Geraldton to Monkey Mia

April 24-27 Highway 1 Geraldton to Monkey Mia, Western Australia

On the road again, continuing to move north along the east coast, through very interesting country side. Thursday’s drive took us through many little fishing villages: Greenhead, Leeman, and Dongarra. Crayfish (rock lobster) is the major industry. We arrived in Geraldton this afternoon and made camp. This is a nice town, population 30,000 of so. We did a bit of grocery shopping; we have learned to buy groceries/supplies at the corresponding markets to the local gas stations. When one spends at least $30.00 in the store you get a voucher for 4 cents off per liter of fuel. When we fuel up if we buy at least $5.00 in the gas station shop they give you an additional 2-4 cents off per liter, so with diesel fuel at about $6.00 a gallon we try and take advantage of these offers. We have found Australia to be a bit more expensive than we had anticipated. Eating out is quite expensive, a lunch for the 2 of us in a café, (not fast food) can easily be $60.00. Driving the little Moho has been a great savings for us; we try and eat at least 2 meals in a day in it. We arrived at camp and took a short walk over to the water. We watched kite surfers skimming across the water, they were a beautiful site. We saw the Point Moore Light House, handsome old red and white striped light house, the tallest metal one in Australia.

Friday morning we got up and went to the HMAS Sydney Memorial. It was good timing as April 25^th is ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) Day. The Aussies are very patriotic and are very appreciative of those who have served their country. The memorial was beautiful, up on a hill overlooking the city. The memorial was built to remember the sailors who went down in a battle off of Geraldton in 1941. The HMAS Sydney has only just been recently discovered by divers. The dome of the memorial was formed out of 645 sea gulls. The sea gull is supposed to be representative of the soul of a missing sailor. Quite beautiful and moving to see and read the story of the ship the sailors. Back on the road we made it to Kalbarri, a beautiful seaside community that was somewhat disappointing because of the FLYS. I mean the most annoying flies; they buzz your ears, fly into your mouth, up your nose, land all over. We remembered having a bout with these “buggers” on our earlier Australia visit, but to date we had not run into them. We wanted to go and walk to some of the beautiful cliffs along the ocean, but could really not stand their pestering. We got to camp and held up in the rig until sunset when the beasties were somewhat less aggravating. We walked over to a Kalbarri land mark for dinner, Finlay’s BBQ. This was a very interesting adventure. They offer no service, no tablecloths, no glasses, no bar, just good fish and steaks. The food was very good and portions more than generous. This was all served with insults. The cook would call out your order # and then say some pretty un-printable things about you as you picked them up. It was all in good fun, the classiest part was the roll of toilet paper they had up at the counter that you could pick up and use as a napkin and the tubs of margarine that they served with each order of damper (a biscuit type of bread).

With 400km ahead of us we got on the road and Mike put the pedal to metal to make Monkey Mia by evening. It was a good highway with again minimal traffic. We stopped along the day at 2 different roadhouses: truck stop type of locations complete with taverns. We stopped at Hamelin’s Pool to see some more stomatoltes. We thought we had seen some in Cervantes, just a few days ago, but according to the expert here, we had actually seen thrombolites, a simpler form of life and they were actually dead. So we fought the flies and walked out to a nice boardwalk where we could walk amongst these old creatures. Off again into the beautiful Peron Peninsula and Monkey Mia. They had no sites available for our little Moho, so we have enjoyed 2 nights in a nice room with a real queen sized bed and air-conditioning, both of which were greatly appreciated by these campers. This morning we were down at the shore line to greet the dolphins,(Indian Pacific Bottle-Nose dolphin) 8-10 of these amazing mammals swam right up to shoreline. We were able to be with in arms reach, but the rangers were very careful to remind us not to touch. Several people got to hand these gentle fish. It was a great experience. We then boarded the Aristocrat 2 and sailed out in Shark Bay for a couple of hours. We saw several more dolphins, a dugong and couple of sea turtles. A great way to spend a morning. After lunch we walked up the beach a ways and snorkeled for an hour or so, not much luck in seeing anything, but the water was warm and clear, and very salty too. We have been able to view a couple of pretty sunsets the last 2 nights, fun just to sit and enjoy the view for awhile.

