ashleighb travel

Wednesday 24.01.11

Perth to Capel – 243kms
Camped at Membenup Picnic Area, 11km SW of Capel on Ludlow Tuart Forest Drive

It was a bit of a slow start to the trip as we were grounded in Perth for two weeks waiting for the much-anticipated Weico fridge. The delivery was supposed to only take a couple of days but after the first week of waiting I expected it was arriving by a horse and cart. Nonetheless it arrived on the Wednesday and we were off – “hit the road jack” by Ray Charles playing on the stereo! It was a sweltering 36 degree afternoon and I was soon sweating from every crevice known to man, moistening my clothes and seat immediately – yum.
We immediately learnt that leaving for a holiday towing a caravan should NOT be done during school peak hour traffic. We got lots of concerned and appalled looks from neighbouring vehicles. As we had left a bit later than schedule we didn’t have time to go straight to Augusta so we went off a side road just out of Capel that took us to a nice secluded picnic area where we could set up camp before it was too dark. There was already a few people there o we thought it would be quite safe – a French family and a couple of caravans and trailers of 50+ (who giggled at us when we tried to oil squeaky caravan legs). We also passed a sign that said that the mosquito level was at low, which was an added bonus for us!
After we had set up we thought it would be nice to have a celebratory drink but the only thing we had was a bottle of Rose that I had gotten for my birthday. Not to self: never buy rose again.
Simon declared that he should now be refereed to as the fridge nazi, which basically means a cross look with or without arm folding and head shaking if the fridge lid is held open for more than ten seconds.
As there were no toilets or running water we had to also suss out the toileting arrangements, which led to a discussion about the pros and cons of a bush shit compared to a drop toilet shit… bush shit all the way!
Simon’s little solar lights that he got previously referred to as craplights also had a surprising comeback – shining a lovely glow over our two fold up chairs.
When we were busy cooking our scotch fillets for tea, a secret supermarket joke had the lid pop off our pepper cruncher resulting in peppercorns EVERYWHERE… there was no way of getting rid of them all so we had to settle for very peppered steaks for tea hahaha!

Thursday 25.02.11

Capel to Conto’s – 90kms
Camped at Conto Campground in Leeuwin National park, 16km SW from Marg River off Caves Road

We had a fairly early start, we were even up before the kids next-door, to get through Busso and Margs. Travel song today was “How can you keep on moving” by Ry Cooder. Caves road is pretty straight forward so we were at Conto’s in no time, but instead of going straight into the campsite we thought that it would be a good idea to keep going straight and check out the beach access. It was down a dirt road but it looked fairly okay from the start right? WRONG! It was the bumpiest, roughest road ever; the corrugations in the track were insane! Everything was rattling and shaking, I had bits on me that I didn’t want jiggling, and it immediately came apparent that I wasn’t wearing a bra! At one stage the poor coromal was bumping so hard I thought we were going to loose it! There was even a sign that half way down that said “Rough Road” – no shit!! But there was no turning back so we had a quick squiz at Merchant rock and got out to get our feet wet off the rocks. From the top of it we got great views of Conto’s beach and the fishing spots along the rocks.
After the molar quivering drive back to camp we investigated the damage, only one casualty – a painting losing a hook, and then set up camp again. Major problem with having the solar panel on the roof is that if you want to park in shade – no power. But handyman Simone managed to create an extendable wire so we could put it in the sun and while we were in an electrical mood I even managed to hook up the stereo with Simon’s directions… well he had to fix one speaker than wasn’t working but hey, I can definitely take all the credit. By this stage I was a filthy human being so we decided to have a cool off swim down at Conto’s beach… the sign reading “strong currents and waves. Lives have been lost.” – couldn’t even put us off. And it was definitely worth it too – you could pretty much walk straight into the water without jumping up and down trying to get used to the cold and it was crystal clear… gotta watch out for the rocks and march flies though.
Back at camp our closest neighbours was a busload of Newman college kids and a couple of kangaroos – Fab! We even considered a nighttime escapade, dressing up in balaclavas wielding sticks and axes to scare the kids. Maybe next time….
Before tea we thought it would be a good idea to try our luck at fishing off the rocks down at the beach. I got my first lesson into watching the swell and waves, and basically making sure I didn’t get washed away. Didn’t quite manage the concept of not turning your back to the waves though every time I had to fix my line… The only thing we caught though was an old snapped line, with sinkers and soft bait still in tact – score!
We also decided that the next fishing attempt with either need to involve a) long clothing or b) bucket loads of rid and I shall tell you why… When the sun is just on its way down there is not a fly or a mozzie in sight, but this is just to put you in a false sense of security. As soon as that sun goes down – BAM – they dive bomb you in the thousands!! At one stage I was jiggling my shoulders and tapping my feet so much to try and get them off I almost dropped my rod. I had to make a dive for the Rid, which seemed to get them away for a while… A look to my left gave me a great image of Simon dancing up and down, arms waving frantically, squealing for the bugs to get off! Simon, who is against using any form of skin insect repellent, gave me a questionable look as to why I wasn’t doing the same mozzie dance?? Rid was the answer. There was no way Rid could not be the answer, and even as we were trying to get it on him as fast as we could, one slap contained at least 3 bugs in one! Fishing was over – we literally ran up the dune path to the safety of the car.
Back at camp we were yet to pay the $14 dollars for the nights so we had to scrounge around for some change. We thought we would be super clever and take all our silver change up to the reception area to put into the envelope.. however joke was on us because once all the change was in the envelope it was about 5cms in width and would not fit in the 1cm wide slot. We were also minus a pen to put our details on. I’m sure the Ranger would have really appreciated the five unnamed envelopes full of small amounts of silver change at the bottom of the box…

Friday 26.02.2011 and Saturday 27.02.11

Conto’s to Augusta – 44kms
Camped at Flinders bay Caravan Park, lot 99

We had a later start this morning all because of a Mr James Patterson and Mr Steven King, we couldn’t put our books down. We didn’t have to go very far though so we didn’t rush, and you wouldn’t want to rush driving down to Augusta. I’ve said it once and I will say it a thousand more times – Caves Road is one of the most beautiful roads to drive down. Its not like I haven’t driven down it before but it always takes my breath away. It all comes down to the skinny eucalyptus trees growing by the hundreds on both sides of the road and then surrounded by all sorts of ferns and shrub. If you turn the radio down, and put the window down all you can hear is crickets and birds and its just lovely J. The only thing that could smack me out of my trance was the dirty rubbish bag coming loose at the front and smacking into the windscreen – scaring the shit outta me!
As soon as we got to Augusta we had three caravan parks to choose from but S had already researched ahead of time so we had decided to stay at the Flinders Bay one. First we had a drive up to the lighthouse though – where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. It was pretty cool to look at but we didn’t get too close and only took photos from behind the fence coz it was going to cost us $30 bucks just to get close to it – which we thought was a bit of a shame really as its part of the heritage listing. Around the corner though we went and looked at the old water wheel (free). It was put there back in the olden days as a way of getting water to the workers of the lighthouse. It used to be wooden but now is made of rock, which was pretty cool. The water came all the way down from the stream and then pushed the wheel that acted as a pump to bring the water to the men – no electricity! We also saw some weirdos swimming naked off the rock so we averted our eyes and went to set up camp.
Camping in Augusta is not cheap, I shall tell you that much! For two nights, for a powered site it set us back $64 bucks! But the lady at the front desk was nice so that made us feel a little better – “Braithwaite… as in Darryl?”
As we were driving in to the park all around us was old people! And man oh man were they kitted out for some serious caravanning! There were satellite dishes, microwaves, poodles and shitzu’s running around! As soon as we started pulling long boards out of the van a lady across the road was loudly questioning her husband “look, look, look! What are those things they are pulling out now!?” – definitely the highlight of her day.
We had a bit of a lazy afternoon, going up to the supermarket to get some groceries and some meat (kangaroo salami – delish!), setting up the awning and going for a little beach stroll, where I almost stood on a little stingray! We also treated our selves to a couple of ciders and a glass of wine with tea.
I found the showers in the bathroom funny but pretty good for a caravan park. I was expecting lines for the showers but it seems elderly like to wash early! They were super clean and the water was hot, you just had to stand under the water for a while to ring coz the showerhead was a little uneven hahaha!
The following day was a lazy one too.. We made tasty omelettes for breaky and I started some scrap booking and a sneaky little sodoku. Simon had to fix the water tank, as we still weren’t getting water that didn’t have some sort of live organism in it. Then it basically involved more reading and munching on copious amounts of nectarine and orange! Off to Albany tomorrow!!

