The view from here is hot

Esperence is a jewel in the tiara of the south west of Oz.
The Beach Drive is stunning. The water is so clear that close to shore waves seem to shimmer inwards, rather than move, as you can see straight through to the sand. The deeper water is magnificently turquoise, and we were fortunate enough to see a pod of perhaps a dozen dolphins frolicking in the waves on the first beach we looked at.
Driving along, seeing magnificence after magnificence we went into sensory overload and returned tired and happy to the caravan.
We left the next day to try to get as far towards Adelaide as possible.
It was 47 degrees in Esperance later in the day we left!

We decided that we would not dally on the Nullarbor, and skittle across as quick as possible. 'As quick as possible' turns out to be between 80 and 100kph. It also means 'two days of lots of driving'.
The view across the Nullarbor for passengers is not as one may expect. There is no places that are red dust either side, but much low scrub-land and some wooded areas. It is not a place to settle down and raise a family, we feel. We met my brother and partner (now newly pregnant) at Caiguna Roadhouse where he is working until next week.

The view for the driver across the Nullarbor looks a lot like a temperature gauge of a motor vehicle.
There is a very solid and delicately balanced link between the temp. gauge and the accelerator pedal.
As the vehicle is pulling quite a heavy load, it tends to run from 1/2 way up to 7/8 to the dreaded RED zone. A slight touch harder of the accelerator pedal and it soars to the RED zone, and heart attacks occur spontaneously for the driver, who must nurse the system down a tad, until it feels safe-ish to continue on. Even stopping and idling to cool things down a bit actually makes the car get hotter!
MANY hours were whiled away looking anxiously down to the temp. gauge and up to the road, then repeated, and .... well you get it.

We have driven for over 800k one day and over 700 the next.
Adelaide is only 5 or 6 hour away now.

What's in a Name?

If you come from Tasmania it is easy to pick a foreigner.
They say 'Lawn-seston', not 'Lon-seston' for 'Launceston'.
Interestingly, if you are from England, the original pronunciation for Launceston is actually 'Lawn-ton', spoken very quickly.

Tasmanians don't let the fact that they say it incorrectly bother them when they frown at foreigners who pronounce it differently than the local dialect dictates.

Albany is actually 'Al-bany', not 'All-bunny'. We got that right so we fitted in there, although dealing with N.T. number plates was a little problematic, so we left them on the Prado.

En route to Albany we had a fantastic drive along Highway 1, the route is bumpy, narrow-ish but lined with great forests and lots to see and do.
We stopped at Donnybrook, where they have a huge playground for free, so people drove at least 5000kms to play there (well, we did).
That probably makes it not technically 'free', but there was no entrance fee. It was a great way to split up a 550k drive.

From there we went to the Diamond Tree Reserve, where they have BIG trees that have had the tops cut off and a cubby-house plonked on top, to be used as fire watch towers. There are several, we were told.
We decided to climb the one in the pictures.
Jude and Sam got 1/2 way up and returned to Terra Firma (The more firma, the less terra).
Jess and Len went to the top, and it was quite a feat for a 9 year old. Very scary thing to do, and gained some appreciative 'ooh' and 'ahh's from those waiting their turn to risk heart attack or sudden impact death.

We then went to the Forestry Air Walk, in amongst more BIG trees. Much like Tahune Airwalk in Tas, without the opportunity to scare everyone by bouncing the cantilever, sadly.
Mind you it did sway sideways much more, a fact Sam tried valiantly to exploit.

Albany itself is nestled in the lee of some granite hills, snuggled down in a hollow, where it has a good snooze each day between 12 noon and 6pm. (Not really, it just sounds like it should, being in a hollow and all).
It is also a beautiful town, and one should take a trip to the Natural Bridge and see the awe-inspiring coastline. There are also two 'Blow-holes' nearby, where there are holes in the granite the size of a basketball. If you wait long enough for a good swell then you are treated to a very surprising jet propelled gust of compressed air, strong enough when we were there to remove hats, glasses, tee shirts (Jude held hers down after seeing Len's fat belly exposed to the other visitors in an amusing moment for all but Len), and perhaps strong enough to exfoliate exposed skin, should you so desire.
We were told that some splashes out to sea were two whales. After lots of patient waiting with the tele lens on the camera, and a pic or two of the splendid splashes the larger animal made it dawned that they did not move at all, and looked suspiciously like a few rocks way out at sea that were just being rocks. The pictures have been discarded.
The final thing about Albany, that will be mentioned here, is that if you want a good pizza in Albany, then you must go to Jo-Joe's Pizza.
We bought the jumbo version, $24, fed everyone and there was some left over!!
It just fitted through the caravan door with a slight tilt. Truly the best pizza we have tasted as well.

