Two months in, Nullarbor under our belt, and still going strong!

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We are now in Port Lincoln, on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Naturally, we have brought the cold weather (previous forecast checks said sunny, warm and slightly windy - we arrived, overnight the clouds blew in to give us an overcast, cold morning). Meanwhile I hear that Perth is sweltering in almost unbearable heat and humidity. Today marks our two-month anniversary of being on the road, and, despite the weather, we are still loving it, and constantly amazed at the wonderful sights and activities this country has to offer. It also marks the start of my 41st year - what a great time to celebrate.

OK, now where to start. So much has happened since Kalgoorlie. Perhaps easiest to start with the much anticipated Nullarbor Plains, which was probably a bit of an anticlimax. Crossing this vast expanse of nothingness in February, traditionally the hottest month of the year, had us a bit anxious, but we had planned our route to include a few stops at places of interest (ie the highly recommended Eyre Bird Observatory, Cocklebiddy Caves etc, all located in the heart of the Nullarbor), stocked up our water supplies, filled both our diesel tanks as well as two jerry cans, and departed Kalgoorlie. Ahead of us lay thousands of kilometres across purportedly one of the most barren and desolate areas of Australia (the name Nullarbor is derived from the Latin nullus arbor, or treeless plain, and was once part of the ocean floor, making it the world’s biggest, flattest piece of limestone, covering an area of approximately 200,000 square kilometres). The drive out from Kalgoorlie was certainly dry, the scenery dominated by massive salt lakes and barren land interspersed with a few trees. But by midday the rain had set in, just as we approached Norseman (named after a gold digger’s horse which, on pawing the ground, uncovered a gold nugget back in 1894, leading to the discovery of one of the richest quartz reefs ever mined in Australia!).

Norseman is essentially the gateway to the Nullarbor from the west, and the first stretch of highway for us was, to say the least, beautiful. A dense, hardwood eucalyptus forest lined the highway, and the overcast conditions only added to the feeling of lushness. While we originally hoped to make it to Balladonia (the first main roadhouse stop for Nullarbor travellers, and also where the Skylab space station crashed back in 1979), we decided to cut our first trip short and stopped at Fraser Range Station, about 100km out of Norseman. We had by then already driven about five hours, and this caravan park was rated highly in our new bible, The Lonely Planet. This is the first sheep station to be established on the Nullarbor Plain, and stretches some 160 km northwest and is 25 km wide! Despite the rain, we decided to go for a walk to the top of Mount Pleasant, a granite hill standing 579m tall, just to get out and release some energy - of which our boys have an inexhaustible amount! It was beautiful, and once at the top, we could see for quite a way, and all we saw was forest (subsequently learned the trees were predominantly blackbutts, salmon gums and gimlets for any botanists out there).

Next day we tackled the Nullarbor in earnest, and in the rain! Ahead of us lay 1,200kms of, fortunately, sealed road (in very good condition despite the number of road trains which pound the bitumen daily). We reached Australia’s longest straight road, 145km dead straight, but the monotony of the road was broken by road trains, ever changing flora and landing strips for the flying doctor service. Being passed by road trains was perhaps a tad more challenging in the rain, as they flung up a lot of water. If you are interested, see the following video clips . To date Quinton had not had a single tantrum in the car, but I think he had saved his lungs for this day. Overtired, understimulated, he screamed for about 1.5 hours, (well, for an hour, and then he quietened until silly me decided to take a video of him which infuriated him enough to cry for another ½ hour, and then, after all that effort, he did not sleep!!). The bigger boys took it in their stride. We had hoped to break this stretch along the Eyre Highway with a visit to some caves and the bird observatory but it was raining so much, it made these side trips a bit too difficult (we had to drive on a dirt road to get there, and decided it was not worth the risk).

Both Paul and I were also still waiting for the real Nullarbor to kick in, as it still looked very pleasant to us. However perhaps in searing 40-degree-plus heat the Nullarbor could well appear inhospitable and tedious. Once evening drew nigh, we headed for one of the many rest spots on the road and ‘free camped’ for the night (ie you just pull over and park in designated rest areas) As we were all confined indoors, our caravan got quite muddy, but otherwise we managed quite well. A roadtrain also pulled over, so Paul and the boys went over to have a chat. We learnt that a roadtrain driver had fallen asleep at the wheel a bit further down and crashed, and that this was the third driver to fall asleep this week. Made us a little bit more wary about the roadtrains, as they are very big and could cause a fair bit of damage to us! We also learnt that they have pretty hectic schedules, probably a bit like our taxi drivers in South Africa - trying to fit in as many trips as they can, as they are paid per trip. This particular driver had had about three hours sleep over the past two days, as he was doing an urgent turn-around job, from Perth to Adelaide and back (and he lived in Albany so had to first drive himself to Perth). Hmmmm.

