Monday 27th October
Since our sunday session didn’t get that wet, we
both woke up without hangovers. We had a quick shower and said goodbye to Timmy,
before we left Perth.
Next goal was the southern part of Western Australia –
which in many Australians opinion, is the most beautiful area, OF ALL, in
Australia! So we both were very excited to see, if we would be able to share
that opinion afterwards. We drove south for an hour or so, missed out on a town,
that we originally planned to stop in, but that’s how it goes, when you’re
getting old and have been drinking most days the last week – we therefore also
agreed to not drink any alcohol before reaching Adelaide.
We had our first stop
in Mandurah, a quiet and very beautiful town, which is mostly known for its
retirement-haven image. After a quick lunch on the esplanade, consisting of
wraps with canned tuna, pre-made mixed salad, canned pineapples and a nice
dressing (our favorite lunch on the road), our next planned stop was at a free
rest area, some 150 km’s south, but we had to break this journey in two, cause
we both were too tired to drive that distance (because of the “terror”, our
bodies has been exposed to, during the last week).
Well after a power nap, and a bit more
driving, we made it to the area where the rest area should be…. Here we were in
for a big surprise, just as we drove around to find the free rest area, we
decided to have a stroll on the beach first, since we still had 2-3 hours of
sunlight left. There on the parking lot, just as we came up from the beach, a
man and his daughter in their 4wd had showed up, and straight away he asked if
we wanted to camp there, cause if, we were better of going a bit further down
the road, since it was illegal we we were . We told him that we were going to
the free camp area, so we should be alright. After some talking back and
forwards, he ended up telling us, that we could just camp on his land if we
wanted to. Of course we would, as we like new adventures, and all the sweet and
helpful Australians. We followed him for a km. down a private dirt road, and
ended up in front of his house. He told us to have a look around, while he made
some tea. Ian - the nice man, had around 30.000 acres of land there, including
a big vegetable/fruit garden and a nice lake just outside the house. I was in
love! This is the kind of property I’ve always been dreaming of.
Well after he
showed us around the garden and house, we made our bed ready for the night, and
started on our dinner, we actually started with an entré for the first time on
the roads, since we both were very hungry…
Just after opening the can of pumpkin soup that made out our entré, Ian
came out from the house and told us, that he would make some dinner for us, so
we shouldn’t worry about that…. Such a nice guy! Ian’s partner Jude was having
a power nap, after some hard days of working full time, and studying full time
– so meanwhile, we chatted with him, and his youngest daughter – Courtney. We
ended up having a great night, with delicious lamb chops, salads and boiled
potatoes in oil and fennel, and we even had our best wine on our entire trip to
go with that, a locally made Barolo red wine…. I was sold! Ohh yeah and we also got some fresh
watermelon with yoghurt for dessert! It
was luxury. Total of 220 km this day.
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| We're guessing this must be a possum |
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| Ian had collected a lot of useable stuff during the years.. He had plenty of sheds looking like this |
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| Dinner with Courthney, Jude & Ian
Tuesday 28th October
After a good night sleep, a hot shower
in the morning and saying goodbye to the nice people we stayed at, we started
our trip in the Margaret River region. The Margaret River region is, if not the
favorite Australian wine region, then definitely one of the top ones. There’s
vineyards and breweries everywhere you look, and in between those, there’s
small factories producing ciders, nougat, honey, ice creams, chocolate, cheese,
olive oils…. you named it – they’ve got it! Best of all are that almost all of
these places have free tastings.
First stop was Busselton, here we had our
breakfast and a look at the Busselton Jetty, the longest wooden jetty in the
southern hemisphere… Apparently it’s possible to see a lot of marine life if
you do the 1,8km walk to the end of it, or take the little train – but sadly
they even wanted to charge us, to walk on the jetty, so stubborn as we are, we
didn’t put our feet on it – the more touristed the places get, the more it
reminds us of Asia, EVERYTHING costs money, and since we’ve already seen
similar places here in Australia, where it’s free – we just feel that it’s a
tourist rip-off!
We had a quick stop at the dive shop in town, to hear more
about the 3 good dive sites in the area – but I quickly realized that they
weren’t worth spending our money on.
Our next 4 stops, was at different
locations on Geographe Bay, a very beautiful coastline on the top of the
Margaret River region, the sights we were treated with here, was fine white
sand and small to middle sized boulders spread out in the shallow turquoise
waters!