Wave Roce to the Pinnacles

April 22 -23, 2008 Amazing Sights in Western Australia
We spent quite a bit of our day traveling through incredible open farm and bush lands. We have been fortunate to have been traveling off the main roads and enjoying the scenery of what real Australia is all about. We go through many small towns, some so tiny that you might miss it if it weren’t for the ever present Hotel/pub facilities that seem to be present in every local burg. We drove a few miles on a single lane road, moving over a couple times for on-coming traffic. Fortunately the roads are pretty quiet. One morning we think we saw less than a dozen other vehicles on the road in over 100 miles of travel. We went to the town of Hyden and were very impressed with their “ROCK” It is this incredible granite formation – 50 feet tall by 350 feet long. The scientist think that the rock is somewhere in the area of 2,700 million years old. This rock simply seems to pop up out of the surrounding bush land; one doesn’t realize it is there until you are almost right upon it. One side of it looks like a wave ready to break, the coloring of rusty reds, oranges, tans and grays give it a real look of rolling motion. Wave Rock was remarkable. We walked around on and on top of this monolith for an hour or so; we found “Hippo’s Yawn” and several other interesting formations. We continued west through the Wheat Belt, We stopped for a quick afternoon break in the town of Corrigin; they have hosted the “Dogs-in-a-ute” contest. They broke the record in 2002 with 1572 utility type trucks and dogs. These utes are very popular in Australia. The $60,000 raised for entering your dog and ute went to the Royal Flying Doctors Service. To commemorate their win and the contest they have “dogs in utes” statues throughout the town and on the sign as you enter their community. Interesting place indeed.
Our next day’s travel took us back to the coast. We love the Indian Ocean, so incredible in the color and clarity. We enjoyed the mornings drive, though the country side. We stopped at a 90 year old suspension bridge over the Avon River in Northam. The Emu Downs Wind Farm was the next stop along our way; they have 48 wind turbines that generate enough power for 50,000 homes a year. These windmills were about 225 feet tall with each blade being over 100 feet long. This was an incredible instillation and appears to be quiet successful. We arrived in Cervantes and had a crayfish lunch; this area is known for their seafood. It was fun to sit by the ocean and eat lobster from a fish and chips shop. The afternoon brought us to two more incredible stops. We went to Thetis Lake and saw the Stromatolites – these rocklike formations were created by oxygen breathing organisms that developed on the limestone, 1900 million years ago. In other words they appear to be the oldest life forms known to man. They form in shallow water and are best seen near the edge of the lake. Next we went to the Pinnacle Desert. There we drove and walked through 1000’s of limestone formations. It was a very surreal area, looking somehow other world like. The pinnacles range in size from a few inches to over 10 feet in height. Their colors and shapes also vary with every turn of the head. This stop was definitely one of our “Top 10 things to see” in Australia. We continue to be in awe of this amazing experience that we are privileged to be having.

Esperance

Days 48-50: April 19-21 Western Australia – Ravensthorpe and Esperance
We cannot believe that we have been gone so long; we just have been having so many great adventures and experiences. Heading east on 1 Highway out of Albany we traveled along very straight and very quite roads. We traveled through the continuous country side of Western Australia seeing more Eucalyptus Trees, planted pine plantations, and many sheep and cattle stations. This very open and undeveloped part of the country. We stopped in a small berg of Ravensthorpe – population 400+. We found the only apparent “caravan park” and called it an evening. It was a bit rough to the eye, but was really one of our nicer stops. While out in the BUSH - it had a nice cement pad to park the Moho on and the bathrooms were private and very clean. Had to love the landscaping: garden of old toilets and Barbies – one had to see it to really appreciate. We got a few minutes of sunshine and sat outside and enjoyed the respite from the rain.
Sunday morning we headed east again to Esperance. We had so much about this area, beautiful coast line. We got in to town and it was Gray and Wet. We found the Information Center and got some ideas for touring when and if the weather improved. We went through the Esperance Historical Museum and were quite intrigued with their Sky Lab - the original space station exhibit. Sky Lab fell to earth in July 12, 1979. It was supposed to fall into the Indian Ocean and clear land, but it started to descend earlier and part of it hit land fall in Esperance. There were great big pieces of debris.
We awoke Monday morning to RAIN, LIGHTENING & THUNDER. Hmmmm not exactly what we had planned for. We went down to the dock in hopes that both the weather would improve and that there would be enough passengers willing to go out on this wet looking day. 9:00am arrived and we had the necessary number of passengers and it had stopped raining -- hooray! It was a great cruise we saw many of the 105 islands in the Recherche Archipelago. We saw sea lions, sea eagles and an amazing number of granite out-croppings. We stopped in at Woody Island for "Tea" -- the sun broke out and we had a nice bush walk to Twiggy Bay -- location where a dog that had washed overboard, managed to swim ashore and survive for 3 1/2 months before his owner heard that some passing boater had seen a dog. Twiggy was rescued and lived happily ever after. Another great day and great adventures.

