4WD Recommended

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Have I told you about the Grey nomads yet? I didn't think so. Wherever you are in Australia, you are never alone. They're everywhere. Usually towing a caravan and in a 4x4. As the number of retired and healthy grows they are finding themselves with time on their hands and money in their pockets and so are going out in force to tour the country. It means if you pull over at one of the roadside rest area/campsites you'll probably have a least one caravan as company if not many more. If you want a bit of solitude it can be annoying but to be honest I always feel a little safer, especially just off the road, if there are a few people around. They are also, if friendly not all if them are, a very good source of information and if you're really lucky you might get a cup of tea out of it, I've also had breakfast, sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. It can be a bit of pain if your stuck behind a load of them on the roads and you want to get somewhere but on the whole I don't mind having the grey nomads around.

There's no work in Perth, or at least there is a bit but its not easy to get. I am pretty much brassic now so I need work asap but the agencies here are the same as everywhere, they bring you in get you to sign up, which takes up to 3 hours, and then you never, ever hear from them again, in fact if you give them a call they just seem shocked to hear from you. Waste of time.

I think you normally get a feeling about a city or place pretty quickly, some are growers like Melbourne but some like Adelaide you just get a good feeling about. Perth unfortunately isn't an Adelaide so even though I need the cash I am slightly glad there was no work in Perth I didn't really want to hang around there too long. Someone in the hostel said 'Perth is a suburb city' and it's very true. Perth is ridiculously spread out for the amount of people who live there and it seems everyone goes back to their suburbs at the end of the day and stays there. The people are friendly but it just doesn't seem that exciting, the museum is pretty good as are the two Art Galleries I visited but it just can't make up for the fact that at its heart it's just a bit dull. I should have spent maybe three/four days there max maybe more if I was going to go to Rottnest island but seeing as I was too broke to go there three/four days max, but because of looking for work I was there from Saturday to a week Monday so I could go to see Fremantle on a sunday when apparently it is at its best. My advice if you're going to Perth stay in Fremantle. Fremantle is much nicer has a better feel to it and is probably a bit cheaper, its also closer to Rottnest if you're going over there. Rottnest Island by the way is a small island without any cars, its only a couple of km's in length, with great beaches and is generally quite picturesque, at least thats what the guidebooks tell me.

One thing I do very much like about Perth though is Kakula's on William Street in Northbridge. There are some photos of it here, if only you could smell photos. This shop not only stocks products from around the world, think marmite to bisto, but also has buckets full of spices, grains, flours anything you can think. You simply put however much you wanrt in a bag and pay by weight, but what a smell this wonderful shop has, equal to any spice market in the world.

On my days ride out on Sunday I notice fluid leaking from my left fork, I'd already noticed something going on down there so wasn't too surprised. Being in the biggest city until Darwin some 5000km's up I thought it best to get it sorted now rather than wait for the fork seal to completely go and start pissing fork oil all over the bike. So I took it to the garage to get a quote for that, a new set of tyres, they may have got me to Broome but whether Broome would have had tyre and at what price God knows, and a bit of a service. The bad news was I'd be stuck in Perth til Thursday, the worse news it was going to cost me about a grand.

So I pottered around for a few more days, got the bike fixed, including some new intermediate tyres to help me on the gravel I'd be seeing more of up north, and then finally almost two weeks after pulling in I left Perth with the speedo reading 78740. The plan was to head up to Cervantes to see the pinnacles then as far up to Monkey Mia as I could get. The Pinnacles are truly amazing, I'm sure the pictures do them no justice at all. They take your breath away, at least they did mine. No-one knows how they were created although my favourite theory is that they are petrified trees that became covered by sands and continually uncovered over the centuries until being uncovered again a couple of hundred years ago. This is exactly what they look like, a huge petrified forest. Some of the rocks are small some are huge, up to five metres tall, in some places there are only a few in some places there are hundreds. I love things like this, the ones that take you by surprise, I'd not heard much about it wasn't all that fussed about going but was completely spellbound when I got there. This is one that should definitely go on your list if your coming over.

If I pushed it I'd be able to make it all the way up to Kalbarri so I decided to do it, that would put me 400km from Monkey Mia and also allow me to go see 'natures window'. It was getting a bit dark on the way in, you know how much I hate that, and as if to prove me correct as I headed towards town there was a roo sitting on the side of the road waiting to jump out in front of me so I slowed down a bit and beeped my horn to get rid of him but it proves to me I shouldn't travel anytime after and including dusk.

