Heading West

Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Perth
May 5th 2009

Published: May 6th 2009

Edit Blog Post

Cassandrew

Perth

Until now, the Nicest city in the World, that we have visited.

We spent a few days in the pretty city of Adelaide before beginning our journey to the west. Despite it's population of 1.2 million, the city still maintained a small-town feel, with stately Victorian buildings, rather than skyscrapers, lining the downtown area. Our new friend Chuck, whom we had met working at the vineyard in Mildura, lives in Adelaide and had invited us to stay with him while we were in town. We realized it was the first house we had stayed in in about five months, so we were very grateful for his hospitality. We spent the days sightseeing in the city and checking out the local markets, and the evenings catching up over a couple "slabs" of beer. After a few days, it was time for us to continue our journey, so we said goodbye to Chuck and the last bit of civilization we would see for some time. Heading north, as we began to zigzag our way to the west coast, our first stop was The Flinder's Ranges. We took the scenic route, driving through quaint little villages along the way, and past Mt. Remarkable, which really wasn't that remarkable, until we reached the ranges. Large hills striped

Lookout

Wilpena Pound

with red streaks arose out of the desert scrub as we approached. We went to Wilpena Pound, which lies in the center of the ranges, surrounded by the hills on all sides, save a small gap used as the entranceway. Hiking through the area, we saw kangaroos, mountain goats, lizards, and aboriginal cave paintings.

From here, we backtracked to Port Augusta, where we joined the Stuart Highway; getting our first introduction to Road Trains. Efficient but daunting, these transport trucks carry multiple trailers across the barron plains of Australia. We saw some carrying four trailers! We knew we were getting close to the opal mining town of Coober Pedy when the landscape started to look unearthly. A very unique place in the Outback, Coober Pedy bills itself as the Opal Capital of the World, but it is equally known for it's underground houses and alien terrain. We set up camp at Riba's, the world's only underground campground. We quickly understood why half of the town's population lives in these underground dugouts. Walking into the dugout was like passing through an imaginary shield offering instant protection from the heat and the flies. Once we were set up, we went into

Mine Shafts and Mullock Piles

Coober Pedy

town to check out the strange sights, and quickly learned it is difficult to navigate around an underground town!

There must have been more than a dozen opal shops on the main street, each comparable in size to a large jewellery store, but containing only opals. The quantity and quality of these impressive gems astounded us. Back at the campground, the owner took us on a tour of his mine. We learned about the geology of opals, the details of "pegging a claim" to start your own mine, and how to find the opals - there are several different methods, but opal actually glows under a black light! Once our tour was complete, we settled in for our night underground - it was quite comfortable aside from the echoes of snoring campers. The next day we continued to look through the opal shops and exhibits in town before heading out to the nearby Moon Plains. This was the strangest area of all - it really felt as if we were on another planet! After some tricky navigating, we eventually made it to Crocodile Harry's lair. This man was the real life Crocodile Dundee (and then some!). As we walked

Moonscape

Coober Pedy

into his dugout, it was apparent that he was quite a character, and evidently a womanizer as well. Every inch of the walls were covered - with paintings, photographs, signatures of visitors, women's underwear, and just about everything else imaginable. We saw from a photojournal on his wall that he captured, killed, and skinned the crocs by hand; and his all time record for one night was over 80 crocodiles! A very unique man who lived in a very unique place.

After our second (quieter) night underground, it was time to hit the road and head west. We decided to take the back roads, as it would save us hundreds of kilometers of driving and backtracking. When you take the back roads from the Outback to the middle of nowhere, it is certainly quite an adventure! Sometimes it would seem the cattle grids were smoother than the road. We drove through remote cattle and sheep stations, vast salt plains and dried creek beds. It took the whole day (though it was only a few hundred kilometers) and we only passed about a dozen other vehicles, a couple of roadhouses, and we didn't see any homes. Finally, we reached the

Welcome to The Nullaboor

South Australia - West Australia

glorious pavement, though I think our bodies continued to rattle for a few more kilometers. The next couple of days were spent driving to Western Australia across the Nullarbor Plains (meaning "no trees"). It was a good road with plenty of roadside stops and camping areas along the way, so it was a long, but easy drive. We had hoped to spot a camel, as they apparently roam around this region, but had no such luck! Instead we ran into some friends we had met in Tasmania - for a big country, it's surprising how often this happens. The end of this drive was signalled by our arrival in Norseman, a little town named after a man's horse. The horse unearthed a gold nugget with his hoof, consequently starting a goldrush, and leading to the development of the town.