The following morning woke us to drizzle, and headed onwards. Shortly afterwards was breathalysed at 9am on this stretch of the highway - seemed a bit absurd! We stopped for a bit of a leg stretch at Eucla - the last town before entering South Australia - and then we crossed the border and had some sunshine, finally! We were aiming for Penong (again highly rated in our bible) but we had not taken into consideration the time difference (2.5 hours, as SA also has daylight saving). We thought it was only 4pm when ot was already 6.30. We were however going to keep going, until Quinton said he had to go to the toilet urgently. I had been watching a roadtrain steadily hurtling towards us from behind, and it was at this exact moment I saw a turnoff to Fowler’s Bay. On a whim (in desperation perhaps?) I turned the steering wheel, and headed off on a dirt track. Paul frantically flicked through our bible, but Fowler’s Bay did not feature. There was though, no turning back (three point turns on a narrow dirt road I don’t think are highly recommended), so we pushed on, and on, for what seemed like an eternal 40 minutes, not knowing what to expect at the end. Nerves heightened a bit more when drizzle set in, making the dirt road slightly slippery.

But what a find. At the end of the road was a small fishing town (well, town is perhaps a bit generous a description; hamlet is perhaps more apt, with a total population of 21, so isolated it is still off-grid and operates on a generator. Needless to say, there was no cellphone reception either). AND there was a caravan park, which happened to also be hosting a sausage sizzle to raise funds for something or other, so dinner was sorted (by the time we arrived it was past 8pm!)

We originally only intended overnighting, but the next morning the sun was shining, and the idea of stepping back into a car was just too much, so we booked for two more nights. Also, massive sand dunes were too tempting to pass up. The boys took to the sand dunes to go exploring, while I had some quiet time to explore the town. Fowler’s Bay used to be a thriving community back in the 1800s, popular with whalers and a convenient stop over for ships. It was also where, in 1840, explorer Edward John Eyre set up a depot in the Fowler’s Bay sand hills from where he to set off on his much more hectic (more hectic than ours, that is) crossing of the Australian continent (Eyre was the first explorer to cross southern Australian from east to west from Adelaide to Albany. Anybody interested in reading more about Eyre can go to http://www.davidreilly.com/australian_explorers/eyre/edward.htm - an interesting read). Paul has been reading to us in the car about the Australian explorers, and driving through these remote areas, one doesn’t have to stretch the imagination too far to imagine what life would have been like for these intrepid men (likewise in Kalgoorlie imagining life in the early gold rush times). Paul and the boys also took to the sand dunes and pretended they were lost in the desert, a very daunting prospect. It ended up being a lot more fun to leap off the dunes and land as far away as possible into the soft sand.

Anyway, back to Fowler’s Bay, in the late 1800s the area became a working sheep ranch, but by the mid 1900s it had collapsed (attributed mainly to the consumption of excessive quantities of alcohol). For a while Fowler’s Bay was a ghost town (I read somewhere that at one stage it had one permanent resident) but then fishermen discovered it. Fish here are abundant, and slowly people came trickling back to fish, in such droves that it is now the thriving community it is today!! Whales are also returning to the bay, making it a great whale watching spot as well. Sadly, we have not timed our journey to see the whales.

A tip by one of the locals saw us do some off-roading on day two to see a resident sea lion colony. We decided to have sun downers watching the sea lions at play - wonderful. On the way back, we came across Gary, a lone fisherman who spends days out fishing, sleeping in his swag on the beach. He had hooked a giant sting ray (he fought it for 45 minutes thinking he had hooked himself a shark) and now he was contemplating how to get it back in the water. It was tragic seeing this huge sea creature beached on the sand, flapping uselessly to get back in the water. The tide was coming in, so hopefully it survived (Gary said it had a 50/50 chance, though a fisherman we spoke to later said if it did get back into the water, the fact that it was bleeding would attract the sharks to it within minutes). Needless to say, the boys found it all totally fascinating.

