment.  A sign, on the Gibb River Road in the Kimberly, warned of straying stock for the next 670kms!  A common one is of the kangaroo or cattle, some of the more unusual ones have been camel, cassowary and the latest in Shark Bay is of the Bilby which looks rather like an oversized mouse with enormous ears, a really pointy snout and a long feather like tail.  They have reintroduced these critters to the area after a 1080-poisoning program to eradicate all the foxes & feral cats that seem to be a problem all along this coastline.

We went to another lookout point on the coast that was just stunning.  They had built a long boardwalk along the top of the cliff face and you could look down into the clear seas below and see the marine life swimming there.  We saw several stingrays and a small shark swimming around, unfortunately there were no dugongs at the time.  The cliffs are these huge white sand dunes that sweep straight into the ocean below.  It looked like it would be fun to grab your cardboard box and go whizzing down into the sea.  In fact from here & down the coast, are the most amazing sand dunes I have seen.  Some are more than a kilometre high and are made of the purest white sand that we think beats Whitehaven in the Whitsunday – the self confessed whitest beach in the world.

Kalbarri was our next stop and the scenery out the car window started to change the closer we got to it.  Suddenly here were my wildflowers I had waited to see.  Although not in the profusion I was expecting nether the less alongside the road and in some fields beyond (yes, fields and not desert at long last) there were glimpses of yellows & blues with a splash of red every now & then.   To get to Kalbarri you turn off the main road and head for the sea, from there is a loop around going down to Port Gregory before rejoining the main highway again at Northampton, a detour of around 180 kms but a must do.  Just North-West of Northampton is Australia’s only principality, I didn’t even know we had one.  It’s called the Hutt River Province Principality and has been an independent land since it’s owner seceded from the Commonwealth of Australia in 1970 so we have our own Monaco or Vatican City.

Kalbarri township is surrounded by the National park and is yet another picturesque seaside town, the sort of place you would choose if you wanted a sea change.  It is situated right on the mouth of the Murchison River where the river meets the sea, after making it around the point of a big sand dune.  The river forms a wide basin of calm turquoise water right on the town foreshore whereas, just past the cliffs on the other side, the ocean pounds the shore with waves that delight the surfers giving great long breaks. 

The coastline is extremely treacherous and is home to many a shipwreck, the first being the most famous & gruesome.  It happened in 1629 when the Dutch ship Batavia struck the reef & sunk.  Most managed to get to one of the Abrolhos Islands but they lost most of their supplies.  The captain and several crew took a longboat and struck out for Jakarta to get help while the rest stayed behind to wait.  One chap wanted to take command & mustered a band of followers.  To all the rest who didn’t follow him or were considered a drain of resources he had them systematically murdered.  Some were run through with a sword, others were bashed to death or drowned or met some other gruesome end.  In all he killed 125 men, women & children.  There was a successful resistance by another group who managed to get to a nearby Island and fend him off.  On the very day that the bad guy decided to invaded the island & kill the others, some three months later, the rescue ship appeared on the horizon.  These guys were tried for mutiny, had their hands cut off & were then strung up on the gallows.  A great story I thought.

We were told by several people 2 – 3000 kms ago that if we go to Kalbarri then we must go to Finlays Fish BBQ restaurant, apparently it has become quite an icon in Western Australia and with the touring gypsies, with it’s rolls of toilet paper for serviettes and paraphernalia all over the walls and slightly coarse staff greeting & serving the guests.  One book said it offered no service, no tablecloths, no glasses, no waiters, no carpets, no frills, nothing but a good feed and that’s what we were after so the first night in town we hunted it down and checked it out.  If I wanted to get away from kids & have a quiet night out I was sadly out of luck as the place was crawling with ankle biters & squawking babies, the pitfalls of a family restaurant and school holidays.  Apart from that it certainly had character, most of the place was outside with tables under trees or beside a roaring log fire & a few under a rough sort of roof with bits of cars, fishing gear, boats, motors and other such items strewn around the place.  The menu was on a big blackboard & the $20 special took our eye with it’s two bits of fish, prawns, mussels, spring rolls, wonton, rice & chips we thought would do the job.

As we waited the breeze took up a bit so we moved as close as we could to the blazing fire & snuggled up.  Apart from thinking it was way past these children’s bedtime I did eye up their marshmallows they were toasting over the fire hoping to be offered one but it was no use, they just didn’t get the vibes (or maybe they did!).  The meal finally came out and was well worth the wait.  As we ate someone was playing the old piano they had in the corner.  Apparently if you were a musio & played either theirs or your own instrument they would feed you for free, not a bad scheme.  Then the raffle draw was on and someone was called upon to draw the winning ticket.  The main guy called out for someone from Switzerland and up popped a woman we had met way back in Rockhampton.  They happened to be at the same caravan park as us and we had re-met them again earlier that afternoon.  We told her where we were heading for dinner and they thought that was a good idea so there she was.  Even funnier if she pulled out our ticket we thought, but she didn’t.  We called her over to express our disappointment & have a chat. ‘Everyone thinks I’m from Switzerland’ she confided with a sly smile in her thick Swiss accent ‘but I’m really from Sydney!’

The next day we set out to see yet another gorge.  We have seen so many but each & every one is different, as hard as that is to believe.  This one had layered & jagged red sandstone rock cliffs with a path enabling you to make your way down to the river if you felt crazy enough to do so in the heat of the day and with the buzz of millions of flies to accompany you.  We met up with a couple that had done it and by the sound of it was best left to the certified insane or enthusiastic fitness fanatics.   With this in mind we just did the 500m loop from the car park to the lookouts that were quite spectacular anyway.  One unusual feature along the way was called Nature’s Window, which was a rock arch that formed a rugged red rock window & framed the river below. ₍₃₎ No good to describe if you were of Asian orientation.

It is quite funny to watch people get into their cars after being followed all the way with black swarms of little flies.  They beat themselves silly, windmilling their hands & arms in the air as they unlatch the door and dive into their seats slamming the door behind them and bat at the remaining flies that managed to zip in after them.  We too performed this ritualistic art, to compound matters I also had camera and water bottles swinging from my hands that would whack me around the ears causing more grief than my foes and to which I usually landed on top of along with a swag of brochures and maybe the lolly jar left on my seat so the flies invariably won the game of following me inside. I would then spend the next 10 minutes trying to swat them out the window.  The trick is to drive fast enough to prevent new flies from coming in the open window used for encouraging excess flies to escape.

Friday 26^th October

Perth

We have been to so many different places in the last couple of weeks that it all seems a distant memory so hopefully I can still remember the main parts, bare with me here.

The other part of the National Park in Kalbarri is the coastal gorges, making a change from the inland gorges but no less spectacular.  There are several of these gorges to explore, most you can just drive to the lookouts and if your lucky see the odd passing whale but there are a couple where you can take an hour or so to walk around the trails that loop inland before cutting back to the coast through rainbow striped cliffs, some dripping with long vertical tubes that seem to hang off the rock.  Worms burrowing in the soft sand so many million years ago caused these, the sand hardened and here they stay forever more for all to see. ₍₆₎ The cliffs & rocks all around sparkled like diamonds, must have some sort of crystal in the rock. The coastline where the gorges are look a bit like the Great Ocean Rd. They consist of these magnificent, towering white cliffs that plummet to the azure sea below.  The forces of the sea & wind have sculptured the cliffs into some unusual formations and have created something similar to the apostles on the Great Ocean Road except only one or two in this case, not twelve. ₍₄₎

From Kalbarri we drove down the coast to a little fishing village called Port Gregory passing a garnet mine on the way and the most unusual lake I have ever seen.  It was very pink.  The name of the lake, even more unusual, was Pink Lake but I didn’t think that actually meant it was pink but there it was. ₍₅₎  On the shores of the lake is a beta-carotene mine; I’ve never considered before where that comes from, thought they just juiced lots of carrots.  The pink colour comes from bacteria, Dunaliella Salina, trapped in the salt crystals.  This is what provides the rich source of beta-carotene.  I couldn’t get a decent photo of the lake as there are no lookout points to see it, just glimpses from the road and unusually enough the whole pink lake thing has been very downplayed with hardly any information about it or that it even exists let alone viewing points to see it.  As we had the caravan in tow it made it difficult to just pull up to marvel at this pink sight resulting in only a couple of unsatisfactory photos.

Our stop for the next couple of nights was at Geraldton, approx 450kms north of Perth on the coast.  Geraldton is the first city we have seen in a long time and we just revelled in the shops & real civilisation at last.  Here were proper shopping malls with supermarkets, cinemas and all the trappings of a city.  We have also noticed by this time a marked decrease of our native friends.  There are no more communities doubling as a rubbish tip, trees don’t have anyone sitting under them and liquor shops are safe to visit now.  In fact, on reflection, the aborigines seemed to disappear soon after we left crocodile country, not sure if that has any bearing on anything.  They must be still around as these southern places are still rich with aboriginal history but they themselves seem to have disappeared.

I decided I liked Geraldton, it has some lovely beaches, beautiful old stone buildings & churches, a nice marina surrounded by trendy townhouses & cafes and a street full of little interesting shops.  Unfortunately we were there a month too early for the rock lobster season that starts mid November but they were gearing up for another boomer season as rock lobsters abound in these waters.

We visited yet another old gaol built in 1858 and now converted to a local arts & craft centre.  They had little shops in each of the cells, where if the unwary should wander in thinking no-body was in there, could (and did) get trapped for hours by a woman who needed to use up her 10,000 words making the thought of a hanging sound quite attractive (poor Jon).

They also had a great museum in Geraldton with exhibits from the shipwrecks including the Batavia and a movie about the gruesome outcome as well as the history of the joint and a few local stuffed animals that are likely to be found around the place.  The animals are behind a waist high glass panel, looking very realistic & life like.  Jon had been looking at them before I got there and when I appeared he told me to touch the kangaroo to feel how soft it was.  Like an innocent & trusting as I am, I leant over the glass panel to stroke the Kangaroo and suddenly the air was rent with loud alarm bells ringing and Jon rolled up in a ball holding his sides.  It was only then that I saw big notices warning not to touch the exhibits, bastard.

Behind the town on a hill is a beautiful memorial to the HMAS Sydney II.  This war ship was attacked & sunk off the coast in 1941 by a German ship in disguise & disappeared without a trace of both the ship and all 645 sailors aboard her.  It was Australia’s greatest single loss and still remains a mystery of what really happened.  They have built a circular stonewall listing all the names, showing photos of both ship & crew and above this is a huge silver dome of 645 seagulls.  A bronze statue of a woman, holding onto her hat as she leans against the wind and gazes desperately out to sea stands on the cliff edge.  It is all very well done and quite poignant.

Just south of Geraldton is the small abandon town of Greenough.  We had a short drive from Geraldton to our next stop so I had planned the day of all the little stops on the way like olive farms, a woodwork workshop, little museum etc but instead we went flying down the road and I just managed to catch a glimpse of each one as we whisked past, not being able to stop easily because of the caravan (or so Jon said) leaving me to cross each one off as a miss never to be seen again.  I did however manage to give enough notice to stop at Greenough where there was plenty of parking for the caravan leaving no excuses.  It had 11 restored historical buildings including a couple of churches, the prison & police station, school hall and priest cottage that you could wander at your leisure.  It was nice & quiet when we pulled up and I thought how nice it was that school was back leaving us to be tourists in peace.   How wrong I was as within minutes a big school bus pulled up, spewing out tens of millions of extremely noisy & boisterous school children who ran riot over the entire place finally leaving when we did, what delightful timing.   Another unusual feature of this landscape is the leaning trees making you wonder which way the wind blows.  These trees are tall, or rather would be, if they were not leaning almost horizontal to the ground and amazingly still alive & thriving.

Our stop that night was in a campground about 25kms short of Eneabba that I had been told about back at Katherine by some people that use to be ex-neighbours of the owners of the campground when they both lived in Melbourne.  They told me if I wanted to know anything about wildflowers this was the place to go so this was my last ditch effort to find out the truth about them.  Although we had been seeing them on the sides of the road, it wasn’t in the masses that I had been expecting hence my disappointment about it.  After staying at this place I readjusted my expectations and could finally see the wildflowers for what they are and not the hype that the Western Australian tourist board make them out to be.  Yes, they are out there and maybe in the masses we are lead to believe but maybe further inland or further down south and some seasons more than others but generally not quite what the pretty brochure pictures depict.  This year the plume smokebushs are out in force around here and that does looks spectacular with it’s long slender stems dipped to halfway with velvet like tiny light mauve flowers waving in the breeze giving an almost mauve haze to the air.  At 4.30pm, just before our first shower of rain in three months, he took us (Jon & I & 4 other punters) for a walk around the property pointing out the different plants, using their Latin names and picking some samples. Just as it started to hose down we went to a little theatre room where he put these flowers under a microscope, which then projected onto the wall so we had a great close up view of what was happening with each one.  He gave a fascinating and insightful talk about the wildflowers, demonstrating on some how they pollinate and by whom.  In one tiny flower we saw even tinier thrips living in it that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.  Jon was not going to go on this walk & talk, only deciding to go to help make up the numbers but even he came away impressed with it all.  We decided we would spend another night in this peaceful setting if it rained the next day but for a change I was disappointed to see the sun come out in the morning so on we went.

Jurien Bay was our last stop before Perth, which seemed to be dangling tantalisingly close but taking forever to get there.  We saw Perth as being a milestone in our journey and the start of our final leg home, or at least to Adelaide before flying home.  There was more fun to be had before reaching the city and here it was that we were to have it according to my itinerary. This place was again off the main highway and right on the coast along with the smaller settlements of Leeman, Greenhead and Cervantes all of whom had a charm of their own.  This whole area, including where we were in the last caravan park on the highway is made up of sand plains.  It’s all sand, not dirt or dust or any kind of soil, just sand.  It’s amazing what grows on sand making a lot of plants endemic to this area.  The beaches have pure white sand, so white that it positively glows making the turquoise sea seem even richer in colour and clearer if that was at all possible.     Here also were carpets of little white flowers covering the sand plains satisfying my wildflower delights.  We stopped to get gas at a small station at Leeman and inside the shop was a wall of pictures of wildflowers that she had taken in the nearby Lesueur National Park so that was one place on our ‘to do’ list.  To get there we drove over a gravel road, the best one we have ever driven on, no corrugations at all then we turned off and drove on a surprisingly completely sealed one way road.  They must have just recently completed all that with parking bays you can pull over on to inspect the flowers at closer quarters.  It was a great drive, no one else was on it so we could cruise really slowly and stop when we saw an interesting plant.  It was one of the easiest National Parks we had been to in terms of access, walking tracks and being able to see most things from the comfort of the car.

The main reason why we had come to this area was to see the Pinnacles Desert in the Nambung National Park. ₍₇₎ This lived up to what I was expecting and is an amazing sight.  I felt we were on the moon or another planet as we drove through this area.  They once again have done it well.  You can drive around the formations on a one-way track with more bays to pull over and have a walk around.  The Pinnacles are thousands of limestone pillars, some up to four metres in height, rising out of a desert of really yellow almost gold, sand.  They are all shapes & sizes, some looked like tombstones and on one hill it reminded us of boot hill, others are jagged and come to a point or rounded at the top and they are as far as the eye can see.  They were originally created from ancient seashells that broke down into lime rich sands forming high mobile dunes.  We saw some of these dunes that are so mobile they can travel up to 10 meters in a year.  Anyway they went through the same process involving water & lime cementing them together with a hard cap of calcrete forming on top.  The surrounding softer stuff eroded away leaving the Pinnacles behind.  It’s a bit more complicated than that but the end result is the same and worth the effort to come & see them.

We left Jurien Bay last Sunday and finally drove the last stretch to Perth.  I did try and make one last overnight stop but we took a wrong turn and it was too difficult to go back so we arrived in Perth a little by accident.  Before getting there however, we had been told of a town to visit, which we had to head inland for making our path to Perth not as direct as it should have been.  This town is called New Norica and is Australia’s only monastic town.  Dom Rosendo Salvado, a Benedictine monk, founded it in 1846 to convert the local Indigenous people but later became a place of learning.  It has been run by mostly Spanish Benedictine Monks, the oldest now 97 who came out from Spain when he was 18.  There are only 8 or 9 of them left but they still own vast amounts of land growing mainly wheat, olives, grapes & sheep.  They stone grind their wheat and make the most delicious breads in the wood fired ovens which they sell there as well as in town here, plus their world famous nut cake, biscotti, pan chocolatti (which I can personally vouch for and is quite delicious), wine from their grapes and cold pressed olive oils.  I gave Jon a sliver of the chocolatti and he said he didn’t want anymore otherwise he would be to tempted to scoff the lot.  We went on a two hour guided walking tour of the town and were taken into the Abbey, monastery Chapel, Girls College & Boys College, ₍₈₎ now no longer in use.  A couple of monks way back had painted frescoes over the walls of some of the building, which were quite amazing but not as amazing as the monk who painted over them with a nice coat of Dulux! They are gradually trying to restore them.  The monks have a great collection of paintings, mostly Spanish & Italian masters that the original monk had collected over the years of going back to Europe for supplies.

A few years back they had a daring daylight robbery committed on them.  A few guys from Sydney flew to Perth, hired a car and drove up to New Norcia.  They tied up the poor lady in the shop, slashed some extremely valuable paintings from their frames & high tailed it back to Perth then flew out of the country.  An employee from the hotel where they stayed thought they were acting a bit suspiciously & from that the police tracked them down and recovered all bar one painting.  The rest were painstakingly restored except one that was so badly damaged all they could do was make a copy of it.  High excitement indeed in Monk Town.  Their web address should you be so interested is www.newnorcia.com.

We had lunch at the big hotel consisting of some of their yummy bread & washed down with some monk made beer and had a quiet celebration of our 6^th wedding anniversary. 

The drive into Perth was lovely as we passed through Swan Valley with it’s fields of grapevines and, due to the enormous amounts of rain they’ve had, the greenest grass I have seen since NZ.  We passed the wineries with their tempting promises of wine tastings along with signs declaring fresh nougat, hand made chocolate & ice creams.  This is all a far cry from the endless roads of red dirt & nothingness broken only by a remote roadhouse and blasts of hot air when opening the window like you had just opened the door to a giant fan oven.   We have reached gourmet country, something I little need but greatly desire.

The city of Perth is as pretty as they say it is and more sophisticated than I expected.  I must admit I have often pitied the poor people who lived over here, so far away from the rest of the world but I have now discovered their secret & why they do.  In fact it’s tempting to live here myself and I could quite easily.  The city is well laid out with highways, freeways and motorways getting you in & out and around the city with ease, they have free buses within the city centre, a huge park in the city as well as parklands beside the river, great shops and a fantastic David Jones with a gourmet/deli section that is reminiscent of the great deli shop we saw in Paris.

Yesterday we drove up through the northern beaches, which was a great scenic drive with the road following the sea all the way up.  We stopped at Scarborough Beach for lunch, which is a bit like a smaller Mooloolaba, then stopped at Hillarys Boat Harbour with its shops on the wharf like Marina Mirage.  We then drove back down through the Swan Valley and I still couldn’t convince Jon to stop for a tipple but the drive was extremely pleasant.

The day before we did a big day tour drive down south as far as Mandurah going through the lovely seaside town of Rockingham, well it’s a little more than a town with a population of 80,000 but it still has the air of a holiday laid back atmosphere with little shops & cafes along the beachfront.  Mandurah appears to be a growing place with tall apartment buildings beside the marina and more being constructed.  In fact the whole coastline from Geraldton down is undergoing construction and growth & a rising property market.

