While eating breakfast, a fellow camper came across and we were discussing the costs of caravanning versus tenting. We told him that because the caretaker had not called the previous evening to collect the camping fee (as advertised), we’d have to slip it under the laundry door (also advertised as the alternative payment method). He then told us that the caretaker had called on the previous evening at 7pm, which is when we would have been eating dinner, only 2m from our tent. We could not understand how we’d been missed in the fee collection, but took it as a bonus, and did not bother leaving the fee on the grounds that the caretaker should have approached us. A small present for our last night’s stay in the state.

After driving through broadacre cropping farms for a couple of hundred kilometres, we arrived at Kondinin and took the turn-off to Wave Rock. The map we had marked the road to Wave Rock as a high-grade road, similar to a highway, but a sign warning “INTERMITTENT SINGLE LANE ROAD NEXT 55KMS” suggested otherwise. However, we were in the middle of nowhere, and it was the road to Wave Rock, so we drove down it. We soon discovered that “intermittent” meant “ninety five percent of the time”, with sections of two-lane road only over hills and around corners, exactly where it is illegal to overtake a slower vehicle anyway.

Wave Rock was a lot smaller than we were expecting, which surprised us. We’ve seen so many pictures of the place that we estimated it was about 400-500m in length, but in reality, it was about 100-120m. The height was as we envisaged, based on the height of people in the pictures we’d seen, but the length really surprised us.

After admiring the rock from the socially-correct angle, we then climbed up the side of it, to walk around on top. The actual wave part of the rock is only a small section of the rock, which is about 2km in length, sticking up out of the ground for no reason. Also on top of the rock were four deaf people who looked about to pass out from dehydration, but were still staggering around. We’d taken water up with us, but they had none, and were really feeling the heat of the 35C day.

We left the wave part of the rock then, and drank a 1.25L bottle of lemon soft drink between us in record time, and drove to another part of the rock called Hippo’s Yawn, so named because it looks like, well, you guessed it. Hippo’s Yawn is separated from Wave Rock by a 1.4km walking track, and when we arrived, the four deaf people came staggering along the track, barely able to keep going. Two of them were too weak to walk back to the car, so the other two started to walk back and get it, then drive around to this part of the rock, as we had done. We offered the walking two a ride in our car back to the carpark, and had to play a weird game of charades to indicate that we could give them a lift back to their car to save them walking. Neither Trav nor Di can do sign language, and neither of them could lip-read. Great. Still, we got the message through, and they got back okay.

Our good deed done for the day, we drove into the nearby town of Hyden to get lunch and allow Diana to qualify as “Stupid Person Of The Day”. Yes, it had taken the entire holiday for Di to be nominated for the award, but she made a fantastic entry. Getting two bottles of soft drink out of the fridge to have with our lunch, the condensation on the sides of the bottles proved too much and she dropped one. Ordinarily a plastic bottle of soft drink will just bounce and be shaken up, but the bottom end of this one cracked, and the sudden shaking of the bottle added enough pressure to spray most of the wall, counter and Trav’s legs with soft drink. In order to stop the bottle from soaking absolutely everything, Trav grabbed it and headed for the door. The only problem was that Di was between Trav and the door, saw the bottle of spraying liquid coming her way, and bolted backward, blocking the doorway. By the time the sticky mess was outside, it had stopped spraying, so everything had been sprayed inside the shop. No other entrants need apply - Di had taken the award for Day Ten.

After lunch, we checked out the original Kondinin homestead, which is apparently classified by the National Trust. We expected to find out a little of the history of the area, but it was just an arts and crafts shop in disguise. Neither of us felt like buying a bar of soap for $5, or a rocking chair for $400, so we left pretty quickly.

On the road back to Perth, we passed through a town called Corrigin where the main claim to tourism fame is - we kid you not - a dog cemetery. Naturally, we had to stop and pay our respects to the graves of Snoopy, Rusty, Cobber, Bluey, and others.

As we got within 50kms of Perth, we began to get concerned about the amount of fuel remaining in the car. Due to the Hyden petrol station being the most expensive fuel price we found in all our WA travels, we had not filled up much there, and were beginning to get quite low. Adding to that was the fact it was a Sunday afternoon, and a lot of the small towns had closed petrol stations. We eventually managed to find an open petrol station with about two litres of fuel (~25 kms driving distance) remaining, which was a relief.

After cleaning the car to return it to the hire company, and having dinner, we had to kill time in Perth on a Sunday evening until our flight left at 10:55pm. We decided to check out the Burswood Casino, and were surprised to find such a nice-looking exterior featuring a dark, dingy, run-down dump inside. We actually had to argue our way inside to have a look because the doorman told us we could not go inside with jeans on after 8pm. Trav pointed out that, as it was only 7:57pm, we could still go in, and after a look of great disgust, the doorman had to let us in. We only ended up staying in there for about 15 minutes, suddenly realising that Crown Casino in Melbourne is a beautiful place in comparison to Burswood Casino.

With the late flight and time difference, we arrived back in Melbourne at 5:05am, and went to bed for a few hours before driving down to Glenormiston to take soil nitrogen measurements. It would have been nice to take a break for another couple of days before easing into it, but then again, we were lucky to get that much time away from the paddock and glasshouse (thank you to the people that released Trav of duties for ten days!).

So what did we learn from the trip?

1. Western Australian tourist bureaus are lousy.
2. Western Australian beaches are fantastic.
3. A Hyundai Excel can easily cover 3983 kms in 9 days of driving.
4. Diana survived the whole time sleeping in a tent.
5. It is good to take a vacation.

One of the most useless signs we had encountered throughout the trip was found at our first destination of the day - the Tingle Tree Walk. We followed the directional signs into the forest, and along a dirt road for 5km until we came to the carpark and information boards. On the information board was a poster describing which road we needed to take to get to where we were. Fat lot of use that was us, seeing as we had to be there to know how to get there…

Because the Tingle trees grow so large, and the soil is so firm, they tend to grow horizontal roots, ended up with buttressed root systems for support. The living tissue is located just under the bark, so if there is damage to the tree that exposes through to the heartwood, it is possible to burn the entire tree hollow, yet it may remain living. The Tingle tree walk shows off a number of these hollowed out trees, and they are all still alive. One tree was so large that people were able to park their car in it, in years gone by, as a photo opportunity. Since the CALM people moved in and protected the area, it is impossible to do that now, but you still get to walk through a completely hollowed out tree, with a girth of 24 metres, and somehow still alive. The red Tingle trees are unique to the area, so it was interesting to see what they look like.

After the Tingle tree walk, we drove to a nearby attraction named with all the imagination only an Australian could muster - Circular Pool. Gee, you’ll never guess why it is called that… We decided to view it from a distance because as we arrived, a 6-foot black snake slithered across our path into a clump of grass two feet from the main track. Di and Trav concluded it was indeed a pool, and most certainly circular, and beat a hasty retreat. As they got back to the car, only then did Trav tell Di about the second snake he had noticed three feet from the path as they walked back up - if it had been brought up before she’d walked past it, we’d be there still…*grin*

Arrived at the one thing our Holiday Pass did not cover us for - the Tree Top Walk. A large metal suspension walkway has been built through the canopy of the trees, reaching 40m off the ground at the highest point. As people walked along it, the walkway bounced around all over the place, due to the minimal number of supporting legs they’d used, in order not to impact on the environment. I think the amount of swinging would have been reduced with a couple more poles, and frankly, I’d rather they impacted on the view than my hips impacting on the walkway every step I took. After about fifteen minutes on the walkway, we felt like we’d been drinking alcohol all morning, so for $5, we had the same sensation as about $50 worth of grog. Not a bad deal…

At the base of the Tree Top Walk is the Ancient Empire - a number of large trees, which fire had swept through many years ago, leaving the bases all hollowed out, and just perfect to put a boardwalk through. Took a few photos there, but the light was not very good, and not a lot turned out well.