The Cape of Western Australia

The Cape - Western Australia: Margaret River, Walpole and Albany - April 15-18, 2008
Great fun to be back in our second little Maui Motor home. We left Perth and drove to the beautiful area of Margaret River. Reminds us of a smaller and younger wine region like Napa or Sonoma, California. Wonderful area, some 96+ wineries plus many interesting shops, restaurants and café’s to enjoy. Again an area we could have easily spent a week or more. We took a very fun and interesting tour on Wednesday around Margaret River, into several wineries, a brewery, chocolate factory (Karen’s personal favorite) and a dairy – cheese factory. It was a full day, met a lot of very interesting people during the day. Part of the experience was a “bush tucker” lunch. We had smoked kangaroo, smoked wild turkey, field greens, lovely breads and a number of interesting and not quite identifiable sauces/chutneys; excellent meal. Also served was a Kackadoo plum (not so tasty), a tiny lime (the size of a small green grape, but very puckery sour) and 2 of our tour mates got to taste a Witchy grub – a big fat grub, said it tasted a lot like chick peas????. Hmm, don’t think we were sorry to have missed that.
We headed on Thursday to Walpole, in the south-western tip of Western Australia. It was a very pleasant drive: gums forests, pine forests, pasture lands. We toured the Cape Leeuwin Light House, (176 steps up and 176 steps down!) Beautiful view of the ocean, it sits where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean (we know it as the Antarctic Ocean) meet; an amazing expanse of water. We saw the very interesting location of The Cumberland Rock – we had never heard of it before. Our tour guide Kevin explained to us that many Americans are excited to know that this location where supposedly one is exactly one-half way around the globe from Washington DC. So we were just about as far away from our nation’s capital as we could ever be. We camped in Walpole that night; the camp site across from us had 4 kangaroos eating right next to their tent. They were very tame and seemed unconcerned about us staring at them.
Friday morning we took the Tree Top Walk in Normalup in beautiful sunny weather. We saw the very rare and old red tingle trees: they grow to be 200+ feet tall and some 60 feet around the base; hence the name “Giants”. These trees are only found in Western Australia, and only in this area. The WALK was incredible. It was some 900 feet in length going from the floor of the forest up to some 120 feet above in the tree tops. The structure was amazing in itself. There huge trusses that were secured to the ground by steel pylons that wove through the crowns of the trees. Walking along the suspended pathway, swaying with the trees was very spectacular. We loved it so much we took the walk twice. We followed this with a short path through the floor of the forest, seeing the amazing trees at their roots. We saw many trees that have been hollowed out at their base by fire, pests and diseases, but continue to grow. It reminded us of waking through the Redwoods. We left the beautiful forest area and headed east to Albany. Along the road we saw a paddock filled with kangaroos. Mums and their joeys were quietly eating the grass, looked just like a postcard. We arrived to a change of in the weather; rain and wind. We went to see a couple of the coastal landmarks: the Natural Bridge was an incredible granite rock structure that had been worn away by the ocean to leave a resulting bridge. The stormy ocean added a lot to the view. We also saw The Gap which was a huge 100 foot chasm down into this granite rock that was washed by rushing stormy seas. Great afternoon, we got a bit wet (DRENCHED), but fun none the less. We continue to have an incredible Aussie Experience.

