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Published: March 27th 2008
At the end of the last blog we said our final farewells to Pete and Nirbeeja and after travelling with them for nearly four weeks finally went our seperate ways. That was in Busselton, home to the longest wooden jetty in Western Australia. Or was it in the southern hemisphere? Or in the universe? We've been to so many places with the longest wooden jetty that we've lost track. Suffice to say, no tourist destination in WA is complete without a rickety wooden jetty, slightly fire damaged, to charge people to walk along.
We’d met up with a couple in Esperance, a few weeks ago, who’d invited us to stay with them in Mandurah, just south of Perth, maybe 200km north of Busselton. Probably thinking, or at least hoping, that they’d never hear from us, we rang them out the blue and arranged to crash round there’s for a few days. We took three nights to drive up there, the first illegally parked in a carpark under one of the clearest night skys we’ve ever seen, watching the shooting stars and satellites passing overhead. The next on the Leschenault Peninsular, a site previously used as an acid dump by a
Skink
Lane Poole Reservelocal chemical company for many years, although now allegedly cleaned up. As well as for us, it was also providing accommodation for about a billion mosquitoes that warning signs helpfully pointed out carried the Ross River Fever virus. Nice.
The site had some interesting history to it. The farm “Belvidere” was originally owned by a guy from Calcutta. Hoping to export sheep and cattle to India, he called the nearby town he founded Australind, a combination of Australia and India. Staff were shipped in from India and they planted date palms that can still be seen. Old plans of the site show accommodation for these “coolies”. A hundred years later, the derelict site became home to an alternative lifestyle commune between 1972 and 1985. The residents lived in improvised shacks under the mantra of “No Drugs, No Dogs and No Dole”, but were eventually evicted after health concerns. Remnants of the commune today include an old kiln and a still thriving but now feral pumpkin patch. After spending the next night at the Lane Poole Reserve we drove up to meet Steve and Martine.
Along with their cute 20 month old son, Kayden, they’re staying with at their
friend Alan’s house in South Yunderup, near Mandurah, while their house is built.We spent over a week with them, either parked up outside Alan’s house, or at their block a few miles away. Alan’s house backs onto the water and between them they own a cool 14 seat party boat. Most days we either went out for a barbeque along the water or went crabbing in the estuary. Dropping the crab nets down they ran out of floats, so improvising made do with Alan’s crocs (shoes) and an inflated rubber glove! Seemed to work ok! Makes you wonder what people on other boats thought of a pair of shoes floating in the middle of nowhere… We eventually caught nearly the legal limit of 20 blue manna crabs which Steve’s dad cooked up for us. A couple of times we saw dolphins swimming in the river. A first for us, we’ve seen them many times in the sea, but never in a river. Alan sometimes sees them swimming past his house! Having just decided that that night the water was a bit too scummy for us to swim in, once we saw the dolphins Claire and me were straight in hoping
that the dolphins would come to investigate us, but they were far too busy catching fish to play.
Having not had any TV for weeks (in fact having seen hardly any for nearly two years!) and thinking that we’d not missed it at all, we spent a couple of nights glued to the box. Some of the best entertainment though was playing with Kayden and taking him fishing off Alan’s jetty. Kayden’s got a little posse of ducks that seem to follow him round, both in the water and in the garden, once they even waddled into the house! Just starting to talk, after a couple of days he mastered “Te’ey” and “Care”!
It was an excellent weeks and Steve and Martine went out of their way for us. Alan’s gotta be one of the most laid back blokes we’ve ever met and we were made to feel very welcome. The most difficult moment of the week was trying to judge the best out of Steve and Alan’s homebrew! (Sorry Steve!)
One day we took the new train into Perth itself, only about 50 mins away. It seemed like a nice city, but nothing special, although to
be fair we didn’t spend long there. Steve and Martine’s block being a bit of a building site meant that we could use some scaffolding trestles to give Tilly a decent clean and wax polish at last. Although we’d been to a few jet washes, she was filthy from all the dirt roads. We also got her serviced and found a split fuel line that could have caused us big problems, but in the end only cost us 20 bucks.
Once again we had to move on but are going to see Steve, Martine and Kayden again, next time in Bali in May. Rather than go to New Zealand to renew our visas, we’re going to fly from Darwin to Bali for a week. NZ’s too expensive for us to go to for the little time we’ve got available.
So, now we’ve got a deadline. We have to be in Darwin by the 1st May at the absolute latest, thats about 4000km away, not counting side tracks. Heading north away from Mandurah we passed Perth along the coast road and managed to get lost in the endless new suburbs that don’t even appear on our maps. WA seems
to be on the up, the extremely prosperous mining industry has made the property prices rocket and there are new developments everywhere. After driving in circles around an estate, we found a shop called “Taste of Britain” and after buying Monster Munch and coconut ice got directions out of town.
That day we drove over 200km before stopping at Regan’s Ford, watched over by dozens of black cockatoos. The next morning we set off well before sunrise for another nearly 200km drive to The Pinnacles, one of WA’s best known tourist attractions. Described to us unpromisingly as just a bunch of rocks, there are hundreds of pillars, some up to three metres high, formed by rainwater seeping over millions of years through cracks in limestone. Especially in the early morning light and with a light “mist” of sand blowing eerily around them they were a fantastic sight and well worth the early start. They are over quite a large area and for most of the time we were completely alone wandering around them.
Then we drove up through the town of Geraldton, in the news because the wreck of HMAS Sydney II has just been found off the
coast there (a wartime destroyer that was sunk with the loss of all 645 crew previously without a trace), before stopping at Coronation Beach. Trying to kill time because we’ve been advised not to go north of Carnarvon before the 1st April because its cyclone season, we planned to spend a couple of days but the flies were such a nightmare in the end we left as soon as we could the next day.
We headed up to Monkey Mia, a world heritage site well known for its “wild” dolphins that come in three times a day to be hand fed. We missed the feedings and found it all a bit touristy so didn’t stay. A few miles back along the Peron Peninsular we stayed at a free campsite, parked literally ten yards from the sea. We spent ages snorkeling before climbing a nearby hill and looking down on half a dozen sharks swimming about. That’s why its called Shark Bay then!
-Again the flies chased us out of camp and we headed up to Carnarvon, arriving on Good Friday to find the town almost completely closed for the Easter weekend. Wanting to get our front wheel that’s
leaking grease checked before heading anywhere any more remote, we resigned ourselves to spending at least four nights there. At least that gave us chance to check out the “longest jetty in
north Western Australia”!
Being Easter, WA police have a special offer: catch you speeding (or any other traffic offence) and they’ll give you double the demerit points! What a bargain! Every so often there’s a sign saying what the traffic police are concentrating on. Sometimes speeding. Sometimes seatbelts. Now its fatigue. How they gonna do that? Pull you over if they see you yawning?
In the paper today, WA is publishing a health and safety guide for prostitutes, brothels being semi-legal at least in Kalgoorlie. One worry apparently is repetitive strain injury, and brothel owners are urged to buy beds that offer back support, as well as to ensure “bondage and discipline” equipment is adjustable and not too heavy!
We’re actually up in Coral Bay now, holed up because the road to Exmouth is flooded, and watching whats happening with a cyclone about three days off the coast. More in the next blog. Hopefully.
We’ve added a couple of pics to the previous blog,
and have loads more to add to this one…check back in a few days.
The only things I own which are still worth what they have cost me are my travel memories. Burton Holmes 1870-1958
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