With the right Quicktime plug-in, you can go and see a 360 degree panorama of the Treetop Walk and the Ancient Empire.

We drove from one side of Denmark to the other - not quite as impressive as it sounds, given it was the small country town, not the small country. Arriving in Albany, we realised we were not that interested in what it had to offer - not a lot in the way of natural beauty, being essentially a large town positioned far enough from Perth that it would be a “big holiday” to go to Albany. There is a whaling centre there, which operated until 1978, but with whaling centres all around Australia, we decided to head inland and get a head-start on the trip to see Wave Rock the following day. Wave Rock was not originally in our itinerary, because it was a four hour detour to see a rock, but we were not coming back to Western Australia for a while, so decided to push the pace a little. Also, it was looking like it might rain again in Albany, and so there was no interest in swimming.

Just out of Albany, Trav spotted a white emu in a paddock, and stopped to take a photo. Unfortunately, it was too far away, and even with the zoom lens, still appeared to be just dusty, and nothing special. Therefore, it is one of those mysterious “no photographic proof” items that are usually more in the realm of UFO’s or Loch Ness Monsters.

Our newly-planned inland destination was a small town called Katanning, but when we arrived, the caravan park was a treeless paddock out the back of a service station, so we decided to pass on it. There was apparently another caravan park in the town, but the phone rang out when we called, so the drive continued through to another small town called Woodanilling. The caravan park in this town was apparently only 1km down the main road, but we couldn’t see it anywhere, despite their being nothing else in the town to hide it.

Headed northward once more to Wagin, wondering how we were going to fare in this town, given the standards of the last two towns. As we arrived, large banners proclaimed that we were there for Woolorama, but we were too late, arriving only ten minutes before it closed. Woolorama is apparently the second biggest agricultural show in the state, and it would have been interesting to go along. The surrounding area is broadacre farming, and some of the tractors in the machinery yards we passed had tyres larger than our whole car from end to end. Getting to climb into the cabin of one of those monsters would have been a lot of fun.

Wagin is not only famous for Woolorama, but also for it’s giant ram. There is no way to mistake the fact that this nine-times-living-size structure is definitely MALE, and is probably terrible for parents of young kids to explain away…

The caravan park in Wagin was one of the nicest we’d encountered, with shade, grass, BBQ and firewood, clean bathrooms and laundry. We think it might have been extra clean given that Woolorama was on, and it was filled to capacity, but still, we were impressed. The one downside was the location, it being in the backblocks of the town, where the less-affluent members of society lived. For a large part of the night, we were privy to loud debates about who go could and jump in the lake, and what sort of person their husband/wife was. Still, it calmed down about 11pm, so that was okay. Stupid Person Of The Day was awarded to the anonymous person that kicked the side panel of a car, audible to us from over a block away.

Onward to Wave Rock, and home tomorrow…

Drove to Cape Leeuwin (~8 kms) to see the lighthouse. On the way, we noted a sign directing us to the “scenic route”, so we decided to take that road. We have but one recommendation for anyone choosing to travel down this way - take the main road. The scenic route was very possibly the most unscenic we have driven along for a while, with nothing to look at from one end to the other. Fair enough, the local scrubby trees are technically the landscape and therefore scenic, but we were unable to see past the first metre of scrub on either side of the road, so it was pointless.

Drove to Skippy Rock, but due to the lack of effective signage, and there being more than one large rock in the area of ocean we were looking at, we were unable to figure out which one was the rock we’d come to see.

The Southern and Indian oceans meet at Cape Leeuwin - one of only four places in the world where oceans meet. We were expecting a reasonably distinct line between two different oceans, with waves slapping each other head on, but the weather was not in our favour. Apparently on some days, the line is quite clear where the oceans meet, but on the day we went, the wind was up a bit, and we were only able to see a couple of waves moving in different directions every so often. Climbing to the top of the lighthouse, we did not see any more distinct lines, although we got to spy on some dolphins that were about 20-50m offshore, swimming inside the curling waves, until they were about to break, then turn and leap out the back of the wave. Very impressive to see up to half a dozen dolphins racing along, then all turning and catapulting backward into the air.

Leaving Cape Leeuwin, we drove through tall timber to get to Pemberton, in order to see the Gloucester Tree. The Gloucester Tree is the highest fire lookout tree in the world, with 153 rungs letting people climb to a platform 61m off the ground. From that point, it is possible to spot bushfires during the hot season, and get fire trucks to the scene quickly. Trav climbed up about 15m off the ground, but decided it was “damn silly to go any higher” and climbed down. Diana climbed the tree too - all 2m or so from the ground - in order to get her photo taken.

On the other side of Pemberton to the Gloucester Tree is a Karri tree with a hole right through it. We visited it before we got to the tourist bureau, so thought it had formed naturally, and they had cleaned up some loose bits with a chainsaw. It turns out that someone actually just cut their way through the tree with a chainsaw, taking ten hours to carve a hole. The tree remained alive, and there is an estimated 150 tonnes of tree above the hole. We viewed it more as vandalism than tourism when we realised how it had been created, but I suppose it is done now, so they may as well use it as an attraction.

Our “Stupid Person Of The Day” award went to the CALM ranger on-duty at the Gloucester Tree that day, working to collect the $5 entry fees for vehicles entering the park. When we showed him the Holiday Pass we’d bought instead of having to pay each time we went to a park, he replied that it was no good to him. We thought he meant that the pass was not valid at that park, although so far as we knew, it was invalid on one park in the state only, and this was not that park. We asked him then what the charge was to get in, and he again replied the card was no good to him. Frustrated, Diana blurted out “so what is it that you want?” and he then explained that he got paid more out of the $5 per vehicle fee than he would get from the Holiday Pass $20 fee. Throughout the rest of the five minute conversation, he just kept muttering “that card’s no good for me, it isn’t, you know, no good at all” until we thought he had spent too long in the little 6-foot square ranger station.

We were intending to continue through to Walpole and go on a tree-top walkway through the forest canopy, but realised we would not make it before it closed for the day, so took a leisurely drive through the trees, following a trail known as the “Great Forest Trees Drive”. It had interested us when we read about it because there are several points where they have installed radio transmitters in the tree, and whenever you see a sign to turn the radio on, you could tune to a frequency and listen to the narration. However, the narration had nothing to do with the forest. Or the trees. Nor was it that great, although we did hear some old bloke recalling when his family walked some cattle through the area in the 1860’s. Still, given that we were stopped at a place with a boardwalk called Snake Gully Lookout, we figured it would be a radio message about what to look out for on the walkway, so it was rather disappointing.

On the way to the Great Forest Trees Drive, we’d passed through a town called Northcliffe. Just outside the town there were some roadworks happening, with a man holding a stop/go sign at each end. Despite the fact we’d not seen a vehicle in the previous five kilometres, nor the fourteen kilometres after the roadworks, we still had to stop. The flagman watched us approach, made us stop for one quarter of one second, let the car go out of gear, then waved us through. There was no need to stop us along that section of road, given we were already travelling under the speed limit as we approached the roadworks, so he could not even pull us up on the grounds we would have driven through too quickly. We invented a new award for “Miserable Bastard Of The Day”, and this man won hands-down.

Just outside of Walpole, it began to rain for about five minutes, and seeing as Diana had come down with a cold and had been sneezing all day, suggested we might look for a cabin for the night, instead of tenting. Diana was most pleased with the idea, having no desire to see how waterproof the tent was. First stop was the caravan park we were intending to stay in, but they had no cabins empty, so we went back into town and tried a budget accomodation place called “Tingle All Over”. Had a look at the bedroom, shared bathroom, kitchen and TV room for $38, but decided to check out the other places, to see if that was a reasonable price or not. Next door’s motel was $89 for a single room, so it certainly seemed cheap, but we thought we’d try the other caravan park as well.