Later we ventured out on a 5 km walk around the lighthouse, on the
Northern Cape, called Cape Naturaliste. We then drove to Yallingup, a small
town known for some of Australia’s best surf breaks. But since we didn’t find
any surfers trying to ride the waves, we continued a bit south, to see if we
could reach a chocolate shop/factory before they closed. We got there just in
time to get some free samples of their goods.
We ended up seeing all the stuff
we wanted, in the northern part today, which meant that we could drive the
30-35 km more south to a cheap rest area, without having to drive up north
again tomorrow. At the campground we had kangaroos jumping around our table,
while we were cooking and eating dinner. They are simple some of the sweetest
looking animals in the world – and they do not try to steal our food, as a lot
of the other animals in this country do! 165 km.
          
Cape Naturaliste...
   
Kangaroo's
Wednesday 29th October
I woke up around 5am with some serious
stomach aces, hoping that it would soon go away, I tried to get some more
sleep, but quickly when the sun started to heat up the car, I surrendered to
the, luckily for me, nearby toilet. Not a long time after Lisbeth got enough of
the heat as well, and we both started to get ready to hit the roads again –
saying that I mean, Lisbeth took care of herself and all the things concerning,
changing the car over, while I was just running back and forth between her and
the toilet… It was clear to both of us, that I wouldn’t be able to participate
in any duties or activities, as I was feeling like shit at that time – especially
because I was feeling more and more sick from every minute that passed by. Just as we were to leave the campground the
ranger pulled up to collect the 2 x 10 dollars, for our night there, damn it,
if we had been 2 minutes faster, we would have avoided him, and saved ourselves
20 bucks!
Well off we went, and luckily we did most of the things we wanted
yesterday, so today we “only” had 5 or 6 things we wanted to see, we started
off with Prevally, a small town with some great lookouts over the coast –
perfect for sitting in the car and feeling sorry for myself next to a public toilet,
while Lisbeth had some cerials for breakfast. My private driver then took me to
the town of Magaret River – but when arriving there, we actually didn’t know
what to see there, nobody told us any specific reasons to go there, and lonely
planet didn’t convince us either, so after a slow cruise through the town, my
driver took me further south to the beautiful Hamelin Bay, a popular family
beach with excellent snorkeling especially when the bays iconic attraction
comes to shore – the stingrays.
We only had some quick looks around the place,
since I was still not feeling any better.
We ended our journey in the Margaret
River region, by going to the town of Augusta, and further out to the
lighthouse on cape Leeuwin – the most south-westerly point in Australia, and
also the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean! Again we saw
some amazing, but rough, landscape, which appear when big rock formations on
land, fights the extremely forces of wild oceans and strong westerly winds,
over thousands of years!
My private limo
then left the Margaret River region to find a free camp area for the afternoon
and night, so I could finally give my useless body the only thing it had been
asking for all day – a bed and some rest… This ended up taking double the
amount of time, since all the free camp areas was a bit out of the directing we
were heading – but also because both of us were craving for a hot shower.
So we
ended up driving all the way to our next planned stop on the route, Pemberton.
Here we got a campsite in the caravan park, and a very good advice for
tomorrows planned activity. After learning the inside of the gent’s toilets
very good, I found my big love Lisbeth in the camp kitchen, ready with her late
lunch/early dinner, and my only meal for the day. Wraps with tuna, salad,
avocado and dressing! We then took one of the longest hot showers on this trip.
The weather has now within 3-4 weeks, changed from around 38 in the north-west,
to kind of like Danish summer with 25-28 around Perth, to only between 20-25
here in the most southern part of western Australia. This is mid day
temperatures, so when/if the clouds role in, and the strong western winds
doesn’t decide to take a break for the night, it means that the afternoons,
evenings and nights, are more and more as the ones, we had back in Sydney when
we started our road trip with the Augustini’s… Cold and winter-like. After our
long showers we went directly to bed – Lisbeth with a movie on the laptop, and
me accompanied by a headache pill and a much stronger pill “Dolol”, that my
dear mom gave me a couple of extras of, back when they visited us in Thailand
in February… Which was also the last time I was sick – I still remember the big
difference of having a night sleep with and without this little mixture, when
being sick – The closest thing I can come to compare it, is: From hell to
heaven! Total km 278.
