HOME  AGAIN!

Well, we've made it back home.  After 7 months of travelling 27,000 kms, we can truely say we've had a great time looking around the Centre and the West.  But it's wonderful to be home. The car and caravan both performed well, despite a couple of hiccups.  We're enjoying catching up with the family, and look forward to seeing our friends again.  Loads of unpacking, washing and reorganising ourselves in the house.....it's certainly more spacious than our van. 



                                                 Thanks for following our travels.
                                                          Merilyn & Geoff

 

 

 

 

YORKE  PENINSULA



Innes Cliffs

We headed down the Yorke Peninsula opposite where Adelaide is located.  We visited several small towns, and had a lovely drive around the coast of the Innes National Park, where we saw several stumpy tailed goannas.  The school holidays had just finished, so there were very few travellers on the road in these parts. 

 

 

The Yorke Peninsula is shaped a bit like a mini-Italy.  We travelled down the west coast, down to the tip, and then up the east coast, along the St. Vincent Gulf.  Across the water we could see the hills near Adelaide on the skyline.  Some of the roads in this area left a bit to be desired - which surprised us, being so close to a large city.

 

While we were at one of the towns, Wallaroo, they were having a festival, and we came across a crowd of people participating in dragon boat races.  It was good fun to watch them, and we could hear the rhythm of the drums beating to keep the paddlers rowing in time.  It looked like a great way to get fit!

 

 

 

THE  LAST  LEG

ADELAIDE

We spent a few days in and around Adelaide, staying at the Marion Caravan Park.  That brought back a few memories of the '80's when we stayed at the same park with our family and friends while we went to church conventions at the Wayville Showgrounds.  It was quite cool and wet, but we did manage a quick look at the city, and a visit with people we had met along the way.

CAPE  JERVIS

At the southern tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula is Cape Jervis.  We are spending a lovely week with friends who are building a large house, on a property overlooking Kangaroo Island.  Geoff is giving a hand with some of the internal framing, while I'm enjoying the fresh air and the view!  

HOME
We are looking forward to the last stretch of highway across the west of Victoria, and will arrive home within the next few days.  It's been an amazing trip, but of course we will be happy to be home again, with family & friends. 

HEADING  EAST

ACROSS  THE  NULLARBOR

We enjoyed our visit to Kalgoolie-Boulder to catch up with friends, and then began the journey east. We encountered hot windy weather which wasn't too much of a problem for us, but created a difficult trip for the cyclists we met at Cocklebiddy.  They were riding from Esperance to Ceduna - mainly to prove that they could!  With the temperature in the high 30's, we were glad to be driving. 

Nullarbor Cliffs

Although we've driven across the Nullarbor several times, this was the first time we had driven off the main road to the Head of the Bight, where we were lucky enough to see several Southern Right whales and their calves.





 Some were quite close to the shore, and we got a fabulous view from the boardwalks constructed on the cliff face.  Unfortunately for us, the whales didn't do much more than swim slowly about in the water, with a puff of air every now and then, which we could also hear.


It's a long way across the Nullarbor, but there's only one stretch which is really treeless.  Much of it has low growing bush, and there are many areas of quite tall trees.

We took three days to reach Ceduna, where we enjoyed a great dinner at the local Hotel, overlooking the sea.  We almost felt like regulars, having eaten there on a couple of previous visits.

On the last stretch to Port Augusta we encountered several oversized vehicles coming in the opposite direction.  One of them stretched half-way across our side of the ride, which made it very tricky to pass.  We had to trust the driver of the support vehicle, who waved us past on a bend. 

Reaching Port Augusta meant we had come full circle.  We had headed north from here just over six months ago.  What a lot we've seen and experienced in that time.  To date we've covered 25,000kms, with a few more to go.


 

SOUTHERN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

STIRLING  RANGES

After my quick visit to Melbourne, we hitched up the caravan to head south again.

The cool weather was still with us, and at times the wind and rain made it feel like the middle of a Melbourne winter!  We spent a couple of days in a lovely bush setting at the Stirling Ranges Retreat, near Bluff Knoll. 




Despite the cool weather, we were able to enjoy looking at many various wildflowers, and learnt a lot about native orchids at a talk and slideshow given by the owner of the Retreat. 




The following evening, a birdwatcher showed us pictures of many local birds.  We did see some of them, but the biggest bird we saw was the emu who decided to run across the road right in front of our car - fortunately he was an extremely fast runner.  We think we shook his tail feathers!  He certainly got our heart rate up.