When we arrived and asked about a cabin, the strange old man behind the counter looked into the ledger book and read down the column for no less than five minutes, then announced that they did in fact have one available for $48 per night. Why it took him that long to read the column of “full or empty” is beyond us, but he struck us as very odd anyway. We decided to check it out and see whether it was worth $10 more or not seeing as we were already there, so looked inside and all seemed quite good. Nothing special, but a decent amount of space to live in, but given we only wanted it for the night, we decided to save $10 and go back to “Tingle All Over”. As we walked in the door, the bloke told us we were too late, and that we should have made our minds up earlier. There were no extra cars in the park, nor extra people around, which confused us. We figure he must have just not liked us comparing the cost to other places around town - still, his loss. We returned to the $48 cabin, and went for a walk in the last remaining hour of daylight.

When darkness fell, we went to cook dinner and realised that the stove did not work (later, the owner told us they’d turned them off because people were leaving them going all day by mistake, so he’d made sure they could not work any more - would have been good to tell us this, we think). We also found that the bathroom door did not shut, the blinds did not work in the bedroom, a small trail of ants was wandering across the wall of the bedroom, and the dishes had not been done from the previous tenant - the electric frypan smelling like vomit from the old food left in it. Went to get our money back, which he gave us without a hassle, and then returned to the very first caravan park we went to when we arrived and asked for a tent site. By this time, it was pitch black, so we set up the tent by the car headlights, and stumbled around in the darkness where the tent stopped the light.

Went to cook tea on the electric BBQ and Trav began to clean a couple of leaves off it which had fallen onto the hotplate. As he touched the hotplate, it seemed warm from the sun, because it was spotlessly clean as though nobody had used it that night. Problem was, it was not hot from the sun, but instead, there was a pilot light for the gas just underneath one corner of the hotplate, which was heating the rest of the metal up. When Trav accidentally touched the section with the pilot light, the skin on his fingers instantly blistered and his hand had to be run under cold water for several minutes.

All in all, we finished off the day with lots of driving to find accommodation, ended up setting a tent up in the dark, cooking tea about 10:30pm, and burning Trav’s hand in the process. Even toasted marshmallows later didn’t really compensate for that day, in Trav’s eyes.

Onward to Albany tomorrow…

It was shortly after this that we had a bit of a navigational problem. Di had the map and directed me along the right road, but then told me to take the wrong turn-off. Trav decided quickly that they were heading in the wrong direction, and attempted to get them back onto the correct road. Only one small detail - Trav had become disoriented during the drive to Collie, and was heading north, not south. Just before a large sign loomed up to point out this error, Trav had made the comment to simply “Trust Trav, we just go down this road and we’ll be fine”. Note to audience : swallowing one’s pride is never a satisfactory meal. On the plus side, we can now tell you the best way to the Bunbury bicycle shop, seeing as we passed it three or four times in our misguided travels.

Trav was put into contention as “Stupid Person Of The Day”, setting the pace early, and seeing as nobody had risen to the challenge by the end of the day, Trav won the right to the award.

Courtesy of the detour (”No, I meant to go there”, says Trav), we found the Bunbury Dolphin Discovery Centre, and a place called Mangrove Cove. The dolphin discovery centre was the alternative we’d been suggested by the locals instead of driving all the way to Monkey Mia, but seeing as we’d seen dolphins recently, and it cost money to go in, we chose Mangrove Cove. Not sure whether it was mid-week, or just how bad the place was, but we were the only car in the carpark.

In short, Mangrove Cove is the place where you can find the southern-most living mangroves in WA, and it looks like a big swamp. We wandered around the boardwalk for a while, reading the patronising tourist signs written by “Jolly Jack”, apparently the ghost of a sailor that had died a century before. Pretty smart fellow to know what was going to happen in 1978 (ie: local whaling activities stopped) when he died in the 1800’s.

Then again, that character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic” was pretty clever to spawn the idea of “king of the world” - a craze that has even reached Bunbury.

At the beginning of the Mangrove Cove walk, there was a large sign instructing us to return to it at the end, and follow another path to a “deserted island”. We did return to the sign at the end of the walk, and walked along the second path for about 200m to read a sign telling us to look out for birdlife. We did. There was none. The sign also said to look out for pigs. We did. They were as abundant as the birds. After another 200m, we came to a sign telling us a pig farmer herded his pigs onto the island last century but they all tried to swim back and drowned, hence the pig reference.

It was only then that Diana realised that we could not get onto the island, and vented her thoughts in words too strong to publish to a mixed audience. She was under the impression that there would be a bridge or something to the island, and that it was deserted other than the people walking onto it to have a look. This was not the case, as we only got to look at it across a hundred yards of water, hence the outburst.

Arriving in Busselton, we went to the tourist bureau to get the information about the town we had just arrived in. The woman behind the counter serving us had a limp, which although we noticed at the time, was not a significant thing until we thought about it later. After the tourist bureau, we went down the main street to buy some lunch and noted a person coming toward us with a limp also. Glancing across the street, Trav noticed a person on crutches. As we got back in the car and drove to a nearby park, we saw a person in an electric wheelchair, and another in an elderly person’s motor scooter. All of this lameness was within 50m with the exception of the tourist guide, so we decided to get out of the area in a hurry before we ran into Mulder and Scully. Walking along the beach promenade, we noted a sign saying there was a beach-going wheelchair available for hire from a nearby kiosk. We figure it would be in high demand…*grin*

Busselton has a long jetty (2kms/1.3mi) that extends out to sea, and there is a train that runs along it from the shore to the end. We decided that we had to definitely go 2 kms out to sea on a TRAIN, because it is rare these chances come along. The jetty was originally built in 1865, when the first 175m was constructed, and over the years it has increased in length despite fires and cyclones during that time. When we got to the end of the jetty, we saw a young girl who was reeling in fish left, right and centre. Catching three in the ten minutes we were there, she was handing them to the man next to her, who stuck hooks through them, and threw them back in as live bait to catch bigger fish. The advantage of the jetty to the common fisherman is that they can catch fish that live 2km out to sea, without having to own a boat.

Just out of Busselton, and not in any of the tourist brochures, we found an archery course. It did not take long for us to decide that what we needed were weapons. After all, one of is a loony, and the other has dodgy vision. What better game than playing around with bows and arrows? For the record, out of a possible 270, we got a half-worthy 142 and 106, which was pretty good seeing as neither of us has fired an arrow since high school, and those were hardly of high training quality.

Arriving in Margaret River, we decided to change our plans to stay there the night. The whole town was filled with Bed ‘n’ Breakfast houses, yuppies, and brand new “ye olde country arte and crafte shoppes”. It looked so tacky we didn’t even stop the car - just kept driving south to Augusta to stay there for the night. Checked out the three caravan parks in town:

1. Turner’s Caravan Park was nice and shady, and was filled to the brim with ducks. Ducks were everywhere, walking over the roads, sitting near tents, wandering around, and generally putting Di into fits of excitement by just being there and saying “quack”.

2. Flinder’s Bay Caravan Park was a dump. No question about it. It was a dump. Open for only part of the year, they had a construction site office for a reception, and to cook a meal, we would have had to hire an old drum as a BBQ. Firewood was extra. Stayed there for about a minute - didn’t even bother to ask the prices - we could guess what the amenities would be like.

3. Doonbank’s Caravan Park was nice and shady like the first one, but had more grass, so we decided to stay there instead. Di was a little disappointed there were no ducks, but cheered up when I pointed out two ducks standing down the hill about 100m away. I went back up the top of the park to get the car and bring it around, and when I returned, Diana was standing at the tent site, with two ducks quacking merrily away at her feet, while she grinned like a Cheshire cat. With the car now there, we were able to feed them some bread, and they were very friendly with us then, even returning in the morning to see if we had any more bread for them.

Went out for tea at the Augusta hotel, which overlooked the river flowing into the sea - very picturesque. We decided to get a porterhouse steak each, which seemed a little expensive at $14.50, but then, we were in a relatively isolated coastal town, so they could afford to charge a bit more than usual. When we saw the meat though, we got a surprise - the steaks were roughly 10 inches long by 6 inches wide, and about an inch thick. We figured that we should also sample the local wine, seeing as were in the middle of the Western Australian wine producing region, but the bottle we chose was actually South Australian in origin.

