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Published: January 9th 2010
Corrugated Iron camels - Norseman
A tribute to the Afghan cameleersHappy New Year to you all. I know I’m a bit late and I’ve become very slack with the blog but time has suddenly started to fly by. We can’t quite believe we’ve been on the road for 5 months!!!
From the last blog you will remember that we finally made it to WA. Since we have some fantastic memories of our holiday here in 2001 it was probably not surprising that two “yippees” resonated from our car as we crossed the border!
We remember WA as a very friendly and sociable state and in true WA style, it was only a matter of minutes after pulling up at our camp spot east of Norseman (Mt Norcott) that we were having drinks and sharing a yarn with a fellow traveller. Our new found friend came in the form of a young WA guy named Josh. Josh was on his way to Melbourne in his old Holden ute to make his fortune. He told us he was in Norseman for the night as his ute had overheated and he had to see the mechanic. When I asked him how long he had been travelling, expecting him to say about a
week or so, he took a glance at this watch and said “aw, about 8hrs”! It had just taken us 2 days to cross the Nullarbor so the poor guy had a long way to go! However, after we established that he was carrying plenty of water, we wished him well and gave him another beer!
After leaving Josh the next morning we headed into Norseman but found that it has very little to offer except fuel, food supplies and a roundabout full of corrugated iron camels. Our next destination, however, was fortunately a little more appealing.
Esperance and its neighbouring regions boast the best beaches in WA and with their white sand, sparkling crystal waters and views of several islands, it is not difficult to see why. Esperance is a nice bustling seaside town with its own Great Ocean Drive which takes you along the cliff tops overlooking fabulous beaches. There is certainly a beach for everyone here!
After spending just one night in Esperance, we decided to move along to a place called Orleans Bay on the edge of Cape Le Grand NP. This was quieter than the town and much more to our taste.
We had arrived a week before the school holidays started and so we shared the whole park with just one other tent … perfect!
Orleans Bay was beautiful and as you can imagine, with a huge white sand beach, open space and safe swimming water, Mr Woodstock was in his element! Although I had visions of a lovely panoramic picture of Orleans Bay hanging in my living room at home, Woody’s endless energy and excitement made it really difficult to take that perfect photo without a huge black smear across it! Actually, it was here that Woody revealed his rather amusing and hidden talent …. the long jump!!!!
After leaving Esperance we paid a short visit to Bremer Bay and although there isn’t much to the town, the beaches here are incredible. A personal opinion, but these are WA’s best beaches!!! If you are a beach lover, then it would be a sin to drive past here without at least taking a peek! Unfortunately for Woody, he spent most of his time in the car with his head out of the window as the beaches are mainly “dogs prohibited” …. but of course, that didn’t stop Rich and
I enjoying them!
We continued to experience the friendliness of WA and by the time we reached Albany we had met several other groups of people including some 70 year old nomads who had been on the road for 14 years! They were spending their grandkids inheritance and quite rightly so!!! We also met a couple called John and Sheri who gave the impression of being Australia’s happiest couple … mind you, it might have had something to do with red wine! John and Sheri, a semi-retired couple who have been on the road for 3 years, certainly added to our Australian Bush experience. We found out there is nothing quite like having dinner under the gum trees and the stars while two rather merry neighbours sing John Williams songs at the top of their voices! Even as we went to bed, we were still being serenaded by Sheri who by this point was singing to her Maltese and who had obviously finished that 2nd bottle!!!
When we reached Albany the Christmas spirit and celebrations were well underway. We were greeted by a rather amusing sight of 200 or so bikers parading through the town each adorned with
tinsel and accompanied by either a small child or a teddy bear. Not the usual image of the big ginger bearded biker!!!
While in Albany we visited the local farmers markets and then went for a look around the wind farm. We have passed several wind farms on this trip but Albany’s is a unique tourist attraction that lets you get up close to the turbines. There are walking tracks right up to the turbines and to some great lookout areas. Each of the 12 turbines stand on 65 metres towers and each of their blades is an extra 35 metres so they aren’t exactly small! They generate 21MW of power and supply energy to over 50% of Albany’s population …not bad for wind power eh? On the paths up to the turbines we also got glimpses of the late bloomers from WA’s wildflower season (September - November) which I’m told is quite spectacular.
From Albany we headed west through Denmark and Walpole and visited The Valley of the Giants, which is a walk through the tree canopy of the Tingle trees. These trees grown up to approx 60 metres tall and some of them have huge bases.