We drove back up the inland road passing through very pretty countryside of rolling hills, green fields & white painted fences of horse farms, looking a bit like the drive through Cambridge NZ.

Friday 2^nd November

Perth

On the Monday we headed for the hills & the historic towns of Mundaring & Kalamunda.  There are 10 National parks in the hills of Perth along with the Mundaring Weir & the start of the golden pipeline.  The weir & pipeline was constructed at the turn of the last centaury and was designed by Irish engineer C Y O’Connor.  It took 5 years to complete and once completed consisted of eight steam driven pumping stations to lift the water along the main pipeline from Mundaring & pump it 560 kms east to the goldfields of Kalgoorlie & nearly 8,000km of secondary pipes going north & south into the wheat belt.  This is still classed as one of the greatest hydraulic engineering works in the world.

It is also from here you can start the long walk along the Bibbulmun track.  This track goes from Mundaring to Albany, a distance of over 1,000 kms through forest, along beaches & over hills along the way.  We decided we didn’t have quite enough time to do the walk so we had lunch and made our way home, driving through tall green forests & coming out on a hill that put the whole of Perth at our feet.

Unfortunately a dear friend of ours passed away so I made a sad diversion back to the Gold Coast for a couple of days to attend her funeral but we are now back on track & will head off to the Margaret River tomorrow & hopefully indulge in their finest wines & food & all the riches the Margaret River has to offer us.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PERTH TO NORSEMAN

Friday 9^th November

Margaret River

I have died & gone to heaven or at least gourmet heaven.  Over the last few days I have sniffed, swirled & slurped chardonnays, sauvignon blanc, merlots, shiraz, ports & all derivatives, sampled chocolate, lavender & strawberry beer, wheat & strong ales, feasted on chocolates, cheese, fudges, hand made sweets and venison products, indulged my senses in soaps, potions, lotions, sprays, lavender bags & whatever else lavenders can be made into, emersed myself in the arts world of timber carvings, pottery, ceramics, sketches, paintings, glassware, jewellery, ornaments and viewed some of the most wonderful scenery of rolling hills covered in grape vines, lush green grass, fat cows & sheep, forests, apple blossomed trees, wildflowers, white sandy beaches, wind swept capes and no less whales jumping out of the water.  It’s amazing what’s on TV these days!  Seriously, I am almost sensed out and waistline growing by the minute.

We are also in eager anticipation, waiting for the dung beetles to appear as apparently once they hit the scene our jolly but most annoying friends, the flies, disappear.  Yes, they are still around in their droves but have fly hat, will travel.

Before hitting the gourmet scene of Margaret River we left Perth and headed for Bunbury going through some great countryside on the way.  This is dairy country with a small town called Harvey in the middle of it all supplying the majority of Western Australian Milk.  Harvey Milk is all through the supermarkets and smaller general stores.  We stopped for lunch in Harvey and popped into the butchers in the main street hoping for a nice fresh steak for dinner.  He, along with most butchers in every town, had his home made award winning famous sausages on display but unfortunately only sold them in big packs.  We said we only wanted half a dozen, as they looked so good, because our freezer is only tiny and space is limited.  He was a bit of a dag this man and ended up giving us the sausages with his compliments.  It’s the first time I have ever experienced a butcher giving away his meat to a couple of strangers who weren’t likely to be back so I can highly recommend him to anyone going through Harvey.  The sausages were delicious by the way.

Bunbury is a charming city right on the edge of the sea and surrounded by water.   It has the ocean surf beach down one side, a calm bay curving around the city on the other side where bottlenose dolphins swim (not that we saw any when we were there) and an inlet heading from the bay cutting inland and parrel to the bay.  It use to be a very busy port exporting timber, alumina & mineral sands and more recently in the 60’s & 70’s, wheat.  They have converted these huge wheat silos in town, just on the waters edge to executive apartments, which look just a little unusual.

At a lot of these places we try to stay at least two nights as that gives us one whole day to explore and if we’re lucky and haven’t driven too far, the rest of the afternoon once we get there and have set up.  So we investigated Bunbury that afternoon, leaving the next day to take a day trip around the area.  There were several routes to take, we chose the Capel, Donnybrook, Balingup & Boyanup one as it took us through dairy farms, orchards, vineyards and a bit of scenic bushland including a forest of Tuart trees, a tall Eucalyptus tree and apparently this is the only place in the world (how many times do we hear this statement??) where they grow naturally.  Only a small part of the original forest still exists as they chopped them down to make railway sleepers & wagons.  Capel is the home of the one time Melbourne cup winner Rogan Josh and he now lives out the back of the Capel Tavern.  Every horse we saw within a 100km radius of this area we called out, ‘oh look, there’s Rogan Josh’.  I doubt we ever saw the real McCoy.  The drive was extremely scenic through the rolling farmlands and orchards which happen to be full of apple blossom trees.  They were gorgeous all dressed up in their pink flowers.  Donnybrook is home to the Granny Smith that has been growing there since the 1890’s so I guess the trees are more than well established.  Balingup is a tiny village with a heap of character with its little antique & craft shops, cafes & deli’s, scarecrows scattered around the place set in a very picturesque valley.  Before reaching there we went through an even smaller place called Kirup where, according to this big sign, they sold ‘world famous pies’.  Having eaten several world famous pies we thought it only fair that we should try theirs as well.  After reading through the comments in the visitor book there it seems the grumpy staff also have a bit of a world reputation and we are happy to report we experienced both.  Amazingly they managed to sell anything but one comment in the book thought the grumpy staff was part of the charm.  Pies were excellent tho.

The next day, being Monday 5^th November we headed for the Margaret River region and made our first stop at Yallingup which is right on the coast just below Cape Naturaliste.  The book said the caravan park there was highly rated and an excellent park to stay at with the perfect location.  We pulled into it and no one was around, the office was locked with a note on the door to ring a mobile number.  I did but it just rang out so I had to go and hunt someone down.   Eventually I found the manager and she booked us in & showed us the site.  The whole place was looking decidedly shabby, office was dated to say the least, the camp kitchen area was appallingly dirty, the games room had a pool table and a pile of leaves in it and each site had it’s own ensuite, built at the turn of last centaury by the look of them and last cleaned back then too and for the privilege of this it was $30 a night.  I couldn’t understand how two different books had raved about it when it was so bad until Jon pointed out the fact that we had pulled into the wrong one!  The other one was further down the road, overlooking the sea and nice, bright & clean, but it was too late.  Who would have thought this small place would have two caravan parks. 

On the way to Yallingup we stopped at Busselton, the largest town in the region at ten and a half thousand people.  We were going to camp there but someone had told us it was too commercialised so best to stay at somewhere like Yallingup.  My advice is to try Busselton first.  The most notable thing about Busselton is it’s long jetty and here is another world first, it’s the longest wooden jetty in the Southern Hemisphere.  It’s reported to be 1,841 metres long but they have cheated as a few years ago it had a big fire and burnt the middle & near the end down.  They restored the middle bit but there is still a gap of several metres before the end, now used only by the birds and they still call it the 2 km jetty.  All the same, it is a long way to walk out, they use to have a train that could take you but it’s become too unstable for it so shanks pony it is.  At the end of the jetty is an underwater observatory, descending 8 metres below the water level and allows you to see what is going on under the jetty.  The jetty was first built back in 1865 and so has been there for so long it’s become an artificial reef in itself.  Clinging to the posts are really colourful corals, sponges & algae of green, blue, orange & white and little tropical fish zipping in & out of them as well as big schools of yellow tail & other fishy types.  The Leeuwin current is the cause of so much tropical life this far south as nowhere else in the same latitude has this type of thing.  People can also fish off the jetty & I was half expecting to see a cute little fish we were all watching to chop on a yummy bit of food only to be whisked upwards with a hook ripping up through it’s mouth.  That would be enough to make the kids cry.

After our experience in camp Yallingup we chose our next campsite very carefully as we planned to be there for another 5- 6 days.  We consulted our travel bible that recommended a farm stay camp just north of Cowaramup (pronounced Coor- warra- mup), which is 14km north of Margaret River Township.  This was a success as it was a working farm that had set aside several acres for a caravan park.   Here was lovely green grass, shady trees and very peaceful surrounds with the ducks visiting every morning to check out breakfast, colourful ring-necked parrots in the trees and in the paddock next door were a couple of Clydesdale horses, two donkeys, some sheep & a couple of calves with the farm cat wandering around to check things out.  This was much more like it and I could have quite happily stayed on for several more weeks.

You will notice that a lot of these towns end in ‘up’, they all do around these parts and I finally found out what it means.  It is an aboriginal term meaning ‘the place of’, so Yallingup means ‘the place of love’, interesting I thought! Cowaramup, even tho it is surrounded by cows and is called by the locals ‘cow town’ has nothing to do with cows, it’s named after the purple crowned lorikeet the Aborigines called Cowara.    Apart from the aboriginal names, many of the place names are French with a little bit of Dutch, being the first to spot this area.  The Dutch ship “The Leeuwin” (lioness) recorded their sighting in 1622 hence the names Cape Leeuwin & Leeuwin current.  A 17^th century clog was found in the Flinders Bay area so it is thought they landed to take on water.  Here is a bit of useless information that you may or may not know, the French also wore the clog or Sabot and when the disgruntled French workers took up the habit of throwing their sabot’s into the farming machinery etc it ‘clogged up the works’ and hence came about the name Sabotage and Saboteur.

The French came after the Dutch and charted a lot of the western coastline with Nicholas Baudin as leader of an expedition in 1800 – 1803 in his ship ‘Geographe’ with his second in command Baron Emmanuel Hamelin in the second ship ‘Naturaliste’ so we have Geographe Bay, Cape Naturaliste, Hamlin Bay and many other names from the people on board those ships except the leader, poor old Baudin himself, seems he was such a bastard that not one place was named after him.  That’s what you get for being mean.  The English started to get a bit nervous with all these Frenchmen sniffing around and even though they had claimed Australia or New Holland as theirs they had no settlements over this side so they quickly sent a ship around and started up a settlement at Albany in 1826 to keep the frogs at bay.  So endth the history lesson and onto more important things like the local wines.

We thought the most sensible thing to do was to go on a proper organised wine tour in order to get the lay of the land and to sample the wines without the onerous obligation of having to buy a bottle or two.  We were picked up late morning and begun the tour with a BBQ lunch on the banks of the Margaret River.  It was a relatively small group, maybe 20 or so, not bad for afternoon company.  We were given a couple of pointers on the finer art of sampling wine then were bundled up for our first port of call, so to speak.  We went to three wineries from the big corporate type thing to the smaller boutique vineyards, then broke the drinking with a visit to the venison farm and samplings of their pate, salamis & sausages then onto the last winery, by this time I was getting fairly light-headed as at each place we sampled at least 10 different wines and as each one went down they were getting better & better.  I was pleased when he took us to my favourite cheese place, where I must admit, I lashed out on the cheese party pack and now have enough of the stuff to last until Christmas, then onto the chocolate factory before finishing up at a brewery.  For the first time in a long time, we didn’t have wine with our meal that night.

One night we decided to go into town for dinner but being cheap we had a few drinks first to save us buying wine there, which is usually far more expensive.  It could have been our downfall as just short of town was the police wagons doing a spot of RBT.  It appears it doesn’t matter how many mints you eat or how many deep breaths you inhale, when your breath alcohol level is positive, it’s positive.  This is only the second time on this trip Jon has been tested, the first in Cairns, which was a very close call and now this, even closer since it was reading more in the positive than the negative.  They were very nice about it while I was sweating as I was imagining having to tow the caravan myself for the next 10,000 or so kms back home, a task not to relish.  We had to pull over and wait as the thing we had going for us was Jon’s last drink was only a few minutes before he drove making the reading higher than normal.  They took a couple of more readings in which time it had come down significantly, not enough to drive but enough to be let go with a warning.  I fortunately tested below so we drove away thanking our lucky stars for the rest of that night & more.

A little know fact about this region is the number of limestone caves in the area with over 350 scattered around.  This is a fortunate thing as it’s a great way to extract even more dollars from the poor tourists.  They have managed to developed 6 caves, all of them sound very nice and spectacular in their own unique way and if we had not already seen several caves on this trip alone, we would have been very tempted, instead we saved our money for an extra case of wine so unfortunately I cannot report on what they are like, merely inform you that they are there.

The scenery in this area is as dramatic as it is diverse.  From the rolling green pastures full of happy cows, neat & orderly vines lining the hills & fields to the towering and beautiful forests of the magnificent Karri trees and the wild, wind swept  & remote Cape Leeuwin (one of the great southern capes of the world including Cape Horn & Cape of Good Hope & just a few thousand kms away from the South Pole) where the Indian Ocean meets up with the Southern Ocean. ₍₁₎  All this is within a 100km from top to bottom.  Both capes have lighthouses and at a small cost to the poor tourist you can tour them both, of course Cape Leeuwin has the tallest lighthouse on mainland Australia, no less.  We didn’t take the tours but did do the walks along the cliffs & gaze down at the blue ocean below in the hope we would see a whale or two.  There are three types of whales that cruise passed this area, the Humpback, the Southern Right (so named because they were the ‘right’ whale to slaughter) and the Blue Whale.  We are right at the end of the season but as luck would have it we saw a mother & her calf swim by and just as I had the binoculars trained at a certain spot, just a few metres offshore, a Humpback whale rose right out of the water with only the tip of his tail left in, spun around and slammed back down with an almighty crash, water propelling high in the air.  I know this is called breeching but the term doesn’t really describe how fantastic it looks when this giant creature propels himself out of the water and is temporary airborne before returning in spectacular fashion to the deep blue.  We saw a few more tail slaps before losing sight of them altogether.  That was one of my biggest thrills.

The coastline & beaches are among the most beautiful we have seen, the sand is snow white and squeaky fine with the water the same aquamarine colour and deepening to the deep azure blue of the Southern Ocean.  The rocks & boulders have been worn into unusual shapes with a network of canals on one beach created from the constant pounding of the ocean running through and bisecting the rocks forming a patchwork of rocky islands, looking a bit like Venice.

In complete contrast to this there are some of the most magnificent vineyards and cellar doors I have ever seen, some were so opulent and grand, all this just to sell a few bottles of wine.  Besides the tour we went and visited four other vineyards because they looked so amazing.  The first one (Laurance) was on the main road and caught our eye with the manicured lawns, a big rose garden but most of all this huge lake and in the middle is a 14 metre electric blue pole on approx a 120 degree angle with a golden lady standing on the edge of a platform posed ready to take a dive into the waters below.  Apparently the locals call her ‘Chick on a stick’.  The building itself was fairly grand in a mud brick Tuscan look with two enormous chandeliers in the hall consisting of 6 diminishing circles of inverted wine glasses.  The toilets were a work of art themselves, only three cubicles but each one bigger than our caravan, old fashion toilet with a pull chain, a wooden cabinet with a marble basin, a big mirror with a carved wooden frame around it and an expensive looking sketch on the wall.  That was just one of them.  Another cellar door of note, called Voyager Estate, had the most beautiful rose gardens, a white rose arbour, beautifully manicured gardens all in perfect alignment, a huge Australia Flag (15m x 7.5m) up a 30 metre pole and the building was white with a black roof & shutters in the style of the South African Cape Dutch type of architecture.  The third one we didn’t get to see inside as it was just on closing but they had a huge front lawn where they hold a concert each year and have hosted names such as Dame Kerri Te Kanawa, Tom Jones, Julio Iglesias, George Benson, James Taylor, Sting, Diana Ross and Michael Crawford to name just a few.

Apart from the vineyards, olive oil plantations, homemade ice cream, candy & fudge shops, chocolate & cheese factories, breweries and whatever else they grow or make are the wonderful galleries supporting the local artists from wood turning, glass making, pottery to paintings and jewellery making.  There was even one there that specialised in Christmas decorations and had the most unique decorations you are likely to see.  The area is intertwined with smaller side roads that are fairly narrow but do have a wide gravel shoulder so should you meet an oncoming car both cars have to move over to the dusty gravel shoulder to pass.  At one stage we zoomed passed a sexy looking convertible with three people taking in the air of the Margaret River.  As we passed them we looked in the rear view mirror and they were covered in the dust our car kicked up & threw over them, coughing & spluttering & wondering who’s idea was it to bring the convertible.

I managed to convince Jon to stop at the ice cream shop that was in the middle of the countryside and had a lovely big grassed picnic area, kids playground & little stream running through with a fenced off area at the back of the property of which a couple of emus were behind.  The sign warned of ice cream eating emus but for some reason I didn’t quite believe them until I strayed too close to the fence.  It’s amazing how far an emu’s neck can reach as he deftly popped his head through the wire, stretched that long neck out & plucked my ice cream cone straight out of my hands.  The lesson of the day is take heed of the warning signs.

This whole area, although small is extremely diverse and would keep the average person entertained for many happy a week, so it was with huge disappointment that we left after spending just one glorious & hedonistic week in the bosom of Margaret River, what could possibly top that.

Saturday 24^th November

Norseman

We left Margaret River on Monday 12^th November & drove to Pemberton, a small timber town approx 333 kms south east of Perth.  Pemberton was originally settled in 1861 when Edward Brockman thought it was a good spot to breed horses that were then sent off to India for the British army.  In 1913 timber mills were established in the area to cut down the karri trees from which half a million sleepers were made to help build the Trans-continental railway line. It is right in the heart of the great Southern Forests and a very pretty spot.  The people of Pemberton are very friendly albeit a little strange to say the least.  We came to the conclusion they must be inbred.  We went into one of the shops in the main street, which incidentally were only on one side of the street, & one or two blocks long, and the woman/man? (we weren’t quite sure of the sex) said ‘humphreiting’ in an extremely nasal tone, the lips hardly moved at all.  Jon said pardon?? And he said again, only slower so we could understand ‘howzitgong’ At least that’s what we think he said.  We thought maybe that’s just one person but the whole town was like it.  Jon walked through a sports complex that had a bar & a restaurant at the far end, to check out the menu.  As he walked by there were groups of men, all of whom gave him a friendly greeting of ‘humphreiting” through their noses.  To be honest, I’m not quite sure how to spell it or describe the way it is delivered but this is the closest I can get to it.

The campground was boarding onto the bush & forest with the wildlife wandering around.  We had ring necked parrots that took an extreme interest in any food you may have and that evening we were covered with the parrots, sitting on our shoulder, head, arms, hands to get at the crusts of bread we were offering them.