After dinner, we went back to the campsite where it looked like it was trying to rain, but couldn’t quite muster enough energy to get the rain to form in the clouds. We decided to risk it for a while longer, lit a campfire, and toasted marshmallows before going to bed.

Onward to Walpole tomorrow…

We were most surprised to note that they had no claws, as we had expected. We were envisioning these creatures as the large seafood animals with claws, but rock lobsters do not have the large pincers. At one point, the tour guide asked if anyone would like to hold one, and the only taker was Trav. I figured it would be the closest I come to a food source that expensive in the near-future…*grin* The tour lasted for an hour and we learned a great deal about something we’d never really thought about before.

One other important thing to note is that the start of the rock lobster season in Western Australia is the 16th March - Trav’s birthday. For the past two years, this one factory has brough in 64 tonnes of rock lobsters on the 16th March, and the entire holding capacity of the factory is only 90 tonnes, so they are flat-out for a few days at the start of the season.

Just south of Geraldton is a small town called Greenough. We passed through it on the way north, and noted all the horizontal trees. The only other thing in Greenough is the hamlet - a collection of 11 buildings constructed between about 1850-1860, when the area was first settled. The hamlet includes a school, church, police station, cells, courtroom, hall and a convent. It was very interesting to wander around inside the buildings which have been restored by the National Trust, and get an idea of the sort of machinery they worked the land with during that era. The only downside was the need for a serious spelling checker to go through the place with a fine-toothed comb. Trav’s biggest peeve is when words are spelled incorrectly, especially simple words like “scythe” (sith) and “convent” (comvet).

Having left the Greenough Hamlet, we rejoined our southward-bound route to Bunbury, but encountered a traffic hazard only a few kilometres down the road. An extremely large tractor was being transported down the road on the back of a semi-trailer, and the size of it was such that it was extending into the oncoming lane, despite being as far over as it could get. With three wheels on each axle, the vehicles coming the other way had to pull into the gravel to get past it, and given we had to pass this truck and tractor, it was not a task we were looking forward to. However, someone upstairs must have liked us, because the truck pulled off the road and we were able to get past it.

Nothing else interesting was found along the road back to Perth, seeing as it was the same road we’d previously travelled only a couple of days before. We discovered the people responsible for the roads of Western Australia had found a unique way to solve their problems. In a section of road between Gingin and Perth, there is a section of the highway that has become quite bumpy for some reason. Travelling at the 110 kph speed limit, vehicles could be thrown around a bit as they hit the lumps and potholes, so they needed a solution. One alternative to this situation would be to rip up the road and reseal the bitumen, creating a better road. The other alternative - and this is the one they chose - is to simply lower the speed limit for a couple of kilometres, from 110kph to 90kph. Although the cost of two speed-reduction signs would be less than resealing the section of road, we’re still not sure it’s a professional approach to road safety…

Further on down the road, as we entered the outskirts of Perth on the Great Northern Highway, we found that roadworks to solve the bumpy road might not be a good idea after all. We ended up behind a long line of traffic following a bus which was travelling at 55kph, in a 110kph zone. The reason for not being able to get past was that there were roadworks areas along the road, spaced at exactly the wrong places, so that every time there was a chance to pass due to no oncoming traffic, a water truck would wander down the road at a snail’s pace. After driving under these conditions for 30 kms, it was concluded that we needed large weaponry to remove the bus from the road and let us all past.

It is always interesting to go to another part of the country and see how different things are. People in Perth are much more relaxed and laid-back than those in Melbourne, and the driving style is exactly the same. We saw things in Perth we’d never see in Melbourne, such as everyone happily driving along in the fast lane at 20kph below the limit. Nobody was tooting or flashing their lights, although Trav was muttering a few curses under his breath. Traffic lights would change to green and neither of the front two cars would move off from the lights for maybe four or five seconds, and yet, nobody would get upset. It seemed so odd to drive in Perth, after the far more aggressive style of Melbourne had trained Trav to a different level.

A town between Perth and Bunbury called Brunswick Junction found itself our next destination. Because the surrounding area is predominantly dairying country, the local service clubs erected a statue of a cow in the main street. We had to get out and pose with it, simply because it was there. A few local kids were over the other side of the road, and Trav was tempted to get them to come over and kneel in front of the cow, as though worshipping an idol. Unfortunately, we decided they would want to be paid, and today’s kids would not think much of $2 between five kids. Sigh. I remember, in my day…*blah blah blah*

Found the caravan park in Bunbury without too much trouble, although it was bordering on getting dark, so there was a bit of a rush to get the tent up. With no other campers in the park, we decided to go and watch the X-Files in the recreation room, to let Trav get his weekly fix. We were sitting in the room quietly watching the TV at 10:00pm, when a woman came charging in the door in a very aggressive manner, semi-yelling, semi-asking “what did the Boss say when he let you in here?”. We both looked at one another and thought hard because all he had said at the time was to lock up the doors and turn off the lights when we left. We pointed this out, and she told us that we were not supposed to be in there after 9pm. We offered to leave, but she backed off from the whole argument as she realised that we had not been told about the curfew. We figure that “the Boss” would have copped an earful when she found him, and maybe made him feel like he was not the Boss after all…*chuckle*

Interestingly, we ran into the Swiss travellers from Monkey Mia again in the Bunbury Caravan Park, although their numbers were now depleted, with one of the girls leaving. Apparently she was not originally travelling with them, and they’d found her just standing crying in the Perth airport upon their arrival. She had been on the same flight as them but did not know anyone in Australia or on the flight. They recognised her as having been on the same flight and had offered her a chance to travel with them, because she expressed a desire to get straight back on the plane home.

After the drive to Monkey Mia though, she got them to drop her off at the Perth airport again and she flew home because she did not like the countryside. The main problem for her was that it looked nothing like Switzerland, which we thought was actually the point of travelling, as did the remaining Swiss travellers. Ah well, it cost her roughly $(AUD)3000 to see the dolphins in Monkey Mia, so we hope the dolphins were impressed by her visit, even if she wasn’t. Given she was in the country for only 3 days, we doubt she got her $1000 per day value…

Onward to Margaret River tomorrow…

On the way out of the Shark Bay World Heritage area, we stopped in to do all the stuff we drove past on the way to get to the resort. Seeing as there is only one road to the resort, it was also easier to see it all on the way in, and stop where we wanted on the way out. First port of call was Shell Beach - a beach composed entirely of tiny shells, to a depth of 5m. The shells were deposited about 100m from the waterline, right down into the water, and we don’t know how far out. Apparently, there are only two places in the world where a beach is composed entirely of shells, with the other site being somewhere near the Red Sea. Quite interesting to look at, but also very blinding as the sun reflects off the pure white shells for the length of the beach - do not forget the sunglasses if you ever go here.

As part of preserving the natural beauty of the area, there is a large part of the peninsula fenced off from side to side, to form an area known as Project Eden. The fence runs up to the road, with a large grid across the road to prevent feral animals such as foxes, pigs, cats and rabbits from getting to the bush area on the side of the dolphin encounters. In this way, the native animals can live in greater safety without the introducted predators, and it is more preserved.

On the way in, we’d stopped at the tourist centre and the man behind the counter told us to stop at the grid on the way out, and walk over it and listen. Seeing as there is a twelve-foot high electric fence, we imagined we’d hear “ZAP-ZAP-ZAP” or “TIC-TIC-TIC” or a low buzzing noise due to the voltage, but this was not the case. An extra measure had been taken to prevent any animal thinking of walking onto the road and jumping over the grid - a motion-activated barking pole. Yes, we walked through the beam and the sound of a large dog barking was played to us over loudspeakers. It was pretty effective, because the sound seemed to be coming from all around us, which meant an animal would panic and flee for cover.