Sunday 27.02.11

Augusta to Albany via Pemberton – 370kms
Camped at Cosy Corner West, 31kms West of Albany

We had to get up early this morning, which was a struggle for me – not a morning person! But we weren’t trying to pack up in blistering heat this time so we were outta there pretty quickly, Florence & the Machine on the speakers. A couple of the more aged residents noticed that we weren’t staying for too long, one even coming over and telling me about his life, which was great if you had twenty minutes of your time to spare to a complete stranger. One thing I found interesting though is that most the oldies round this part stay for usually 5 to 8 weeks! What the hell do they do?!
It was a six and a half hour drive in total so we wanted to split it up by looking in at Pemberton. We saw in our camps 5 book that the Gloucester tree was a bit of a local attraction so we thought we would have to check it out.. The town is pretty small but they still have their token metros walking around with small shorts and no shirts on hahaha!
The tree is in the middle of a natural park so you have to pay 11 bucks to get in but when you get in you can climb the tree for FREE! The walk down reminded me of the good old times I spent at outdoor Ed camp in year ten walking under huge karri trees, minus the 20kg backpack. I told myself, and Simon, that I was definitely going to climb the tree – in my thongs and dress that I ‘conveniently’ wore. And thank god! The tree was bloody HUGE! They used them in the olden days to look for bush fires before they hit the town. To get to the top you have to climb up these spokes that are coming out of it in a spiral and the only safety precautions was a little netting around the spokes – that was it! I mean there was a tiny little danger sign at the base of the tree but this beast reached 200 feet! WITH ONLY NETTING! No effing way was I climbing up – even the thought of it made my palms all clammy and sweaty and my legs feel weak. The spaces between the rungs were not even a comfortable length apart… anyway I took my prime seat down the bottom of the tree and waited for Simon to say his farewells, after he thoughtfully changed his thongs for sneakers… didn’t take him that long but even his fit little legs were starting to ache by the end of it. As he was doing it these little kids of about nine or ten started climbing up and I was torn whether to a) be responsible and tell them maybe not a good idea, or b) whether to watch and see if yes, you are correct Ashleigh, people can fall between the spaces and smack their chins… but luckily their mums pulled them off. After the tree climbing extravaganza was completed we went into town for a roll and bought some local produce from the information centre… fucking hippies…
On the way out of Pemberton it was really cool to see the Bibulman tracks crossings – cool in the sense that it’s a world famous track in Australia… not cool enough for me to actually walk it hahaha come on, its walking. On the way out too we also payed a lovely $1.54 for fuel. Eye twitchingly lovely…
By the time we reached our campsite we were both really hot and sweaty and just wanting to get out and stretch out legs. The campsite we got is free to stay at and is under heaps of trees in a sort of car park looking place where you just pull in at the side wherever you want. Then there were little tracks that led you to the beach – but boooyyyyyy was it windy! We even had to put warm weather gear on! But by this stage didn’t even care so went in for a swim anyways. We even treated ourselves to a glass of wine at dinner. We cracked open our Asian made 5 in one “Home you go!” game set too – “ the children will celebrate in earnest when they are playing, with the educational meaning”. It was chess and checkers. Yep.

Monday 28.02.11

Albany
Camped at Cosy Corner West

We had a bit of a shock to the systems this morning – it had actually rained overnight and was now overcast and cold. Humph! We checked out the weather report and it didn’t give us very good news for the rest of the week… I pretty much lived in my trackies and ugg boots all day, which was a bit of a change to the 36-degree bather weather back home. We had to go into town to suss out some Internet, and on the way we had a look at Shelley’s beach, which is a prime hang gliding spot in WA. Too windy and was staying that way. Double humph! Needless to say we were both in broken spirits by the time we reached the town.
We were in search of some Internet café or backpackers to feed our Internet aka facebook withdrawals. We ambled into 1849 backpackers asking if we could please pay the six bucks to use the Internet and this guy came out of a serious phone conversation and exploded into our faces! He was the most overexcited A.D.D kid I have ever met! He literally had a grin from ear to ear and was so dam giddy that we had entered his little world we named him Juiced up Justin. This fine fellow owned the joint. He was a fake American “first day of preschool” mother trapped in a middle aged Aussie bloke body. He had to be on speed or crack or SOMETHING! By the time we both went onto the computer room we were mildly amused…and it was the same story when I asked to use the bathroom fifteen minutes later. IN-tense.
After some grocery shopping and fushunchups we had a look at the other local attractions that were free in town. On of these was dog rock which is simply just a piece of granite that had come tumbling down a hundred years ago and looks like a blood hound sniffing the air. There is even a motel and restaurant named after it… According to a 2 metre wide painting in the IGA this rock was full of glory and was in a nice pristine location with children skipping around it, under rainbows and singing birds. When we found it we drove right past without even realising! Its now just in the middle of overgrown grass with a fake collar painted around it.. I wouldn’t even recommend the goggle search to anyone.
The Amity boat near the residency museum was cooler and even had a little history around it. But it was raining and all we wanted to head back to camp...
Back at cosy but wet corner we had two new neighbours. Now I must add that since the Juiced up Justin incident we though that it would now be appropriate to name any remotely interesting people we came across.. So now we had the Lady of Leisure to the right and The Gays to the left. We found it highly probable that the LL, who was driving a blue Hilux Ute with a canopy, had just murdered or divorced an ex husband and was now ‘sticking it to him’, as the saying goes, by trashing his car around Australia. We also concluded that the two guys that were camping in a station wagon together, with their dark sunnies and tight shorts, must be local Perth footy players who discovered their undying love for each other in the locker room showers, told their parents that they were going on solo camping missions to find oneself, and wound up in the same car, shirtless, playing footsies.
This was the discussion over chess anyway.

Tuesday 29.01.11

Not so Cosy Corner to East Bay Road – 90ks
Camped at East Bay, East part of the Bay of Plenty, off Betty’s Beach Road

Woke up again this morning to another overcast and rainy day – tensions were starting to show a little bit. But you gotta love laksa for breakfast in the morning! We had to move spots so that the solar panel could get some lovin' but it really wasn’t coping in the overcast weather. I wasn’t either – I had my grumpy pants on big time. We had heard that around the corner at Mutton Bird Island there was a nice secluded spot that we could set up camp, but when we got there it was just a car park with a big no camping sign on it. The beach and island were breathtaking though, the whitest sand ever and these huge piles of granite everywhere.
It was time to move on…
It’s funny how when you’re on different roads and for a long amount of time you learn all these new signs and courtesies. Like for example when your driving down south and you have the high beam going, you find your priority is suddenly trying to peer over the next hill to see if you need to switch, fingers hovering over the button… well down in Albany its all about the roadwork’s signals. And I'm not talking about the signs they put up or anything like that, I’m talking about the nods up, nods down, finger flicking, thumbs up signals. As there is quite a few roadworks’ happening in and out of Albany right now. I found it very amusing to do all sorts of different signals and see what the workers would do. It started off as a two thumbs up with a massive grin that got me a couple of weird looks then it progressed to a germ like face where you make the bottom half of your face smile and the top half of your face cross… hahaha anywaysssss the drives were long and I found it funny.
One of the attraction sites I would recommend a look at it the natural bridge and the gap. They’re about a fifteen minute drive outta the city centre and they are a great way to see the force of the southern ocean in action. The gap is basically just that, a gap, in the rocks that the swell has smashed against and worn away. You stand on a platform and the wind is soooo strong that I found myself holding onto the edge. The swell then smacks into the gap with a massive thud and makes quite an impressive spray – I certainly wouldn’t wanna be stuck down there. The natural bridge is about twenty minutes to the left and is just a young form of the gap – granite rock that has eroded away forming a massive bridge (funny that!) you can walk across it if you want (ignoring the massive danger signs) but if the wind happened to catch you off guard you would be doomed! As we were there a golden oldie asked if we had also seen the blow holes that were about ten minutes drive east of where we were. We said we hadn’t which was lucky, as they weren’t blowing up that day and it was an 800 metre descent to get down to them – hahaha. No way. Sorry blowholes.
We looked in our camps 5 book and saw that there was two campsites about 40 minute drive east out of Albany but when you look in the Albany local map another little campsite pops up just around the bay off east bay road. It looked out of the wind and was our best option at this stage. Leaving we were met with a “thanks for coming, Albany” sign, right next to an old tanker in someone’s yard that read “ABORTION IS MURDER!”.. ooookkkkaaaayyyyy then.
And then we were at East Bay. This place has got to be one of the nicest campsites I have ever stayed at. When we arrived there was only three other camps set up and the place is only about 150mtres long. Its tucked in behind a corner of rocks and hidden behind a hill so the wind doesn’t hit at with quite as much force. One of the first things we noticed too was there was some quite decent little waves coming through onto the beach also. The sand is bleached white and kinda hurts your eyes when you look at it with the full blown sun and when you stand on it, it is so fine that it makes a squeaking noise when you walk across it. When you pick it up it feels like burnt ash and just crumbles away – DE-VINE! We set up the van with the door facing away from the beach to stay out of the wind but still, if you came out of the door you only had to walk two or three steps and you were right on the beach.
Happy faces when we went to bed that night!

