The Month of May Australind to Denham 2013

May 2013

We have now been on the road for almost 8 months and have only got to Denham, we have travelled the coast from Brisbane and are now level with Maryborough on our way North. We have travelled 17,500 kilometres consuming around 3,000 litres of diesel averaging $1.51 per litre. We have stayed in numerous caravan parks, National Parks, Parking Bays and even on the side of a highway.

We have seen amazing sites, met some great people and probably drunk a little too much wine. The car and van are going great, a couple of dents and a new set of tyres are about it.

When we left home we really didn't know what to expect and I really thought we would be back under 12 months. We live in a spectacular country and you really do need a minimum of 12 months to go around. Who would have imagined that we would be on the road for all of the year 2013 but the way we are looking there will be little chance of us being back before the end of this year.

So where did the month of May take us?

Austalind 1st - 4th May 2013

After leaving Ken and Noela in Potter's Gorge we travelled west to the coast to the town of Australind, this is a smaller community just above Bunbury, we don't like the big cities. We chose a caravan park to do our washing and bumped into Geoff and Judy from Adelaide again. We also met up with our favourite camp host Milly for lunch in Bunbury.

Temperatures are still quite cool so it was only 3 nights visiting the wood museum and the streets of Bunbury in the rain. We were also starting to get our first glimpse of a sunset on the water.

The wood museum was an usual set up, the original owners had a furniture manufacturing business but also had passion for history. The display was fantastic but we we not allowed to take photos inside. I was shown a replica of pistol from the Wild West of America and was staggered by the weight. It makes the Indian and cowboy movies a joke. How you could hold one of these things firing off rounds while galloping along at lightning speed is beyond me.

New Norcia 4th - 6th May 2013

Left Australind to head north, dropped into Mandurah and had lunch at Falcon Bay, caught up with Ivan and Josie. We headed north not really having any idea where were going other than by passing Perth and stopped in at New Norcia after travelling over 300klm, our longest drive for a very long time.

We have parked beside the town oval around 140 klm North East of Perth, no toilets or water but another 6 campers here. This town is owned by the monks, tours tomorrow.

We went for the tour, absolutely amazing place. This place was

founded in 1846 by a small group of Benedictine monks who came to establish a mission for the aborigines. There are now 27 buildings classified by the National Trust and is still home to a small number of Benedictine Monks, we actually got to see one of them, they are very private people.

The buildings are all handmade bricks made on site and the still is Spanish. The sad thing is the the Great West Highway runs through town which is slowly destroying the buildings with the vibrations. While we were there an enormous road train came thundering along the highway, 2 prime movers loaded with a massive piece of mining equipment.

This community was once around 1 million acres but is now down to 200 acres. The painted ceilings, intricate plaster work and amazing timber work is breath taking.

Like all things beautiful artwork has been painted over and sgraffito artwork introduced in the 70's, this plaster artwork is a technique produced by applying layers of plaster in contrasting colours and then carved or scratched to produce an outline drawing. This was a common art form in Italy in the 16th century.

Crossing over the river was a weir with openings at various levels

to control water flow. Beyond here was the apiary which has now been restored to it's former glory, the craftsmanship is just amazing. Further along is the original piggery, you can still see the complex methods for directing water from various catchments surrounding the building.

I was fortunate enough on one of my walks to witness the huge organ being played in one of the chapels, the tone is almost haunting.

 

 

 Cervantes and the Pinnacles 6th - 10 May 2013.

Back to the coast so we decided to head north even though the sat nav wanted to send us south. Up through Moora west to Badgingarra, try and say that with a mouth full of biscuits. We just about arrived in Cervantes when we spotted a echidna crossing the road. It just sat itself in the middle of the road and pulled it's head in hoping we would go away, I have met people on the road like that.

Cervantes in just north of the Pinnacles Desert, we know we are on the coast as the wind has picked up along with the rain. The beaches are lined with weed which has a beautiful fragrance due to the maggots in the rotting weed.

We headed towards the Pinnacles, very well laid out with beautiful

facilities, you have a choice to walk the trail or drive, we drove as the weather was not kind.