After that laugh, we drove to the stromatalites at Hamelin Pool. Stromatalites are basically large populations of blue-green algae, and one of the most primitive life forms to ever evolve on the planet. They began living 3.5 billion years, they live on today, and are responsible in part for bringing the oxygen level up to about 20% - the current level. There is a boardwalk over them to protect them from people walking on them, because of a desire to protect the world’s oldest living things. However, they were not always recognised as important, and at one point you can see where a wagon loaded with cargo was taken over them 60 years ago to load a ship. Agreed, a fully loaded wagon would weigh a lot, but it was still a surprise to see that the wheel ruts remained after all that time. Perhaps 60 years from now, there will be hover-pads and people will look in surprise at the damage caused by the boardwalk?

Driving back along the same road we came up on, the scenery was essentially unchanged - small scrubby stunted plants, red soil, blue sky. A couple of times there must have been changes in the soil or water status, because there might be a kilometre or two where 30m trees were growing, then it would return to the smaller plants just as quickly.

Arrived in Geraldton, and set up camp at one of the caravan parks. There were ten campsites available for use, but they were watering site #1, so we were allocated site #2. Two guys arrived a few hours later and were allocated site #3 - only 10m from our tent, despite the fact they could have been given any other site so we were not quite next to each other. Luckily, they did not make a lot of noise, although we got concerned about a tape of Spanish music they had blasting in their car until about 9:30pm. When the tape stopped, they did not replace it with any other noise, so it turned out okay. Still seemed weird to have to whisper conversation so as not to annoy the only other campers in the whole paddock-sized area.

Needless to say, our “Stupid Person Of The Day” award went to the woman at the BelAir Caravan Park who put two tents right next to one another for no apparent reason.

Having decided that the fresh fish/port city theory had failed us twice, we went to the supermarket and bought some fish fingers. Probably insulted the local townspeople by buying processed and tasteless fish products in a town that is responsible for a large fishing industry, but still, it meant when we decided to have salad with it, we got salad that we recognised, not a helping of “around here, we call that salad, salad rice mix”, or something similar…

Onward to Bunbury tomorrow…

Although the dolphins are wild, they are relatively tamed in that they come to the same beach three times a day, every day to be fed fish by humans, so they’re not as wild as could be. It was interesting to note that because the rangers do not feed male dolphins, or the babies, so that they learn to feed for themselves. That being said, the only dolphins to come in are female adults, and their most recent offspring that travel with them. Surprise, surprise.

The dolphins obviously know the source of food, because they follow the ranger like dogs, even responding to his call for them to come in closer to the people along the beach. We suppose they are wild in the sense that they do not jump through a hoop, but they still put on a bit of a performance to get food. Is that a trick of sorts? The dolphins are fed only 1/5th of their average daily diet so they “don’t become dependent on handouts”, but while they may not rely on handouts to survive, they still come in to shore and get some freebies, which is a little dependent. Think about it - if you could go and get free food three times per day, instead of having to chase it down and expend energy, wouldn’t you go to that free food source?

We were not allowed to touch the dolphins, but they were allowed to interact with us. This was a warning issued to us by the CALM rangers on the grounds that if someone were to irritate a dolphin by, say, sticking a finger in it’s blowhole, it could headbutt the person in defence, and break their leg. In that respect, they are indeed wild dolphins, although one suspects *any* dolphin would be less than impressed to have a finger in it’s blowhole… Flipper would even get a bit angry, we’d dare say.

Reading the above text, it would appear that the trip to Monkey Mia was not an enjoyable experience. Far from it. It was fantastic to look down into the clear water and see dolphins playing right there, with the ability to leave at any time they wished. Before the feeding, everyone is allowed into the water to knee-depth, but at the time of feeding, everyone is made to leave the water, and then only the rangers (or ranger helpers) with the fish buckets, and the selected people are allowed in the water. It was very interesting to see people’s definitions of “out of the water”, with some people believing that so long as mid-shin is above water level, they are out of the water. The ranger told one woman she had to get out of the water, and she insisted she was, despite still standing in eight inches of water. If that woman thinks eight inches is nothing, she is a very spoiled woman…*lewd grin*

At the first feeding, there were about 70 people by the time that the fish were given to the dolphins, so the odds of selection were okay, but low. Neither of us got selected to feed a fish at that time. At the second feeding, human numbers had decreased and dolphin numbers had increased, with a third eligible-to-be-fed dolphin arriving. With the extra chances, and less people, Diana got selected to feed a dolphin, although the hand did not linger too long near the foot-long toothy mouth as the dolphin clamped shut on the offering.

At the completion of the second feeding, we went for a swim to cool off due to the sun beginning to beat down upon us. The sun was made worse by the fact that Trav had donned his bathers for only the third time in a few years, and had no sunscreen on his legs. Before you point out Trav’s stupidity, please note that neither of us had applied sunscreen to our legs because the information brochure told us dolphins didn’t like the greasy oil slick that resulted when we stood in the water to watch them. By the time the second feeding was over, it was about 10:30am and we’d been standing outside in the sun for a few hours, so we both got really sunburned across the backs of our legs.

During the swim in the chest-deep clear water, Diana suddenly looked over Trav’s shoulder and said “dolphin”. Trav turned around to find there was indeed a dolphin swimming within a metre of us, although Trav’s first thought was “shark”. Call me stupid, but when we’re swimming in Shark Bay, where there are signs saying “swimmers beware - sharks often sighted in bay” and I turn around to find a dark shape and dorsal fin cutting through the water only a metre away, I don’t think “dolphin”. The whole group ended up swimming through the humans, which was a weird experience to be that close to a dolphin, when they had no obligation to come near us at all - we had no fish for them, and they had an entire ocean to swim in.

Invariably we found our Stupid Person Of The Day, and this one was streets ahead of the rest of the contenders. (Note to Americans: you must surely have some decent representatives of your country to show us - send them out here instead of the idiots that keep gracing our shores). Yes, this person was an American, with an extremely piercing twang to her voice. We got the impression from other encounters around the park with her that she was a professional traveller, and her slightly-overcooked brown tanning seemed to support this argument.

Arriving two days previous to us, she had seen the dolphins on the previous day, at all three feedings. On the morning when we saw the feedings for the first time, she was blowing kisses to the dolphins, and speaking in that baby language reserved for use by people who own those small, yapping, useless dogs. One of the dolphins was called Nicky, and the entire morning was filled with her voice over-riding the rangers with a one-way conversation of :

“Hello Nicking Darling! I love you! Yes! Yes! I do! I do love you, my beautiful little baby! {blow a kiss} Yes Nicky Darling! We *all* love you! Oh, you are sooo beautiful! I love you so much! {blow a kiss} You’re so cute and wonderful - oh, we all love you! Yes, we really do! {blow several kisses}”

She had seen the dolphins up close, by her own admission, only the previous day, but she had been “unable to sleep all last night just thinking about these beautiful babies! Aren’t they beautiful! Yes they are! Yes, you are sooo beautiful, aren’t you Nicky Darling! Oh my beautiful little Nicky Darling! {blowing a kiss} We all love you oh so much! You’re so gorgeous Nicky Darling! Yes you are! {blowing more kisses}”. Nonetheless, this lack of previous experience did not stop her talking to the rangers as though she had been living with dolphins all her life, and generally putting a pained expression on the ranger’s face every time she spoke, because he was so close to the accent. In fairness to her, it was not a Fran Drescher accent, but it was still not pleasant to listen to.

The remainder of the day was spent lazing about in the pool and hot tub, which was a very relaxing way to spend the heat of the day. Ate dinner about 7:30pm, and sat around enjoying the cool of the evening, which we had been craving earlier.

We could have gone on a sunset cruise on a catamaran around the bay, but could not afford it, so we’d stayed back in camp. About 8pm, the cruise returned, and three of our fellow campers returned to eat their meal. However, seeing as they had not been planning to stay for the night, they had no food left. The take-away shop was closed, and the resort restaurant was extremely expensive (cheapest main = $17.50). One of them managed to find a pasta-n-sauce packet, which required milk and butter. They had no milk, but had some cream left over which they thinned down with water, so they were okay in that respect.