Wednesday 02.03.11

Camped at East bay

We went for a really long walk on the beach this morning, the first ones to put some footprints in the sand. You have to watch your feet though as the wind as created a blue bottle jellyfish mine field. The look of all the blue spots across the white sand is incredible. Most have them have just been blown in but you walk up to the tide line and there are thousands of the buggers! The ones newly washed up are still an electric blue and some of their tentacles reach over a metre long down the beach. One of the guys staying at the campsite, Matt, said that its okay to touch or hold the top bubble head but they’ll give you a nasty burn like sting if you touch anything else. I’ll just not touch anything thanks! As we were walking, Matt passed us on his bike – yep the sand is so hard you can ride your bike along the beach. So sick.
After breaky we went and had a drive over the hill to check out Norman’s beach and had a little explore over there. Simon was on the hunt for ambergris, which is also known as the floating gold. I didn’t have any idea what the stuff was… its sperm whale vomit and apparently it is worth a fuck load! It is literally like finding nuggets of gold on the beach, and cosmetic companies pay thousands for it to put into perfumes. We googled it on the net to have a look on what the stuff looks like and we even thought we find some. It had a distinctive smell and this little ball we found was black and soft and definitely had a distinctive smell. I thought it was cow shit or something but it had a weird diesel smell to it. I was pissing myself laughing at the thought that it probably was just washed up poo and we were going to look like idiots smelling it over and over thinking it was going to make us money hahaha. Back at camp we even got matt scanning the beach looking for the stuff – he came back with a bucket full!
We later took it into the museum in town and it was just tar residue from the ships they scuttle in the bays for divers – but the professey lady said that it was pretty close to the shape and look of it. She even brought out her own personal lump which was delicately wrapped in cotton and told Simon that it was worth about $10,000!! Definitely keeping our eyes out for it, and a good little educational lesson too!
We mainly did heaps of reading today, there weren’t much fish around off the rocks but you could go snorkelling around the corner if you were keen on cooking up some abalone.
One of the highlights of my day too was… washing my hair!! Woohoo!! It was so dam greasy from two days of weathering that I seriously thought I would lift up my pillow in the morning and be able to see through it. Filthy, filthy woman hahaha!
We decided that this spot was a good spot to camp down for a couple of days, so we would stay over the long weekend and make a move on Tuesday. The only minus of the campsite was the drop toilet that was there.. it was definitely a must to wear shoes and do the old squat and hover setup. There was a magic tree in there though to mask the smell, New Car Scent. Classic.

Thursday 03.03.11

Camped at East bay

Another early start this morning – we’ve learnt the trick of leaving the curtains open above our heads so the early morning light wakes us up. Simon went for a bike ride along the beach, and I stayed cosied up in bed reading a good part in my book.
We ran out of water (naughty) so we had to have a mission into town to get some of that and some more supplies. We also saw on our way through that you could get a HOT shower for $4 at the info centre so though that was a must. The Laundromat down the road was also useful.
The sun finally showed up – 26 degrees andddd instead of soaking it up at the beach we were running around in town for most of the day – dammit! We wanted to have a nice breaky in town though, and went into a little café to get some bacon and eggs, but ended up going to maccas and paying 15 bucks instead of the 38 they were asking for!
We found this insane little second hand shop in town. It literally had everything you could have ever thought of! There was an isle that had little trays with things like ‘dessert spoons’, ‘fish knives’, ‘serving forks’ and they were all full to the brim! Massive case of hoarding this guy had! But we managed to get some cheap little books to add to the collection and the guy trapped Simon into talking about fishing for about twenty minutes so we even walked out with some free hooks and sinkers.
One thing we didn’t find though was a cheap bike for me – mine been thrown onto the bulk rubbish pile by some stink ex housemates.
Our new friend Matt came over for a drink and a yarn while Simon was trying to catch a few waves. I had to survive through a can of VB as I just can’t say no if someone offers me a drink. This guy was 34 and was travelling around in the back of a 4WD. He worked in conservation – (most people you meet camping do) – and was actually a pretty cool guy to chat to. Simon and I were just happy to talk to someone other than each other hahaha and he also brought bbq shapes with him.
We had some new neighbours by this stage, a hippy family right next to us with three young kids running around with barely nothing on in the cold wind. There was also a big family at the other end near Matt’s truck who were expecting some more the following day. A bunch of kiwi guys also appeared outta nowhere with a couple of utes and tents. The place was getting a little busy – I wasn’t sure how the one drop toilet was going to handle it. We had the best spot though, making sure we spread out camp a bit so no one could camp too close hahaha, a little selfish but there really wasn’t room for another bug tent or caravan without pretty much walking over peoples campsites. And there was only more people to come with the long weekend coming…

Friday 04.03.11

Camped at East bay

Early morning surf before breakfast, Simon with his long board and me on the body board… nice clean little waves.
There were more people by this stage and the most horrible thing ever… kids! There were about six of them in the far corner with their bikes and two dogs. Thank god we were on the opposite side haha. We had three girls next door but they were pretty well behaved little hippy kids who mostly just ran around on the beach and in the waves. The massacre of blue bottles also seemed to decrease so you didn’t have to watch where you stepped on the beach anymore.
We both got a little burnt reading our books in the sun – the aloe vera made its way from the first aid box in the car to the shelf in the kitchen. And there it shall stay. I was hoping to get a tan out of it though – operation bronze goddess had been put on hold while the overcast weather was hanging around.
My Vetwest brain was kicked in when the lady with a 12 week old puppy said hi – “ahhhh twelve weeks, has it had both its vaccinations? Should it be running around with an older dog? Not supposed to be out until 14 weeks? Have you thought about if it eats a blue bottle? It shouldn’t really be jumping up on the kids like that? – shush shush SHUSH!” – It was like lapsing into a coma hahaha, but I just said hi and what a cute staffy puppy she had. Phew!
After tea – salmon stir fried rice – we even had a little vodka taste testing session thanks to a birthday present from a mel.b. Cheers!