Day four saw us on the road again, having eaten through all our vegies and fruit, and even giving away my lovely lemons from Leonie, as, to go into SA proper, we had to go through a quarantine border where they check and take away any of the above items (to prevent fruit fly from entering the state). Imagine our disappointment when they did a cursory check of our fridge and then waved us through!! Oh well. We were planning to drive quite far that day, to make it to a caravan park that many people had told us was great. But, a whim saw us go off-road again, for what became an amazing - and challenging - five days. We had been told that, at Baird Bay (which again does not even rate a mention in our bible) we (including children) could swim with the dolphins and sealions. We had also been told that it was closed for the week. Hence we were going to drive past it, but on seeing the turnoff, we decided to just have a look. Another long dirt road later, we arrived….at an unpowered rest camp, not a caravan park as we had expected.

As it was quite late, and the kids had cabin fever, we decided to spend the night and just go for a little walk. Another fishing community, but this time, there were only about 10 houses, most standing empty. Being overcast and windy, the beach was desolate. We walked for about an hour (and then an hour back) - Paul and I are becoming very impressed with our boys’ walking skills. It was then that we met Brian, a fisherman and one of the five permanent residents of Baird Bay. He invited us in to his home to check out his haul - a huge freezer brimming with frozen fish, a couple of massive crayfish, etc etc. He gave the boys some abalone shells which he had polished and which looked positively beautiful. Then he invited Paul to come fishing with him the following morning, which he duly accepted - here was his chance to meet a real Aussie character. Little did he know what he was in store for…

Brian, aged anywhere between 50 and 65, works as a grader on a 1000km stretch of desolate highway between Alice Springs and Brisbane. He works 10 hours a day for 42 days straight, and then drives the 1400km to Baird Bay for his 10 days off. A contractor, he earns $25/hour for this mind-numbing work. He has been doing this for the past 10 years, working the same stretch of road. We caught him at the tail-end of his ‘holiday’ and he was busy replenishing his fish stocks (he takes frozen fish back with him to Alice where he barters it in exchange for accommodation, meat, etc). We quickly discovered that he is one of your quintessential Australians, rough on the outside, will fight for what he believes to be his right (including, Paul learnt, his right to fish his full quota every day) and always backs the underdog. He could also be a bit of a softie (though Oliver for one was terrified of him - I tried to explain to him that his bark was worse than his bite, but Oliver would have none of it!). However I later learnt from Paul some stories of what Brian did to people he believed had wronged him or a mate (stories not suitable for general publication!) I mentioned earlier that our stay here was a bit challenging. It was in that, while Brian meant well I am sure, he was quite demanding of our time, wanting Paul to constantly come out fishing with him, inviting us over for dinner (which while nice in theory, meant very late nights, as you will later read, and his home was that of a bachelor fisherman - not necessarily the cleanest. The last couple of nights I probably appeared rude, but I needed to cook my own food, at my own time, in my own space!)

Paul met him at 6am, and the next time I saw Paul was eight hours later, having spent the day in the boat (and naturally, this day was a very hot one!) having caught more than 160 fish! He was sun-bleached, and said the work was rather gruesome. Brian was catching garfish, and used live maggots which he bred as bait. He was an expert fisherman, and taught Paul a few tricks of the trade, so that Paul too was hauling in the catch. I think however the sheer numbers had Paul feeling a bit like a slaughterer, but a quota is a quota and Brian was determined to catch his quota. They also caught a few other fish as well. Gutting and filleting the fish afterwards was long, but again, Brian was an expert and had it all finished in a few hours. Brian had invited us over for dinner, and he cooked us fish and chips (Brian’s recipe: 1.5 cups of self-raising flour, squeeze one lemon juice and add a few drops of yellow food colouring, and then add about 5 tablespoons of soda water. Mix it in, and then slowly add more soda water until batter consistency is smooth, but not too watery nor too stiff. Batter the fish, then let it sit for ½ hour before deep frying it. Tastes actually rather nice - I recommend you try it out!) Only downside was that, by the time he had gutted the fish, had a rest, and cooked the fish, it was 11pm! Quinton was so tired that Paul took him back to the caravan before the others had finished eating - Paul was walking, Quinton riding, and suddenly, Paul says he just watched in disbelief as Quinton veered off the road and into the bushes. We think Quinton fell asleep at the wheel!