The first afternoon of being there we went on a tram ride that took us through the forest on a 2 hour tour.  The woman who sold the tickets at the little station could have got a job in the world famous pie shop, she was so grumpy.  The train driver tho was very pleasant and probably got the job as he spoke reasonably well.  The tram was quite cute and took us into the heart of the Karri forest (Eucalyptus Diversicolor) as opposed to what we know as Kauri (Agathis Australis) & over all these little bridges that crossed the river stopping at the cascades where the water ran down a series of rocks.  The Karri trees are huge, being the third tallest in the world behind the Californian Redwood & another one.  They have straight trunks going up to approx 90 meters and live up to 300 years at which point they have a habit of falling over, succumbing to termites, weather & all elements.  The outer bark changes colour as it matures & as they shed their bark every year the trunks are multicoloured in shades of salmon pink, orange, grey and white so in all they are fairly impressive.  The forest also have stands of Marri & Jarrah and lots of wildflowers, my favourites are the pink & white ones that are like a gladioli and look so pretty. ₍₀₃₎

The next day we went on a scenic drive that took us through three national parks and through some more Karri forests.  Our first stop was at the Pemberton Tree.  There are several trees like this that they used as a fire lookout tree and amazingly enough in this world of public liability they still allow people to climb them.  This tree has steel pegs hammered into the side of it in a spiral; some were more widely spaced than others, right up to the top platform 60 metres into the sky.  We both started the climb but Jon, very wisely, decided to go down after climbing a quarter of the way up and I hurtled down some abuse like ‘scaredy cat’ and ‘what’s the matter with you’ as I bravely struck forth & continued the climb. _{(tree climb  )}  It got harder the higher I went and the pegs nearer the top were fairly widely spaced so I had to pull my considerable body weight (after the Margaret River) up with my arms while pushing heavily on my thighs to climb.  By the time I reached the platform ₍₀₂₎ I was really knackered, then saw there was another platform above that so had to keep climbing.  Finally I got to that one and saw there was yet another one!!  After so far I had to see the top so up more steps.  At last I had a view from the top and could see for miles but not sure it was really worth it.  Needless to say I was the only one there until a 60 yr old man who had scampered up in his jandals in half the time I did, bastard, joined me.  He went down first as I knew I would be slower then made the long, arduous journey back down, which was harder than the up.  It had been raining slightly too that morning making the pegs a little slippery so I took each peg one by one.  Half way down I could feel my thighs starting to shake and I was beginning to think that it wasn’t one of my better ideas.  Finally back on Terra Firma I was really starting to regret the stunt as I was having trouble walking and had pain in my legs for the next 4 days, unable to get in & out of the car without saying ow,ow,ow. 

Next was a loop drive through the forest but halfway around we found our way was barred by a huge Karri tree that thought now was the time to fall and had crashed right across the road. ₍₀₄₎  It must have only happened maybe an hour beforehand as other trees it had passed on the way down were still succumbing to the weight it’s branches had collected and were snapping around us, making loud cracking sounds.  The tree hadn’t come out from its roots but had actually snapped about 5 metres up the trunk.  It must have hit the road with such force as there were tree debris for several metres and looked like a bombsite.  It had been reported to the ranger who appeared just as we were walking along the trunk to the base of the tree.  Shortly after that he roped off the area so we were lucky to climb the tree when we did.  I did wonder if it made a sound when it fell, as there was no one around, luckily as it would have squashed any car.

The whole drive was extremely scenic, going through these huge Karri & Marri trees then for a walk over a big swing bridge to see some water falls then saw another climbing tree, the bi-centennial tree that was even taller than the one I climbed but I declined to even give it a go.  I did do a practice climb to the first peg but couldn’t lift my leg that far without yelling in agony.

The last stop of the day was a marron farm.  It is now marron catching season but you do need a license for it.  They are native fresh water crayfish and look just like a mini cray and are found in all the rivers around here.  The farm has a big lake, which stocked the marron as well as rainbow trout.  The setting was great, you would swear you were somewhere is Canada.  You could either catch your own fish or marron for a small fee or you could just buy it, we chose the second of these options.  We wanted to try the marron so asked for one but the woman said they weren’t selling anymore, for some reason.  Our little faces fell as we said we were only in town for the night & weren’t likely to come across anymore.  She kindly relented and pulled out a big container full of very dopey but very much alive Marron.  They keep them in the fridge to slow them down but you have to kill them yourself.  The owner came over at this point and said he would ‘process’ it for free.  This entailed sticking a knife right down the middle of the poor creature and cutting him clean in half.  We were then just to brush it with a little oil and grill it for a couple of minutes each side.  So with our two trout, caught late that morning and looking so fresh even their next of kin would hardly have been informed & one marron we went home to cook up the feast.  The trout was absolutely delicious, the best I have ever had, maybe I just haven’t had them so fresh before, but the marron was disappointingly tasteless, not as good as a salt water cray.

The next day we headed for Denmark, not as long a trip as you may think as we didn’t need to even leave the country.  In fact it’s actually named after a person, a naval surgeon Dr Alexander Denmark, not the country.  On the way we went through Walpole and stopped just past there at a place called the Valley of the Giants. This is a forest of giant Tingle trees.  They don’t go as high as the Karri, maybe reaching heights of 70 metres but their girth at ground level has a circumference of up to 20 metres.  A treetop walk has been constructed that winds it’s way through the trees gradually going up to a height of 40 metres.  It’s an amazing construction with 60 metre long steel trusses supported by big steel pylons and it feels safe enough to walk on, it doesn’t sway or feel as scary as you may imagine. ₍₀₅₎ The view is great but even tho we had a birds eye view we never saw any birds, they were strangely absent.

Denmark is on the shores of the Wilson Inlet and the banks of the Denmark River where the forest meets the ocean.  It is a small town, very clean and has a great French bakery.  It is also a wine & gourmet food area as we found out when going on one of their tourist drives.  This time we didn’t stop off at the wineries but did stop at a cheese shop that sold yummy chutneys, home made ice cream and very decent cheese.  There was also a Llama farm, which you could explore, for a small fee, or see the shop for free.  It felt like we were in an old woman’s shop in South America.  They had Llama hats & shawls knitted in the colours of the South Americans and everything else a ladies charity store would have short of a crochet toilet roll holder, even had the smell of old.

We thought we had left the beautiful clear, teal green seas and white beaches behind on the Indian Ocean but these beaches on the Southern Ocean are every bit as beautiful.  There were huge boulders on the beach and calm inlets, crystal clear water perfect for snorkelling if it were a few degrees warmer, at least for me as others had taken the opportunity.  There are so many beautiful pristine beaches and the best thing is most are deserted, devoid of any human life at all so you have the whole thing to yourself and could imagine that you are the first ones to have discovered that stretch of beach if it weren’t for the fact it is marked on the map. ₍₁₂₎

Not far from Denmark is Albany, a town of a decent size with a population of 20,000 people.   This was Western Australia’s first white settlement when in 1826 the Brig Amity landed with a bunch of convicts and a handful of soldiers, as mentioned before, to keep the frogs at bay.  It was also the last piece of Australia the soldiers saw when they were shipped off to WW1.  They have a magnificent memorial to the Anzac’s on Mount Clarence that overlooks the city.  It is of two horse’s, one rearing up with a soldier on his back and the other has fallen with the solider beside him.  The view from up there was fantastic and with the memorial it felt extremely moving as you imagined the poor boys sailing off to war out of the harbour, most never to return.

To the south west of the town lies a long narrow peninsula with an old whaling station at the end, now turned into a museum.  On the southern side of this peninsula are big cliffs & rocks hammered by, what they claim, as the roughest seas on the globe and they looked pretty rough to us.  The sea had carved out formations in the cliffs including ‘The Gap’ and ‘Natural Bridge’.  It was fairly daunting to stand near the edge of these rocks and gaze 30 or so metres down at the sea crashing in a big spray of foam & mist.  The other attraction was the blowhole, a fissure in the granite rocks where the sea comes below it and is forced up under pressure through the hole.  It was a bit of a walk down to this and we meet several people on the way back who said that the sea wasn’t so rough that day so the blowhole wasn’t working as well.  At the end of the track we had to walk over the big boulders, passing all these warning signs on the way not to get too near as lives had been lost.  I was getting a little nervous now as we had to scramble a bit & I wasn’t really wearing good footwear.  We got near the place along with several young European tourists who had arrived in their camper vans.  I was expecting a hole but there was just a long crack in between the big slabs of granite.  There was a small sign on the other side of the crack so we leaned over to peer at what it said.  Just as we were reading the words “DANGER, Blowholes, stand clear” there was an almighty noise that filled my head and sounded like a freight train hurtling through a tunnel and I was standing on the tracks or a 747 just about to land on top of me and for a split second I thought I was about to die.  The rock was a little bit slippery but I couldn’t get back faster enough and as I glanced over to Jon I saw him almost trip backwards in his eagerness to get out of the way.  There was silence for a moment then we all broke out in nervous laughter as the young Europeans had also been leaning over the side at the time.  It must have looked funny as we all were peering over then leaped back at a hundred miles an hour with sheer terror on our faces.  It took a little while for me to get over the fright of it.  It was along this coast that Antarctica was joined to Australia for more than one billion years as part of Gondwana, breaking away only a mere 45 million years ago leaving behind the rocks that we were standing on so I guess it made those rocks fairly old.  My question is, in all those years, how many other people has it scared the shit out of?

It is here also that the Bibbulmun track ends, we saw the start of it back in Kalamunda, Perth and now nearly 1,000 kms and, if you walked it, eight weeks later it finishes.   What a stroll in the park that would be.

Albany is a very attractive town; I guess we saw it at it’s best on a blue sunny day with the sparkling waters and green hills around.  You get a sense of its age with a scattering of historic buildings around the town, a replica of the Amity on the foreshore and the old gaol the convicts built just behind it.  They have a big windmill farm on top of the hill that you can see from the town, which they claim to be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with it’s 65m towers & 35m blades, but they seemed nothing compared to the ones near Palmerston North, at least not as many with only 12.  They do produce 75% of the power to Albany so I guess that is significant.

After Albany we drove to Bremer Bay, a small village by the sea with its one lone windmill on top of the hill.  It is near here that the Southern Right Whales come to calve and in season up to 100 can be spotted.  Unfortunately, the woman at the campground said they had all disappeared two weeks ago so we just missed them.  Sometimes they are there up until the end of November but not this year.  We had a look around the place that afternoon, intending to spend the next day fishing for Jon and writing for me.  We drove down to the local jetty & harbour to check out a good fishing spot when we saw another vehicle down there with Qld number plates and mildly wondered who that could be.  After a walk around the rocks by the time we got back the other couple had appeared as they had been fishing around the corner.  I went off to look for a loo and Jon started to have a chat to them.  As the woman opened her mouth & started to talk, even from my distance I recognised her voice but it was too late to call a warning out to Jon to RUN.  It was the same woman who had been fishing on the jetty in Derby, 11,000 kms ago and had trapped the English couple we were showing around into a long tirade of her life’s story and how she came to be there.  I didn’t dare go back but I heard her repeating to Jon what I heard her saying to the other couple about where she lived, the houses she owned and what she had sold etc etc.  There was nothing for it but to leave him to his grizzly fate until he managed to back away and reach the car before his ears dropped off.  Never underestimate just whom you may bump into even in the middle of no-where.

The next stop for a couple of days was Esperance, nestled on a curved bay dotted with the islands of the Recherche Archipelago, and another extremely pretty spot.  It survives from a little bit of fishing & tourism but mainly agriculture with a very busy port exporting tonnes of wheat, barley, oats, lupins, peas & minerals.  The old jetty where the tankers use to pull up at is another long one stretching over 1 km into the water with the middle bit missing.  It is here where NZ fur seals and Australian Sea lions lie on the beach or swim around the pylons hoping for a free feed from the fisher people off the jetty. 

We launched our boat into the sea, one of the few times we have got to use it, in the hope of finding some fish ourselves for dinner.  We were out there for awhile with no bites and things were not looking good when we moved onto another spot and bang, the fish were climbing over themselves in an effort to leap onto our hooks.  We were pulling them up as soon as the bait went down and all of them a decent size.  We had no idea what they were but they were quite pretty with green scales or a browny white colour.  They looked like cod and to us and they looked good eating so we fished until we had what we thought would be a bag limit of 8.  A guy in the local fishing shop thought that they were more likely to be Wrasse but we are still not convinced.  We got back to shore and went over to the jetty where they have a fish-filleting table.  When we got there a lazy sea lion was lying on the beach sunning himself and looked up at us with a cursory disinterested gaze until Jon called out to him and said come on then.  He looked a little more interested and started lumbering towards the water as we walked above on the jetty.  Jon kept calling him which got the sea lion really excited and he was sliding on his belly as quick as he could, hit the water and swam so fast you could have water skied behind him, his nose just above the water making a wake.  He had shot halfway down the jetty when we had stopped at the table so he slammed on the brakes, did an about turn & swum back stopping just below us.  As Jon was filleting the fish he was either swimming around in circles or it looked like he was sitting on his hind flippers in the sand, back straight and looked up at us with his doleful dark eyes silently begging for a fish.  When one came flying over his way he moved so fast it seemed impossible that a seagull could get to the spot faster than him and it appears it was, he won every time bar once when a seagull managed to pluck a scrap mid air as it flew towards the water.  I took a photo of this scene from the beach as I went to retrieve the lid from our container that had blown into the sea below.  We looked at it later and Jon thought that I should email it to the morning show on Channel 7 as they often showed photos on the weather report, so I did. ₍₁₄₎ The next morning we had the TV on but not really watching it when I turned around from washing the dishes at the exact moment my photo appeared on the screen.  I yelled out Jon, Jon, my photo is on telly!!!  It was so exciting, she even read out the description I had written about it and it stayed there for some time.  Unfortunately we were an hour behind Qld so I couldn’t ring anyone to warn them to watch it and as it turns out, no one I knew even saw it, what a waste.

We found near here, a second Pink lake, as if one wasn’t enough.  Disappointingly it wasn’t as pink as the one we saw near Port Gregory but this one did have an excellent lookout over it and a information board explaining all that you have ever wanted to know about how a lake can turn pink and how the beta-carotene is formed and how it has way more than your average carrot.  I have included that photo to save me explaining it all again. ₍₁₅₎

When we first entered Western Australia all that time ago, we bought a National Park Pass in Kununurra as a lot, not all, of the parks over here charge an entrance fee of around $10 a visit.  We decided on an annual one costing $75 figuring we would visit as many as we can it make it pay its way.  Cape Le Grand was to be the last national park we would see in Western Australia, which was about 50kms from Esperance and making the total, if we had paid separately for each one, $69 so not a bad effort we thought, as there would have been some we wouldn’t have gone too because of the fee.  Cape le Grand was worth it with yet more breathtaking coastal scenery and rugged granite peaks.  Our walk for the day was to climb Frenchman Peak Lookout, a large granite rock described as a gentle gradient and 3km return.  I’m not sure what they understand as gentle but it certainly wasn’t my idea of gentle.  I was lulled into the walk by a sealed path meandering around the base and winding up the slopes past flowering Banksia and tussock grass.  All we had to do was follow the white markers but when I looked up at the first steep bit and saw the near vertical cliff with the white markers hanging off it I wondered to myself if this was such a good idea after all.  The views from the top were absolutely magnificent once I managed to pluck up the courage to open my eyes and stop clinging onto the rocks for grim death_{. (13)}  As we were climbing half way up, me on all fours with tears of abject terror in my eyes, a young guy scuttled past us at an almost run as I was almost sucked into his slipstream.  Near the top was a cave so I rested in that while Jon did the last few metres to the very top & take the photos for me.  When he got back to me I asked if he saw the guy who passed us but he hadn’t.  I never saw him go passed me as I sat there so we wondered what could have happened to him, as there was no other way back except the way we had come.  Once we got back down (to my great relief!) to the car park his car was still there and his wife was waiting for him.  We asked if she had seen him yet as we never saw him up the top.  She had seen him near the top when he waved to her but nothing after that and she was surprised he wasn’t back yet as he usually challenged himself on how quick he could climb up & down these things.  We all started to get worried now so Jon offered to go back with her to look for him even tho he was quite buggered by this time.  Off they went back up the hill and to me it felt like they were gone forever so I was getting really worried, imagining having to drive for help as no phones worked out there and staying until the helicopter arrived and so on but finally Jon arrived back by himself saying all was well.  The guy had met another couple, who we passed going up as we were coming down, and had got chatting to them.  Jon & the guy’s wife saw them coming down just on the very steep bit so luckily he didn’t have to climb that again but the other woman wasn’t very fit and was gasping for air on the bit they had climbed.  We still don’t know where he was at the top but our guess is once they got back down safety his troubles would not be over and he was going to be in grave danger.

Thursday 29^th November

Streaky Bay, Eyre Peninsular

With our trip across the Nullarbor in mind, I spent a small fortune at the supermarket to ensure that we had enough supplies in case we broke down and were lost for days with no one knowing we were even out there.  I don’t know why I bothered really as we had enough to spend a year out there and there are roadhouses that have supplies and I had completely forgotten that we can’t take fruit & vegies across the boarder so if not eaten within two days they had to be thrown out or cooked anyway.  That and the fact it is the busiest piece of road we have encountered, apart from the cities would have been enough to ensure we would not be found dead for lack of food or water months later.

We left for Norseman on the Saturday, after delaying our departure from Esperance for an extra day so we could watch the elections on Saturday night in Norseman while we still had TV coverage.  We drove through little settlements on the way & I mean little with a garage & maybe a house on the side of the road that somehow warranted a name like Grass Patch & Salmon Gums and still arrived in Norseman with enough time to tour the town and see all the sights, which wasn’t a lot, before dark.  The temperature by this time had taken a sudden rise and on our tour of Norseman we nearly died with the heat as our thermometer climbed over the 40 degree mark.

Norseman was and still is, a gold town, with the discovery of gold back in 1894 by a horse called Norseman.  Strange name for a horse but needless to say the owner was delighted and no doubt made his fortune.  One of the most remarkable features of the town is the huge topless pyramid beside the mine call the Phoenix Tailings dump that apparently still contains a lot of gold.  We drove around a corner and wow, there it was right in our face.  We drove up to the Beacons Hill lookout and had a panoramic view of the town, the salt lakes behind and of Mt Jimberlana, reputed to be one of the oldest geological areas in the world.  You may have noticed a pattern here as every town seems to have the longest or tallest or oldest or biggest or most on a lean or even the beginnings of life itself, something in Australia, Southern Hemisphere or the world.  This was all too much for us so it was with tongues hanging out and heat exhaustion about to overcome us we retired to the pub for a nice but surprisingly very expensive glass or two of beer.

The next day we set off on what they term as one of the world’s great epic road adventures but that will have to wait until you have absorbed the last 13 pages and feel brave enough & ready to continue the journey.

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

THE NULLABOR AND BEYOND

Sunday 2^nd December

Port Lincoln

Nullus Arbor – no tree or so they would have you believe.  I have always thought, in my naivety, that the Nullarbor Plains would be just that, no trees for 1200 kms but don’t be fooled there are lots of them. In fact more trees there than in the northwestern deserts we have come through so I have re-named it Sommus Arbour.   I’m not quite sure where, on the Eyre Highway (the road that cuts through the desert) the treeless bit starts & ends but it seems it’s on the South Australian side as I have a photo of a sign claiming the western end of treeless plain which is just west of the Nullarbor Roadhouse SA & I think the Eastern End is around Yalata.  I read somewhere it goes for 450 kms east to west so in the scheme of the entire highway it is only a part of it.  Notwithstanding all of that it is a great piece of road and needs to be traversed at least once in your lifetime.

The Nullarbor Plain starts at Norseman, ends just short of Ceduna and covers the area equivalent to England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland combined and still has 7,000 sq km left over.  It may be a desert but it certainly isn’t deserted with all manner of transport making the auspicious crossing.  We saw a cyclist coming towards us when we were about 250kms from Norseman.  It happened to be at the exact point a road train was also coming towards us and can you believe it, in 1200km of desert road all three of us crossed at the same time.  For some reason the cyclists didn’t move off the road so the road train had to swing half onto our side of the road to overtake him causing us to move over onto the gravel shoulder to avoid a head on (this road although a main one, is not very wide) and the cyclist peddled happily on, oblivious to the mayhem he was causing.  We saw another cyclist the next day on a very ordinary pushbike, no helmet, long dreadlocks and not many provisions that I could see. The most bizarre sighting was that of a guy walking along the road.  He looked like he was off to the beach as he had a straw hat on, a towel over his shoulder, shorts & sandals with a duffel bag over the other shoulder.  It was at least 150kms to the next roadhouse and more than a day or two walk from the last one.  The folk at the Nullarbor roadhouse told us it was amazing how many cyclists they had to go and rescue as they were dehydrated & poorly prepared.  Another weird sight, again in the middle of nowhere, was one solitary tree that stood by the side of the road covered in white plastic bottles and a scarecrow.  Were they trying to stop the wild camels from eating the tree??

