NOMADS NAVIGATING THE NULLARBOR

We leave Jane & David’s on the 1^st of April heading back across to the Barossa valley, it’s good to be back on the road again not that we haven’t enjoyed our time in Melbourne, but having travelled for the last 12 months, after a couple of weeks of life under tiles, it’s nice to be outside again. The trucks serviced, the travel insurance renewed, and the onward flights booked, plus four days at the G.P means our busiest fortnight for a long time. This next part of our Australian road trip is the equivalent of driving from London to Moscow or it would be if we were starting from Adelaide, as it is we are starting some 800km before this in Melbourne, and as we have just found out from some locals we are now known as VIAGRA (veterans in automobiles going round Australia). As we head back west the temperatures pick up the sun comes out, and stays out, and we get our first 700km under our belt before stopping off at the Murray River overnight to rest. A quick 200 km the next day brings us back into the Barossa
AT HOME WITH ROBERT & ROSEMARY and Rosemary’s & Robert’s, the red grapes are finally being harvested, the pickers arrive early on Friday morning while we’re there, and as we were sleeping in the camper, let’s just say it’s been ages since we got up this early for a long time. We say farewell to Rosemary and Robert they fly out to England for five months on Tuesday, calling at Margret and Jim’s down on the fruit farm for more farewells, before heading off to the Clare Valley to catch up with Marion & Ross who are camping up there with some friends, another hearty meal with farewells, and we leave on Saturday morning to head off to the Eyre Peninsula. Following the coast around we head for Port Lincoln and Lincoln National Park, with a lovely little spot called Memory Cove, 19km down a 4wd track. Very idyllic, five camp spots on a white sandy beach, MEMORY COVE we catch five fish not that we can identify any of them and after returning them to the sea we discover them to be a rock cod or wrasse depending on who you speak to, and yes it is possible to eat them and so we know for next time. Heading out of Lincoln we head for Coffin Bay National Park, again beautiful white sandy beaches are the order of the day, the tarmac finishes 20 km into the park the rest are 4wd tracks to remote campsites, this we reckon to be no problem, but this park is made up of sand and very soft at that, so we are about to find out just how sand friendly our vehicle is! The first part starts well and then we hit a soft part but using low ratio 4wd we soon get traction and easily emerge on the other side, much to my wife’s concern that we are going to be stuck there all night. Then we come across what feels like the bottom of a very soft sand dune which goes on for about 1km, again low ratio pulls us through but only just, we stop by a small lake and reassess the situation, letting some air out of the tyres would definitely help the traction (must have remembered that from my unimog course all those years ago) but unfortunately the only thing that I didn’t do in Melbourne that was on my to do list, was buy a little battery driven air compressor for just this occurrence, so it’s possible to inflate the tyres when we get back on hard ground. Time is now getting on only another hour of daylight left so we decide to turn around and head back to the first campsite, this time it’s the same track, but in the other direction, but there was no way that the low ratio was getting us through this time, it kept getting bogged down some 200m in. Jan was surprisingly calm through all this and not once did the old “I told you so” line raise its head although I’m sure it wasn’t far away, now we had two choices, either we can let some air out of the tyres, get through, and then wait for someone to come along who has a compressor. Or we can unload some of the kit to lighten the load and see if that helps, so off comes the jerry cans containing 40 litres of water, and 40 litres of diesel, the two food crates, and the clothing containers, this makes a big difference and she pulls through in low ratio, WE'RE AWAY NOW now all we have to do is carry all that kit 500 metres through soft sand back to the camper, well after half an hour it’s all back on board, that’s enough exercise to last us a week or perhaps two in my case. PACKHORSE IN THE MAKING At least now we know our limits as far as soft sand goes, let’s see if Jan’s still as calm when it comes to crossing rivers, especially with the crocodiles up in the North!! Yanerbie Beach is our next amazing find, we as usual get off the main highway and explore the unsealed back roads coming across this place in the process, it’s at the end of a track overlooking a nice sandy beach, apart from the odd surfer, we have the place to ourselves. A couple of hours of fishing leads to a mixed bag of rock cod and whiting at least that’s dinner sorted out and an afternoon stroll at low tide means we can find all the tackle that we snagged whilst catching them, one lot still had the fish attached so that was a real bonus. We stayed here for two days topping up the tan and playing hide and seek with the fishing tackle.
