Day thirty-nine:  Margaret River wine tour.

 

Today started at about 7am.  We packed up our stuff at the apartment and drove down to the caravan park to get an unpowered site and when I say site, I mean a car park.

 

We then went down to the visitors centre and waited for the wine tour bus to pick us up.  While we were waiting we met and had a great chat to Kazza and Owen who were from Swan Hill and were also going on the wine tour.  (They were a great find and were lots of fun all day)

 

We met our tour guide Sylvano who reminded me of Jimmy the runner from Coober Pedy and talked as much.  He took us through the list of the wineries/breweries/factories that we were going to visit for the day and we took off for Bettany winery.

 

The most out-standing thing about the Bettany winery was the over charismatic wine maker who hit on Louisa hard.  My lord, I nearly had to step in towards the end.  I’ve never seen someone single out another person out of about 30 people and apply sleazy pick-up lines in front of a crowd.  Priceless.  Louisa was blushing slightly.

 

 

After that we went to the Margaret River chocolate factory followed by the dairy.  Yum.  I had to stop myself from pocketing all the free chocolate they had on offer.

 

Then we went to Knotting Hill for more wine tasting and lunch.  The wineries we visited were so beautiful.  Most of them had lakes and amazingly green rolling hills.

 

Sylvano prepared a gourmet lunch for us and told us that at the end of lunch two of us would get to try something a little extra.  Knowing that I have a fear of missing out on anything I was immediately intrigued and wanted in.  After lunch Sylvano left for the kitchen to bring out the mystery meal and parade it around the table.  It was a witchetty grub. 

Apparently a gourmet one.

One that comes in a box of 100 and the box costs $500.  He told us that the first two people to raise their hands would be able to share it and so as quickly as I could, I did so and the next thing you know I had some grub in my mouth.  Yum! 

Louisa caught it all on video.

 

After lunch we went to a liquer house type thing to have shots and then followed up on our final stop to a brewery.  Needless to say by this stage most of us were all slightly sloshed and on great terms with one another.  When the bus took off to drop us all home we all just organized to meet for dinner an hour later!

 

Dinner was great fun and I ended up giving Kazza and Owen the address to the pub so they could come and visit when they were next in Melbourne.  After dinner we went to the pub across the road and Louisa and I managed to have a stupid fight in the short time we were there.  We decided to leave and were asleep by about 9pm.

 

Day forty:  Margaret River back to Perth.  Start time: 9:30am  Arrival time: 6pm  Odometer: Forgot again

 

We left our car park shortly after 9am and took off for a few wineries that we’d missed the day before.

 

Our first stop was Howard Park/Mad Fish = 2bottles bought.

Second stop Vasse Felix = Another 2 bottles.

Third stop Natural Olive Oil shop = 2 bars of soap, Macadamia pesto (because we need to eat more) and some passionfruit olive oil.

Fourth stop Capel Vale = lunch and 2 more bottles of wine.

 

= good times.

 

We left for Perth about 3:15pm listening to lots of 80’s tunes, booked into the backpackers in Northbridge, went and had some Vietnamese and retired to our rooms rather quickly for a snooze.

 

Day forty-one to forty-three: Our last few days in Perth.  The end.  Final Odometer reading: 93215 Total km’s: Shitloads

 

Well the time has come when all things must come to an end.  This will be the last blog entry.

 

We left our backpacker cell about 9am and headed out for a coffee before going to meet Louisa’s friend Renee where we would be staying for our last few days.

 

Renee and Terry live in Victoria Park in Perth and have a great home and an even better dog, Maggie.  She’s a Siberian Husky one year old and beautiful.

 

Over the weekend we did a lot of cooking, a bit of relaxing, a little bit of site seeing, some more catching up with other friends and our final clean of the kombi to get it ready for Colin and finally pack our bags.

 

It’s been such a fun trip and I can’t recommend it enough for everyone.  Not once did I feel unsafe out in the middle of nowhere, in fact I would say quite the opposite.  Everyone is friendly, giving, caring and more than willing to help or give advice if you require it. 