We left Norseman on Sunday morning with a slight hitch to start the day.  One of my gadgets had blown the lighter socket, which is more disastrous as it may at first appear.  We plug the iPod and GPS into the sockets to keep us entertained & on track and I was going to write the diary on the laptop as we drove across the mind numbing emptiness they call the Eyre highway.  As the battery only lasts about an hour or so and we weren’t planning on having electricity for a couple more days I got out my special gadget that we had bought several months earlier for occasions such as these.  It converts 12-volt power to 240v so you plug it into the lighter socket then plug the laptop or whatever you want to charge into it and viola, instant power.  For reasons only known to Murphy it decides not only not to work but to blow all the sockets plus the stereo system as well.  Here we were teetering on the edge of the desert with no music, no GPS, no way to recharge the mobile phone (not that we could use it for the next 2,000 km) and we couldn’t even light a cigarette if we so chose at that moment to take up smoking.  Luckily the servo had more fuses and we knew how to change it otherwise it could have been a very different trip.

So we set the GPS for Ceduna and off we sailed, the first thing it told us was “continue for 1,194 kilometres”!  There are not many places in the world that a GPS could say that before your first turn.  The first roadhouse we came to was Balladonia (meaning Big Red Rock).  It was made world famous in 1979 when pieces of sky lab rained down just east of it.  They had a small but interesting museum attached to the roadhouse with the history of the place, the way people use to live, some pieces of the famous sky lab that fell down, car races that have been held crossing the desert, a life size camel & his afghan handler popping out from behind a wall and other such items of interest.  One newspaper article amused us detailing when the circus came to town.  It had a picture of the elephants but not, unfortunately of the performing dogs who had all choked on the dust on the way over from Norseman.

I took a photo of the children’s playground, as it looked the most uninviting playground I had ever seen.  Some of these outback roadhouses have huge areas for the big trucks to pull into and it’s mostly dust & gravel with the heat shimmering off the ground.  The playground was next to the bowsers in the middle of all this dust & gravel, it did have a couple of trees in it but should a truck pull up I think the kids would suffer the same fate as the performing dogs.

Shortly after Balladonia we came across the sign that said 90-mile straight, Australia’s longest straight road, 146.6 kms.  To me it looked no different to any of the other impossibly long straight roads we had already travelled on across the Barkly Tablelands, through the Northern Territory and down the West Australian coast but none other had made this claim.  Interestingly enough they also use stretches of the road as an emergency landing strip for the Royal Flying Doctors so on the road are painted big white stripes like a giant zebra crossing to mark the runway for the planes.   How would you know if one was just about to land?  ₍₁₎

The next bit of excitement I was looking forward to was the Caiguna blowhole.  The Nullarbor rose from the seabed 25 million years ago, or there about, and is one massive slab of flat limestone made up from all the creatures who lived in the sea, died and their skeletons contributed to make up the limestone.  Riddled throughout is a labyrinth of limestone caves, apparently the largest network of unexplored caves in the world.  Here too are blowholes that breath.  This is caused by changes of barometric pressures, when there is a high barometric pressure in the caves and low surface pressure the caves breath out, sometimes quite violently, until equal pressure is achieved and vice versa with a strong draught flowing into the caves.  One of these blowholes was on the side of the road just before the Caiguna roadhouse.  Unfortunately we didn’t get much warning when it was coming up & we flew passed the sign before we knew it so the Caiguna blowhole was crossed off the list.  We could have turned around at the roadhouse 5 kms away and come back but I did ask the girl there if it was worth a 10km trip and by the look on her face we decided probably not.  She said helpfully that there was a photo of it on the wall so I had to be satisfied with that.  Shortly after here we had a time change, seems there is a time zone here I never knew about.  I think it’s called the central Western time zone and we had to put our clocks forward by 45 minutes.

I had also wanted to see one of the caves and travel in my fathers footsteps who had seen them many, many years before but that was also not to be.  Cocklebiddy was the next roadhouse and where you could get access to the caves so we asked the guy there what was it all about.  He said they are not advertised and not encouraged to go in but people generally ignored the warning signs.  They are very dark so you need a strong torch to see and be prepared to wade up to your waist in water.  When divers are exploring the caves you get to see a lot more as their torches are really powerful and the caves come alive with colour & sparkles but if just using a normal torch you don’t see much at all.  None of this appealed to us so we just gassed up and continued our journey.

The next roadhouse was Madura, the halfway point between Perth & Adelaide first settled in 1876 where they bred horses for the British Army in India.  Just before the roadhouse was a great lookout over looking the Roe Plains before descending through the Madura Pass from the plateau to the coastal plains.  Shortly after Madura we pulled into a roadside stopover for the night.  At this point we had driven 555kms.  These stopovers or free camp areas are great, they are quite large areas usually with toilets, some have water and places where you can light a campfire if you want.  We tucked into a nice little spot between some trees and a campfire pit to the side, which had livestock in it, namely a shingle back lizard that didn’t appreciate being disturbed so he hissed at us before taking his leave.   There were quite a few others there and more pulled in as the evening went on but as it was big with lots of trees you didn’t notice them so much.  A night with no telly and no power passed quietly enough so for entertainment we went for a wander around the place and soon struck up a conversation with an older couple (they mostly are older than us by quite a few years) that were travelling in a big bus.  They had sold up everything and were on the road indefinitely, not sure if that is a prospect I would relish but they were happy about it and seemed very adventurous.

As we didn’t have to unhitch at all we could get an early getaway the next morning knowing it would be a slower day due to numerous sight seeing highlights I had planned.  You may ask what on earth could be of interest in these parts and you have good cause to wonder but as it happens there are one or two things to see.  Descending from the Nullarbor plains via the Eucla Pass, we passed by but didn’t stop at the next roadhouse called Mundrabilla, as it was the only one that didn’t sell gas.  It was made slightly famous by having Australia’s biggest meteorite fall nearby weighting in at over 10 tonnes.  I think if it had fallen right on the settlement no one would have noticed.

Eucla was the settlement I was looking forward to as it has the ruins of the Eucla telegraph station slowly disappearing under the moving sand dunes.  I had seen a few photos of it and was keen to see it for myself.  There are other telegraph stations along the Nullarbor, one shortly after Balladonia (I’m not sure how much of this is left) and one on the coast out from Cocklebiddy which now houses the Eyre Bird Observatory.  The Eucla one, built in 1877, helped to link WA with the rest of Australia and was the busiest telegraph station in Australia outside of the capital cities sending 11,000 messages annually.   The first message sent to Perth was on 8^th December 1877 and said “Eucla line opened, Hurrah”.  You can just imagine the toffy English accent in that one.

Before getting to the telegraph station we turned off for the roadhouse, refuelled then headed onto a plateau that had big views over the plains and to the ocean & sand dunes where the station was.  It was only a 4 km drive to the sand dunes down a steep, narrow road but not bad for an unsealed road and towing a caravan.  A short walk over the dunes and there were the ruins, sure enough disappearing into the sand.  There is no roof on the building and some of the dune is right up to the top of the wall, some doorways are nearly submerged but others you can still walk into.  It would have been a lovely building in it’s day and considering how important it was it seems a bit sad to have it slowly disappear from view.  The sand is a beautiful pure white colour and makes for a very evocative and interesting sight. _{(Eucla Telegraph)}

Just after Eucla is Boarder Village, I guess so named because it’s at the boarder of WA & SA.  Here is another time zone change of a further 45 mins so we are now 1 ½ hours forward of what we were a few hours ago.  It took several days before I could adjust to this, not being able to sleep until after midnight and waking up after 7am, not at all like me. 

Between this point and the Nullarbor Roadhouse are 5 (use to be 6) lookout points to the sea as the road travels right beside the cliffs that drop down to the ocean far below.  The first lookout was ok, nothing to write home about but the next 4 were really quite spectacular, as 90 metre limestone cliffs with a sheer drop to the Southern ocean can be.  There was a short drive to each point with several warning signs along the way not to stand too close to the edge as the actual edge is not readily seen.  Once you get to stand there you can understand what they mean as the edge is an overhang and there is nothing underneath it except the ocean.  You can’t actually tell how far the overhang is unless you walk along and look back and then see you were just standing on little more than air.  I’m not too bad on heights but I defy anyone not to get vertigo standing up there or at least have their hearts racing just a tiny bit.  The wind can get quite strong as well and if you look down the cliffs you can see piles of rocks that have previously slid down the cliff face.  The cliffs themselves were beautiful and so dramatic.  From the base to maybe halfway up they are white then change to a darker colour nearer the top and go on for as far as the eye can see.   We are now looking over the head of the Great Australian Bight (meaning recess of coast, not bite as if someone had bitten it like I have always thought) where the Southern Right whales play & breed but not, unfortunately, at the moment. ₍₂₎

We were curious about the 6^th lookout as the road was closed and no access was allowed.  We later found out from one of our fellow campers at the next campground what the story was.  He also saw the road was closed but not to be deterred he parked on the side of the highway and walked up.  As he was standing near the edge of the cliffs having a peer over he looked back towards the road and noticed a huge crack in the ground, between him and the road and understanding came flooding in as to why this lookout was closed.  He doesn’t think he has ever moved so fast in his life.  

It is around about here that the Nullus Arbor kicks in as now there are truly no trees, just low lying mallee scrub, bluebush & saltbush from horizon to horizon and a big, big sky.  I am still amazed how fast the landscape can change.  You think you can see for a million miles and there is nothing around then suddenly you can have cliffs or hills or trees just appear out of nowhere.  That wasn’t happening at this stage though, just a lot of dissolute & glorious nothing. ₍₃₎ We got to the Nullarbor roadhouse around 4pm (our time 2.30pm) so were unsure as to whether we should stay there or push on.  I thought to go on as there was nothing here except what looked like a big car park with electrical posts to plug into, no grass or trees, just dust.  Then I looked down the road and couldn’t see any shady trees down there either (not sure why I thought there would be) and as the iPod, laptop & phone needed to be recharged we thought it wise to stop for the night.  Amazingly enough we got a TV reception and could use the internet so it turned out to be quite comfortable with a gorgeous sunset to boot.

The last day of the Nullarbor adventure dawned clear once more and another early start.  Just before the Nullarbor roadhouse was a sign warning to fuel up there as the next roadhouse at Yalata was closed.  I had read that this one was an aboriginal affair, owned & operated by the local aborigines but sure enough it was all boarded up when we passed by so I don’t know what went wrong there.  At least there are plenty of roadhouses along this road as fuel consumption rises dramatically due to the head winds.  We usually can do 180km to a tank of LPG but were only managing 120-130kms per tank.  Just after Yalata the Dingo Fence crosses the highway.  Well not the road itself (can you imagine having to stop to open the gate) there is a grid but the fence is on either side.  This fence starts at the cliffs and runs for 6,000kms to Jimbour in Queensland.  It looked well maintained with some new fence posts so I guess it does the job.  We were disappointed not having seen any wildlife, apart from the hissing lizard, at all on the desert, no camels although numbering several hundred thousand, no wombats and no live kangaroos.  There were plenty of dead ones on the side of the road, the saddest was one that looked fairly recent as there was no bones showing and the skin wasn’t tanned to leather and close by her was a young Joey obviously thrown from her pouch.

We stopped at the last roadhouse at Nundroo to refuel and I went in to pay.  It was fairly busy in there with a few people ordering food and just the one woman behind the counter so I stood at the end of the line which was at the end of the counter with the kitchen beside me.  The woman behind the counter had to rush around & into the kitchen to check on something and as I watched her dash across I saw just two steps behind her a small kangaroo bounding after her & disappear into the kitchen too.  I thought my eyes were deceiving me & looked around to see if anyone else had noticed but they were all facing the other way.  Shortly after she came back & sure enough this tiny kangaroo came bouncing behind.  I peered around the counter and he was just sitting beside her having a scratch.  Apparently someone had brought him in, as the mother was dead so she was bringing him up.  I’m not sure how long he could keep following her as he was only 3-4 months old but as he was a red Kangaroo, which is one of the largest kangaroos, I would say his life as an assistance shopkeeper was limited_{. (4)}  Next was a small settlement known for its windmills called Penong, we weren’t sure if we had crossed into Thailand, then finally Ceduna where just short of there was the checkpoint for fruit & veges.

Ceduna seemed a pleasant sort of town, nice shops down the main street, a foreshore & the inevitable historic jetty.  We were going to stay there but it was only lunchtime and plenty of day left to move on and the look of the campground gave us a clue that they had their own problems.  It was completely surrounded by a high wire fence with barbed wire around the top, was built on gravel and looked like a compound.  Not sure if it was to keep the campers in or the locals out but it didn’t look very inviting so we headed another 100kms down the road to a place called Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsular.

Saturday 8^th December

Adelaide

Our final milestone has finally been reached, it seemed to take ages to get here but here we are, in the pretty city of Adelaide.  We arrived on Thursday 6^th Dec but are under strict instruction not to go sightseeing as Mum will be joining us next year when we come back at the end of February so we must content ourselves with cleaning the caravan ready for storage and writing the final part of this around Australia missive.  I must admit though we did do a sneaky and went to the Central Adelaide Markets this morning, which are huge and great fun.  Lots of produce, breads, gourmet deli type foods and yummy stuff so will look forward to going back there again.

Back to Streaky Bay, so named by Matthew Flinders in 1802 after the bands of colour in the water caused by the oils given off by the seaweed.  If you have ever heard of the Australian made movie ‘Blue Fin’ it is here where they filmed it.  Early on in it’s history, around late 1880’s it was a busy agricultural port shipping out wheat & wool.  While agriculture still is a major industry, as is a bit of mining, it has now turned more into a seafood & aquaculture centre.  The first thing I noticed about it was I lost my mobile phone signal for both vodaphone & telstra.  I found out that apart from Port Lincoln down the bottom of the peninsular, the rest of the place has no coverage from our telecommunications companies, so no phone for the next week oh horrors.  Why has this big piece of land been overlooked, it’s not like we were still in the outback, this was almost civilisation.  Telstra does cover it but only on the new Next G network so for a mere $300 I could buy a fourth phone to add to my collection.

The caravan park was right on the foreshore down to a very shallow but calm bay where the occasional seal & dolphins come into play.  One guy from the park was telling us that just that day he took his boat out with his little Jack Russel dog and the dolphins came in and were swimming around his boat.  The dog thought that looked like fun and launched himself off the boat to go and have a play with the dolphins.  He wouldn’t come back in and although the dolphins were a bit surprised to begin with they soon got into the spirit of it all.  If you were thinking of going out for a swim you just need to go into the local Shell service station roadhouse to see one reason why you shouldn’t.  In it is a life size replica of a 5 metre white pointer caught by a hand line in Streaky Bay.  We thought we might not even take the boat out, if it’s not crocodiles in the north it’s bloody big sharks in the south.  Maybe it’s best not knowing what’s out there.

When we took our evening walk around the camp we stopped to admire one caravans great effort to decorate it & the tree next door with thousands of fairy lights and a big blow up Santa, standing in his boat with a fish on the end of his line with a light inside him.  If you ever want to see a good display of Christmas lights I advise you to walk around your local campground, people go mad over it and as it’s in a smaller space it looks more spectacular.  We did it last year instead of cruising the streets and some displays where really good.  It turns out the guy who set up Santa had only just taken him out of his box about 15 minutes beforehand.  The guy’s son lives in America and he had sent it over.  He was originally American himself, came over to Australia in 1966 and now has 4 opal mines in the back of beyond, somewhere past Coober Pedy.  He spends 6 months of the year in his caravan right there on the foreshore then 6 months back at the mines. 

The only other thing of real interest there, although Jon would beg to differ, was a group of rocks called Murphy’s Haystacks. ₍₅₎  They are big pink granite boulders or inselbergs, purported to be over 1500 million years old, worn into odd-looking shapes in the middle of some farmer’s wheat field.  Even though they are on private land it has been set up so you can go and have a look at them for a small fee.  They got the name as the land use to belong to Murphy and from the road they looked like haystacks.  There is a slightly longer story than that but that is the gist of it. 

The next stop was a quick overnighter at Venus Bay just a bit further down.  On one side was the protected bay where the caravan park is and on the other is the windswept Southern Ocean.  Venus Bay is just a small village but has nice houses and great views over the sea.   We were told of a great fishing beach just down the road and the best time to go was late afternoon.  Later that day we drove down to a couple of limestone caves that were on the tourist trail and a must see for the area, to fill in a bit of time before the real event of fishing.  They were quite colourful and spectacular looking, easy to get too and far enough to fill in time nicely.  We then headed back to Mount Camel beach where we were the only ones there which is not a promising start.  It’s always encouraging when you see the beach lined with fisher people but not to be deterred we set out with our rods & tackle.  For the first hour there was nothing, no bites or movement except I did catch something that was extremely heavy and difficult to pull in.  I thought maybe it was another stingray as they can bury themselves making it hard to reel them in.  I will never know what it was but when I finally got my line in, hanging off the end was a thick tracer & a couple of hooks that looked like it was used for shark fishing.  I catch the most unusual things.  We had almost had enough by now as it was starting to get cold and we were bored with it but thought we would try one last time.  We changed our bait to squid and almost as soon as we threw them into the sea, bang was the first bite and over the next 20 minutes we were winding them in faster than we could get our lines out again.  All thoughts of cold vanished as the fish came flapping out of the waves then conveniently flapped themselves off the hook ready to be put into our trusty little bag.  Sometimes they flapped too soon and got away but that was all part of the fun.  They call them salmon here but they are not like the pink Atlantic salmon, more of a darker flesh fish with lots of red blood so they need to be bled straight away. ₍₆₎  Not a great eating fish but good enough to keep us fed for several meals and the pelicans didn’t mind a bit when they were tossed the off cuts.

After that great bit of excitement we headed down to Port Lincoln for a couple of nights. It must be the time for lizards to be on the move, mostly shingle backs I think, as we had to avoid several of them as they wandered onto the road & sauntered across.  I think one wasn’t so lucky.  An emu also tried to make a break for it across our bows but wisely decided at the last moment to perhaps not & took off in the other direction. 

Port Lincoln, another fishing and aquiculture town with its local specialties of western rock lobster at $80 kg, oysters, King George Whiting that is different from Qld whiting and a very delicate tasty fish and also of the Bluefin tuna.  The way they farm the tuna is interesting, first they go out about now to the top of the bight to collect the young tuna.  They are herded into large round cages and slowly towed back to port. ₍₇₎ They can only go about 1 knot ph so as not to drown them.  Over the summer they fattened them up, leaving them in these large ringed cages in the ocean.  Then they get the order from Japan for a specific size and quantity, the Japanese agents come over to supervise and they then send a diver into the cage to choose the exact fish which then get fired up the chute into the boat.  The fish get a quick jab in the head to kill it instantly, they are packed and sent off, order filled.

Port Lincoln is the home of the owner of the greatest racehorse of all times, three times Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva.  The owner was a fisherman from the port and now worth mega millions but in the news recently he is going through a martial split and she has just turned down an $80 million settlement, I think I would accept that.  They have a lovely statue of the horse down by the foreshore near the jetty.