Perth WA and surronds

Perth Western Australia and Rottnest Island: April 12-14, 2008
We arrived in Perth mid-Saturday morning. We got to the hotel, unpacked and settled in, and then we set out to explore the city. Wow has it ever grown, guess 30+ years will do that to just about anywhere. We walked along the Swan River, beautiful salt water river that flows through the middle of Perth. We stopped in at an amazing exhibition of Da Vinci’s inventions and concepts. What an incredible mind he had. From there we explored the Swan Bells, a bell carillon with original bells from the St Martin’s in the Field Church in London where they rang in the 1200’s. We walked a few more blocks and found the downtown area, a real mixture of old and new buildings. Western Australia has made it a priority to preserve their historic buildings. An amazing thing about Perth is that it has 3 different bus lines that run around the city about every 30 minutes for “FREE”. We were able to get around and see quite a bit, and even get ourselves back to our hotel.
Sunday morning we went on a nice tour of Perth and Fremantle. Fremantle was the first western port and a large penal colony of England. Now, it is a very rich area with most of the money coming from mining. New homes start at $800,000. China is buying most of the ore at very high prices. Next we visited the Western Australia Maritime Museum with great displays; our favorite was the Australia II, the yacht that won the America’s Cup for Australia in 1983. It was suspended from the ceiling, and you could walk around it on 3 different levels. We ended our tour with a nice sail up the Swan River in a ferry boat where we saw many water-front mansions worth a few million up to 80 million. There was an amazing amount of pleasure craft out on the water, from kayaks, sailboats and cabin cruisers to large yachts. Perth is said to be the largest, most remote city in the world. It is also becoming one of the richest.
Monday morning we sailed over to Rottnest Island, we had gone there back in 1973. It still is beautiful, but very crowded, today started the school holidays for Western Australia. We made our way to Green Island Bay and managed to snorkel around a bit and see some fish, in the beautiful clear water of the Indian Ocean. The weather could not have been more perfect. Tomorrow we get back to our touring of the West Coast in a new motor home. We are ready to hit the road again.

Indian Pacific Train

The Great Nullarbor Plain Experience: April 10-12, 2008

We experienced a new favorite way to travel. We boarded the Indian Pacific Train at Adelaide’s Keswick Station about 6:30pm. We were escorted to our nice little room in the Golden Kangaroo Service. It had a sofa we could relax on and look out the window and watch the world zip by. The room converted into 2 bunks, and it had a very nice compact bathroom. The toilet and sink both folded up into the wall leaving a lot of room for the shower. All the comforts of home. We went to the lounge car and were given a bit of information about our trip over the next day and a half. We would cross the Nullarbor Plain and arrive in Perth on Saturday morning. We then went into the dining room, complete with nice table settings, and had a nice menu to choose from, excellent food: appetizer (they refer to it as the entre’), a choice of 3 main dishes, a choice of 2 desserts, coffee and after dinner mints. What a way to travel. Our sleep was a bit disturbed the ride was quite bumpy, and we were not used to sleeping on a train.

We awoke Friday morning to a beautiful scene of the Nullarbor Plain, an incredible length of nothing – over 1500 miles in length including the world’s longest straight stretch of railroad tracks over 300 miles without the slightest curve or turn. We witnessed this most remarkable of landscapes – vast limestone plateau, consisting of little more than saltbush and blue bush (scrub). While looking out at the landscape we saw 3 wild camels and several wedge-tailed eagles flying by. The Aboriginal word for it is Ooridin – waterless; Nullarbor is from the Latin “nullus arbor: no trees. Early afternoon we stopped in Cook, population 4. This township is about as remote as it gets. The real meaning of outback. Cook used to serve as a thriving railway town with over 300 hundred people, a school, a golf course (without a blade of grass) and even boasted a brass band. After dinner we stopped at Kalgoorlie. This is a gold mining town. We took a “whistle stop tour” driving through the nicely maintained historic town, down to the huge SUPER PIT mine. It is over 2 miles long, about 1 mile wide and over ½ mile deep. It was a quite amazing sight.

Saturday morning we awoke, a bit better rested, packed, had breakfast, said “good bye” to the many nice people we met while on and train and headed into Perth Western Australia.