 

So here I am at the airport trying to work out how to end this bloody blog.  Do I just write until I stop?  Do I type a small acceptance speech about how nice it’s been to have you read my story – even if there may not be anyone reading it?  It’s all a bit confusing but here we go…

 

Thanks to Veenus and Louisa for making me write this blog.  I know people are reading it but it’s good for me too because I’ve never thought to write anything before and I have a terrible memory.  It’s been very interesting for me to read over it a couple of times and I’ve laughed like I’d only just learnt about it.

 

Thanks to my brain and hands who coordinated this massive effort, I never thought it could be done or that I’d have so many words in my head.

 

Thanks to Louisa who put up with me on the trip in such a small home.  It really takes a lot of patience and tolerance to live like that and she had neither.  Just kidding – we had a lot of fun and I thank her for being such a great travelling companion and putting up with me.

 

Thanks to my sister who waited patiently to be mentioned in the blog and it never happened.  Of course I love you Kate – “I’m your sister”

 

And thanks to everyone who showed an interest in the trip and sent me messages about the blog.  It really has been fun keeping a record and I can’t wait to see you all in Melbourne and not have to tell you anything cause you’ll already know.

 

So until next trip,

Goodnight Austraia..xoxo

 

 

 

 

 

Day thirty-two:  Barrandale rest area to supposedly Coral Bay.  Start time: 9:30am  Arrival time: 1:30pm   Odometer: 90717

 

Today was rather uneventful so I’ll keep it short.  I got up about 6:45am and made a ripper fire (I love fires as some of you may know) out of not much kindling.  I played  around with it for ages and tried to makes some damper.  Burnt on the outside – still gluggy on the inside.

 

Lou woke up a couple of hours later and we had a quick breakfast and head out.  We couldn’t remember which way we had come from as we left the rest area so Lou whipped out the compass dad gave me and we finally started in the right direction.

 

We had planned to bypass Exmouth and save ourselves some time by doing the whale shark diving in Coral Bay but when we arrived they told us they’d run out of whale sharks and now they were only in Exmouth.  Back track #2.

 

We got to Exmouth after lunch, booked the diving, booked a caravan park and then finally got connected to the internet so I could upload the blog and photos and chat to some (very much) loved people from home.

 

Song of the day: (Thanks to Kate McCann) Two great sing along songs that I played quite a bit; That’s what friends are for AND Close to you by The Carpenters.  Quality.

Funniest part: Watching Louisa dry retch up some mushy kiwi fruit that had been sitting on the dashboard and cooking in the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

Day thirty-three:  Whale Shark diving in Exmouth.

 

Today was the day I had been looking forward to all trip.

 

It was an early rise of 6am to have some breakfast pizza and sustagen gold before being picked up at 7:30am.

It took an hour to get to the boating ramp and during that hour we were given instructions on what to expect and some information on the actual Whale Sharks.

(We were also lucky to see three emus having some kind of fight with a couple of crows)

 

We got to the boat ramp about 8:30am and were taken in speed boats out to the big yacht.  We were told that the spotter plane would take off about 10am and we were told to be ready from that time onwards to jump into the water and witness these beautiful creatures.  We were all given wet-suits and goggles and had a pre-reef snorkel just to have a practice.

 

Now poor Lou had been quite anxious about the snorkeling as she’d had some bad experiences with it and when she first jumped in she had a bit of a panic.  I tried to help her calm down a bit but it was quite rough in the ocean (reminded me of when Carol and I were in Mauritius on the Catamaran and they ploughed us with heaps of Mauritian rum and then allowed us to go snorkeling in extremely rough conditions.  It was an effort just to stay afloat let alone look for things) and she ended up going to the instructor for help.  It was the best thing to do as they gave her a noodle (you know those foam pole things you use in the pool) and she was fine!

 

We got back into the boat, had some snacks and took off for the reef. 

 

We arrived at the reef just as ten o’clock came about and saw the spotter plane circling overhead.  In no less than five minutes they had reported a spotting and we took off at high speeds to get to the Whale Shark.  Unfortunately when we got close it dived down and was never to be seen again.  But the excitement!  The whole boat was like a class full of A-grade students, all sitting up straight and ready to go.

 

The second call came in an agonizing two hours later.  It wasn’t too bad a wait as during this time we witnessed a multitude of dolphins, mantarays and humpback whales doing their thing in the ocean.  It was magnificent, especially the humpback whales jumping out of the ocean.  How those huge beasts can get their whole body weight out of the ocean and look so graceful is beyond me.

