Weeks 6 - 9 (1st - 26th May)

Rolled into Perth for a month of family time staying with Saxon & Paul. Travel takes its toll so the whole team required a “service”… Getaway had her “teething” problems ironed out and was given a 10,000 km check-up. George went to observe Skiv’s oil and filter changes so that he can do it himself along the road. A mini bookcase and cooler box has been fitted behind our front seats; the roof rack removed and repainted; a pair of buffalo horns (from Kariba!) mounted on it giving Skiv a striking new appearance (Excuse me… more like a Territory hoon!)
We have even had a “Rubber Tramps” sticker put on the back of “Getaway”! Lea’s chiropractor fixed her back after a grape grounded her in a Melbourne supermarket and the dentist fixed the tooth she broke on an olive pip in Hermanus. Sun worshipper George had his skin checked and cancers removed.

We consider ourselves lucky to have been blessed with perfect summer weather throughout May with just a hint of winter as evenings draw in and look forward to more of the same as we prepare to trek into the northern parts of Western Australia. We have certainly been kept busy with preparations for this leg; Saxon has lined shelves, drawers and cupboards with thick non-slip matting to cut the damage caused by vibration. A generator purchased and run in to enable us to be self sufficient with regard to power; Lea’s been busy baking and stocking up the pantry. Things have never looked better! The only disappointment has been the realisation that, weighing over 2.8tons, Getaway is too heavy for the remote controlled caravan mover to work optimally but it’s a great blessing when it comes to hitching it up.

In between we have been able to socialise with many of our Perth friends ….. see a movie (Tsotsi) and rounded off our stay with “Stomp” - a spectacular show performed by 8 characters that entertained us for two hours beating out the most infectious rhythms on everything from brooms to dustbins; buckets and kitchen sinks; empty water containers; rubber pipes; match boxes; lighters; newspapers; footballs and plastic bags … accompanied throughout by wild dancing, clapping and foot stamping.

There being no peace for the wicked, George helped Paul build the decking around their newly acquired, outdoor spa bath. Saxon & Paul, along with sausage dog Harley, have taken a week off work to travel in convoy with us up to Kalbarri. There, we’ll spend six days together in a caravan park at Red Bluff. Hopefully the men will catch the tucker as fishing is said to be good there. We intend exploring the Murchison river and finding time to do some serious relaxing on the beach.

Week 5 (24th - 30th April)

Nullarbor Plain - the name implies a treeless expanse of flat, perhaps uninteresting land. It wasn’t! We discovered was that the Nullarbor does have trees. Over hundreds of years plant succession has, and presently is, changing the face of the plain. A surprising diversity of vegetation and landforms occurs.

Leaving Ceduna was through a man-made Nullarbor – a treeless landscape cleared by man for the sake of growing wheat and rearing sheep. A few pockets of mallee left as a pitiful reminder of what used to be there. The attractive eucalypt woodlands in the Yalata Indigenous Protected Area (Aboriginal land 150km from Ceduna) brought welcome relief and we kept a sharp eye out for the Dingo Fence. A pet dislike for George as he cannot understand how anyone in this day and age can justify the existence of a 2.8m high mesh fence running 6000km from South Australia to Queensland. As we entered the Nullarbor National Park we saw a dingo (a fine looking specimen) trotting across the road and wished it well.

The Bunda Cliffs, unbroken rampart along 200kms of the Bight

The Great Australian Bight actually looks as if a big bite has been taken out of the continent. Along 200km of the coast, two-toned limestone cliffs plummet 40-90m vertically into the Southern Ocean. Impatiently, we expected to find signs indicating where the best view sites were. All we could see were small tracks leading off the highway. Taking one of them we ended up on the edge of the cliff-face, looking down on swells gently rolling in, almost lapping, against the base of the cliffs below. Nothing like the fearsome action we’d seen at Coffin Bay on the Eyre Peninsula. Except for the flies and the noise of the wind sounding as if it wished to push us over the cliff … it seemed to be a fine place to spend our last night in South Australia.

Campsite above the Bunda Cliffs on the Nullarbor

The FLIES! Swarms of the bastards taking cover from the wind by clinging to our bodies and clothes, resulted in the photo below being taken in an attempt to outdo the shots of Colleen covered with bees in the Kalahari!

Flies sheltering from the wind on Lea's arm.

The flies, always at their worst in arid areas torment everyone. One has to smile at the antics of everyone doing a snake dance to rid themselves of these hitch hikers before leaping into their vehicles. Inevitably they get in with you. We’d try to beat them to death but the flies generally had the upper hand. Eventually we would drive with both doors open and blow the blighters out of the cab! How a determined young cyclist we saw pedalling across the plain coped with the flies doesn’t bear thinking! At the SA / WA border quarantine station the sight of a poodle desperately snapping away at flies in a campervan undergoing inspection, made us laugh.

Travel timing can so easily affect what we would like to see and do. The Head of the Bight, the premier whale watching spot on the coast was closed. It was too early for the whales. Access to the Eyre Bird Observatory required a phone call appointment. Our phones were out of signal range the entire Nullarbor trip. Even the Cocklebiddy caves, where the remains of Tasmanian tigers had been discovered, were closed due to heavy rains having destabilised the entrance.

