On the Wallaby

Bagged out at Bundaberg

2008-07-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters, well the trip is nearly done and we are at Bundaberg. We travelled from Rubyvale to just out of Gladstone and felt lucky to have found a good little roadside camp spot. We set up camp and had a lovely fire going in no time - just as well as it showered all night. We packed up some slightly damp swags (dry on the inside fortunately) and headed off for Bundaberg.

We made good time and arrived at Bundaberg at lunch time. We drove out to Mon Repos and booked into the lovely little old caravan park here. This is the site of a major turtle rookery - but its not quite the right time of the year for them to be here yet.

We set up our tent on the sand-dune and have a wonderful view of the sea. Sam took the time to get in some more guitar practise on the beach!

On our first day here, Mum and I headed off to the hairdresser for a cut and colour before home. It was quite blissfull to be pampered for a while!

Today the weather forcast wasn't brilliant, so I took the younguns out for a day of fun. First we went bowling - what a hoot! I shall modestly claim to have won both games (age and experience showing).

We also played mini golf and then headed off to the cinema to watch "The Dark Knight" - the new batman film which opened today. Our general consensus was that the film was great and Heath Ledger absolutely brilliant as the joker - how sad that he isn't around to do more films!

Tomorrow we pack up and start heading for home!

Kerry and Angelle - here are your darlings just in case you have forgotten what they look like!

Tomorrow we turn for home - tonight we will have a last supper together and watch a film of our photos of the trip - should be fun. See you all at home soon!

The Sapphire Hunt

2008-07-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, lots to tell about our adventures in Rubyvale - but first - in my last blog I mentioned that I made some scones on our last night of bush camping. Uncle John captured my great cooking style (sitting in the dirt).... and the results. So here are his pictures to prove that I am the queen of the camp scone! (Well I have to be the queen of SOMETHING). Anyway, here we are in Rubyvale.... looking for sapphires. That might sound a bit incongruous - except that rubies are actually just red sapphires. We have spent the last couple of nights in a lovely little caravan park. The birds here are amazing - there are heaps of apostle birds (like cartoon character birds with their odd, funny behaviour) and beautiful lorikeets. We had some cake for morning tea and the birds came to join us. The birds took a liking to Lachlan's hair - something about it resembling a birds nest I think!

Now, on to the sapphire hunt. We decided to start off by heading to one of the places where you can buy a bucket of "wash" and work through it looking for sapphires. The process involves getting a bucket of wash (which is a heap of dirt and rocks) and then putting it into seives. The seive then goes into a dooverlackie (which none of we geriatrics can remember the name of) and is dunked up and down to wash the dirt off.

After this, the wash is tipped upside down onto a mat for inspection. (This is the moment where I admit that Uncle John - who was my partner- was infinitely better at this than I was ..... I ended up with mud and water all over my face at one stage!) We each had a set of tweezers and looked through the wash for sapphires. With a good wash, most of the sapphires will be in the middle with the iron stone. Pretty much every bucket yielded sapphires. We had an absolutely wonderful time searching for sapphires - and all have come home with little bags of sapphires. Mum and Dad found a beauty and almost threw it out! Danni found a ripper and got it polished and drilled!

The younguns really enjoyed searching for sapphires and even found time for some fun at the silly sign. Dills!

Anyway, that's all for now folks. We are off to Rockhampton tomorrow. For those who know Bethanie - here is a picture of her and Ella Maguire..... she is having a ball in Slovakia.

As a final note, as I write this blog - we have been partaking of a red wine. I had noticed that my glass was emptying rather quickly.... until I looked up and noticed Mum is crissed as a picket. She has been drinking my bloody wine!!!!!! That's it ... its the 12 step program for Mum as soon as we get home... bloody soak!

On the road to the Sapphire Fields

2008-07-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters - good golly the time is rolling along.... and so are we.

We got off to a good start, leaving Longreach nice and early yesterday morning. We were travelling well and making good time when we pulled into Ilfracombe - 28 km further up the road from Longreach. I pulled up as we entered the tiny township to have a look at the display of old tractors. Dad and John got out and were soon in heaven, checking out all of the old farm implements. Mum quite liked the old cars. The display of tractors went on, and on, and on - and included a couple of little cottages with some wonderful museum displays - including this old telephone exchange - and the fossilised bones of an ictheosaurus. Very interesting indeed!

After checking out the exhibits, we were quite exhausted so we called into the old Wellshot Hotel. It is a wonderful, interesting, old pub. The walls are covered in hats which have been "donated" by people drinking in the pub. There was also a display of all of the brands from the surrounding properties. There were $5 notes stuck to the ceiling - patrons stick a drawing pin through them and then wrap the note up with a couple of 20 cent pieces - then chuck the lot at the ceiling. The pub donates proceeds to the Royal Flying Doctor and the local historical society. Uncle John had a go.... we won't mention whether his note actually stuck or not! After all that effort - we all had to have a drink..... a beer before lunch - what on earth have we come to!!!!!

Anyway, we finally moved on from Ilfracombe and drove for a bit longer, before finding a lovely bit of bush to pull into for a roadside camp. We set up swags and vans and then organised a wonderful campfire. Uncle John was chief cook and rustled up a terrific roast lamb in the camp ovens. I finished the night off by making some camp oven scones - we certainly aren't doing it hard in the eating department!

We went to bed to the dulcet tones of a nearbye bull camel calling to his mates. We slept quite well - but awoke to find it had been a freezing night and there was frost on our swags! A hot breakfast cooked by the campfire soon fixed that!

We moved on and travelled through the lovely little towns of Jericho and Alpha before deciding to turn off to Sapphire and Rubyvale. We have stopped in a rustic little caravan park and will spend a couple of days fossicking for sapphires. More on this tomorrow!

Hi to all at home - not long till we are back now!

The Stockmans Hall of Fame

2008-07-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters. Well by golly it was cold here last night and this morning. The clouds have gone but we are left with a wind that feels like it has come straight off the snow (we are not used to this winter type weather).

This morning Dad made bacon and eggs for us for breakfast - gee we suffer don't we!!!! It was a yummy and warming way to start the day. After breakfast, we headed on down the road to the Stockmans Hall of Fame. This wonderful venue has been open for 10 years and has just undergone a major revamp.

The building is split into 5 different areas, each focussing on a different part of Australia's history or outback lifestyle. The section on early explorers was really interesting with information about many of the major explorers and their journeys. Uncle John was particularly interested in the information about the explorer "John Stuart".

Another section gave information about early pioneering lifestyles - it was great to see some things that the "oldies" remembered either having or seeing. I remember seeing a set of bellows just like this out on our farm when I was a child.

I also remember the good old furphy water tank. Mum and Dad only sold the cast iron furphy tank end just before they moved to Dorrigo (they are quite valuable these days).

The Hall of Fame also had some fantastic artworks - including this beautiful detailed bust, carved from beech wood and this iconic statue of "the ringer" out the front.

After checking out the museum, we had a bite to eat and then went to watch the live show out in the yard. An old drover rode in with a small flock of sheep and some working dogs. He put on a show demonstrating how the dogs are trained and the work they do - they are amazing to watch!

He also did a very funny skit with his mule - which sat down and refused to budge no matter how he tried to get it to move.

The show was great value and really entertaining.

Finally, before we left the Hall of Fame, I went to the RM Williams shop and fulfilled a lifelong dream and got myself a pair of RM Williams boots! So to finish the blog for the day.... here's a picture of my wonderful new boots. Gorgeous aren't they!

And one last note.... just so Bethanie stops calling me a silly bloody oaf - she is in SLOVAKIA not SLOVENIA (heck they sound the same to me!)

Lolling around Longreach

2008-07-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters - time for an update on our doings in Longreach.

We arrived yesterday and were amazed at the queue of people waiting to get into the caravan park. We had been in the queue for a while when we cottoned on to the idea of ringing to book our site - which we did - and then waited happily knowing we had a spot when we got to the top of the line.

We settled in, set up camp and had a relatively early night.

This morning Dad, John and Sam headed out to the Qantas museum to check out the sights. They went on a couple of tours to check out the 747 and the restored 707. They reckoned it was pretty cool - and came back saying it was really worthwhile. Here are some of John's pictures.

Mum and I went and did the grocery shopping (how very exciting). We also enjoyed a cuppa at the bakery.

In the afternoon, Dad and John went out fishing. They didn't catch any fish (nothing new in that) but I think they enjoyed hanging out by the river anyway.

Mum and I went for a drive - we saw three brolgas walking down the street in town - how amazing is that!

We also loved the old Longreach Railway station - very old and very lovely.

The teenagers stayed back at the park and hung out. Just in case you have forgotten what they look like, here they are. In case you are wondering, Danni is wearing a liberal coating of cous cous - Lachlan says it was an act of friendship..... dumping a saucepan of cous cous onto her. There seems to be a worrying pattern developing here!

Well that's all for today folks. Tomorrow we are off to check out the Stockman's Hall Of Fame.

Old Fossils and Opal Miners

2008-07-05T01:36:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters,

What a wonderful, interesting place Winton is! After a quick look around yesterday, we decided to stay an extra day so that we could have a proper gander at the place.

We went to look at the main street and called into a little museum to have a look. The museum was really interesting - with heaps of dinosaur bones, opals and opal mining equipment and bits and pieces from years gone by.

We also had a look at "Arno's Wall" - a quite bizarre wall full of all sorts of odds and ends. Very odd indeed!

The main street of Winton is very beautiful and fairly typical of an "outback town".

This morning we were up at a reasonable time and headed down to the back of the pub to check out the opal sales. The miners were all in town with their opals hoping to sell them. These interesting men have a real passion for this beautiful stone and some of their finds were just magnificent. Mum and I picked up a couple of beautiful opal pieces for ourselves and as presents for some family members.

After this, we headed out on the road to Lark Quarry. The drive was just over 100km, much of it on dirt roads (lots of deep bulldust and corrugations). When we got out to the quarry, we had lunch and went for a walk. The views were lovely.

After lunch we went to look at the main reason for this trip. The Lark Quarry contains the footprints of a dinosaur stampeded which happened 95 million years ago. A big shed has been built over the site to protect it from erosion -but it just wonderful to see the real footprints of a herd of stampeding dinosaurs from so long ago. The stampede was caused by the arrival of a big carnivorous dinosaur - and its footprints are very obvious.

When the big dinosaur appeared, hundreds of small dinosaurs stampeded in an effort to get away. Their small footprints are clear in the rock.

We really enjoyed seeing this wonderful sight and would recomend it to anyone.

After a long drive back, we finally got home in time to enjoy some pizzas for dinner. Tomorrow we move on to Longreach.

Hi to everyone reading the blog - I really hope you are enjoying the tales of our travels. Hi to Bethanie in Slovenia and to Sheree who is in hospital in Coffs Harbour.

The Intrepid Adventurers Go Bush - Lawn Hill and Beyond

2008-07-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters,

After several days in the middle of nowhere (which is a very nice place to be), we are back in civilisation (well at Winton anyway) and I can now do a little catch-up on our adventures.

On Sunday, John, Danni, Sam, Lachlan and I farewelled Mum and Dad and headed back up the Camoweal Road. Mum and Dad decided to have a few (romantic) days together without the mob and explore Mt Isa and Cloncurry.

We adventurers drove towards Camoweal for about 100 km and then turned off towards Lawn Hill. The road soon turned to a dirt road - but it wasn't too bad - a few corrugations and a lot of dust but no shocking holes. After a couple of hours we stopped off at the Riversleigh Station turnoff and topped up the fuel tank with the gerry can.

We continued on and enjoyed a couple of easy and scenic creek and river crossings. We stopped at the first and the younguns were just asking if there were any crocodiles here when Lachlan found something that quickly answered the question.

After carefully exploring the river, we continued on through the Riversleigh Station to the Riversleigh D site - a site famous for its wonderful fossils. We climbed out of the car and headed up to have a look (stopping off at the "flinstones" type toilet on the way). We saw some interesting fossils in the rocks, including this femur bone from a huge dinosaur bird. The view from the top of the rocks was pretty good too!

We continued on until we arrived at Adele Grove at about 4 in the afternoon. We pulled up and booked into the campground. What a little oasis this was! We were camped in a green, shady grove, beside a beautiful lily-filled river. We had a wonderful dinner and soon settled in for a good sleep.

The next morning we drove the 10 km out to Lawn Hill Gorge. Our first activity for the day was to hire some canoes and paddle up the gorge. This peaceful place was just magnificent and we really enjoyed our paddle. At the end of the gorge we found some lovely little waterfalls and we explored these before turning and heading back.

After handing back the canoes, we had some lunch and then decided to hike to the falls for a swim. Sam, Danni and I took a wrong turn and, whilst John and Lachlan enjoyed the "flat" hike, we ended up climbing the steep track to the top of the cliffs. It was just as well the view was worthwhile as it was a hot and hard climb.

We eventually found our way to the falls and joined Lachlan for a swim. It was great fun swimming under the falls and relaxing in the spa bath like pool at the base of the falls. We felt quite refreshed when we headed back to the car.

Sam cooked a wonderful (if slightly crispy) canneloni in the camp oven for our dinner. I took the opportunity for a walk along the river - very picturesque and peaceful indeed!

After dinner, Lachlan and Danni offered to do the dishes. Uncle John says he was a witness to how the "war" began and, according to him, Danni found a bit of mashed potato in the bottom of the pot and decided it would look very becoming smeared across Lachlan's face. Lachlan then decided that Danni would look equally loved with some dishwater on her head. From there the battle roared on. I am not certain exactly what happened, but I do believe that forensic examination of the participants heads would reveal traces of honey, dishwashing liquid and dirt. Not sure that there was a winner - other than John, Sam and I - we were greatly entertained by the whole debacle (Kerry I will show you the video footage when I get home... but doesn't Danni look just delightful!).

The next morning we cleaned up, packed up and headed off for Gregory Downs. The drive was about 100 km - on dirt roads again. We met up with a couple of road trains on the way - very wise to just pull right off the road and wait as they invariably covered us in red dust which took several minutes to clear.

We pulled into Gregory Downs and were lucky enough to get an amazing camp site right beside the water. The Gregory River was flowing clear and fast and the greenery formed a wonderful oasis in an otherwise dry and dusty landscape. Our swags were next to the river and John's van backed up to a pandanus bush.

We enjoyed a restful couple of nights and a day at Gregory Downs. I got into the campfire cooking (stew, meatballs and rice in crushed tomato and some light, fluffy scones). The younguns lazed around, did some homework and swam in the river. It was altogether a very pleasant couple of days.

We moved on from Gregory Downs and drove on to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse. This iconic roadhouse is located miles from anyway on the road to Normanton. We stopped off for a quick loo break and fuel fill and then drove on towards Julia Creek. I was thrilled to see my first brolgas on this road - and a little further on we saw not just a couple, but a huge flock. What majestic birds these are!

We drove on through Julia Creek and turned at Kynuna onto the Winton Road. As it was getting late, we pulled up for a roadside camp on the plains. The late afternoon light was golden and the views magnificent. We enjoyed a really beautiful sunset and watched as the plains changed colour. It was a very cool night - more than made up for by the show of a meteor shower which has just begun and will continue for the next month. We had a good night's sleep and then drove on to Winton, where we were reunited with Mum and Dad.

Hello to Bethanie and Ella - it sounds like you are having a ball! Hi to Sheree - I hope your leg is feeling better and you are getting some rest.

Boodling along on the Barkly Tablelands

2008-06-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, after three nights of roadside camping as we traversed the Barkly Tablelands - we are in Mt Isa and I can catch you up on our travels.

We left Mataranka and headed down to Daly Waters. This bizarre little town ("town" being a very liberal description of the place) - has a rather famous pub, some 'different' residents and interesting architecture. The local sign-writer also entertains in the pub and has rather an unusual dress sense - what a bizarre hat!

The pub is a popular stopping point for tourists from all directions. Many like to leave a little memento of their visit behind and the pub is full of a bizarre range of these. There is money of every denomination, bras and undies, t-shirts and even an artificial leg.

The local pet pig likes to run around the pub, and squeals loudly when picked up.

After enjoying a glass or two of Northern Territory Ale - lovely stuff - we headed off to continue our journey. We found a nice little spot on an unused track for our overnight camp. We set up in the red dirt and had a lovely campfire for the evening.

After a good night's sleep we set off again. We drove down to Three Ways, but were unable to get fuel as the service station had run out. Mum and Dad were a bit short, so they headed another 25 km down to Tennant Creek to fill up. After this, we turned onto the Barkly Highway and headed off across the Barkly Tablelands. Let no-one tell you this is a fascinating drive. In short it is.... bloody boring. Flat, dry landscape with no trees and no features of interest (unless you think "no trees" is a feature of interest - and let me tell you, it ceases to be interesting pretty quickly. Anyway, the younguns in the car resorted to pulling faces to entertain themselves.

At least they thought they were funny.

The 'oldies' amused ourselves by counting how many people waved back when we waved at them. I even kept a tally (much to the disgust of the younguns). This should give you some idea of just how boring it was!

Eventually we pulled into a little unused track for another off-road stop. The boys collected wood for the fire (deforrested the landscape) and we soon had a wonderful roaring fire going. Uncle John set up the bush shower and we all enjoyed a good wash. Uncle John brought out his Northern Territory stubby and we had an ale to toast the sunset. We had quite a good night's sleep (except for Mum laying awake listening to the wild pigs snuffling around and Lachlan, Danni and Sam laughing hysterically into the night as they played around with static electricity caused by rubbing their nylon sleeping bags).

We had breakfast by the fire the next morning and then set off again. Before long we came to the Queensland border and stopped for the obligatory border photo. Mum got into the action and had a bit of a ride on a delapidated motorbike which had been left at the sign.

Not too far over the border, we came to the little township of Camoweal. We stopped in to have a look at a little old shop which has remained the same for over 100 years. The lady serving in the shop said that only two families have run the shop since it opened in 1891. The lady also had a little museum in an adjoining building and we really enjoyed looking through it. The lady was wonderfully interesting and is obviously holding much of the history of this interesting outback town.

The lady kindly let us leave the van and trailer in her back yard so we could take a drive out to see the Camoweal Crater Caves National Park. We drove out on the red dirt road, enjoying a bit of a play in the bulldust, before stopping to have a look at the 'caves' - which are actually sink holes. The first cave was pretty small - Lachlan reckoned it was just a "little hole in the ground" - but the second sink hole was magnificent. It was incredibly deep and the younguns enjoyed climbing down to the edge. This photo looks ok,

until you look at this one, and realise just how deep the hole was (look carefully and you will see Danni sitting on a ledge just above half way up the photo).

After a good look around, we continued on and searched for a place for a roadside camp. We were starting to think we weren't going to find a suitable site, when Mum and Uncle John spotted a good little spot just off the road. We pulled in and set up camp. The view out of our "bedroom window" was pretty darned good. We had a terrific night around a campfire before retiring for a peaceful night's sleep. Breakfast was a peaceful affair around the campfire. The younguns posed for an early morning photo - Lachlan revelling in his new "red-neck, yokel, hick" look. Gotta love those hi-hitched dacks Lach! I can't say I looked any better - a good shower and hair wash is definitely on the agenda at Mt Isa.

Hi to Sheree at home - thanks for the beautiful pictures of Eli - what a gorgeous boy he is!!!!! See you in three weeks!

We of the Never Never

2008-06-23T01:11:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters,

After our exciting times at Katherine, we have moved on to Mataranka (about an hour down the road). Mataranka township is nothing to write home about - a couple of shops and a very well attended bottleshop and that's about it. But just out of the township, is the Elsey National Park and Mataranka Homestead - and this is where we are perched as I write this entry.

Elsey Downs was once a huge station - and was the home of Aeneus and Jeannie Gunn. If that doesn't mean anything - Aeneus (well actually it was Jeannie, writing under the name of her husband) wrote "We of the Never Never" about her experiences living here. The station has now reverted back to aboriginal ownership, with the adjoining national park open to the public. Some of you may remember seeing the film "We of the Never Never" - a full size replica of the original homestead was built as part of the set of the film - this is located just inside the national park for visitors to explore.

We set up our camp and quickly headed down to the springs - the water is a lovely, warm 32 degrees and bubbles up through a spring from deep beneath the ground. We enjoyed lolling around in the water, looking up at the palms above us. Danni, Sam and Lachlan liked it so much they stayed in for hours and I had to go and drag them out at about 7.30 pm so we could have dinner.

Mum created a feast of chow mein followed by pancakes with bananas and maple syrrup.... golly we are doing it hard! The younguns stayed up talking for a while and we more mature specimens dragged ourselves off to bed (the canoeing of the day before catching up with us I think).