We are now at Esperence, another 500 or so ks, and tomorrow we explore some beach driving, we think.
Until then.

So, where's the Pestilence?

Some time ago, in a life long forgotten Len once decided that it was necessary to move from Tasmania to Geraldton, in W.A.
Geraldton was chosen because;
1. It had the best year round temperature for anywhere in Australia.
2. It was the furthermost place from Burnie with the best year round temperature in Australia.
3. It was the furthermost place from Burnie and the (then) Mother-In-Law in Australia with the best year round temperature in Australia.

After purchasing tickets etc. He eventually did not go, deciding to face the perils at close quarters instead of long distance.
One result of the last decision was the he always wondered what Geraldton would be like, thinking that it in all probability it was a dump and that it was a very good thing to have not been living in that city for all those intervening years.

It was with some interest and a little dread that we drove into there last week, on Boxing Day.

Well, it is very nice, as it turns out. Everyone loved it, it is bright, warm (not hot or cold) and has great places for family and seems a very friendly place to be.
It would have been OK to live there after all.

It is windy, but the locals consider that an advantage, promoting para-surfing as a sport for Geraldton's trendy people who can still wear small bathers and not make people feel ill.

We saw some Stromatolites in Shark Bay. Actually there are the largest collection on the planet.
Being an algae-rock thing they don't provide any entertainment as all, but we have seen then now.
Jessie nearly expired on the few hundred metre walk into them, it was stinking hot and very bright on the shell walk.
They also mined the shells some time ago, cutting them into bricks for building with. Very strange.
Kikipedia says 'Stromatolites (from Greek στρώμα, strōma, mattress, bed, stratum, and λιθος, lithos, rock) are layered accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria (commonly known as blue-green algae). They include some of the most ancient records of life on Earth.'
So now you know.
In the pictures they look like burnt scones that grandma forgot to watch and then threw into the sea to forget about.

From there we high-tailed it to Perth and this is also a beautiful city, as we were told it would be. It has great gardens, a very 'outdoorsy' feel about it. The King's gardens overlooking the town are magnificent,the Bell Tower is very interesting as well. We paid the price for the tower and went in, where we saw actual bells played by actual bell-ringers. We were told that this is the only place where you can see this happening before your eyes. We think this may be so, as usually the bells are up in a tower, locked away and only share the space with a few dozen soon-to-be-startled pigeons, who also happen to be in various stages of deafness (I assume, given where they live and all). In civilized Perth they have a whole bunch of windows where you can watch the bells tumble when pulled by the somber, rather old fashioned looking people who volunteer to train to pull the chords. The fluffy part of the chord is called 'Sally', which seems appropriate for some reason or another. The bit with no fluff on it is just called the 'Tail'. A set of bells are called......
'A Ring' of bells. How cool is that.
(We were discussing collective nouns as we drove into Coral Bay and came up with a knit of sheep, a neigh of horses etc. We have to make ways to while away the hours spent watching the scenery go by)

So, Perth gets a big thumbs up, we could live here, Fremantle is lovely, Rottnest Island was too dear to travel to, and it has great beaches and some snorkeling we were told. Been there - done that, cheaper. So we gave it a miss.

We were also told we had to have fish and chips on one of the wharves in Freemantle, being home of all things seafood etc.
We did.
We have had better. (Burnie has better fish an chips than anywhere, surprisingly!)

Tonight Len and Sam went to IMax and saw 'Avatar'.
What a pleasant surprise, not the red an green 3D but the better polarized version. It wasn't done to impress with gadgety 3D tricks at all, but was the best 3D We have ever seen.
Well worth the money, go see it, in 3D if you can, and at an iMax if possible.

Pestilence? I hear you ask.
Well, we were coming home from Perth after watching the 20/20 match where we saw three of the best catches ever made, and the sky had a strange dustiness about it.
We later were told that there were fires north of Perth, where we had just driven through.
It seems we are being chased to Leongatha by Moses, or someone who has similar tendencies towards natural disasters etc.
We have had floods and now fire, just leaves pestilence I believe.
That will be interesting to see what happens.
Tomorrow the travel begins again, 5 hours to Albany. Is that ALL bany, or AL bany??
We find out tomorrow.
Until then.

Hot water is hot, and cold water is cold

Excepting for two short stints in Tas, Jude and Len have had to add hot water to the showers for the first time in two years.
The cold water here is actually cold. How bizarre.