The Nambung National Park's main attraction is the famous Pinnacles Desert.  In this area of varying coloured sand there are thousands of limestone pinnacles ranging in size up to 5 metres tall and 2 metres thick at the base. It is hard to believe that is s a natural occurrence for these pinnacles to be covered completely by the moving sands.

Lake Thetis is one of only 4 known locations where Stromatolites (the world's oldest living fossils) can be found. We walked the circumference of the lake to look at these living rocks.

The Indian Ocean Rock Lobster Factory is worth a trip, we went on the tour and were amazed at the turnover. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 metric tonnes of lobster goes through this multi million dollar business. The holding tanks hold up to 20 tonnes of lobster at any one time. Amazingly 92% of all lobsters processed and exported live to places like Japan, Korea, Uk and USA. Because of the limitation of catches most fisherman are only working a small number of hours per week but because of the price per kilo they are not doing it too tough.

Cliff Head 11 - 14 May 2013.

We drove through towns like Jurien Bay, Green Head, Leeman and Coolimba as we had heard about the goat capital of the world, Cliff Head.

 

This is the place that Kel and Patty and John and Kathy Smail had told us about. We were given the clue on this place and headed down to the southern most point near the cliffs right on the beach, what a great spot.

Where are the goats? We were expecting them to be hanging out of the trees. In the 3 nights we were there do you want to know how many goats we saw? Zip, Zero, not 1 bloody goat.

No big issue, we got to enjoy some beautiful sunsets, cook some great camp oven meals and have some great camp fires while sitting back drinking a few wines.

No fishing again because of the weed, it was up to 5 or 6 feet thick in most places, nobody is catching anything.

My phone has died and we need to collect mail so we need to get to a major centre, Geraldton is not far away but we are not ready for a big town yet so we head about 120 klms North East to Ellendale Pools.

 

Ellendale Pools 14th - 15th May 2013

This is a natural fresh water pool at the foot of impressive sandstone cliffs which turn a beautiful shade of red right on sunset, unfortunately I was busy chatting both nights and missed the sunset. Trice has nicknamed me jabber jaws as I have a tendency to just wander off and talk to anyone I can find.

This would have been a beautiful place to put the kayak in but there were warnings about high levels of bacteria so we decided to give it a miss and go for walks instead.

Met a young family home schooling their boys, I have got to admire their patience. All the kids we have met are all very articulate, well mannered and appear to be much more knowledgeable than city kids of similar ages. I was always concerned about the social skills but they are streets ahead.

Time to bite the bullet and head about 50klm west into Geraldton.

 

 

 

 Geraldton 15th - 22nd May 2013.

     This is a major port and with major ports are very large trains which need railway tracks to get out of town. How was I supposed to know that the railway line ran along the back boundary of the caravan park? These trains are lots of carriages long and went the train is manoeuvring it applies it's brakes, so every carriage has a little bit of free play. In the middle of the night you get this squeak of brakes and then banging repeating for 300 or 400 metres. We are only here for the mail and the phone, we will be out of here real quick.

We are told that my replacement phone will be here in 3 days, so we have decided to wait for it. Now the mail Express post from Brisbane to Geraldton, guaranteed next day delivery between capital cities but 5 to 7 working days to Geraldton, are you kidding me? We are stuck here!

We visited the Visitors Centre and went on the tour of the old hospital, gaol and prisoner exchange centre. These are a free tour and very interesting.

We also found out about the tour of the memorial of the HMAS Sydney, I was embarrassed that I did know about this.

645 sailors lost their lives being attacked by a the German Raider the Kormoran. The Kormoran disguised itself as a freighter and fooled the Sydney into coming into firing range. Once in range it dropped it's disguise firing on the control tower to disarm the Sydney. It sank very quickly off the coast North West of Geraldton and was not found until 2008.

The memorial is a dome housing 645 stainless steel seagulls, a replica of the bow of the Sydney, a wall with all the names of the sailors including the uncle of a very good friend of our Barb Flude. 

The lady in waiting is a bronze sculpture of the wife of one of the sailors looking out from the cliffs at Fremantle where the ship was returning. The pond which represents the ship sinking was never to be completed until after the ship was found. 

The thing is that when the ship was found in 2008 the lady in waiting was actually looking exactly in the direction that the ship was found.

The pond has been built and has the longitude and latitude of where the ship was found. 