From Norseman, we drove south to the coast. Our first stop was Esperance - this town has been voted to have the best beaches in Australia. Unfortunately, it was storming for the two days we spent there, so the beaches weren't as spectacular as the pictures we'd seen. Despite the bad weather, we took a walk on the town jetty

Sammy the SeaLion

He seemed interested in the notice that had been posted about his aggressiveness. Esperance

(pier) and we were surprised at how blue the water was with cloudy skies above. When we got back to shore, we were greeted by "Sammy" the local sealion, who evidently is well fed, as he was extremely fat! Later, we decided to continue west, and drove to the town of Albany. We loved this place! A small town, with a strong sense of community; it's very scenic with countryside, beaches, and forest. We thought this would be a good place to look for some work, but as it turned out we were off-season, so no work was available. We stayed a few days and camped by the beach. With the rhythmic roars of the ocean, a light breeze rustling the trees, and sprinkles of rain on the tent, it was like falling asleep to a relaxation CD. One night, our peaceful sleep was interrupted by a loud thud as something crashed down on our tent. It took a few seconds to realize that we were both okay and our tent was still standing. Campers have been killed from branches falling on them in the night, so it was a scary moment in the dark. Then we heard the strange

Repairing The Tent

Bloody Possums!! They almost did it again a couple nights later! Albany

shrill of an unknown animal, and quickly realized it was not a branch that had fell, but whatever was making that noise. Despite a large proportion of Australia's animals being poisonous, they aren't dangerous in terms of a physical threat (in the south at least); nevertheless our camping instincts come from Canada, where the animals can eat you, so Andrew was quickly out of the tent; flashlight in one hand, knife in the other, ready to fend off whatever was attacking us. The noises continued as he found tears in the tent, and he followed the noises to the trees above. To our surprise (and relief) it was a family of possums! From what we can work out, the branch the animal was on broke under it's weight, and it plummeted down on top of us. Our sturdy tent acted as a trampoline, bouncing him off, where he clawed the tent on his way down. The noises continued through the night as the other possums came to rescue their fallen comrade. It was certainly a bizarre night! We patched our tent up in the morning, so everything should be okay barring any other animal encounters.

After a fews days

Road Trains

Believe it or not they do come in bigger sizes. West Australia

in town we decided to go north of Perth, to the town of Carnarvon as we were told their was plenty of work available there. It took a couple of days to drive to Carnarvon, and once we bypassed Perth, the drive wasn't as scenic as we had hoped. We had been told that in Western Australia, the desert stretches right to the coast; and now we can vouch for the that first-hand! As we made our way closer to our destination, we crossed the 26th parallel, officially putting us in the northern half of the country. When we arrived, we were shocked to see hundreds of other backpackers roaming around the streets of the small town. Apparently, we weren't the only ones looking for work in Western Australia! The government says that this state has a labour shortage, but in our experience thus far it has been quite the opposite. We drove around to the many farms and banana plantations in the area; all had "NO WORK" signs posted at the entranceway. We could only find one place in town that could give us any information about potential job vacancies; which was that nothing would be available for a

Beautiful Day

Looking out over the Swan River from the tree tops in Kings Park, Perth

month, and once it was there were many others in line for the work. Unsure what to do, we were confused about why we had been told their was so much work available (we had even called the visitor information center to confirm before we made the drive). We hypothesized that it was an elaborate scheme to lure backpackers to the area to increase tourism revenue - once you're there, their's nothing for hundreds of kilometers - at least that's our theory, anyway...

In the end, we decided to continue travelling for a few more weeks, and we will look for work a little later on. We drove the 900 kilometers back to Perth, and we've spent the last couple days in the city. It's really quite a lovely place! The city is set around the Swan River which runs through the center of it. It has a relaxed ambience to it and has many beautiful parks. We spent a few hours yesterday wandering through King's Park and sitting on the immaculate lawns (grass is a rare luxury in Australia because of the droughts) watching the river.

As we continue our travels, we'll keep you all updated!