We knew they had no butter because they had discussed this near our table at one point, yet we saw them using butter later. It was at this point we lost our faith in humanity, because we realised it was OUR butter they had gotten from the fridge - from inside a tied-up plastic bag, inside another tied-up plastic bag. We were about ten metres away, so they could have asked us if they could use it, and we would not have minded. Yes, they should have planned better, but what were we going to say? The tub was almost full (bought the previous day) so we could not have said we needed it all in the morning for breakfast. Why they did not ask is beyond us.

Trav wandered over to get a drink from the fridge at one point, feeling very irritated about this theft, and one of them asked “is this your butter?” He replied that it was, and they said “Generous”. After the greasiest look he could muster, he said “yeah, looks like it” and returned to the table. They got extremely offended at this comment, and did not speak to us after that for the rest of the night, because they were not impressed we were obviously not of a sharing nature. The really annoying thing is that all they had to do was ask, and we would have shared. Because they STOLE the food without asking, Di and Trav ended up feeling like the villains of the situation.

Three other backpackers from Switzerland arrived late in the evening - two girls and a guy - in a very small car they’d hired from Perth. All three of them were sleeping in a small tent, so we tried to guess how the guy had gotten lucky enough to be crammed into a tent between two good-looking girls. They’d only been in the country for two days, but we figured he’d be definitely enjoying Australia so far…*grin*

Returning south tomorrow, onward to Geraldton…

Seeing as we had simply driven through the National Park the previous evening, in order to get to our destination by dark, we actually ventured toward the tourism sites of interest this morning. Seeing as there is only one road to Kalbarri, we’d previously decided to see the park on the way out, rather than in, as it meant we would not have such a big day on Day Two. As we drove along an extremely rough dirt road, we came to a sign telling us the prices to get into the park. However, there was no ranger - only an automatic ticket machine that allowed you to pay the $5 fee to get into the park. It was based entirely on honesty, and presumably, someone would come and check the ticket on your windscreen at some stage, but we had the holiday pass, so didn’t have to pay. These ticket machines turned out to be at most National Parks, although we never saw anyone use them. Then again, we never used them because we had the pass, so perhaps everyone was as above-board as us.

It was 35C at 10:00am when we got out to see a rock formation called “Nature’s Window” - a hole carved in rock by wind and water erosion, overlooking the Murchison Gorge. As usual, Trav went bounding along over rocks, jumping on every boulder he could find, while Diana sweltered under the heat and struggled to keep up. Toward the end of the walk down to Nature’s Window, there was a rock ledge about a 18 inches wide to walk on, with a 10 foot drop off the side, whereupon you’d probably bounce once, roll off the ledge you just landed on, and plummet 100m to your death. Trav ran along the ledge, and then came back to persuade Diana to come out with him, which she did, although the perspiration running off her had more to do with stress than heat at that point. Not a big fan of the 18″ ledge, Diana made it without any problems, and we took a couple of happy snaps on the *shady* side of the formation.

There was a sign at the beginning of the walk telling people to wear good walking shoes, because of the rocky ledges and associated danger. What surprised us was that people felt that thongs (or “flip flops” for you Yanks) constituted “good walking shoes” and we even saw one woman in a pair of fashionable scuffs, where if she stepped on uneven ground, the shoe would grip, but her foot would slip out of it. Oh well - we guess that if you are in the middle of a National Park, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest capital city, wandering down a rocky ledge in 35C heat, you might as well be trendy. Stupid Person Of The Day? Yes, we have a winner!

We decided it was too hot to walk the 3km loop to see the other sights, which was a bit of a pity, but that’s what we get for going in the middle of summer, I guess. One of the sights was to overlook the river though, and the river was extremely low, so it would not have been as impressive as at other times of the year.

The drive to Monkey Mia was relatively uneventful, with the exception of the animal life. Because the road is slap-bang in the middle of nowhere, it is essentially the outback, as featured in all those beautiful images of Australia in magazines and tourism brochures. The vegetation was sparse but green. The sand was a rich, deep red colour. The sky was a vivid blue, without a cloud. It all seemed very deserted, yet at the same time, it felt as though we were in the REAL Australia, and it was very beautiful because it was so harsh.

We saw some emus wandering in a paddock only 50m from the highway, so pulled over to have a look. Our only sightings of kangaroos were the large piles of skin and bones alongside the highway. Two things surprised us about the roo roadkills:

1. There were not as many as we’d expected.
2. They were left there so long that often it was just a pile of bleached bones.

The latter detail surprised us a little more when we got further south. Out in the deserted region of the road we were currently driving in, we could understand it would be impossible for a truck to come along and clear off all the dead roos. However, when we got back to “civilisation” by about Day Six, we were still finding giant dead bodies by the roadside. We should have thought that the council rates would have covered the removal of dead roos from roads, but apparently not…

The final town on the highway, at the turn-off to Monkey Mia is called “Overlander”. The town is a petrol station. 50km previous to it, there was a town called “Billabong” which was also a petrol station. No other structures were visible, except the dwellings of the station owners. Nonetheless, each place was marked on the map as a town-sized dot, which seemed a little high as a rating, but then, when you get 800kms north of Perth, petrol is all you need in a town.

One other aspect of being so far from major centres is that the trucks tend to be larger, in order to carry more freight from one site to another, rather than making more fuel-consuming trips. In Australia, these large trucks are called “road trains” and may have up to three to six trailers behind them. When one of these comes in the opposite direction on smaller roads, the car must pull off the road and stop, because the truck will run over the car in preference to losing control of such a large vehicle in the gravel on the side of the road. The average motorist follows this logic, but then, who wants to play chicken with a six-trailer truck?

Just as we entered the Shark Bay Heritage Area (1km from the Overlander “township”), we saw a large goanna, over a metre in length, running off the road. We were all hyped up then, thinking that we were going to see lots of fauna, but that was it for the next 150kms, with the exception of bugs that splattered nicely on the windscreen every so often.

We managed to get some radio once more - no nearby stations had meant the last 200kms were radio-free, and it allowed us to finally solve the mystery of the AM radio band. As you hit the seek button, it passes through the frequency 666. We’ve always thought that no radio station would be brave/stupid enough to go out on a limb and broadcast on “the devil’s number”, but this is not the case anymore. Carnarvon has a radio station that broadcasts on the 666 frequency, and was playing nice, boppy 50’s and 60’s rock and roll. Wait a minute - wasn’t that originally called the music of the devil by “squares” back then? Coincidence?

As we approached the resort, we began to catch glimpses of the ocean. To be perfectly honest, both of us were absolutely stunned to see that it looked not only like the brochures, but possibly better than the brochures. The water was such a vivid clear-blue colour, like shown around tropical islands with reefs, in tourist magazines. This water was crystal clear, the sand was a spotless, blinding white, and the sky still had not a cloud in the sky. The view was glorious, and it didn’t change from the time we entered the area, to the time we left, despite having different light conditions.

We planned to stay here for a couple of days, so checked into the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, and pitched the tent. We did not realise until later what a bargain it was - a nice shady site with access to a free BBQ, fridges, toilets, showers, 30m to the tennis court, 50m to the shaded swimming pool and artesian bore hot tub, 70m to the calm, waveless beach that was so shallow, we could walk out about 80-90m from shore and still only be chest deep. I’ve never seen clearer water, with us being able to see every shell on the bottom, even at that distance from shore. All this for $7 per person, per day. Bargain!