    
Wineyard near Karridale
Thursday 30th October
After having exact the kind of night that I
hoped for (slept like a baby on sleep medication). I was again feeling fine when we woke up. It
was early, but that was good, because we wanted to climb the 60 meter high
karri tree (The Gloucester tree), which is the icon of this little town, and
probably also the most famous tree in WA!
The good advice we got from the lady
in the caravan park yesterday, was that if we wanted to save some money, we
should go there early, before the rangers got there, or go in the late
afternoon, when they’ve left… Also did I think, that the earlier we got
there, the bigger would the chance be, that we got the tree all to ourselves.
Not because I didn’t wanna share the experience with others, more because there
is only one way to get up and down, and this is the same for everybody. And
with Lisbeth, who is not getting younger or more fearless as the days go by – I
quickly figured out, after seeing pictures of the small walkway, that if I had
any expectations of her going with me all the way up, there definitely
shouldn’t be people going the opposite way than us!
We got there around 7.30,
and we were the only ones there… First mission accomplished, but also the
easiest one… When I saw the tree, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to climb
it to the top anyway, but I was certain, that Lisbeth wouldn’t get up many
steps! I was wrong… So wrong.
As most
times when I feel a little intimidated by things, I quickly forget about it
again, when I see the amount of fear in Lisbeth eyes… Well she wanted me to
lead the way, but already after climbing 6-8 meters up, Lisbeth was only half
the way, and the way the words came out of her mouth, when I asked if she was
alright, and the way her eyes turned into one giant black hole of fear, made me
understand, that she already made the decision, now it was just a question of
steps, before she would chicken out, and crawl down again. But anyway, then she
would be able to shoot some good pictures of me in the tree. Because even
though she brought the camera up the tree, there was no way that she would let
go of one hand, to operate it, if she got further up.
Anyway I carried out my endless
song, this time the song about: Taking one step at a time, keep focus all the
time, never look down, make sure to have a good grip with both hands and feet,
before taking the next step, think about how good you’ll feel if you do it,
plus about the good pictures you can take when we reach the platform on the top,
and of course keep answering: NO you won’t die. The reason why I do it: I hope that she’ll try
to push her boundaries every time she faces them – As I like to do, because the
feeling afterwards is indescribable… No matter what kind of boundaries we’re
talking – as soon as you feel your body is about to paralyze itself of fear,
it’s the biggest win afterwards, if you do it anyhow!
Lisbeth is the perfect
example of this, and it’s such a frill every time it succeeds to make her
follow me, of several reasons… 1. Because she pushed her limits! 2. Because I
was a part of helping her doing it. 3. But also because, for me focusing so
much on getting her to follow me, I almost completely forget my own anxiety,
and therefore pushes my own limits, at the same time… 4. It’s just the best energy
in the world when we succeed one of these “séances”! Of some reason, that even
Lisbeth can’t describe, after 10-15 minutes we actually found us self on the
very top platform, of this 61 meter tall Karri tree, overlooking the surrounding
karri forest, and it’s treetops. Lisbeth got a couple of pictures, but was
still a bit worried about getting down, for as in many of the other things
we’ve been doing, getting down is many times harder than getting up – and that
is safe down I mean! After some time, we got down, safe, and just 3 seconds
before Lisbeth put her feed on the solid ground again, it started to rain. How
good timing is that?! Once again did we do it, not only did we climb the tree,
but we also did it before the rangers turned up and collected money from us.
Now since we can’t get enough of free things,
or discounts, we decided to go back to the caravan park to have a nice hot
morning shower – we did after all pay for the camp site, and the check out time
wasn’t before 10am. On the way back, we stopped in at the local supermarket to
get some cold milk for our breakfast – what then happened in the shop was, that we decided to skip the milk, and
planned to make some eggs and bacon instead… Then when we were searching for
the bacon in the cooler, we stumbled over some chicken gordon bleu from the delicacy,
but the dates ran out the day before, so we thought, if we could get those for
half price, that would be cheaper, and we would get more food! When Lisbeth
showed the guy in the deli, that they had some stuff in the cooled with expired
dates on, he was almost embarrassed, and took it straight of the shelf, and apologized…
He thought Lisbeth was being a bitch, and was annoyed that they had all stuff
in the store. Ha ha. Then she asked if he could maybe sell it to us cheaper,
since it was expired. But he wasn’t allowed to sell us old meat – but we could
have it for free if we wanted! Thank you… and off we went.