While Paul was out fishing I managed to do some school work with the boys and then tried the Baird Bay Eco Tours building to see if anybody was there (Trish and Alan run the business and are the parents of the young couple who had just taken over management of the Fowler’s Bay Caravan Park. Trish however was in Adelaide having a hip operation, hence there were no tours being run this week). We met Jan who was helping Trish and Alan while they were away and she told us Alan would be back on Friday and that we could join that tour. As it was only Tuesday, Brian then convinced us to stay put for the next few days (we had thought to move on to Venus Bay Caravan Park and then return on Friday for the tour) by telling the boys that he would take them out fishing the following afternoon. So we stayed, and Paul had to go out fishing with Brian again on Wednesday. Thankfully, as Brian had committed to take the boys out in the afternoon, it was not such a long day out, but even so, they brought in a haul of 90 garfish! That afternoon I think was the highlight of the boys’ holiday so far - Brian took them out and taught them how to fish, and they themselves caught salmon. And large salmon at that! Quinn kept carrying his (now dead) fish like it was a baby, and said he wanted to keep it to show his grandmother. It was hard work convincing him to relinquish the fish. The boys second highlight was being allowed to go into Brian’s spa which he has outside on his verandah.

Brian was keen to get Paul out again on Thursday, but we managed to avoid this by saying we wanted to make a day trip to Venus Bay. After four days of free camping, we were looking forward to a meal out and a coke! - and we even scored a shower at the caravan park there (best $10 we ever spent). Funny how being in a caravan can make you appreciate the simpler things in life. We had the best tasting sandwich ever that afternoon! On return to Baird Bay, we discovered that Jan had double booked us, and asked if they could take us out that evening instead, just us. It meant an extra night at Baird Bay (we had initially planned only one night, so to have successfully managed five days free camping without planning it I think has been quite a feat, and bodes well for the Northern Territory!) Brian naturally latched on to Paul and invited him to go fishing again in the morning, while I managed to get another day of home schooling in! Paul returned, again with a cache of fish - snoek this time, and then Brian gave us so much fish to take with us. He was incredibly generous, but now our fridge and freezer are full of fish. In the future I have to be careful what I wish for, because in Fowler’s Bay I had complained that we were surrounded by fish and fishermen, but we could not beg, steal or buy any fish! Thankfully our boys enjoy eating fish.

And now to one of Paul’s and my highlights of the trip so far; swimming with the sealions and dolphins. Alan took us out to a family of sealions and there we leapt into the water, all of us. Matt, who was helping Alan, took Quinn and William, while Oliver, Paul and myself swam with the sealions. The sealions were juveniles, and one can’t be too sure who was watching who, but I felt so at peace. Even after the boys and Paul climbed back into the boat, I stayed, despite the cold. It was so surreal, so magical. They swam around you, underneath you, and at one stage came so close they touched me. And they watch you with those large puppy dog eyes of theirs. In fact, it was like watching little puppies frolicking in and out of the water. So beautiful. Later Oliver told me he had high-fived a sealion, while Paul said they kept nibbling his toes. We realised later that the reason they found his feet so interesting must have been the lingering smell of snoek slime from his fishing that morning! It really was a magical experience.

We then searched for the elusive dolphins, and found a small pod. As it was quite late, and Alan was a bit worried about sharks (we were in deepish water) we had to leap in to swim with them, but they didn’t hang around for long. The first couple disappeared, apparently on the hunt for food as it was feeding time, while the next three were scared off by a rogue sealion who was playing. But still, I found myself uncharacteristically feeling so carefree and diving deep to swim alongside the dolphins. It was only once the dolphins had swum away and I found myself a bit away from Matt, Paul and Oliver (I was very impressed with how Oliver held his own in the water) that I became a little bit concerned at what was around me (just the week before, a couple of bays away, a fisherman was killed by not one, but two, Great Whites, in water no deeper than I was in, and as he was climbing back into his boat after diving down to collect abalone). Hmmmm...But I am alive to tell the tale.

And now sees us in Port Lincoln, on route to Adelaide. We plan to be in Adelaide for the weekend, but who knows what will happen between now and then….

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Photos

1. Celebrations!
Nicole somehow managed to organise a birthday cake to be delivered to me on a Sunday! It was truly delicious - thank you!

Comments

[Mark]

vishoek
Paul always was quite the catch. Sound slike you continue to have a cracker of an adventure, although I should warn you that the average eucalyptus tree has significantly more personality that the average Adeladean. Now there are indeed some very interesting Adeladeans, but then again, there also some very interesting eucalyptus trees. Having said that, it has many wonderful traits, not the least of which being its nearby wineries - followed closely by its pie floaters (a wonderful accompaniment to the post remnants of too much wine - sic!). I have friends who have a small holding outside Adelaide - should I alert them to your coming and subtly suggest they offer you a camp site (I am sure they would love it)?

[dennis]

Dunes
Hi All, The dune sliding looks like a real gas! Happy birthday Alexa. Where are the party pics??