Listening the the volunteer speak about the HMAS Sydney put a chill into your spine. This was a highlight of our trip so far.

The war museum, Fisherman's Wharf and general town kept us busy while we waited.

We received some great news while we are here and that is that Sam, our youngest got down on bended knee and proposed to the gorgeous Teneal, she is no longer my "Future Potential Daughter In-Law" but is now my "Future Daughter In-Law".

In the end we gave up waiting for the phone and decided to head north never to go near a railway line again.

We were told about Coronation Beach, it is right on the beach and is very popular, everyone told us to give it a miss as "You won't get in there"

 

Coronation Beach 22nd - 24th May 2013

I have always had this thing about doing the opposite if someone tells me not to do something so we headed into Coronation Beach.

We drove in and there in front of us is the best site in the place. That is us in the left hand side of the photo at the top. Under the trees with beach views and plenty of room, large number

of facilities and heaps of really great people. 4 more signs were made here.

More walks and general relaxation, we are getting far too stressed doing this travelling stuff. Again nobody is catching fish, at least there is no wind nor rain but still cool.

We have found a freestay called Hutt River, let's head there, there is a bit of dirt and it is only a bit over a 100klm.

 

Hutt River Province 24th - 25th May 2013

This place is a scream.

Back in 1969 Leonard and Shirley Casley were wheat farmers who had consistently cropped 13,000 acres of wheat. The West Australian government at that time brought in wheat quotas to help in the deforestation of land. The Casleys were given a quota of 100 acres, this was after he was ready to harvest 13,000 acres. As you can imagine Leonard and Shirley were pretty pissed.

So what does any person do when you feel you have been wronged by the government? You say get stuffed and you form your own Province and secede from Australia.

A lot of people have treated Prince Leonard as a bit of a nutter but this bloke is smarter than the state and federal governments combined. He even accused Malcolm Fraser of wagging a cold war against the Province of Hutt River.

Interestingly Malcolm Fraser laughed it off, 3 days later Prince Leonard sent another notice to the Governor General stating that the Sate of War has now ceased. He stated that the GG would now advise his government to observe and conform to the Laws of War, under which Sovereignty goes immediately to a government undefeated in a State of War. The government simply said "He has caught us again", this guy is brilliant. 

Prince Ian

Unfortunately Prince Leonard and Princess Shirley are now in their late 80's and Prince Ian, their son has no intention or enough of the smarts to continue the fight. I see that the Province of Hutt River will die and a part of Australia's history will go with it, we are so glad we found this place by mistake.

They have their own currency, post office, stamps and even car registration and the Royal Rolls Royce. I so wanted to get a Hutt River Truck Driver's licence but

Prince Ian was not as excited as I was.

 

We got our passports stamped to show we have left and reentered Australia.

Everything is now run down but we had a great camp fire that night

meeting a bunch of great people.

We are now above Brisbane and are heading towards the the most Western Point of Australia and will pass through Kalbarri.

 

 

 

 

Kalbarri 25th - 28th May 2013

We left Hutt River Province and had our first major stretch of red powdery dirt road. 70 klms of straight dirt road which brought us out onto the North West Coastal Road just north of Port Gregory. The van and car are a pair of pigs, can I please wash the van and car, not a chance.

 Kalbarri is nestled beside the Murchison River which housed the Murchison River Gorge, Natures Window, the Loop, Hawkes Head, the Z bend and Ross Graham Lookout all within the Kalbarri National Park.

To the South are the cliffs housing Red Bluff, Pot Alley, Eagle Gorge, Shell House, Island Rock and Nature's Bridge.

Further South we discovered Port Gregory and Pink Lake and Captain Sanford's residence built in 1853.

This was a mansion which made it's money trading prisoners to work in the local lead mine.

Going through the old goal even graffiti was alive and well in the 1930's with walls scratched with names and dates right back to this time.

We discovered all these sights walking and climbing over everything but the biggest challenge was The Loop.

A 9klm walk around the

Murchison River Gorge was not a stroll in the park but we did meet up with a couple from Sydney who we had a few wines with at Hutt River. The 4 of us walked, climbed and chatted for 4 hours as we made our way around.

The lookouts and gorges were spectacular but it would have been so much better with a bit more water, it is very dry here at the moment.