BREAKFAST WITH A VIEW For those of you who read the last blog entry about my new yellow thongs that look like mini surf boards, well Jan hasn’t used them for surfing yet, waters too cold apparently, but that didn’t stop Myrtle from pinching them the other day and taking to the water, luckily we had the camera handy so fired off a couple of shots of her in action. Ceduna it’s the last town where you can buy fuel & provisions at a reasonable price, before heading out onto the Nullarbor Plain where either, it’s not available, or if it is, you’re need a bank loan to pay for it (which perhaps in today’s economic climate isn’t as bad a thing as it used to be with the interest rates nudging the zero mark, if they’re give you the bank loan that is). We get there in the middle of Easter weekend just in time to top up with everything before they close up for Sunday & Monday, we didn’t fancy hanging around in Ceduna there’s not a lot happening apart from the trains that roll through at one and three in the morning right next to the caravan park. We’ve carried out all the checks, stocked up with all the spares, and topped up with drinking water that the books tell you to do before venturing off into the wilderness, so we’re finally off to cross the Nullarbor Plain, our first night stopover was only a 150 km into the journey but it is a renowned fishing spot for Salmon called Fowlers bay, but absolutely nothing was being caught while we were there, even the seasoned fisherman were going home early, the mutterings of never catch anything on a full moon were heard about the campsite, so that saved us braving the exceptionally long jetty that night. The next day we actually start our crossing of the Nullarbor Plain for real, this area which was once part of the ocean floor, is the world’s biggest flattest piece of limestone, covering an area of approx 200,000 square km’s and up to 300 metres thick. We are well prepared but the wilderness that we had expected is a lot more hospitable than we had imagined, it is some 300 km between roadhouses, and so yes it wouldn’t do to have a problem in between but I’ve seen a lot less traffic on the road between Broken Hill and Wentworth than on the Eyre Highway across the Nullarbor, it’s definitely not the M25 but your never more than five minutes from being passed by another vehicle and in our case it was probably overtaking us as well, we kept to a respectable 80 km an hour to conserve fuel and indulge in the scenery, not that it was as barren as we had expected but certainly tree less in the middle. Highlights of the trip if you can call them that, are Wedge Tailed Eagles feeding on Kangaroo road kill at the side of the road, and another first for us driving the length of the longest straight road in Australia. Just after the beginning of this long straight we came across the Caiguna blowhole, these Nullarbor blowholes were formed by weathering through to the underground cavities, the cave here has clearance heights of between 0.5m to 1.5m. A cave breathes out when air pressure drops and breathes in when it rises, air movement here has been measured at 72km/hr, today it was definitely more efficient than any of those hand dryers that never dry your hands!
IT'S JUST ABOUT MOVING THE HAIRPIECE We did manage to overtake two vehicles in our 1200 km trip one being a golf cart and one cyclist (the golf cart was a charity event and there are all sorts of mad people who ride bicycles across Australia) ONLY ANOTHER 1000KMS TO GO and thanks to the fugal driving technique we didn’t have to top up with fuel until we reached Norseman in Western Australia some three days & 1200 km’s later.
JAN ON THE EDGE OF THE NULLARBOR & THE THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT Norseman cheap fuel, free hot showers (ahhhh), and a supermarket that didn’t have a lot in it, but what it did have, still needed a bank loan to pay for it, so back in the camper and we head another 200km’s down to Esperance to top up with fresh provisions. Two National Parks, Cape Arid and Cape Le Grand are our next stopovers, close to Esperance with glorious white sandy beaches formed in between granite headlands,
HELLFIRE BAY, CAPE LE GRAND. we even climb Frenchmans Peak which basically consisted of climbing up the side of this rock face with no handrails, even right on the top it all came down to personal responsibility for your actions which again makes a refreshing change to see people actually being prepared to do that, rather than closing off the attraction because some individuals would rather sue than use commonsense. The weather has now taken a turn for the worse strong winds and rain, well at least that will save us washing off the camper for another month, be warned all who come travelling here in the southern part of Australia, it can get pretty wet and chilly outside of the summer months, if it’s heat your after (Jan) then the North is the place to be, but only in the dry season {cyclones come through in the wet season and plenty of rain, makes the floods in England look like a damp kitchen floor). We hop across the bottom of western Australia dodging the rain showers, it is now entering the Autumn period here and its definitely time for us to be heading North beyond Perth in search of the sun and heat, we leave the open National Parks of Cape Arid & Le Grand heading west towards Albany, here we spend Anzac day April 25^th and make the 11 o’clock outside service down on the waterfront, remembering how cold it was last year when we sat in the stands all night to be at the dawn service in Gallipoli.