This morning we all had a bit of a sleep in - except for Lachlan who inexplicably woke up at dawn and, much to his consternation, couldn't get back to sleep. I wish that happened on days when we were trying to get packed up to move on!!!!! Anyway, we had an extremely leisurely breakfast and then morning tea. After this it was nearly lunch time, so Dad, Uncle John and Lachlan picked up a bite to eat at the kiosk and headed off fishing. Mum, Danni and I went to watch the daily lunch time screening of "We of the Never Never" and have a kiosk lunch. (Sam stayed back and did some school work - and then joined us). The kiosk and reception area is a bit interesting.... and interesting is probably the kindest way to describe the food!

After lunch we wandered over to have a look at the homestead - I don't think I would have liked living in it during the wet season with all of the mosquitoes and bugs.

We wandered back to the campsite and then headed down for another swim at the pools. The blokes returned from their fishing trip (empty handed again - though Lachlan did catch a couple of tiddlers which he returned to the water) and then went down for a swim too.

Tomorrow we pack up and head off again - not sure if we will be in range, but I will write the next blog as soon as we are.

OH... and here's the photo I didn't get into an earlier blog (coz Uncle John took it and I had to get it off his camera) - here is Lachlan and the barra he caught at Kakadu - hard to believe he had to throw it back - but it was 2 cm under the legal size!

Hi to Kaity - sorry to hear about Bob. Hi to Ben - great to hear from you.

Canoedling up the Katherine Gorge

2008-06-21T04:36:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, I am so tired tonight it is hard to write the blog.... but I shall endure so you have something to read (sigh).

Today we canoed for 13 km up the Katherine Gorge (well actually we canoed up 3 gorges). We left early and picked up our canoes at 8.15. We climbed into the canoes in a slightly less than expert manner, and set off up the gorge. The first leg was over 3 km and we did this with great style. Lachlan and Sam were entirely silly in their canoe..... nothing new there!

At the end of the first leg, we had to get out, leave our canoes, walk over some rocks and pick up a new canoe. The second gorge was even more beautiful and we really enjoyed this paddle. We stopped off under an overhang and enjoyed getting "rained" on by the water dripping from above. We continued on to the end of this gorge and then had to carry our canoes over the rocks to the third gorge. Thankfully Lachlan and Sam helped out with carrying the heavy canoes (of course, if we had emptied the water out of them first, they would have been lighter).

We continued on to the end of this gorge and then paddled back to a sandbar for lunch. Lachlan took the opportunity to have a swim - the crocs left him alone fortunately. We stopped off for lunch and, apart from Sam who buried himself in sand and Danni who amused herself making little slides down the sandhills, we all had a snooze. Paddi had been showing off on an oar earlier and had fallen into the water - so he needed to dry out.

After lunch we started the long paddle back. We stopped off to have a look at a waterfall, and Lachlan and Sam took the opportunity to have a shower.

After this we continued on - with Lachlan and Sam stopping to have a look at every crevass and hole along the way. They stopped off under a little waterfall to do a scientific experiment - to find out how much water it takes to sink a canoe. The answer is - a lot - but they did finally get their canoe to sink to the bottom and then discovered just how heavy a canoe full of water is to lift out and empty.

Mum and Dad and Uncle John did a great job of paddling (pretty darned good for old buggers) - there's life in them yet!

When we got back we were feeling rather tired after 8 hours of paddling. It was good to get back to our camp site where I cooked up a green chicken curry for dinner (go the wok!). Tomorrow we move on again.

Happy winter solstice to all my Chrysalis Friends - I hope you have managed to celebrate in style. We are having a very different, warm solstice here. The sky is clear and the night calm and warm - a lovely, different celebration.

Hi to Nic and Bron - wish you were still with us! And Hi to Kelley, Steve and Gail - I miss you all!

The Gagudju Thing

2008-06-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters.... I hope you aren't too cold where-ever you are - because it's above 30 degrees and humid here... and the pool beckons!

Yesterday we packed up and left Jabiru and drove the short 60 km hop across to Cooinda (otherwise known as Yellow Waters.... and in aboriginal language Ngurrungurrudjba). We set up in a lovely, shady camp spot and then headed over to the pool for a swim. The pool here is pretty fantastic - a huge hunk of water with great shade and a spa pool attached. The toilets beside the pool are worth a look too - they look like something out of the Flinstones!

When the sun started to go down we really had to lay on the mozzie repellant - poor Dad and Uncle John are still recovering from the bites they got 2 nights ago at Alligator River. The younguns cooked dinner for us - scrummy jaffles. Mum and I were very rude and disappeared just as dinner was ready.... we went over to listen to the ranger talk on the animal life of Kakadu (very interesting..... particularly liked the possum-like critter where the males only live to 1 year old... they get to 9 months old and get the urge to mate.... then that's ALL they do for the next couple of months, they forget about eating and resting and basically mate themselves to death..... leaving the glowingly pregnant females with all of the food and shelter to themselves.... needless to say the females live on!) Anyway, dinner was good!

This morning we were all up early as Uncle John, Dad and Lachlan had to head out on their barramundi fishing trip at 5.45. Mum, Sam, Danni and I left on our Yellow Water cruise at the slightly more decent hour of 6.25 am. It was quite a sight to see both Danni and Lachlan up and out of bed before the sun!!!!!!!

The sunrise cruise was just magnificent..... as the sun was rising over one side of the water, the full moon was setting on the other side. We very quickly saw our first crocodile in the water (no chance we would even THINK about swimming here). We were to see many more crocodiles during this cruise. We also saw a Jabiru feeding in the shallow water - what enormous birds these are! In the picture below you can see a Jabiru in the background, and a croc in the water in front.It would be impossible to describe the many wonderful birds we saw... but some highlights were the many varieties of duck (some with ducklings), egrets, kingfishers, cormorants, magpie geese, white bellied sea eagles and the little "jesus birds" which seem to walk on water.

We were stunned at the size of the sea-eagle nest, but then even more gob-smacked when we saw the Jabiru nest (it's in the middle of the photo - between the two trees).

We went in close to have a look at the huge flocks of whistling ducks (thousands and thousands of birds) and were lucky enough to see a magnificent sea-eagle perched on a tree above us.

The landscape was awesome and the reflections of the trees in the still water made for some fantastic photos.

We got back from our boat trip and did the boring jobs like cleaning up and doing the washing. It was quite hot and we tried not to expend too much energy. The blokes got back from their fishing trip, quite hot and tired. They had a fun morning and caught about 10 barramundi - but had to throw them all back as they were just under the legal size. They also saw a heap of crocs and some fantastic scenery.

After lunch I headed off on my own little adventure. I went out on a "Animal Tracks" adventure, spending the afternoon and early evening with a wonderful aboriginal woman called Patsy. Patsy comes from Arnhem Land and has lived all of her life in the traditional way of her people. She took us out to find food. First we went down to a creek and dug for mussells.

Then we went out to the woodland and she showed us how to pick the right sandy palms and then chop into them to remove the heart (very yummy).

Then Patsy found grubs in the bottom of some acacias - I have no idea how she knew which trees and where in the trees - but she seemed able to walk straight up to a tree and hack into it and pull out a grub.

After this we went down to the billabong and Patsy showed us how to pull in lillies and lilly pods. The lily stems taste a bit like celery - you just have to peel them and eat them. The lily pods have seeds in them which taste fantastic - you just have to squeeze them out. It's a good source of readily available food.

Next we went and pulled some paperbark of the trees to make our bush oven. Lots of mozzies here!

Finally, we came to our "camp" site - a beautiful spot beside the billabong. Patsy made a bush oven with hot rocks and then she pulled out some meat to cook. The aborigines have hunting rights in Kakadu and Patsy and her family hunt their own food. Patsy pulled out a hunk of crocodile (complete with skin), water buffalo and 2 barramundi. These all went on the fire (on a bed of leaves) and were covered with the paperbark and a heap of coals.

While the meat was cooking, Patsy pulled out her fire making gear and got a French Guy and I to make fire with her. She also pulled out some of her handcrafts. She is making the most beautiful bag out of cordage and bird feathers - absolutely stunning. She also had some paintings and weaving - what a skilled woman!

Soon the food was cooked and we feasted on all the food we had collected and the meat Patsy bought with her. I even ate the grub! (it tasted like a cross between corn and bone marrow)

We ate as the sun set - in the beautiful way it does in this part of Australia. What a beautiful end to a wonderful day.

To any of my Bello friends reading this - I will be home in 4 weeks and I will need a home to come home too. If you know of anyone with a place to rent - can you email me and let me know please.

Hi to PJ - great to talk to you yesterday. Hi to Margaret - hope you made it home safely.

At Last an Update - Darwin to Kakadu

2008-06-17T05:03:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters - after a hectic few days in Darwin and now Kakadu, at last I can give you an update on our travels. City life is so darned hectic - didn't have a moment for the blog!

When last I left you, Danni and I were still shuddering after our toad racing experiences.

After the toadie races, Danni and I had to stay up late, late, late - waiting for Margaret's plane at 1.50 in the morning. Needless to say we REALLY wanted to sleep in the next morning - but a zillion fighter jets zooming over us at sparrow fart made sure we were up nice and early!

We did some washing (yawn), puddled around the campsite and made lots of exclamations about the heat, wallowed in the swimming pool for a while and went for a drive to the city (sort of like Bendigo - only quieter).

In the evening, we all traipsed out to Mindil Beach for the famous Mindil Markets. Mum, Margaret, Danni and I headed off in one direction and Dad and Uncle John in the other - I think it was something about the way we were hanging around the clothing stalls that made the blokes decide NOT to stay with us. Anyway we had a delicious dinner sitting on the beach watching the sun set. After dinnner, we girls went and spent some money buying cool clothes (good bargains to be had at this market). We then headed back to the camp site - where Margaret, Danni and I played cards to while away the hours until Lachlan and Sam arrived at 12.50 am (slightly earlier than Margaret's flight the night before). Lachlan and Sam were quite tired after their long day - leaving Coffs early and then spending 12 hours at Brisbane airport waiting for their next plane.

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed ... once more to the dulcet tones of the screaming fighter jets taking off. We dawdled around all morning and then Sam went out with Dad and Uncle John to have a look at the aircraft museum. He will provide an account of this in the next blog (with photos). Margaret, Danni and I went to have a look at the museum and art gallery. The aboriginal art work was wonderful and the display about Cyclone Tracey was really interesting (they had a darkened room where you could stand and listen to a recording of the sound of the cyclone - very scary!). We returned to the museum a couple of days later so Lachlan could have a look - and also so we could have a look at "Sweetheart" - a crocodile which terrorised people near here for quite some time several years back. I must say I think stuffed is a good way for him to be!

On Friday night Margaret, Danni, Sam and I took ourselves off to the deckchair cinema. Lachlan decided to stay back at the camp as the films weren't his style... and Mum, Dad and Uncle John also decided to have a quiet night in. The cinema was wonderful - out under the stars beside the beach - the weather was warm and the deckchairs comfortable (complete with cushions and free mozzie repellant). We had a visit from a pesky possum who was looking for food and kept running over our feet. He wasn't at all concerned when I tried to push him away - just grabbed my hand to check to see if it had any food in it. The movies were great and we had a really fun night.

Sam, unfortunately, came down with the gastro bug which Lachlan had had a few days before - very nasty and wiped him out for a day or so. It was a shame because he would have loved to have checked out the open day for the fighter jets. Anyway - Mum, Dad and Uncle John did go and have a look - and its about at this point that I am going to take a break and let the blokes tell their story - helped by Mum.

The Bloke's Blog

What a sound and sight show greeted us when we arrived at our caravan park in Darwin. Close to the city sights, and beside the airport runway - the significance of this you will come to realise as we tell our story.

One could be forgiven for thinking this is a war-zone - as we had driven into 'Operation Pitch Black', an airforce exercise involving F111s, F16s, Hornets, various fighter planes and 2 giant planes with their huge satellite dishes which provide radar support to the fighters. There are teams from Malaysia, Singapore, France, England, USA, Thailand, The UN and Australia participating. The exercise, to be held over 3 weeks, is a serious affair between two teams: "Darwin" and "Tindle" and this week, it is a night exercise. One cannot hold a conversation whilst the planes fly over at approximately 2000 km per hour, but for us it is so exciting.

On Saturday, the airport (RAAF base) had an open day with these planes and personnel present to answer the many questions and one could even sit in the cockpit of a fighter plane.

Our camping spot was not exactly peaceful and restful as we also had a large road construction site happening next to us with all of the associated noise and dust.

Darwin is a bloke's paradise because on Saturday and Sunday over 7000 rev-heads attended the annual Shannons Motor Extravaganza where there were 14 T model fords on display as well as about 800 other vehicles, including vintage and classic cars and 200 motor bikes.

Ok, thanks blokes for the input ..... and mum for the help in getting it! As an addition to this - there were 2 T model Fords in the caravan park - all set up for long distance travel, complete with fold out camping set-ups (one was a roof-top job). Very swish indeed.

On Sunday we went for a drive and had a look at more of the sights of Darwin. Sunday evening we went back to Mindil Markets so the boys could have a look (and so we could enjoy some more good food and a good sunset). I bought some aboriginal art there and the others picked up some presents for home.
On Monday morning we farewelled Margaret, packed up and headed off towards Kakadu. We stopped off at the Windows on the Wetlands Visitor Centre to check ou the view and some information about the landscape we were entering. We drove on, into the Kakadu National Park and decided to camp for the night at East Alligator River. We set up in the camp ground and quickly bathed ourselves in mossie repellent - the mossies were vicious! After this, Lachlan, Danni, Sam and I went out to have a look at the Alligator River. This River is croc infested and can be quite dangerous - so we didn't venture too close to the water's edge. We continued on to have a look at a bird hide and wetland. It was really beautiful - and all you would imagine to find at Kakadu: a huge wetland filled with water lillies and birds. We went for a walk and saw a family of wild pigs feeding at the water's edge. Sam also spotted little green frogs hiding in every pandanus plant. On the way back, Lachlan and Danni saw a crocodile in the Alligator river (we were safely travelling in the car at the time).

As an aside....you may have noticed there are not a lot of photos of Lachlan on this blog - he hates having his photo taken. So, for all of those who are missing him - here is a picture of his toes! After dinner I headed over for a shower - a lovely shower but somehow appropriate to be sharing the shower cubicle with 6 frogs and 3 lizards. We settled in to a good night's sleep, woken only briefly in the night by a short shower of rain.

This morning we woke up (Danni and Lachlan are competing for the "Lazybones, Sleep-In" award) and packed up. We drove a short drive to Jabiru, with Mum, Dad and Uncle John stopping to have a look at the wetlands on the way. When we got to Jabiru we stopped in at the visitors centre for a look - quite an amazing building with a heap of really interesting and informative displays -all written in both English and the local Aboriginal language. We checked into a lovely caravan park, had lunch and a swim and then set off to have a look at Ubbirr Rocks in Arnhem Land (about 35 km away).

The landscape was just spectacular and the aboriginal rock art really stunning (Mum, Dad and Uncle John actually managed to see it this time). We climbed up to the escarpment and watched the sunset... well we watched the sun go behind the clouds anyway.

Sam had a little trouble working out where the edge of the rocks were.... but it's ok Angelle, he managed to hang on and get back up again. Now, as a little post-script. You may remember Paddy was feeling a bit down in the dumps a while ago and a bit grumbly. All is now wonderful as Margaret brought a little friend for him. He and Izzi are getting along famously and, after a bit of a rocky start when Paddy quite forgot his manners and got a little over zealous with Izzi - things are progressing beautifully for them both. The following are just a few images of their little holiday together.

Well that's all for tonight blogsters. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode. And in "say hello to siblings" mode: Hello to PJ from Me, Hello to Bethanie and Sheree from Lachlan, Hello to Tim and Jasmine from Sam, Hello to Katy and Brian from Danni, Hello to Rosemary and Graham from Mum, Hello to Adrian and Von from Dad..... and hello to everyone from Uncle John.

Darwin and those Dang Blasted Cane Toads

2008-06-11T03:36:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters,

Well we were up early and packed ready for our move to Darwin. We didn't have a huge drive - but enjoyed stopping at Noonemah to have a look at the display in relation to the World War 2 airfields there. Grandpa (Mum's dad) served here and it was great to have a look at the displays and try to imagine what it was like for him to be here - he was serving here around the time Mum was born! The picture below was in the display - it shows the soldiers changing the tyre of a plane - using a human jack!

We drove on to Darwin and quickly found the caravan park where we had booked in. We were glad to have pre-booked as they are full tonight (over 250 vans, tents etc). Anyway, Uncle John got cracking and gave his "cart" a good wash. Dan and I went out with Mum and Dad to WOW so they could change over Dad's Navman. We have been waiting since we were at the bottom of WA to get to a WOW store to change it over. We gave the Navman to dad for Christmas - but it died at Norseman and we have had to wait to get it changed for a new one. Glad the changeover went well and now Dad has his new toy to play with. We also drove into the centre of Darwin to pick up some mail from the post office. It is a funny city - sort of a bit quieter than Bendigo - strange for a capital city.

Tonight we headed over to the shed for the cane toad races. I "bought" a toad for race 4, as did Mum. They didn't tell us when we got the toads that we would actually have to pick the slimy buggers up and put them in the starting bucket. Mum did really well and actually seemed to enjoy handling her toad (odd given her toad wacking experience a couple of nights ago). I didn't feel quite so good about it - let me be clear about this - I will NEVER EVER voluntarily touch a cane toad again - utterly gross. Our toads didn't win either! The compare for the evening was wearing a jacket made of toadskins and he "kindly" let me wear it - ugh gross!

For the last race, I very kindly purchased a toad for Danni. She didn't seem to keen to touch her toad at first - but seemed to be on rather close terms with him by the end of the whole experience.

The night finished with everyone sitting around watching the thugby state of origin game. It was rather bizarre as every couple of minutes you couldn't hear a thing because of the fighter jets taking off just above us - the airforce base is beside us and there is a major international airforce exercise on here at the moment. The jets are taking off all the time and boy are they LOUD. It's a bit weird watching them take off and shoot over us, complete with bombs and missiles on board. Hopefully they will stop soon so we can all get some peace.

Well that's it for tonight blogsters - - oh my golly there go another 6 fighter jets and they are flying low and loud. ARGHHHHHHHHH!

The Most Beautiful Place on Earth (so far).. and toad tales

2008-06-10T03:30:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, tonight's blog begins with the tale of a sweet girl, a grandmother with a mean wacking arm and a little dead cane toad.

Danni was heading off to the loo last night when she spotted her first cane toad. She called us over and Mum sprang into action like a woman possessed. She grabbed a stick and set off after the toad. Uncle John tried to keep up to provide light with his headlamp, whilst sweet little Danni stood back shrieking "KILL IT KILL IT". Every time mum thumped at the toad, it hopped a little further ahead, until finally Mum and Uncle John got co-ordinated and Mum delivered a few dastardly blows. The cane toad promptly turned up its toes. But Mum wasn't to be fooled. It's still alive, she declared, as she poked it with her stick. Danni continued to yell, "KILL IT KILL IT". Eventually the poor toad managed to recover enough to roll back over - but Mum wasn't to be outdone. She wacked with all her might and finally the toad was vanquished. Mum held aloft the poor squashed beast for all to see. Danni recovered her wits and remembered some buddhism at the last minute and muttered something about hoping it gets a nicer life next time. Then Mum and Uncle John performed a funeral service over the rubbish bin..... ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that.... before dumping the terminated toad in the bin. Not sure what this whole episode says about Mum, Danni or Uncle John - but at least the Northern Territory has one less cane toad to deal with.

Anyway, moving on to this morning. I was feeling decidedly unwell this morning - so took a little while to get moving. Dad was still battling a cold, so he and mum decided to just putter around Batchelor and have a quiet day.

Uncle John kindly offered to drive and he, Danni and I set off to explore more of Litchfield National Park. We headed out on the Sandy Creek Road - interested to see what the first creek crossing would be like as we had been told it can be a bit deep. I was quite glad we were in Uncle John's car - Fred doesn't have a snorkel and I don't think he would have coped. The crossing was good - about 70 cm deep and a good solid base. We got through all right, though a little bit of water did come in the door. The following photo shows the level of the water on the car.

We drove on out to the Blythe Homestead. This fascinating old house (a very generous description of the building) was home to some of the 14 children of the family which owned this station in the early 1900s. The father left the children to live at the house and work the tin mine. He lived back at the station house with his wife and ran the cattle part of the property. Every now and then he went out to take a load of food to the kids - but otherwise they were on their own. The children working this mine started as young as 10 years old. What a hard life!

After exploring the building, we set off for the Sandy Creek Waterfall. On the way, we stopped to look at the giant termite mounds - some of them are just huge!

We set off to walk to the Waterfall - the walk was delightful, following a crystal clear stream alongside some beautiful, tropical forest. On the other side of the track was more open woodland which had recently been burnt. It was fascinating to see the ancient cycad palms beginning the process of regeneration.