Adelaide

Adelaide Southern Australia – We have parted ways with our first little Maui Motor home and come to the city, staying in a nice boutique type hotel right downtown. Unfortunately we also parted ways with our nice camera. Apparently we left it in the back of taxi and in the rush to unload all of our duffle bags, back packs; late Sunday night ….. we over looked it! We of coursed panicked the next morning when we realized that it was gone, called the taxi company, called the police and pretty much were told “SORRY” With heavy hearts about our stupidity we went about sight-seeing, knowing that at least all photos except the last two days on Kangaroo Island had been backed up. It took a few hours and we re-focused ourselves. We walked about downtown enjoying many of the old buildings and some of the interesting garden art structures, art galleries, and botanic garden.

Tuesday morning we got up and decided to go to a local beach area in Glenelg. We boarded a tram rode the 20 minutes or so to the coast. What a pretty little town. We walked along the shore, munching our new favorite Aussie treat salt and pepper squid, absolutely “Yummo!” Was a nice relaxed day, beautiful weather and good to walk a bit and stretch our legs.

Wednesday we took the 3 hour downtown self-guided walking tour – took us more like 4 ½ hours; took time to have a nice lunch and went into 2 or 3 museums. More time to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of this city.

Last morning to enjoy a little bit of the city. We are packed and ready for the two night/three day train trip on the Indian/Pacific. We posted (mailed) a lot of unneeded stuff and some souvenirs home so we have less bags to lose and less weight to tote around. We are currently in a Starbucks having a morning coffee and hoping to be able to log-on soon. Cheers to all of you that are following our escapades.

Kangaroo Island Adventures

April 3-6, 2008 – The Return 2 Oz saga continues

Mike and Karen continue to have the “time of their lives” We spent a lot of time on the road today Thursday April 3^rd. We stopped along the beautiful Great Ocean Road and saw an area called The Crags, interesting limestone outcroppings, beautiful ocean views, great waves, and the most beautiful blue-green water. The landscapes, when off of the coast were pasture lands, cattle, sheep and yes the ever present Eucalyptus trees. We did see quite a few pine trees too. We called it a night in Kingston. The home of Larry the giant Lobster. Gotta love those Aussies and their crazy senses of humor.

Friday morning we got a nice early start and headed towards Adelaide. We were leaving state of Victoria and going into South Australia. Interesting – there was time change between states, a half of an hour. We traveled the 300 or so kilometers rather quickly, good road and few if any road construction slow downs. We actually got into Adelaide about mid day and were able to navigate ourselves into the CBD (central business district) and procure a trip to Kangaroo Island for the next 2 days. We drove further south down the Fleureiu Peninsula. We camped in a small town of Normanville, about 25 miles from the port of Cape Jarvis where we will sail from.

Saturday morning April 5^th, we got early and packed, cleaned and readied the motor home for return on Sunday night after our return from KI. We spent two days on a wonderful escorted tour. We traveled over 750 km on the island with a “local” real Aussie driver, who kept us laughing the entire 2 days. We saw an amazing number on very interesting sights. It was also quite nice to have someone else doing the driving. We were up and off the coach every few minutes to visit a new stop. We saw beautiful coast lat Pennington Bay, Vivonne Bay – a few boats out fishing. We stopped at an Eucalyptus Distillery, very interesting they take the leaves of only a certain kind of gum tree, boil it, distill it and it is used for a variety of applications: disinfecting, removing laundry stains and odors, removing sticky residue, good for aching muscles ….. We then went to an awesome birds of prey show put on by Dave Irwin, cousin of the famous crocodile hunter. He had birds of all sizes, shapes and description doing tricks – we saw kookaburras, kestrels, owls, and huge sea eagles. We then traveled a bit further down the road to Seal Bay where we were able to walk out amongst the Sea Lions. They were lazing about and enjoying the sun. We finished the day with a visit to the Parndana Wild Life Park where they had a good presentation of native animals and last stop at the Island Pure Sheep Dairy where we saw sheep being milked and tasted their feta style cheeses. Wow! What a great day!! We stayed the night at the Ozone Hotel, built in 1909 in Kingscote, and did a Fairy Penguin night-time tour.

