South Australia! Where the Only Wine we’ve Drank so far is a Cheap 4 Litre Box of Goon!

Superpit

Hello from sunny South Australia! What have we been up to since Kat’s last blog post? Well Kalgoorie-Boulder was certainly a taste of an Australia from a bygone time where men were mining for gold and women were, well quite often prostitutes as it turns out! We did a brothel tour (Kalgoories oldest!) where the madam showed us around and told us the history of the brothels in town. Had a drink at a ‘skimpies’ bar where the bar staff wear underwear whilst pouring you a pint (Kat was the only girl besides the bar staff). Visited the Flying Doctors service that provides much needed medical support to outback locations and also drove up to the ‘Super-Pit lookout’ where the miners drive massive trucks which look like toys from the lookout because the pit is so large at 500 metres deep and 3.8 kilometres wide.

After all that excitement we then had the Nullabor or as the Australians call it the ‘Nullaboring’. Over 1000 kilometres of road with the only real highlights being a sign proclaiming Australia’s longest straight stretch of road at 90 miles, a giant kangaroo and some pretty coastal lookouts. Dull, dull, dull days doing nothing but driving and buying extremely expensive petrol.

Giant Galah Midway Across Australia

Then we got to South Australia and remembered what it is to have fun again by going down the coast of the Eyre Peninsula seeing dolphins, sea lions, a wave rock (great big rock that looks like a wave in the ocean), and a giant statue of a galah. We have also rediscovered beer and wine from bottle shops. Good times!

We travelled up to the Southern Flinders Ranges and saw spectacular scenery as well as hundreds of kangaroos, wallabies and Emus at the side of the road. One brave kangaroo nearly tried to get into Lola when we had set up camp for the night! Unfortunately due to bush fires in the region we couldn’t do any walks.

Fearless 'Roo

We’ve been heading south after the Flinders Ranges through some of the very hilly but picturesque wine regions and now we’re just outside of Adelaide. So far we’ve had no luck finding fruit picking work as we seem to be ahead of the fruit by a few weeks in every place we visit. Fruit seems to be slowly ripening according to the Gumtree adverts so fingers crossed we’ll be picking some kind of fruit or vegetable in the next week or so after we get back from Lola’s first overseas trip all of 15km’s on a ferry to Kangaroo Island which is planned to depart on Sunday for four nights.

Hope all is well at home.

Chris & Kat xxx

2 Weeks in Southern Western Australia...

We’ve been a little slack on the blogging since New Years, mostly because finding internet has proven more difficult and more expensive than when in Asia!  It’s been a jam packed 2 weeks since Lola was fixed in Lancelin, so I’ll do my best to summarise and not babble too much!

We began our journey to Perth with a stop in Yanchep to see the sleepy Koalas.  They were lovely, they looked like chunky balls of fur up in the trees, their wispy ears and narrowed eyes giving them a look of Yoda!  Perth was a nice city, although very quiet, their rush hour was lovely free flowing traffic, very laid back.  We enjoyed the botanical gardens and views of the city then moved onto Rockingham the next day.  Penguin Island just off Rockingham has been one of the best days of our trip so far.  We got the boat over and were almost instantly greeted by little fluffy penguins under the boardwalks.  We were really lucky to see the wild penguins as normally they’d be out fishing during the day, but it was moulting season so they stay on land for 3 weeks whilst they get their new coats, we saw lots of them around the island and enjoyed being entertained by the noisy rescued penguins who we watched get fed.  There were also pelicans and loads of other birds flying around the island, and we were lucky enough to see a sea lion who decided to rest up on the beach – just amazing!

We spent an afternoon in Freemantle.  Lovely old colonial buildings, harbour side with coffee shops and microbreweries – kind of reminded me of being in Bristol!  Had two huge slabs of cake too – first in months and they were goooood!  From here we had a quaint day viewing a giant orange and a woodland full of gnomes!  We then stopped into Bunbury to the dolphin centre, we saw them frolicking in the bay, but they didn’t come into shore which was a shame, but we did see baby turtles and octopuses being fed!  After hoping down the scenic coastal towns we arrived in Margaret River, another coffee & cake, a steam engine named Kate, kangaroos around the campsite and we got to hold a Kite (Bird of Prey) at the Eagle Heritage Centre – another fab day.

We headed onto Augusta and got our first glimpse of the Karri Forests.  The Forests in the South are SO tall and really beautiful, a lovely change from beaches.  We climbed a Karri tree, 52metres tall, it used to be a bush fire lookout and you climb up the outside of the tree on metal pegs which wind around it; tiring but a great experience and lovely view at the top.  We did a drive through the forests, got all arty doing the sculpture forest walk, visited a Tingle tree 24metres wide and then did the treetop walk in the Valley of the Giants – a 40metre high walkway through the Tingle trees.