When we finally reached the waterfall, we were confronted with one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever been lucky enough to see. The waterfall cascaded down the rocks into a deep, clear plungepool. Danni was into the water so quick she almost left skid marks on the rocks. I soon joined her and we enjoyed being the only two people in this gorgeous pool for a while. Uncle John didn't take too long to get in either. The water was so clear and cool and extremely deep. Danni and I swam out to near the crashing water and enjoyed laying on our backs and looking up at the waterfall above us and the blue, blue sky. It really was a blissful experience. Even Paddy got into the action for a while!

We walked back along the track and drove back through the crossings. Stopping to take some photos of the cars in front and behind us driving through the water.

We stopped off at Greenant Creek for lunch and then went for a look at Tolmer Falls. We really enjoyed the walk up to the head of the falls (golly we should be fit with all this walking).

By the time we got back to the car, we were pretty hot, so we headed down to the Bulgey Rockholes. This wonderful set of cascades and plunge pools were such fun to swim in. Danni and I sat under the waterfall and enjoyed the back massage. Danni also tried to do a salmon impersonation and leap up the falls - without success. This swim ended a really enjoyable day out!

Hi to Ed and Jenny - great to hear from you - thanks for the email.

Hello also to Kerry and Katelyn, who are following Danni's trip from Bellingen.

Luscious Lovely Litchfield - a Tale of Termite Nests and Waterfalls

2008-06-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters,

Well here I am at the end of another lovely, hot day ready to share our adventures with you.

Today we awoke to a lovely, clear, warm morning. After breakfast we headed off to explore some of Litchfield National Park. Our first stop was at the magnetic termite mounds. These termite mounds are built on a north/south axis so that the termites can make the most of the weather (sort of a solar heating system for their home). Mum was pleased to see new walkways at this spot - as this is where she fell and hurt her knee badly 10 years ago. Dad and I offered to walk either side of her holding her arms so she wouldn't fall again - but I think she thought it made her look like a little old lady - she certainly didn't seem to want our help!

After his grumbling yesterday, I made sure that Paddy got out to look at the termite mounds- he thought they were pretty cool too.

We drove on from there and stopped in to explore Florance Falls. These falls were stunning from the lookout at the top - and oh, so cool and refreshing to swim in at the bottom. We thought we handled the 150 steps down magnificently well..... and the 150 steps up almost magnificently well.

We left the falls and stopped in at a swamp for lunch (as you do!) Mum had made delicious ham and salad battards...... they soon filled an empty spot.

After lunch we drove on to have a look at Wangi Falls. They are not open for swimming yet (too early after the wet season - the Parks people haven't had a chance to clear the crocs out and make sure it is safe..... and there is still a bit much water coming over the falls for it to be really safe). We did enjoy the view from the platform - however the walk to the top of the falls was also closed as they haven't been able to repair flood damage from the last wet season.

After all of this activity, we headed back to camp for a quick swim in the pool and shower. It is pretty humid and sticky and water seems the best place to be most of the time!

Tomorrow we will go on to explore more of the Litchfield National Park.

I have made a couple of changes to the blog to make it more accessible - you can now email me directly by clicking on the little email symbol below each day's entry. You can also make comments more easily by just clicking on the word "comments" under the blog - you shouldn't have to sign in or anything.

Hi to Sheree.... hope your feet aren't too wet at home. Hi to Beffle - great to talk to you yesterday! Hi to Lachlan - only a couple of days until I see you! Hi to Margaret, see you in a day or so....And Hi to Nic and Bron - wish you were still here.

Puddling around Pine Creek and Burbling around Batchelor

2008-06-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, well here we are at Batchelor - on the edge of the Litchfield National Park... after a couple of very gentle days of travel.

We left Victoria River and travelled up to Katherine - where Danni and I headed for the supermarket to get some groceries. Being in a shopping centre after our days out in the middle of nowhere seemed a bit like being on some other planet. It all seemed too noisy, too crowded and too much trouble!

Anyway, we tootled on from Katherine towards Pine Creek. We turned off just before the little township and followed a dirt road out to the Copperwood Dam, where we set up camp for the night. This lovely, little, free camping spot is surrounded by woodland and right on the banks of a beautiful dam. After lunch, we headed down for a swim. Mum and Dad went in first (to clear the crocs out for us) - and then I followed. Uncle John and Danni were wimps - I think they were nervous about cold water or crocs or something - anyway they didn't get in. (Danni had her swimmers on, but when the phone rang and it was her Mum, I have never seen her disappear in the opposite direction to the water so fast! She managed to make the phone call last until we had just got out of the water - funny that!)

We had a lovely night camped out, then set off this morning towards Litchfield National Park. We took a scenic detour to Adelaide River through some beautiful bushland (copperwood trees with an understorey of palms - also lots of little bridges over crystal clear streams). We arrived at Adelaide River and went for a look at the War Cemetary. The soldiers who died in the Japanese Bombing raids over Northern Australia are buried here - it is a very peaceful and moving place.... looking at the headstones and the ages of the young men who died just emphasised the absolute tragedy and futility of war!

After this, we went to the Adelaide River Inn to have some Barramundi and Chips for lunch. Dad remembered coming here 10 years ago and has been talking about it all through this trip - so we could hardly drive straight past it. Inside the bar is the stuffed body of the water buffalo which was used in Crocodile Dundee (apparently he died 8 years ago - Mum, Dad and Uncle John remembered seeing him alive).

We had a terrific lunch - Dad reckoned the Barra was just as good as last time!

We continued on to Batchelor - arriving relatively early in the afternoon and are now set up in a beautiful camp site with green lawns, big shady trees, palms and a pool - what more could we ask for!

Ok, I have been giving others on the trip access to the blog every now and then, Paddy says it is his turn - so, with a little trepidation - here is Paddy's blog entry.

PADDY'S BLOG

Hello humans and the odd fellow Beany Bear who may be reading this blog (and especially hello to "Star Bear" - the bear with the cute silver hair and the star minni-skirt.... rooooow).

This trip has been sometimes interesting and sometimes boring. The Nerrida person lets me drive sometimes and I like that. She also takes me on tours and stuff..... but only when she feels like it. She did some mean things to me at Coral Bay (I still have nightmares about being buried in the sand) - and sometimes she just leaves me on the dashboard in the sun for ages. Talk about cruelty to bears!!!!

I have lost weight and have to beg for food.... today I had to plead to be given a chip whilst they were feasting on fish! And as for the drinking thing - I am lucky to get a sip of water every few days. I think there is some united nations convention against this sort of treatment to beanie bears!

Anyway, I shall try to get back on to the computer when I can - I know there are a lot of you out there who are concerned for me and I am touched by your concern!

Love..... the bear.

Addendum to blog. Hello blogsters - Nerrida here again - I just couldn't let what the bear wrote go without comment. To have such hurtful untruths written by my best-friend bear is just.... unbearable! Here are some photos to prove that the bear was, indeed, very well fed today. Also - a couple of pics of his drinking habits. A picture is worth a thousand words they say..... back into therapy for the bear I think!

Ardling around Lake Argyle and the wilds of Victoria River

2008-06-07T04:38:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters. I am writing this blog, knowing I won’t be able to post it for a couple of days as we are out of range – oh well!

This morning we got up, packed up and left Kununurra. We drove for an hour or so and then turned off to have a look at Lake Argyle. This enormous lake was created when a single dam wall was built to block the flow of the Ord River.

The lake is just huge – it is over 90 km long and holds 17 times the water held in Sydney Harbour (now that’s big!). We unhooked the vans and trailer and enjoyed a really picturesque drive around the loop road and over the wall. The huge crocodile swimming around in the spillway waters convinced us this wasn’t a good place to swim! We stopped off at the shady, green picnic area for a while and Danni and I enjoyed lazing around on the cool grass. We took some flattering pics (using the “let gravity make you look younger” method) and basically just ponced around for a while. After this, we stopped off at the Durack Homestead for a look. This homestead used to be located in what is now the bottom of the dam – when they dammed the river, they pulled the homestead apart and then re-built it exactly as it was on higher ground. The homestead was the home of the Durack family – famous for a range of things – the men were pioneers, politicians and business men and the women included Mary Durack – author of “Kings of Grass Castles” amongst other famous Australian books, Fanny Durack – Olympic gold medallist swimmer, and another Durack woman who was a famous artist (but I can’t remember her name). A pretty talented bunch really! We looked through the homestead and I was particularly impressed with Mary’s poetry – which is displayed through the house. The following is one of her poems – displayed beside pictures of aboriginal rock art from the area:

Her tribe is vanished
With daughter and sons.
All her people
Lie under the sand,
Nothing to prove
That she’d ever lived…
But the faint outline
Of a stencilled hand.

In earth red ochre
Or charcoal line
- So many caves
With the same mute sign.
I trace the shape
With a pensive finger,
Why do I linger?

An ancient sadness
Chills this place.
That’s why I stop
And pause,
Dark sister without name
Or face
I place my hand on yours
The long unmeasured years
Divide us
Too late
Too late – for meeting
But in this quiet,
Forsaken cave
Hands touch
In greeting.

What an amazing family this was, and what an incredible legacy they forged out in some of the most difficult country.

After leaving the homestead, we called in to have a look at Dead Horse Spring. No dead horses, but quite a lovely view! We left Lake Argyle and continued our journey. Straight after lunch we crossed the Northern Territory border. Paddy and Danni got out for the obligatory photo at the sign and then Danny straddled the border and got quite confused as her left side was one and a half hours behind her right! We took careful note of the new state speed limit. 130 kph might seem like a lot – but until recently there was NO speed limit on NT country roads. Just for the heck of it- I coaxed Fred up to 130 kph….. he managed ok, but seemed relieved when we dropped back to our usual travelling speed of 95 kph (Danni also seemed relieved – can’t think why!)

We continued on through some magnificent landscape – towering red rocks and magnificent, curving rivers. We stopped to get some photos on the Victoria River and had hoped to camp out near Timber Creek. The one camping area was jammed full and we didn’t fancy staying at the Timber Creek caravan park (it was empty – but the town was full of some very noisy sounding people). Before we left Timber Creek – we had a look at the lookout – great views! We also emptied our wallets at the service station ($2.02 per litre for unleaded – ouch!)

We continued on to Victoria River, where we have camped for the night. We have found a lovely little campground attached to the roadhouse and will hang around here a day or so to have a look around – the Gregory National Park looks sensational!

Hello again blogsters….. tomorrow just turned into today and has happened – so I had better write about what we did!

We were a little late getting up (trying to get used to NT time as opposed to WA time). After breaky, we got organised and headed out to explore the Gregory National Park. We called in to have a look at the boat-ramp and met up with a not-too-happy snake. I think it was Mum and Dad driving over the top of him which effected his temper – but he wasn’t happy! I stopped for a photo, but didn’t get out of the car – his mood seemed to indicate that I would not be welcome. We stopped off to have a go at the escarpment walk. We headed up the trail – lots of steps to climb – but the view was great. Mum, Dad and Uncle John stopped just a bit before half way – and Danni and I soldiered on. We kept thinking we were almost there – but we weren’t! It was so hot – with heat radiating off the rocks. We were pretty relieved when we FINALLY got to the top – the views were sensational (thank goodness – I would have been pretty peeved if it had been ordinary after 1.5 km of climbing 495 steps – yes I counted them – and scrambling over numerous rocks and slogging up steep slopes). Anyway we took some pictures and then quickly turned round to head back down – it was just too hot to be up there too long.

After refreshing ourselves with a heap more water (and 2 lemonade icypoles) we then drove out for a look at the old Victoria River Crossing. It was lovely – but I wasn’t at all tempted to try to drive across. We drove on out to the Joe Creek picnic ground and feasted on chicken sandwiches for lunch. Then we set out to walk the Nawulbinbin walk. This walk involved a fairly steep climb to start with and then we scrambled over rocks under the wall of the escarpment. Danni and I just loved the aboriginal rock art – sensational pictures which have been there for thousands of years. Mum, Dad and Uncle John were a little way behind us and we were stunned when they got to the end of the walk and expressed their disappointment at not having seen any rock art. NOT SEEN ANY….. it stretched for about 500 metres, at eye level, right beside where they were walking. Some of the figures were as tall as me. Not sure what they had in their water bottles…… but it must have been strong! To their credit however, they did do a great job of completing what was at times a challenging walk. After the walk, we had a quick look at the Victoria River Bridge before heading back to camp for a shower – we were all filthy after our sweaty day’s exertion. As consolation, I showed Mum and Dad my photos of the rock art so at least they could see what they missed!

Tomorrow we will head off again, through Katherine and up to Pine Creek.

As an aside - the flowers and trees are just magnificent here. We are constantly seeing wonderful, colourful flowers. The picture below shows just a few of the flowers on a tree which seems quite abundant around here. Just magnificent!

Hi to Kelley - great to hear from you. And HELLO BETHANIE - no, I haven't forgotten you and I know you read the blog. Love you bub!

Doing the Kununurra Thing

2008-06-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, we have had a couple of days doodling around and doing the Kununurra thing (and I have been learning how to spell Kununurra correctly).

We spent our first day back here washing clothes, washing ourselves (I reckon half of El Questro swirled down the plughole when we showered), washing our cars (ditto the plughole thing) and getting organised. I got a matching new tyre for Fred (it cost me $110 less to get exactly the same tyre as the one I got out there...... thank goodness). Uncle John and Mum and Dad had a bit of an explore yesterday while I took Danni to the Dr as she has been a bit under the weather. I took her to the local aboriginal health service on the advice of the "lady at the caravan park". You don't have to be aboriginal to go there - but if they are super busy - they will look after the aboriginal people first. What a fantastic health service this is - we only had to wait about half an hour and the nurse and dr were just wonderful. We even walked out with Danni's medications in hand - and all we had to do was sign the medicare form. A great service, staffed by wonderful people.

Unfortunately Danni had to go back this morning for 3 blood tests - she was very brave and didn't even faint (though she tried very hard).

This afternoon Danni and I went off exploring on our own. We went out to the Ivanhoe Crossing - a huge crossing of the Ord River. Mum and Dad and Uncle John went out for a look yesterday and saw a silly woman trying to walk across with her dog. When she realised she wouldn't get across, she turned around to come back but the dog got swept over the edge. It was lucky to make it to the bank safely, especially given the huge saltwater crocodiles evident there. We didn't see any crocs today - and decided against trying to drive across - I'm not that brave! Danni did dip a toe in for a photo - but was ready to run if she saw anything remotely resembling a croc!

After this we went to a place called "the Salad Bowl" for lunch. We munched through a wonderful quiche made with boab roots in it (very yummy) and a fresh fruit mango smoothy. Then we headed out to have a look at the Zebra Rock Gallery. Zebra rock is a gorgeous striped rock and this is the only place in the world where it is found. It is quite expensive when it has been polished - but Danni and I got some raw pieces and are working on polishing them ourselves.

We came back tonight to start the pack ready to leave tomorrow. I did get a quick photo of the sun setting on the rocks behind the caravan park - a pretty good indication of just how amazing this place is. Tomorrow we head off towards Timber Creek.

And on a final note... Lachlan now that you have your final results - congratulations on coming first in every single class. I am so proud of you and what you have achieved. We will celebrate when you come to Darwin!

To El Questro and Beyond!!!

2008-06-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters, after a few day’s out in the wild…. we are back at Kununnurra and I can update you on our “goings-on”.

We set off from Kununnurra on Thursday, driving West for about 50 km before turning onto the Gibb River Road. We followed this dirt road for another 50 km before turning off to El Questro.
The road in was rocky in places and corrugated – but the oldies tell me it was far, far worse when they did it 10 years ago. Anyway, it was rocky enough to pierce through one of my tyres – bugga! Unfortunately the rock ripped through the side-wall…. so it was bye bye tyre. I pulled over and we changed the tyre (when I say “we”, I mean I got the jack out, undid the cover on the spare and offered ‘helpful’ advice whilst the blokes got down and dirty and did the heavy stuff.) Anyway, I got to do the REAL heavy stuff when we got to El Questro…. Forking out over $300 for a new tyre. The sad thing is I will have to get ANOTHER new tyre to match it when we get back to Kununnurra, as my other back tyre is a bit worn and they simply don’t match. Bugga again!

Anyway, back to the good stuff. The drive out through the station was interesting, with a couple of really nice creek crossings and a wonderful crossing of the Pentecost River just before we arrived at the station village. We booked in on arrival. There are a couple of camping options – you can either stay at the group camping area (very nice, lawned area beside the Pentecost River with showers etc), or you can choose to camp in one of the private camping areas along the river. We chose the latter, and got an absolutely magnificent spot all to ourselves, just beside the river. Very blissful indeed! There is even a toilet just up the track a bit (very swish). We set up camp and had lunch. We then managed to spend the rest of the afternoon lazing around, splashing in the river (no crocodiles in this little bit of the river – but there are some a bit further up), reading and chatting. The nights were quite cool and we were not late to bed on our first night at El Questro.
The next morning, we got up, had breakfast, did the dishes… and then lazed around some more (we are getting scarily good at that). We then headed out to Zebedee Springs for a swim. Uncle John stopped to chat to a close friend on the way...

The springs are in a beautiful little gorge, surrounded by palm trees and ferns. The water is naturally heated, deep beneath the ground – and stays at a fairly constant 32 degrees. It was really luxurious to laze around in warm, crystal clear water in rock pools, looking up through the palm trees to the red cliffs of the gorge and the blue, blue sky. Sigh!

Paddy enjoyed the springs and even managed to dip in a toe - though he seemed happier watching us from his little seat on the rocks. After this, we came back to the campsite and….. well we lazed around again. I found a wonderful spot by the river, nestled in the roots of a huge paperbark tree and played Declan (my Irish Low D Whistle)… I also got a chance to do some painting and writing and even some meditation…. It’s a hard life! Danni and I also spent ages enjoying our “Jane Austin Fest”. The next morning we got up, had breakfast, lazed around for a while (do you get the feeling there is a bit of a theme developing here!) and then headed out to Zebedee Springs. There were so many cars out there, we turned around and came back! We called in to have a look at the Stockman’s Waterhole (lovely – but looked a bit too much like a croc haven for a swim). We were going out to El Questro Gorge – but having watched another vehicle go through a river crossing, decided that some of the holes were a bit too deep for Mum and Dad’s vehicle to get through. We went back to the village and went for a walk along the river and then a swim. The water was cool and refreshing and it was fun to swim with heaps of little fish darting around us. Danni declined to swim – bloody wimp!

While we were doing this – Uncle John was being far more adventurous and went through the crossing and out for a look at El Questro Gorge and Moonshine Gorge.

We went back to camp, had lunch and then lazed around for a while. Then Uncle John and I went up to Saddleback Ridge for a look. Uncle John drove (I’m not that brave – the drive was listed as for ‘experienced’ 4wd drivers only). It was a fun drive up an extremely steep, quite rough and narrow track with several hairy hair-pin bends and blind crests. We were pretty glad there were no other vehicles up there. The view from the lookout on the ridge was stunning – I took heaps of photos only to discover they had all disappeared off my camera the next day – with many thanks to Danni who accidentally pushed "delete all" instead of "delete one" whilst trying to get rid of a dud photo she took. Oh well! Uncle John did get some photos and we can make up stories about the rest. This pic is of Saddleback Ridge from the ground.
In the evening, we headed down to the village for the Saturday Night El Questro BBQ. The food was fantastic – plentiful supplies of soup, salads, tender steak, barra, chicken, sausages and fruit for desert. The night also included terrific entertainment (all under the stars): a young bloke called Chris Matthews who played the guitar like a man possessed, followed by a very entertaining half hour of stories, poems, whip-cracking, rope handling and yarns from Buddy – one of the original head stockmen of the property – an old aboriginal man with a great sense of humour and many tales to tell. A bloke called Chilly also told a heap of yarns and jokes (including a very moving alternate version of “the man from snowy river”, from the horse’s point of view). There was a fair bit of drink flowing at the Swinging Arm Bar and it was a terrific night out. We came back to our campsite and had a warming cuppa before all heading off to bed.

The next morning DANNI WAS FIRST UP. Let me just repeat that…. DANNI WAS FIRST OUT OF BED. We had a very quick bite to eat and headed back down to Zebedee Springs for another dip in the warm water. Then we lazed around for a while before Danni and I headed out for a tour of Chamberlain Gorge. Paddy was pretty excited about this as it meant he got to go on a boat again! The boat tour was beautiful. We putted along the beautiful, clear waters – staring up at the wonderful red rocks of the gorge. The King Leopold Sandstone was formed 1.8 BILLION years ago. There are no fossils in the sandstone as there was no life on earth at that time. Now that is old (even older than Mum!!!!) At the end of the gorge, we got to play around with the archer fish. These funny fish line up an insect and then spit water at it, knocking it off the branch it is sitting in and into the water. We wiggled our fingers over the side of the water and enjoyed getting spat at by the fish.