Sadly the second Whale Shark had taken a dive too, just like the Italians in the World Cup.  I was starting to get quite sad by this time as there was no guarantee that we would get to see them.

 

Thankfully at about 1pm a call came in and everyone suited up and got into position. (The whole time I just sat around in my wet-suit too excited and worried I’d miss out if I got out of the thing) We had previously been split into two groups of ten so that there wouldn’t be too many people around the shark and Lou and I had been put into group 2.  So we had to sit there and watch as group 1 jumped into the ocean, all the time praying that the damn thing didn’t dive and we would get to have a look at it.

It didn’t, and our instructor told us to get ready to jump.  I was so excited.  We jumped in and took off on quite a hard swim against the current until our instructor gave us the sign to look down.

 

Wow.

What a sight.

 

What a beautiful sight - such a graceful, massive fish just swimming by only about a metre under the water.  I looked up to see if Lou was looking and the poor thing had had another panic attack and couldn’t put her head under.  She kept saying ‘I can’t do it, I just can’t put my head under” and in desperation I just kinda yelled “It’s just there! Just put your head under a little bit!” and thank the lord she did it.

 

It all happened so quickly and I felt like I hadn’t seen enough so was relieved to find out that we were going to be doing more dives and would have a chance to look again.

 

The second dive was hilarious.  I was paddling and kicking madly when the instructor again gave us the signal to look down.  I looked down and saw a big metre long mouth coming towards me and screamed.

“It’s coming!”

I’ve never seen so many people trying to back paddle.

 

We had 4 more dives after that and all were spectacular.  The water was quite clear (and apparently 80 – 90metres deep) but it wasn’t till the last minute that you could actually spot the Whale Shark.  It was like a creepy game of Hide and Seek and I managed to freak myself out happily a couple of times.

The second last dive was the best when only me Lou and Liz (new friend) swam out further and were able to watch the Whale Shark without any peoples arms, flippers or bubbles in our way.  I started a bit over-excited with my huge jump off the boat and did a bit of a face plant.  The dive that followed though was almost the exact same as the second dive - where I put my head under the water and basically just saw a metre long mouth coming towards me.  These things don’t move particularly fast but it still gives you quite a fright and makes you try and move as fast as you possibly can out of the way.  I’d say we were only a metre away when it swam by (all 8metres of it) with little sharks and fish happily swimming under its belly and fins.

 

I got dressed shortly after feeling mighty happy with myself about the day and walked up to the front of the yacht to see if I could see any more marine life.  Apparently the skipper thought it would be funny to try and get everyone on the front of the yacht wet with a spray of water and proceeded to steer the yacht into some hard core waves.  As has always happens in my life, the spray got me and no one else.  I took myself and my soggy shorts and jumper down below and watched safely from there and cried until we got to shore. (just kidding about the crying)

 

Great day.

Such a great day I decided to celebrate by having a shower when I got back to camp.

 

 

Day thirty-four: Exmouth to Denham  via Carnarvon.  Start time: 6:30am  Arrival time:  Odometer: 91607

 

Lou had decided that she was getting up to do an early morning drive so we could make it to the Farmers Markets at Carnarvon.

Of course I had to get up and help her load the car because I was too excited but after the initial set up I hopped back into the bed and lay there for 1½hours daydreaming about certain things while she drove.

 

At about 9am we pulled into a service station and we swapped drivers as Lou’s ankles were hurting from all the flipper action the previous day.

 

It took another 2 hours before we pulled into the very pleasant Carnarvon.  It is a really pretty town with lots of banana plantations and lots of fresh grapefruits, avocados and mangoes etc.  It also sits right on the bay and has lots of lovely park areas and palm trees.  It really is a little oasis in the middle of nowhere.

 

We bought some fresh fruit and veg and god forbid I even bought myself a T-shirt (I might start doing this instead of washing) and a ring.  We bought some rice paper rolls for lunch (from an Irish girl), had a coffee by the bay, filled up the gas bottle and took off for Monkey Mia. (The most westerly point in Australia)

 

 

Best road name:  Useless loop road

Song of the day: Night and Day, Ella Fitzgerald.