Traveling south from Coral Bay we swept past the Tropic of Capricorn, where we did not have to change our money or anything. Quite a disappointment, not even a security check. Nothing!

Carnarvon is, well, nice. More nice than Coral Bay we think. Perhaps.
MUCH more nice than Sandfire, which unfortunately did not get wiped off the map by cyclone Lawrence, who was vindictive enough to just miss the roadhouse.
Lawrence has now dumped all its rain on central W.A. and fizzled out, serves him right.

Another two noticeable things that have occurred by being south-ish are;
1. You can brush past palms/bushes/trees and not worry that a whole bunch of miffed green ants will swarm over you and make their bad tempers and displeasure known.
2. Little unexplained sores (probably from bites from nasty insects) heal. Len has had three that refused to get on with the healing process, and now they are healing. Hah!!!

Carnarvon is VERY windy. It has a mile long jetty (1.6k for those imperially challenged).
We walked nearly all of it yesterday. 'Nearly all' because they have a gate across the last little bit and you have to turn back. We enjoyed the walk nether the less. It was so incredibly windy it is a wonder that we did not get blown away.

It also has a pretty big radar dish, which has 85 steps to the top which you can climb and have a look around from. We will do so today, before we head off to Denham, where we will stay for Christmas and Boxing Day.
The dish was (you guessed it) a joint effort by the USA and Oz, they used it to communicate with satellites and it was where the first signals were received from the moon landing in 19 something-or-other.
It is a tourist landmark now, unused and lonely.

Stingrays don't like me

Coral Bay is a nice town.
Expensive, but nice.
Nice people, nice caravan park, nice temperature, nice beaches.
Nice...

The shallow waters just before dusk had a few small stingrays feeding there.
Len decided to try and step on a tail, just to let them know he wasn't all that happy with the Steve Irwin incident.
It turns out that they can sense when a foot is near their tail, and they can also swim very quickly.
On this occasion it did an U-Turn ('a U-Turn'?) and went straight at Jessie. Although it stopped short of Jessie and resumed feeding she seemed nonplussed at the event and decided the ray was actually chasing her. Len believes that rays actually don't have a malevolent cartilage in their bodies, and that it was a chance direction away from a tail-flattening idiot.

Judith and Len continue the slow recovery from sun burn.
Jude complains when she bends her legs, but is stoic and managing very well, and Len is looking for a bandanna ($9:00 here!!) to wear on the head when next the snorkeling bug hits, which will be early tomorrow morning in fact.

So, the kids are complaining already that it is cold here. It is, must be 28-ish, and a cool sea breeze to boot.
Hope we toughen up to the post-tropical weather sooner than later,
Until next time,

The Windswept Water People

Exmouth, sunburn, Nemo and 'What's-her-name?'

Exmouth is better than Port Hedland.

It is a small place with not much going for it excepting that it has fab beaches and great snorkelling... oh, and a bloomin' great VLF radio transmitter array.
The Yanks and the Ozzies (surprised?) use it for war purposes, you know, contacting subs and ships to tell them who to blow up etc.
The central tower is the 2nd tallest in the southern hemisphere, it says. It is supposed to be 387m high, and surrounded by 12 other towers as well. It is a bit 'Dr. Who'-ish to look at.
It looks 100m tall when you are close to it, but to be honest, you CAN see it from a very long way away, so I guess 387 is correct. The central tower weighs 800 tonnes alone. I would have guessed 80 at the most.

We taught the kids to snorkel and returned with the same number of children as we set out with, which I guess is a good thing, right.

Nemo and 1000 of his cousins made an appearance at The Oyster Stacks, as did Dory and a whole menagerie of colourful aquatic creatures, a bit like swimming in a very big Melbourne aquarium, but the plants and corals are real not fake as I am told they are in Melb!!
Apart from the astounding beauty of the underwater world I was also taken by the critters nibbling the coral. I thought some of them did it, but everyone was feasting in it today (Well, not me, obviously). They are just water-cows I have decided.

Judith has discovered that snorkeling involves lying face down in the water.
This leaves the back of the legs exposed for some time to the sun.
Now, the sun here is not the same sun we had in Darwin. No, really.
The Darwin sun, let's call it 'Dun', is generally hot but kind enough to not burn you.
The Exmouth sun, let's call this one 'Xun', is not so benelovent.
Jude's legs will need a few coats of Aloe Vera spray tonight and tomorrow and are developing a nice, but unhealthy, glow.
Sam is so tired all he can do is play PS, Jessie is sitting drying her head by letting a towel impersonate an Arabic person on her head, and Len has again realised that the smart thing to do was sunscreen the back of the legs before you burn, but forgot that he has little hair to protect his only functioning area, his head. Aloe Vera has been applied to the slightly hairy scalp.

