How’s it going so far? MIQ week one

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Bev Marshall

So far, okay. While it’s not most people’s choice to spend two weeks holed up in a hotel room, it could be worse. And I am sure it is for many others currently experiencing MIQ. If pushed, the only niggle is the food arrives lukewarm. This is completely understandable when you consider the number of meals to box, transport and deliver over one and a half hours, so really, hats off. It continues to be good quality.

Some, nay many, of you express varying levels of shock/horror/dismay/bemusement when we reveal we are alcohol free for these two weeks. However it seems the perfect opportunity to give our over-worked livers a vacation, and so far we are surviving. We can order barista coffee (contactless payment required – @ $6 per cup we are racking up $24 a day) and at least you do not need to specify double shots – really, Australia, get with the programme.

On day two I break out the charity shop jigsaw. There’s an issue when the size, 736cm x 584cm, will not fit on any flat surface in this room. Scott suggests we call the Defence staff and ask for some plywood as they love a challenge. I’m, sure they’d love that. I eye the picture on the wall above the bed. It comes down and the reverse side is just large enough, leaving one cm to spare. Problem solving 101. Now I realise its bloody hard so I hope I finish it before time’s up.

It just fits, but will I finish it in two weeks?

We have Covid tests on days one, three, and six. We get blue wristbands when the day one test comes back negative, and have to wear these whenever we leave the room, which is only for exercise or a Covid test.

Those who run the systems have taken on some hard won lessons. We are in a “cohort” with others who arrive on the same flight. That means we are all on the same floor of the hotel, we go for Covid tests at the same time, and exercise at the same time, so there is reduced chance of cross contamination with a group from another flight (as happened in the past).

The daily outside time is 30 mins and we must call after 6.30pm each evening to book a slot for the following day. The conversation goes something like this: US: Hi. We’re Group D, can we book an exercise slot please? THEM: Just a minute. How’s 6.30am? US: Hysterical laughter. Anything later? THEM: Do you want the forecourt or level 5? And so it goes. I can tell you with certainty the forecourt is a circuit of 100 steps if you don’t cut corners and walk the absolute perimeter.

level five exercise area – no, there is no shelter from the rain

The level 5 option is 117 steps, but has the added interest of more corners as it’s set up as lanes, and there’s a welcome message from the office over the lane. Again, and I say this with conviction, there is nothing as depressing as walking around in a circle: half the time I feel like I’m in the Handmaid’s Tale and the other half in the movie Midnight Express, which if you are too young to remember you should find and watch.

There is no housekeeping service to clean the room, obviously, but they are prompt in delivering anything you need, such as more washing-up liquid or teabags or toilet paper; you can request a change of linen every three days and it arrives in a bag outside the door. The staff are unfailingly pleasant and helpful. Every day a nurse calls and conducts a health check and asks if there’s anything we need. Apart from freedom, there isn’t.

It is exciting to receive a care package from some of the family -puzzle books, another jigsaw, cards, magazines, cheese, crackers, charcuterie, chocolates and wine (saving til the last day). The paperwork states deliveries can not contain any illegal items which rather takes the fun out of it. In the interests of health and safety, other banned items include “but are not limited to, portable heaters, toasters, slow cookers, small ovens, blenders, mixers, electric grills, fryers, rice cookers, electric food choppers, air fryers, waffle makers, egg cookers, bread makers, portable cooking appliances using gas, candles, spirits used for cooking and incense.” Have no need of any of those, though a microwave to heat up our meals wouldn’t go astray.

I’m continuing with the puzzle, which threatens to do my head in; yoga; code crackers; and reading, while Scott is deep into the Fishing and Boating reading that came in our care package, and seems to find a never ending supply of youtube videos on motorbikes and fishing. And his Canadian Airforce exercises of course – though I seriously hope airforce pilots have more coordination.

So that’s week one – and I suspect week two will differ not at all.

Oh and by the way. If you think there aren’t enough hours in the day, there are plenty.