Saturday 05.03.11 to Monday 07.03.11

Camped at East bay

We finally had some success with the fishing on Saturday!! We thought it might be a good idea to head along a bush track heading towards normal beach and then it was ten minute walk out onto an island with massive granite ledges. We went on the west side away from the wind and then chose a part of the rock where the waves came in to a little bay like area. I was in charge of catching the little fish that could be used to catch the big fish… and I caught 8 of them! We think that they were little herring and something else. We had no burley so we used tin salmon as burley and it worked a treat! At one stage I caught two at the same time on my little live bait jig – yea hell talking fishing lingo. Simon went round the rock with baited up to try and catch some salmon but didn’t have any luck. We had four decent size trevally to eat for tea – caught by ME! Woohoo!! We were a little naughty and cooked them on our coal barby too – what fire prohibited sign??
We got some more surfing done too but the currents had brought in some weed and some bigger swell and I was shit scared of sharks, even though we were in chest high water. But me floppin’ about on a body board, dressed in a wetty would be delicious for a great white.
In the Albany map it says that there are markets on Sunday at the boat shed with local produce, however I didn’t see in small writing underneath that they started at six so I made us get up early so we could get all the good stuff hahaha three hours early. We had a shneaky mcmuffin instead. We snagged two Sunday papers in there as well and then when we left I saw two guys eyeing them off… I held on to mine till the laaaaast second and then SMACKED it down on the table and watched them run for it hahaha! The Sunday markets ended up being average – there were only two fish places, a fruit and veg and dairy. Disappointed!
The previous night we came face to face with terror…. No more alcohol. And it was Sunday the next day. We went around town frantically trying to find one that was open, clammy hands and cold sweats included. THANK GOD we finally found one. I hugged my box of goon all the way home.
One thing that we have been doing that most people are really surprised at is eating really good food! Who says you have to have bbq every night when you’re camping!? Steaks are expensive people! But I managed to snag a curry book from mother dearest house and we have dined with the likes of Sri Lankan pepper beef, and lamb and spinach not to mention the chicken laksa and chicken Thai green!! Falafel, gourmet omelettes, lamb koftas and veg stir-fry with soy sauce have also been on the menu!! Don’t act like your not impressed….
Sunday night had the first bout of homesickness talking to the family and the girls at future =’(
But then I woke up to beach and birds and sunshine so it was short-lived hahahaha!
Simon FINALLY got some hang gliding done on Monday… much to both his AND my delight. The wind had to be put to some use somewhere! So it was a mission back up to Shelley’s beach to jump off some cliffs that are higher than observation city in scarbs, aka ridiculously high.
I played the wonderful girlfriend that I am – blush – annnnnnd read my magazine and ate chocolate ha! Nooooo (just for a lil bittttt), I had the camera out taking like five hundred photos and heaps of video while Simon acrobat-ted (a word?) around the sky. There were Para gliders looking on enviously – floating around like fools and the small crowd that gathered turned their tripods and lenses to the Simone! Once he landed down at the beach I had to drive down and get him… a kiwi paraglider even came up to ask all about it – my cue; back to the magazine!

Tuesday 08.03.11

East bay road to Munglinup – 375kms
Camped at Munglinup rest area, opposite the roadhouse, 80kms east of Ravensthorpe

It was sad to be leaving such a nice campsite but we had a time limit so we needed to be on the move. As always it was super hot when we had to pack up camp and it’s amazing how much shit you throw around when you’re settled for a week. It looked like a Gosnells backyard behind our caravan haha! But man oh man I was not a happy camper this morning. Number one – I had forgotten the boot didn’t go all the way up because of the hang glider skank on the roof so I Smacked. My. Face.. on the boot!!! So much swearing at HG.
AND THEN… to make matters worse I stepped on a bull ant in bare feet and instead of it being smooshed under my leather like soles it got me right on my innocently supple middle part. And then it just waltzed on going about its business…
And then it was like all the animals just went wild with spiders diving out of bags, massive metre long goannas singing these boots were made for walking along the beach and beetles and silverfish coming out of every crevice.
It was a five hour drive till we stopped at a secluded spot just off the side of the road, which sounded like we were staying at an airport with the big trucks going past. I made Simon bring the bashing stick inside and sleep closest to the locked door coz I had flashes of wolf creek coming to mind and there sounded like there were wild dogs and dingoes outside!! There was ZERO outside toilet breaks that night.

Wednesday 09.03.11 and Thursday 10.03.11

Munglinup to Esperance – 106kms
Camped at Bathers paradise Caravan Park

HOLY SHIT are bull ant bites itchy!!! Like seriously, it is worse than a 10 bee stings. I got so frustrated I even woke up Simon because I though it would make me feel better if he couldn’t sleep either. It got to the stage where I was using close objects to itch it…
Alas, there was light at the end of the tunnel…as soon as we started seeing coastline and scenery coming into espy I knew we were going to like it. Also swervin’ merv’n had highly recommended the place. And what he says, goes. Am I right folks?!
The only frustrating part of Esperance is that everywhere to stay is really expensive! We rang every single campground and the cheapest one was bathers paradise for 27 bucks! All the others were 35ish… like, gimme a break, we are a young couple – *bless J - that just need a patch o grass to put our camper on and its going to cost you half a tank of fuel. Travelling around Aus is primarily aimed at the rich older people and it’s hard to try and find cheap places to stay for people like us! Whinge!
But we stayed there anyways and got a hot shower and laundry out of it so that’s okay. One big highlight was that when we went to get groceries we saw a sign in the noticeboard for two women’s bikes for 40 bucks! Yay! Pink with gears and a little cushiony seat! So we snapped them up and they were actually really good bikes! We thought that they were possibly stolen and then sold off by travellers but hey! Mine now!
We had a little touristy time and went for a little sneak peek at the rotary lookout. They say that the beaches in Esperance are some of the best coastline in the world – said so in the tourist centre – and man oh man they were right. I have seen some kick ass beaches in my time but these were Unbelievable. On the Thursday we did the great ocean drive which is about 20 ks along the coast and its one of the best things I have done in my life. Twilight beach – which I shall put photos of – was 2006 best beach in Australia. We were only going to go and take a couple of scenic photos of it but we felt obliged to actually put our feet in the water, even though we didn’t go for a swim. There are several small islands that you can see from the coast also that all bunch together and in the afternoon sun it was all misty…
Earlier on Thursday we felt the need to actually do some sort of physical activity, and went for a 9km bike ride along the coast. Not far but you gotta start somewhere! We rode down Tanker Jetty and said ‘hi’ to Sammy the Sea Lion – who is actually real and not just a statue that people pose on! He was floating around the shallows being all lazy and obese and just snorting water at us… cute. After that we wanted to get over to West Beach for a swim.
If I had known that I was going to have to ride up the steepest hill in Australia then I think I would have flagged the bikes altogether. It was honestly like a vertical hill. My enthusiasm for cycling pretty much left as quickly as it had come. Halfway up when I was starting to see stars and could feel by breakfast about to come to say hey, I was about to turn around….
But we got to the top after like 20 minutes and it was another 5 before both of us stood gasping for breath, not talking, trying to regain our dignity. West beach is a great surfing beach but if I had to recommend a beach to swim at I would probably say keep going around to Blue Haven and salmon coz the current was SO strong when you went into the water. There are two little reefs and then a break that heads out to the swell and man is there a rip and a half there! We were just getting over our jelly legs from climbing down the 127 steps to the beach, and then had to struggle with it. But all pain aside, it’s a beautiful beach and lovely for a swim.
Back at camp we decided to stay until Friday morning because it was just too nice to leave; boom! Another 27 bucks! But we plugged in pretty much everything we owned so we won in the end. Suckers.

Friday 11.03.11

Esperance to Moodini – 759kms
Camped at Moodini Bluff, 556kms East of Norseman

To dearest bull ant sting,
Please give me an effing break on the itching. It’s been three days. You are being unreasonable.
Love ajb xo

Its great how no matter where you are or how old or young you are, people love to give you their two cents worth of advice. At Bathers we camped next to a English/QLD couple who were heading west that gave us some really good, cheap sites as we went aswell as some must see attractions and ones to miss. We didn’t even get their names but we will be thanking them later on for sure. Then you get the funny ones like the guy who camped across from us who told us to cross our chains when we drive in NSW – not any other state – because “funny things happen in NSW y’know.” He also kept touching Simon’s lower back as he was putting the sway bars up. Gotta love em.
We filled our fuel and water tanks had our last showers and we were off! Simon gave himself a dirty little moustache for the occasion.
TIME TO START THE NULLABOR!
We totalled ten solid hours of driving on the first stretch. And when I say we, I mean Simon driving and me in control of the ipod. I burn too much petrol when I drive J - gotta go fast!! On the first day across the Nullarbor we spent $220 in fuel. Along the way we stopped twice for little breaks and a stretch of the legs and fed some tame magpies some bread beside the road. Pulling faces at caravans went to an all new level – there was synchronised thumbs up and waving going on, superman poses, gun shooting and scream faces. We didn’t end up winning from the expensive caravan site – the water we got tasted like a local swimming pool or the stuff you gotta drink before a colonoscopy – aka HELLO CHLORINE!
Along the way we played face pulling competitions, pegs on body parts to see who can stand it, guessing unknown songs on shuffle, throwing cheetos into each others mouth, hangman and twenty questions!
Simon: “Does it walk on four legs?”
Ash: “yes”
Simon: “Is it amphibious?”
Ash: “yep”
Simon: “Is it…. a crocodile?”
We also drove down the ‘Longest straight stretch in Australia’ reaching 146kms. We also saw ZERO camels, wombats, emus, kangaroos or aboriginal children of any sort on the side of the road – you liars. You know who you are. We still had ages to go but by 7pm that night we were both buggered so pulled into a nice campground away from the road, didn’t even pop the caravan roof and went to bed.

