Denham

Well, here we are in Denham (about 1000ks North of Perth). We left Kalbarri this morning and drove the almost 400 ks to Denham along a really good road with no wind (for a nice change) with a stop for lunch in Billabong at the pub. Could have had a job at the pub-room and food plus $100 each a week-I DON’T THINK SO!

We shared the driving, and I chose to stop and have a look at Shelly Beach. That’s exactly what it was-a beach made up of gazillions of tiny cockle shells, no sand, just tiny shells. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere.

Denham is 129ks off the main highway, it’s almost a dead end apart from Monkey Mia (29ks away and all of you would know the dolphins come there to be hand fed), so we have to turn round and drive the 129ks out of here when we leave next week.

We booked in here (and discovered Charles our annoying neighbour in Jurien is here too), set up then went down to shop. Lettuces were $4.99, cucs $3.99, there was no bread left, the milk was warm and there wasn’t much meat! When we got back we went for a drive just above the park and when I spotted our van I said to Russ that our neighbours had a big boat. We got back and he said “they have a REALLY big boat!”

They invited us over for a drink before dinner and they have a big van, vehicle and a huge shark cat. They are a much older couple than us and haven’t been together very long at all by the way they were talking, but it was great to sit and have a drink and chat with them. It takes him two trips from Bunbury to move the van, gear and boat down and they will spend a few months here.

Shelly beach is part of a world heritage site, but they can take some of the shells commercially as it is a renewable resource; this caravan park is top-dressed every year with shells from there, so we aren’t on sand; we are on shells which is really good for a change.

Kalbarri Sight Seeing

Z BEND in Kalbarri National Park

Thursday we took a drive out to the Gorges in Kalbarri National Park. Our first surprise was at the gate where we found seniors only have to pay $3 per vehicle (rather than $9 “young people” have to pay). Finally, there is an advantage to being married to an old fart!

The drive into the gorges is a rough one along about 25 ks of corrugated sandy road. We saw lots of banksias and native grass trees and could see the grevillias are going to be really stunning very soon. I didn’t believe the gorges could be as beautiful as they were and we both decided they were almost more beautiful than King’s Canyon or Katherine Gorge. The gorges were formed as the Murchison River cut its way though the sandstone-the colours are amazing and I don’t think photos will do them any justice, but I’ll post a couple any way. There are 4 or 5 spots to visit with my favourite being Nature’s Window. It’s a sandblasted hole in the sandstone that frames the river and gorge way below.

Friday 26th we drove along the coast to check out the local “Great Ocean Road”. There are less and smaller rock formations than we have at home, but the colours in the sandstone against the blue ocean more than make up for that. Once again, I don’t think you’ll see the true colours in the photos.

Friday afternoon we took a sunset cruise out the heads and along the coat. It was really clam and very spectacular. The sunset was especially beautiful. That night we went up to as local buffet-very reasonably priced and really nice. After dinner and a bottle of wine we came home and sat outside for another hour or so-you can do that here where the temperature is so nice.


Saturday we took the boat out to do a bit of fishing. We caught a few mulloway (not big enough to keep), Russ caught a fair sized bream and I caught a cat-fish/eel like thing that we guessed might be a cobbler. Cobblers are venomous, so we handled him very carefully and through him back. When we got back to shore a local was really amazed we’d thrown back such a good eating fish. But better to be safe than sorry when we didn’t know which bit of him was venomous. We measured him though and he was 51cm (well over the 43cm limit) and I really knew I'd caught him!. He's the biggest fish I've caught.
My Cobbler


Last night we went to Findlay’s fish BBQ. It was fun and really reminded me of a civilized Jimbaran Bay (the fish BBQ’s on the beach) in Bali (with no bombs either). We sat outside with our feet in the red dirt, ate of plastic plates and it was lucky we’d taken our own wine glasses when we saw their sad collection of jam jars!


We leave here tomorrow and are hoping to meet another couple Barry and Shirley in Denham.