The journey begins…

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Bev Marshall

…with an early morning alarm – this is one plane we can’t afford to miss.

However before worrying about whether we miss the plane, the plane has to arrive for us to miss it. Is it a bad omen when the incoming flight from Auckland to Perth, that is, the plane we will be taking for the return journey, turns back part way across the Tasman? Luckily not, and the flight arrives a couple of hours late, which translates into our flight leaving a couple of hours late. No need for that alarm then.

Armed with passports, managed isolation vouchers, negative Covid tests and wistful smiles, we check in with the world’s slowest check in agent – she tells us she is out of practice, but anyway there’s little chance of our bags heading to Shanghai or Vancouver as ours is the only international flight leaving. The airport is deserted and you could fire the literal cannon down the gate lounges and hit no one. This also means nothing, and I mean nothing, is open in retail so no chance of a coffee. Duty Free is open as we know they never miss a chance, and Scott wonders if we could buy a bottle of coffee liqueur in the stead of our flat whites. Desperation drives us to a vending machine and we grab a coffee milk – it will have to do. Everyone follows our lead and that selection quickly runs out.

Only flight this morning is to Tāmaki Makaurau – just where we want to go.

I’ve never seen so few people at an airport gate: the flight has about 60 on board, the highest body:seat ratio is in business which has 13 of the18 seats occupied. It’s only five and a half hours on our direct flight which, aside from mask wearing, is the same as always.

Where is everyone? and why are these people so excited?

Arrival in Auckland is a whole new experience. We offload and walk down, down, down to the bowels of the airport following the ubiquitous yellow Covid signs and arrows to work through the arrivals process, starting with temperature taking. Arrival cards now have a section asking about Covid symptoms, and at least 595 different people look at this form, ask the same questions already answered on the form, scrawl on it with red markers and point us to the next masked, screened, gowned interrogator – rinse and repeat.

It is a well oiled but excruciatingly slow process. No one knows the answer to the $64,000 question – “Where are we going?” Someone tells us the bus driver knows, but clearly he’s not sharing. When we get to the final door we see a sign taped to the window – Stamford Plaza. So we are in Auckland – bugger – but in one of the reasonably decent hotels – yay. We sit on the bus and wait 45 minutes for everyone’s luggage to be screened. At this stage we haven’t laid eyes on our bags, and won’t for another two or three hours when they arrive outside our room.

With Auckland more or less in lockdown, and on a Monday night at 9.00pm, it’s a quick trip to the inner city. From disembarking the bus it is a rigidly spaced 2 metre distanced, mask wearing, hand-sanitising line to be allocated rooms, read the rules, given written copies of the rules, choose meals for the next two days, pay a $200 deposit to the hotel, and get to the room.

no one asked if we wanted fries with that

There are pages and pages in the “Welcome Pack” with plenty of don’ts and not a lot of do-s. We are herded much as the animals onto Noah’s Ark into the lift by good humoured Defence Force staff, who I am certain didn’t envision this in their future when they signed up for a life of adventure on the high seas or as Top Gun.

Before leaving Perth we prepare for our two weeks isolation: at the charity shop I buy a jigsaw puzzle, two plates, knives, forks and spoons. We pack gloves, masks, sanitiser, wipes, good knives, tea towel, our coffee plunger, black pepper grinder, my yoga mat; we download movies and TV series in case of poor wifi, the Apple TV. All this is the equivalent of Bear Grylls taking a tooth pick and pocket knife.

On arrival, the room is a relief: spacious, plenty of storage, big ensuite with a shower and a bath, large picture window with a splendid view of the ANZ centre across Albert Street – no, the window does not open – they don’t want to risk anyone jumping out.

And, surprise! they provide two plates, bowls, knives, forks spoons and teaspoons along with the usual cups and glasses.

Our bags eventually arrive, presumably they have been sanitised in some way. We unpack, vowing to keep our space tidy. And surprise! our coffee plunger insert broke on the journey.