No actually before
we left the store, we bought a chocolate milk, just to pay for something at the
counter.
Back at the caravan park we had our hot showers and special breakfast
consisting of chicken gordon bleu with pasta before hitting the roads again.
Actually we forgot all about our chocolate milk in the fridge, so we left
without even tasting it! Bummer!
First stop was not a real stop, but a scenic
4wd route through an exceptional red tingle and karri forest. Our first real
stop after Pemberton was at Parry Beach, we had a walk around the cliffs
separating the beach from the ocean, took some pictures and left quickly again
– not anything special in our opinions.
The next place, on the other hand, was
definitely something not to miss out on, when being on these latitudes! The
little town of Denmark’s most iconic attraction: Elephant Rocks. It’s large
elephant-shaped boulders resting in the shallow waters in a small cove. And
just a few minutes’ walk from here, is Denmark’s most beautiful beach, called
Greens Pool, it’s a large sheltered rock pool, offering great swimming and
excellent snorkeling in the crystal clear waters. We spend some time here, especially
because we took a wrong turn on our way back to the car park, so we ended up at
Elephant Rocks again, but they were just as majestic the second time around,
and our lazy bodies needed some exercise anyway! A really beautiful place, one
of the best we’ve seen, since we left Perth! Drove through the little township
of Denmark, towards Albany, around halfway we stopped for the night at a free
rest area at Cozy Corner Beach. 286 km.
        
Near the town Denmark.. Sure looks danish to me...
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Driving slowly in order not to hit this little fellow...
Gloucester Tree
Friday 31st October
The nights are still getting colder,
that’s easy to feel, this night we luckily had some good shade from the sea
breeze. We rose early and after jumpstarting the car from our second battery we
were moving towards Albany. During the last two weeks, our “starting” battery
has gotten worse and worse every day, but still just managed to have enough
power to start the following morning – but not anymore. Not the biggest problem
in the world, both because our second battery still works perfect, as a backup
battery to start up with, and to charge all our electrical items such as
laptops and cameras, but also because we already, several days ago, planned to
buy a new battery when we got into Albany.
The next big trip we have in sight
is to cross the Nullarbor Plain, where there is 1181 km between the two nearest
towns, so we don’t wanna be stuck with a stupid battery on that stretch! After
an hour drive, and about 100 of road works areas, we finally arrived in Albany
– next couple of hours went by with driving around to the different auto part
stores, to find the best battery for the price that at the same time would fit
in the car. I got one for 120 Dollars, fitted it in, and then Migaloo started
up as a lightning again! Problem solved – we checked the old battery at the
auto part shop, and it was collapsed inside, just as I expected… No wonder with
all those bumpy dirt roads we’ve crossed the last 20000 km.
With Migaloo ready
again, we bought some milk, and had a late breakfast in the car just east of
Albany. We had the last couple of days been getting on each other’s nerves to
easily, so we had a big discussion about that and why, we came to the
conclusion, that we both were very tired of seeing 5-10 new things every day,
without being able to accumulate the impressions. But also the fact that we sit
or lie next to each other 24/7, and has been doing it constantly for the last
13½ months, it can be pretty hard at times. So we decided to just keep on
driving towards Esperance, only to supply up, before our big Nullarbor
adventure – and at the same time skip out on one or two places around
Esperance, that we originally planned to see. But also did we agree to put some
music on in the car, and not talk for some hours, just to have a little time
alone – even sitting next to each other…
Yes, it’s not, JUST, a big happy dance
on gold and red roses, to travel the world… But almost.
In Ravensthorpe we got
some more fuel on, and continued to the little town Munglinup, where we camped
for the night. A very cold one that was – and I had some stomach problems again
during the evening and night– mostly because I hadn’t been eating much the last
couple of days, but even more because I forced a can of liver pate in it,
accompanied by 600ml. of coke… That made some serious rumble in the jungle, and
Lisbeth was struggling to get through the night and my smelly outlets.
414 km.
Our first spotted Torny Devil.. Seconds after the picture was taken a motorbike ran it over.. Poor thing.
Saturday 1st November
Rose around 6am after a very cold night,
we drove into Esperance and agreed on, that we deserved something special after
yesterday’s smelly evening, and the very cold night that followed. So instead
of our normal milk and cereals for breakfast, we bought fresh baked bread, some
slices of cold meat and a chocolate milk. Lisbeth is starting to have a lot of
pain in her back, caused by sitting down all the time. So we also found a
massage clinic, where she could get some help. We had breakfast in the car, and while Lisbeth
went to get her back fixed, I had a power nap on the front seats.