Best bit:  The sun is back (It rained in Exmouth)

 

 

Day thirty-five:  Eagle Bluff camp site (23kms from Denham) to Geraldton.  Start time: 7am  Arrival time: 2pm   Odometer: 92000

 

Today we woke up at 6am to watch a beautiful sunrise at Eagle Bluff campground.  We were the only ones at the campground so when we arrived after dinner we pumped the music up a bit and had a bit of a dance.

 

We had gone to dinner at the Old Pearler restaurant run by a lovely man Wayne Viney, that is made up from shell bricks.  Apparently there were so many sea shells they used to make bricks out of them and build all the houses and other buildings out of them.  I think the Old Pearler is the only place left made out of these.

 

Anywho, this morning we drove down to Monkey Mia with some awesome sun-glare nearly forcing me off the road.  It took about half an hour and when we arrived to see the dolphins the car park was already half full.  We ran down and tried to shove some small children out of the way but managed to only get second in line.

 

The dolphins were very cute and looked all smiley like they do.  We weren’t allowed to touch them of course because apparently (as the ranger told us) the people in the 70’s touched them and fed them too much and ruined it for all of us.

 

We took of with our destination being Geraldton (lobster capital of Australia) for a huge seafood lunch or dinner depending on what time we got there.  Lou drove because my neck had started to cramp due to all the Whale Shark looking we’d done and how incredibly uncomfortable it is getting sleeping in the small double bed.

 

(We have a few big days of driving ahead as we over-relaxed in Broome.  We were to spend another day in Denham/Monkey Mia but we decided to take off early and halve our 700km day trip we’d previously (crazily) decided)

 

We arrived in Geraldton and booked into a campsite that seemed to be more like a retirement village and smelt like one.

 

After that we went into town (which architecturally is a completer mish mash of styles – see photo of Sunny thinking over a mega rubix cube) and had some dinner.

 

Song of the day:  Lovesong, The Cure.

Near animal hit of the day: Lou again, with an emu this time.

Brain fry of the day: Me trying to do a 5 star sodoku for a couple of hours and then mucking it up in the end.  I am no Jude Tsai.

 

 

Day thirty-six:  Geraldton to Freemantle  (quite apparent home of the Fremantle Dockers)  Start time: 8:30am  Arrival time: 4:30pm  Odometer:  92436

 

Today was a pure day of driving, watching Scarface and  not much else.

We had lunch at Little Creatures and I bought myself some Pipsqueak undies.

We drove to the Freemantle Village Caravan Park and stayed in an awesome powered site that had some great toilets and a great communal room.  We ended up making dinner in the communal room and watching the Michael Jackson special, showering and going to bed.

Thankfully, when I went to go to the toilet again at 4am someone had left my clothes (and wallet still full of money and credit cards) on the bench because I had left them in the shower.  Stupid.

 

May I add here that the amenities around Australia have been outstanding.  I thought they would be second rate and a bit smelly but to be honest they are better looked after and a hell of a lot less stinkier than most toilets in Melbourne.

 

Day thirty-seven:  Fremantle to Margaret River   Start time: 9:09am  Arrival time:  1:13pm    Odometer: Forgot.

 

 

Today was another big day of driving.  Louisa has been having some car/boat/anything that moves movement issues lately and decided to take one of her sea-sickness tablets.  I think it made her worse, but eventually she fell asleep and I got to drive to Margaret River in silence with some music playing in my head.  (Underneath the Radar seemed to be popular)

 

We drove straight to the Xanadu winery (owned by Olivia Newton John of course) and tried some wine.  After purchasing a bottle we went to the very scenic Leewin Estate and had some lunch.  It was a gorgeous, vast winery and my lunch of snapper with asparagus and raisins was simply divine.

 

After lunch we went to the Information centre to try and find an apartment to stay in for a couple of nights.  Not sure if it’s because we’re nearing the end of the trip or because we’ve slept in the bed for too long but it really is getting mighty uncomfortable and we both have very stiff backs and necks.  We found a great one in town and spread all our stuff out and just watched some DVDs.

 

Song of the day: Sorry to say it’s Mariah Cary, Hero.  I know it’s not cool but it’s a great power ballad to sing along too.

Best river name:  Margaret river.

Best winery name: Island brook

Other best winery name:  Brookland

 

Day thirty-eight:  Margaret River.

