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Published: October 8th 2007
No fruit or nuts please!!
Entry point from SA to WAWith the clocks back 2 hours, the trip becomes longer than it actually is. We fill up with petrol that we brought over in our jerry cans, and head towards Eucla.
Eucla was established as a telegraph station in 1877 as part of the link between East and West. Once it was one of the busiest, yet loneliest, stations in Australia. The modern township was located on the Hampton Escarpment after the original buildings were swallowed by sand dunes. At night an illuminated cross dedicated to all Eyre Highway travellers looks down onto the ruins of old Eucla from the escarpment above.
Between Caiguna and Balladonia we travel along one of the longest straight stretches of road in the world, 145km. Undulating roads of nothing. Thank god for the ipod!!!
After Balladonia and its century old stone fences, the Highway traverses the hilly and undulating country surrounding the Fraser Range. From there it is only a short drive to Norseman, where the Eyre Highway terminates.
Norseman becomes our stop for the evening, and as we pitch our tent, after a long, and very hard day driving, the heavens open, and down come the bloody rain!!! Not in
such a great mood (quite understandably), we head undercover, and start cooking our food for the evening. It is here, in the communal, open kitchen, surrounded by flies, that we meet a group of.............well, infact very friendly people. They offered us a beer, which was greeted with great pleasure, and we started talking about our trip and plans. We enquired about their trip, expecting them to be fellow travellers. Then the bolt from heaven............................they were jehovas!!!! Oh No........Not this........not now, i'm not in the mood for this shit!!!
Infact it wasn't quite as bad as i had expected. They were building some church of something, and had all volunteered (part of the christian feel you understand). As i had accepted a beer from them, i kinda felt obliged to stay and listen to their tails of achievement, with anticipation of the time when they would suddenly turn and start preaching the word of god to us. Infact, i had wound myself up so much that i knew exactly what i would say to them if they had tried their act of conversion. i had planned to attack them as soon as they let out that ominous word, not giving
a costal walk
a walk along the coast at Cape le Grande, WA them a sign of weakness, no sign that i was interested, shutting that door in their faces like it was right in front of me!! But it never came.............i was somewhat saddened...................i felt...........let down. were these really jehovahs witnesses, were these the people that i had heard so much about, were these the people that used to come knocking at my mothers door, asking if we wanted to talk about god??!!
I slept a little uneasy that night, expeting them to sneak into our tent and leave the bible staring at us in the morning.
The next day, we packed up, ready to head onto our next destination. And there it was...........they had not failed me. Sitting on the dashboard of my car, was a book about the word of god. But how did it get there? I asked Carmen, and she told me that the girl had given it to her last night, as she was returning from the toilet. In true jehovah style, i felt redeemed. I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders, i felt the world was once again the place i knew. We hurriedly packed up our belongings, got in the car.................oh no,
the heart
Rock shaped like a heart..........well you kinda get the picture it hadn't enede there. they were waiting for us, waiting to say goodbye, waiting to push that final call to enter the kingdom hall. "have a good trip, and if you ever pass a kingdon hall, this is our name, they'll make you feel at home", and with that a bag of fuji apples were presented to us. i wasn't quite sure what to do with this, and carmen took it (much to my horror)!! As we sped off, i asked Carmen if she was going to eat them...."yeah" she says with no appreciation of what had really happened there. Apples.................eve gave adam apples and look what happened to him!!! It was happening already......i was quoting passages from the bible.......i had to get rid of these things that were raping my mind!!! infiltrating feeling of do-gooding and forgivness and the belief that god is holding onto my soul. Was this a nightmare......had i been driving for so long that i was beginning to become schizophrenic??? I don't have any olanzapine at hand, and we've run out of diazepam...............oh god please save me.................oh god i can't stop!!!!!!
We arrive in Esperence, and settle here for a few
the dick
i think you can all guess what this looks like.........can't ya? days. Esperence sits along the south coast of WA, and is known as the Golden outback. It has beautiful beaches, and a very laid back lifestyle.