We also got out for a look at some of the rock formations – very beautiful and very ancient. On the way back, we were served wine and fresh fruit. A lovely, peaceful end to the day. The next morning, Danni, John and I got up and went out for a drive to a lookout on the Pigeon Hole Track. Uncle John had driven the complete track the day before and he reckons it was one of the toughest 4wd tracks he has tackled (which means it MUST have been rough). Anyway, we ventured up the first part of the track and enjoyed magnificent views in the early morning sunlight. The reflections in the Pentecost River as we crossed it looked pretty good too. We went back for breakfast, packed up and sadly farewelled El Questro. We drove back up the Gibb River Road (very rough this time) and headed for Wyndham. We stopped off on the way to have a look at “The Grotto”. We climbed down a heap of man-made steps into the bottom of the Grotto. The steps were a bit hairy – steep with no guard rails at all. At the bottom we really enjoyed resting by the cool, deep waterhole. The tree roots and moss on the side of the rock walls made it almost look like something out of a fairy tale. We found a spot where the whole rock wall seemed perched on some blocks of stone. Danni reckoned it reminded her of the game of Jenga (the game where you make a tower of blocks and then try to take out a block at a time without collapsing it.) She just couldn’t help herself and had to go and try and get a block out.
It didn’t turn out that well – sorry Kerry – we will post her back in a post pack if you like. We climbed back out of the Grotto – marvelling all the time at our general fitness and agility – and then continued on our way to Wyndham. We drove out to the port and then went to have a look at the Crocodile Farm. I definitely wouldn’t want to meet one of these chaps in the water! We reinflated Danni after the rock incident (the portable compressor proved useful for this) – but when we got into the croc farm, Danni couldn’t help herself – wanted a close-up view and got herself into a spot of bother. Don’t know what we are going to do with that girl! Anyway, after the whole croc thing – we drove back into Wyndham and checked out the pioneer cemetary (nothing like wandering through a cemetary to brighten one's day!). We also had a look at the huge statues in the "Dreaming Park" in Wyndham.Then, feeling rather warm and hungry, we headed up to the 5-ways lookout for lunch. It was quite a steep drive up, but the view was worth it. Mum had made a waldorf salad for lunch – yum! (Mum read the blog and insisted that I edit it and add the word 'wonderful')... Mum had made a WONDERFUL waldorf salad for lunch - yum! (There ya go Mum!)
After checking out the view, we headed back to Kununurra – where we enjoyed a bbq tea with a bottle of bubbly to celebrate Mum and Dad’s 46th wedding anniversary – congratulations to you both (you get less time for murder you know!)

After a dusty but exciting few days – it will be good to get clean, wash everything and get organised before we head on up towards Darwin.

Oh, and congratulations Lachlan on your fantastic Year 10 mid year exam results – and on getting your Ls – way to go Yock!

Purnululu - the Bungle Bungles

2008-05-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters, well after 4 days out in the remote Purnululu National Park - I have so much to share with you!

We camped overnight at the caravan park at Warmun (otherwise known as Turkey Creek) - no powered sites available so we camped in the unpowered section by the edge of the road. Not a bad spot but the showers and toilets were interesting to say the least! But the sunset on the ranges was magnificent!

Did I mention before how hard it is to wake Danni up in the morning - she is just a zombie before 7 am. We will obviously have to work on her! And as for her hair...it's a bird's nest at the best of times - check out the feather in her hair!

Anyway, we woke up and packed ready for our adventure to Purnululu. We had to leave Mum and Dad's van and Ginger (the trailer) behind - as this was definitely a 4wd road only. So it took a bit of organising to get us down to Uncle John's car and Tvan and Fred - but we managed.

We drove out to the turnoff and then headed off on the dirt road through Mable Downs Station for 50 odd kilometers - as a measure of how rough this road was... it took us over 2 hours to do the 50 k. We had to drive in 4wd and soon found out why - our first obstacle was a bulldust pit - soft to drive through and coated everything with a layer of fine white powder. Danni just loved jumping around in it!

We drove on through some fairly rough stuff - lots of fun! We also had to do several creek crossings - but managed these with no problems.

We drove into the Purnululu National Park and set up in the camp ground. We went to the "generator" camp ground, as opposed to the "quiet" campground - and found there was only one other couple there - it was wonderful and peaceful!

Danni decided her hair was getting a bit long and wanted to give herself a haircut - Mum suggested that a wash would help first (much to Danni's horror) and helped her out with that. The end result was pretty good really!

After setting up, we headed out to the lookout to watch sunset - very beautiful indeed. We only wished we had a wine to celebrate with - but were a bit dry as we hadn't been able to buy any alcohol since Derby.... still, the sunset was lovely!

The next morning we headed out to do the Mini Palms walk. The last bit of road was pretty rough - all loose stones from the creek bed. We walked out through the creek bed - in awe of the magnificent rock formations - and then up the palm valley. We had to clamber over rockes and through narrow spaces (Mum handled this particularly well given her compact leg structure). It seemed like everywhere we looked was just a magnificent vista!

We took so many photos, it is impossible to put them all on the blog - but I hope you get a small idea of how magnificent it truly was. At one point, some-one had added some rocks to a fallen log to complete the picture of a crocodile - very cute!We drove back to our campsite for lunch and then drove back out to have a look at Echidna Chasm. We were a bit unprepared for the enormity of this place - and totally overwhelmed by it. The chasm reaches up over 200 metres from ground level and almost closes over above you as you walk. Danni and I had quite an extraordinary experience in several parts of the chasm - an experience which seemed connected with the very strong spirit of the land here. It is a little hard to write about it here - but suffice to say, we were quite affected by the whole thing!

We were a bit stunned to find that both Mum's and my photos reflected what we experienced..... the photo below shows what was captured when we returned into a "welcoming" part of the chasm - the sky was ordinary blue sky as the sun had moved lower into the sky - the bright light is a little hard to explain!When we came out of the chasm - Danni and I wandered up to the lookout for a look - the view was wonderful!We drove back to camp and had a lovely evening by the camp-fire. I saw a beautiful shooting star with a long blue tail. The nights out there were quite cold and we had to really rug up for bed!

The next morning, after breakfast, we headed out to have a look at the domes. The drive out was spectacular!

The rocks forming the domes were formed over 320 million years ago, and have slowly weathered into the shapes we see today. We walked through the domes and explored a lovely little grotto filled with baby frogs. Very cute indeed!

After this, we walked out to the Cathedral Gorge. This magnificent gorge was just huge beyond words! We enjoyed exploring it and singing "Amazing Grace" to hear the echoes (I would love to have heard a didge here!) To get an idea of the size of the gorge, look closely at the 2nd picture - see the size of the people walking across the floor of the gorge!

Paddy thought the gorge was pretty good - lots of little holes just the right size for him to have a rest in!

We walked out of the gorge, had lunch and then headed back to camp (with a short stop-off at the visitors centre). We all really enjoyed Uncle John's open air shower- rather a nice way to try and get at least some of the red dirt off!

We had dinner (jaffles cooked by the blokes) and then spent the evening around the camp fire with our "neighbours" - Narelle and Geoff, a young couple heading back to the east coast after spending a couple of years working at Port Headland.

We were up early this morning and away by 8 o'clock. The creek crossings were fun again and we had quite an enjoyable trip.

Things went pretty well, apart from having to stop so that Uncle John could change a tyre. He had a flat from a nail - but we reckon it could have been there for a while. At least the damage wasn't done by a rock!

We continued on - the bull-dust pit was pretty spectacular - hate to have that dust in my house!

By the time we got out onto the highway, the vehicles really looked like they had done a bit of work. We probably won't bother washing them as they will get another layer of red dirt when we go out to El Questro in a couple of days.

We drove back to Warmun, picked up the van and trailer and continued on to Kununnura. It is VERY hot and humid here - the swimming pool was a really welcome destination at the end of the day. We will stay here a couple of days and get cleaned up (lots of washing to do) and then head on out to El Questro.

And this picture is just for Kerry..... your girl is gorgeous!

Finally, great to hear from Bethanie, Ben, PJ and Margaret. Bethanie, so glad you have arrived safely in Vienna. Ben, great to hear from you - I hope you are doing ok. PJ, we all still hope you can meet us at Longreach. And Margaret, looking forward to seeing you in Darwin!

The Geeks of Geike Gorge and Dan's Croc Encounter

2008-05-22T00:20:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters. After a night road-side camping out of phone range - time to bring you up to date with the latest happenings.

When last I wrote, we were camped at Fitzroy Crossing. Well, we had a good night's sleep and got up early to have a quick breaky, pack up and be ready to go on a tour at 6.45 am. This was a big challenge for Danni (have I mentioned how HARD it is for her to get up before afternoon???)

Anyway we met our bus driver (a bloke called Chris Farmer- who grew up in Dorrigo.) and then set off for a tour of Fitzroy Crossing. The town is a largely aboriginal settlement - with some surrounding stations and the government workers who seem to be found in every little town. We were stunned at the money which has been spent here - for a little town of about 1500 people - they have a new gas generated power plant (which cost about 70 million dollars to build), a brand new hospital and the most amazing learning centre (which comprises kindergarten, primary school, secondary school and TAFE). The new learning centre is not yet complete - but was architect designed, is huge and includes a swimming pool, sports centre and playing fields. Fantastic facilities for such a small town.

We went on out to Geike Gorge (about 18 km from town). The rocky landscape was formed when this area was covered by sea - the rocky outcrops are actually the remains of coral reefs. We boarded a boat for a tour of the gorge, in the warm, morning sun.

A word to Kerry here.... you know how you said, "Oh Danni'll eat whatever you eat".... I took that to heart and have introduced Danni to the delights of the Whizz Fizz..... I'm really sorry but she loved it! I think the sugar detox thing will be REALLY good for her when she gets back.

Back to our tour of the Gorge - the scenery was stunning - limestone cliffs towering over a quietly flowing river. The rock formations were magnificent!

Paddy really enjoyed the gorge - he seems to just love going out on boat trips.... especially now that I have made him a cool new pirate bandanna to wear!

The wildlife was beautiful - we saw a jabiru, some beautiful paradise bee catchers and even our first crocodiles (the freshwater ones which aren't too dangerous). The photo below shows a crocodile - but you have to look carefully on the left hand side of the picture - just above the water line to see him.After our boat trip we went to the old Fitzroy Crossing and crossed the river. Up until about 20 years ago, this was the only crossing of the river and huge road trains used to cross here.We also stopped to have a look at the Crossing Inn - the quite famous pub. The murals on the wall have been painted by local children - and were selected in a national competition to be used as part of the Olympic Games promotions - a source of pride for this little community.We continued on after our tour - heading for Mary Pool - a roadside camp stop which Mum, Dad and Uncle John had stayed at 10 years ago. We had been told not to be late as this is a popular spot - we arrived in reasonable time - and by later at night I reckon there were over 60 vans and trailers pulled in to camp.

We set up camp - our swags looking out over the river. Then Danni and I spent some time reading Romeo and Juliet together (part of her school work).

After this Danni and I went down to the river for a walk. We saw some lovely birds sitting on a dead tree on the opposite side of the river so went closer to get a photo. We were quite entranced by the birds and crept even closer so I could get a good photo. The next thing I knew, Danni had shot backwards about 10 metres and was saying "oh my god, oh my god, Nerrida, oh my god." It took about 10 seconds for her to get the word "crocodile" out. We had been so focussed on the birds, Danni had almost stood on the tail of a crocodile sunning itself on the bank! Now don't panic Kerry - it's ok - it was a freshwater crocodile and they are not the nasty ones.It has rather a nice smile don't you think? Anyway, Danni decided that it was better to stand back and look through binoculars from a distance.Mum didn't seem too comfortable too close either!Anyway, we continued our walk (watching where we were going this time) - and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the waterside.The blokes cooked really scrumptious jaffles for us for tea and we sat around under the stars enjoying the evening. Then, just before bed, Mum and Dad got their new camp shower out and christened it. Pretty swish really - gas heated water and all!
As is often the way with camping - we were into bed fairly early so that we will be up with the sun tomorrow morning.

Ta Ta Derby and Hello Fitzroy Crossing

2008-05-20T00:45:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters, tonight I shall reclaim "On the Wallaby" after Mum's marathon effort last night ..... she went to bed all exhausted after the effort of writing the blog.

Anyway, we got up this morning and packed up - having to make an extra effort to get those darned pesky prickles out of just about everything. We filled the cars with fuel (and listened to the wallets moaning as they were emptied once again) and then went to get some groceries - not sure how much variety and how inflated the prices will be in the next few stops. I went down to the wharf to see if I could spot my keys - but missed the low tide by about half an hour and so couldn't see them.

Derby was an interesting town - boab trees all along the main street and shops that don't look like shops... more like corrugated iron sheds. The price of housing here is a bit surprising - a minimum of $450 000 for a simple little fibro house on a small block. Not sure who would want to live there, let alone pay that money!

We stopped off to take photos of a particularly large boab tree - now I know I have a lot of photos of these - but they are such bizarre looking trees!

And here is the obligatory photo which includes Fred in front of something interesting.We stopped off at a road-side stop for lunch - Mum had trouble keeping her bum on the seat and nearly fell off (thank goodness Dad and Uncle John grabbed various parts of her anatomy before she fell). Danni found this hysterical for some reason and giggled non-stop for the next 10 minutes or so.

We drove on into Fitzroy Crossing. This place has had quite a bad name in the past - big social and alcohol related problems in the aboriginal community. We are staying at a beautiful lodge resort and caravan park on the north side of the river and are told it is perfectly safe - it certainly seems that way.

Tomorrow we are going on a tour of Fitzroy Crossing township (where we will no doubt find out about how things are changing here - hopefully things are improving) and then out on a boat up Geike Gorge. We will roadside camp at Mary Pool tomorrow night.

Hi to everyone at home and following the blog in Victoria.

Doodling around Derby

2008-05-19T05:11:00.001-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters,

Today we just doodled around Derby - I didn't do much except chase around getting a new key cut (grrrrrr) and then replaced the battery in Fred (grrrr again). The blokes fished (the fish they caught were so big they couldn't fit in the ute - at least I reckon that must be why they didn't bring any back).

Anyway, I thought it time I let Mum loose on the blog..... I'm looking forward to watching the intense look of concentration on her face as she two-finger-types out her entry..... so here goes.........

Hello Blogsters
What a great time we are having re-visiting places we saw 10 years ago and some new ones as well. I guess the things that have changed since we were last here have really impressed me such as the improved health status of the aboriginal people ,and the obvious reduction in alcohol abuse . Other things such as the enormous employment opportunities for young people and the expansion in building and house prices.Oh to be young again!

Nerrida is looking so much better and is relaxed more than I have seen her for years. She has certainly having a go at many activities that have been her goals for years.

So far all is going well with cooking and washing up being shared equally and some very interesting menus to boot! It is not very often 3 generations sit down together to enjoy falafel and a glass of wine , we really do try to eat a healthy meal each day.

Now blogsters I have to tell you there are some photos that never make this spot such as Nerrida stripping down to swim in the river and various roadside toilet stops, however I made a promise not to show them or I would not get a turn on this .

Our poor caravan is showing a few signs of wear and will need some repairs when we get home , the front window flap is damaged also the frig, needs to be anchored .

We miss our Beagle but I know he is well cared for and enjoying being a dog! How we wish that Peter could be with us . I am hoping we can do a small trip with him later in the year.

We look forward to the next stage of our trip not so much swimming sadly because of the crocs .
Our journey so far has covered 11,000 klms over 7 weeks and no arguments thank goodness.

Cherrill

OK Blogsters, now mum has had her go, she can stop complaining. Don't believe everything she says- but I guess she did ok for her first go. Anyway, tomorrow we are off to Fitzroy Crossing. I will do the next blog entry when we have phone range again (could be tomorrow night - but who knows!)

Derbying Around Derby

2008-05-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters. Time never stands still... and neither do we. Today we packed up ready to move on from Broome (very sad to leave this beautiful place). Before we left, we went out to have a look at Minyirr-Gantheaume Point. This point is the location of the light-house and has some wonderful rock formations - as well as dinosaur footprints which can be seen at very low tide. The place also has special significance to the local aboriginal people - it is a place of healing and rebirth for them. Rather a nice place to farewell Broome!

Back on the road again, we headed for Derby. We soon found ourselves at the first signs of the dry-season burn-off. Plumes of smoke everywhere and fires creeping slowly along, cleaning up all of the dry grass and rubbish. There were some wonderful eagles and hawks hovering over the edge of the fire, enjoying the feast of mice, rats, snakes and bugs which were fleeing the fires. The termite nests rising up out of the blackened landscape were quite spectacular.We stopped for morning tea and Uncle John kindly got me some fantastic feathers from an Australian Bustard which we found on the road (a lovely bird - though slightly mashed).

We continued on to Derby - stopping to have a look at the Boab Prison Tree. This huge old tree was thought to have been used to house black "prisoners" which the blackbirders had kidnapped to work on the pearling luggers at Broome. The tree is thought to be about 1000 years old. There are many boab trees around Derby - they are quite bizarre looking trees with their bulbous trunks (Danni says they look like pregnant women).

We arrived in Derby and booked into the caravan park. We have a nice site under a shady trees - but the prickles on the ground are hell!!!! We definitely don't take a step without shoes here. After setting up, we headed down to the wharf for a look. The tide was heading out and the sun was setting - a beautiful scene! We walked along the wharf and I was fiddling with my camera when I dropped my car keys. Danni and I watched as they sailed down (almost in slow motion), hit one grate, bounced, hit a second grate... and plopped into the water. And here is why, apart from the muddy water, I didn't go in to try and find them.Thankfully I have a spare set of keys - I will get more cut tomorrow. The only real loss was my Monkey Mia key ring - oh well perhaps I will go back there one day to get another.

The tides here are huge and, when the tide is out, the mudflats are all uncovered. Quite a sight!

We got fish and chips at the wharf for dinner and watched the last of the beautiful sunset while we waited. The yummy meal ended a terrific day (though I didn't think much of the mozzies).
And , for those who know Bethanie - here is a picture she sent yesterday of her carrying all her worldly goods around Hong Kong. Seems like she is having a great time. Good luck to Lachlan, who starts his mid-year exams today.... go for it Lachlan!

Leaving Leveque

2008-05-17T03:06:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters,

Well this morning we packed up and waved a sad farewell to Cape Leveque.... sigh. The drive back to Broome didn't seem so rough - I think maybe because I drove a bit faster (sailed over some of the bumps) and I was a bit more prepared to drive up the side of the road in the soft stuff!

Anyway, we made it safely back to Broome by lunch time and then started the long process of unpacking and repacking - you would think we would be really good at it by now!

Danni and I went out to get groceries and wash Fred. Danni is cooking tonight.... stir fry and fish!

As I write this, Mum is mumbling and muttering over her computer as she uploads her photos - its always an interesting thing to watch and listen to her do this.... quite entertaining really.

And finally, Nicola sent this photo and said it really should get a run on the blog. Given she didn't get a go at guest blogging while she was with us... I suppose I will put it on. Of course it is not the most flattering picture and I NEVER really look like this - some fault with her new camera I imgaine!

A Lazy Leveque Day

2008-05-16T03:52:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters, well today was a perfect, lazy, enjoying the scenery kind of day. We woke up, had breakfast and then just kind of hung out for a while. Mum, Danni and I washed the beautiful shells we found yesterday and dried them in the sun (so they won't stink the car out). The blokes took themselves off to have a fish and we sat around and played cards for a while. Golly Mum and Danni were good at playing "cheat" - what does that say about them???? I should mention that the blokes got 5 fish - tea for tomorrow night.

Anyway, after a while we got off our bums and decided to do a girls trip down to the beach to look for shells. Fred decided not to start - his battery was pretty lifeless after I played the sound system for a while last night and then left the ignition on ...... oops. Anyway, we got dad's jump start pack and that worked well - car started first try (great idea to bring that one dad!). We drove down the track, whacked Fred into 4 wheel drive and derbied on over the dunes and down the beach. It was not the easiest drive as the sand was soft - but we managed fine. I went to park on a dune, stalled Fred and then couldn't start him as the battery hadn't charged enough. Out came the jump start pack again! We ran Fred for a while to recharge his batteries and then wandered off down the beach. Unfortunately the tide wasn't quite out far enough to find shells - so we came back to the camp site for lunch.

After lunch we all lazed around for a while and then all headed back down to look for shells. The tide was right this time and we found more beautiful shells. We headed back to camp and had a quick swim before going down to the west beach to watch the sunset once more. Once again the sunset was magnificent! The rocks were red and so was Dad.... gotta put more sunscreen on in future.

Tonight Uncle John is cooking - we look forward to his delectable delights for dinner.