 

Now I know that when you’re in Margaret River you should be out looking at the wineries but we really needed a rest day.

 

It was quite obvious because in a normal bed we ended up sleeping for 10 hours.  We had tried to stay awake for the Michael Jackson memorial, but when you hit a comfy bed after a couple of weeks sleep is the only thing beckoning.

 

We did go for a bit of a midday walk to see the town and organize our wine tour for tomorrow and get some veggies. After that Lou went to get an hour long massage and I did a mini home work out followed by about half an hour of stretching.  It felt great.  After the stretching I sat down to update the blog with a glass of wine and some cheese and crackers whilst listening to Mariah Carrey (god, I’m so sorry to admit that but I have some very fond memories of being a soppy, soppy romantic, angsty teenager and singing love songs in my bedroom to people who I had mega crushes on).

 

That night we had some roast veggies with a lovely bit of snapper, some wine and another great sleep in a big comfy bed.

 

Song of the day: Sorry again.  Mariah Carey, All I ever wanted.  (Sung power ballad, love stricken teenage style by myself in the apartment while Lou was having a massage – about 3 times)

Thought of the day:  I know its wrong but while watching the Michael Jackson memorial replay I half expected his coffin to open and ‘Thriller’ to start.

Idiot of the day:  Me burning the tops of three of my fingers in the oven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day twenty to Day twenty-six:  Spent in Broome.

 

I’ve put Broome all into one section because it’s much easier and it was so much fun.  I always had a feeling we’d have a great time in Broome and it didn’t disappoint. (Apart from finding out about the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett) Most of this fun I attribute to Emma, the girl that we have been staying with in Broome.

 

What a host.  She not only took us in to her home and gave us a room, she cooked for us, introduced us to her lovely friends, took us out and finally got us a free ride on her tall ship ‘The Willie’ for a sunset cruise at Cable Beach.

 

But just before I get to all of that, I still have to talk about our camel ride we had when we checked out of our apartment and the Sun Cinemas. But first the camels, hilarious.  It’s the most touristy thing to do in Broome so we had to have a go.  Our camels name was Rasheed and Rasheed had a small, mouth foaming problem.  (See pictures)

We had a 45minute giggling ride along the nudist beach (and yes we saw a couple of nudist but I wasn’t looking – they were about 70 good on them) and back and we even saw a massive sea snake that had beached itself.  Gross.  Our camel guide threw it back in the ocean on the way back.  After the ride we went into town to meet Emma and get a key to our new house.

 

That night we went to the Sun Cinemas which is the oldest outdoor cinemas in Australia.  It has been operating since 1916 and they’ve left it pretty much the same.  They even have photos of the cinema in its hey-day (all be it segregated seating) and it looks amazing.  It wasn’t too busy when we went on the Monday night, but being outside, sitting in deck chairs while planes flew over-head to the airport was quite surreal.

(We saw Sampson and Delilah and I highly recommend it)

 

Basically the next few days were spent hanging out with Emma, her boyfriend Toli, Zoren and Sally and it felt like we’d been hanging out with them for years it was so easy.  We just laughed and laughed and laughed.  Emma took us to the Zeebar for industry night where Zoren was DJing, she took us to the local beach where everyone had prepared a picnic and we went body surfing. We all went to Matso’s the local brewery and drank ginger beer and then collapsed into the couches while Emma cooked spaghetti.  Heaven.  I actually had a sad moment when coming home from the picnic, all six of us in a massive four wheel drive, thinking that I didn’t want to leave Broome - but all good things must come to an end otherwise you just overstay your welcome and everyone gets uncomfortable.

 

Our last sunset was spent on the tall ship The Willie and it was heaps of fun.  They threw a rope net out the back of the ship and if you wanted to you could jump out and sit in it while The Willie steamed along.  They just warned us to hold onto the bottom of your bathers as one girl had recently been cleaned swiped and had to re board half naked.  It was a great warning.  I was holding onto mine for most of the trip but I would’ve hated to have an underwater camera, I was mooning the marine life.  Another lady came unstuck and nearly fell of the rope. It took all five of us on the rope to get her back on. The rope sitting was supposed to look glamorous but was quite a bit of work and also gave most of us rope burn. 