Yesterday is known as Day Zero.

Day One: a 1.00am bedtime and half a sleeping pill means we wake at 8.30. Arrgh! Have we missed breakfast? No, it arrives about 8.45am, and is better than a lot of cafes. Lunch is sushi and dinner, fish or lasagne.

So that answers your questions about the food. I hope it stays as good for the rest of the week. As we put orders in (see menu above) for the next few days I specify, for me at least, no dessert, and we decide to share or skip a few breakfasts/lunches. If we eat everything on offer, we will be unable to exit the room.

Other than eat on day one, I do yoga, start this blog, chat on the phone, read my book, supervise Scott starting an exercise programme – we settle on the 1950s Canadian Air Force 5BX – I remember this and the accompanying 10BX being popular in the 1970s. We also respond to an invitation to the ballroom for our Day One Covid test. We are not allowed out of the room for outdoor exercise until this comes back negative. This is another two by two supervised entry into the lift, along yellow wallpapering warning signs, into the testing area where the test is short and sharp and less thorough than the one in Perth, back into the lift and “home” again.

And so ends Day One.

What’s a quokka?

Posted on October 14, 2021 by Bev Marshall

You may well ask. A quokka is a cute cat sized marsupial living on Rottnest Island, a protected nature reserve 19 Kilometres off the coast of Western Australia. In search of cuteness, we load our bikes (there are no vehicles on Rottnest) on the ferry and enjoy the half hour crossing. In 1988 A fleeting visit to Rottnest left me with a memory of a wilderness island. How times change. A lot of building is underway at the harbour end, and we lose count of the number of boats on moorings. As for the quokka, we see not a one. Talking to others on the return journey we hear there are a lot at the mall – Shopping day? No, despite the myriad signs of do NOT feed the wildlife, it seems the quokka find a winning smile and cheeky look will get them treats at the cafe.

More snorkelling opportunities, but the water is several degrees cooler than Coral Bay

We bypass the shopping area, missing the quokka, and take to our bikes. It’s an easy ride around the island, probably around 30kms if you go in and out of the 20 different bays, all of which are beautiful. Tossing the old bike and now riding my e-bike means I am still in a good mood at the end of the day. It’s true Rottnest is a sandy, low lying island dotted with lakes, but the maps don’t show what are charmingly termed “undulations”. We meet many red faced, sweaty and grumpy cyclists with a “are we there yet?” look about them, especially towards the West End. It is here we walk out along a boardwalk keeping an eye out for wedgetail shearwater nests in the undergrowth, and another eye out for humpback whales meandering along the coast. We see the latter breaching in the distance, but the birds must be deep in their burrows. There are also several osprey nests – these get quite large as the birds return each year and engage in home renovations, adding a fresh stack to last year’s nest.

The West End of Rottnest: next stop, Madagascar, 7,000 kilometres

Back on the mainland, we’re staying in the seaside suburb of Fremantle. I’m not sure what it says about a place where three of the notable buildings include two prisons and a lunatic asylum, though none of the three operate in their original capacity – the asylum is now an Arts Centre. Overlooking the harbour the Roundhouse, dating from 1831, is the oldest remaining public building in Western Australia. It is a clever design by the architect Henry Reveley, with eight cells opening off a central yard so all inmates can be easily monitored. Until 1886 this gaol held the settlement’s prisoners, then it became a police lock up. The second noteworthy building, so noteworthy it is World Heritage listed, is the Fremantle Prison, now closed. The huge site covers 15 acres and includes the prison, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages and tunnels, all built by convict labour in the 1850s.

Being an early settlement, the residential streets are narrow and the Victorian cottages close together. The styles are similar – generally brick, made locally, and often featuring some or all of the following: a rolled verandah roof; decorative brickwork; iron fretwork; Everything seems to grow here and many gardens are a riot of both native and exotic flowers and foliage. It is a joy to walk down a street where everyone respects the historic value of the property.