Saturday 12.03.11

Moodini Bluff to Penong – 612kms
Camped at Penong Caravan Park, 76kms West of Ceduna, SA

Ahhhhhh stretch… early start… places to be, people to see… oh no, wait scratch that I’ll just be in the car for the next 11 hours. Talking to Simon. Only Simon. Greatttttt
Overall I must say that it’s good to cross the Nullarbor once in your lifetime. Coz you know, it’s in your home country and part of becoming a man… but other than the one time, why not catch a plane? It would be much quicker, the food is good and you sometimes get a little TV? But hey, like everything else in this world you gotta try everything once right??
In short the Nullarbor is just a never ending road, either side of it a plain red to orange dirt with the occasional tree and wedge tailed eagle.
Simon and I, the known geniuses that we are, decided to get up super early to start our trek eastward bound. Major problem = the sun rises from the east. It is actually quite difficult to drive directly into the sun.. even putting on sunnies and semi permeable hoods still had the eyes burning. But we copped it and kept going at 5.30am start. Yes people, the middle of the night.
After a couple of hours driving we reached the last town you reach before heading over the border into Ess Ayy, Eucla. We were being good Australian citizens and chucking out all of our fruit and veg, even the $2.39 avocado, to stop the dreaded fruit fly. We ate most of the fresh fruit that we wouldn’t bear to part with – even though a stomachache was inevitable. Then we found out, once all our local produce was at the bottom of the bin that the border check wasn’t until Ceduna, which is well across the border. DAMMMIIITTT!
Once we did cross over the border though I was very excited.. butterflies in stomach, mild sickness or maybe too much fruit – either way I was crossing the border into South Australia where I hadn’t been before! AND I was standing in two places at once! And even at one stage, me in one state and Simon in the other – who can say long distance relationship??? (Yes I thought that sounded funnier when I said it, not so much when writing it down.)
The greatest thing about crossing the Nullarbor was Bunda Cliffs, in SA. And if I were to cross the Nullarbor hundreds of times I would not pass up this site for anything! It’s a rest area about 75kms east of the borderline, and you park your car and walk towards the ocean, transfixed to the edge – ignoring the tiny little danger cliff signs and then you come… to the edge of the world! It’s the Australian bite, and is a unbelievable drop of cliffs into the southern ocean. The next thing after those cliffs is Antarctica. If you were wondering around in the dark, busting for a pee in pitch darkness you would not want to be camping near here. Sheer drop to death. BUT saying that, its one of the most powerful places I have ever seen. Mixed it with a little wind and hanging your feet off the side of Australia, and its pretty dam special. The photos are only half of it!
Anyways, new subject…
Once into SA we had to change our time to two and a half hours ahead. And also deal with daylight savings. Needless to say we didn’t sleep very well that night and then woke up in the middle of the next day.
However we stayed at a little caravan park in Penong, which is about 420kms west of the border, and it only cost us 20 bucks for the night for an unpowered site. And we stole power from a nearby outlet anyways so SCORE! And they had really nice clean bathrooms, which if you didn’t want to, you could go without thongs. This time only…

Sunday 13.03.11

Penong to Cactus Beach, Point Sinclair – 21kms
Camped at Cactus Beach campground, Owner: Ron – conservationist/hippie

As I said the daylight savings kind of screwed us around a little so by the time we woke up to the sun thinking it was 8am it was 10.30 and we should have left half an hour ago… shit.
Once packed up we were headed to Cactus beach, Point Sinclair that is a private campground with an Australian renowned surf spot. The down side was that we had no food and that it was down 21kms of dirt track aka bra on. The food situation could be fixed by stopping by the Penong general store. With their prices be prepared to bring your first-born child and a pocket full of gemstones. Geez! The manager also cut ten years of my lifespan off by giving me a semi heart attack when he bellowed out for his assistant Henry. South Australians must not know the meaning of inside voices… cough Nicole cough cough!
On the way down to cactus you pass some really scenic lakes and sand dunes and even a pink late which I shall tell you about tomorrow J The campsite is through a rusty gate along the beach, and it was packed full of grommets and surfboards. There would have been at least 13 cars just in our little section, all packed to the brim. The site is really well kept, with a little A frame in the centre for washing and these awesome little toilets that are out in the open with handmade walls made out of shells and limestone. When I stood up you could see over the top of them. It was also my first experience with lime powder toilets – don’t breathe that shit in!
The guy that owns the place, Ron, is an older ex hippie surfer with long white hair and a pair of worn out blue overalls. He’s chilled back, lets you pick out where ever you want and doesn’t give you a check out time. He also has this hideous little dog, (I’m not even sure what breed; Maltese cross X hyena X grim reaper), that would appear out of nowhere, dragging its hind legs chewing a bone, struggling to breathe.
Cactus beach itself is actually pretty awesome too. It was fairly pumping too, with a couple of 5 foot sets and a nice left wave. Some amateurs panicked and went left only to be dumped onto the shallow shelf. Walking/paddling out to the break the water was only knee deep and then dropped off into great white country. Simon and I were both happy sitting on the sand with our bevvies, watching the sunset.

Monday 14.03.11

Cactus Beach to Streaky Bay – 217ksm
Camped at Eyre Waterhole

We woke up late again this morning… stupid daylight savings, so our plan to get up early and watch the surfers kind of failed. But we cruised down there anyway and had a look. The swell wasn’t as big as it was yesterday but there was still 8 or 9 guys competing for waves.. No place for girl beginners on long boards – what a shame =p
But when we were down there this random border collie came up to me from a group of guys and would NOT leave me alone. First it just sat and stared then, it started barking and jumping up and doing circles around me! What the hell! For shneaky enjoyment we also eavesdropped on one of the locals conversations, who was built like a tank by the way – “Bro, there is just too many drugs around these days bro, these younger kids just don’t know how to relax man!” hahaha - cute. It’s not to relax, Arnie.
Since we were super low on food I made my famous tiger toast, which was more tiger bread in the end – bread drowned in promite with stripes of cheese and then grilled aka greasy deliciousness. I also got a little show for breakfast with Simon attempting to show off his muscles but then accidentally smacking himself in the mouth with his teacup hahaha!
On the way out from cactus we went back past the Pink Lake I talked about earlier. It was bright baby pink, when you looked through your sunnies, which I think is because of some algae that grow in it. When we stopped and got out of the caravan, the sides of the lake are all crystallised and rock hard when you walk on them. It was quite amazing when the sun hit it and it looked like someone had thrown glitter around! Naturally I had to stick my feet in the water to get the full experience and it made them glittery too! Then just really itchy…
Once we were packed up we were headed to Ceduna – which we had been advised to wind the windows up, lock the doors and keep on driving. But the lure of food was just too much so we had to stop at the local grocery shop, foodland with the logo – “Go the mighty south aussies!” with a hang glider underneath. REALLY!? Really…
We were quite confused though as to why all the shops were locked up and closed – maybe to keep the locals out? Turns out it was actually a public holiday. Well that’s what the cashier guy said, with his collared foodland shirt over board shorts. We had to talk a little slower but when we asked him where there would be a book exchange in town we got the reply – “Ummm… books?.. hmmm… nar I dunno, there is a library I think? That’s all I know about books…” hahaha why bother.
Once we got into streaky bay, which is a little more touristy with a nice shoreline and jetty, we headed straight for the pub. The excuse was that we were celebrating crossing the border. Or was is something else we were celebrating?? Either way beers were needed.
Now I don’t know whether you know what the local brew is in SA, but its coopers. And it is horrible haha. No, if you go for the pale ale it’s do-able and lets face it I drink cask wine so can’t complain. Our first lesson in the streaky bay pub went like this:
Simon: “oh hey, can I get a coopers pale ale for her and I’ll get… a pint of VB”
Pub lady: “Nar mate, don’t have VB on tap. You’re in south austraya”
Next lesson shortly after this one went like this, after a big cider came out for me and a little beer came out for Simon:
Ash: “why is your beer so small, the glass is smaller than mine?”
Simon to bar boy: “yea hey mate, is this a pint of coopers? Shouldn’t it be bigger?”
Bar boy: “That is a pint mate, or a schooner as we call it here” then did a little pity smile…
So by this stage we were a little embarrassed so quietly just dug into our drinks and seafood plate, thinking what other little tricks were around the corner!
Naturally the drinks went straight to our heads – which is what happens when you haven’t drunk real alcohol in a while. So we forgot to put petrol in the car and it was too late to turn around so we ended up just camping on the side of the road at Eyre waterhole. We walked into the caravan and checked out the battery which decided that is was going to go from 97% to 1% in the space of about 3 hours. Fab. Broken solar panel. Then it was pretty much downhill from there when some crazy locals parked up next to us and blared their music REALLY loud until about 11 at night. God I’m turning into an old fart…
BEDTIME!