Seeing as it was getting late after our swim, we cooked dinner, and relaxed afterward for about half an hour in the hot tub. A fantastic way to end the day that basically got us inspired to get rich quick so we could get a house with a hot tub in it and we could sit in it every day, not just when on holidays. Anyone looking to donate a hot tub to us is welcome to do so. We’d even accept it as an email attachment, although I think I’d have to check with the Uni IT people first, to make sure it would not crash the server…*grin*

Tomorrow is Dolphin Day - the reason we are here…

Driving out of Fremantle toward Perth, we proved that we had still to get our navigation/driving skills issue resolved. After following Diana’s directions for several kilometres, it was deemed by her that we were definitely on the wrong road. As we attempted to get back onto the right road, we found that the road we were on was probably the quickest road we could have taken anyway, although not the intended route. Diana proudly proclaimed the road no longer “wrong”, but instead, “the best road to take”. Trav has done this several times in the past in a desperate attempt to pretend he was not really lost at all, and it seemed odd to be on the other side of the quickly-deflating argument. Made Trav realise how silly he must have sounded on previous occasions.

Drove to the Pinnacles (~250 kms north of Perth), and followed an extremely corrugated dirt road in. This track was the first of many breaches of car hire rules. Well, technically it was not a breach of the rules - just that if we’d had an accident, we would not have been covered by the insurance policy because we were off a sealed road. Seeing as they charge $8 per vehicle to go and see the Pinnacles, you’d think they’d have fantastic roads, but the ranger explained they liked to keep them dirt so that the local native animals were able to wander unhindered.

It was about the only thing that she knew with any clarity, because any question on the Pinnacles was met with a blank stare and a statement to “read this brochure”. Apparently she was just there to collect the money, and not know anything about the National Park she was responsible for. When we were in the Pinnacles, there were some brown ones and some black ones. Quite obviously, the burning question of the day is what causes the colour difference. She didn’t know, and directed us rapidly to “read the brochure”. Ah well, we did find out she was from Geelong, so that explained a lot for us…

Another thing proven to us to be worthwhile (other than the brochure) was the use of the internet. Without having visited the Conservation And Land Management (CALM) department webpage, we would not have known about the existence of a “holiday pass” which entitled you to entry to every park in Western Australia for four weeks, as often as desired, for $20. There were no signs up saying we could purchase a holiday pass on the board of prices, and the CALM ranger seemed a little surprised we knew about it. We bought it because most parks charged about $5-$10 per car to get in, so the holiday pass was more suited to us, we felt. More on this in coming days…

As we arrived in the midst of the Pinnacles, we got out of the car to take a photo or two. The first thing seen by Trav was a naked man running through the Pinnacles. Perhaps he was trying to do an impression, although one could quite harshly suggest it was a rather unimpressive Pinnacle. Before Trav could grab the camera to record this incredibly surreal sight for posterity, the pants went back on, and the moment was gone. However, this man lives on in our minds as “Stupid Person Of The Day” for exposing his genitalia to not only the world, but the cancer-causing UV rays from the sun on a 38C day.

After leaving the Pinnacles, grabbed lunch in a town called Cervantes which presumably was put there for some other reason than to service tourists who came to visit the Pinnacles, but we could not work it out. Seemed like a coastal fishing village in some respects, so we presume that was it’s other role. We were actually quite impressed by one of the residents though - a 12yo girl walking down the main street in bare feet on a 38C day. The bitumen was melting in some places, and yet she was without shoes. Those looneys that partake of firewalking would have been impressed…

As an aside, the car we hired was officially named “George” today, because every car needs a name if it is to function correctly.

Just south of Geraldton is a small town called Greenough (”gren-uff”). The major feature of the landscape that impressed us was all the trees were lying down. Almost every gum tree grew up a couple of metres, then aimed back down at the ground once more. The shire logo is that of a tree lying down, and we presumed it was very specific to the area. Further investigation over the next few days unearthed the fact that the species of gum tree that grows in the area does not like the salt content of the wind coming in off the coast, only a few kilometres away. As a result, the trees contort themselves into a shape that minimises the amount of salt hitting them, which quite often means growing downward and away from the wind. Seems to me that evolution is just not taking the hint well enough, and perhaps those trees just are not meant to grow there.

Reached the Kalbarri turn-off about 6:00pm and began to drive through the Kalbarri National Park. In our experience, a National Park has always consisted of towering trees, maybe a waterfall, certainly a walking track through leafy surrounds. The Kalbarri National Park is just small twisted scrub, and not at all what we expected. At a rough estimate, Trav would have been taller than 70% of the plants growing in the park, so why anyone would take the local tourist bureau up on the “hike through Kalbarri National Park” idea is beyond us. Especially in summer when everything is deadish looking, although we’d not be surprised to go there in winter and see the same vegetation appearance.

Driving through the National Park, there were lizards all over the road because they were wanting to absorb the heat of the road. Out of the direct heat of the day, the lizards were after the warmth that came with the road, although none seemed to grasp the concept of when to actually depart the warmth and make for the relative safety of the bush as cars approached. One type of lizard - Thorny Devil - had a camouflaged appearance, and so it’s defence mechanism was to stand still. Might work quite efficiently against carnivores, but not with cars… We did see one at one stage that was not roadkill, so we pulled over and got out to take a look. We expected it to take off into the bush as we approached, but it stayed there quite happy to be photographed. Unfortunately, the photos did not turn out well due to Trav’s unfamiliarity with the new camera, so you’ll just have to believe us that we could put our hands within inches of it, and it would stay there.

Decided to try our luck with the coastal town/fish dinner theory once more, and went to Finlay’s Fish BBQ - apparently “the most famous tin shed in Australia”. I’d never heard of it, although Di thinks she saw it on a travel program once. After reading the prices, decided to settle for “steak and vegies”, which will come as no surprise to those than know Trav. Unfortunately the vegies turned out to be capsicum and onion in rice, which is not something Trav would eat. When one of the staff came to take away the plate, he questioned why Trav had not eaten the vegies. Trav pointed out that he was expecting vegies like potato, pumpkin, beans, corn, peas, carrots, etc, and not the rice mix. The staff member looked at him strangely and said “around here, that’s vegies, you know, vegie rice mix”. Apparently we should just have known that…*slapping oneself on the forehead*

The Kalbarri Tudor Caravan park was featured as a Big 4 Tourist Park. Basically, for those unaware, a park that is part of the Big 4 franchise has to be a damn good park, with shade, clean amenities, possibly a pool, tennis court or other activities that would allow people to go to the park and do stuff in the park as well as the local township. We think this park needed a re-check of the Big 4 status, due to their “mini-zoo” that was promoted in all the tourist brochures, and tourist radio stations. The mini-zoo apparently featured “kangaroos and talking cockatoos”. When we went to have a look at this menagerie, we found a rather neglected 4′x5′ aviary containing a corella that needed some serious beak trimming work for the health of the animal, three moth-eaten galahs with broken wings, 2 chickens, and a couple of cockatiels. No talking cockatoos. No kangaroos.

Update (20th Aug 1999) - The park is now under new management as a result of our complaint being one of many to the management of Big 4 Tourist Parks regarding that specific park. Whether it has improved or not is now unknown, but there are apparently more staff employed, and the state manager for the Big 4 organisation agreed with us about the poor quality of the ‘mini-zoo’ and decided that until chickens become classed as native parrots, it should not be a selling point of the park. It is indeed nice to hear that at least one organisation follows up on complaints.

The local pub was filled to capacity with the “Sport Fisherman’s Gathering”, so we decided to just go for a walk along the beach in the full moon. Oh, how romantic. After finding lots of shells, Diana sat down for a while and Trav dug a great big hole for people to fall into. Once Diana had tired of watching him dig, she faced the ocean once more, allowing Trav to dig just a little bit closer and a little bit deeper to Diana without her noticing until the sand began to collapse from under her. Unfortunately there was not enough speed of sand collapse, and Diana was able to escape the fate of falling bum-first into the giant sand hole. With all the extra sand now above the surface, Trav was able to sculpt a giant turtle, just before Diana jumped on it and squashed it flat. Oh well, I guess the romantic nature of a walk along the ocean under a full moon is wasted on us…*grin*

Onward to Monkey Mia tomorrow…

With a time difference across the continent of 3 hours, it allowed us to catch the 7:00am (Melbourne time) flight, be in the air for four hours, and land at 8:00am (Perth time). The call for boarding came and it was then that we realised that the plane designed to carry 170 people was actually only taking 35 people, which meant that there was a strange emptiness to the aircraft. Still, as luck would have it, we managed to get the seats in front of the couple with three children under the age of 4 years old. The baby managed to stay quiet most of the way, and the oldest child was not too much of a hassle, but the mother trying to maneuvre herself and a child on the lap around made for some sudden seat jolts. We were able to move around if we wished, so it was not too bad anyway.