Sunday April 6, 2008 – back on the coach with Les, our driver & tour guide, and # 1 interesting character. He has lived on Kangaroo Island since the early 1950s when his family relocated from the “main land” South Australia through a program that the SA government ran for soldiers who had fought in World War II. The soldiers; who were interested, were entered into a lottery for 100 acres. Les’ dad’s name was drawn and he, his older brother, mum and dad went to farm on Kangaroo Island. With a few more than 4000 residents on the KI, Les knows almost everybody there; could tell us about who lived where, what they do or did. A very personalized tour to say the least. We saw a lot more today: the Kelly Hills Caves with some very STEEP stairs down and up out of the limestone caves. We had a drive through Flinders Chase National Park which was devastated by a big brush fire (caused by multiple lighting strikes) earlier this year. A large Erickson Air Crane (home base is in Southern Oregon) named Elvis helped them control the fires. Much of the Eucalyptus Forest was burned, but it was very interesting to see that most of the trees were re-generating already, gum trees seem to do well after being burned, according to Les the hotter the fire, the quicker they start to grow back. We then hiked up an amazing structure of granite rock out-cropping called the “Remarkables”. These strangely sculptured rocks seem to just pop out of the surrounding limestone floor, and are the only granite rocks on KI. The last stop of the day was the Admiral’s Arch, a beautiful spot along the south coast of KI where we walked down a long boardwalk to see the arch, home to many New Zealand fur seals. This was a wonderful experience, so glad we took the time to experience it. Took the ferry back across the “Back Steps” Bay. We got back into the city of Adelaide, got the Maui moho returned and into our hotel by mid-night. Stayed tuned for fun on the road!!.

The Great Ocean Road

March 30 – April 2, 2008 Our Great Ocean Road Experience:
Sorry we have been out of touch, our ability to get wireless internet has been nil, we are hopefully back on this evening (Wednesday night 4-2-08) --- We left our friends’ Jenni and Rob’s wonderful accommodation (Thanks J & R for the wonderful time, visit, food, grog were beyond imagine, love ya both!) on Sunday morning and traveled through the before mentioned Bendigo, on through to another mining town of Ballarat. We visited the Eureka Stockade Museum, and learned the history of the miners and their struggles against the government’s licensing fees to mine for gold. Geelong was our goal for the day. It was another picturesque day of pasture lands, dotted with interesting patterns of planted trees as “wind rows”. We traveled several miles along a detour; very narrow two lane road, where we spend the majority of our time on the shoulder (Karen wincing as the signs and road markers just nearly missed her side). Phew it was exciting, none the less.
Monday morning we awoke and headed to Apollo Bay the beginning of the Great Ocean Road (GOR). We arrived at Anglesea mid morning and arranged to play golf. Not your ordinary nine holes, but golf with about 300 grey kangaroos. It was a fantastic couple of hours. We rented a cart, Karen drove (scary as that may seem) and Mike drove the clubs. The second hole out; we were greeted with many of the very tame marsupials. Karen was madly clicking away on the camera and Mike was swinging away on the course. We saw literally saw 100s of the “roos” just lazing around tees, the fairways and on and about the holes, but they appeared to leave the greens alone. Because of the drought the greens were very, very fast, the greatest cause of Mike’s somewhat high score. This was undoubtedly one of our most memorable experiences so far. We headed on down the road and made our evening’s camp in Apollo Bay.
Tuesday morning we continued along the G.O.R. We enjoyed such a beautiful variety of scenery: we saw unimaginable ocean views, rain forest, rolling hills, cut tree plantations, cattle, sheep and HUGE bales of rolled hay. We arrived at Port Campbell about noon and took an awesome adventure of a life time: a helicopter flight (our first ever) out over the sandstone features of the 12 Apostles, Bay of Islands, Bass Straight, Ship Wreck Alley, and over some beautiful farms. We have been on this adventure for one month; oh my time does fly when you are having fun….
Thursday morning we awoke to lots of WIND and rain. Such a drastic change from the beautiful temperate weather we have been enjoying. We headed to Camperdown to visit a friend of ours from 35 years ago. Pam was a teacher with Mike in Melbourne. We had a great morning; touring about her little town, going out to her farm and meeting her sweet little Jack Russell Terriers, reminiscing and catching up on our present activities. We had a wonderful time, “Thanks Pam!” We left and headed back to the coast. We drove through Warrnambool, the largest town we have been in on the GOR. We arrived in Port Fairy mid afternoon and took a quick tour of the town with the interesting stone houses reminiscent of Ireland. This area was settled by whalers and seaman who thought that it reminded them of their homeland of Belfast. With the weather being still problematic – WIND & rain we decided to head to camp and call it a day.