On Australia’s longest straight road (146km) a convoy of mini-mokes passed us on their way … wait for it … to a “moke muster”! Approaching road trains would blow the wing mirror flat every time they thundered past us and at times the road was marked out as a landing strip for the Royal Doctor Flying Service. At one point we found two youngsters pushing their clapped out old car along a track and, after trying to start it using jump leads, landed up unhitching the caravan, leaving Lea at a truck stop and towing them back to civilisation.

We enjoyed quiet, secluded roadside camps along the way with a variety of weather – Temperature rose steadily to 37°C on one day set between mostly cold days at a low of 7°C. An approaching front brought heavy rain which caught us on a stretch of road undergoing reconstruction. Skiv and Getaway had their first good mud bath. Dead kangaroos in different stages of decomposition are generally all we see along the road. What a pleasure it was to come across live kangaroos after the rain. Only trouble being they heighten the risk of being killed by drinking from the puddles that had collected on the road’s impervious surface.

Bush camp on the Fraser's range

Nearing Norseman, a historical gold mining town at the western end of the Nullarbor, we traversed one of the most beautiful areas of all – the Dundas Nature Reserve. Said to be “the greatest untouched temperate woodland in the world” and extending over 250 000km², the sight of masses of bronze barked gimlets gleaming in the morning light; reddish-pink salmon gums and ribbon-bark gums (with their long ribbons of bark swaying in the breeze) was a sight to be seen.

And who would have believed that when pawing the ground whilst tethered to a tree, a horse first discovered gold at Norseman? It got a chunk of gold bearing quartz stuck in its hoof and went lame! A fascinating little place with accounts of prisoners being chained to logs because there was no jail and of houses being made from almost anything, including flattened bully beef tins!

Week 5 continued...

Late afternoon we pulled into the Gold Capital of Australia - Kalgoorlie and after washing our mud splattered vehicle we went up to the viewpoint that looks out over the Super Pitand could scarcely believe our eyes. An open cut mine that has already yielded 50 million ozs of gold and in time will be 3.8km long, 1.5km wide and 500m deep! Deep inside the pit were huge ($3.5 million) haul trucks each carrying 225 tonnes of waste rock crawling their way, like ants, along roads that zig-zagged gradually upwards to the rim of the mine; enormous 650 ton mechanical shovels capable of lifting 55 ton with each scoop all frantically digging away. Apparently it takes seven 225 ton truck loads to produce 2oz of gold and that is considered worthwhile!

Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines' Super Pit

We took the road to Perth following the “golden” lifeblood… a pipeline carrying all the water to the Goldfields from Perth. This route had some remarkable places of interest to stop and see like the home of an old prospector (Jack Carins) who lived for 30 years in a little tin shack built of anything that he could lay his hands on.In the Goldfields Woodland National Park we camped at Boondi Rock, a granite outcrop that was ingeniously developed as a catchment for the railway water supply. The carefully constructed perimeter walls and rock lined channels that directed rainwater (run-off) into a small dam were outstanding. The ornate dragon lizards running around the rock at breakneck speed were an added bonus.

Boondi Rock catchment

We just had to stop at the notorious Rabbit Proof Fence. The 3 500km long fence had been built over the period 1901 – 1907 because of the impact of the steadily increasing rabbit population. In order to construct it 8000 tons of wire and netting were transported to Australia by ship and rail, then moved overland by horses, donkey and camel trains. After being dipped in hot coal tar the bottom of the fence was buried underground; gates were provided every 34km; yard traps were positioned every 8km to capture the rabbits; and huts were built every 48km to accommodate the inspectors and boundary riders used. Although the rabbit population declined in the late 1950’s after the introduction of myxomatosis, the threat of emus drawn to agricultural areas in search of feed during droughts presented the next problem! In the drought of 1976 for example, 100 000 hungry emus gathered along the fence. Now called the State Barrier Fence, its purpose is to reduce the threat of migrating emus as well as exclude feral dogs and goats. Any excuse will do?

The little town of Meckering was our last stop off where, on 14th Oct 1968 the entire place was destroyed by an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale. The quake only lasted 40 seconds but in that time all the buildings, the highway, the railway, the water supply pipeline, as well as the power and phone supplies were disrupted. However, in true Aussie fashion within 24 hours the owner of the pub moved all his liquor over the road to the Shell garage, renamed it “The Quake Arms”, and was soon selling beer reputed to be “All Shook Up”. Elvis Presley would have been proud of him?

We are now back with Sacky and Paul in Perth and experienced the spectacle of the “Million Paws Walk”. A marvellous way of ending our week seeing the array of weird and wonderful dogs brought along by thousands of RSPCA supporters is something we are glad not to have missed. The Swan estuary and the skyscrapers of the city in the background, the setting was magnificent.

Harley, Pixel and their owners on the Million Paws walk

The month of May will be spent with our daughter and husband. We will be servicing the rig, organising the inside of Getaway in readiness for the journey north.