 

Anyway, our end in Broome the next day began the same way it had started, with our arrival back to the markets where we had first met Emma to return her keys.  It was a nice circular way to end our holiday from our holiday.

 

 

Day twenty-seven & twenty-eight: Broome to Eighty mile beach caravan park for two nights.  Start time: 10:30am  Arrival time: 3:00pm  Odometer: 89028 

 

We checked into rehab (other people call it the eighty mile beach caravan park) at about 3pm on Saturday afternoon.  It had been a quiet ride from Broome, partly due to sadness and partly because I guess we’d forgotten how to travel in the kombi after relaxing for a week.

We’d decided to not bring any booze along and have a bit of a break – mind you we haven’t been drunk once this holiday but I’m not sure that drinking every day is any better for you.

 

On arrival we were told our site was going to be near the fish cleaning area which was both exciting and disturbing at the same time.  At least if we caught anything we’d be able to make someone else clean it for us, luckily when we got to our site the smell wasn’t too bad.

 

We set up and walked back to the shop to simply buy some bait, which ended up with Louisa wanting to buy a $70 ocean fishing rod.  I was able to talk her out of it when we went around to the weight and hook section and realized that we both had absolutely no idea of what to get.  We ended up with some frozen prawns for our $10 junior rod and took off to the beach for a fish with no luck.

 

We watched the sunset and then tucked into a magnificent dinner we’d pre-sorted from Broome along with an extra large glass of water and played cards till about 9:30pm.

 

Our second day at rehab was pretty chilled.  Breaky, walk along the beach, watched a movie, lunch, write in blog/read, dinner, bocce, sleep.  The only exciting thing to write about was how cute Louisa was collecting shells off the beach.  She bought them back to our site in a bucket, washed them with so much care, lined them up in a beautiful display on the table and finally declared, “Here are my shells”.  Cute.

 

Song of the day: Thanks to Louisa, the Romeo and Juliet cd – the whole thing.

Funniest bit:  Me trying to clear our table and accidently dropping our entire set of playing cards into our entre – pumpkin soup.

Buy of the day:  Louisa’s new crocheted blanket from the market.

 

 

Day twenty-nine:  Eighty mile beach caravan park to Port Headland.   Start time: 9:30am  Arrival time: 1pm   Odometer:  89297

 

Louisa, myself and my pink-eye (that’s what you get for de-toxing) drove a good 200km’s today when we thought we only had to drive about 100km’s. 

The problem was Pardoo, which I say is more like Pardon’t.  Their signs asked us to try their sausage roll (world famous) which we did, and with a bag of ice and a can of Coke cost us $17.  I asked for more change out of my twenty other than the $3 I got back – something I never do but thought I should – and got a receipt back in my face with the pricing.  No luck.

 

Anyway, we thought that the P on the road signs was Port Headland but instead was Pardoo.  We swapped drivers at Pardoo and that’s when I decided to go on a Donna Summer singing rampage.  Luckily for Lou she could immerse herself in her book because I wasn’t going to stop.

 

We arrived at Port Headland and checked into the Big 4 Caravan Park (very pricy but the only one in town) and immediately went for a game of Ping Pong in the common room, (I won overall, 3 games to 1) and caught up on the latest Michael Jackson stories thanks to a wonderful invention - television.

 

After that we drove into town to top up on supplies and then meet my friend Rene (who I had met in Puerto Rico 5 years ago) for dinner. 

 

 

Song of the day: Donna Summer – the whole extended 12inch cd that Jude Tsai made me.  I’ve never sung so much and so loud in all my life, and being the extended mix I only got through 8 songs in one and a half hours.  My favourite being, Last Dance, MacArthur Park, Dim the Lights (which, if by memory she wrote for Rod Stewart originally) and I Feel Love.

Honourable mention for song of the day:  Dolly Parton, Joelene.

Kill of the day:  Lou managed to kill another two birds whilst driving.

Funniest part: Seeing about 3dozen termite mounds being covered with safety hats and chalk drawings (see pictures)

Other funniest part:  Going to dinner with Renee and realizing that The Best Western is the best place to eat in town.

Not funniest part:  We are starting to see clouds, rain clouds.