ALBANY

We were pleased to have one fine, sunny day in Albany.  We had a good look around the town, with memories of David's time living there.  It's a picturesque place - very hilly, with wonderful views across the ocean, to the islands beyond. 
Despite searching the seas with the binoculars, we were unsuccessful in spotting any whales. 

We climbed up several flights of steep steps, to the top of Mt. Clarence where the first Anzac dawn service was commemorated, and from where we got a great view across the town. 

The next day we were back to wild weather,

which made our view of The Gap and the Natural Bridge at Frenchman's Bay quite spectacular.  The coastline in this area is really rugged and beautiful, and despite the weather we enjoyed our few days here. 

ESPERANCE

More of the spectacular southern coastline!  Lots of islands offshore; rugged rocky shores; clear blue water; white sand; crashing waves.  It's got the lot. 

 We had one day of poor weather, followed by another very pleasant day.  As we'd seen Cape le Grande before, we headed 120kms east of the town to Cape Arid National Park.  We watched some whales closer to shore than we've seen before, but they weren't in "show-off" mode, so no great photos.  Geoff managed to hook a salmon from the rocks while I enjoyed reading a book in the sunshine.

Back in the car, we turned the radio on to hear the last 30 seconds of the Grand Final - a surprise outcome!

One more trip north (to Kalgoorlie) before we head east over the Nullarbor.

PERTH AND  SURROUNDS

We've spent a lovely couple of weeks catching up with friends and family.  Firstly at Toodyay, a picturesque town about 80 kms north of Perth.  Then in various locations in Perth.  And finally just south of Mandurah, about 80 kms south of the city.   During this time, we revisited familiar places, and spent a lot of time chatting with our friends - particularly precious after being just the two of us for so long!!  Unfortunately our timing wasn't too great.  Our planned trip to Rottnest coincided with extremely wet and windy weather.  So that will have to wait for yet another visit in the future.  However, after a few days of this cool spell, the sun broke out again and we continued to enjoy typical Perth weather - clear skies and sunshine.

GREAT  NEWS
We decided to have a look at our old house in Ocean Reef, after which we were sitting by the beach eating our lunch when we received a phone call to let us know that we had a new baby grand-daughter.  We were delighted to hear that Savannah had arrived on the last day of August, safe and sound.   Grandma is off to Melbourne to have her first cuddle, before heading back to Perth to join Grandpa for the last leg of our journey.

DONGERA/PORT DENISON

Just a short drive of 70 kilometres down the coast from Geraldton are the twin  towns of Dongera/Port Denison.  We chose to spend a week there, before heading to Perth.  Dongera is a pretty  little town, lined with Moreton Bay figs. It has quite a few historic buildings, and several shops.  Port Denison is about 5 kms. to the south, where the Irwin River runs into the sea.  Not so many shops, but plenty of houses.   It also has a sheltered bay for the many crayfish boats that work in the area.  Although they catch lots of crays, it's just about impossible to buy them locally, as it seems they are mostly exported live. 

Our caravan park was located next to the beach, and we could hear the waves crashing on the beach.  They have a bit of a problem, in that parts of the footpath between the park and the beach have been washed away, so they've built a huge rock wall to delay the inevitable.

Weather wise, some days were sunny, but we had the wettest day since leaving home during this week.  Not bad after 22 weeks on the road. 

We spent another day driving out to some small towns in the east.  Very pleasant countryside - more wheat and canola.  It took us a while to work out why so many large groups of birds, particularly galahs and corellas, were in the middle of the road.  But we guessed that they were feeding on seeds that must have leaked from the many grain transport trucks we saw along the way.

 

As well as seeing many more wildflowers, we came across some quandongs - a fruit I'd hard of, but never seen before.

On another day we drove south along the fairly new Indian Ocean Road to Jurien Bay.  We'd heard that a popular pastime in this town was skydiving, and happened to be eating our lunch right opposite the beach where some parachuters landed.  The first man landed next to us after coming down really quickly.  We discovered that he was filming the paying customer, who came down a little slower, strapped to the other parachutist. 

 

GERALDTON

As we drove south from Kalbarri, the countryside started to change, and we began seeing crops of green and yellow (canola).  Definitely felt like we'd left the outback behind us.  The weather also confirmed that, with cooler days.




Geraldton was the largest city we'd visited since Darwin.  It's a large port, and looks as though it's thriving at the moment.  Set above the city on the highest spot in town, a monument to HMAS Sydney dominates the skyline.  It is made up of several elements, with the most prominent being a dome made up of pressed metal seagulls - one for each life lost when the ship was sunk.  It was very impressive.