Back to the coast we headed to the beautiful almost deserted Windy Harbour, stopping at Mount Chudalup for a look, then ended up climbing it!  As ever the views were worth it.  William Bay National Park had some of the clearest turquoise waters I’ve ever seen, and the big elephant rocks were great to see.  Albany had lovely old buildings to look at and a pretty coastal drive then we headed inland to the National Parks.  We stopped in Porongroup National Park and did a brilliant walk up to Castle Rock, the last 30 metres being a rock scramble then a 7metre ladder up to a viewing platform.  It was a stunning view and one of the best walks we’ve done recently – and so poorly advertised that we were the only ones there!  We headed through Stirling Range National Park and saw some very small, very fluffy baby emus – very cute!

The long drive to Esperence was well worth it.  We stayed in Cape Le Grand National Park which has the whitest of white sand and the bluest ocean, just beautiful.  The kangaroos are super tame and we got very close to a baby roo who was scavenging for food near the beach.  Another uphill climb up Frenchman’s Peak and another amazing view.  Then we met the resident wild Sealion – Sammy – at the tanker jetty and his mate who was swimming about hoping to be fed by their adoring public!  Then we did Western Australia’s Great Ocean Drive, for more stunning scenery.

We are currently diverting slightly and are heading north to Kalgoorie-Boulder for a bit of the Outback / mining scene.  Then it is back to the coast to head across to Southern Australia, where maybe we’ll get around to finding some work!

Lots of love,

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone! Western Australia is certainly busy at the moment with hundreds of families taking to the roads to enjoy the Christmas break. Caravan parks and free camping spots have either been full or very, very busy but luckily so far we’ve always managed to find a place to sleep for the night.

Kalbarri was our next stop after Christmas and we enjoyed viewpoints of gorges in the National Park, dramatic costal cliffs, saw a host of cute tropical birds in the Rainbow Jungle Zoo and had an unsuccessful pelican feeding session. The pelicans have been turning up at around 9am each morning to the beach shore to be hand fed in Kalbarri since the 1980’s where a local fisherman used to feed them his scraps. If he didn’t turn up in the morning then they’d go to the fisherman’s house nearby and make a lot of noise and mess until he woke up to feed them! Unfortunately for the last few months the pelicans have stopped coming to be fed, the theory is that they’ve forgotten as a lot of them migrated at the same time earlier in the year but hopefully if one of them gets fed again then they’ll spread the word to all the other pelicans in the area about an easy meal. For now though, as the feed still goes ahead each day, all the local seagulls are beginning to look a bit fat.

Oakabella Homestead is one of the most haunted places in Australia and this is where Kat decided we should spend the next night camping in their field. After surviving the night with no spooky goings on, we then took the tour of the homestead to find out more. It’s a restored sheep farm from the 1800’s and has been in the same family for generations. Many deaths have occurred on the property and the current custodian is certainly a believer that their spirits still remain. Loretta lived in the homestead for two years whilst she restored the property and many supernatural things happened to her including being pulled off of a ladder by a spirit, getting electrocuted, having doors and furniture constantly open and close, vacuums breaking instantly, the radio switching itself on and off, hearing voices of the dead and seeing evil red eyed ghosts. Mysterious indeed! We did hear footsteps in one of the rooms and when panning the camera around (a technique to see the energy of the ghosts) the screen would flicker, lose focus or have bright white, blue or pink spots suddenly appear. We’ve tried panning the camera again when we weren’t in the house and none of that happens. Very strange indeed!

Moving on we slowly made our way down the coast towards Perth stopping at a pink lake and all the coastal towns along the way to look out for sea lions which unfortunately we didn’t manage to spot. We took in the Pinnacles, a series of naturally forming rock jutting out of the desert and were heading towards Yanchep National Park to see some Koalas on New Year’s Eve when our fan belt snapped! Quick call to our breakdown cover and every mechanic had already closed for the holiday weekend so we had a tow truck come out and take us to Lancelin which is a small town popular with windsurfers, kite surfers and sand boarders. To celebrate the New Year we had the rest of our Christmas beer and wine on the beach keeping an eye out for fireworks. Now we just have to wait for Tuesday when the garage reopens and we can carry onto Perth and try to find some more fruit picking work.

Love Chris & Kat xxx

An Aussie Christmas

Merry  Christmas All & A Happy New Year.  It is very odd being away for Christmas, doesn’t really feel like Christmas despite our tiny Xmas Tree, tinsel and the Michael Bubble Christmas album...its hot, sunny and we’re on a beach in a campervan!  It’s not quite right, but we’ve had a great couple of days that feel special – if not Christmasy!