Kalbarri

Today we begin our fourth month on the road. I have had a wonderful time so far-meeting lots of nice people, seeing places for the first time and catching up with Leah, Blair and Todd in Perth was the highlight of the trip so far!

Yesterday in Geraldton, new neighbours arrived. We began to talk as you do (where have you been, where are you going, where are you from?). The wife was originally from Warragul (the same as me) and we would have been at high school and pony club together, although she was 3 years younger than me. Small world.

This morning we packed up and moved on to Kalbarri. It’s a small fishing and tourist town about 600ks north of Perth. Russell hasn’t been feeling too well since yesterday so I drove. We had the strongest head and cross winds you can imagine so the 190ks took us about 3 1/2 hours. We are booked in here for a week as it looks like it will be a good place to put the boat in and do some fishing in the Murchison River.

I'd always imagined the country around Geralton to be pretty flat, but it was quite hilly and beautiful and there were a lot of sheep, beef and wheat farms. The last couple of ks into Kalbarri reminded us both of the great ocean road as there were lots of roads leading down to natural formations on the coast. We’ll check those (and the gorges Kalbarri is also famous for) out in the next few days.

The weather is hot here-maybe 30c outside the van (I have the air con on in here) and the park pool is looking pretty nice. Our neighbours have gone down swimming to a local rock pool which the say is warm, clear and great for snorkeling and swimming.

Sight Seeing Around Geraldton

Just after I finished writing and posting the this blog on Geraldton, there was a knock at our door. It turned out to be a couple from Warrnambool who we’d never met before. They are also heading north like us so I’m sure we’ll meet them again but they are coming for drinks before dinner tonight.

This afternoon we went and did a bit of sight seeing around town. The light house is just a couple of hundred metres from the park we are staying in and a real land mark.


The dome is part of a memorial to the HMAS Sydney and was sunk in WWII. Each of the stainless steel gulls represents one of the men who lost his life. There are 645 of them. When they were dedicating the park (and before the dome was built) a flock of gulls flew over the memorial service and as gulls are supposed to represent departed souls of men lost at sea they decided to make the memorial this way.


The tree is one of the poor tortured things you see around town.

Geraldton

We arrived in Geraldton yesterday. It is sunny and a little warmer, but it is so windy. I’d heard the trees all grow on an angle but didn’t expect it to be so acute an angle! They look like big bonsai and make me I’m back in Japan at a bonsai exhibition.

We travelled the coastal roads from Jurien to here and it was a beautiful drive. Dongara/Port Dennison was really beautiful and we have plans to stay there on the way back down. In Dongara we went to the pub to have some lunch, they wanted $21 for a chicken parmigiana, so we went across the road to a small café. I had the best burger I’ve eaten in ages (miles better than Kermonds) and Russ had snapper, chips and salad way better than the stuff we were promised was “the best in WA” when we were in Fremantle!

The caravan park we are staying in is pretty big, but pretty good. We have an en suite for the 3 nights we have booked to stay, so I’m really happy about that. Our neighbours from Bichino in Tasmania are friendly (maybe a bit chatty when they get started) and nice.

On our way to do a bit of shopping, we took a quick tour of the park and spotted a van belonging to a young family we had met at Fraser Range Sheep Station Caravan Park. We actually spotted the van in Cervantes CP too the day we visited the pinnacles. It turns out they were at the Pinnacles earlier in the day when an elderly man stripped off all his gear to run naked through them. When Pam said “shame on you” to him, he laughed and said he was doing “a Billy Connolly”. I’m so sad I missed it and couldn’t encourage Russ to do it!