Another prominent feature of this city, is a tall lighthouse - and its little replica close by.

The wind in this part of W.A. is well renowned, and we experienced it while there.  It reminded us of our time living in Perth, when our side fence blew over!  There are not too many tall trees growing, but those that manage to reach any sort of height don't always stand up straight.

 

We spent a few days looking around the city, and also drove out to the east, where we were surprised to see acres of farmland, with many more wildflowers along the side of the roads.  We hadn't realised how far north the cultivation extended - even though this year W.A. in general has had very low rainfall. 

 

 

KALBARRI

WILDFLOWERS,  WIND  AND WHALES

We started to notice more wildflowers growing on the side of the road as we got close to Kalbarri.  Later, when we went into the National Park, we saw an even greater variety.  We loved seeing them, but don't ask us to tell you what they are!! 

The town of Kalbarri is on the mouth of the Murchison River, so is sheltered from some of the winds that blow in from the west.  But it was still quite windy while we were there. 

We were lucky enough to see some whales, a fair way out to sea, from several viewing points up on the cliffs to the south of the town. 

We also saw a baby whale playing in the breakers close to the river mouth, but didn't manage to catch it with the camera.

Just over the road from our caravan park was the spot where they feed fish to the pelicans each morning near the beach.  While we were there, only one turned up - and it was a fairly young one.  It had a bit of competition with the local seagulls, but the pelican won every time!

We had a great day at the Kalbarri National Park.  There were some beautiful views - more gorges, but with more growth than we'd seen further north in our travels. 



There's a terrific Parrot Wildlife Park close to the town, which we thoroughly enjoyed.  There was a great walk-in aviary, with birds flying close overhead.  And I didn't even panic!  Most of the birds are Australian natives, and as you would imagine by the name of the place, mostly parrots.

 But they did have a few finches, so Geoff took careful note of  how they had their aviaries set up.

They also had some exotic overseas parrots, and Geoff managed to get up really close and personal to this macaw.

DENHAM  (SHARK  BAY)

This lovely little seaside town is about as far west as you can get without a boat.  It's hard to keep saying how beautiful the coastline is, but every time you drive in from the inland highway, it's like another wonderful surprise greets you as you see the clear blue water.  On the way in to the town we stopped off at Hamelin Station, which was the site of an old Telegraph Station. 

It's also the site  of the amazing Stromatolites, and if you are like us and didn't know what they were - they are an ancient form of life that grows in the sea, very slowly.  Hamelin is one of the only sites in the world where you can see them.  Later on in Denham, we learnt more about them at the Discovery Centre, which houses wonderful displays of flora and fauna of the surrounding areas.

We enjoyed our day driving through Francois Peron National Park.  The roads are very sandy, so tyre pumps are provided at the start of the tracks where you can deflate your tyres before starting out, and reinflate them on your return.  Unfortunately for one couple we came across bogged in the sand, no amount of deflating would have helped them, as they were driving a Hyundai sedan on a clearly marked 4WD track!  Despite offers of help, they had decided to wait for the Ranger to come and pull them out.  We think they would have had to dig deep to pay for their retrieval costs.





We made it through the sandy tracks O.K.



 

Big Lagoon in Francois Peron N.P.


Another attraction in this area is Monkey Mia where they feed the dolphins.  We had visited it on a previous trip, so we gave it a miss this time.

The sunsets are beautiful all along the west coast, and Denham was no exception.

Some kind person had left this recliner at the beach so you could put your feet up and enjoy the view.

CARNARVON

After travelling so many kilometres through low growing saltbush, it's quite a surprse to see bananas growing as you get close to Carnarvon.  They produce lots of different fruit and vegies around this area.  The Gascoyne River supplies the water, but you don't get to see much of it, as it  mostly flows underground. 

Another sight on the way in is the large space tracking dish.  Buzz Aldrin recently visited the town to open a new space info centre - all developed by volunteers. Lots of interesting information about Australia's part in tracking the American spaceships during the space race.




A couple of grey nomad astronauts

We took a drive out of Carnarvon to Quobba Point to have a look at the blowholes, which were quite spectacular. 

Others we spoke to later saw several whales in the area, but despite searching the sea with his trusty binoculars, Geoff didn't spot any.  The only wildlife we saw was on the drive back - wild goats, bustards, emus and strange looking brownish coloured sheep with long tails.

We enjoyed our few days in this town, which is currently undergoing a huge upgrade.  There's obviously millions of dollars being poured into it, and it will be great when it's finished.