Tuesday 15.03.11

Eyre Waterhole, via Coffin Bay to Port Lincoln – 411kms
Camped at Fisherman’s Point, Port Lincoln National Park

Don’t worry the caravan was fixed in the morning! What with all the shaking and rattling of the Nullarbor plains one of the solar panel wires came loose. Phew, lucky. I didn’t want to be stuck in rural south Australia forever J
We actually got up at a reasonable time this morning and were very keen to move from the side of the ride and head into coffin bay, but not before checking out the waterhole – a local attraction. It was down a little dirt path right near the car park, about 200metres and then is about a 1metre wide, 2 metre deep hole in the ground with the most confronting brown/solid water at the bottom. No amount of money would get me to put any part of my skin in contact with that water… TO COFFIN BAY WE GO!
Now the reason we wanted to go here was that a local SA-ee, Nicole Brook to be exact, told us that they have the best oysters in the world. Yes, in the world! I must say, that is a pretty big call to make, and there would have to be a lot supporting that rash remark – and if she was right perhaps I could stop making fun of her for being a local? We’ll see.
On the way there Simon and I thought it would be a highly appropriate time to see who could scream the highest in their highest pitch. Being a girl, I won of course. We had to slow down for a while though coz after Simon screamed; he got a bit dizzy and kept hitting the vibrating lines… We also cranked Sir Elton and spent some quality time doing our best impersonations. “Rocket mann….. ROCKETT MANNN!!!” Ohhhh fun times!

Who: S&A
Where: Coffin Bay Hotel
What: Testing the hypothesis that these oysters are the best in the world
Variables: ½ dozen Kilpatrick oysters and ½ dozen “Angels on Horseback” aka wrapped in bacon oysters
Note: All those people that are going to say ohh whinge that’s not even tasting oysters whinge whinge – Hello. Raw oysters are gross.
Verdict: The woman is correct! They are the tastiest ugliest things ever! It was sheer mouth orgasms. However you couldn’t really taste the oyster what with it wrapped in salty bacon or marinated in bbq sauce but hey, they were fucking good J Still making fun of Nicole though.

Once that little expedition was through we went into coffin bay national park to suss out a camp spot but they were really shit and muddy so we kept on driving to Port Lincoln national park. On the way out though I was sticking my feet in Simon’s face – “Ooooh look at my muddy feet, oooh yucky muddy feet” etc and I missed a mother emu and a baby emu run in front of our car!! Dag-nammit!
Getting to PL was another dirt track and the caravan was suffering; poor little coromal. The front was bouncing around while the axel wasn’t and the shelves were inching down ever so slightly. But after another boob bouncing track we got a sweet little spot right on a cliff edge overlooking the bay. We went and said hey to our neighbours who couldn’t understand what we were saying coz they were French and then tried a bit of fishing with no luck. Overnight we could hear animals moving around the campsite, and something had moved one of our bikes around and banged on metal too… hmmm spooky!

Wednesday 16.03.11 to Friday 18.03.11

Camped at Fisherman’s point in Port Lincoln National Park

This week we were a little stuck because we had spent quite a bit of moolah getting to where we were so by the middle of the week we had run down our kitty to a bare minimum. Port Lincoln was a sweet little spot to camp the only downfall was that is was still very windy and it wasn’t really the weather for sunbaking/swimming/snorkelling.
Over these few days though my ukulele skills were much improving which I’m sure you will all be proud of! I can do a consistent strum now that doesn’t speed up with excitement, and also change notes! I was trying so hard I even made my little nib fingers bleed! Woohoo!
I also learnt several things about emus being a) they are not very intelligent, b) they like to frolic around in the water in couples and c) I don’t think they are big enough to ride which is what I initially thought. But no no no, don’t get your hopes up! I didn’t try to ride an emu. These fun facts I learnt while we took a mission into town to find a shower. We were driving out of the park and there was a little emu strolling up the road minding its own business, so we thought instead of listening to the “do not disturb wildlife” signs that we would speed up and follow/chase/harass it. Horrible I know, but everyone does it! The simple thing didn’t even notice we were alongside it until I wound my window down and called at it then it kinda stared at me for a while before trotting off. It kept following the road instead of doing the logic things and jumping in the bush, and every ten seconds would slow down thinking it lost us, only to casually turn around, stare and panic before repeating the whole scene! So funny. On the way back from town we also watched up from our cliff edge two emus walking around and playing in the shallows of the bay, which was pretty awesome.
In town we finally found a book exchange. Now I don’t mean to be horrible or discriminatory in anyway. Okay? Good. However, as we walked in to the shop the lady says to us – “Oh god more customers, hope your not in a bloody wheelchair too coz I wouldn’t want two of them in here”. Um pardon? In my shocked state I looked across to see what the crazy woman was talking about and there is a poor lady sitting in the oldest, most rugged wheelchair ever, slippered feet, long gypsy hair and an eye patch on her right eye. I was shocked I couldn’t stop staring for like five seconds! Was not expecting that in the slightest…
We didn’t end up finding any public showers in town either so we bought a 20 litre solar shower. There wasn’t enough sun to heat it up though so I had to boil water and fill it, and then stand out in the freezing wind in a bikini trying to bathe my body under a few drops of luke warm dribble. Somehow I managed to use all the water though so Simon got stuck in his undies with no water mwaahahahaha! Cold shower in the wind.
On Thursday night we managed to find some firewood and made a little campfire on the beach. Once it burned down we turned serious bush and cooked some sausages over it – yum! And on our last day in PL we tried once again to go fishing – with some success!! I was baiting my little hooks with bread (couldn’t afford bait) and by some sort of miracle caught a little silver fish, which Simone used to catch a salmon! Finally!! Grilled fish for tea!

Saturday 19.03.11Port Lincoln to Port Germein – 476kms
Camped at Port Germain Gorge rest area

See the thing about bad weather when you live in a small caravan is you tend to share a small amount of space and oxygen with the one person, for long periods of time. This in turn may result in one person wanting to cause harm to the other person in a fit of frustration. And like any travelling couples, Simon and I are indeed prone to some petty niggling from time to time when we are bored and annoyed with the world. Lucky for us though we are not new to sharing a small space together but it’s amusing to look back and remember the small little things that will hit a nerve or break a fuse and explode. And I shall admit this one time only, that I didn’t just inherit my booty from the byfield side of the family, the short fuse came with also 
Such sparks include:
Please note italic words may be said with an aggressive and some what louder voice than normal.
- “What do you mean you only put one sugar in my coffee… I always have two sugars, why did you only put one in?!”
- “Simon, curry is not a breakfast food!”
- “If you fart in the caravan, that gives me permission to fart in the caravan, and you only have yourself to blame!”
- “No! I do not to ride my bike in the wind/rain”
- “Whaddayamean we have no more water!?”And so on and so forth…
I only wanted to clarify that point as the first question anyone seems to ask me when I call them is: “so are you and Simon killing each other yet?” The answer is no people. We are doing jusssssst fineeeee 
Needless to say by Saturday we were both ready for a change of scenery so we had to bite the bullet and get some more cash to continue on our south Australian adventure!
The south Aussie landscape is completely different from west Aussie. The main thing that I noticed was that its very flat, heaps of paddocks and fields with not much growing on them and then in the distance you can see big hills and mountains. It’s defiantly a lot of nothing with houses on big blocks of land and random beaten down cars in the middle of paddocks. We didn’t see many sheep or livestock though. We came to the conclusion that there just aren’t enough people for all the free space – give it ten years or so and there will be cranes everywhere.
We had run out of food again so we stopped in at Cowell, which is a little fishing town, to get a chicken and fish burger. Mine was fab and Simons was average. Mine was so good I struggled to share some with him even though I was exceptionally full. At the café though there was a near murder involving me and a bunch of 12-13 year old girls who were sitting next to us trying to impress some pubescent local boys. They were screaming and giggling and playfully slapping each other, comparing their size a cup boobs and giggling about dirty words. Every few seconds they would give a shriek and an “oh my effing gaaawwwddd”. I was subconsciously thinking how much pain I could cause them throwing a metal chair in their general direction. Luckily we scoffed our food and cola beverages and promptly left.
I pretty much spent the rest of reading the best book ever, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. That’s Markus with a k and not a c. If you haven’t read it you’re a silly fool and should stop what you’re doing immediately and go and buy it. No excuses.
We were looking for a different campsite to the one we ended up staying at, campground slash rodeo ground apparently, but it tunred out to be closed. Neow, stamp foot. So we kept going till we reached this little one about 1.5kms down the beaten track in supposedly a gorge – I saw no gorge. It was getting pretty dark though so we quickly set up camp and soon realised from the pains shooting up our legs that we had pretty much set up camp on the entire south Australian community of ants!! The speed at which they crawled over our feet, bodies and car was amazing! I was so impressed I wasn’t even that upset. But I had to hang washing out looking like a complete idiot jumping from one foot to the other yo try and confuse them.
After a wet and wild couple of days it was time for some alcohol and gossip girl – you gotta love G&T’s mixed in with Serena van der Woodsen.