Tonight I thought I would try something different and introduce a guest blog spot. This evening I would like to introduce you to Danni. For those who don't know... Danni was one of my students for several years - graduating from my class last year. She is along for the ride and is going to write a bit from her own point of view. Oh.... and if you don't know Danni...... this is what she looks like.

Ok, over to Danni....

this is my version of today for mum

Today started very much like yesterday morning, slow and enjoyable, we had beakfast and the boys went fishing and the rest of us stayed at camp and played many games of cards, (because Nerrida couldn't win, and insisted we kept playing till she won at least once). Then after a good block of quality reading time we decided it was time to go and collect more shells, but Neds car battery was flat as a tack and we had to jump start it with the very much loved battery pack.

So we got onto the beach, and there wasn't a good shell in sight! So we waited around for the tide to go out a bit more, but it was going out so slow I could have finished my novel if we sat around waiting for it. eventually we decided to have lunch and come back in the afternoon, so we hoped in the car, jump started it again and went back to camp, where Lance and Stuey had just come back from their fishing expo where they had cought two big fish. We ate lunch, read some more, went back down to the shell beach, scanned the sand for some more treasures and went for our last swim. then we raced to see the sunset and see whether the phantom island was an alcohol induced vision or some little island off the coast off australia, surely enough it wasn't there, so I'm swaying between whether the Johnsons should lay off the booze.

Well I'd like to say hey to mum who SHOULD be reading this and I miss you .

Danni

Cape Leveque - Simply Perfect

2008-05-15T05:37:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters.... well our first morning at Cape Leveque was wonderful. We crawled out of bed at a variety of times and had a very, very relaxed breakfast. After 6 weeks and over 10,000 km, we haven't had too much time to relax - so this morning was bliss. After sitting around for a while reading and contemplating our navels we dragged ourselves down to the beach for a swim (Uncle John had taken himself off for a more vigorous walk - the man has clearly lost the plot!) Anyway, the swim was just bliss - someone forgot to turn on the cold tap when they filled this beach up. We lolled about in the gentle waves and generally acted like over-full whales!

After our swim, we came back for lunch (tortillas with salad - yum). We lounged around for a while again after lunch (I think by now you are probably getting the feel of this campsite). Then we let the tyres down to 18 psi and headed off for some beach 4 wheel driving. The drive was fun and we stopped off a couple of times for photos before pulling up on the beach. We then went wandering down the beach collecting shells - the best shells we have seen yet - a big variety of many colours, sizes and shapes. Uncle John wandered down the beach thinking he would go for a swim - but after seeing a crocodile in the water, he changed his mind.

Eventually we drove back off the beach and over to the safe swimming area where we went to loll around in the warm water for a bit longer. Sigh - it's a hard life.

We came back to the camp site and then filled the wine glasses and headed down the western beach to watch the sun-set (a popular past-time up here). The colours of the sun of the red rocks were magnificent- and the sunset didn't disappoint. Mum and Dad even had time for some romance on the sand... ewwwwwww!

After this we came back to the camp for a dinner of BBQ'd sausages and bacon (dad's turn to cook). Soon we will turn in to prepare for tomorrow - another day of the same as today we hope!

Bumping Along to Cape Leveque

2008-05-14T03:59:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters - well contrary to what I wrote last night, we actually do have phone reception at Cape Leveque (onya Telstra) so here's today's blog.

We got organised in pretty good time this morning and then set off for Cape Leveque. The locals strongly advise people not to take caravans to Cape Leveque - but Dad reckoned he would give it a go anyway....... "The Jayco is made of tough stuff" he said. Anyway it probably wasn't a good idea as the road was really rough and they should have turned the pilot light on the fridge off. Oh well. We are hoping with enough pop rivets and hundred mile tape, we can fix it up. It's the tent for mum and dad tonight!

The road was rough, corrugated, filled with holes and like a roller-coaster ride at times - but golly it was fun!

We drove on to Beagle Bay to check out the church. We had to stop in to get permission from the indigenous owners of the land to get permission first - this was no problem - lovely friendly people. The church was built at the start of last century by trappist monks. The church is really beautiful - cool and peaceful with the altar and windows and paintings in the church decorated with local shells.

Mum and Dad were disappointed not to see a single beagle in Beagle Bay (both hopeless cases).

Danni was surprised at the red dirt and just how much of it was everywhere. When she got out of the car at Beagle Bay she noticed her toes had turned orange and commented, "my toes look like they have been eating cheesels."

Now a word about Paddy - I had a little chat to him this morning about his behaviour yesterday and he promised to try harder. At lunch time he was on best behaviour - waiting patiently for his lunch.

But when we got to camp this afternoon - he was back to his old ways. I think it's going to have to be the 12 step program for Paddy!

Anyway, back to the journey - we continued on to Kooljamon at the top of Cape Leveque. We checked in and set up camp under the shade of a beautiful tree. After setting up we sat around for a while and relaxed. Danni couldn't work out why she was so tired - but when we pointed out she had a 20 hour day yesterday - she understood a little better.After relaxing for a while, we wandered down to the beach. Words fail me a bit here. It was utterly magnificent. The sun was setting, the water was WARM (we reckon about 26 - 28 degrees) and the beach magnificent. We were the only ones there. What total bliss. This place is utterly gorgeous and the next three days should be bliss. Ahhh it's a hard life!

Oh and about the caravan - nah, mum and dad left their van in Broome - we just found that burnt out wreck of a van on the Cape Leveque road and thought it worth a pic.

Hi to everyone at home and bon voyage to Bethanie who heads off to Europe tomorrow - have fun and stay safe Fefaloo - I love you to meeces and peeces.

The Arrival of Danni and Camel Riding in Broome

2008-05-13T05:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogsters... after a lovely cool night, we woke to a wonderful cooked breakfast - bacon and eggs cooked by Dad! Go Dad!

We all had jobs to do this morning - Uncle John got his oil changed and his windscreen drilled (he copped a stone last week which created a crack that spread over part of his windscreen. Dad changed the oil on their car and on Fred. I organised dinner for tonight (lasagna cooked in the dream pot) and Mum did some cooking and organising for tomorrow.

At lunch time we went to pick up Danni - her flight was a little late and the landing a bit rough, but she made it here in one piece. Poor Danni felt a bit like she had landed in another country - hot weather, camels walking up the street and red dirt everywhere.

We did the grocery shopping and then raced home to get ready to go camel riding. We went down the beach and met up with our camels. Danni reckoned our camel had hair just like Rob Marshall's.

After a quick safety talk we climbed aboard and then enjoyed a wonderful walk along the beach as the sun set. Mum and Dad were 2 camels back - they looked quite at ease loping along on "Connor" the camel. Danni and I were on "Wun" - a particularly attractive camel with very long eye-lashes (oh my golly, I really should get a life.... I just called a camel "attractive").

After our ride we went further down the beach and Danni and I went for a quick dip. It was lovely - Danni said, "it's like swimming in warm bath water". Poor Dan, she caught her plane at 6.30 this morning - I reckon she'll sleep tonight!

Paddy is very stushy tonight as he didn't get to go camel riding. Then he was just downright rude at the dinner table - hoeing into the salad before anyone else had a chance - I think I will have to sit him down for a serious talk tomorrow!
Tomorrow we are off to Cape Leveque (and probably out of phone range - so no blog for a few days).

Hi to Kerry - I have your daughter in my clutches now and quite possibly won't give her back!!!!

Beautiful Bodacious Broome

2008-05-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Hello dear Blogsters. Well here we are in Broome – and how cool is this place? Well, actually it’s pretty hot here, but what a beautiful place. We only had a short drive from Barn Hill - about 2 hours (bliss after some of our recent long driving days).

We had been warned by all and sundry that it is impossible to find accommodation in Broome unless you have booked 12 months in advance - in May this is simply not true… we are staying in a lovely caravan park right at Cable Beach – and there is heaps of space.

Broome is a pretty laid-back sort of place and people have a quirky sense of humour… as can be evidenced by the signs on the toilet doors (read carefully and work it out for yourself!)

After we set up camp, we went down to the shops for a look around. What a bizarre shopping centre – corrugated iron buildings which look nothing like shops, with an airport runway next door which has planes taking off right over the main street (very disconcerting). We searched around for a place for lunch and ended up in an interesting little Afghan falafel and souvlaki bar…. lunch was very yummy indeed.
After lunch we came back and got into our togs, then headed down to Cable Beach for a swim. Cable Beach is the most famous beach in Broome (well 5 km out of Broome actually)… and is a perfect swimming beach. The water temperature was spot-on and the waves just right for body surfing. Dad and I had a great time zooming with the waves (until I got dumped on my head on the last wave – no lasting damage other than dented pride).
We lay on the beach and read for a while and then sat up to watch the sunset. Sunset is a beautiful time at Cable Beach… people flock down to the beach and then all just sit or stand at the edge of the beach looking out quietly at the sun going down. (Anyone who has ever seen the film, “City of Angels”…. It is just like that scene where the angels all congregate on the beach to sing the sun down… without the singing though…. Or the angels for that matter… well not that I could see.) Anyway, I digress…. The sunset was glorious and then the camels walked along the beach…. Sigh.
Later, we pick up Danni and then it’s off to ride the camels on the beach at sunset – a very Broome thing to do!

Hi to Margaret, good to hear from you.

Karratha to the 80 Mile Beach

2008-05-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters…. We have been out of range for a couple of days - so no blog from me! Let me start today by posting some of our whale-shark photos from Ningaloo Reef. Nic and I bought cheap and nasty underwater disposable cameras to take photos – but had to wait to get the shots developed before I could post them. The photo quality is about what you’d expect from cheap and nasty cameras – but they still show the beautiful whale shark we swam with. Note that the cameras didn’t have zoom – so the close shots were actually taken that close to the shark. Absolutely magnificent creature!

And here are some shots we took whilst snorkling on the reef. How cool is that!

Ok, so back to our little adventure. On our last morning in Karratha, we packed up and then went to Dampier to have a look at the North West Shelf Project Visitor Centre. The North West Shelf Project provides almost half of Australia’s oil and gas supplies from drill platforms located about 130 kilometres off-shore from Dampier. The gas is piped through huge under-sea pipes to the processing plant, where it is cooled to -160 degrees and then piped into huge storage tanks on ships to be transported to Japan (a multi million dollar boost to our economy). This huge project employs 80,000 people either directly or indirectly.

Karratha is an interesting town as it services the North West Shelf project as well as the many enormous mines out in the Pilbara. Accommodation is scarce here and many miners live in villages filled with cabins made of little more than a shipping container with air conditioning. There are new homes being built everywhere (all with steel frames and made to stringent cyclone standards). Almost every 2nd vehicle is a mine vehicle (obvious by the orange lights and long fluorescent orange flag on top).

We left Karratha and travelled on our way – heading for 80 mile beach. Our calculations were a bit out and what we thought was going to be a 250 km drive turned into well over 400 km. As a result, we arrived at the Wallal Station Caravan Park at the bottom of the 80 mile beach well after dark. We were quite relieved to set up camp after a very long day.

We were up early the next morning to go for a walk on the beach as the sun rose. We collected a heap of truly beautiful shells and enjoyed a blissful walk. After breakfast we packed up and headed off on a relatively short (250 km) drive to Barn Hill Station camp at the top end of the 80 mile beach. We turned in and drove up the 10 km dirt drive at about lunch time.

We checked in at the rather airy and interesting park reception (it was certainly well ventilated – if a bit basic) and then set up our camp under some lovely shady trees. When we were checking in, I asked the lady at reception if we needed to be careful of snakes. She quickly retorted “Has someone been talking to you?” When I reassured her, she said that they had had a bit of a problem with some snakes – there was one in the toilet the other night. She couldn’t tell me what kind. Some people camping next to us helpfully informed us that we should be a bit careful as there had been a king brown snake in the toilet and shower block. Hmmmmmmm. Anyway, we set up camp and relaxed in the shade for a while (god it’s hot here!). Then we headed down the beach for a spot of fishing – no luck apart from a couple of bites – but it was worth it stand in the warm water and watch the sun go down over the ocean. We had a relaxed dinner of cold silverside and crunchy coleslaw before all turning in to bed early. Nic and Bron packed their gear ready for an early departure the next day to the Broome airport.

The amenities were somewhat rustic - beautiful to have a shower in the open air with a breeze around the ankles!

For our final night at Barn Hill Station, we joined the other campers for a beautiful feed under the stars. The Station owners came down and served us home-made soup, roast beef and vegies and fruit salad and ice-cream. We knocked back the odd wine or two (gin and tonic for mum).... making it a lovely evening.

Note that I got frocked up for the occasion -and even had some lippy on!!!!

We are a bit worried about Paddy - he enjoyed his meal.... but then seemed to get into the plonk a bit.... we might have to dry him out over the next few days.

Tomorrow it's on to Broome. Gday to Merve and Edna Angove who are following our travels from down in Victoria. Gday too, to Sheree, Bethanie and Lachlan who ALL remembered to ring me for mother's day.... onya guys!

The Awesome Pilbara

2008-05-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters - what a fantastic day we have had today!

We went into town this morning to do a heap of annoying jobs (getting fuel, getting groceries etc) and then called in to get permits to drive on a mine road before heading off for a day exploring the Millstream Chichester National Park. We drove out through Roebourne and then onto the dirt road for the next 190 km.

We drove through a wonderful landscape of spinifex and red dirt with deep, rust red ranges rising up on either side of us. We stopped off early in the day to photograph the flowers blossoming beside the road. The sturt desert peas were magnificent, as were the range of other flowers we could not name.

We continued on until we came to the turn-off for the Python Pool. We drove in and then walked up the dry creekbed to our destination. The Python Pool is a beautiful fresh-water pool at the foot of a small gorge. It always has water in it and is a wonderful place for a swim. As the temperature had climbed to the mid thirties - we were really glad of a refreshing swim. What a wonderful, peaceful place this was - with dragonflies flitting across the water, rust red rocks soaring above us and little fish darting through the cool, fresh water.We women swam across to the other side and sunned ourselves like mermaids on the rocks (well we sat on the rocks and tried to look half decent while the blokes took some photos!)After what seemed like way too short a time, we dragged ourselves out and back into the cars to continue our journey. We continued through a somewhat surreal, red, rock landscape for quite a while. We watched a train go past with about 236 carriages filled with ore. There are a heap of huge mines out here - including Tom Price and some Rio Tinto mines - making the most of the iron ore rich hills which stretch across the landscape.

We drove on until we came to the Millstream Homestead. We had lunch here under the shade of the trees before exploring the homestead and surrounds. This beautiful old homestead was first built in the 1800s and was the centre of a huge sheep and cattle station before being taken over by National Parks late last century.

We really enjoyed a walk down through the adjoining creek beds - it was an oasis of cool with beautiful clear running water and ponds filled with water lillies and fish. This lovely place holds special significance to the local aborigines as it is a meeting place and a place where laws are made and ceremonies held. They couldn't have chosen a more beautiful place!

After this walk, we drove on to the Fortescue River for a quick dip before beginning the long journey home. Again, the swim was most refreshing and really welcome after the heat of the day.

We drove back as the shadows were lengthening and the sun painted the ranges bright orange, red and yellow. What a perfect ending to such a wonderful day!Tomorrow we head north again - through Port Hedland and on to the 80 mile beach. I am not sure if we will be in phone range (so I can update the blog) - but I will write more as soon as I can.

Hi to everyone at home. Danni, I hope your bags are packed as it is only a few days until you join us at Broome! Hi to Mark who is visiting PJ at the moment..... and hi to all John, Nic and Bron's friends who are following our journey.

The Beautiful Ningaloo Reef

2008-05-07T04:37:00.000-07:00

Hello again dear Blogsters... I have been out of touch for a few days as we were out of phone reception.

Now..... back to Monday... We got up and packed early and then went down the beach. We all walked around to the point and then the blokes had a bit of a snorkel and then headed back to where Mum was sitting. Nic, Bron and I snorkelled out and drifted along the reef, quite a way out from shore. It was wonderful! We were snorkling in about 5 metres of water and the reef was made up of corals of a range of beautiful shapes. There were fish of all sizes feeding in and around the reef and we enjoyed diving down to look more closely. We snorkelled for about an hour and then got out to dry off and begin our drive up to Exmouth.

We were quite sad to leave Coral Bay - it is such a beautiful, laid-back little town with very little development and a very relaxed feel.

We drove up the coast to Exmouth, where we stopped to do some shopping. We were planning to camp out in the Cape Range National Park, but when we got to the gate, we were told all camp-sites were full. We turned back and found the Yardie Homestead Caravan Park just a few kilometres out of the park. We booked in and headed over to the pool for a very refreshing swim. Lovely!

Bronwyn cooked our dinner - the most delicious seafood risotto - which had other caravan park residents commenting on the wonderful smell! Go Bronny!!!!!!

After a good night's sleep we set off to explore the Cape Range National Park. We drove along and stopped to have a look at the beautiful escarpment rising up beside us. We climbed all over the rocks and were amazed at the fossilised shells and coral obvious in the rocks of the range.

We drove on and had a look at the visitor centre - some really interesting information and displays and a wonderful library full of fascinating books, articles and magazines. We also stopped into the shop for a couple of souveneirs.

We drove on to Yardie Creek and Nic, John and I did a bit of rock scrambling to have a look at the glorious Yardie Creek Gorge. Absolutely stunning!

After this energetic little walk, we drove on to Sandy Beach for lunch. After lunch Nic, Bron and I went for a snorkel. No coral here, but some lovely kelp forests with a range of fish, crabs and shrimp feeding around the sandy floor and the kelp.

After this, we drove on to the magnificent Turquoise Bay. We arrived in good time as the tide was going out. We quickly got into our snorkels and flippers and headed out just a short distance onto the reef. And what a magnificent reef it was! Better than anything I have seen on the Great Barrier Reef. We were in really close to the shore, but were gliding over magnificent coral bommies which were just covered in fish of all colours and sizes. Bron found a wonderful big sea turtle feeding and we stayed to watch it for quite a while.

Dad came into the water and soon found a school of bait fish swarming around him seeking shelter. The bigger fish soon arrived and fed all around him - sometimes bumping into him in their eagerness to get at the little bait fish.

Dad and Uncle John both came in for a snorkel before Nic, Bron and I went for a final drift for the day. What a wonderful experience this was - the water was teeming with life and was quite warm (though the wind did cause a few shivers when we got out).

We went back to camp, had a shower and then it was my turn to cook dinner - Green Chicken Curry with lime cous cous - YUM!

This morning we woke and packed quickly as we knew we had a big day of driving in front of us. We headed off, stopping at Exmouth to post Bethanie's birthday present (she leaves next week for Europe). On the way we saw some huge termite nests - these dot the landscape here - looking a little like some ancient structures (a bit like stone henge at times).

We drove on through the Pilbara, enjoying the changing landscape and feeling the heat every time we stopped (it was about 38 degrees). We had to stop once to re-fuel Mum and Dad's car from the jerry can as it was quite a distance between fuel stations.
We stopped by a lovely river next to the Nanuturra Roadhouse for lunch. It was a quick lunch (giving thanks to Mi Goreng for their noodles) and, even though I REALLY wanted a swim in the river, we pressed on.We drove on past the Hammersley Ranges, the landscape was stunning! There were ranges of red hills, surrounded by spinifex, grasses and shrubs. What an ancient landscape this is.We finally pulled into Karratha at about 5.00 this evening. We are staying at a lovely caravan park and look forward to a good night's sleep after a long day.

SHARK!!!!

2008-05-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters..... what an exciting day it has been!

We got up and had a quick breakfast before going down to be fitted for our wetsuits for our day out on the ocean. We had chosen a smaller boat to take us out to the whale-sharks as we felt we might get a little more attention - it turned out to be a wise choice. We were ferried out to the boat in a dingy and then we set off out through the reef.

The blokes on the boat were wonderful - starting our day by making us a cuppa while we sat on the bow of the boat. We went out past the outer reef and then bobbed around in the water for about half an hour, waiting for the spotter plane to make a sighting. The crew used the time to give us instructions about the rules for swimming with the whale sharks. We were not allowed to swim in front of the shark or within 4 meters of its tail. There are a whole lot of rules which have been set up to protect the shark - most of those rules were drafted by the skipper of our boat and then adopted by the Department of Fisheries. They really do need to protect these beautiful fish.