The Victorian era building that houses the Fremantle markets dates from 1897 and is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There are 150 stalls selling beautiful fruit and vegetables along with the usual suspects – crystals, soaps, souvenirs, handcrafts and so on. I toss up between 45 minutes of tarot card reading for $45 or two mangoes as big as my head for a tenth of the price. What would you choose?

the market building has lovely exterior brick work and the interior is rough wash limestone

And so we reach the final few days of this trip – it feels like an abrupt end as we did not expect to get MIQ places so readily. Tomorrow (14/10) the car and caravan go into storage for, we hope, six months. Of course, we don’t know if we will be able to return then, but we’re ever hopeful. We have a few days in a hotel in Perth itself, get our pre-flight Covid tests on Friday (15/10) and fly out Monday (18/10).

Stand by for dispatches from MIQ.

Not just swimming with big fish – but that is the best bit

Posted on September 23, 2021 by Bev Marshall

As much as we are enjoying the reef and our snorkeling trips, there is plenty else to do on the Coral Coast. A couple of days in Exmouth mean we can drive around into the Cape Range National Park and take a river boat trip up the Yardie Creek. This quiet cruise shows us the spectacular colours and beauty of this rugged gorge, and we see a number of the local black-footed rock wallaby. they are quite hard to spot against the cliffs until our guide points them out.

the black-footed rock wallaby’s colour is good camouflage against the rocky cliffs

The rugged limestone range that gives Cape Range its name runs down the western border of the Exmouth peninsula. The river gorge only hints at the extensive cave and canyon system that runs through and under the range itself. And, of course, on the Indian Ocean coast are stunning beaches with the northern end of the Ningaloo reef providing more options for water activities.

Exmouth exists because in 1963 the US Navy negotiated the lease of land for a naval communications station to provide very low frequency (VLF) transmission to ships and submarines in the western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans. The station and town came into being in 1967, with the town providing accommodations for the US families working at the station. Thirteen tall radio towers lend a mysterious air to the tip of the peninsula, six kilometres north west of the town, as we drive to Yardie Creek.

Back in Coral Bay there is the opportunity to satisfy our inner bogan tendencies driving over sandy territory. We take a side by side, rather than a quad bike, as neither of us is a good pillion passenger. I take the wheel for the outward journey and quickly realise the block under the accelerator is designed to tame my inner bogan. Still, its heaps of fun bashing over the sand dunes, drifting around corners and along the slightly more difficult to access beaches. We arrive at a lookout in time to watch the sun sink over the Indian ocean in its usual stunning colours.

We also take the Landcruiser on a few drives up the coast. This usually involves dropping the tyre pressures to 18-20 psi over the sandy terrain, but I retain terminal horror at the thought of being bogged in the middle of nowhere, dying of thirst and being eaten by termites. The compressor is getting a lot of use reinflating tyres at the end of each foray into the unknown. The reward is in the outstanding coastal views and complete lack of people who could help out in an emergency!

But the best part is back in the water. We love our first Manta swim so much we sign up for another, hoping but not expecting it to be better. And it is. By a factor of, I don’t know, a lot. Our run of luck is still going strong as again we get stunning weather. Not only that, but the water is crystal clear, much clearer than last week, and as the mantas favour sandy areas the viz is great. At times we are only a couple of metres above them. Again, it is mesmerising, and as they are swimming relatively slowly we can easily keep up and follow them for some time.

We find three manta in a mating chain. A mating chain happens when the males encounter a receptive female and they start to follow her. Yes, if this were humans we would be feeling icky. There can be up to 20 or so males following in a well ordered line behind her, and all the time she is assessing their fitness for mating. She may swoop and dive and leap out of the water then race off and quite literally, the last manta swimming gets to mate with her. Mating chains can go on for days as the weaker males drop out. It must be getting down to the wire when we see them as the larger female has only two suitors following. Some manta is going to get lucky soon.