So the van has now made it another 1000km to Denham near Monkey Mia!  Our first stop from our last posting was Exmouth, a seaside town with free roaming Emus, reduced ice coffee and with easy access to the beautiful coastal National Park, Cape Range.  The Cape is my favourite National Park to date.  The gorges were really impressive as usual, but with the added beauty of them meeting the turquoise ocean.  The beaches are white sand and beautiful with the bonus of great snorkelling just off shore – the Aussie fish seem much bigger than their Asian cousins, Parrotfish, Angelfish and the Wrasse are massive!  And the animal encounters have been plentiful from watching kangaroos on the campsite, the pelicans overhead and the turtles bobbing about in the shallows – just amazing.

Heading South we stopped at Coral Bay for more snorkelling.  Lots of Stingrays here, a Sea-snake, a Catfish and all the usual reef fishes.  It was chilly in them waters though, our morning snorkel being rather brisk to keep us warm!  Next destination was the blowholes, this is on the coast at the cliffs.  The waves hit the rocks and then a jet of water is forced from a hole in the rock, shooting high up into the sky, it is naturally occurring phenomenon and is pretty impressive to watch.

We then headed to Carnarvon, the plan being to get some work fruit picking here.  But after a drive around the deserted plantations, we found that there are no jobs to be had – some fields full of ripe tomatoes, melons and the dreaded mangos, just looked deserted, clearly nobody likes to work here nearby to Christmas.  We thought we might have struck lucky with some chilli picking, but nothing came of it so after a quick sight see of the Giant Banana and 1mile jetty we headed down the coast again towards Shark Bay.

We have taken our time going up the Shark Bay coast as we wanted to spend Christmas Day on this peninsula.  We began at the stromatolites, the single celled organism that are thought to have been a source of the Earth’s oxygen allowing Man to evolve.  They look like rocks but you can see their air bubbles which show you that they are actually alive!  The next day we stopped at Shell Beach (lots of tiny shells) and then we free camped at Eagles Bluff.  From the cliffs you could see Sharks and Stingrays passing by, but it was really, really windy, it shook the van for most the night!

Then on Christmas Eve we arrived to our campsite in Denham and travelled to Monkey Mia.  Monkey Mia does daily feedings for the wild dolphins living in the bay, they only feed them a very small portion of fish so that they continue to be wild and hunt for themselves.  We were lucky to see Nicky the dolphin and Chris even fed her a fish!  Nicky brought her friend Bliss with her who had a 3 week old calf splashing next to her, it was lovely to see.  We also saw a turtle bobbing about in the bay, a shovelhead Stingray in the shallows, lots of crabs and some pelicans.

Our Christmas Day started with a trip to Monkey Mia in the morning to watch the dolphins but sadly a low tide meant that they didn’t visit today, so we just enjoyed the beach instead.  Then we headed back to Denham to cook our Christmas lunch, Chicken breasts, pigs in blankets, smash, butternut, cauliflower, carrots and gravy – not bad for a camping Christmas.  And now its wifi time to try and catch up with family!  We will be heading South on Boxing Day towards Kalbarri National Park.

Enjoy the Christmas break!

Love Kat & Chris xxxxxxxx

A Real Aussie Experience - Breakdown in the Outback!

So Lola our lovely little van broke down at a free camping site just off a main road on our way to Karijini National Park which just so happened to be 200km from civilisation in either direction north or south. We parked for the night after a hot day driving and switched off the engine. The van shook for a few seconds then boiling hot water came gushing out of our radiator onto the ground. We went to bed for the night hoping it’d be alright in the morning. It was not alright. Luckily we have Australian breakdown cover, however where we were there was no phone signal to get a tow truck to come and pick us up. I (Chris) got a lift to the nearest roadhouse (a big petrol station with shop and cafe) with a very friendly German couple and organised from a payphone a tilt truck to hoist Lola and give her a lift 200km’s to Tom Price. Never has she gone so fast on these Australian roads – we even over took things!

Once in Tom Price the highest town in Western Australia, a small friendly mining hub with a Coles supermarket, a petrol station and not much else we organised our free accommodation we’re entitled to with our breakdown cover whilst the van was in the garage. The caravan park 3km’s out of town is where we’ve been staying and it’s a lovely place - red breasted parrots and cockatoos rule the sky during the day and when it’s dark you can see the stars really clearly giving us a great view of the full lunar eclipse that occurred on the 11th.