Sunday 20.03.11
Port Germein to Greenock – 209kms
Camped at the Recreational Oval, Martin road

My day pretty much started with a bang this morning – I awoke to Simon rushing around outside trying to save our laundry from the rain. Then when he finally reappeared inside the caravan it seemed he had been in such rush he had forgotten one major thing… clothes. Can anyone say rain showers?? Me neither – I’ll pass on that one. As we were headed southeast our tummies were talking to each other and the hot chocolate and burger sign at a local general store was just too good to pass up. At this rate with all the burgers and alcohol, im going to have to book two seats for myself when flying home! What makes it even worse is that Simone seems to be getting thiner and thinner by the day – im sure it travels out of him through to me by osmosis, or that scientific rule about low pressure fat to high pressure fat.
We got into some serious wine country today. Like grapes as far as the eye can see and open cellars and free tastings popping up at every turn. YESSSS!!! Heaven! There were hills and paddocks that were every shade of green you could think of, with most of them having beautiful old cottages or rustic houses situated in between the vines. There was also the odd cattle and horses that were grazing.
We were headed to one of the most well known wine areas of Australia – the Barossa valley. It’s a complete valley that’s only 25kms long and supplies 21% of Australians wine. Lucky for Simon they are famous for their luscious reds.
As we were running a little late, we didn’t have time to have a family fun day in the Clare Valley wine region which is also renowned. Sorry Riesling trail! Maybe next time…
As we headed into one of the neighbouring towns of the Barossa we realised that it was getting a bit late for some committed wine tasting so we so we thought it be best to find a camp for the night. Coincidently we stopped right next to the old brewery so felt it was a sign that we needed to go in for a drink. Its run by Darryl and his wife Gaye, Their beers are brewed in accordance with the German purity law of 1516 which means they are all free of preservatives and additives – and they still taste good! Then we found out that Greenock is based around German style buildings too. I went for the safe wheat store ale whereas Simon tried the dark ale. We got talking to Darryl who’s got a pot belly, laugh lines and a big white beard and by the end of the conversation we had a free place to stay, two free beers and a couple of ciders chucked in – all in a days work! We were stoked coz the only places we could see in our camp 5 book were caravan parks that would charge you waaaaay too much! The place was just on the small town recreation oval and had toilets set up and everything. Nice.
We were full up from our beers so had an early night to prepare for our big wine trip the next day!

Monday 21.03.11Camped at Recreational Oval, Martin Road

Yay! Wine tour! Up there with me favourite two words that go together next to free and food. We had to cash up before going on this adventure, and the local supermarket was the place to do it. We played fantastic animal lovers and even saved a little frog that was hopping away from the telstra shop. Straight into a plastic cup he goes…

Barossa Valley Wine TOUR!! (self-guided)
1. Birthstones – May I first point out that Simon, the dearest young chap that he is, has really weird hobbies. Such evidence includes: hang-gliding, banjo playing, tomato growing and wedge tailed eagles. So it came with no surprise to me to hear that he also had an interest in fossicking gold and gemstones. Thus our first stop into this little shop in Angaston. In the brochure it had photos of people having a turn at fossicking and finding some cheap little gems. I did notice that they were all aimed at children – but we wanted in. Unfortunately when we arrived the manager wasn’t about and we got his assistant instead. Unfortunately he was half way through his lunch when we came in so by the time he got up to talk to us he had a massive piece of avocado on his lip and neither of us had the heart to tell him it was there. Simon thus fired off a round of gem related questions while all I could concentrate on was the jiggling greenery, and holding in an urge to burst out laughing. Poor sod.
2. Angas Park Fruit Factory – If you like dried fruit, this is your place to go. Personally it gives me an upset stomach but I just can’t resist free samples! Any fruit you could think of and this place has it. They even had dried bananas for god’s sake – yuck! The peaches however were absolutely delish to we went home with a bag of those. I say home but really they never made it back to the caravan…
3. The Barossa Valley Cheese Co – Now everyone knows that you cant’ have wine without cheese… Right? So it would be almost criminal if we didn’t go to the cheese factory. AND I heard that they were famous for their hard cheeses – which is my fave. Well all cheese is my fave but this was an incentive to go in. When you open the door the smell hits you smack in the face – kinda like the smell when babies spit up. Ewwwww. But we breathed through our mouth, had a few tastings of different brie’s, camembert and goats cheese and walked on right outta there with our “Princess Brie” sample. By this sage we were both planning a feast to ducked into the IGA next door and grabbed some fresh baguettes and hot salami… On the way outta Angaston we let our little froggie friend go. We found a lovely little stream, with fresh bubbling water and nice long grass on either side. A little tap tap and he was hopping out of his white cup – straight into the fast rapids and down the waterfally area that we failed to see. Hahahahaha!! Sorry!!
4. Jacob’s Creek Visitors Centre – This place was my favourite of the whole day. And not just because I love Jacobs creek white wine. As you drive in, you literally drive over the Jacob’s creek and then come up to this beautiful modern building surrounded by a vineyard and then this boardwalk through red gums. Laa Diii Daaa!! We wanted to do the learning tour where they take you through the processed of grape to wine but we had to settle for just looking at the displays which were pretty cool anyway. Did you know they pick the grapes at night to stop them fermenting? We then went up to the bar for some tastings and we got this lovel young indian guy that knew SO much about wine and talked us through about 9 different bottles. At one stage we looked across at the other people tasting and they only had one bottle in front of them compared to our three or four. Starting with whites – our favourite was the moscato and then progressing to reds. I’m not usually a fan but when Ishdesh asked if we wanted to try a $175 shiraz I had my glass at the ready. All of a sudden I was using words like ‘full bodied’ and ‘tenons’. After a good hour and a quarter we left there a little more tipsy than we anticipated with a bottle of white wine under my arm. We stopped on the side of the road for a salami and cheese baguette before continuing on – eating is not cheating!
5. Maggie Beer’s Food co - This famous self taight cook has a restaurant and pheasant farm just on the outskirts of the valley. We were there for one of her food classes which she does, but it ended up being one of her assistants who was running the class. The whole class was focused around the use of this magical ‘Verjuice’ that maggie had invented herself which ‘brings out the flavour of every food, can be used in vinigerettes or just about any meal that needs a bit of boost!’. I filled my little sample cup full of roasted garlic mushrooms, eggplant and butternut pumpkin but didn’t taste anything that magical. We also managed a few samples of chutney and pate.
6. Chateau Dorrien – This place was by far the most interesting. It drew our attention because it was famous for it’s mead, something I had never tried before. I also had fantasies of robin hood and his merry men as soon as we caught sight of the sign. The place is made out to look like a castle and you go through these great wooden doors to go into a dimly lit bar and gallery. The first thing we noticed when our eyes adjusted was this perculiar looking man sitting at the bar who eyeballed us as soon as we came in and then said with a very old fashioned English accent with lisp/drunkeness “Ahhh yessshhh, come in, come in fine people and what can we be of servish to you today” and then stood up and opened up his arms to us. After a quick ‘hi, just in for a look’ we shuffled past his moustached face and went through to look at the gallery and gems. He then followed us, sat down at a table facing us pottering around and then blantently stared at us as we walked around the room. I didn’t know whether to laugh or not haha but he was very weird! We had to break the awkwardness somehow so Simon mentioned that we were actually interested in trying some mead – “ahhhh yeashhhh, fine mead it ishhh, go forward to that nice man behind the bar and you shall be in good hands by friendshhhh”, and then he left! Ha! Whattt!?!?!
Anyways the nice man with the not so old fashioned English accent served us up his families specialties and we went home with some traditional mead which was sooo yummy heated up on the stove when we got home.
7. Whistler Wines – We stopped through on the way home to try some award winning reds and pat the kangaroos
8. Hentley Farm Wines – Our last stop of the day = and by this time we were very full and wanted to go home to a warm mead and warm bed but we had been told by an information centre that the building was very old and beautiful so we popped in. The lady serving us gave us a funny look when we told her we were there to look at the building but she warmed up after we sat on the bar stools and asked for our final tastings. This lady was passionate about her wines and her farm and simon and I struggled to understand what she was saying at times about the processes of it but just politely nodded when she paused. Unfortunately, they were all out of whites – which was a bummer as they have a world class Riesling. We tasted some amazing (and expensive) reds though, that aren’t sold in any bottle shops around the country. And the house ended up living up to our expectations too.
9. Home time – 7 solid hours of touring and we were ready for bed, accompanied by a massive stomachache for me! Good day though!