And so ends our wonderful three weeks on the Coral Coast. This is definitely a place to visit, and to linger and enjoy. We snorkel and/or swim off the beach every day, and every day see something different. The weather is sublime, though it is now getting a little hot for us as it is over 30C every day.

We now embark on the final month of this journey which will end in Perth. Further to the last blog, Air NZ has already changed our flights. We still arrive home on the 18th October, but now have a day flight and arrive in the evening, rather than an overnighter.

For those who like flowers and aren’t sick of seeing Mulla Mulla

and the white version of Sturts Desert Pea

don’t know what these are, but they are everywhere

And for the map lovers, the same map applies

The mysterious lottery of managed isolation

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Well I guess we should buy Lotto tickets.

Some of you know we have secured MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine) spots for the 18th October. This is no mean feat, as even a cursory reading of the media reveals. On “opening day” of the new booking system, the 20th September, over 26,000 wannabe returnees crowd into a virtual waiting room between 8:00am and 9:00am New Zealand time.

At 9:00am a virtual hand, possibly Maradona’s non virtual hand of God, randomly allocates those 26,000 into a queue. It doesn’t matter if you are first in the waiting room, or 26,000th, your place in the queue is the luck of the draw – or lack of.

Prior to this date, we register on the site: it is possible to register more than once if you are a couple, family or group, as each person in turn may take a lead. I register us as the Marshall-Wilsons and Scott registers us as the Wilson-Marshalls. We look at the dates when there are flights from Perth to Auckland – this is tedious: you can’t search Perth – Auckland, you have to look at every day in turn and see which flights are flying into NZ that day. There are only two flight dates from Perth before the end of the year that we can see: 18th and 25th October. We have always planned to come home around the end of October so the 25th looks good for us.

Match Day.

The alarm rings. It’s 4:30 am (imagine my joy), but in NZ it’s 8.30am. We both fire up our laptops, go to the site and enter our passport numbers. There’s nothing to do then but watch the countdown to 5.00am (9:00am NZ) and await out fate. When the random queue forms at 5:00am Scott is a surprising 2200ish and I’m in the mid 4,000s. PTSD means we do not remember the exact placings, and irrationally, are too terrified to take screen shots in case we lose our places.

By about 5:30am Scott is through the (non existent) door into the booking office, where the staff are invisible. The 25th is gone, the choice is Hobson’s and we book for the 18th October. I drop out to let someone else through. We then go to the Air NZ site and book our flights. We then have 48 hours to enter the flight details into the MIQ system or we lose our spot.

So our days are numbered – for this trip at least. Now comes the scramble to organise storage for the car and caravan for an undetermined period of time. Some initial enquiries are not promising. So many people from the Eastern states (New South Wales and Victoria in particular) are unable to get into WA to pick up their caravans this year, the storage facilities are full. WA has been so stringent in its border closures, international and local, who knows when we will be able to return.

We love our travels here and I would be happy to stay on if we had to. WA is good to us and we are both now fully vaccinated. It is immeasurably safer from COVID than almost anywhere else, including NZ at this point; there’s more chance of contact in MIQ than we have now. That aside, I do feel a bit guilty that we have an MIQ allocation when there are so many people in desperate straits who need to get home.

On the plus side, as we will be back in NZ within six months, the NZ Government won’t be clawing back our superannuation; I’m running out of drugs, so won’t have the trauma of getting them sorted here; my Drivers Licence runs out in December so I can renew that; Scott can go on the KTM motor bike ride at the end on November; we will be home for what passes as Summer; we will be home to meet a new great niece/nephew and excitingly, for the birth of a grandson; and not least, we will see many of you.

And we did buy Lottery tickerts – it’s drawn tonight and $30 million is up for grabs – we’ll let you know.

NZ826 leaves Perth at 9:15 pm on 17/10 and arrives at Auckland 8:20am. Yes, we will be in front of the plane having a large gin and a lie down.