Natures window in Kalbarri national Park is a rock formation that perfectly frames the view of the gorge below it, have a look at the pictures. Its down 26 km's of gravel road, or so I thought. When I got onto the road, which I had been told I'd be fine on, it was corrugated as hell. Lucky I had my new tyres and fixed suspension. So I slowly, very slowly made my way up the road but it just started to get worse and worse, added to which there were four wheel drives wizzing past me at annoying speeds but when I reached the T junction for 'natures window' and 'Z Bend' it only got worse the gravel quickly turned into sand, not deep sand but deep enough, in places deep enough to cover the bottom of the tyre up to the wheel rim. I've never ridden sand before and with the bike weighed down by all my stuff, plus the food I have because from here everything gets expensive and the fuel I am carrying in the Jerry for the same reason it truly was a hellish journey. With sand if you hit a deep patch it turns your front wheel and if you're going too fast and can't stop the bike it just brings it right over, there's nothing you can do about it. The bikes too heavy to lift by my self when fully weighed down so I have to unpack it a little to lift it. Next problem! On sand with no rocks around I can't put the bike on its stand as it just sinks in and falls over. So there I am having to unpack the bike, while petrol pours out into the sand, ride it somewhere I can prop it up or try to find a bit of hard ground for the stand, go back to pick up my pack and then repack the bike. It's hard, heavy work. Even just riding in the sand is hard you have to go slow, a lot of the time with your feet hanging out off the bike incase it goes to one side, your arms are continuingly holding up the bike and fighting the sand. If it falls even when you try to lift it it isn't easy as the wheel have nothing to dig into so slide for a while before digging in enough for you to lever it up, it weighs about 250kg with petrol and some of my stuff on it. About a kilometre away from the car park it went over again,this time breaking the indicator so I gave up, but only because as the track started to lead downhill and in the sand I knew I'd never get it back up the hill. Luckily I found some hard ground popped it on the stand and walked the rest of the way down. Are you wondering if it was worth it? The worst thing about getting there was knowing I'd have to take it all the way back through that hell again but the view was phenomenal. Even as I was riding there I'd be in my helmet cursing the conditions then I'd look to my right for a moment and see this amazing landscape, shut up and keep riding. Only bad thing is the amount of people there, even with the conditions to get in, much easier in a car mind, there was a lot of people around so it was hard to be able to truly appreciate it and take it all in. Then I began the trip back. I at least didn't come off on the way back, although there were many, many, many close moments and a few times I had to stop to rest, even though during this I still had to support the bike as there was nowhere to put it on the stand. I made it out though, I didn't even attempt to go up the other spur to the 'Z bend' which I am sure would have been amazing as well but I just couldn't bring myself to do another 10km round trip in this sand. After the T junction unfortunately as the road had dried out from the mornings dampness and in the heat it had become more sandy so the 20k back to the sealed road was also slow and painful, I was so happy when the road went from sand to gravel I could have cried. 26Km's in to 'Natures window' 26km's back, I spent about half an hour actually there the rest of the time travelling and it took me just over three hours. I also used a shit load of petrol, yes some of it spilled out when it fell the two times but not that much, I probably used twice or maybe as much as three times as I would have used on Tarmac. There is no doubt about it sand is the enemy. I can tell you when I got back onto Asphalt I was positively grinning, I now know why the Pope used to kiss it.

From here I whizzed down the road to Hawks Head and Ross Graham, all on sealed thank god, which are fantastic. At Ross Graham you can get down to the river which gave me my first opportunity to be truly alone in this beautiful landscape and now I get it, I see why people would want to just pack a load of stuff and just head out into the wilderness its so peaceful, so calming it just can't be put into words. It's definitely something I would like to do in the future, and something I am regretful for not doing until now, If could get the bike to do it then all the better.

It's been an amazing experience and it's taught me a lot but now I have some big questions to think about. The plan up north was to head up into Karijini national park and into Purnululu national park on the bike but they are both 4WD recommended and if they are any worse than todays conditions I know I wouldn't be able to do it, not alone and not with the bike packed up as it is. It would be a terrible shame to miss either of these places but it seems even fuel would be a big problem considering how much I used today. I know for a fact that Purnululu is sandy so it looks like it could definitely be out, especially as some of it is bulldust which is the sand so fine its like water,its hell to ride in and just fill potholes so you don't see them til you hit them and come off. I'll do some internet research see what comes up and maybe see if I can find anyone who has been recently, as conditions change day to day, see how sandy the roads in Karijini are. I'll let you all know what happens. Until then I'm off to see some dolphins with my left indicator stuck on with sellotape!

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Photos

Perth
Kakulas

Perth
Kakulas

Perth
Kakulas

Perth
By Night

Perth
fromthe Botanical gardens

Freo
Hands off, this beers my Dads

Freo
The oldest port town

Pinnacles
and there are a lot of them.

Pinnalces
Some of them are huge

Kalbarri
Feeding the Pelicans

Natures Window
4WD recommended you say...

Natures window
Sand is the enemy, and here it is I went over again!

Natures Window
and did this to the poor bike, look atthe indicator on the right of the photo.

Natures window
But the views are worth the effort

Natures Window
This is what they are taking about its natures natural window

Natures Window
and heres me by it, thank god for auto timer.

Ross Graham
Where you can get downto the river, ots named after a scholl teacher fromthe reghion who died in his thirties.

Kalbarri
Pelican Feeding

Comments

[dan]

sand
Alright Pez, Sounds like you're having a great time. Try putting a crushed beer can under the side stand next time the bike starts sinking. Keep up with the blog, makes for good reading.