After about half an hour, the radio call came through to say the spotter plane had found a whale shark. Then the race was on - everybody had to move to the front of the boat to keep the front down. The boat raced flat-out to the location - there were three boats operating out there today and the first boat to get to the whale shark and get people in the water gets the first dive. This can be important because the shark may dive and, being a fish, it doesn't need to come up for air so it can just disappear. We beat one boat, but arrived at the same time as another... and the whaleshark turned towards that boat, so they were first in. It didn't matter though - as it wasn't long before it was our turn. We had to be quickly into our snorkels, masks and flippers and standing on the backboard. When it was our turn, our boat moved in closer to the shark and then it was all into the water. We were only in the water a couple of seconds when the whaleshark turned towards us. What an extraordinary experience to be the water with such a beautiful creature and to be allowed to share his space. When it was time to come out of the water, the boat came back in closer and picked us up. All in, we got 4 dives with the whaleshark - each time we were swimming right beside it. An absolutely awesome experience and something none of us will ever forget. Nicola and I took photos with underwater cameras, but we will have to wait to get them developed before I can post them on the blog. So in the meantime, here is a picture of a whaleshark I found.

After the whale shark had finally dived, we set off back towards the calmer waters for lunch. We spotted a huge tiger shark in the water and had a look at him (or her) and we also saw a sea snake in the water. Then, as we were heading back, we saw a huge flock of birds in a frenzy of feeding. The skipper turned the boat to have a look and we were thrilled to find some minke whales feeding on the fish. One of the whales even breached right out of the water - very exciting and unexpected. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo (not quick enough) - but Nic did get a good picture of the birds.We continued on and, as we were re-entering the reef, we saw a dugong feeding. He surfaced several times and didn't seem at all worried about us.We stopped on the reef and all piled over the back for some snorkling. There were fish everywhere and the coral was lovely. I spotted a turtle feeding on the bottom and, before too long he came up for air. Then Bronwyn and I had the wonderful experience of swimming alongside the turtle for about 5 minutes.

At the end of the day, we jumped off the boat at its mooring so that we could see the giant Queenslad Groper which comes out to the boat when it hears the motors, looking for a feed. The groper was ENORMOUS - over 2 metres long. It just lolled around under the boat looking at us as though we were the show it had come to see.

Now, while Nic, Bronwyn and I were out on our whale shark adventure, Mum, Dad and Uncle John went out on a coral viewing tour in a glass bottomed boat.

They were really impressed with the array of coral and the colourful fish. (No seasickness on this trip).When we all got back, we went down to the beach to watch the sunset and drink some of the bubbly stuff. Paddy got a little grumpy because he didn't like the way I played in the sand with him!The bubbles and nibblies were perfect and the sunset gorgeous (golly its hard not to use the "beautiful" word here).Tonight Bronwyn cooked us a magnificent seafood pasta dish with the fish we caught yesterday and some scallops and prawns! What an end to one of the best days of my life!

Gorn Fishin'

2008-05-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it was an interesting night's sleep last night. There were some younguns in the caravan park who had indulged rather too much in liquid refreshments and then felt the need to run yelling through the caravan park at midnight before beginning a game of cricket - complete with regular "thwacks" and "howzats".

When morning finally came, we were up early to get ready for our fishing trip. We packed lunch and then walked over to meet the bus to take us out to the boat. We gulped a couple of seasick tablets on the way. The boat travelled through the reef first and we enjoyed sitting on the bow to have a good look.

The boat is a 50 ft vessel which seemed quite sturdy (thankfully). We travelled about 19 miles offshore to fish in deep water. The trip was quite "lumpy" with 1.5 metre swells - not horrifically rough, but enough to make us hang on! On the way, Bronwyn made us a cuppa - one of the crew did comment on the amount of water that DIDNT get into the cups.... but I think she did a pretty good job in difficult circumstances.

We all travelled reasonably well on the way out, though Paddy did seem a little peaky and turned a lovely shade of green for a while.When we got to our destination (somewhere in the middle of the sea), we loaded up our lines and dropped the heavy sinkers overboard. We were fishing in water about 80 metres deep - so it took quite a while for the sinker to hit the bottom (and even longer to reel it back in).

Dad caught a couple of fish before succumbing to seasickness. He helpfully provided us with burley over the side for the rest of the day. He wasn't alone - there were a couple of teenage boys on the trip who spent most of it hanging over the side!

The fish were not biting that brilliantly so we moved location several times. On one move, the rope holding the anchor broke - it was quite an expensive event as the anchor and about 100 metres of top quality rope were lost (in 80 metres of water, there is not a chance they can recover it). The rope was worth $500 and the anchor $1100 - ouch!

After lunch I got onto a run of bites and caught 2 beautiful coral cod, a pink snapper and a blue line emperor (or something like that). I was pretty happy about that. The rest of our little group didn't do so well unfortunately!

We came back to Coral Beach - arriving back just after 5.00. We were all very tired and glad that the crew cleaned and filleted our fish for us. I won the BOB award (best on boat) for catching 2 coral cod. Apparently it is the first time that charter company have had one person catch 2 coral cod in a day. My prize was a stubby holder (very handy indeed!)

After watching the fish being filleted, we went down to the water for a quick swim and to watch the sunset - absolutely glorious!

Tonight we feasted on coral cod and snapper with yummy salads. We will probably eat the rest of the fish tomorrow.

Tomorrow is our big day...... out to swim with the Whale Sharks .... woooohooooo!!!!

Bron Arrives and we go to Coral Bay

2008-05-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters.... and hello to Kay - Nic's friend - good to hear from you!

After a hoot of a night being entertained by the vietnam vets staying in the same park - we were awoken rather early by the french travellers in the park turning the tv on in the camp kitchen to watch the soccer..... they didn't really have much thought for the fact we were sleeping right next door!

We had a leisurely breakfast and then packed up. We headed out to look at the plantations around Carnarvon - they seem to grow just everything here! The plantations are all along the river, which is generally dry but is flowing at the moment after the rains. We were told the river generally only flows once a year.

The plantation crops are grown using some rather amazing innovation to save water - the roots of the plants are almost cocooned in a special plastic which holds in the moisture and warmth. They also grow under huge shade houses to protect against the wind and conserve moisture - very clever farming indeed! We enjoyed some home-made fruit ice-creams and bought some fruit, vegetables and jams.

After this, it was time to go to the airport to meet Bronwyn. Her plane was on time and it was great to finally have her join us (it didn't take long for her to strip her "cold weather gear" off and get into the lighter layers suited to this climate.

We drove on north, stopping at a road-side stop for lunch before heading off again. The landscape is just so lovely - green and lush after the rain!

We stopped off at the tropic of capricorn for some photos - interesting to note we will cross this again on the eastern side of Australia when we visit Longreach on the way home.

We pulled into Coral Bay at about 5.00 - a bit later than we generally like to stop. This lovely seaside village was buzzing with people - one caravan park was full and we were lucky to get the last couple of sites in the 2nd park. We also took the opportunity to plan for our next few days - tomorrow we will be going out deep sea fishing (we have the sea-sick pills ready for dad) and then hopefully Sunday we will go out to swim with the Whale sharks - they tell us there are plenty out there!

Tonight Uncle John cooked wonderful scallops, prawns and squid for dinner. We drank a toast to Bronwyn's arrival, and also to those absent (Aunty Helen and Pete) - they are both with us in our thoughts.

Well that's enough for today - tomorrow will be a big day and hopefully I will have some wonderful tales of our HUGE catches!

Moving on through a Changed Landscape

2008-05-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

Hello dear blogsters.... great to have some of Nic's friends following along..... Nic was really happy to hear from Anne via the blog.... good to know work is coping without her!

Well, as usual, this blog entry starts with us getting up, having breakfast and packing up. I think it has become a bit of a competition between Mum and Dad and Uncle John to see who can pack up first. Of course they would both deny it, but I did hear Mum muttering something about needing to get up even earlier next time after the Stuart clan got a jump on the Johnson clan this morning!

We called in to Denham to buy some goodies from the bakery (lovely bread) and the post office to send some cards and a parcel - then off on our merry way again. We had planned to visit Eagle Bluff and the Stromatolites - however the roads were all closed after the rain! Just a word about those stromatolites - they are these blobby things made out of a heap of single cell organisms clumped together. They live in the sea and are just as they were millions of years ago. When the earth's atmosphere was still a mix of gases poisonous to us all... the stromatolites developed and started changing the gases into oxygen. They changed the atmosphere, enabling new life to develop. Amazing huh! Having told you all this... we couldn't see them because the roads were closed!

The road to Shelly Beach was open and we called in to see this interesting beach. The beach is deep in tiny white shells. The shells come from some bi-valves which live in the very salty water here (it is 1.5 times the salinity of the rest of the ocean). We crunched around on the beach for a while (Paddy quite enjoyed this) and enjoyed the warm (well hot actually) sunshine.

After this we went to have a look at the varment-proof fence. This huge fence has been erected right across the peninsula as part of Project Eden. There are a number of incredibly endangered mammals living in the World Heritage listed Shark Bay National Park and the fence has been erected to keep predators and threats such as feral cats, dogs and rabbits out of this area. We stopped at the fence and had fun with the sensor which causes a sound of recorded dog barking if you go too close to the fence. Dad kept cocking his leg and making it bark - kept him amused for ages!We drove just a few kilometres further and then pulled into the Nanga Homestead. We set up camp and then wandered down to the beach. Nic and I enjoyed some snorkling in the bay (very brave of me, considering it is called "Shark Bay"). We saw some beautiful schools of fish and some nudibranches (probably spelled that one wrong). Dad and Uncle John jumped in and had a go too, and Mum retained a lady-like pose on the beach!The water was quite nice - but the wind was brisk to say the least when we got out! Just as well there was a beautiful hot artesian spa to jump into next. We really enjoyed a good soak in water which was pumped up from an artesian basin deep below us at a temperature of about 35 degrees.

After a good feed, we went off to fed, lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of the HONKING GREAT GENERATOR which runs 24 hours a day to provide power to the camp ground. The diesel fumes weren't half bad either.

We woke up this morning and wished Dad a happy birthday... the old fella is now only a year off 70. We packed up and headed off.... treking towards Carnarvon. The weather was beautiful - sunny with clear skies. Uncle John managed to find a lovely birthday present to give to Dad, a muddy old hub cap he picked up beside the road. Mum protested loudly, "I'm not having that bloody thing in the car"... but she had to give in because it was Dad's birthday.

We drove on through a majorly changed landscape.... quite unusual to be driving through a desert which looks like it has been painted green overnight. We had to drive through flood-waters over the road several times and there was water everywhere. The lady in a roadhouse we stopped out told us they had had over 140 ml of rain when the storm came through (that's almost 6 inches in old terms).... this is more than they sometimes get in a whole year! The water certainly transformed the landscape.We arrived at Carnarvon at about lunch time and set up in a lovely caravan park. We spent the afternoon looking around Carnarvon.... and enjoyed a walk out onto the mile-long pier. A section of the pier was destroyed by fire last year (about 70 metres) and it is quite bizarre to see the rail line just suddenly plunge off the pier.We also had a look at the little museum out by the pier - it had some really interesting stuff, including one of the lifeboats from the Kormoran (the german boat which sank the Sydney). The lifeboat washed ashore here at Carnarvon with some German survivors on board.Nic organised a yummy dinner of tacos for us and we had a few drinks and a chocolate cake to celebrate Dad and Uncle John's birthday (we missed his 70th a month or so ago). We were entertained by a heap of Vietnam vets who are staying in the caravan park. Their singing and general merriment kept us amused all evening! Tomorrow Bronwyn arrives and then we head off toward the Ningaloo reef.

Damned Downpours and Darling Dolphins

2008-04-29T04:37:00.000-07:00

Well dear readers, when last I left you, we were in the middle of a storm.... and what a storm it was - raging all night! I was kind of enjoying it in the early part of the night - lying on the floor of my tent in my swag watching the tent billow and buffet around me. Then it got stronger! And the tent was blowing right down flat onto my face before standing up again. Then I heard a zzzzzzzzzzt and the zip flew open on my tent window and it started flapping wildly in the wind. I got up to zip it up and bang in some more heavy duty sand pegs. Mum and Dad also got up as the awning to the caravan was in danger of being ripped off. We managed to get the awning in (and got VERY wet) and then when I went to get back to bed, I found my tent had finally collapsed. I pulled my bedding out and shoved it on the caravan floor and then went off to the loo. When I came back mum and dad had started to pull my tent down.

Eventually I tramped off to the back of Fred where I curled up with a pillow and sleeping bag and slept for the rest of the night.This morning we woke up and Nic, John and I took off for Monkey Mia to see the dolphins. Mum and Dad followed a little later (we were all needing just a wee bit of space as our moods reflected the poor night's sleep just a little).

We arrived at Monkey Mia to find the dolphins had just come into the beach for their first feed of the morning. We stood on the beach, absolutely entranced as the dolphins swam backwards and forwards right in front of us. Occasionally they stopped and looked up at us - wonderful stuff. Nic and I competed for the "most prolific photographer" award - I thought I had won today - but Nic still managed to outdo me with at least a gazillion photos!

The pelicans weren't half bad either!When the dolphins came back for their second feed, Nic, Uncle John and I all got picked to feed them. It was wonderful to have such a close encounter with these extraordinary creatures.

Mum and Dad turned up for the final feeding of the dolphins for the day and then we mosied over to the restaurant for breakfast. We enjoyed a relaxed meal looking out over the beautiful beach.After this we went and looked at the interpretive display and watched a film. Then, after a short cuppa, Mum and Dad headed back to the campsite whilst Uncle John, Nic and I went out for an afternoon on the Shotover - a beautiful ocean racing catamaran. Nic and I got to be the grinders to help wind out the sail (I am sure there is a more technical term for what we did - but I wouldn't have a clue). Anyway for just a moment I got to pretend I was one of those brave and superfit people who go out on the Sydney to Hobart doing really tough looking things on expensive boats!Paddy thought the whole sailing thing was a bit of a hoot too!We had a wonderful afternoon sailing around over the seagrass meadows and, whilst we didn't sea a lot of wildlife (other than some dolphins and a sea eagle), it was a wonderful afternoon.Finally we headed back to camp at Denham. We managed to catch a gorgeous sunset on the way back. Thanks to Nic for some of the photos on today's blog - the good ones are hers!

Tonight I will sleep in the car again - the swag is damp and it isn't worth putting the tent up for one night and risking the weather again.

Finally, a word on the beautiful word 'beautiful'. Nic tells me she thinks I may have used this beautiful word just a little too often. She even offered to find me a thesaurus list of words to replace beautiful. So from now on I am trying really hard not to use the word 'beautiful' in this blog (even though it is a beautiful word) - so if one does manage to sneak in here and there, please forgive me.... I am doing my best - it's just that everything is so damned..... beautiful!

Kalbarri Gorge and On to Shark Bay Where we have been Washed Away

2008-04-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

Hello friendly blogster readers. We are at Denham on the edge of the beautiful Shark Bay.... and we have been almost washed away! More on that later.

I have to go back a day or so as we were out of range last night and I couldn't post anything. We got up and got ready to leave Kalbarri. Dad put his very best travelling clothes and promptly won the Dag of the Doings Award for his shorts, boots and knee-length socks!

We drove out to Kalbarri Gorge for a look. We had to leave the vans and trailer at the gate of the park as the road in is about 27 km of corrugated red and yellow dirt! Mum and Dad jumped into Fred with me and we followed Uncle John and Nic into the park. The plant-life was fantastic - magnificent orange bottle brushes, red and pink grevillias and a heap of other plants I couldn't name. We turned off at the first lookout for our first glimpse of the gorge - utterly brilliant! It was hot (over 34 degrees) and the flies were EVERYWHERE - but the view was worth it. We felt lucky to have our fly-nets on (they look daggy but do the job). Nic wins the award for the most photos taken - she finished off a 2 gigabyte memory card in her camera today.

We drove on from this lookout to the Window to Nature walk. We walked down a trail to the edge of the gorge and took even more photos (of course). The view was stunning and the water down below looked so inviting (but not worth the hot walk back up I think).We finally drove on to the Z Bend for a look. The walk was 1.2 km and we weren't going to do it as we were running out of time. We thought we would just go in a little way - but of course, then met a man walking out who told us it was well worth the effort... so on we went. He was right! The view was brilliant!

The colours in the cliffs, caves and rock features are truly magnificent. There was so much to see... and this is probably the first gorge of many we will see on this trip.

We finally left the gorge, well after 1.00 o'clock and went on our way. After a late and short stop for lunch, we drove on until we found an overnight camp spot about 40 km south of Billabong. We pulled off the road and set up camp - battling the bloody flies the whole time! It was dark before the flies finally packed it in for the day. Mum has become quite the expert at eating and drinking under her fly veil!This morning we woke to a misty, foggy morning with our swags and pillows quite damp! Yewww! We packed up quickly as the flies had woken early and started to annoy us. We drove on through deepening and rather ominous clouds - knowing we were going to hit rain (mum's aching knees told her so!). The cloud over the desert was pretty spectacular!We finally hit a bit of rain coming into Denham - but it didn't dampen the view of this lovely seaside town on Shark Bay. We had just pulled into the caravan park when the rain came down - we really just had to wait until it finished before setting up camp. The ground was certainly awash with water!We set up camp (Nic and I decided on tents because of the weather) and then went for a look at the World Heritage Centre - very interesting and I will write more about it later.

Tonight we had just started cooking tea when the real storm hit. The winds were wild and the rain torrential. All we could do is stand out in the soaking rain, trying to hold down the awning of the caravan so it didn't get ripped away. I don't think I have ever been so wet. As I write this, it is still pouring rain and storming outside. I haven't checked my tent - I assume it's still standing but I think my bedding is probably floating by this stage! Ah well, nothing a few red wines won't fix.

Hello to Danni at home in Bello - so great to hear from you Dan... I hope we can catch up soon! Hi also to Neil and Barb in Victoria - great to hear from you and great to know you are following our travels!

Up to Kalbarri

2008-04-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

We were up early and packed and then off to Geraldton to have a look at the museum. The museum is housed in a lovely building on the waterfront and has some terrific exhibits. There were a lot of artifacts and information about the wreck of the Dutch ship, Batavia as well as a brand new exhibit about the HMAS Sydney - very interesting!

After this Mum and I dropped into the supermarket to get some supplies - what a nightmare! What is it about having the shops closed for ONE day (Anzac Day) that makes people flock to the shops the next day to get a fix!

We drove on north after this, heading up the coast. We called in to look at some ruins near Port Gregory. These were ruins of an old convict hiring depot from the 1800s. The convicts were brought here and then hired out to work in the lead mines. It was stinking hot when we were there, I can only imagine how dreadful it would have been for the poor convicts in the middle of summer!

After this we went on to Port Gregory where we had lunch by the sea. We watched some lobster boats come in and unload - amazed at how quickly they loaded the crates into the waiting truck.

We drove on north, stopping at Kalbarri National Park where we stopped off to see the beautiful views.

We set up in a caravan park in Kalbarri and then went out to the rather famous "Findlays BBQ" for dinner. This is a set of sheds set up on an old ice-works site, filled with bizarre bits and pieces. It was set up by a local fishing family during the pilots strike when they couldn't get their fish out to the market. The chef had a microphone and a weird sense of humour and the food was fantastic (but far too much on the plate). Uncle John won the "Old Bastards Club" raffle, so that was a good end to the night!

The Arrival of Nic... and Exploring Geraldton

2008-04-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

We awoke to another warm, sunny day. After breakfast we did some washing and tidying up and then set off to find the airport to meet Nic. Uncle John was pretty happy and keen to get there! The airport is reasonably new and is a really lovely building with some interesting models and information inside about the area. Nic's plane was pretty much on time and we all stood outside taking photos of her arrival. I think the locals thought someone famous had arrived, with her own set of paparrazi!

It is great to have Nic with us and we look forward to Bronwyn's arrival in a week.

After a quick cuppa, we set out to explore Geraldton. It is quite a big town and there are a lot of very new, very lavish houses here. We went out to the seafood co-op to pick up some supplies for lunch and dinner and then went on to look at the HMAS Sydney memorial. This beautiful memorial is set on a hill, and has particular interest given the recent discovery of the wreck of the Sydney off the West Australian coast.

The memorial has a beautiful dome with 645 seagulls on it (one for each sailor lost from the Sydney). A local guide told us that there is a mariners tale that seagulls represent sailors who have been lost at sea. When the site for this memorial was first dedicated, a huge flock of seagulls swooped over just as the ceremony began.

The memorial also includes a wall with photographs of the crew and the ship and the names of each of the sailors lost in the tragedy. Behind the dome is a huge replica of the bow of the ship - the guide explained that the bow is not painted as it is a "dead ship" and, as such, should remain just bare metal.

Next to the bow is a poignant statue of a woman looking out to sea and waiting for her loved one to return. This is a very moving statue which has been exquisitely crafted - it really does evoke a feeling of sadness to look at it and then realise how many people waited in vain for the return of their loved ones from the Sydney.

After looking at the memorial, we headed back to the caravan park for lunch. What a wonderful feast we had - 2 kg of fresh king prawns. Delicious!