It is a mystery where we will be put in isolation. We request Huka Lodge or Blanket Bay, but probably we’ve used all our luck and will score the Waipuna Hotel and Conference Centre.

We are keen to hear from anyone who has suffered through MIQ and can offer tips to make it easier. We’ve already thought of alcohol.

Good times with the mega fauna

Posted on September 16, 2021 by Bev Marshall

If there is a more perfect place than Coral Bay, I’d like to know where it is.

Here’s why: pristine white sand; crystal clear water that is bluer than you’ve ever seen; a reef a few metres from the shore, meaning not only great snorkeling to see corals and reef fish, but also calm waters; a very small, blissfully under-developed holiday town (permanent population about 300) that’s nothing more than a couple of caravan parks, a hotel, two cafes and a few tour operators variously offering diving, fishing, snorkelling, off-roading trips.

The world heritage listed Ningaloo reef is the world’s largest fringing reef: it extends 300 kms along the west coast from Carnarvon to Exmouth. It is possible to stop pretty much anywhere along here, grab your snorkel and fins and be swimming over the reef within a few metres. At least 250 different species of coral are here and, in total, represent over 50% of the Indian Ocean’s entire coral life.

Where to start? It has to be with our first trip outside the reef to swim with the humpback whales. Thousands of these whales migrate north from Antartica along the west coast of Australia for mating and calving in warmer waters, and return south for the summer feeding grounds. So there are humpbacks passing by between June and the end of October. Sadly, my lack of planning means we arrive in early September after the whale-sharks have headed off.

However we strike it lucky with the humpbacks. After a couple of half hour snorkels over the beautiful corals on the outer reef, we wait for the spotter plane to call in a sighting. He sees a mother and her calf and we are off to meet them. Rules apply, and the calf must be at least half the size of the mother for us to go in with them, and adult whales can be 20 metres long. Our guides divide us into two swimming groups and we are group two – damn, I think, she may be gone before we get in. The first 7 swimmers get the call to go in and only a couple see her before she dives. In group two, we sit tense and ready on the swimming platform: Swim! the call comes and without hesitation we slide into the water, swimming in the direction our guide indicates. Look down, she shouts. I do, and immediately gasp/screech into my snorkel – the mother and calf swim a couple of metres below me, she bears a fleet of ramora (suckerfish), stark white against her grey-black skin. My thoughts race from Amazing! this can’t be real to, I hope she doesn’t come up under me right now! The following pic is a hazy screen grab from a go-pro video one of the other swimmers took – but you get the idea!

our humpback mum and calf with ramora getting a free ride

We think that’s it, but the plane calls in a pod heading south. We find them quickly and the spotter pilot says he counts 8 or 9. The boat follows them from the prescribed distance of 100 metres, though at times they close the distance towards us and put on a show I’d happily pay to see again. Breaching, rolling and waving pectoral fins, showing off their flukes. Apparently breaching is unusual behaviour as it’s a high-energy demand: a full breach needs the whale to break through the water’s surface at its top speed of 28km/h. We follow them at 4-5 knots for at least an hour and it is riveting. Apologies if you have seen these photos on my Insta @bevzac56 but it was so exciting I can’t help adding them in here.

No known reason for breaching, it takes a lot of energy so it must just be for fun.

We think that day will be hard to beat, but then we go out on another trip to find Manta Rays. Again a couple of snorkels on the outer reef first. These are wonderful as it is a low tide and so parts of the reef are in shallow water and the sunlight illuminates the fish and coral. We swim over massive cabbage flower corals through which hundreds of little iridescent fish swim; watch parrot fish nibble the coral; watch turtles swim to the surface to take a breath of air before sinking back down, lazily paddling their flippers. We stop at the shark cleaning station where grey and white tipped reef sharks come by and have cleaner fish nibble the parasites from their skin. With my advanced fish identification skills I mis-identify a large grey fish as a shark.