The city is starting to take off with its first 7-story hotel opened on the day we left.  It has unique shops as well as the usual with Jacaranda tree lined streets and historic buildings of interest.  The campground was again overlooking the beach, quite big but the worst level or rather unlevel sites we have ever come across.  They looked all right from a distance but once you got up close it was as lumpy as an old mattress.  Lucky we are now skilled at riding the van up on chocks after a few minor disasters to begin with.   We had to laugh at our neighbours who arrived the next day, their off roader van looked fairly level to begin with but they also put one side up on chocks then left to see the town.  I couldn’t resist getting our spirit level out and putting it on the steps to see if my eyes were deceiving me but no, the bubble went right off the end of the stick.  I was tempted to leave it there as a slight hint that they may fall out of bed in the middle of the night.

Another neighbour was chatting to Jon and mentioned he might go down to the jetty as it looked like there are squid to be caught, judging by the ink spots.  Ink spots, we thought, what does that mean.  That evening we walked down to the jetty where a guy and his two young sons were fishing.  He had three children and they were doing the Australia trip, brave man I thought.  Anyway, one of the boys caught a squid and as he lifted it out of the water and brought it up to the jetty it squirted this massive long spout of ink, which fired straight into the air and splashed down all around us, luckily we were just out of range.  So that’s what he meant by ink spots.  The squid were quite amazing, it was black when it came out of the water but slowly changed colour to white and had iridescent colours around its eyes. ₍₄₈₎ A dolphin swam passed then one of the boys spotted a big stingray that slowly swum from under the jetty and was gone.  What a fauna evening we had.

Whyalla was next in the headlights, not a bad town if it weren’t for the covering of fine red dust everywhere from the local steelworks.  It was a bit like the Port Hedland brown except this was Whyalla red.  The town has been in the news lately as they have discovered a high number of lung cancer cases occurring there & the red dust has been blamed.  Just down the road from here is a delightful little town with the name ‘Iron Knob’ where the iron use to come from.  It seems all the towns on Eyre Peninsular were previously known as something else and have undergone a name change for one reason or another but I think Iron Knob has always been Iron Knob.  Hummock Hill (now known as Whyalla) was developed back in 1901 as the port to ship the iron away after arriving by tramway from the mine.

This is also known as the cuttlefish capital where the giant cuttlefish come to breed every year.  This is not your normal cuttlefish, these grow to the size of a medium dog & can weigh up to 5kg, that would keep a budgie fed for a year.  They are amazing creatures; they have three hearts, eight legs, blue blood and can change colours and patterns in the blink of an eye.  For this neat trick they are called the chameleons of the sea.  The cuttlefish breeding happens between May & August and is the only known place in the world where it occurs but if you are not a diver you will not witness this big event.  Apparently there are hundreds of thousands of them, the males put on a disco show of strobing lights and dance around hoping to impress the female.  His life is not to be envied as he can only breed once, while she will go back at least 80 times for a bit of cuttle cuddles but I don’t envy her either as she dies shortly after, hardly surprising after that effort.   There is not even much information about it and I was expecting at the very least, a display on them at the visitors centre but nothing.

Later in the day we went for a walk down to the jetty and some fishermen had just come back from a days fishing and were scaling their catch.  Their catch just happened to be the biggest snapper we had ever set eyes on.  They were huge, weighing in at over 8 kilos each.  We didn’t know that Whyalla is also the snapper capital but after watching a fishing programme, coincidentally, about Whyalla a few days later, this was the average size snapper caught in these waters. I must have been looking lean & hungry as one of them very kindly gave us a few fillets for dinner and they were so much nicer than our salmon.  I asked him if he ever went diving to see the cuttlefish and he said ‘you must be joking, I know what’s in that sea.  Just yesterday someone saw a white pointer shark swimming near the jetty’.  I may see if there is a DVD about it instead.

There are several lookouts in town, on of the better ones was the Flinders & Freycinet lookout with the most peculiar memorial to Matthew Flinders who charted these waters in 1802 and discovered once & for all that Australia was one continent and not two as previously thought and Louis Claude de Freycinet, a Frenchman on the Baudin expedition, sent by Baudin to chart the coast in 1803.  I say it’s peculiar, as they have depicted both men as these strange stick figures, knobbly knees and all.

Port Augusta lies north of Whyalla but due to people unkindly calling it names like Port Disgusting and Port Agutter, mostly due I guess to the influx of natives from further north who have found their liquor supply has been cut, had put us off staying there.   Port Augusta is the crossroads where the main Eyre Highway, crossing the Nullarbor, links up with the Stuart Highway that heads up to Alice Springs or if you turn right you head down towards Adelaide, which we did.   We only had one more stopover to make before Adelaide and after much discussion chose Port Broughton as the last spot, for no other reason apart from someone saying it was quite nice there.  We stopped for lunch at Port Pirie and bought some fabulous smoked squid legs from a great little fish shop.  They had things there I hadn’t seen before like the smoked squid and also crumbed squid legs, not the hood, if you can imagine a squid leg being crumbed.  I think they were big squid, bit like the cuttlefish.

Whoever it was that said Port Broughton was quite nice was right.  It is a sleepy town at the beginning of the York Peninsula in a very sheltered bay.  Maybe it was because the weather was good gave it a nice impression but the sky was blue as was the sparkly water with a lone pelican cruising the shallows and lots of little fish & crabs scuttling around in the shallow waters.  All was so peaceful & pretty, the kind of town you would come to for a sea change or buy a small house and come to for the weekend if you lived in Adelaide or thereabouts.  Not a lot happens there I suspect but that is part of its charm.  We only stayed overnight and didn’t even unhitch the car so we had a nice little stroll around the town then an early night to get ready for the city.

Adelaide was only 170kms away so we arrived well before lunch but suddenly here we were in the big city again and wishing for the first time (for me anyway who usually loves the city) that we were back in a sleepy little town again.  Here were traffic lights that took until your next birthday to change, narrow lanes with cars parked on the side causing us to swing back into the other lane that was already full of trucks & cars and it was hot, really hot.  We had hit the city on it’s hottest day with the gauge going over 40 degrees, muggy & overcast.  Later that evening the storm hit, as it had to, starting fires on the Yorke Peninsular & Kangaroo Island, so bad that someone died in it.  What an introduction.  The next day was cold, down to 20 degrees & freezing overnight and now today is just right, neither too hot or too cold.  Rain is on the forecast for tomorrow but that, according to what the locals tell me, is Adelaide.

So endth the journey of our epic trip from Brisbane to Cairns to Darwin to Broome to Perth and finally Adelaide, a distance of just over 29,000 kms travelled.  I doubt you have enjoyed the trip as much as me but I hope it has provided some insight into an Australia you never knew existed (I certainly didn’t) a bit of history, a bit of drama and a tiny bit of fun.  Thanks to my loyal & avid readers and Merry Christmas to everyone.  

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

ADELAIDE TO MELBOURNE

Wednesday 2^nd April

Mildura

It was so long ago, or so it seems, that we headed off for the last part of our journey, with my mother in tow that I doubt I can do justice to all that we have seen & done since then.  However I will give it a go and account with a somewhat abridged version of our travels.

Jon & I flew back into Adelaide on 25^th February around lunchtime on a fine, sunny day.  We hired a small car to get back to our caravan we had left in storage at the back of Adelaide, approx 40 mins out of town.  As suspected, when we tried to start the 4WD it was flat as a pancake, not even a glimmer of life after sitting in a sheep shed for just over two months.  Talking about sheep, as we were trying to jump start the car and get organised the sheep decided to wander in to see what was going on, one had particularly nasty looking horns, so in-between starting the car, hitching up, shooing the sheep out and being careful not to get hooked on any horns it started to become a bit of a circus.  Finally the car roared into life sending a big billowing puff of dust, spiders and cobwebs high into the air and we were away.  Later on we turned the air conditioning on and filled the car with the smell of sheep wool, it was like we were driving a farm shed.

We then had to scurry across to the other side of town, me leading the way in the hire car so we got to go by the scenic route and saw parts of the city we hadn’t seen before, (OK so I got lost) book into the park and get set up, awning and all before heading back to the airport to pick up mum who arrived just after 9pm after flying from the Gold Coast on a later flight.  I went to pick her up while Jon went to hunt & gather some food as we hadn’t eaten really since breakfast.  It was a busy first day that set the tone for the rest of the time, all very long and action packed full.

The next day we had booked, or so we thought, the vehicle in for some running repairs but the garage had a few diasters of their own so consequently had no record of our booking and were flat strapped with staff shortages.   Plan B was to rebook in another couple of days when we went on a wine valley tour, the only other time we could afford not to have a car.  The rest of that day was spent checking out the main shopping area of Adelaide and going to the Central Markets that have been in existence since 1869.  It covers 3 acres and is a gourmet heaven with most of the food grown within a 20km radius of the market.  The different stalls cover everything from vegetables, fruit, bags of spices, meat of every kind including wild rabbit, emu, kangaroo etc, gourmet cheeses, Italian pizzas, wood fired bread, dried meat, chocolates, chocolates, chocolates, pastries, smoked octopus legs & other delightful seafood’s and the list goes on.  Is it any wonder my mother & I got lost in it and finally emerged with arms laden carrying all sorts of gourmet goodies to tide us over for the next few days.

Adelaide is a great city, undeserving of the rude comments it tends to get.  It has wide, tree-lined streets very similar in looks to Christchurch NZ being as Colonel William Light, the same guy who designed Christchurch, designed Adelaide.  It is surrounded by a green belt and has parklands in each corner.  Colonel Light built the city away from the sea to protect it from those troublesome French whom were likely to invade at any given moment.  The parks in each corner were for the purpose of assembling the troops ready to defend the city in the case of such an attack.  Needless to say the French never appeared and the city has now grown to meet the sea anyway.

The next days we headed for the hills, the Adelaide hills to be more precise.  It is here that little historic villages, settled by Prussian & Silesian immigrants fleeing religious persecution are tucked away among the acres of vineyards, bush or farmlands waiting to be ‘discovered’.  Autumn was just starting to make it presence felt as the lovely leafy elm trees in the streets were starting to turn gold & red as were some of the vines in the fields.  We started off going to Mt Lofty summit & lookout to see an over all view of Adelaide city and surrounds, then down to a small village called Bridgwater to see an old flour mill with a giant waterwheel that is still turning.  Next stop was Australia’s oldest surviving German village called Handolf, settled in the 1840’s with most of it’s original buildings still intact & looking gorgeous.  There are German bakeries & restaurants doing a roaring trade as well as little craft shops, smallgoods, chocolate, cheese and olive oil shops.  We stopped for lunch at this point and chose a little German bakery/restaurant on the corner.  I had a hot & spicy German soup just because we were there but the others took a safer approach and just had standard fare which I considered a bit of a shame although mum did buy a German bee sting for desert that night and extremely yummy it was too. 

We drove through the small village of Balhannah, settled by a Scotsman James Thomas and is home to one of my favourite wines, Nepenthe then onto Oakbank & Woodside founded in 1840 by two Scots brothers James & Andrew Johnston.  In  1843 they established a brewery that still exists today now selling Johnstons cordials and I’m sure for a small fee you can do a tour.  We were more interested in Melba’s chocolate factory up the road at Woodside in an old dairy factory built in 1889.  Mum & I dropped Jon off in town to see the antique shops while we hared off down the road to the chocolate factory and indulged ourselves in all the free samples of lollies & chocolates.  We did feel obliged to buy the odd packet or two so Jon didn’t miss out (yeah right!).

These hills are renown for their wines and although we don’t usually do the wine trail as such because you do feel obligated to buy the wine if you try it and it’s never “Dan Murphy” cheap, we did go down a country road and down a farmers drive to a cellar door that had promised, out the front, cheap wine.  The old stone building was a little way from the farmhouse and at first there was no sign of life until two very friendly dogs ran out to greet us.  Daisy was a boarder collie and just loved attention but it was while I was saying hello to her friend, which required me to bend slightly so I could scratch behind her ears, Daisy standing behind me, saw her opportunity, took it and whipped her nose up my short skirt so fast it nearly made my eyes water.  Well she had my full attention then & I didn’t turn my back on her again (Daisy did have a very cold, wet nose). After my intimate encounter we did buy some excellent wine, 2-dozen, from Daisy’s mother at around $4 a bottle.

We continue touring through lots of other cute small villages, some had changed from their original German names due to anti-German sentiment during WW1 such as Birdwood from Blumberg and completed the circuit going through the gorge that follows the Torrens River all the way to town.  Incidentally we nearly didn’t go this way as Jon took the different turn on the narrow, windy road but I insisted that he find somewhere to turn around and go back as I had read the gorge was a very pretty drive.  He succumbed to my repeated requests and eventually managed to turn around and go back.  It was well worth it as the gorge was quite spectacular and even Jon had to admit I was right.  Unfortunately, the very next day we had booked on a bus tour to the Barossa Valley and where do you think you have to drive to get to it?!  Mum was very diplomatic and said she like seeing things twice but Jon didn’t let me off the hook quite so easily.

The Barossa tour was a good day out, it gave Jon a break from the driving so he could see the scenery go by, like the lovely gorge, and sample the fine wine should he wish and give me a break from the map, my brochures and fine navigating skills.  We dropped the car off early that morning for it’s repairs so we didn’t need to worry about parking that day and were picked up in town by the bus.  The bus was more of a van and there was only about 10 of us so a nice small group.  The bus driver was an ex school teacher and had a good knowledge of the area and the history of it all.  We visited four wineries including Cockatoo Ridge & Chateau Yaldara, a big dried fruit shop, a lookout, the Big Rocking horse, which is a wooden toy shop with a giant, as Australians like to do, rocking horse out the front and the whispering wall.  This is a dam wall with such a curve on it that if someone stands the far end of it and whispers sweet nothings the sound carries perfectly 140 meters to all & sundry at the other end as if the person was standing beside you.  We also stopped at a tree that was hollowed out in the middle where Johann Herbig, his wife and two of their 16 children spent the first few years of their life over here.  Talk about a family tree.

Up early again the next morning for our tour of the Clare Valley, one I had really been looking forward to, as it is the home of my own personal wine Paulett Wines_.(1)  I have always thought if I ever got to Clare Valley I would see this winery and now my day had come.  If you haven’t tried it by now you really should, as well as having a great name the wine itself is very good.  The cellar door sits on the side of a hill with magic views across the valley from the wide return veranda and inside is all sorts of paraphernalia, most with Paulett written on it so I bought a pen, apron, hat and two wine glasses along with some wine for lunch.  It’s just a shame the ‘e’ is missing off the end.  It is actually a Polish surname although the woman behind the bar, married to Mr Paulett had no knowledge of its origins.

The Clare Valley is very pretty, littered with old historic villages again but more open than the Adelaide hills.  The drive starts out through wheat country passing big silos and mounds of wheat before arriving at the vine valleys and Clare itself with the shop verandas draped with thick grape vines dripping bunches of sweet black grapes.

In 1848 Jesuit priests fled religious & political persecution in Silesia and migrated to Australia.  Three years later they planted the first grapes in Clare Valley and made sacramental wine.  They are still going, still making their sacramental wines in the same cellars as well as other wines at Sevenhill.  Their cellar door was a gorgeous old building along with the old church next door with several of the priests buried in the crypt underneath.  Inside the old cellars were huge wine barrels some with labels that said 800 gallons, 3651 litres, S.A.W – Sweet altar wine and the date.  We descended down a very narrow ladder to a stone cellar below that was fairly dark and took awhile to adjust our eyes before we could make out more wine barrels down one wall and low arches leading into small rooms with yet more barrels.  As we were making our way down this dark little corridor there suddenly was a loud thud right beside me that scared the bejesus out of me.  It turn out to be the residence cat who appeared out of nowhere, I think from a hole in the ceiling that lead upstairs and landed on the barrel.  He jumped off and strolled nonchalantly passed us and disappeared through another hole.  By the time we came back upstairs again there he was sitting under a table.

Another old village, which I thought was the best to date, was a small place called Mintaro.  Established in 1849 it has old blue stone cottages, a ruined flourmill, a slate quarry down the road and a historic pub called the Magpie & Stump hotel.  There seemed to be no one around, just a deserted street with these lovely old buildings.  The only sign of life was at a coffee shop that was open and several people who were sitting in the sun with their coffee & scones looking very civilized. Just out of town is the magnificent building of Martindale Hall.  Built in 1879 for the son of a wealthy pastoralist complete with cricket pitch that hosted the English XI, a boating lake a race course and a polo field.  More recently famous for being filmed as the ladies college in Picnic at Hanging Rock.

On the Saturday morning our trip for the day was to Fleurieu Peninsula, named by the French explorer Nicholas Bauldin after the French Navy Minister Charles Pierre Claret, Comte de Fleurieu, a bit of a mouthful by anyone’s standards.  Speaking of which, our first stop was the farmers market in McLaren Vale (actually at Willunga, not far from McLaren Vale) and what a treat that was.  It was a smallish market as markets go but it was jammed packed with the most delicious treats I have seen.  We did stop first at the visitors’ centre that looked like a winery in it’s own right surrounded by grapevines and filled inside with wine & brochures.  Outside in the carpark were these big trees with a small reddish fruit hanging from it that we couldn’t identify.  At the markets there they were again and they turned out to be raw pasticho nuts.  They are only in season for six weeks and we were told chefs cut them up & use them like a pine nut.  What a shame we hadn’t picked them for free down at the visitors centre.  I had a lavender drink while mum had the lavender ice cream, we tasted jams, jellies & chutneys galore, we bough fresh bread, a raw pizza dough that you could freeze then bring out to make a lovely traditional yeast pizza at any time, some mint & rosemary jelly and passed up on the biggest chickens I had ever seen along with the cheeses, cakes, coffee and every other temptation the stall holders had laid out.  McLaren Vale is yet another famous wine region with the obligatory fields of vines, Rod Stewart was actually having a concert the next day in one of the large vineyards, but the region is also a producer of almonds, olives, blueberries, strawberries, apricots, nectarines, peaches & pears as well as goats cheese, rich Jersey milk cream and farmhouse cheddars and with the sea not far off a myriad of seafood.

Once we managed to tear ourselves away from the market we headed down to the old river port of Goolwa.  This town was the last port on the Murray River that the paddle steamers, carrying their wares from inland, could off load at then a train carried the goods to either Port Elliot or Victor Harbour before being shipped off to sea.  We had lunch on the banks of the Murray then drove over this very high curved bridge to Hindmarsh Island and followed the road until we came to the Mouth of the Murray as it met the sea, sort of.  The gap is only narrow as it is boarded by Hindmarsh Island & Mundoo Island on one side and two peninsulas that almost meet protecting it from the sea on the other side.  The gap between Sir Richard & Younghusband Peninsula is so narrow and due to the drought and low flows of the river it is silting up giving them a devil of a job to dredge it out to keep the river flowing out to sea.  Apparently it did close once back in 1981 so they are not so keen on it happening again.

The next stop was the very pretty seaside town of Port Elliot.  It has a lovely horseshoe bay with the bluest turquoise sea and protected waters where young & old were swimming, more young than the old as some sort of surfing carnival was going on.  We were lucky the day was so clear with blue skies, which always makes a town look it’s best any way.  The town was intended to be the major port to ship all the goods brought down the river but after several shipwrecks they gave that up as a bad joke and changed to Victor Harbour.

At Victor Harbour, we took the long walk over the causeway to Granite Island where there is a colony of 2000 little Fairy penguins (now officially called Little penguins to be politically correct!) but as they only came back at dusk and we couldn’t hang around, Jon went for a walk around the island while mum & I took the leisurely Clydesdale drawn tram back to the other side.  By this time the day was drawing to an end and we were the furthest from home we could be so we took the shortcut through the very picturesque Inman Valley with it’s huge gum trees lining the road and rolling farmlands through to Yankalilla and back up the coastal road to Adelaide.  There was a feature on the Inman Valley road that we had to stop at as the brochures said it was a must.  It is the Selwyn Glacier rock, one of the worlds largest glacial relics reputed to be over 500 million years old and has markings from 250 million years ago from the huge glacial ice sheet that covered the whole south coast.  This rock is of great significance to geologists’ worldwide but unfortunately it did nothing for us as it was just a big black rock so unless you are a geologist, I suggest don’t go out of your way to see it.