We have woken up to sore knees  and are packing up, we will drop

into Hawkes Head and Ross Graham on our way to Hamelin Pools 200 klms up the road.

 

 

Hamelin Pools 28th - 30th May 2013

Hamelin Pools is beside the original old telegraph office and a large display of 

Stromatolites. You can still see the carriage tracks from where they dragged wool bales from ships to awaiting camel trains in the late 1800's across the Stromatolites, the track are still very evident.

Today we are going to drive to Steep Point, the Western Most Point of mainland Australia.

10 kilometres of bitumen before we hint the dirt, only another 160 klms to go. The road is damp, smooth in places, I was doing 100kph in some places. Generally the road is a mixture between smooth and soft sand and everything in between.

The rock edges are mind blowing and just to think that the next bit of land in South Africa. We took the obvious photo and decided to discover these cliffs even more.

There are free camps here but our van would not get in here in one piece. You have to report to the ranger on the way in.

We found a track heading in the general direction we wanted. We could see a haze of spray above the cliffs further down and could only assume that the cliffs are not as tall and the wave are breaking on them.

These cliffs are huge, the spray I'd coming from the best blow holes I have ever seen. The waves come in and the water is forced nearly a hundred feet into the air and then the mass of water just explodes. I just sat and watched this for ages.

It has taken us over 3 hours to get out here, we want to have a swim and get back before dark so we needed to move on.

On the way in we travelled along the sand next to the water's edge, this has got to be a great place for a swim so off we go.

Into our togs and we step into the water, my god, glad I don't want to impress anyone, this is cold. What are those shadows in the water, my mind is I working overtime. Under I go, have a quick swim around in circles and I

am out, there you are I have had a swim.

We came across a sign which is shown as a drive on the maps, the sign at the beginning of the road states that trespassers with be fined. We drive in, more signs, you are not to go any further.

We drive further and a very large sign again repeating fines, I am starting to think that the next one will state we will be shot so we turn around.

We got back in one piece after driving for over 6 hours, I need a few beers.

This site is in a great place but would I stay here again, no chance, it needs a good clean up.

We head off for our last stop for the month, Denham, I got a call from the Telstra shop to say that the phone has arrived so I ask them to courier it to Carnarvon Post Office.

 

Denham 30th May - 2nd June 2013

You know famous last words, I said to Patrice that we have lucky of late with the winds.

We have hardly pulled up and it is pouring rain and blowing a gale, big mouth.

We had a bit of a look around town, nobody is around as it is too cold and windy.

 

Today we are going to Monkey Mia, we are told by many that it is disappointing, remember what Insaid about listening to negative comments. We drive to MM and are given seniors discount. We look at the board which shows when and how many dolphins have come in each day along with the number of tourists.

This morning the dolphins were later than normal, or should I say Dolphin, just 1. It is blowing a freezing cold wind and is overcast. We got there just after 9.00am and hung around until 12 midday, not one dolphin.  Every day for the week before there has been 3 feeding with as many as 18 dolphins, today that 1 dolphin before we got here was all that came, a new record. All we saw today was an Emu who was very inquisitive. 

Bob the Turtle

 

 

Stone Fish

We decided to head to Ocean Park Aquarium as they are hand feeding sharks and doing tours. the tours are run by young marine scientists who must come here to get experience, they were great. 

They showed us all the things that can sting, chew and bite us while swimming in the ocean around here, I didn't realise how many things I could be petrified of around here. It is still blowing so fishing is off again so we head back to hide in the van and watch a movie.

Last day and it is lunchtime and I am here writing the blog, the van is rocking and rolling and I am layered up to stay warm. 

We are going to drive to Francois Peron National Park. Quite a

drive in and out, Trice decided to drive today and she drove 170 klms on sand, clay pans and large ruts, it took us a total of 3 1/2 hours to go in and drop into Peron Homestead to see the old sheep shearing complex, interestingly they move the site out of town away from Denham as it was too close to the pubs for the shearers. 

We saw Big Lagoon which was BiG, South Gregories, Gregories,

Bottle Bay, Skipjack Point and also the most northerly tip of this finger, Cape Peron. By the time we got back it was dark which made navigating the sand tracks interesting for Patrice.

Tomorrow we are heading towards Carnarvon which is around 350klm from here.