A CHILLY ANZAC DAY MORNING IN ALBANY Denmark through to Pemberton, where huge forests of towering gums, Tingel, Karra, Jarra & Marri trees line the roadsides, our first stop is the treetop walk near Walpole here a metal ramp way takes you 40 metres up into the canopy great views and with the swaying effect much better than the one we tried in New South Wales. Next it’s the Shannon National Park with the Great Forest Trees Drive, a great idea where you get all the information about the forest by simply tuning your car radio into 100 FM for commentary as you follow the 48 km route through the forest. A GIANT TINGLE TREE For us this has been perhaps our most memorable experience so far, not because of the trees, but what lies on the ground underneath them. A short way into the drive we decide to do the short walk across the Shannon dam, now this was built in the early 1900’s of earth, lined with trees, there is nobody else about, we have the place to ourselves, it’s only a short stroll so we keep our thongs on (flip flops for you back home). Halfway across Jan say’s to me whilst grabbing hold of my arm “there’s a snake it’s alright it’s dead”, as I looked around this snake started moving, it had been stretched out in the sun sunbathing only a foot from us, I hadn’t even noticed it, remembering all the advice we had been given we start to back away from it, giving it plenty of room to escape, it was at this point that Jan noticed (she is very observant at times) that there was another one only a foot behind me and coiled up with his head raised up, now this is all very well when you see them behind glass at the zoo but when there’s nothing between you and them the panic just ever so slightly sets in, after conversing with each other in words of no more than four syllables !**!, we were looking for a way out, we were well dressed for the occasion thongs, shorts bare legs not good for us but a huge target for the snakes, luckily the first one had woken up and slithered off somewhere! But who knows where, Jan seeing the gap, made a dash for the camper and didn’t stop running until she was in it, my only regret was not getting a picture of these two black with traces of yellow, snakes on film, but I must admit my initial thoughts of trying to avoid being bitten by these two, well overcame my David Bailey tendencies. This is our first encounter with snakes since we came down the middle with the group back in October, when one slithered across our campsite one night, we hope that once every six months means we should be out of Australia before the next sighting, but on the other hand it could mean three snakes next time, let’s hope their grass snakes eh!!!! We met a couple the next day who had a snake book and confirmed that the two we met were both Tiger snakes complete with venomous deadly bite, I reckon they took a shine to my yellow and black thongs, probably thought I reassembled an obese Tiger snake, instead of being just an obese retired firefighter! Well from one scary occurrence to another, this one is completely self inflicted; we head off to Warren National Park and the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree, years ago the foresters used to select the tallest trees and ladder them with metal spiral stairways so that they could climb to the top, axe out the crown and build a shelter so that they could use them for fire spotting.
THIS IS IT Now day’s planes have taken over this role, but three of the trees still remain and are open to the public to climb. Two of these trees are at Pemberton, one being the Gloucester tree 61 metres in height, getting its name from a visit of the Duke of Gloucester who had a picnic at the base and watched the foresters drilling and fitting these metal spikes to form a ladder, I don’t think he even had to prepare his own picnic! The other being the Bicentennial tree which is the tallest of the three at 75 metres high, well if you going to do it you might as well fall from the tallest one, thinking back to my days in the fire service and being shot up the turntable ladder to 30 metres in height complete with safety harness and all sorts of safety cut outs this is like the stone age equivalent. They do tell you not to do it in thongs or sandals, high winds and rain and best not with a back pack on! Apart from that it’s all manual as in climb there is no safety harness, but there is like a bit of chain link fencing around the outside of the spikes but nothing to catch you if you fall between the pegs,
FILLS YOU WITH CONFIDENCE!!!!!!! we couldn’t see any large red stains on the decking area surrounding the tree so we presumed nobody had fallen this week, and that was it, Jan was gone the next time I looked around she was halfway up it.
THERE SHE GOES We did both enjoy the view and the climb after some initial hesitation
ALMOST THERE !!! AT THE TOPbut for the spotters who used to sit up there through storms watching for lighting strikes it must have been a truly worrying experience a bit like the chap who turned up as we were getting our breath back after we had done it, and after reading that you couldn’t climb it in thongs promptly took them off and tried to climb in his bare feet, not that he got more than 3 metres off the ground before it got to painful and he came back down. Mind you we decided to leave when a family turned up with young children and Dad set off with his two daughters in sandals one of whom lost hers in the first few rungs the red stains potential we didn’t want to be around for. Well its now the beginning of May we have just made it to the most south westerly point of Australia Cape Leeuwin where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean and the weather was particularly well behaved for us, from this point on we can start heading north towards Perth and beyond, only a few weeks behind schedule, I’m sure with another five months of travelling in Oz we will still be back in Sydney on time. We brought the International Express the other day to get up to date with the all the sports results back home, but with all the gloomy budget news that was packed inside coming home will be more taxing than ever!!!!! We can offer a solution to the problem though, we know of a campervan coming up for sale in 5 months time, the ideal get away from it all cheaper fuel than in the UK, and even if Torquay hasn’t got its Palm trees anymore there’s plenty here in Oz.
CONTROLLED BURNING IN THE FOREST !EVENING SMOKE HAZEGRATE DANCING AS OPPOSED TO BREAK DANCINGITS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I RODE A BIKE