We sat around after lunch, feeling very full. Then the men went off to town to replenish our drink supplies. Then we packed a bag of cheeses and dry biscuits, along with some champagne and wine and headed down to the beach to toast the sunset. It was a lovely evening and a nice chance to pause and enjoy the beauty of the moment. Nicola also got a chance to dip her toes in the ocean for the first time in the West.We came back to the campsite and tucked into dinner - a delicious fresh-caught and cooked (this morning) lobster each. Gosh I am making it sound like we ate all day..... perhaps we did, but when we are in a town famous for its seafood (particularly lobster)... what else could we do?

After dinner, we drove into town (well actually Nicola drove us into town in Fred as the rest of us felt we might have had one drink too many to drive safely) to look at the memorial by night and the lights of Geraldton. It is a beautiful balmy night with a huge full moon.

Tomorrow we leave Geraldton and head for Kalbarri for a night and then on to Denham and Monkey Mia.

Hi to Danni at home (one of my wonderful students over the last few years) - great to get your email and glad you are reading the blog. I have sent you an email in reply. Hi to any of my other students reading the blog too - I miss you all!

Travelling North

2008-04-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

We went to sleep last night to the sound of frogs - and woke to the sound of birds -kookaburras, honey-eaters, sulphur crested cockatoos, galahs and magpies. We had a lovely breakfast in the warm sun - Uncle John demonstrated his skill at making the perfect poached egg (Bronwyn showed him how!).

We packed up and drove into Guilderton - a beautiful little sea-side village. We pottered around and looked at the view (which was pretty spiffy really) and checked out their lovely local parks - complete with pelican sculpture.

We drove on to Lancelin - a little fishing village further up the coast. We went out to the pier and had a look at the fishing fleet (lobster boats) and watched as a group tried to get their boat out of the water and onto their trailer. The 4wd was down in the water and the waves were crashing in. A huge wave washed the boat up over the winch and it looked like it was going to go into the back of the 4wd. Then the 4wd was under water to above the mudguards. It didn't have a snorkel and was gurgling - but they finally did manage to pull the boat onto the trailer and drive up the beach. I wouldn't want to buy that vehicle 2nd hand!

We drove out and in what we thought was the right direction - but 10km or so later turned round and came back. The road was brand new and huge - but ended in a dead end! Bizarre! Once we were on the right track, we continued on. We stopped at a service station in the middle of nowhere and picked up some lunch (it was a really busy place - the food wasn't bad either - they even baked their own bread there). We pulled up at a roadside stop to eat and I found a beautiful Little Eagle which had just been killed by the road. Mum was a bit horrified when I pulled some of its feathers out to take home (well they were beautiful!). I mollified her by putting them in a snap-lock bag.

We drove on after lunch and Paddy asked if he could have a drive. He did really well given that he doesn't even have his licence!

We started searching for a place to stop for the night once we came through Dongera. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck - no decent roadside stops at all. Mum decided we should cut across towards the beach and see if we could find a place there. We followed a little dirt track - with Mum and I in the lead. We told the fellas to wait whilst we went ahead for a look. Unfortunately it turned into a very rough 4wd track. It took me a little while (and putting Fred into 4wd) to back the trailer and get up the very steep hill. Eventually we found the Greenough River Mouth Caravan Park and booked in for a couple of nights. We are only 9 km from Geraldton and will pick up Nicola from the airport there tomorrow morning.

After we had set up, I went down to the beach and photographed the sun setting over the sea - the west coast photo I have driven almost 6000 km to get!

Mum's Pearl of Wisdom

"Oh look, that sign says cooked, live lobsters - that sounds nice and fresh"

Poor lobsters... to be cooked and still alive! And yes, I suppose they would be freshest if they were still alive after being cooked!

I would love to receive comments from anyone reading this blog. If you would like to leave a comment, just click on the word "comment" below and it will open a new page on which you can type a comment. Otherwise, just email me at nerrida.johnson@bigpond.com

Cave photos and travelling

2008-04-23T05:13:00.000-07:00

Blogspot has decided to be a little kinder to me tonight - so here are some of the photos from our caveing adventure yesterday. Most of them are pretty self explanatory - lots of interesting stalactites and stalacmites and some of us climbing and crawling through the caves...

We finished our caveing adventure with a walk through the Karri and Grass Tree forest - bliss!

Today we basically just travelled (yawn). We did see some incredibly huge horse studs, some lovely farming land and some ginormous houses.... but when it comes down to it - we just drove!

Tonight we are camped beside a creek near Guilderton (above Perth). We are heading for Geraldton where we will meet Nicola on Friday morning. The frogs are singing and the insects are driving me mad - so I will end here for today!

The Cape and The Cave

2008-04-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

What a surprise.... we had more heavy rain overnight! This morning we woke up and Mum and I spent a bit of time catching up on some computer work. Then we had breakfast outside in the cool, weak sunlight. After breakfast the signwriter came over and put the signs on Fred - he looks beautiful now! Uncle John also organised a sign for Mum and Dad's van as a birthday present for Dad. Now we all have signs!

After breakfast we drove down to Augusta and then on to Cape Leeuwin - the very south west tip of Western Australia. The wind was blowing a gale - but I think it is always like that down there. We visited the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse (built in the 1890s and still functioning). It is a beautiful old building which has obviously been built to last!

This is also an interesting part of Australia's geography as it is where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. I looked really hard but couldn't see a line dividing the two oceans!

Now I was going to write a heap about our caving adventure here, but blogspot has decided to have a little nervous breakdown and refuse to upload any more photos - so I guess I can tell you about our caving, and upload the pics tomorrow!

There are a lot of caves in this area, and we decided to go and explore one this afternoon. We chose the giants cave for no particular reason other than we drove past the sign. The lady at the building at the front of the cave told us this was the most "vigorous" of the caves in the area. Mum gracefully declined the offer to go exploring (claustrophobia being an issue) and Dad decided to do the gentlemanly thing and wait with Mum whilst Uncle John and I went and explored. This was no guided tour - we were given hard hats and a dolphin torch each and pointed in the direction of the caves. We climbed down a zillion steps to the mouth of the cave and then continued our descent into the cave system. What a wonderful journey this was. We climbed down steps and ropes into huge caverns filled with the most wonderful stalactites and stalacmites. With only our torches to light the way - and no-one else in the caves, it felt like we were really discovering each new area for the first time. We climbed up ladders, squeezed through holes, scrambled up rocks and climbed down slopes holding a rope (and sitting on my bum!). It was truly a wonderful experience and when we finally got to the end - we wished we could do it all again. We climbed up and out of the cave to finish the experience with a beautiful walk through a forest of karri trees and huge grass trees. What a wonderful afternoon (and how much of a complete dude is Uncle John - after heart surgery last year he is just so fit now!)

We came home for an early tea (as we somehow managed to miss lunch) and a social evening in the barn chatting to the other campers here. Tomorrow we pack up early and head off above Perth - and hopefully out of this awful weather.

On the Wine and Food Trail

2008-04-21T02:53:00.000-07:00

With a decent day finally happening, we spent the morning doing the washing, eating breakfast in the sun and tidying up. There is a couple parked opposite us in a fitted out bus. He is a signwriter and has been travelling around Australia living off his earnings writing signs for travellers and caravan parks etc. The bus is wonderfully decorated - a good ad for his business.

Uncle John organised for a sign for his T-Van and was pretty pleased with the result. I am having some work done for Fred Beast - but you will have to wait for tomorrow to see the results as the signs are being done tonight.We drove into Margaret River this morning - to do more jobs. Dad had to have a tyre repaired - after getting a flat yesterday morning. Mum had to go to the Post Office and organise a Stat. Dec. for her insurance in relation to the lost camera (this took ages!). Then we had to do some grocery shopping. The tedious jobs don't go away just because we are on holidays.

We came back to the caravan park and had a light lunch before setting out on the wine and food trail. We started off at the Margaret River Cheese Factory. They had lots of yummy cheeses to taste and we bought some to feast on later (I loved their marinated fetta - yumlicious). Next we went on to Margaret River Nuts and Cereals. Again we tasted lovely nuts, jams and sauces. Mum and I had fun making a big container of muesli out of a range of nuts, fruits and seeds. Then we decided we hadn't had enough to eat, so we had an icecream. They made the icecream by mixing fresh berries with ice-cream and then pouring it into cups - very yummy indeed.

Following this, we went on to the chocolate factory (is this place Nerrida heaven or what!!!!). They had bowls full of chocolate for tasting. I started out tasting just a couple of little pieces - but then decided I should do what everyone else was doing and have whopping great handfulls (diet? what diet?). It was really delicious and we ended up buying some "for later".

Finally, we went on to "The Providore". This lovely outlet had huge vegetable gardens as well as a vineyard. They sold sauces, jams, olive oils, seeds, spices, relishes, home-made pasta and wine. We all tasted everything.... and then I discovered their wine. It was wonderful, so I bought 2 bottles.

After our day out - the pantry is pretty well stocked. Tonight the blokes are cooking a barbie over at the barn, which should be followed up with wine and chocolate. Golly this travelling life is hard!!!!!

Travelling through the Rain

2008-04-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

After a very cold, very wet and very windy night, we were up early to pack for the next leg of the journey. We seemed to really have it together in terms of pulling down the annex and even managed to get it away in a dry moment. We were not really impressed with the caravan park as we have had no power on two nights and, whilst the park owners claimed it was a problem with their power company..... it seemed strange that their house and the toilet block had power whilst none of the caravan sites did! We met some travellers later on the road who said they had stayed at that park some months earlier and had the same problem. Not pleasant when it's cold and wet! Have a look at the weather map..... that big mass of cloud is where we were!

We set off and drove through some pretty ordinary weather, strong wind squalls and heavy rain. We drove through some beautiful Karri forests - enormous trees with beautiful yellow and orange bark. We were on the road to Pemberton when a couple of cars coming the other way flashed their lights at us. They were warning us of a tree which had fallen right across the road. There were two campervans travelling together in the opposite direction, one got through and it fell right in front of the other - they were so lucky not to have been under it. We waited for about 25 minutes whilst a bloke cut the tree with an axe and then used the winch on the front of his 4wd to winch it off the road. We saw quite a few fallen trees on the rest of the journey, but none that blocked the whole road.

We continued on to Pemberton, a beautiful little logging town filled with tiny loggers cottages. We stopped here for lunch (gotta love those Mi Goreng noodles). It was still pretty cold and rainy so we didn't stop for long.The scenery changed and soon we were travelling through beautiful lowland scrub forests, filled with very old, very large grass trees. It was good to turn off and begin our journey north again (hopefully to some better weather). We drove into Margaret River, a lovely town in the middle of this very popular winery region. We found that both caravan parks were booked out, but this was to our advantage as we ended up at the Taunton Farm Caravan Park, at Coweramup - a little town 10 minutes north of Margaret River. This is one of the most beautiful parks we have stayed in. The sites are green and shaded with lovely trees. There are farm animals to pat (Uncle John doesn't seem to0 interested.. can't think why) and, best of all - a huge communal barn with a log fire, tables and chairs and cooking facilities. It was filled with families enjoying a meal and a chat and we had a terrific (warm) evening in out of the rain and cold. We will stay here 3 nights to explore the region. This morning we awoke to bright sunshine (at last!). It was lovely to sit outside and have breakfast in the sun. Today we will head off to explore this area, and perhaps stand on the West Coast for the first time. The wineries, chocolate factory and cheese factory all beckon!

The Valley of the Giants

2008-04-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

After a not particularly brilliant night (lots of wind and rain and very cold), today we set out for Walpole and the magnificent Valley of the Giants. This magnificent Valley is filled with giant tingle and karri trees. They have created a beautiful tree top walk which climbs to 40 metres above the ground. It is fun to walk on as the structure swings as you walk. We enjoyed a really good look around here - though it did pelt with rain a few times (not unusual here as they get rain approximately 185 days a year).

We went on to Walpole for lunch - a really delicious feed from the local bakery. Mum was pretty interested in this little town as it is the WA finalist in the Tidy Towns competition. Dorrigo is the NSW finalist and the winner will be announced in Tasmania tonight.

After lunch we went to look in a beautiful gallery - magnificent paintings and sculpture! Then on to Swarbrick - an interesting sculpture installation in the old growth forest. The sculptures were all interesting and all added to the beauty of the forest. The long stainless steel "mirror" with white leaves on it was my favourite - it reflected the beauty of the forest opposite.

Next we went on to have a look at the Walpole lookout and then the Giant Tingle tree. We had a lovely walk through the forrest and then took a heap of photos of this magnificent old giant of a tree. In years gone by, people backed their cars into the tree trunk for photos -though now they know that the root systems of these huge trees are actually quite fragile and they have built up boardwalks to protect them.

We drove on from here to the Circle Pools. These beautiful pools were peaceful and just the perfect place to sit or stand still for a while enjoying the quiet and beauty of the space. The bush is full of interesting plants and flowers and everything is fresh and bright after the rain.

On our way back to Denmark, we called into Peaceful Beach - a lovely little village with white sandy beachs on 3 sides. We drove down onto the beach for some photos, though didn't stay for long as it was quite cold.

Poor Mum, she has been working hard.... cooking and keeping the blokes in line. I think it has finally caught up with her!

And as for the men working..... well Uncle John cooked scrummy jaffles for us for dinner last night.... and here is the photographic evidence of them doing the dishes tonight. Now no-one can claim I am unfair in what I write! (Though everything I wrote about talking non-stop, imbibing in the odd drink or seven and tripping over my swag remains true).

Exploring Albany

2008-04-18T08:03:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning and went for a walk along the bay and the river. Mum had already headed off on a walk into town. The bird-life was beautiful - I loved the morning meeting of pelicans on the corner.

After breakfast we headed into Albany to explore. The weather was sunny, though we were expecting rain later in the day. We drove through the beautiful town of Albany and up to the War Memorial lookout. We parked and then climbed the billion steps to the lookout (ok, so maybe not a billion - but it felt like it). This extraordinary memorial was built in memory of the soldiers who fought in the first and second world wars. It particularly commerorates the anzacs who fought at Gallipoli. Albany has an important part of our history as it was the leaving point for the very first fleet of soldiers who went to fight the first world war. Many of these soldiers went on to Gallipoli where they were killed. Albany is also the sight of the very first Anzac Day memorial service. The statue is particularly moving and beautiful.We climbed on a little further from the memorial for some spectacular views of Albany. We were all really surprised by how beautiful this town is.Following the exertion of the climb, we went into Albany for a morning coffee (tea for me) and cake. Those following Uncle John's recovery from his heart surgery will be pleased that he is still trying to keep to a healthy diet. Whilst we enjoyed generous servings of cake, Uncle John went for the smaller version!We went on to do some shopping - new sunglasses for me and a new camera for mum. The price for the camera was so good... Dad got one too (with quite a bit of encouragement from Uncle John).

In the afternoon we had some quite heavy rain. There is a front crossing WA today and it is bringing some cooler weather and rain. The people of Denmark were particularly pleased as their town water supply has run out and they are trucking water in from Albany.

We left Albany late in the afternoon and headed for home. Well actually it wasn't that late when we left, but by the time Dad had taken three wrong turns on a roundabout and driven us over the same street in the centre of town several times whilst trying to work out where to go.... it was late!

Finally, the blokes reckon I might have been a little unfair to them in yesterday's blog. Whilst Mum and I are of the opinion that I have written nothing but the truth.... I will print some pictures of them doing the dishes or something similar as soon as I get the opportunity to take one!

On the Road to Denmark

2008-04-17T03:14:00.001-07:00

Today's blog begins with a word about Dad and Uncle John. Now they reckon the women can talk, but get the two of them together and they can mutter on for hours. Even longer when helped by a whisky, bundy or red wine or seven. They are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. I won't tell tales, but the other night Mum and I gave up waiting for them and went to bed.... on coming back to the caravan some time later, Uncle John tripped on my swag and sort of hiccuped something that sounded like "sorry". Incorrigable!!!

Anyway, this morning we got up before the sun and set off on our big day's driving. We had about 550 km to drive between Esperance and Denmark (just East of Albany). We drove through some magnificent countryside - the plant life was extraordinary. We saw bright red balls of flower on the hakea bushes, yellow wattle, bright orange bottle brush, creamy banksia and wild kangaroo paw amongst others. The birdlife was also a feature - with a range of parrots and woodland birds in abundance. Mum and I were kept busy identifying them in my bird book and listing them all.

We arrived at the beautiful Denmark just after 4 o'clock and have booked into a lovely caravan park at the river mouth. There are waterbirds everywhere, beautiful black swans feeding and pelicans gliding up and down the still water. Behind us is a tall stand of trees and there is evidence that kangaroos frequent this camp ground. We will camp here for the next three nights whilst we explore the area.

Finally, I think I will make an occasional section in my blog for the incredible words of wisdom which sometimes pour forth from Mum. So here is the first....

Mum's Pearls of Wisdom

"You know, if it wasn't for these clouds, it would be quite sunny today!"

Duh!

Over the Sea to Woody Island

2008-04-16T02:38:00.000-07:00

Today I left Mum, Dad and Uncle John behind and ventured out on a day-long cruise to Woody Island. I had to be at the boat at 8.30 am (which required actually getting out of bed!). The boat was a beautiful catamaran (good for a nice smooth ride across the waves) and there were about 60 people aboard.

First we motored around the port and looked at the huge ships and beautiful facilities. This is the deepest port in the southern half of Australia - and it needs to be to let the huge bulk carriers in. There were three ships there this morning - one of them was a massive ore carrier - one of the biggest in the world. It carries 280 000 tonnes of ore at any one time. They were loading it today - they can load at a rate of 3 000 tonnes an hour (do your maths, that's a long time to load a boat).

After looking at the port, we motored around to look at some of the beautiful beaches of Esperance. The beaches are pristine with gorgeous turquoise waters. The water is this colour because of the pure white sand on the floor of the sea here.We continued on to look at some of the islands and wildlife. There are over 150 islands in this archepelago. It wasn't long before we saw seal lions and Australian fur seals basking on the rocks. We got in quite close for a look.

Then came what I thought was one of the real highlights of the day. The Cat slowed and suddenly there was a beautiful white bellied sea eagle soaring above us. One of the crew stood out the front and whistled to the bird before throwing a fish into the sea for it. The eagle swooped right in front of us and then flew off with his "catch". What a magnificent sight!Finally we arrived at Woody Island - which is about 16 km from the mainland. After a lovely morning tea (hmmmm chocolate cake) we went for a bushwalk over the island. I managed this ok, but must have looked a little white by the time I got to the top - an old lady stopped to ask if I was ok (how embarrassing). The views from the top of the Island were magnificent.

We climbed back down and I decided to go for a swim. The southern ocean waters are certainly refreshing!!!! But it was a hot day and I soon got used to the water temperature - the water was crystal clear and I could see fish swimming around my feet.

After this, it was lunch time - we had a yummy bbq lunch with heaps of salads and platters of fresh fruit to finish off. After lunch we went out in a glass bottomed boat and saw some truly magnificent fish. (Paddy quite enjoyed this).Following this there was time for some snorkling (I really enjoyed this - the water was so clear and there were many ledges with fish everywhere) and I sat and dried in the warm sun and did some painting. Finally, it was time to board the boat again and head for home. Paddy really enjoyed having a go at sitting in the "Captain Kirk" chair and driving the boat!Finally.... an addition to yesterday's little story about the swag!

The next day an Oztrail knight came galloping in on his computer steed with an offer to replace all poles at no cost. These should arrive within a week to one of our campsites. Ah Oztrail, perhaps you may have redeemed yourself after all.

Hi to everyone at home - in answer to some questions:

1. No, mum didnt find her camera - it has disappeared into the void and she has made an insurance claim. Hopefully she will have a shiny new one this week.

2. I am feeling better and stronger every day. Mum gave me my vitamin B injection yesterday (and it didnt even hurt - well done mum).

3. Dad and Uncle John are still losing things every day and usually finding them again fortunately.

Off to Esperance

2008-04-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

We awoke to another sunny day (definitely not like living in Dorrigo!). We breakfasted and packed and were ready to leave by 8.30. We drove through Norseman, a really pretty little mining town with ancient shops and quite an outback feeling to it. There are several lovely little touches to the town, like little gardens on the roundabouts and the famous Norseman camels.

We drove on through a beautiful landscape of red soil, salmon gums and saltbush. Eventually the landscape changed as we moved into some farming land - huge paddocks from which some really decent crops of wheat have recently been harvested. We stopped for morning tea at a tiny village called Scadden. There was a lovely little pioneer park with some beautiful murals on the walls. The one inhabited house in this little village had sheep in the back yard, and they came over to share some apple for morning tea. We were really impressed with the beautiful murals and the obvious sense of community in this remote rural setting.