The movie shown in-flight was “Practical Magic”, which was somewhat annoying on the grounds that we had seen it at the cinema only the previous week. The upside was that we had won tickets to the movie originally anyway, so we had not forked out unnecessary cash. Seeing as it was an enjoyable movie, but not one to watch again, Trav got inevitably bored, and hassled the flight attendants for the colouring books given to kids. As soon as Diana saw the beauty of the dot-to-dot puzzles, she wanted her own colouring book as well, which meant it was lucky Trav had gotten two of them. Seeing as the logo of Qantas is a flying kangaroo, the colouring books were featured on a cartoon kangaroo with wings, called “Max Altitude”. We think Max might have been short for Maxine because “he” featured a pouch. Oh well, I’d prefer Qantas to be better at keeping aircraft in the air than being anatomically correct in their colouring books…

After finishing off all the puzzles in the colouring books, Trav got bored once more, so hassled the flight attendants again, to see if we could go to the cockpit and see where the action took place. Stayed up there chatting to the pilot and co-pilot for about 15 minutes, and learned all about how to fly a plane, so if anyone needs a pilot in the near future, Di and I can help you out now. No, really. Stop that sniggering.

When we arrived at the hire car company in Perth and were filling out the appropriate forms to say that if we were aware our insurance policy was null and void if we went off-road, on gravel roads, or if the atmospheric conditions included the presence of oxygen, one of the staff went to give the car a quick wash-down to remove road-grime from the previous rental customer. We should have thought that anyone paid to hire cars would be aware that when washing a car with a blast from a hose, it is usually best to close the vehicle’s doors. However, this was evidently not the case, and the driver’s seat had a large pool of water on it when he’d finished.

We decided at this point that it would be best to look at each day of the holiday and award one person every day with the “Stupid Person Of The Day” award. This award would be given to those members of society we encountered that failed to display intelligence in either their actions, words, or both. This man had taken the award within thirty five minutes of our arrival, so he set the standard early.

Challenging the rental car attendant for stupidity was the person behind the pricing policy of RAC maps. The Royal Automobile Club (RAC) of Western Australia is the equivalent of the RACV (for the benefit of those in Victoria) or AAA (for the benefit of those in North America). Road maps published by the RAC are available for $1.50 from RACV offices, and we had purchased one to help us plan our trip before we left. However, we decided to leave that map behind as our “thing we forgot to pack”, so had to buy another one over there. The same map, purchased in the state of publication, was $3.00 from the RAC offices or $6.00 from the WA Tourism Centre. How it could be produced, shipped across the country and sold for half the price in Victoria is beyond us, and we began to get concerned about the number of people that might be eligible for the “Stupid Person Of The Day” award.

We were planning to tent our way around the state, staying in caravan parks as we moved from town to town, and decided to go set up camp toward the end of the day, so we could go for a swim in the ocean afterward. We quickly found out that the people of Perth do not like to travel very far on public holidays, because the caravan park in Fremantle (28km from Perth) was filled. We were told that we would have to pay for 3 nights accomodation if we wished to stay, and that $45 for a patch of grass was not even a regular tent site, but instead, a section of nature strip right beside the road, and five metres from the toilets, because the park was that full. We simply went down the road to another caravan park which did have less shade, but also had plenty of room for us to set up. Admittedly, the first caravan park looked much better, and probably was, but if we were going to pay $45 for a patch of grass, it’d have to be damn comfortable grass. Perhaps I could spend more time of the PhD devoted to the development of comfortable grass, and rent it out to tourists wanting a good night’s sleep?

Went for a swim in the ocean by walking down the path for a very long “ten minutes”, which was the time told to us by the caravan park owners when we checked in. Basically, the walk was along the back of an industrial park, with car wreckers, steel suppliers, and other industry. Walking through this wasteland was a little concerning, on the grounds that we were walking a long way to get to a beach right beside an industrial park, bringing water quality issues up in our minds. We eventually made it to the beach after about 20 minutes in 38C heat, meaning we were VERY much in need of a swim by then. Trav doesn’t swim that much - read: ever - so Di was very impressed that he got in and swam around for a while. The water was not that bad in terms of pollution, and was actually better than we get in Melbourne anyway. Only problem was that Trav forgot the ocean was salty and swallowed a mouthful of it before he realised. Another candidate for Stupid Person Of The Day?

Given that Fremantle is a port town servicing Perth, we decided that we would seek out the services of a fish & chip shop, and sample some of the local fare. It was then that we discovered that nobody in Fremantle knows where their fish & chip shops are, because we ended up driving in circles for ages before we stumbled across one. Actually, there was not one, but three, in the section of road we eventually ended up in, but two of them were closed at 6:30pm, so they we presume this is the reason for Fremantle residents not knowing where they could buy a meal - the shops are already closed by meal times…

Went on a guided candlelight tour of the Fremantle Prison, although the candles actually turned out to be those small torches used by doctors to look into patient’s eyes. The prison was built in 1855, and was still used up until 1991, and frankly, as a prisoner, it would not have been a pleasant place at all. The cells were 4 feet by 7 feet, and the whole prison was constructed out of limestone rock, which would have been an oven in summer and a freezer in winter. Apparently it took about two weeks of hot weather to warm the prison cells up over summer, and from then on it was stifling. All windows had to be closed during morning inspection, and the prisoners were locked up from 4:30pm - 7:30am each day. They ate in their cells, basically lining up to get their food from the kitchen, then going straight to their cell. The only toilet facilities available to them - right up through it’s closure in 1991 - was a metal bucket that they had in the cell with them. Each morning, they would bring the bucket down to be cleaned, and each night, they would pick up a clean bucket as they were locked inside.

There were very few prisoners of note who were kept in the Fremantle Prison obviously, because they talked a lot about only one prisoner - Moondyne Jack - who was a notorious escape artist. They decided to keep him locked in a cell lined with jarrah wood, embedded with 6 inch metal railway spikes, so he could not dig his way out. He still managed to escape from the place though, because they had him smashing rocks in a corner of the prison and piling them up. Eventually the pile got so large, he was out of sight, and while the prison guard could hear him smashing rocks, he was actually smashing a hole in the wall and ran away.

The main problem they had with the tour was that our guide would take us around and show us the cell of Moondyne Jack, and tell us all the above information. As we continued on a little further, an actor dressed in convict rags jumped out and told us all he was the ghost of Moondyne Jack and then described the same story for us. It did not help in making it seem more realistic - just annoying that he did not give out any other details than we already had. You know what it is like when you take a tour of something, and you learn the same thing twice? Well, that’s basically what was happening the whole way around.

We went to the solitary confinement area, and were told all about the cells by the guard. After we entered the cells, an actor jumped out and told us all about the solitary confinement cells. The actor also told us all about the gallows, which we were to visit next, and when we made it to the gallows, we heard all the same information from the tour guide. A little bit annoying, seeing as there were about 140 years of history that could have been talked about, and the same stories kept being told to us…

After the tour, we went back to the caravan park to go to bed. We were extremely tired after the big day, with the time change throwing our stomach clocks into chaos, and we were ready to just sleep. As soon as we got into our sleeping bags, another camper decided that 10pm was the correct time to feed his kids, and while they were waiting for the meat to cook on the BBQ, they might as well entertain themselves with running races. First one to the line had to yell out so that he knew who had won the race. Great. Oh well, we were obviously more exhausted than we’d thought because we don’t recall more than two or three races.

On to Kalbarri tomorrow…