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Published: October 15th 2009
From Exmouth we drove straight to the cattle station which we had arranged to go work on as part of the WWOOF scheme. It was 0.5 million hectares 80km down a dirt road somewhere in the Carnarvon region. The station was run by a lovely couple no older than Mike & I. They got up very early and worked very hard. We ate lunch and dinner together - all prepared for us. Mike & I worked from about 8am-3/4pm 6 days a week. There wasn’t much point having too much time off because there’s not much to do in the middle of nowhere! We did various jobs for them. Mike’s building skills came in useful for repairing a massive cyclone-caused crack in a room in the house. We would also go out in the field and help to pour concrete watering troughs. Sleeping between four walls and a roof took some getting used to.
Four weeks in the middle of nowhere was enough for me and I was keen to hit the road again. We drove quite a long way that first day, passing through Carnarvon and driving all the way to Denham which is on the end of a
peninsular similar to Exmouth. Along the way we passed a colony of stramatolites - the oldest living organisms on earth. Oldest in that the same species existed back before there were plants and animals, not oldest as in these particular ones themselves are millions of years old. Very exciting, I know. We didn’t just spot them from the side of the road or anything and go ‘look, there’s some stramatolites’, they’re in the guide book. They look like a bunch of rocks in the shallows of the sea. They oxygenised the air so that oxygen breathing things could evolve. I was impressed.
Denham was alright. It had a nice beach front but little else. For tourists it is more of a base to drive down the road to Monkey Mia, a beach resort where they feed wild dolphins every morning. So of course we had to cruise down for that. It was very cool (in more ways than one) standing knee deep in the sea with dolphins swimming round your feet. To my horror I was chosen from the crowd to feed one a fish. Fortunately it was over with very quickly without too much attention being drawn.
On the way back out of Denham we stopped at a very nice view point over the sea. You were supposed to be able to see sharks. Obviously we didn’t see any sharks. We also stopped at Shell Beach which was very cool. Guess what it was made of? Most were crushed by tourist feet but you didn’t have to walk too far off the track to see the little while shells intact. Big beach too. Lots and lots of shells.
From Denham we drove down to another seaside town called Kalbarri. Again, it was alright. We went on a bush walk which was down another one of those long tortuous Australian corrugated dirt roads which they misleadingly refer to as ‘gravel’. But damnit we’d paid the $11 entry so we were determined to make it. The walk was around a river and some more rocks. It was long, hot and painful. With any luck it will be the last bushwalk for a while.
Having decided to loosen our belts a bit, what with having almost no fun at all, we decided to go out for dinner at a casual BYO BBQ type restaurant. It turned out to
be very casual indeed. It was all outdoors in what looked like an overgrown backyard. They don’t provide glasses and the food comes on plastic plates. And pretty expensive too but guy who took our order said that one serve was enough for 2 of us and he’d throw in a free go at the salad bar. We were very pleased indeed when what he said turned out to be true. The food wasn’t very high quality but we were happy to be eating out at a price we could afford!
From Kalbarri we headed further south to the town of Geraldton. It’s probably the biggest town in WA north of Perth. And it’s still not that big. But it had most of the amenities we were after. The weather was becoming progressively colder as we headed south.
From here we drove through a string of gloomy seaside towns. Spring had not yet arrived this far south. We stopped the night at a place called Cervantes where it was chucking it down. We elected to rent a tiny caravan for $50 a night. It had a cooking facilities, TV and a fridge for the beer so we were
more than happy watching the wind and rain lash the windows and thanking God we were not in the tent.
Leaving Cervantes the next morning we stopped off at ‘The Pinnacles’. These are a bunch of rocks (or fossilised trees or something) sticking up out of some dirt. Worth the stop I reckon.
From here we drove all the way past Perth to Bunbury. The reason we didn’t visit Perth at this time is that my friend from the UK is flying in mid-October and we are going to meet up with her and hit up Perth together. In Bunbury we once again stayed in a caravan. This one was much bigger. It had a proper bed, a bigger TV, better cooking facilities and even a dining table. It was $63 a night. Bargain. We stayed 4 nights. Safe to say we saw very little of Bunbury outside of its Woolworths and K-Mart. In my defence, I made myself read the
Bunbury visitors guide during the frequent ad breaks but it couldn’t make me leave the cabin. Another bush walk? No thanks. Rent a boat? Out of my price range. Go fishing? Just no.