Tomorrow we head to Coral Bay, which is supposed to be even better snorkeling than Exmouth.

Now... how do we snorkel in long pants and tops?
Until next time,

The Lobster Bake Clan.

Another day (again).... another 784ks

How many Ks can you do in this place and not go too far??

Answer: A blinkin' lot!

We went to Karratha today and decided that 2 days in Exmouth would be better than one, so we traveled on... all day actually.

It was so hot that the air-con heated up again and we had to turn it off.
Sam displayed a nice collection of sweat in his belly button, Jessie had sore eyes from sweat and Jude and I looked like salamis curing in the mid-day sun.
We opened the windows and were very cool as the sweat began to chill and evaporate.
Then we were VERY hot once that finished.
Driving into Exmouth was great, nice little place from what limited sunlight we have used to see it with so far. It is actually cool (well, probably high 20s, but that is cool, right?).

Tomorrow we sleep in, and then we teach the others to snorkel and have a look at one of the famous reefs, Ningaloo. It should be great tomorrow providing no-one drowns.

So, we are all very tired but we traveled well.
I hate to think how much diesel we used today, it was so hot the car ran right to the top of acceptable range and we had head winds as well, I am sure we did 100k less than usual for the same amount of fuel. Will check tomorrow.
We did not have anything stolen last night, except that the cover for the rear wheel is missing, either 'borrowed' or flew off during the drive today, unsure.
I did not take a pic of the disabled toilet, as I went in the monster that lurks under the leaf litter (real leaf litter) tried to swallow the camera and I could hear murmurings that were a tad unsettling from the brown stained hand-basin, so I retreated. Sorry Dear Reader.

Now, to try out the showers in Exmouth!
Happy Holidays.

The traveling Wilbury-Clarks

Another Day, another... well 640kms

This is such a big place.

I mean, if you need a bit of flat land that no-one seems to want to do anything on, then have I got a deal for you.

500 kms today was all flat country. Nothing there except a few cows that didn't have the sense to go on walkabout until they found either water or something to eat, or both.

Then there's the heat.
Mind you, I guess 40 plus in the shade is ok, for some.
I love our air con, did I mention that before??

We were chased out of the tropics by the cyclone, it stayed just north of us.
Sam had his last Water Boy engagement with the Tiwi Bombers, who look set to be in the finals.


We went to Looma and spent a night there with the Shorts, that was great. There is 20k of gravel road into Looma, it was excellent, just graded for us, how kind.
The next day we went to Broome, and it hasn't stop raining at Looma since. Hee heee.

Two nights in Broome, even though they said they would have to evacuate us for the cyclone. It slowed down so we stayed and had a rest.

Today we drove the 600++ ks from Broome to Port Hedland. Very long day and Len's posterior is getting tired of the seat. He lays on the couch a bit now, to relieve the pain.

Port Hedland is forgettable.
Sandfire is even more so.
We stopped there (200k before Port Hedland) and took a look and got into the car and drove on, even though we wanted to have a break. Driving all your life was better than spending some/any time in Sandfire.
We are going to start a list, like Top Gear's fastest track time board.
We will put our least favorite places on the bottom, and the best on the top.
Sandfire will be on the bottom.

Mind you, we are in a caravan park that is cheap in South Port Hedland.
We have progressively found out why it is cheap.

Things get stolen in the night here and cars get broken into.
The showers have panels hanging off the walls, and the disabled toilet is well..... disabled. Not to mention that it is VERY unclean and covered in litter and filth.
I should take a pic tomorrow and publish it. I am sure you will enjoy.
Len has covered all the car windows to stop people seeing in, and parked it nose first under our outside light so one can see down both sides of the car. That should help, as well as the fact that it was pension day today, so the local indig mob should have grog and money of their own at the moment. How sad. They bring such shame to themselves.

We will try to sleep tonight with one ear alert (Australia needs more Lerts, you should become a Lert).

Tomorrow we travel only 265k to Karratha, one night and then on to Exmouth and Coral Bay. They are both at Ningaloo reef, which they say is better than the Great Barrie Reef and you can snorkel in waist deep water and be staggered.
They should be excellent and we will do some snorkeling/drowning there. We have bought a cheap disposable waterproof camera to get some wet pics. It is a film camera so we can't publish them as until we settle in Leongatha.
So, until the next time, happy trails (or is that 'happy trials'??).

The Clark Mob - Leighland Brothers