low tide at the outer reef – the clarity of the water is superb

Then the party starts – again a spotter plane, this time looking for the ballet dancers of the ocean, huge Manta Rays. These graceful diamond shaped rays are really smart (biggest brain to body ratio of any fish), have no sting or barb posing no threat to humans, and are filter feeders. They can grow to have a seven metre wingspan and weigh a couple of tonnes. this time we are in three groups, again we are number two. the spotter finds a beautiful large manta, about 4-5 metres in wingspan, and we rotate through the groups quickly. Group one swims until the manta has moved beyond them and by then the boat has moved ahead and group two drops in, then the skipper picks up group one, drops group three, picks up two, drops one etc etc. We have four swims and the final two are breathtaking, lasting what seems like ages but which in reality is probably five minutes, if that. Like a big blanket floating through the air, the manta undulates and glides, searching for food. It is mesmerising.

So we get to swim with two out of three of the mega fauna that frequent these waters, and and in the immortal words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad.

Station to Station WA

Posted on September 8, 2021 by Bev Marshall

I realise I have used this title in a 2019 blog about cattle and sheep stations in the eastern states. The life on WA stations is, if possible, even more harsh. I noted last time the diversification into tourism with station tours and camping sites, and I still feel it is a privilege to gain access and some insight into the life of these huge farming enterprises.

On the road you pick up information about interesting places to visit and where the good campsites are. We also use a great app, Wikicamps, which gives all manner of information: everything from whether there are rubbish bins at a wayside parking stop, through to the availability of electricity and water, shade, scenery, a laundry, swimming, fishing etc. Yes, it even notes if there are crocodiles, though we are now too far south to worry. As with any travel site, the reviews are as revealing about the venue as they are about the reviewer.

We spend almost three weeks staying at three cattle stations, which, with apologies to Tolstoy, are all alike, but different in their own way. They are all cattle stations and at this time of year they’re busy with mustering. Depending on the station this involves various combinations of horses, motorbikes, four wheelers, and helicopters. When you’ve got thousands of hectares, it’s a lot of roaming ground for cattle. I’m providing links for each station so if you are so inclined you can read more about them.

Cheela Plains Station is a family owned and managed working cattle station of 188,501 hectares and has a great set up for camping and caravans. There’s red dirt for miles, but we all back our caravans up to a large grassy oval that makes for a (slightly) cooler spot where kids play and adults sit with g&ts or beers. Once a week there’s $10 burger night and staff cook the burgers on a flat plate over a massive open fire pit. These events are always a good opportunity to meet other travellers and, as mentioned, glean information about places that we may not know about.

At Cheela Plains a patch of grass is a welcome relief from red dirt

We take a day trip that is an archaeological journey: a drive up the Beasley River Gorge, which runs through the property, reveals a continuous succession of rocks that record the rise of oxygen in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere more than 2700 million years ago. This is awesomely known as The Great Oxidation Event. Until this time, our atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide and methane. Geologists reckon that over a period of 400 million years the earth’s atmosphere became oxygenated, leading to the evolution of complex life forms – like fish, and people who understand crypto currency and non fungible tokens, and the rest of us.

Only open since 2017, Peedamulla Campground is a different stay entirely. Peedamulla means ‘plenty water’ and the Cane River runs through the 226,000 hectares of the cattle station – when it runs. The campground has only 20 sites, and in fact water is scarce, so not so much plenty water at this time. In fact the Cane River is mostly dry right now. Aboriginals own this property but the campground was developed under Tourism WA’s Camping with Custodians program. This is an initiative which allows visitors to stay on Aboriginal lands and engage with Aboriginal people. Tourism WA pays for the development – showers, toilets and general set up – and the quid pro quo is jobs, training, and economic return for the local Aboriginal Community. Typically there would be talks and discussions with locals in the evenings, all on hold because of COVID. There’s a lot of serenity here, so trips provide a change of scene. We 4WD out to the coast, which is stunningly beautiful as the tide comes in. Not so charming, the snake crossing the road on the way there.

teach a man to fish and he’ll never stop

Out third station is Bullara Station Stay, another very popular family owned and run property which has made itself as much of a bush-camp set up as it can, without actually being one.