Here we met some more people (germans, english, canadian), did some fishing, and drove another great ocean drive. The ‘Great Ocean Drive’ is a circular loop that runs 38km from Esperance along the stunning southern coast, showcasing many of Esperance’s famous attractions. The road leads to the Wind Farms at Salmon Beach and Ten Mile Lagoon that are linked the local power supply. Esperance is the second windiest place in Western Australia and these farms help to offset local fuel prices.
We woke up one morning (after playing cards with a gay German, and an english guy the previous night) to visit the Famous Pink Lake, a massive salt lake that appears a lovely pink at certain times. The dunalella salina algae causes the lake to change colour and, depending what time of day you visit and the current water and salinity levels, the pink has been known to change from brilliant blues to a fairy-tale pink. The theory was that it was spectacular at 6am, and so we got up as early
our 2 man tent!!
small enough not to take off in the wind!! as possible to see................well, it wasn't so pink, but it was cold!!!
we took a detour to Cape le grand National park, which supposedly had the worlds whitest sandy beech.
Cape Le Grande National Park consists of undulating sand plains, rich in coastal heath lay around massive granite and gneiss outcrops (Mount Le Grand the highest at three hundred and fifty three metres). Dispersed throughout are small freshwater pools and swamps.
The coastal scenery is most spectacular with rock outcrops, magnificent white sand, blue water and many islands.
The park has a great variety of vegetation from coastal heath to eucalypt and banksia groves. The most common fauna in the park is the Western Grey Kangaroo, which is almost tame at Lucky Bay. We were told that the roos come out to sunbath on the beech, but it really was cold, so i think they were hibernating.
We met up with a group of tourists, who were psycho trekers. they had been on 2 previous trek sthat day, and were on their 3rd when we met up with they're tour guid, who had left them at a point to make their way to base, whilst she
cooked up a meal for them. It got a bit scary when, at 1800, it got dark, and they had not arrived back yet. There was a bit of panic, but then they arrived, battered by the elements, one with a sprained ankle.
It was a really windy night, and we only took out the small 2 man tent, as the bigger one would have got ripped to pieces it was that windy!!
Albany was our next stop. Here we met an anglo-swedish couple with 2 mad irish girls, who were fruit picking. We atayed a few days here, and hired some bikes to go cycling one day. It ended up being a 60km round trip................further than we had planned to go. No as someone who can handle himself on a bicycle, i was fairly fresh by the end. carmen however, was near tears, as she battled the wind and the hills and the saddle sore for 60 k's!!! I found it all quite amusing i have to say.
Next on the list was denmark.No not the european version, but the aussie version. Wel, Walpole to be exact. We had heard of this famous tree climb, and
the white sands of lucky bay
claims to be the whitest sand in the world!! had to explore for ourselves. i have to say that you never really realise that you suffer from vertigo until you get to the top of this walkway, which is a steady, unrealising ascent to the top of these gigantic trees. It is when you look down, and the wind is blowing the walkway around that you start realising your mortality, and scary thoughts come running into your head.
Margaret River is a jewel in the crown of WA. It a beautiful, ecenic spot sooth west of perth, that has some of the best wine in the world. We went on one of these wine tours, with a company called wines for dudes. Its run by a surfer guy, who has actually worked in a wine manufacturing plant, and knows the process, and is very happy to explain it to you, along with the location of some of the best breaks in WA. We had 4 wine tasting plants, and olive oil tasting, and chocolate tasting, and a picnic. it was a great day out, considering there were only 2 couples, and we had dinner with our Irish fellow travellers after. Margaret river is very touristy, and because of
this, is on the dear side of life, but its all worth it...every cent.
So we head towards Perth, and into Fremantle, where we make base whilst finilasing all or work stuff. We stay at the camp site, and meet some friendly people. During the 2 weeks we were there, we met germans, scots, dutch and kiwis. I got so paraletically drunk i fell asleep on a bench, and could not remember what had happened to me!! That serves me right for trying to keep up with 20 yr olds with fresh livers and an ability to absorb punishment on a level i have not put myself through for some years!!!
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Mark and Marias Great Adventure
Mark & Maria
should've made a crumble
Personally, I think you're going to hell for not eating those apples!! Wooo-ha-ha-ha (that's meant to be a scary laugh). Bet you wished you were back with the bush flies - hahahahahahahaha (that's proper laugh) :-D Maria