We drove on to Esperance, arriving at a very civilised hour in time for lunch. We checked into a lovely caravan park - lucky to get the last two sites. It is school holidays here in WA and this coast is very popular during this time. We are not sure how difficult it might be to find sites when we get over to the Margaret River area because of its proximity to Perth - but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. We had a delicious healthy lunch and then Mum, Dad and I went for a swim in the pool - given that it was about 31 degrees and we felt quite warm. The water was absolutely freezing - I am sure they put ice blocks in it! Our swim involved a lot of gasping and racing for the steps to see who could get out first. Though we did feel really refreshed afterwards and it didn't take long to warm up again.

After this Dad and Uncle John fiddled around for a while (as men do) and Mum and I went out to do some sight-seeing. Esperance is such a beautiful sea-side town with white beaches, norfolk pines and a gorgeous, long pier. We drove up to the lookout and were just stunned at the beautiful islands dotted around the bay.

Now for the saga of Nerrida's swag......... dedicated with love to the staff at Oztrail....

Once upon a time, a lady planned a big trip away - all the way around Australia. She decided she wanted to really get out into the great outdoors on this trip - so she bought two Oztrail swags (one each for her and her lovely son).

The first four days of the trip went swimmingly, but then, alas, disaster struck. One of the poles for the swag snapped. This happened quite unexpected and gave the lady a nasty shock. Being a very resourceful lady, she grabbed the pole from the spare swag and used that whilst she sent an email to Oztrail asking for help.

The lady soon heard from Oztrail, who told her to go to their supplier in Ceduna - they were sure to help a lady in distress. She duly went along to the supplier who said, "I have a room of broken Oztrail stuff out the back - how do you think I can do anything to help you?" This was not at all encouraging, however the lady persisted and eventually the man said she would have to buy a packet of spare Oztrail tent poles. The lady noticed that these were a different size and asked the man what she should do. "Just cut them with a hack saw" he said, "they should be all right because they are fibreglass." The lady duly paid her money and went on her way.

Several nights later, the pole from the second swag snapped. The lady was quite upset about this and sat with her friends into the night, cutting a new pole using a bread-knife (given that she had left the hack-saw off her list of important things to take away). The pole didn't cut very well as it was only fibreglass on the outside and weak cane on the inside. Verily there was a lot of grumbling that night!

The very next night the lady returned for a lovely day out to find that the new swag pole had also broken. Now she really was distressed and was having very unkind thoughts about Oztrail. She sat at her computer and wrote a very stern email indeed - asking that Oztrail immediately replace all poles with good quality poles at no cost.

Unfortunately dear readers, this little tale must temporarily close here. Let us all hope that the next chapter will bring a happy ending when the (hopefully) kind man from Oztrail comes to his senses and realises just how naughty he and his company have been!

That's all for today. Tomorrow I am off on a boat trip to some of the islands - it should be great providing the weather gods are kind.

Thank you to family and friends who are reading the blog and sending emails and comments - its good to have you along for the ride with us

Kalgoorlie Adventures

2008-04-14T03:22:00.000-07:00

We all slept quite well last night, even through the sound in the distance of a stamping machine crushing ore through the night (well this is a mining town). We got up, had breakfast and Mum decided Dad needed a good shearing!

After this we all piled into Uncle John's beast of a vehicle and headed up the road about 200 km to Kalgoorlie. This outback mining town has a population of just over 30 000 people and is quite a beautiful town. We stopped at the entrance to Kalgoorlie for some photos with the big Ore Buckets. Everything here is huge!

Speaking of huge, our next stop was the super-pit. Alan Bond first came up with the idea of buying out all of the smaller gold mines to make one huge mine - he was unable to bring his dream to fruition (busy doing naughty things with tax and famous paintings I think), but another major company took over his dream. It is almost impossible to describe the size of this huge mine - so perhaps some photos will help. In this first photo, see if you can see the huge mine truck driving down the road into the pit..... and then remember that a 4 wheel drive doesn't even come to the top of one of the tyres on the truck. If you look carefully, you will see a 4 wheel drive to the right of the truck, to give you an idea of the scale.

There are 32 of these trucks operating in this superpit, they cost 4 million dollars each and carry 225 tonne each load. The truck tyres cost $26 000 each, a total of $156 000 of tyres on each truck at any given time. Even more amazing are the big shovels. There is one to the right of the truck in the picture below. There are 4 of these huge machines in the pit, and they cost 10 million dollars each. Each shovel holds 11000 litres of fuel in its tanks (that's an awful lot of petrol stops for Fred). Each time they pick up a load in the shovel, they are picking up 60 tonnes of ore. They dump 4 loads into each truck. It is amazing to watch.So what do they get out of all of this? Well every huge truck load of ore yields just 19 ounces of gold. But at current prices, that is $10 115 of gold each load.

We came back to the super-pit at 1.00 as we had been told they would be blasting then. Quite hilariously, we missed seeing the actual blast as we were looking in the wrong direction! But we certainly heard it and felt it.... and mum managed to get a couple of photos of the dust caused by the blast (they have to wait 12 hours after a blast for everything to settle before they can start working in that area again.) In the pictures below, look at the trucks sitting on the edge of the blast site, about to be enveloped in dust. Interestingly, blasts can only happen on days when the wind is blowing in the right direction - as they must not allow the dust to spread over the town.

After this we went into Kalgoorlie to have a look around the town. There truly is a pub on every corner here and most of them are beautiful with ornate wrought iron lace-work around the verandas.

We stopped off at the beautiful old town hall. This is a magnificent building, filled with interesting paintings and artefacts. Mum quite enjoyed sitting in the Mayor's seat in the council chamber.

We also went for a drive along Kalgoorlie's infamous Hay Street - the "red-light" district of Kalgoorlie. Most of the brothels offer tours during the day time, however we decided to give it a miss (in case the men felt tempted).

We picked up some groceries (surprised to find the prices similar to home) - it was great to get some fresh fruit as we haven't had any since we went through the quarantine station on Saturday.

After this we drove on to Coolgardie for a cuppa. This quaint town was once a booming mining town - but is now quite a historical site. We were impressed by the green lawns in the park (watered with treated sewage effluent so the sign said). People in these little towns can be a little quirky and we stopped to photograph an interesting garden as we went through. I guess plants don't grow so well without water, so anything goes!

We set off for the long drive home, stopping only to photograph a beautiful wedge-tailed eagle. These birds are just so elusive and hard to photograph as they fly off as soon as you slow down.And finally, the beautiful trees we saw yesterday and today are called Salmon Gums.... so here's another photo of one of these extraordinarily beautiful trees. Tomorrow we are off to Esperance.

Across the Mighty Nullarbor

2008-04-13T02:23:00.000-07:00

Wow I have so much to write. We have been out of internet range for the three days it took to drive across the Nullarbor.... but first I should backtrack a bit to our last night in Ceduna...

We went fishing out on the pier at Denial Bay (about 13 km from Ceduna). I caught my first ever squid (well I caught 2 of them actually). What fun it was to catch them and what beautiful creatures they are - pulsating different colours. I discovered quickly that one has to be careful which way they are facing on the decking as they squirt out their black ink everywhere (Mum is still grumbling about the stains on Dad's new shorts). Uncle John cooked up the squid with his salt and pepper recipe and we feasted!!!

On our last night in Ceduna, we actually got a thunderstorm and some rain. I am afraid I was a bit of a wimp and crawled inside the caravan with Baabaara the sheepskin and my sleeping bag for a while - the lightning was a bit too fierce for me sleeping outside on my metal framed camp stretcher!

We got up early and packed up, ready for our journey. We got away by about 10 am and set off out through Penong - a tiny outback town with old windmills everywhere. Once we passed this town, I was into unfamiliar territory - this is as far as I have ever been before.

It wasn't long before we were on the Nullarbor. Now, I had expected the Nullarbor to be beautiful in that wild, desolate, sparse, nothing there kind of beauty.... I was wrong! The Nullarbor is awe inspiringly, achingly, mind blowingly, almost indescribably beautiful. I think I drove the others nuts with my constant exclamations, "Oh but this is really really beautiful".

For the early part of our drive, the landscape was rolling hills with red soil and an understory of silver-blue saltbush. The next layer are dark green succulent shrubs, topped off with some beautiful stunted gum trees - with glistening green leaves (probably enhanced by the rain the night before).

We continued on until we came to the edge of the true treeless plain. This was spectacular in a different way - flat and dry and not a tree in sight - just as well we didn't need a loo break because there was definitely nowhere to squat here.

We stopped off at the Nullarbor Roadhouse for some fuel (and the loo). At $1.89 a litre, it hurt - the fuel, not the loo! We saw some interesting sites here, but the wind was roaring across the plain and we didn't stop for too long.

We didn't see a lot of wildlife on the road (apart from dead roos) but the signs were interesting! We did see one dead camel beside the road and, best of all, heaps of really majestic Wedge Tailed Eagles - what magnificent birds these are!

I was stunned by the amount of traffic on the Nullarbor. You certainly have to look both ways before crossing! There were a lot of huge road trains and many big trucks transporting massive pieces of farming and mining machinery. One vehicle came with 2 police cars and 2 pilot vehicles with flashing lights. We had to pull right off the road to let this massive truck past!

We pulled off the road on a little dirt track about 30 km west of the Nullarbor Roadhouse to camp for the night. It was a truly beautiful bush camp with shrubs and trees all around. I set up my swag out on the red dirt and really felt that finally I was "out in the bush". We sat for an afternoon beer and then Uncle John cooked up some of the fish we had caught for a wonderful fish dinner. After dinner and a couple of glasses of red, we all retired for the night.

It was a beautiful night's sleep - I slept with my swag open most of the night, until we got some rain showers early in the morning. Imagine that.... rain on the Nullarbor!!! I seem to be keeping to my habit of bringing rain to wherever I go. Fortunately the rain stopped fairly quickly and we woke to a bright, fresh day.

We had breakfast and then set off across the Nullarbor again. We soon came to the first access road to the Head of the Great Australian Bight. How disappointing to find the road closed for maintenance. However soon enough we came to some other lookouts. It was wonderful to stand and look out to sea - this has been one of my lifelong dreams ... to stand at the edge of the edge of our country. I really loved every lookout (and slowed our progress considerably by insisting that we stop at each one!)

In this photo I am standing at the edge of the bight wearing the hat I knitted on the first day of the trip. True to my tradition - I have been knitting hats all the way so far. Look out friends - you will probably all get one when I get home!

It is hard to describe the enormity of this trip across the Nullarbor - it just stretches for ever. Between Ceduna and Norseman, the only medical help available is through the Royal Flying Doctor Service. At several places the road is designated as a Royal Flying Doctor Landing Strip - and I am sure these strips are used quite often to assist road accident victims. It's quite shameful that this important service is not fully Government funded and relies on donations to keep going.After quite a drive, we stopped at the West Australian Border. The quarantine restrictions are really strict as they try to stop damaging pests from getting over into the West Australian agricultural districts. Officers checked our van and my trailer and even made Uncle John open up the T Van for an inspection. We had to hand over some carrots, onions and a jar of honey!

We pulled up at the border for some photos - it has been a 3000 km journey so far to get to this State! We also had to put our clocks back 3/4 of an hour. We had to change them back a further 3/4 of an hour 300 km down the road - very confusing.

We continued on just a few kilometres past the border to the town of Eucla (the word 'town' is used very loosely around here - usually means a service station and a couple of dusty motel rooms). We drove down to look at the Eucla Telegraph Station. This is a really popular landmark - built in the 1800s, the old telegraph station has been covered by sand dunes. Usually you can only see the chimneys sticking out from the dunes - but for just a couple of weeks a year, the wind shifts direction and the station emerges from the dunes. We were so lucky to be here at just that time and were able to walk inside the old building and look around. It was amazing to think that people lived and worked in those conditions.
While we were there a beautiful flock of Major Mitchell Cockatoos flew into the tree behind the ruins - they were glorious with their pink underbellies and white wings. I walked on behind the ruins to look at the view across the dunes. These enormous white sand hills seemed to march on forever.
We continued on driving through a magnificent landscape. To our right rose up a huge escarpment which just seemed timeless with its ancient rock formations and caves. It was easy to imagine the first people of Australia living and wandering through this land.

We pulled into a roadside stop for the night and set up camp. Dad and Uncle John got a wonderful campfire and we feasted on salt and pepper squid for entree before eating a dinner of fried rice, fishcakes and vegies by the campfire.

Now is probably an appropriate time for me to post my rules for using the "bush toilet"...

1. When selecting a spot to go, be aware that whilst that little clump of trees may hide you from your camp-site, it will not hide you from the motorists driving along the road running alongside.

2. Take your shovel with you... essential for digging the hole, and important for feeling safe in relation to snakes and other creepy crawlies.

3. Dig a suitable sized hole (if the hole is too small, aiming may be difficult).

4. Check for snakes, spiders and ant nests BEFORE commencing the squat.

5. Check the line of descent between standing and squatting for prickle bushes.

6. Put the toilet paper within reach before squatting.

7. Squat carefully.

8. Do the... well you know..... making sure to clear shoes, feet and trailing clothing.

9. Wipe quickly before the blowies discover you.

10. Fill in the hole and pat down with the shovel.

11. Saunter back to the campsite with shovel and toilet roll, acting as though you are totally cool with this and do it all the time.

Ok, back to the trip...... We got up, had breakfast and continued on our way. We had quite a big haul today, over 400 km. The landscape was just beautiful again - gently rolling hills and beautiful scrub land. The stretch from Caiguna is the longest stretch of perfectly straight road in Australia (140 km). We pulled over into a road side stop for lunch. It was really interesting as there were all this beautiful perfectly round limestone marbles on the ground. We collected a few to bring home. We sat out in the lovely bush eating our noodles for lunch (just love those mi goreng noodles!)
Don't Mum and Dad make a cute couple sitting on their log munching on their lunch!

We continued on after lunch, again driving through beautiful countryside. There have been some huge bush fires through here over the last couple of years - but it's good to see the bush regenerating so well. We were really entranced by the beautiful burnished copper gum trees - not sure exactly what they are called, but they are stunning.

We stopped and picked up a young german man whose car had broken down (well and truly - the piston had ripped through the motor) and we gave him a lift into Norseman. We arrived in Norseman at about 3.00 - our journey over the Nullarbor was over!

I will write more about this interesting gold mining town tomorrow - and tomorrow we are off to Kalgoorlie to look at the huge mining super-pit and the interesting old town.

Thank you so much to those who are posting comments and sending emails - keep them coming as it is great to hear from home. And hi to Uncle John's family and friends in Vic who are following our travels through this blog - please pass it on to anyone who might be interested. And hi to Margaret who has just started following our travels!

Fishing and 4 Wheel Driving

2008-04-09T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a big, but wonderful couple of days. The blokes came back on the first night, very proud of their catch. They caught 8 blue swimmer crabs and 18 squid. They also went to the shop and picked up some magnificent oysters. What a feast we had with crabs and oysters. The crab meat is absolutely magnificent - so fresh and sweet!

Lachlan we were thinking of you with the squid.... knowing how you so much wanted to catch one last time we were here. We have had salt and pepper cooked calamari for breakfast for the last two mornings! The blokes cryovac'd the squid and put them in the freezer as, not only are they good eating - but great for bait!

Yesterday we got up and set out for Davenport Creek for a day's fishing. To get there we drove about 35 km on very corrugated dirt roads. Then it was off-road for some great fun 4-wheel driving through the sand dunes and along the beach. We arrived at Davenport Creek (very isolated and very beautiful!) and got our fishing gear out. Within 5 seconds of throwing my line in, I had a lovely baby salmon. It was my first fish of the trip.

We fished on for a while, picking up a few more little salmon and Mum got a flounder. As the tide was coming in, we decided to give it a break and have lunch.

It was quite funny as we moved the vehicles well up the track as the water was quickly covering the track. We thought we were well clear, but still the water came, creeping under Uncle John's vehicle and onwards towards us.

Eventually we gave up and sat with our feet in the water, eating our lunch.

After lunch we went back to fishing. Uncle John got a nice legal sized King George Whiting, and we threw a couple back because they were a bit small. I cast out into some deeper water and almost immediately my line got hit hard. I hooked a salmon - and what a magnificent fight he put up. My rod was bent right over as he fought, first one way and then the other. Several times he leaped clear of the water and, in the end, the only way I could get him was to walk backwards up the bank. This was the most fun I have ever had catching a fish as he put up such a fight. I will long remember this one. Soon after, Mum also caught a lovely mature salmon. So for today... we girls get the fishing trophy for the best catch! (Not sure that we will hold that trophy for too long).

At about 5 we packed up, ready for the trip home. We knew it would be a tougher drive out than in, as we had to climb quite a few sand hills with very soft sand. We fronted up to a huge hill, but despite 3 attempts, Uncle John couldn't get over it - so we retreated to find another path and to let our tyres down some more. We ended up letting them down to about 15 (which gives a broader tyre base on the sand). Once we did this, we had no problems powering up the hills. I was really thrilled to have my first real go at 4 wheel driving - and also really impressed with Fred's performance - he travelled solidly through even the softest sand and didn't let me down once. Go Fred!!!
Our final drive along the beach was just beautiful, with the sun setting on the horizon. What a wonderful day!

Once off the beach, we had to stop to pump up the tyres with the portable compressor. This took about half an hour, and then we were off back to town on the corrugated dirt road. We got home, had a very quick shower and then headed off to the pub for dinner. The Ceduna Pub has been completely renovated and is very beautiful. We had a wonderful meal and a couple of drinks, finishing the night with an interesting chat to a young shearer. He had come across from his family property at Keith to do some shearing. He said they get $2.26 per sheep, but it's hard work here as there sometimes seems to be more dirt than fleece on the sheep.

A word about Ceduna: it seems to have really changed from the somewhat sad place it was a couple of years ago. I think a lot has been done to try to improve conditions for the aboriginal people - we are not seeing any drunkeness on the streets as we did back then and there seems to be an all round happier atmosphere here (though I am sure there are still many problems to be worked with and more support needed.) Ceduna people are generally friendly and just a little quirky. Mum, Dad and Uncle John thought it hilarious to find the lady in the computer shop rearing a baby lamb. It had been found by the side of the road and she decided to save it. The lamb was wearing two nappies and had the run of the shop. Odd, very odd indeed!

Finally, to those at home. Thank you to Betty and Nicola for being clever enough to work out how to post comments to the blog - it's great to hear from you. For Lachlan and Sam, I am really excited now that we have booked your air tickets and can't wait to meet you in Darwin. To Sheree, thanks for the phone calls and the chance to talk to Eli on the phone - we miss you! Bethanie.... will try to call you soon. And to Pete - we really miss you and wish you were here on this trip with us. We think of you all the time and hope you can find a way to make it up to Darwin. And to everyone else.... hi, hope all is well... I am having a ball and getting stronger every day! Tomorrow its the Nullabor!!!!

A Day of Rest

2008-04-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

Today I have had a rest day. We got up early and I couldn't believe the line of people heading over to the laundry to do the washing before the sun was even up! I wandered over to the beach and sat for a while before coming back for breakfast.

The travelling community is interesting. Latest estimates are that there are over 150 000 caravan rigs on the road in Australia at any given time. It's a bit of a worry as many we see are "SKIs" retired people intent on "spending the kids' inheritance". Some of the rigs are incredible, worth between $200 000 and half a million dollars. I wonder what will happen to our economy when they have spent it all and the next generation have nothing to inherit!

On the positive side, people are really friendly and willing to chat. The first question is always "where are you from?" and the next is "where are you going?". There are some really interesting people with great stories and hints for the road ahead. We are already having to change our plans for Broome as we hear it is impossible to get a site in the caravan parks and there is no free roadside camping anywhere near. We will work out what to do as we get closer.

OK, well just a short one today.... I am going back to my bed for a good lie down!

Through to Ceduna

2008-04-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful night at Spears Creek, camping under the huge river redgums. Uncle John provided the dinner - a wonderful feast of prawns which is somewhat of a tradition for the first night of a Johnson/Stuart family holiday.

I am travelling well, though I do get somewhat exhausted at night and find the effort of eating a bit overwhelming at times. The prawns were fantastic - but I needed a good lie down afterwards!

We got away to a good start this morning, pulling out at about 8.30. We drove through Port Augusta and then on past the Baxter Detention Centre to Iron Knob (what government could POSSIBLY think it a reasonable place to put refugees awaiting processes!!!!)

We stopped off at Kimba and took some photos, Kimba being famous for being half way across Australia.

Shortly after Kimba we stopped for lunch. Uncle John's new T Van proved terrific for these short stops as he can pull the kitchen out from the side of the van and boil the kettle etc in just a few short seconds.

We continued on to arrive at Ceduna at about 4 pm. We have booked into the Shelly Beach Caravan Park, where we will stay for 4 nights. After setting up the van and annex, Mum and I went for a walk to the beach to sit and watch the sunset..... bliss after a long day.

We will settle in here and then go out fishing over the next few days - on the hunt for King George Whiting and crabs.