Interestingly the garage’s workers are all flown in from South Australia lured by a wage 4x what they could earn in any big city because of Tom Price’s isolation and need for mechanics due to all the mining vehicles in the area. Tom Price’s isolation also means any spare parts need to get flown in which can get very expensive - but it is quick!

As part of the breakdown cover we were also entitled to free car hire for 5 days but unfortunately the only cars available for hire are in the next town which is over 80km’s away and they had no cars as they’d all been hired out to the miners. Being 3km’s out of town it has been awkward to walk in the heat to get food from the supermarket without a car but so far we’ve had lots of people very kindly take pity on us and give us a lift either there or back again so it’s been no problem. A French couple even gave us a free bag of carrots!

We’ve spent most of our days at the caravan park enjoying air conditioning in our free cabin and day time Aussie TV which has a crazy amount of adverts and the most popular news story we’ve been hearing about is the ‘silver fox’ George Clooney visiting Sydney.

Luckily just before our free accommodation expires we’ve now got Lola back and she’s all fixed! We’ve certainly missed her and tomorrow we finally plan to visit the National park we were on our way to until the van broke down then it’ll be onwards to Exmouth where we’ll probably next have the internet and post this.

Love Chris & Kat xxx

The Hippy Life Through the Kimberly

Would we do mango picking again...no!  A week of severe mango rash, a trip to A&E and a course of steroids have definitely put an end to our mango career; we shall look for less dangerous fruit in the future!

We eventually left Katherine and headed West along the Victoria Highway.  I am pleased to report that the van is running well and we’re averaging about 300km a day.  The roads are pretty much straight and long, with not much traffic (about a car every half hour).   It is the start of the rainy season in the north, so it has been really hot, approaching 40degrees some days.  We’ve seen lots of lightening in the distance, the electrical storms are impressive, although it was slightly unnerving when we were caught in one! 

To save the pennies we’re doing quite a lot of free camping rather than staying on sites.  It has been a great experience and has felt like we’re truly living the hippy life in our retro van, cooking on the gas stove, showering with a hose, Chris playing his guitar and us experiencing the awful compost, fly ridden toilets!  The locations of the free campsites have been awesome; some days we’ll be in a National Park watching all the parrots & Birds of Prey then other days we’ll be in a rest spot on the highway overlooking a gorge and the bright stars, nothing around us for 100s of kilometres in any direction.  It is vast!

This part of our trip is mostly about the scenery and National Parks.  We began with the green Gregory National Park, then to the small Keep River National Park.  Once over the border to Western Australia we saw the beautiful Lake Argyle and the red rocked Mirima National Park which is a mini Bungle Bungle Range.  We’ve also stopped in Halls Creek to visit to China Wall, a natural occurring Limestone wall that runs for over 100km and then onto Geikie Gorge National Park for another scenic walk, this time to admire the limestone rock formations.  It is all so beautiful and what you imagine ‘the real Australia’ to be all about, especially the red rock.  We’re enjoying the wildlife too, seeing lots of wallabies, hundreds of birds, 2 dingoes and a variety of lizards (the frilled neck variety being our favourites).

Having the freedom of the van is amazing and it is making this part of the trip feel very special.  We are destined to get to Broome soon, very excited to see the white sands of Cable Beach and the camels!

Lots of love, miss you all!

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mango Lovers United

Fresh from completing 53 hours of Mango picking with sore hands, scabbing legs, rashes and the inability to use our thumbs without pain we’re enjoying a day off! Mango picking isn’t difficult it’s just mind numbingly boring as it is repetitive work over 10 hour days. You pick the round, plump looking mangos that aren’t yet ripe from the trees and throw them into a huge, noisy mango washing machine that is driven alongside you whilst you pick. Each time you pick a mango, you break the stem and an acid sprays out which burns skin and can turn your skin a reddish brown colour as we have both found out!

Some facts for you:

·         Each 400g bin filled with Mangos is worth $4000 to the farmers

·         Generally there are four picking teams that collect over 100 bins a day

·         Mango picking can cause trench foot

·         Every harvest the company makes around 4 million Australian Dollars from the Mangos

·         Kat and Chris had to throw away 4 pairs of socks due to a smell that just wouldn’t leave

·         All the Mangos are just for the Australian market

·         There is a high turnover of staff

·         You can buy one of our handpicked mangos from the supermarket for $1.75 (just over £1!)

We met some great people whilst picking and Kat even got to use her medical skills to assist with an industrial accident where a picker got run over by one of the mango washing machines which got as far as his chest before reversing off – amazingly he was fine, just very bruised!

Would we do it again? Yes, but only once we’ve recovered from these past six days! The next fruit we might try our hands at once we’ve driven the West Coast are strawberries or cherries.

C & K xxx