Still in Jurien Bay

The Pinnacles

We’ve now been in Jurien Bay for 8 nights with another two to go. It’s been great
(and so much nicer since Charles the annoying neighbour has moved on!) The fishing has been really good with us catching heaps of snapper one day (enough for feed that night and 3 more in the freezer). Apart from that, we have caught some interesting fish-9 different types this morning. Speaking of fishing, Russ was organising the boat while I parked the car and trailer. I got a frantic call to bring the trailer back as he'd forgotten to put the bungs in the boat, it had flled with water and we had to put it back on the trailer to empty it out. hahahaha

Yesterday was a bit windy so we took a trip to Cervantes and the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are amazing. I went expecting a few hundred of them, not many thousands of over 1000 acres. We arrived before sunset as that’s when they’re supposed to look their best, but there was a lot of cloud around so it probably wasn’t as spectacular as it could have been.

Jurien Bay

On Tuesday morning (May 9th) we left Perth and headed north to Jurien Bay. It’s a small fishing town about half way between Perth and Geralton. It’s quite close to the Pinnacles (do any of you remember Billy Connolly running naked through them in a series he did?) We plan to go look at them but have been too tired after our big days of fishing (they are supposed to look their best around sunset).

The park we are staying in is really quite good-cheap and relatively empty right now. We bought a fold up boat trailer in Perth and this is the first time we’ve been able to use it. It’s great and made our fishing yesterday and today so much easier. I think it’s going to make a real difference to our trip. The weather is great here too-just a bit warmer day and night than Perth and no wind. I think it was about 27 degrees today and warmer again tomorrow!

The fishing is good here. We’ve caught lots of fish we haven’t even seen before. Today we hardly lost a bait, bringing in a fish almost every time. Lots were “butterfish”, a pretty striped and blue fish (pretty the first couple of times we caught it at least). We brought one home yesterday to try and while it was very edible, it was pretty bony so we threw them all back today. I caught a flounder yesterday, we caught lots of slightly undersized snapper today, a couple of striped sea perch and some other unidentified reef fish we are just about to try and see if we will keep tomorrow. We got a few whiting too.

We had a bit of a problem neighbour here. He’s travelling on his own and makes a bee line for anyone who moves out of their van. Fortunately he doesn’t talk to me, but annoys the crap out of Russell. He’s got a low IQ, but manages to be a complete know-all on any subject he cares to start a conversation about. All conversations lead quickly to him too!!!! Fortunately, he’ll be moving on Monday. We’ll be leaving here Wednesday if we don’t extend our stay.

Devi

We took Devi to the vet today and had her put to sleep. The vet had said a month or two at the most, but she went down hill so fast, we knew today was the day. We are moving on tomorrow and she was past travelling and getting in and out of the car. After a short game of ball last night, she couldn't walk or get in and out of her basket for 12 hours. The vet agreed it was the right time-whilse she still had a little dignity.
We are so sad and have been crying, but know still that it's the kindest thing we could do.
Russ buried her here (at Blair Leah and Todd's)in the back yard where she has spent 4 weeks and really enjoyed it.

Perth

View of the City from Kings Park

It's May 1st and we are still in Perth. We're still staying with Blair, Leah and Todd, but plan to move on on Thursday. Blair flies in tonight after his week out at the mine-also his last shift with this company as he starts at a new mine next week. Chris and Carly who are also staying here move Wedensday to their new house, so we want to be around to help them move, then we are off to Jurien Bay or Dongara (both South of Geraldton)

We've had a great time here. Last Thursday we went for a long walk around the beautiful Kings Park which overlooks the city, Friday we went to a boat show at Femantle, Saturday Todd and Russ went out on a fishing charter from Fremantle. I figure the one fish Todd caught had to be worth $300 cos that's what it cost them to go! Yesterday (Sunday)after Russ Carly and I went to the market we went to Mandurah with Leah for her father's birthday.

The weather has mostly been great-clear days and cooler nights-just how you imagine Autumn should be. It is getting colder though so a move up North will be nice.

We rang a real estate agent this morning and about November, we should be able to get a furnished 2 br flat in Wembley (very convenient location to kids and city) for about $175pw between November and January. The flats are usually let to uni students so there are plenty of vacancies over school hols. My ex lives in Perth and has room to store the van for us. It's a great solution to expensive and kid filled caravan parks over the summer.