Our last day in Adelaide we spent at the old port where there is a big market down by the water.  Our main purpose for being there though was to go on a 2 ½ hour boat cruise down the port river to see the dolphins that live & play there but more particularly, that day they were going out to the harbour where the QEII, who was on her final voyage, was moored.  It was a great value cruise as not only did we get to see the dolphins & the ship but we also had a fine lunch aboard as well, all for the excessive sum of $12 per head.  It’s normally $10 with lunch or $3 without but because we went out further they bumped up the price.

The number plate on our car is JON456, given as a birthday present for Jon’s 56^th.  We do tend to forget it is there so when a car load of youths pulled up alongside us at the lights in town & called out from the window, ‘howzit going Jon?’ we were a little surprised until we realised how they knew.  So Jon called out ‘ok, tell me how old I am’.  The young guy who had called out thought for a bit then said ‘49’. Wrong said Jon as we pulled away from the lights.  At the next set there they were again and the young guy gleefully called out ’56!’

We were up early Monday morning to pack the caravan up and pull out of town to make the long drag up the mountain pass, through Tailem Bend, down to Kingston and finally stopping at Robe approx 300 or so kms south of Adelaide on the Limestone Coast.

                            

We stopped at Kingston briefly to see Larry the Lobster. Larry was born in 1979 and was originally commissioned to sit on the roof of this building but instead of building him in feet and inches as was the dimensions of the design, they built him in metres so he ended up standing 17 metres high, 15.2 metres from tail to mouth and has a leg span of 13.7 metres and weighs in at a very healthy 4 tonnes.  That would be one massive pot to cook him in.  Mum proudly had her photo taken with Nigel beside Larry. ₍₂₎

The Limestone coast runs down the coastline below Adelaide and around passed Mt Gambier near the bottom of Australia.  For 25 million years it lay beneath the Southern Ocean where tonnes of marine crustaceans & shells fell on the sea floor and created the limestone.  The sea retreated about one million years ago and now the area is a labyrinth of caves & sinkholes full of fossils and extremely interesting if you are into that kind of thing.  We didn’t have the time to see any of the caves but would have liked to if we could have.

More recently, Robe was founded in the 1840’s and was originally one of the coast’s largest port, trading directly with London.  Later, during the gold rush years in Victoria, over 16,000 Chinese landed there and made the long trek on foot to the Victoria goldfields to avoid the tax imposed if they landed in Victoria itself.

The buildings were lovely there and the town seems untouched since the 19^th centaury, time has passed it over.  We stayed at a caravan park beside a lake, the office was the old stables to the homestead next door, now a backpackers and built around 1880.  Parts of it and other buildings in the town where built from timber salvaged from the many wrecks on the coast, very thrifty of the townsfolk. 

The next day we walked into town via the cliff face, it was a beautiful sunny day, then back along the road.  Then we did a tour of the town by car, saw the sights and drove down the highway a bit to the next town of Beachport seeing on the way, to our great excitement, a dead wombat and a family of emus.  Beachport was another pretty seaside historic village with a dramatic coastline and rock formations similar to that of the Great Ocean road.  We drove along here until coming to the Pool of Siloam.  This was a little lake claiming to be as salty as the Dead Sea and seven times saltier than the ocean so Jon had to try it out to see if he could float, a huge challenge for the lake as he tends to sink like a stone normally.  Sure enough, once Jon had stripped to his jocks and jumped in he started bobbing around like a cork, his head & feet were sticking out of the water as if they had water wings on. _(2a)

We then drove to a seafood outlet down by the water to get some fish for tea.  I was sent in to buy it but when I got inside I saw these huge tanks full of live crayfish.  They started from smallish crays to bigger & bigger until the last ones were giants, almost as big as Larry. I said to the guy I just have to go and get my husband to see this, so I dashed outside and beckoned Jon in.  He came in and couldn’t believe his eyes so he said to go & get mum in.  I said to the guy again, I just have to go and get my mother now.  The guy rolled his eyes and said why don’t I bring the whole family in!  Once we were all in there and after a group discussion decided we couldn’t walk away without one of these babies.  It was $54 per kg for under 2kg cray but only $30 kg for over 2 kg, it worked out cheaper to go bigger so that’s what we did and ordered a 2.2kg crayfish.  He said it would take a couple of hours to cook up by the time he had the water hot so we said we would be back in the morning to pick him up as we were leaving the next day and this place was on our way to Mt Gambier. 

We did pick it up the next morning and had a feast that night along with some fresh prawns_{. (3)}   He was so big that we had to finish him off the day after.  Each leg was 12inchs long so he was not small.

We had intended to drive to Port Fairy that day but once we got to Mt Gambier, which is built on volcanos, there seemed too much to see there so another family discussion took place and we decided to stay the night to take it all in.  Just down the road from our campground was The Blue Lake.  It’s a crater lake and supplies the city with its water as it contains over 36,000 million liters & is 80 metres deep.  Its other claim to fame is, for some mysterious reason, it changes colour from a steel grey in winter to a brilliant turquoise blue in the summer.  We saw it like this and it was a beautiful blue lake with the green tree laden sides plunging into the blue waters.  There were other crater lakes in the area, two had dried up but the third had a lovely parkland area around it and a free walk in Wildlife park, not that we did it as it was too hot to walk around and it looked a bit dry.

The city also has a number of sinkholes and caves that they have made great use of.  There is a sinkhole right in the middle of town that use to be the main source of water for the early settlers and still is a good spot to drain the cities floodwaters away.  They have now planted the top with rose bushes and you can walk part way down the hole and stand on a suspended platform to look down into the cave.  The other famous one is the Umpherston Sinkhole_{. (4)} It was formed by the roof of a chamber falling to the floor of the cave.  Some bright spark thought it would be great as a garden so it is now beautifully terraced; with gardens down the bottom and vines draped along the top just dripping down to almost reach the floor.  They flood light the gardens at night and the resident possums come out to feed.  In fact we saw one of these possums racing along inside the cave at the bottom and poking his curious little nose out at us to see if we had some food.  I thought Mt Gambier was a surprisingly interesting city and is well worth a visit for a few days.

From Mt Gambier we had the choice of following the main Princes Highway to Portland or take the ‘scenic’ route via the minor road (No I was not lost) We were advised by fellow campers to definitely take the scenic route, as it was much nicer.  We took their advice and found that not everyone agrees to what the meaning of scenic is.  It may have been slightly nicer but we don’t know that having never been the other way.  Maybe if we could have stopped in the Glenelg National Park or seen Princess Margaret Rose Cave it would have been worth it, but as a drive I think we will go the other way the next time. 

We didn’t stop for long in Portland as we had a long drive ahead so we continued onto Port Fairy.  I had been looking forward to going to Port Fairy and had even planned to stay the night but it didn’t quite fit into our itinerary as we were starting to run out of time so had to be content with a walk around the shops and a cup of coffee down by the wharf.  The town was just getting ready for a folk festival that weekend so the marquess had gone up and they had built stages on several corners.  The town would really be humming in a day or two.  I guess we didn’t see Port Fairy on it’s best day as it there was a cold wind and it was overcast so it wasn’t as pretty as I had imagined but it did have some lovely old buildings, little cottages and dry stone wall fences.  I would have to say, as a seaside village, Robe was far prettier.

 Just after Port Fairy is Warrnambool which did look very interesting and warranted a stop with it’s maritime museum detailing the many shipwrecks that have occurred up & down that coastline, and generally it look a nice city, even had a Fontera factory there but time was pressing so on we pushed to begin our adventure on the famed Great Ocean Road.

The turn off for this road was just out of Warrnambool and we headed for the first feature called “The Bay of Island”.  There was a short walk to the lookout, again with that bitting cold wind, but it was worth it.  The view showed horseshoe bays with white sand and red & white striped limestone cliffs and scattered through out the bay were various sized rocks of the same make as the cliffs rising out of the water making little islands as the name suggested. The next sight down the road was called the grotto and from memory I think it was here we had lunch in the carpark with views out to the water and these fabulous rocks.  Along further was London Bridge, ₍₅₎ this rock was more orange & white and it jutted out like a peninsular with the middle hollowed out. It use to be connected to the mainland but you can see a big chunk had fallen into the sea leaving it out on it’s own.  I remember when this happened as it was on the news, a few years ago when it was connected people use to walk out onto the bridge and marvel at it from above.  This one day a couple had walked out on it and there was an almighty crack and the middle bit fell into the sea leaving them stranded on the newly formed island.  What would you do???  They eventually had to be rescued by helicopter.

The next one along was the Arch, ₍₆₎ another self explanatory formation but they are all extraordinary to see, very beautiful with the reds, orange and white, some rocks were just pure white.  The facilities were good too with well-made boardwalks & stairs so you could get really close to each one.

The best one along that stretch, in our opinion and contrary to what most people think, was not the Twelve Apostles (although they were good but very commercialised and over rated) was the Loch Ard Gorge.  It had wonderful formations with arches and ridgebacks and caves and a gorge that lead to a sandy beach in between the sheer limestone cliffs.  It was here that the tragic wreck of the three masted clipper Loch Ard occurred.  There were many wrecks along this coast as ships made the long journey from England to Melbourne following the Great Circle Route.  Cape Otway was the first sight of land for these ships after being at sea for two – three months but it was the most treacherous part.  Entering the Bass Strait was like ‘threading a needle’ with the stretch of water between Cape Otway and King Island being the ‘eye of the needle’.

The Loch Ard left Gravesend, England on 2 March 1878 carrying 36 crew & 18 passengers and was under the command of newly married 29-year-old Captain George Gibb.  On their final night, three months later, a party was held to celebrate the end of the journey as the next day they would enter Port Phillip heads.  Unfortunately a thick mist descended and obscured the horizon and the Cape Otway light.  The captain stayed on deck all night but by 4am on 1 June 1878 the mist lifted to revel high cliffs close by.  The captain set full sail to turn her away from the cliffs but the wind & current pulled her closer in.  He then lowered the sails & dropped the ships anchors but they dragged across the ocean floor.  In a last desperate bid the anchors were cut & the sails hoisted again and it seemed she might make it but suddenly the bow stuck fast in a shallow reef extending out from Mutton Bird Island.  Water began flooding into the cabins and with every swell the yardarms were smashing into the cliffs bringing down rock & debris to the decks below.  The waves washing over the deck made it impossible to launch the lifeboats and all the passengers could do was cling to each other in terror.  Amidst their screams & cries the ship slipped beneath the ocean waves into the silent depths below.

Of the 54 people on board just two survived, 18 year old Eva Carmichael one of a family of eight Irish immigrants and the ships apprentice boy, also 18, Tom Pearce.  After drifting for hours under an upturned lifeboat he was eventually swept into the gorge and onto the beach.  He heard Eva’s cries for help as she clung to a spar in the water so he swam out and took an hour to bring her back.  Fortunately some of the ships brandy was washed ashore so he revived poor Eva with a dose or two of that.  After a bit of a kip Tom climbed out and got some help from a local farmer.  The other thing that miraculously survived the wreck was a 5ft high porcelain peacock made by Minton in 1851, one of only 9 in the world.  As it was to be shown at exhibitions in Sydney & Melbourne in 1879 & 1880 it was packed with great care and washed ashore intact.  The peacock is now on show in the Warrnambool maritime museum.

Tom went on to become captain of his own ship, surviving a further 2 shipwrecks and Eva went back to Ireland, married & had 3 sons.

After the Twelve Apostles, which we felt was a bit of a let down after all the other wonderful sights, the road turned away from the coast and headed inland & up hill.  I had always thought the Great Ocean Road was beside the ocean all the way with spectacular views out to sea.  This is not the case at all and in fact only from Apollo Bay to Anglesea, a distance of approximately 74kms of the 273 km trip, has the scenery I was expecting.  The rest is normal scenery with brown fields or like this next bit, very hilly with a big drag for the caravan then through the beautiful Otway National Park & forests with thick trees hanging over the road.  There is a bit of something for everyone on this road.    

We eventually came to Apollo Bay, our stop for the next two nights.  Even though the trip from Mt Gambier to Apollo Bay was only 400kms it took us 12 hours as there was so much to see along the way, given a bit more time we could have completed it in a more leisurely manner.  Unfortunately and unbeknown to us, it just happened to be a long weekend so all the caravan parks were booked out.  One park took pity on us (along with our money) and allowed us to park the caravan along a fence, beside a river and plug into an empty cabins power.  This worked out really well until the next day when people booked into it and pulled out our power cord (without telling us) to plug the cabin back in.  It was actually the busy body woman next door who thought she owned the place that told them to do it.  Jon gave her a right flea in the ear, which she thoroughly deserved, despite the fact we did get free power for 24 hours.

It is not too difficult to understand why the first European settlers originally called this town Paradise.  Apollo Bay with its population of approx 1,000, is snuggled between the Otway Ranges and rugged coastlines & sits serenely by the sea with a wide curving sandy beach right in front of the town.  Directly behind the town are big green rolling hills and it was up one of these that we went to a lookout.  We could only drive so far then had to walk the rest to get there.  It wasn’t so difficult but still a bit of a climb which had my mother gasping and complaining but with a bit, or rather a lot of encouragement we finally made it to the top and had an absolutely fantastic view of the town and stretching right down the coastline.  On the way back we discovered some lovely green watercress growing thick by a little stream so we ripped into that and carried handfuls of dripping muddy cress back to the car feeling very pleased with ourselves.

The next day we went for a drive back into the Otway National Park and chose an easy walk, called Maits Rest, through the rainforest & Myrtle Beech trees which was extremely pleasant.  This was named after Maitland Bryan the districts first forestry Officer who use to rest his horse here.  There are lots of walks to do, some leading to waterfalls or beaches or rivers, through Mountain Ash forest, ferns, rainforest, coastal heathlands and the list goes on but for us it was just a short simple walk before back in the car and driving to Cape Otway and the lighthouse.  On the way there we saw several cars stopped on the side of the road and people looking up into the trees.  Not knowing why, so did we and there, a short way up a tree & sound asleep, was the biggest fattest koala I have ever seen, didn’t know they even came that big.  No wonder he was asleep, just to keep breathing would be exhausting for a fat koala. ₍₇₎

The lighthouse is yet another one to claim to be Australia’s oldest.  It was built in 1848 and along with Cape Wickham lighthouse on King Island marks the entrance to the Bass Strait.  It was originally fuelled by whale oil, then kerosene, diesel, finally electricity and now solar powered.

We had a walk around Apollo Bay when we got back then the next day after going to the market on the foreshore we headed for Melbourne.  As I mentioned previously, this part of the drive was what I had imagined the Great Ocean Road to be.  It curved around the headlands and cliffs with the ocean crashing below on one side and on the other the cliffs above us so close that the caravan almost touched the cliff walls.  On parts of this road there were trees hanging over and Jon looked up into one tree and there was a koala sitting on a branch, which hung right over to the middle of the road apparently unconcerned to the traffic driving beneath his bum.

We stopped at Lorne and had a walk around the town there, which was even nicer than Apollo Bay.  It was very trendy with lots of restaurants, cafes, bakeries, pubs, boutiques and resort type shops along the strip.  The town was buzzing as it was Sunday on a long weekend and I guess all the Melbournites come down here for their holidays and who could blame them. 

If you have ever heard of the saying ‘you have two chances, Buckleys or none’ and wondered where it came from, well wonder no longer.  It comes from William Buckley who escaped from the convict settlement at Sorrento in December 1803.  He eventually made his way to a site along the next stretch of road we took and a plague marks the spot.  At Mt Defiance he lived on shellfish, pigface and currents and rather liked living there thinking he may ends his days at that spot but loneliness overcame him so he started to walk back to give himself up.  Luckily for him he was rescued by the local tribe, Wathaurong, whom he lived with for the next 32 years.

We stopped for a quick photo opportunity under the memorial arch to the diggers of WWI who through blood, sweat & tears built this road for us to enjoy then drove through Geelong & onto Melbourne, reaching the campground by late afternoon.

We just had two more whole days left before Mum caught the plane back to NZ so we had to think of something to fill in our days, couldn’t have her sitting around taking a rest.  We did go easy the next day, got up early & drove into town to partake in breakfast at the Marriott as we had a voucher for a free breakfast.  It is a most pleasant way to start the day.  Then we went down to the Victoria markets, which are the biggest markets that I have seen, to do several hours of serious browsing.  Not only is there a large undercover area full of clothes, crafts, linens, arts, bric a brac and various other shit that you get at normal markets but it also has a large fruit & vegetable area then across the road in a building is the fresh meats & seafood area where the butchers are yelling out the specials for the day making it pandemonium inside then across from that is the deli section with all manner of cheeses, smallgoods, bakeries, lollies, antipasto and more to be had. 

After an exhausting couple of hours wandering around there we took the free tram that does a circuit of the city and gives a running commentary on the way of all the highlights and some history of the area.  It appears we weren’t the only ones to have thought of doing that as it was nose to armpit most of the way around.  We did get off at Flinders Station but the amount of people milling around was impossible so we hopped back on to complete the circle.

We asked Mum what she wanted to do next and all she said was she just wanted to go home so that’s what we did.  However, we didn’t let her off quite so easily the next day as I had planned a full circle trip driving down to Geelong, around the Bellarine Peninsula, across on the ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula and up passed some very cute little towns with even cuter colourful bathing sheds on the beach, ₍₈₎ through Brighton, St Kilda and back home after unsuccessfully finding a decent fish & chip shop for dinner.  I had imagined having F & C on the beach at St Kilda but only very expensive restaurants lurked around that part of the city so it was home for a very unromantic supermarket roast chook for us.  We did, however, have a delightful lunch at Portarlington by the sea after purchasing some fresh mussels straight off a fishing boat and throwing them on one of the free BBQs on the foreshore and soaked up the juices with fresh bread, mustn’t grumble too much.

Hence comth the end of the first two weeks back on the road.  It is little wonder I haven’t written before now, as we just didn’t have time.  The next instalment will include a side trip to Tasmania and up to the Murray River, which is where we are now, lounging by its beautiful banks and gazing wistfully out to river.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

DOING TIME IN TASMANIA

Friday 11^th April

Who ever said you could see Tasmania in a couple of days is dreaming.  Actually I’m not sure if anyone has said that but if they did they have obviously not been there before. For such a small island it has so much to see and do that to do it justice you would need to allow a minimum of a month or more if you have the time.  Technicality you can travel from top to bottom in a matter of hours to say you have been there but you would never absorb the history, taste or feel and indeed the essence of this place so believe me, the longer the better.

We were there for nine days (ten if you count the way hire car companies do) and we just managed to hare right around the perimeter of the island with one night in each place, which was enough to give us the idea that we had to come back and see more.

Our flight into Hobart landed around lunchtime on Thursday 13^th March and by 2pm we were signed up, given the keys, basic instructions & directions and away we went in our little campervan travelling in the opposite direction to Hobart as I had the map upside down.  Well, not quite that bad but we had intended to spend the first couple of days there and instead found ourselves halfway to Port Arthur.  Being the flexible travel co-ordinator that I am, I convinced Jon that was as good a place to start as any so we stopped to stock up at the next supermarket in Sorell then headed on.  Sorell was our first taste of Tasmania and I’m sure a nice little town but Jon, and I’m sure he was just being unkind, swore that he saw his first two headed person.  They did seem a little below average & just a touch feral but I wouldn’t go so far to say ‘it’s life Jim, but not as we know it’.  The people did get better on our journey and in fact I found Tasmanians to be extremely friendly & helpful and there are enough of them now for interbreeding to be a thing of the past.