The rest of
the day was already planned. DRIVING! We started our next big task.. Crossing
the Nullarbor Plain – which is one of the biggest iconic trips to do in
Australia. From our starting point in Esperance, to our destination in Adelaide
is 2370km, and of course, we always do some deviations from the route, so we’re
probably talking 2500km for this next, but also last, long leg of our Aussie road
trip. From Adelaide we only have around 2000km left before we are back in
Sydney.
We drove the rest of the day, until we
ran out of sunlight. 557km in total.
A water tab for humans aswell as animals...
Bye.. Thanks for entertaining us during our lunch break
Sunday 2nd November
An even colder night again, the last 3
nights have we both been lying awake for several hours in the middle of the
night, simply because we were too cold to fall asleep again. Almost even more
annoying is it, that as soon as the sun rises over the horizon it doesn’t take
more than maximum 2 hours, before it’s so unbearable hot in the car, and we
then have to get out of it! That’s just the tough life in the deserts!
Today we didn’t do much else than
driving and fueling! In the end of the
day, when we had crossed the border to South Australia, we stopped to fuel-up
at Nullarbor roadhouse. Lisbeth had read that there should be some caves behind
the roadhouse, so after getting directions to them, we drove the 10km out to
the biggest cave, on one of the worst dirt roads we’ve experienced.
The cave
was in the middle of the outback/desert, so no matter which direction we looked
there was just totally flat. Not that we haven’t seen that a 1000 times on this
road trip, but the facts that we were the only ones there and we had 307 km to
the nearest town, and we were about to climb down the cave with our headlamps
on, and explore, just as the sun was setting over the flat horizon, made it
pretty special anyway. It smelled really bad of bats down
there, but we explored some of the cave, amongst spiders, lizards, and a couple
of bigger “things” that we couldn’t see, only hear, when they moved around in
the high grass just next to us. When we got back up to the car, Lisbeth made
some soup for dinner – none of us were very hungry – probably because of too
many sweets on the roads… Even though we were in the middle of the desert,
there was a quite strong wind and the car was much higher than the vegetation
around us, this evening didn’t feel as cold. We had a nice warm night for the
first time since we left Perth. We drove 683km.
Isolated and flat = Nullarbor Roadhouse
Western Australia Video (Southern part)
Monday 3rd November
Another day on the roads, but more
important than the others, because we decided to make the 230km detour down to Port
Lincoln, the Tuna Capital of the World!
It was my plan all the time to go here,
because it’s the only place in Australia where you can dive with white pointers
or great white shark. But sadly for me, “we” canceled those plans, of several
reasons – the price being the biggest!
Apart for being known world-wide for
being a place to dive with great white’s, and the place, where the scariest
scenes from “Jaws” was shot, this town is also a big fishing town, and well
known for its sublime seafood options. This is the reason why we ventured here
anyway. Lisbeth has been talking about getting a good seafood dinner, at a
restaurant, since we came to the West coast more than a month ago. That didn’t
happen, so now we decided the time had come.
We got some cheap gas on when we
arrived in Port Lincoln, autogas is a widely used fuel for cars in the southern
states, so not only can we get it everywhere, compared to the north, but also
the prices is almost half of what we paid in the Northern Territory. We like
that! At the gas station, we got the name of a couple of good seafood
restaurants in town, and picked Marina Hotel… NOT a bad choice at all, we
splashed out, and got a glass of white wine as well. Lisbeth got a spicy
seafood and pasta dish, with scallops, king prawns and whiting wrapped in
pancetta. I chose the atlantic salmon served on a bed of hot potato salad,
lemon butter sauce and fresh asparagus.
We were in heaven! All together we paid 65 dollars (338kr).
Another thing that made us very happy,
was when we realized that because we now are 2500km’s more east than Perth, the
sun is also setting later in the evenings – so while enjoying our dinner on the
Marina, we had sunlight until 8.30pm. That’s a new record, since we started
travelling…. Yeehaa! We drove around 80
km’s north of town, and then 8 km on a very good dirt road, until reaching a free
camp spot with toilets. The next day we would reach Adelaide. This day came to 799km.
Camels, wombats and of course the kangaroos
Unreal coastline
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