Feeling like we
really ought to do something we left Bunbury for the next town down the coast, Busselton. It was only about 50km away. In the south west everything is really rather close together. Unfortunately we had hit a popular seaside town during the school holidays so a cabin was out of the question. Back in the tent for us. The big draw in Bussleton is that they have the longest wooden pier in the southern hemisphere. Exciting, I know. Obviously it was closed during our visit.
We decided to go on a wine tour in the nearby Margaret River. Although this is a big out of character for us we decided to do it for a few reasons. For a start, it would be rude to go to Margaret River and not drink wine. Second, during our visit to The Hunter Valley we tried it DIY style and it was a bit awkward. Thirdly, we were making a concerted effort to stop fretting about money and have some fun. We chose a company who looked like they were not for wine connoisseurs so we wouldn’t be stuck with a bunch of sniffing, swirling spitting types. It was pretty good! I
was pleasantly surprised because I don’t have a very high opinion of organised tours. They were ready for us at the first winery, pouring a series of samples for everyone with no awkward questions or uncomfortable levels of attention paid. They took us round 3 wineries then gave us a very decent lunch. Cheesy tourist stuff like smoked kangaroo, bush chutney & wild turkey. But I got to eat witchety grub mayonnaise which was a first. Can’t say I recommend it.
After lunch we stopped by a chocolate and a cheese factory which sound better than they were. The stop at the liqueur place on the other hand was brilliant! Try limencello with lemon lime bitters. It’s gooood. We finished at a brewery but you had to pay to taste. Mike had a go but what with not liking beer, I didn’t.
What surprised us was that everyone on the tour bought something from every stop. I always thought the point of wine tasting was for the free wine, but obviously not. While we liked some of the wines we tried, we didn’t like them $30+ much. Just think how much goon you could buy for that.
After two
very wet nights in the tent we packed up and vowed never to sleep in it again. We drove on to a place called Pemberton (in honour of one of my favourite brothers-in-law) which is inland a bit. It is in the foresty area of the south west, which is much raved about in the tourist literature. Much like the wild flowers of the region just north. The weather was MISERABLE. The caravan park was flooded so we stayed in a backpackers hostel. Our first since that disaster in Sydney. It was a weird little place. It was like a separate house with 3 dorm rooms. It was very cold. No one else in the house seemed keen on talking to us. Except for a drunken racist bloke with a very high opinion of himself. Bad times. The next day, it having brightened up a bit, we hastily left and headed for a big tree that you can climb with the aid of metal poles drilled into the side in a spiral. As far as I can tell, it’s the only thing to do aside from more bush walking round here so I felt we had to. What with being
English we have in fact seen a few trees in our time and therefore failed to be over-awed by the foresty south west. I got a few metres up and chickened out. If you slip up there, you’re in trouble. Mike being the brave builder he is climbed to the top. He said he could see some trees.
We drove to another flooded town called Denmark. On the way we stopped at the locally famous tree top walk. You can probably imagine it. We saw some trees. In Denmark we got another cabin but the walk to the toilets involved getting wet feet so we left for Albany. Here we were quoted very high prices for a cabin by tourist info so we went for the backpackers. We stayed four nights. Albany has a Woolworths, a video shop and very bad weather. We saw very little of Albany and an awful lot of Prison Break.
All sarcasm aside, Albany was quite nice. It reminded me of Windermere but bigger (In that the main street is on a hill and at the bottom of the hill is a body of water backed by hills.) I couldn’t quite discern Albany’s
attractions. There was a place called Whale World but it didn’t have any Whales so we didn’t go. Besides, I really like Prison Break. I imagine it is a good place to live but maybe not so good to visit.
While in Albany we arranged to do a bit more WWOOFing to fill the time until our friend arrives in Perth. We had anticipated spending all of the time touring the south west but the dismal weather and our dwindling enthusiasm curtailed that. We chose a place in the Perth Hills (weather here is better than in the far south) that grows passionfruits, pecan nuts and has chickens for eggs. There are 3 other WWOOFers here too which is really nice. We will be here just short of 2 weeks.
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Jen
non-member comment
Dude, you are so dry, you have me in stitches with every update. Can't wait to be hearing it live and unabridged!