From Sorell we drove down to a place called Dunalley where we crossed a narrow neck of land onto Forestier Peninsula, which then leads to Tasman Peninsula where Port Arthur lies.  Just before crossing the bit of land from Forestier to Tasman we stopped to look at the Tessellated Pavement, a natural phenomena of an inter-tidal rock formation that basically is a big flat rock on the beach and looks like someone has come along and tiled it.  The cuts and the tiles were amazingly uniformed and I’m sure many a tiler couldn’t have done a better job.  Just after that was Eaglehawk Neck, the narrow isthmus of land leading to Tasman Peninsula which, in the days of the penal settlement, was guarded by a line of extremely vicious, half starved dogs to prevent any runaways from getting passed that point.  The dog line was set up in 1832 initially with 18 dogs, later increased when the settlement got larger.  They even put them out on platforms on the water to prevent escape by sea.  They had charming names like Tear’em, Muzzel’em, Ugly Mug & Caesar giving a slight indication of the non-friendliness of these creatures.

We arrived at our campground for the night, minutes from the Port Arthur site, just before dark so it gave us a bit of time to have a look around and check out where we were to go the next day & to collect some firewood for our fire.  In our entire trip we had not had a fire but here were all the facilities for one, including a small fire place with hotplate and stacks of wood and already several fires were gaily smoking away so now seemed a good time.  Our site overlooked an inlet of a quiet bay with a long stretch of lawn leading to trees at the bottom.  As the evening got darker there started to be movement all around us.  Jon got the torch and shone it on a small rat like thing that hopped.  It turned out to be a Potoroo, which is a small rat like thing that hops.  We also had Rufus wallabies grazing nearby, they obviously look like a wallaby but they had dark paws & legs and looked a bit woollier I guess for the climate.  We had our fire blazing by this time so we didn’t feel threatened by all this nocturnal life happening all around us. 

We had to adapt to a smaller living space too.  After thinking our caravan was small, we were forced to change our terms of reference and concede that indeed there are smaller vans to travel in, this being one.  If someone wanted to cough, the other had to step outside to give them room.   Thankfully we had fine weather the entire time, bar one night, which made things so much easier as we could sit outside and dine or wait while the other cooked or washed up or climbed into bed or coughed.

The next day we left early as we thought to spend a half-day at Port Arthur then move on.  The tickets were a bit more expensive then we thought but on reflection they were great value as they included a free guided walking tour for 40 mins as well as a free harbour cruise and they were valid for 2 days.  We also bought an additional ticket that took us to Point Puer across the bay where a boy’s prison – the first of its kind, was set up.  Disappointingly there were no buildings to see as they had been completely dismantled but the colourful (NZ) guide with her bright red hair walked us around and gave a commentary on what happened where and how it was like for the boys.  Before we went on that trip we started off seeing Port Arthur on the walking tour which gave us a bit of insight to the history, the buildings and the lay out of the place.  It was a lovely warm day that helped give the whole place a surprising air of calm & tranquillity, the warm golden hue of the ruins and large trees & big expanse of green lawns was something I wasn’t really expecting given the horrors that had occurred here including the more recent shooting.  The massacre isn’t talked about or hardly referred to and the guidebook even said not to ask the guides about it as it was still raw and many had lost friends or family in it.  There is a memorial to the incident behind the ruins of the café where a lot of the shootings occurred but it seemed to me to be a bit neglected.  A simple plague briefly gives the story but doesn’t refer to the gunman by name and doesn’t really go into detail.  I googled it later to read the full horror of what happened that day and just found it hard to imagine that anyone could be so cold blooded as him, gun down people like he did and still offer no explanation as to why.  He kidnapped one poor guy after shooting the girlfriend then bundled him into the boot of his own car and drove him back to a B&B where he had already shot & killed the owners.  The killer handcuffed the guy to the banisters then, after hours of terror, shot him in the head.

Port Arthur in its day was a huge settlement and completely self sufficient due to its isolation and financial restraints on which they had to run the place on.  It was established in 1830 as a timber getting camp and later became a punishment station for serious repeat offenders so they were the really naughty boys.  Among other things they made shoes, clothing, bells of all things, furniture, brooms, worked stone as well as having a ship-making yard.  Everything there down to the actual bricks in the buildings was convict built.  In fact it seemed that the whole of Tasmania was convict built and a damn fine job they did of it too.  

When it was finally closed in 1877, due to the fact they had stopped exporting prisoners from Mother England so there were no new fodder to be had, it was sold off to private settlers and became a small town with a name change to Carnarvon in an attempt to escape the stigma of it’s darker past.  Tourists started coming and some of the ex-cons became tour guides, even taking off their shirts to show the scars of the many floggings they received.  The Government eventually took it back and begun to conserve the site as a place of international significance and tourist attraction.

The first building we went through was called the Separate Prison.  This was built in 1849 with the idea of instead of trying to reform a convict with physical punishment they would create a place with a quiet & ordered atmosphere so he could contemplate his sins.  This turned out to be a far harsher form of torture as they were put into very small cells, they no longer had a name just a number and couldn’t see or talk to anyone else besides the guard.  It was completely quiet and he would remain in his cell in solitude & silence for 23 hours a day.  There was another cell in this block that had no light at all. For any misdemeanour committed the convict would be locked in total darkness & fed bread & water for up to 30 days.  As I was coming out of this cell I saw a huge, what looked like a beetle on the wall.  I almost was going to prod it with a stick but didn’t know how it would react to that so I took a photo instead.  When I examined the photo later I saw it was actually a small bat hanging around in the dark solitary cell minding his business.  Lucky I didn’t give him a poke.  

They had a chapel there with individual compartments.  On church day the prisoners would file in but not see each other as they were masked once outside their cells then stood in their compartment separated by a tall door, the person in front was below them so they couldn’t look down at each other.  It was the strangest chapel I had ever seen. 

Next-door was the asylum, apparently the best place to go as they treated you well and you got the run of the place.  Scattered over the rest of the property were lots of different buildings, on one side was the church, parsonage, Government cottage and houses for the accountant, medical officer, Magistrate, Chaplin etc etc and on the other was the main penitentiary, now mostly in ruins but very haunting, laundry, hospital, officers quarters, law courts and the very big & beautiful Commandants house.  This was very special with wonderful furniture & furnishings and several levels requiring several servants, mostly convicts, to run the joint.  At one stage the butler was a convicted murderer and the commandant did confess to feeling a little uneasy every time the butler handed him the carving knife.  They were most privileged indeed, hard to reconcile with the fact of how the convicts were living right next door.

Out in the bay was a tiny island called Isle of the Dead, it was here that they buried anyone who died at Port Arthur.  If you were a convict, lunatic, invalid or pauper you got to be buried at the bottom of the hill in an unmarked mass grave while the civil & military folk went on the high ground with a fancy headstone. There are some 1,769 convicts & 180 free settlers buried here.

It took us until the end of the day to walk around and see everything, and then there was a museum in the visitors centre with more exhibits and personal stories of some of the convicts.

As we were so late in leaving we didn’t travel far for the next night’s camping spot, just a few kms down the road to a place called White Beach.  This was a lovely spot, just off the beach and we were in time to see a stunning sunset as the sun slipped away behind clouds streaked with gold, orange & red throwing up the little islands, with their clusters of trees, in the bay into silhouette.

The next day dawned very clear with blue skies as we started our journey up the east coast.  We had to go back out the way we came in, past Eaglehawk Neck stopping at some more lookouts and cliff rock formations with names like Devils Kitchen, Pirates Bay lookout, Tasman Arch and for want of a better word, Blowhole that was just that.  Just near the blowhole was a pie cart selling gourmet pies.  It was only 9 in the morning but they sounded so good we thought we would buy a couple for lunch so we bought one scallop pie and one rich beef & red wine.  As we were driving along the smell was wafting through the van.  We thought it a shame to let them get cold so next stop we had a very early lunch and I can tell you they were every bit as delicious as they had promised to be.

We also passed through a town called Doo.  Every house there had it’s own name on a plague or piece of wood nailed on the house and all played on the towns name.  There was Doo Mee, Xanadu, Doo Nix, Doo luvit, Doo @k all, Just Doo it, Wattle-I-Doo, Gunna Doo, Love me Doo, and of course Doo Little.  The last one was actually their family name & I believe the first ones to put up a sign, very cute.

To get further up the coast, instead of taking the main road back to Sorell then head back for the sea like we should have, I had a brilliant idea to take the Wielangta Forest drive that cuts through a forest, described by a brochure as some of some Tasmania’s tallest blue gum trees, spectacular views, natural phenomena & historical highlights.  I thought this sounded quite pretty.  I did tell Jon it was unsealed but didn’t dwell too much on that fact in case he got scared off.  Well I did pay for that slight omission as it was indeed just a forest track and we bumped & rattled & wheezed our way up & down a jaw breaking 30km or so road with Jon cursing every now & then, some of it directed at me and the rest at the track until we popped out the other side at Orford and a sealed road again.  Let this be yet another lesson, never believe all that the brochures tell you and be warned about what they don’t tell you.

Happily that was the worse road we encountered, the rest were actually quite good.  Just off the coast here is Maria Island, another convict settlement that pre dates Port Arthur and was even more severe but the worst one was yet to come over on the west coast.

Further up the coast was Swansea, so named by some homesick Welsh settlers, where we stopped at Kate’s berry farm, apparently legendary among Tasmanians and world travel writers.  Fresh raspberries, strawberries and lots of other berry berries are picked through the season & sold from the shop as well as all the berry products like jams, jellies, wines & ice cream.  I had come for the ice cream and was served by none other than Kate herself so I didn’t feel I could mention that I thought her prices were extraordinary high but instead ordered the child size cone.  It was good, I must admit but do go with a healthy wallet if you want to visit her.

Continuing north we travelled passed the Freycinet National Park and was very tempted to walk over the hill to see Wine Glass Bay, ranked by a US magazine as one of the top ten beaches in the world with it’s perfect half moon crescent, pure white sands, clear turquoise sea & backed by the bushland of Freycinet Peninsula.  We have seen some glorious beaches so were interested to see how this compares but time was pushing so we stopped instead for a break at the next town of Bicheno located about half way up the east coast. This was just a sleepy seaside town, I guess even sleepier as it was Saturday afternoon so all shops were shut and not many people were about except a few divers gearing up on the beach ready to go out & score a crayfish or two or the occasional fisherman trying his luck from the breakers wall.   Bicheno started life as an old whaling & sealing base back in 1803 & is now a Cray fishing port.

Before we got to the campsite for the night we drove on up, hugging the coast then turned inland to St Mary’s, a small, quite pretty town reached by going through a mountain pass.  It was all very scenic but quite steep for our poor little camper.  Once we got there, there was nothing to see as most things were closed so we refuelled and headed down the other pass, built by those poor convicts in the mid 1800’s and by the looks of things they really did it tough, through the mountain back to the coast road and onto another small seaside town called Scamander.  Just inland from this town (down another but thankfully short unsealed humpy dumpy road) is a forest reserve where there are several free campsites right beside the upper Scamander River.

It sounded nice in the book, peaceful & quiet, ideal for campervans, in the forest & free.  Indeed it was all those things, with only one other camper there with his dog in a bus.  Turns out he has been there for several months, liked it so much he never leaves.  There was a nice big fireplace where we parked, just by the river and under a big gum tree so we set about collecting firewood for it.  Before very long as it was just on dusk, we met the very ferocious & hungry locals, the mosquitoes.  They were big enough to throw a saddle on and proceeded to make a large meal of us.  We weren’t prepared for this, no fly spray or insect screen and no mention whatsoever in the brochure that these critters were around so they made mince meat of us.  We hurriedly got the rest of the wood and lite the fire to get the smoke going and thankfully that worked, we were able to sit outside with a face full of smoke but no more bites.  The fire was brilliant & it even had a hot plate over the top so we cooked our fish that we had bought in a little fish shop on the coast along with some potatoes fried on the top.  There was bird life in the trees and I could see, apart from the mossies, why someone would want to vege out here.  Later I wandered over to the toilets, which were long drops over near the bush.  I am always hesitant when opening the lid of a long drop as you never know what could be under it, maybe a snake or two, but I was keen to go so half had my knickers down ready to sit on the loo, flicked the lid up and was greeted by a massive black cloud of swarming mosquitoes rising up from the pits finally free of their prison and all heading for me.  I squealed, slammed down the lid and headed out the door hoisting up my pants as best as I could while my legs were running.  After that I took my chances in the bush only suffering the odd bite or two.

After an early breakfast we said goodbye to mosquito camp and headed for the next town along of St Helens.  This also was whaling & sealing port back in 1830 & now a Cray and abalone fishing town.  Luckily it had a car park by the marina with a toilet block and a free hot shower, something I haven’t come across before, so I managed to freshen up & face another day on the road.  St Helens is at the head of Georges Bay and further along the coast is Binalong Bay and the stunning coastline of the Bay of Fires.  True to its name, there was a haze of smoke over the otherwise blue sky.  Regarded as another of the world’s most beautiful beaches it does have the pure white sand and stretches for 30 kms to Eddystone Point.  There were big pink & grey granite boulders splashed with bright orange lichen along the point, big & flat enough to wander along and look down on the calm smooth sea with little boats tied up at the side.

We headed inland from St Helens towards Launceston and detoured off the road to see St Columbia Falls, one of the tallest falls in Tasmania cascading down 90 meters off the side of Mt Victoria.  It was a nice bush walk and the closest I had seen so far to looking anything like the NZ bush.  There was a nice story about the first family who settled there.  One of the cattle wandered into the bush so the wife followed to look for it and got lost herself.  She was missing for, I think, a week and was given up for dead until she finally wandered out looking very much worse for wear.  She described of spending one night in a hollow log and when she woke up the next morning there were two Tasmanian tigers peering in at her from either end.  They stalked her for a day or so, sensing she was tired and ready to drop but she survived and continued on to a very long life.

On the way to the falls we stopped at the Pyengana cheese factory.  They had been there for over 100 years so had figured out how to make pretty good cheese by now.  We sampled the range and after much thought selected a 24mth very tasty cheese that went nicely with our evening wine & nibbles.  Just down the road was the Pub in a Paddock.  Back in the 1800’s some guy thought he wasn’t cut out to be a farmer so he licensed his barn and began to serve alcohol, even having the odd barn dance there for entertainment.  Now it’s a great old pub with all sorts of paraphernalia over the walls.  Outside, in her pen, was a very large pig with a sign on the outside ‘Priscilla, geez I’m dry, I’d luv a beer’.  Apparently you could buy a special ‘pig’ beer in the pub and Priscilla just loved it, however being too tight to buy ourselves a beer there was no way we were buying one for a pig!

This was all rolling green countryside full of dairy cattle and looking very pleasant with the dense bush at the end of the road trekking through to the big waterfall.

Back on the main road we went through more small towns, some with very interesting antique & bookshops seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  We went through Derby, an historic tin mining town, surrounded by rainforest & mountains but as it was Sunday most of the town was closed.  Just after Derby we took a side road to the small town of Legerwood that was no different to any other small town except it had some astonishing tree carvings.  They were going to cut down these huge trees, planted to honour the WW1 soldiers who came from the area, as they had grown to a dangerous height.  Not wanting to destroy the memorial forever it was decided that Eddie Freeman, a dab hand with the chainsaw, would sculpture from the remaining tree trunks the war heroes the trees represented.  What a fantastic job he did, some trees just had a solitary figure while a couple of trees had several characters rising up from the stumps of the tree trunks.  One tree had a guy waving farewell while his trusty dog sat up higher watching him go, others were kneeling with a rifle in hand or crouching behind sandbags in the trenches or lying in the fork of the tree in full uniform having a rest.  Each tree had a plague telling who the character/s were and what it was portraying. It was surprisingly moving and caused you to pause and consider what it was like and the heartache suffered as these people went to war, more than likely never to return.

We reached Scottsdale where we thought we would stay the night, as there was another free spot, on a reserve just out of town and by a river.  There were lots of others there as well as an ablution block.  Camping in Tasmania is easy & can be so cheap.  You could stay free every night and use the free showers & toilets they provide.  We only required electricity to recharge the laptop, phone & camera.  That night I sat in the disability toilets as, for some reason, they had a power point and checked my emails.  Several people tried the door, don’t think anyone was in a wheelchair, but I just sat there quietly & they soon went away.  There were Platypuses in the river beside us and several campers had their torches out to try & see them.  We did catch a glimpse or two of a couple but it was hard work.

We left Scottsdale nice & early the next morning as we had a lot of ground to cover that day.  Our first stop was the Bridestowe lavender farm that claims to be not only the oldest and largest oil producing lavender farm in the southern hemisphere but one of the worlds largest single commercial lavender farms.  Eat your heart out Southern France!  It grows the same lavender that occurs naturally in the Southern French Alps, none of this second rate stuff that others grows.  I love lavender and have dragged Jon off to every lavender farm that I could possibly get away with so by now he has accepted his fate knowing I couldn’t possibly come all this way and not see the biggest farm in the Southern Hemisphere.  That, unfortunately, was the case today as we had got up and at the gates so early that it wasn’t going to open for another hour.  I was understandably devastated; as I’m sure Jon was, but we just didn’t have the time to hang around so on we went with me looking forlornly out the window.

We did stop further down the road to see the Lilydale falls but after a nice write up about them they were a little disappointing although another very pleasant short walk in the green, cool forest.

Our next stop was to Tasmania’s second largest city and Australia’s third oldest, Launceston.  This seems to have a more olde world feel about it than Hobart with it’s gracious old buildings of Victorian & Georgian architecture and quaint streets.  Just near the centre of town you drive up a rather hilly & steep road which takes you to the entrance of Cataract Gorge with it’s towering granite walls where the waters of the South Esk river meet with the River Tamar, a rather large river that snakes it’s way up to eventually empty into the Bass Strait approx 50kms away.  This gorge is quite stunning and unexpected especially as it’s so near to the centre of the city.  It has a large picnic area and swimming pool on the grassy grounds that slope gently to the rivers edge.  We took the chair lift (apparently the longest single span chair lift in the world no less) that gently carries you high above the picnic area, across the river affording fabulous views up & down the steep gorge to the other side where there is a café and walks through gardens or around the side of the gorge.  We walked a little way along the side and peered down the rocky sides to the shopping trolleys far below. Here too were some more woolly looking Rufus wallabies hoping around paying no attention to us tourists. 

I would like to have spent more time in Launceston but unfortunately we only had a couple of hours before we headed up the right side of the Tamar River to the top by George Town and Low Head where we were promised by fellow campers a few nights back we could get a good feed of rock oysters from the beach.  Search as we might we could not find them and concluded that they must have eaten the lot, bastards.  Instead we had to content ourselves with a cooked chook from the supermarket for lunch in Gorge Town. 

After lunch we drove across the river and up to Beaconsfield, the town that made international news when the mine collapsed killing one miner and trapping two others for 10 days or so.  There is not much to the town and apart from the big mine with its old brick buildings dominating the landscape there is not too much to see.  It’s not really the sort of place to go out of your way, like we did, to see as there are far more interesting places to spend time at.