 

 

Day thirty:  Port Headland to Tom Price (Karijini National Park)  Start time: 8:30am  Arrival time: 3:30pm Odometer: 89844

 

Things are starting to go downhill.

I wore my bed shorts all day today.  Driving, passengering, into town and in the supermarket.

I haven’t had a shower in two days (although I could have) and I know I won’t be showering for at least another two days.

I haven’t brushed my hair in over a week.

And most of all Louisa managed to fix (with her bare hands) the drivers side mirror that I couldn’t fix four weeks ago with a spanner.

I must take a good hard look at myself.

 

On the uphill side of things – I must talk about the excellent overtaking Sunny did today on a huge hill.  There was an overtaking lane and a big road train in front of me, I started to overtake and then slow down at the same time.  I’ve never seen such a slow overtake in all my life.  The truck was doing about 50kms and Sunny about 60kms (in a 110km zone) – I was pissing myself the whole way up but we finally managed to overtake with only metres to spare.

 

The rest of the day was quite unusual.  We have altered our itinerary to include Karijini National Park because so many people have told us it is not to be missed.  They also mentioned the town Tom Price which is in Karijini.  We made the mistake of going to Tom Price straight away without checking that the walks we wanted to do were about 100kms back from the direction we’d just come.

Boo.

I hate back tracking but we did it.

 

On the way back in we spotted a man riding his pushbike.  Now we’ve probably seen about 7 of these people (if you don’t include the big group we saw early on that only remind me of how my flat mates must look when they are riding in Cambodia) and I must say I’m impressed.  I sneakily took a photo of this guys bike because I can’t believe anyone can actually ride ANYWHERE while carrying this much stuff.  I know I’ve had trouble riding home from Safeway with just ONE bag on each handlebar!

 

After paying our entry fee we arrived back at the Dale Gorge Campground at 3:30pm where I fell asleep in the back of the kombi for a couple of hours and Lou set up and made dinner. 

 

Funniest part: Me trying to pull a ‘Pricilla’ out of the sun roof and not even being able to move my face because so much wind was running into it.

Other funniest bit:  Me trying to warn Lou about running to the loo in complete darkness and then watching her run straight into someones tent rope.

Best mountain name:  Mt. Bruce (my uncles name)

Best Gorge name: Dale gorge (my brother-in-law)

I’m half expecting the rest of my family to show up in some form of nature.

 

 

Day thirty-one:  Karijini to Barradale rest area  Start time: 9:30am  Arrival time:  4:30pm  Odometer: 90374.

 

This morning we went and had a look at a few look-outs and did a small 1hour walk to a beautiful spot called fern pool which had beautiful pools of water and cascading waterfalls.  It was one of the better walks that we’ve completed as there was actually water where the signs said there would be water.

 

Then we took off with no particular destination in mind except to be a lot closer to Coral Bay where we will be snorkeling and swimming with the Whale Sharks, the biggest fish in the ocean.  I am so excited about this and about getting back to some sunnier weather as it was quite cold in the National Park, I almost had to bring back my thermal arm warmers.

 

It was a cloudy day so we decided the best thing to do was to just keep driving.  And as we sat down in our camp spot near our fire at the end we realized that we’d done over 500kms.  Not bad for a days driving.

 

Louisa had selected our campsite and gone off to get two big logs of wood (see pictures) while I watched the end of Nemo and cried.  Not having to deal with any emotions while you’re on the road only makes you extremely sad when you watch a movie and think of how sad it would be for a cartoon fish father to lose his cartoon fish son.

 

We made a massive fire and had some tuna pasta then played John Farnhams greatest hits dvd with all his video clips.  I think we may have kept the neighbours up.

 

 

Funniest part: Me making my morning coffee and hearing our next door neighbour do one of the biggest farts I’ve ever heard.  We all ended up doubled over laughing our heads off – it was like thunder in such a quiet camp spot.

Not funniest part:  I finally killed something while driving and it wasn’t your ordinary ‘run over it’ kind of kill.  I hit a bird (probably two we’ve decided) but one hit the front of the car and then bounced of the windscreen.  I screamed for about a minute after that.

Breeder of the day:  Louisa’s clothes bag which I swear gives birth to more clothes and gets bigger every day.

Song of the day:  Rapture, ii0

Best creek name:  Considerable creek.