Tuesday 22.03.11 and Wednesday 23.03.11
Greenock to Adelaide – 73kms
Camped at Highway 1 Caravan and Tourist Park

I was in desperate need of some civiliosation; to be surrouned by some people! And again I needed a shower – how is it I get so filthy?? As I had never seen Adelaide before we decided to take the short drive into town and spend the day exploring. But first we needed to make ourselves decent for the eyes and noses of the public. The first caravan we hit coming into Adelaide ended up being the one we stayed at coz they wanted to charge us $7.50 per shower! Criminal! May as well pay 24 to stay the night. They were pretty packed up so we got a little site tucked right into a corner next to a warehouse and a massive hundred thousand dollar louis vuitton RV – gimme a break. We were most fortunate to be near the sullage point as well. What is a sullage point I hear you ask? Well I went to find out and the sign above read “for human matter” – that explains the sutle faecal scent in the air…
After dumping the caravn we drpve into adealide. My first impression was that it is sort of like perth in the sense that its like a larger country town with big old buildings and statues everywhere. However it was hard to spot the local! A lot of asian and African decendatnts everywhere! First place we wanted to check out were the central markets for some bargain hunting. True to market form there were different sorts of people everwhere and rows and rows of colourful shops selling anything from scented coffees and soaps to every flavour salami and cheese! We ended up having a cheap asian meal and walking out of there with a massive roll of chilli salami and English blue vein cheese for under ten bucks!
We also met this funny little man when we went into a hippie shop searching for some incense. Which turned out to be his passion – thus explaining us WITH demonstrations the best way to place incense, where to put it in the house, the airflow if you have a window open etc etc. After us buying 5 different types we thought he may follow us out of the shop!
After central markets and a stressed out fifteen minutes in a asian supermarket (so much yelling!) we went for a walk up King William street top Rundle mall, which is a lot like murray street mall back home. Lots of window shopping for me!
In our guide book to Aus it said the best place to have a drink was the Exeter hotel so we were inclined to try it out. Its basically a hidden little pub with some table and chairs out front, and indoors has two bars, lots of different rooms and hallways and a beer garden out the very back. Theres writing and drawings all over the walls and is obviously trying to go for the grungy alternative look. Cheap beer and cider though…
We sat next to the weirdest sets of people though and we quite enjoyed people watching and staring at them through our dark sunnies. On one side we had some artistic, black coat and beret wearing students who were chain smoking like it was going outta fashion. One of the guys was about as thin as my pinky and had an elvis preslely hair do going on.
Then these kids rocked up – and I say kids because they wouldn’t have been older than 14 or 15 – mananged to get themselves a beer and sat down smoking weird smelling cigarettes. Not weed – more pure green tea teabag. One of the chicks was sproting a black eye which her friends said “maybe you just shouldn’t get in fights or hang around people anymore” and a ginger haired adolescent ho’s voice was just beginning to break was saying fuck every second word…
Unfortunaetly we were on a time limit for the parking prices so we didn’t get to watch them for long - $25 in parking for the day – aaaaah!

The next day we just spent the day one of us watching gossip girl and family guy in the rain while the other one changed the oil and fixed tit bits on the caravan… One month away today!!

Thursday 24.03.11

Adelaide to Naracoorte – 391kms
Camped at Blue Lagoon Rest Area

So South Australia wasn’t really tickling our fancy what with the rain and wind and coldness… we both thought it was about time to head into VIC chasing some sunshine for the poor solar panel which was reaching the low sixties on power. Our choieces for going across the border was either Bordertown or naracoorte, which were about 100kms apart. There is a world heritage site in N though so we decided on that to get a few good photos and then keep going.
Going through Adelaide the landscape had changed to nice green hills and big winding roads. I resisted the urge to take heaps of photos coz who wants to just look at lots and lots of hills right?
We stopped at mt barker for some much needed groceries and were so hungry from skipping breakfast that we almost launched ourselves at the woman giving free samples in foodland. We also made a slight scene at the stupid self serve checkouts when the machine kept missing our vegies! The guy had to come swipe his little magical card at least 5 times!
It got too late to see the caves by the time we hit town so we parked up at Blue Lagoon rest area nearby. We wanted to stay at the actual lagoons further up the road but they wanted to charge us 25 bucks for staying there! In the bush! Whatttttt!?
At the rest area I tried to feed a horse a nice juicy carrot while Simon was setting up the van, but it just looked at me then freaked out and ran away! I threw the carrot at it.
As we were trying to sleep we couldn’t determine whether we were at a rest stop or at the nearby airport what with the massive freight trucks zooming past and making everything shake!

Friday 25.03.11

Naracoorte to Aanya state Forest via Hamilton– 220kms
Camped at Aanya Road Picnic Area

The caves at Naracoorte ended up being pretty cool. As I said earlier they are a world heritage site like the Great Barrier Reef or Blue Mountains. They are basically a set of caves were these megafauna fossils have been discovered. One of them is the largest marsupial found in Aus which was about the size of a small elephant! They also had these crazy tiger creatures with teeth as big as my hand and super pythons with deadly fangs! We payed the not so pricey $16 each to go for a walk throought the visitor centre educational walk and then threw the wet cave.

Then it was SEEYA LATER SOUTH AUSTRALIA!!
We’ve done 5546kms so far, 1935 in SA
Spent $1200+ on petrol

As soon as were were over the border there was some sunshine! Yay! Its amazing how you’re happy with simple things when your camping. The solar panel face was smiling too…
Looking in the camps 5 book too we saw that most of the camps are in natural parks and are free of charge! Most of them with campfires and reception too. Double Yay!
We travelled a zig zag down through Casterton and Hamilton then went 15kms NW of Heywood to a forest area. There was a big flat bit of grass and little spots around under trees and near some campoverns. We were the only ones there?! Which was weird considering our book recommended the site which usually meant there was one or two other campers. But hey, we weren’t complaining!
We went for a little stroll down this bushtrack and it lead to a gross little waterhole and an overgrown track further into the bush. We were just dawdling and simon was looking for some blackberries near a tree – “ooooh I think these are are some, WOAH HOLY SHIT!” – right in front of him about half a metre away was a kangaroo staring at him. Hahahaha! He jumped like three feet in the air! It wasn’t a very well little skippy – looked like it had had a minor disagreement with a car – so we left it alone and went back to camp. On the way back I said to Simon that he had something on his foot:
“Simon what the hell is that black thing on your foot”
“It’s a caterpillar”
“It doesn’t look like a caterpillar… I think it’s a… LEACH!”
Turned his foot over and there was a big fat juicy one crawling up his ankle! YUCK! He wore shoes after that.
Just as we were making a sick little campfire with our campchairs and beers, another van pulled up. Out popped Joy, a fifty something jesus loving lady who was more sad than joyful. She came over to say hello and ended up staying for a wine and a chat. She had obviously gone through some pretty rough times and needed more help than a couple of twenty somethings could give her. As soon as she said she was Christian and worked for the church simon gave eachother a little look – you know the look. I was just silently thinking please oh please don’t start talking about god!! Nothing kells a coniversationso quickly hahaha! Sure enough half way through she whipped out to Simon – “So how do you feel about the whole Jesus thing?”… Noooooooo!! So that was Joy aka Miserable.