Leaving there we drove across to Devonport where the ferry Spirit of Tasmania docks after its trip from Melbourne.  Devonport is quite the cosmopolitan town with a lovely shopping area and buzzy feel about the place, I guess being one of the main ports where visitors arrive & leave from the island.  We stopped only long enough to walk around the shops and see a couple of the sights before heading over to Port Sorell for our 5^th nights stay.  Port Sorell is the oldest township on the north west coast, close to Narawntapu National Park with it’s isolated beaches, sand dunes and grasslands covered in season with wildflowers.  We stayed at a lovely caravan park owned & operated by the Lions Club and right beside the water.  The only thing of real note I remember about this park is of the nice big fat rabbit that hopped around.  She had her burrow close to another caravan just near their awning.  The people there said she had a burrow full of little bunnies and when she came out she would fill the hole over so no-one could get in and often hoped into their awning to see what was for dinner.  A bit later on we saw some horrible little boys on their bikes chasing this poor rabbit and hounding her all over the campsite.  If she hid under a caravan they would poke sticks under to get her to move then try & run her down with their bikes.  She finally hopped over to us and hid under our van and the cheeky boys started circling our van, yelling at each other to get the rabbit under there.  This was too much for Jon and after giving them a fearful earbashing they couldn’t ride their bikes away fast enough.  I almost went with them!!  We soothed her ruffled fur by feeding her some lettuce we happened to have and she nibbled it right out of our hands.

The next day our first main stop was to be near Elizabeth town at the Ashgrove Cheese factory, makers of one of my favourite cheese’s, lavender of course, after first stopping at Latrobe a town full of one of Jon’s favourites – antique shops.  Latrobe is a pretty town, nice buildings with its Victorian & colonial architecture testified by the fact that over 80 properties are classified by the National trust.  Latrobe is definitely worthwhile for a stop over for an hour or two. The cheese factory wasn’t a disappointment either with lots of free cheese tasting, ice creams and other local products such as flavoured honey.  We bought a load of cheese and some orange honey for good measure before going just down the road to the Christmas Hills raspberry farm.  Here they sold large punnets of raspberries for a mere $5, cheapest I’ve seen in my life.  Tasmania is such a gourmet of fresh food from fish & seafood to berries, fruit, wines and cheese’s that are all to die for.  Tasmanians also have a fetish for firewood, not surprising really given how cold it gets there.  We saw long fence lines just stacked 6ft high with firewood, enough to keep a huge household warm for several years in Alaska but we were assured it was just for the season down there.

We passed through Deloraine with its lovely colonial buildings and magnificent backdrop of the Great Western Tiers to Moles Creek near where we stopped to go for a walk through the bush.  We decided not to do the walk as it would take too long but instead stopped by the side of the road where masses of wild blackberries were growing and picked a tub full of juicy, ripe blackberries which we thought would go very nicely with our fresh raspberries.  We were right and I still stand by my claim that Tasmania is a gourmet delight.  The Leatherwood trees in this area produce flowers that create a honey unique to this region so I was tempted to stop at the honey factory that sold such delights as honey chocolate paste or red chilli honey but not so Jon, nor was he interested in the limestone caves of the region so they remain unexplored by this couple.

The countryside was so pretty with winding country lanes, green farms, bushland and for Tasmania, gentle rolling hills.  The area had delightful names such as Mole Creek, Lower Crackpot, Promised Land, Paradise to name just a few.  Just after Paradise, which if you blinked you missed it, was Sheffield the town of murals.  I thought the town seemed a little strange when we saw a bloke leading his pet alpaca down the main street, not something you see every day.  Then later sitting just outside a café in the main street were two of the strangest looking guys, one looking like he had just come down off Walton’s mountain with his high waisted brown trousers held up by suspenders over his white shirt and stopping several inches short of his sandal clad feet, full black beard and moustache with a skull cap perched on the back of his head.  He was sitting with his mate of indeterminate years, full white beard and big brimmed hat and at their feet attached to a brown lead and collar sat a long necked, fawn coloured alpaca looking for all the world that this was a perfectly normal thing to do.  Maybe it was in Sheffield but it struck me to be one of the oddest-looking sights I have yet come across.  As we nonchalantly walked past this odd trio the old guy looked up and said rather wistfully, referring to Jon’s upper arms “what a waste, such a great landscape for a tattoo but it remains bare”!  Getting back to the murals, they were just fantastic, painted on the sides of the buildings and looking so realistic you felt that you were standing in them.  They depicted the history and characters of the area and I would have to say, beats Bowen in Qld who pride themselves with their murals, hands down.  Depending where you read, the number of murals vary from 27 to over 50.  The mural on Slaters Country store, near the middle of town, depicts the story of Jessie & Nellie Slater in their shop talking to their neighbour and declining his offer to go partners in a shop the neighbour and his sons were planning to open in Melbourne in 1927.  Their neighbour was G J Coles and of course the shop is now the supermarket chain we all know and semi love.  All very well in hindsight.

Heading out of Sheffield and towards Cradle Mountain the countryside started to change with the dramatic looking rocky mountains and the temperature also started to change, plummeting downwards.  By the time we got to the Cradle mountain national park the temperature had dropped 20 degrees in half an hour.  Suddenly it was very cold & icy and it started to rain icy raindrops.  This was the first time I had to get out my thick jacket but unfortunately for me, not quick enough.  As I went into the visitors centre to pay for the petrol and see where to stay, Jon had found my jacket and looked very cosy with just his nose peaking through. 

Buses took people from the visitors centre into the national park as the road was very narrow, winding & busy but if you wanted to risk it, anyone can drive in.  We decided to take the risk and drove into the park as far as the road went, stopping at Cradle Mountain itself.  The weather was closing in so much that even tho we were standing near the base of a 5,068ft mountain we couldn’t see it. We went for a brief walk around a lake then back up to Waldheim chalet.  The chalet was originally built back in 1912 by Gustav and Kate Weindorfer as a home and guest chalet, naming it Waldheim, meaning "forest home".  It was eventually pulled down in 1976 and rebuilt as an exact replica.  It now is like a mini museum with the story of Gustav & Kate and the hardships they went through.  Outside was the bathhouse where a wooden channel brought water straight from the creek.  There was a comment from a past visitor who had used it which went something like “you pulled out a peg and freezing water flowed out.  If you couldn’t face it you just made splashing noises and came out saying ‘it’s so exhilarating!’..”  Around the back of the house was a forest walk, which was like a magical fairyland.  Green moss grew over everything, fallen tree logs, tree roots and up the trunks, along the ground and over rocks and the trees were gnarled & twisted with thin branches sticking out, I almost expected to see the trees move or talk or see a fairy or two.  It was just breathtakingly beautiful.

We drove back out of the park when it really started to drizzle even more and went across the road from the visitors centre to the camping ground, the only place legally to camp and booked a site for the night.  By this time it was really hosing down and decidedly very miserable.  This was the only time it rained and lucky it was just on dark so it didn’t matter so much.  We found a site just near the cookhouse door so we didn’t have to run very far with our food and cooking stuff.  The cookhouse was big, with a large sloping roof, I guess for the snow to fall off, big fireplaces and stacks of wood in the entrance room before going into the cookhouse.  It was fire season when we were there and most of the time the skies were very hazy with smoke from several big fires near by so a total fire ban was on, making it very disappointing that we couldn’t light a fire in the beautiful big fireplace.  Luckily the hire company had some hot water bottles in the van so we snuggled down with those for the night and hoped the weather would clear.

The next morning was a bright crispy day with frost on the ground and our breath hung in the air.  We decided to go for a walk before breakfast while it was still quiet and before the hordes of people descended on the park.  We drove back into the park and this time could see the mountain clearly against the ice blue sky with wispy clouds just above the summit and a streak of red from the sunrise.  Dove lake, in front of the mountain, was very still and mirrored the mountain perfectly with the sweeping plains of button grass surrounding us.  We were lucky to see it like this as by the time we had finished our 1/2 walk around the side of the lake the clouds had descended again and it wasn’t quite so serene and pretty.

Meanwhile, back at the camp we went off for our showers in the alpine looking shower block, very rustic with large wooden beams and a high, sloping roof that came to just above ground level and had breakfast in the cookhouse looking out at the pademelons (small brush kangaroo or wallaby) hoping around outside, almost at arms reach and seemingly unperturbed at us inside.

After leaving the mountain we headed for the west coast, passing through mining towns such as Rosebery & Zeehan.  Gold was discovered in Rosebery in 1893 followed shortly after with lead & zinc.  Just up the road at Waratah was the worlds richest tin mine and in Zeehan they discovered silver & lead in 1882.  This town, named after Able Tasman’s ship, has been classified by the National Trust and has some lovely classic buildings as well as art deco ones.  I read in one of my many brochures about a tunnel you can drive through at the end of town.  This sounded like fun I thought so directed Jon to the place.  As we got near there were big warnings about not to proceed past this point if you were over a certain size as people have got stuck in the tunnel and it was not for bigger vehicles.  I lost my nerve and begged Jon to turn back as if we got stuck we wouldn’t be able to open the doors to get out it was so narrow but Jon wouldn’t have a bar of it and decided I had brought him out here so we were going through that tunnel like it or not - not was my opinion.  It was very hair raising, for me at least being the only one with hair, as we squeezed the van through this narrow mine tunnel built originally for the carriages that use to travel through as they transported ore from the Spray Mine to the smelters south of Zeehan. The side mirrors only just cleared the tunnel walls but there was a light at the end and we made it with centimetres to spare.  Was it worth it, probably not but another sight to tick off our list.

The next delightful town was Strahan, pronounced Strawn on the banks of Macquarie harbour and dating back to 1883 when they milled the magnificent Huron pines.  The town is extremely picturesque, helped no doubt by the clear blue sky and colonial buildings lining the main street directly opposite the harbour.  Of a more notorious nature lies Sarah Island, pre dating Port Arthur and had far harsher conditions.  Established in 1822 on Governor McQuarie’s instructions, due to the fact that it was extremely isolated, it became one of the most infamous convict penitentiaries.  I went through the local visitors centre and paid to go through an extra bit, which lead you through the history of the area and what the penal colony was like.  Conditions were extremely harsh with the climate much like that of west of Scotland, often wet and cold.  The convicts milled the Huron pine, often spending much of the day up to their waists in water that has its origins in the snows of the central plateau and western ranges and looks like a very strong cup of tea due to the tannins in the water.  Floggings were held every week and were dealt out for the most minor offence.  They were flogged until the blood flowed freely and filled their shoes.  The next day they were expected to work just as much as the others, if they didn’t they were flogged again.  In the five years between 1822 and 1826 a total of 33,723 lashes were administered on an average of 167 prisoners at the time.  There was a story of how a group of prisoners escaped, they eventually found just one man.  When asked what happened to the others he said that he had eaten them.  He wasn’t believed as they thought he was covering for the others.  This man escaped again with a few others and later the story emerged how things had got tough, it was cold, no food and he ended up eating this lot too.  I guess you have to really pick who you escape with.  My pick would be with the shipbuilders as there is a delightful and successful escape story of the final prisoners from the island.  At one time Sarah Island was Australia’s biggest shipyard and when the prison closed in 1833 they were building the last boat.  The intention was to sail it to Hobart where it would be officially registered and launched and the 10 remaining convicts were to be sent to Port Arthur.  The convicts had other ideas and took control of the boat, booted off the crew and passengers including the commandant of the island, and sailed away to Chile.  They had a lovely time over there, got married and set up business as ship builders.  Britain eventually caught up with them and took them to trial but their lawyers successfully argued that because the ship was never registered it wasn’t officially a ship so the Chief Justice granted them all a pardon.  Dubbed ‘the ship that never was’ the Fredrick was their ticket to freedom.

We would have like to have stayed the night here but Jon got talking to a woman who said she had heard that the Cadbury factory in Hobart was closing early for Easter and as that was one of my main attractions for Tasmania I felt we had to hurry on forthwith, god forbid that I miss on the chocolate factory so on we pushed to the next stop of Queenstown.

Although it bears the same name and to a certain extent, the same position being at the bottom of the mountains as its NZ counterpart, there is where the similarities end.  Queenstown is another mining town, making its riches in copper, silver & gold since the 1880’s.  This is a completely stark and bleak landscape or ‘moonscape’ as it’s described.  The mountainside is completely devoid of trees having either been stripped of timber to fuel the copper smelters or poisoned by the fumes allowing for erosion to expose the rock.  The naked mountains look spectacular but give you the feeling you are on another planet.  There was talk of replanting the mountains but strangely enough this is a controversial decision as the locals like the look of the land because of its uniqueness.  They are quite upset that the Greenies have prevented them from poisoning the regrowth.  

We wound our way up these bare mountainsides stopping at a lookout with great views down to the valley below and a plague with the story of when fire broke out in a mineshaft in 1912, 700 ft below the surface.  It happened on a Saturday and it wasn’t until the Wednesday they rescued the last of the living, out of 170 men, 42 never came home.

For our last night out on the road we stopped at a free campsite beside the Collingwood River in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park.  This 446,000 ha national park forms the central portion of Tasmania’s World Heritage Area.  The main highway cuts through this picturesque park with its rainforests, waterfalls and lookouts.  We picked this spot as it was off the highway so we couldn’t be seen and one other van was there so we weren’t alone.  The other folk turned out to be a really nice couple from the South of France and were touring around Oz on their big OE.  Here again were the pesky mosquitos that came out near dusk so we had a quick meal outside before retreating back into the van to spend a peaceful night in the Tasmanian bush.

Twas the day before Easter and we had to make Hobart before sun down and the Chocolate factory closing so time was of the essence.  We did, however, stop at a couple of interesting spots before we made old Hobart town.  The first of these was at Tarraleah, a hydroelectric township where massive pipes slope down the nearby hills to the power station. There are several hydroelectric power stations in these parts, the first one constructed in 1910 and seeing all the pipes snaking their way over the landscape make you realise what a huge project this was.  The Derwent river starts at Lake St Clair and through a series of flumes, siphons, canals and pipelines is diverted across land to go through about 8 different power stations doing it’s bit to bring power to the people until finally ending up as drinking water in Hobart and surrounds.  These pipes have really got to be seen to be believed.

The other spot of interest was the small historic township of Hamilton sitting on the banks of the River Clyde.  It had cute, well-maintained historic houses some with ivy growing over their ancient walls & roofs and some turned into little arts & craft shops.  At the end of town is St Peters Anglican Church, one of Australia’s oldest churches built back in the 1830’s when Van Diemen’s land was in the Diocese of Calcutta, India.  As the congregation consisted largely of convicts, it only had the one door making escape from praising the Lord or serving Her Majesty just that little bit harder.

Finally we made it to Hobart where I had chosen a campground, a pretty spot right on the banks of the Derwent River but more importantly within Cooee of the chocolate factory.  In fact we could see it just across the water from our very campsite looking tantalisingly close.  We checked into the campground, went to establish our spot then drove straight over to the factory to begin my tour of heaven.  We pulled up into the car park and my eager little face was trying to find the way in when my eyes fell upon the security guard coming our way.  He had some news for us but it wasn’t what I had come to hear.  ‘Sorry madam’ he started ‘but the factory closed yesterday and won’t reopen for another two weeks’!  TWO WEEKS, I had come all this way, purposely didn’t go into any of the other chocolate shops in an effort to save myself for the big one and they closed two days before Easter, what idiot was running this show to close a chocolate factory over the entire Easter holidays?  To say I was devastated doesn’t quite capture the turmoil of emotions I was fighting and I have to say I’m still not really over the disappointment of it all.  I told Jon we should have gone to Hobart first and now look at the mess he had put me in.  I felt the need to blame someone and he was the closest I could find.  I skulked back to the campground and spent the evening feeling most sorry for myself.

I have to say that Hobart isn’t all about chocolate factories and by the next day I had discovered Battery Point and the Salamanca markets that were successful in dragging me out of my depression.  I fell in love with Battery Point with its gingerbread looking Victorian houses, trendy restaurants, galleries and shops converted from the old store warehouses and the atmosphere of the place.  In fact I found a house I wanted to buy, a two-story character Victorian townhouse that was a perfect do-up.  I figured we could renovate the house, make a killing and get to stay in Hobart for a few months.  The plan was perfect bar one thing, I hadn’t counted on it being so expensive in the first place so the For Sale sign remained long after I had gone.  The market was busy and full of interesting things, a bit different from normal markets as well as lots of foodie stalls with the most yummiest looking delicacies I have ever been tempted to try.

We only had two nights and one full day to see this part of Tasmania and as with the rest of the island, we really couldn’t do it justice but we did give it our best shot.  We took a walk around the most historic part of Hobart with the help of a trusty map from the information centre pointing out all the significant buildings and why they are significant including the Hope & Anchor, claiming to be the oldest licensed pub in Australia but now closed, with all the fixtures and fittings still in place and a big For Sale sign outside.

Mt Wellington hovers majestically over Hobart, all 1270m of it and full of snow in the winter.  Thankfully it was still summer so we headed up to the lookout but with the van seriously short of petrol we only got halfway up before opting to turn around and find a petrol station.  It was a shame, as we never went back up again.  Instead we took a drive south around the loop of D’Entrecasteaux Channel, passing tiny towns, apple orchards, vineyards and little out of the way beaches and bays.  I was tempted to go down to Egg & Bacon Bay but I suspect I wouldn’t have found what the name suggested.  On the road back to Hobart we past by the Shot Tower, you can’t miss it as it’s right beside the road and a 58-metre sandstone tower rears up the hillside.  It was built back in 1870 for making lead shot by pouring molten lead through a perforated plate and letting it drop into a big vat of water at the bottom of the tower, it’s rapid descent and cooling roughly shaped it into pellets.  You can climb the 259 steps to the top for a great view but we will just have to take their word on that.

I did want to do a tour of the female factory, where all the female convicts were housed from 1828 which is close by the Cascade Brewery, oldest brewery in Australia (there are a lot of ‘oldest in Australia’ down here in Tas) but time was too short and before we knew it the day dawned when we were due to fly back to Melbourne.  As a last ditch effort to see the last of the historic’s we drove to the airport via Old Richmond town, surprisingly built by convicts. Here we have the oldest bridge in Australia that also happens to be one of the better-looking bridges with it’s golden sandstone brick arches, built in the 1820’s.  There also is another almost oldest church in Australia and the old Richmond gaol built in 1825 to house those who committed offences while employed on the new public works.  It was a stunningly beautiful clear day with the bluest of skies making Richmond, with it’s clear river and rolling green lawn leading down the banks, the old bridge spanning across and the old sandstone buildings stepping down the street turned into bakeries, furniture, gift, antique and olde worlde shops, cafes, galleries the prettiest town you could hope to visit on the final day of a memorable quick tour of Tasmania.

It wasn’t until we were going through security at the airport when I went to remove my gold bangle before going through the metal detector did I realise I wasn’t wearing it.  I have been wearing this bangle for over 20 years so I don’t notice it on me and obviously don’t notice it when it’s off.  The last time I remembered seeing it was when I took it off to go through the security at Melbourne airport.  Surely I couldn’t have left it behind 10 days ago and not have noticed in all that time I didn’t have it.  Well, it appears I did as on our return to Melbourne I went to lost property and after describing the item and even having to draw a wonky looking bangle as indeed it is after 20 years of wear, my beloved piece of jewellery was returned to me.  I wasn’t the only one as another gold bangle was with it; hopefully the owner of that one was eventually reunited with their precious piece.

In conclusion, is Tasmania like NZ?? Hmmmm, I can only say that parts of it are reminiscent of NZ scenery, the flavour is more like colonial England but the whole of it I do declare that there is no other place like Tasmania than Tasmania and there is nothing for it but to go and see it for yourself.