Rich and I had our photo taken at the base of a hollowed out ancient Tingle tree which gives you an idea how big these trees can get. This was our first experience of many big trees in WA’s south west … just further north of this the area is famous for it’s huge Karri trees.
Richie’s birthday was coming up and, as any normal guy would, he was dreaming of a bbq on the beach and a cool six pack close to hand. Fear not …. I soon brought him back to earth! His birthday just happened to coincide with the first day of our raspberry picking jobs! To avoid the Christmas rush at the coast we wanted to do something different and when we saw the ad for pickers wanted in a tourist info centre we thought we would give it a go.
On our arrival we were met by our hosts, Judy and Grant and were shown where to set up our camp. Just before she left us, Judy said “OK, see you in the morning … we start at 6am” ….agghhhh, how were we ever going to get up for 6am?? These days we’re
used to living like teenagers and very rarely see this side of 8:30am!
Fortunately, we did make it for 6am with a little help from the mobile phone alarm and went down to the field to meet Judy and the other workers. We soon realised that raspberry bushes are not picker friendly and during our 1st break, Richard disappeared for a while only to return and hand me a pair of his old socks with holes cut in them so I could wear them as gloves …. He also had a matching pair!!! Stylish!!! So for the next two weeks, we went around wearing Richie’s socks on our arms …something I really hope I’m never required to do again!
We became good friends with the other workers and spent many a night in the communal caravan drinking raspberry wine whilst discussing each other trips! The said communal caravan, we later found out, had once been the home of Winston Churchill’s physician when he emigrated to Australia with his wife.
Judy and Grant provided some facilities including a little hut with a shower and toilet, however, if you used the shower you had to be prepared to share
it with a redback or two, which of course resulted in many pickers leaving after 24 hours! I refused to share my shower and ended up killing about 7 of them … Aside to the redbacks, staying on the farm was great. Woody enjoyed the attention and every morning he would run to the caravan and stick his head in to see who was there and if they would be kind enough to give him some toast! He loved visiting the 200 hens too!
The German, French and Belgian couples all had very good English and completely put us to shame with our lack of language skills, although Richard tried his best! Every now and again some of his “school German” would come back to him and he would proudly stand up and in his best German accent tell everyone “my favourite subject is biology” or something equally as useless!
As well as berries and hens, Judy and Grant also had many hectares of grain and 4000 head of sheep so needless to say they are very busy people, although they always made time for a chat. Each morning Grant would come down for a chat, share pearls
of wisdom and tell us interesting stories of his life on the stations … including one of a farmer who managed to run his tractor over his own head … don’t ask!
Spending time on the farm, in the sun and away from the Christmas hype, it was very easy to forget that it was Christmas and we realised a little too late that we hadn’t stocked up for Christmas dinner or treats. As you can imagine, when we looked in our fridge and saw only a cauliflower and broccoli, we were not overjoyed! We didn’t even have chocolate or Christmas cake! So in desperation we searched through the remaining food boxes and found a potato and a carrot … things were looking up! Richard did a little Christmas magic and this was our very vegetarian Christmas dinner!!! Things looked a lot brighter when santa (in the form of farmer Grant) came to deliver a gift of chocolate!
New years eve was spent in one of the farm sheds with friends, Ove and Steffie, Judy and Grant and a beautiful blue moon in the background overlooking the farm. Nearly every backpacker we had met on the farm had
had to replace their car/van or spend a small fortune to fix it. Ove and Steffie were not an exception, however, after replacing the whole engine they renamed their car “Forrest” … because they wanted it to run and run and run! I found this highly amusing!!! (still do!).
After two weeks on the farm and picking over 200 kilos of raspberries (now that’s an achievement!), we were moving on again. Although a little sad to be saying goodbye to Grant and Judy, we still have a lot to see and do. The first thing we did after leaving Frankland was to get fuel, the second was to climb the biggest tree I’ve ever seen, the Diamond Tree … or at least it felt like that at the top after climbing it’s ladder! (*Caution: Mam don't look!!!)
Well, hopefully it won’t be as long til I write the next blog … so check back in a couple of weeks.
Hope you’re all having a fabulous day
Til later Hay
x
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Rena
non-member comment
Hi guys, A merry xmas and happy new year to you both. It looks like you are having a fabulous time and I am incredibly jealous. I am making plans now for me to do a year long trip :-). Brisbane is well but I miss good company like yours and hope that you make it back safe and sound with more stories and photos to share. Relax and enjoy this time you have and keep writing updates as I am loving reading all about it. Rena xoxox