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Published: November 23rd 2007
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After filling up every jerry can we own & Boris’ tanks prior to leaving, we made it from Ceduna to Norseman in four nights. Our maiden journey across the Nullarbor completed in true Boris style and without any hitches (well, except for our stench from non-showering!). The night just before we crossed into WA we camped about 25km from the border & it was still totally sunny at 8pm (like afternoon sun) and finally got dark about 10:15pm. It was a strange experience, however we lost some time once we crossed so the next night was much more normal. The same night we measured the sounds of the road-trains (oh the ways to kill time when there’s nothing else to do) and you could hear them coming 2 minutes away and then after they passed our camp could still hear them for another minute. We were thankful that night it rained heaps so we just heard the sound of raindrops on bus instead of trucks all night!
The journey across was great, lots of interesting & boring things to see and do. The most interesting was all long the Great Australian Bight, the cliffs were just unreal. In some parts
Bucket Head
Nothing like lounging on the dash in the sun! we were standing 90 metres above the top of the water, with a sheer drop down…nothing between us & certain death! Luckily the wind wooshing up those cliffs was so strong you’d be more likely to be blown into the air than to plummet to the water! We also hit a 45km stretch of roadworks about 100km out of Norseman, so that slowed us down considerably. And the roadtrain drivers obviously have no respect for the roadwork speedsigns, they were overtaking us and we were doing about 60 on a rough, corrugated dirt road! We just moved out of the way.
And of course the most boring was “Australia’s longest stretch of straight road - 146.6km”. We swapped drivers halfway across just to both …eh….enjoy the experience! It’s one of those pilgrimages that hopefully all Australians one day get to experience.
After our morning arrival in Norseman we decided to head straight up to Kelgoorlie where we had a shower (THANK GOD!!!) did some washing & hit a caravan park for two nights. This was a small treat after spending the previous 4 nights roughing it along the side of the road. Each afternoon while we were there
Woohoo!
This is our first glimpse of a sign saying Perth!! WA Here we come. Ceduna SA the storm clouds would start building at about 5pm and we’d be hit by massive electrical storms & rain by about 9pm. It was amazing and thankfully cooled us down a lot for sleeping as it was about 33 in Kalgoorlie both days we were there. We loved going to have a look at the open cut gold mines, especially the Superpit. It’s one of those things where you just can’t appreciate the size of it till you are standing on the edge.
From Kalgoorlie we headed back down through Norseman and into Esperance where we stayed out at a National Park called Cape Le Grand for 3 days. Here we celebrated our “travel anniversary” of one year on the road! We left Newcastle on the 11th November last year, so we popped a bottle of bubbly to celebrate (what else did you expect?) The scenery at Cape Le Grand was a lot like Freycinet NP in Tassie and we did some nice beach walking & a hike up some of the rocky hills. The view was awesome, the water pure aqua in colour and the beach camping even had hot solar showers so we could easily have stayed
longer. However our poor moggies were in lockdown there as it’s a national park so it was only fair that we move onto somewhere they could enjoy with us too.
A couple of hundred kms from Esperance we decided we’d head inland for a bit and enjoy the Stirling Ranges, Porogurup Ranges and have a look in Mt Barker. We both had no idea there was a wine region in Mt Barker, so I’m sure you can guess what our day there involved! Ended up having a great platter of food & a couple of glasses of Pinot sitting on a gorgeous deck overlooking the vines. That afternoon we also discovered that Porogurup also boasts about 5 wineries so made sure they were on the itinerary before we retired for the night at a gorgeous little caravan park at the base of the ranges. We earned all our tastings the next day when we hiked up Castle Rock, a rocky outcrop perched on top of a steep hill, with a miners ladder screwed into the side of it and a few planks of wood screwed on top of it! Was well worth the climb and virtual abseiling to get
up there…what a view.
We then headed to the Stirling Ranges and set our ambitions on a mountain called Bluff Knoll (possibly the highest point in WA?? We’re yet to find out). We set off the next day on our climb at about midday (we wanted to wait till the top of the mountain was out of the clouds) with the clear warning that this walk would take up to 4 hours and that once at the top the conditions could change dramatically. So we went prepared with many layers, lots of water and, sadly, peanut butter sangas (we were in desperate need of some groceries by this stage!) to refuel us when we got to the top. What a walk. The pictures give you some idea of the view from this thing, and all the grumbling, moaning and strain were worth the view for sure. Oh, and we did the whole walk in under 3 hours….impressed? We were!
So then straight down to Albany after the walk where we finally pulled into the caravan park at about 8pm. All the free camping areas we had staked out were full so alas we wasted about 2 hours driving
around and still ended up in a park. Nevertheless the hot, hot, hot showers were welcome on our aching pegs!
You will also be pleased to hear that Bucket Head (Oscar) is finally bucket-free! After more than 3 weeks with it on he has healed, and is back to his old obnoxious self. We actually commented that we missed his moods, he was damn quiet while he had the bucket on so it’s nice to have a bit of his old attitude back!
So, what now for us you ask? Well, as it turns out we will be re-entering the workforce! We had a tip-off from a lady at Cape Le Grand that a small caravan park about 50km east of Albany were looking for a couple to help them out over the summer. And we got the job! We start on Monday so have been spending this week at a great spot on the coast, just relaxing, reading, sunning & walking on the beach. We’re also going to do some wine tasting in Albany, visit the brewery for a bit too and maybe even go out for dinner somewhere nice before we get stuck into a few
solid months of hard work. We’ll keep you informed on how it goes, but we can’t wait to get stuck into it. What a nice place to spend the summer, even if we’re working for some of it. It’s called Cheynes Beach, has a great bay, lots of bushwalking, fishing etc so we’ll definitely try and spend our time off in the great outdoors. So, unemployed bums no longer!!!!
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Chick
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great photos
what a great view from some of those cliffs and mountains. Jord thinks the straight stretch would be good to burn along. Test Boris out!!! Glad to hear you've landed jobs for the summer, should be a great . Enjoy yourselves! Stay safe and have fun.Have a drink for me ( or maybe 6).take care chick xxx