The showers are all set up as “camp” showers -buckets with holes punched in the bottom instead of shower heads. Initially it’s a bit disconcerting when the water keeps flowing after the taps are off, but it is just the bucket emptying.

They use corrugated iron for the toilet and shower blocks, old horseshoes and bolts and bits of tools for door handles and toilet roll holders. It’s an effective technique for using what’s on hand for a design purpose. The overall effect is a bit of fun. You know it’s not a real outback camp, but hey, let’s pretend we’re roughing it.

A few pet sheep wander around the property along with a couple of kangaroos, one of which comes to visit and sleeps under the caravan. She must’ve come back overnight as we woke to kangaroo pee on the mat outside our door. Maybe she was annoyed we didn’t feed her enough almonds earlier in the day.

Another off road trip took us out to the Gulf (Exmouth Gulf) but no snakes this time. The drive was a bit of a disappointment – not because of the lack of snakes, but the gulf coast at this point isn’t particularly arresting: I despise mangroves even though I know they perform useful tasks in the ecosystem.

Even so, it was worth it for the proliferation of wildfowers on the way there. Still lots of purple Mulla Mulla, but now also a lot of white flowers, including these pipe cleaner like blooms pictured below. We never tire of them.

Simply gorgeous

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Does the word gorgeous come from the fact gorges are so gorgeous? I pose this question to myself constantly as we explore the stunning chasms that carve their way through Karajini National Park. Set in the heart of the Pilbara, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Hamersley Range, Karajini covers 627,422 hectares and is WA’s second largest national park. For the most part it is dusty plains punctuated with rocky hills ( they call them mountains but you and I know 1200 metres is just a hill ) jutting up out of nowhere. Then you arrive at the edge of a cliff that takes you down a precarious path to a lovely natural swimming pool. Our favourite is Fern Pool in Dales Gorge, and we reach it after a long walk around the rim of the gorge, then a descent and a long walk along the gorge floor. A waterfall cascades at the end of the pool which is about five or six metres deep. Someone dives in and loses their sunglasses; Scott has his mask, fins and snorkel with him and after a few dives manages to find them, much to general delight.

Throughout the park there are more than half a dozen accessible gorges and swimming holes – all require some clambering down and climbing out, sometimes over quite unstable surfaces, and all are worth the trouble. I run out of words to describe all of these wonders: they are magnificent, deep chasms, many fed by waterfalls, fringed with greenery and mind blowing rock formations.

the rock walls are a constant fascination

The permanent water supply supports some native trees, such as the Rock Fig and Rock Kurragong which miraculously cling to the rock walls and flourish. Fluffy purple Mulla Mulla, bright yellow cassia and wattle – 65 species no less – spring up and show their full glory against the red earth.

Fortescue Falls, Karajjini, requires a long walk down

The Pilbara is a geological time map – It comprises the oldest and most ancient rock formations in the world. It’s true. Parts of the Pilbara are dated over 3.5 billion years old and the existence of stromatolites – the earliest fossil evidence of life on Earth – are present here and also nearby at Shark Bay out to the coast. The knowledge they were the only life for a couple of billion years before they raised the oxygen level enough to allow the development of other forms of life, us, for example, is astounding.

The night sky viewing is second to none and we sign up for an astronomical adventure with Phil, a man whose jokes have more corn than Illinois, Iowa and Indiana combined. But he has three telescopes and he knows his stuff. TMI (too much information) results as he reels off numbers of light years, degrees of heat, numbers of moons and how many Earths could fit onto other planets, and I tune Phil out and simply enjoy the beauty of a sky with no light pollution, and gasp at the images we see through the telescopes: Alpha Centauri, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and other nameless stars that are so much more than what they seem – like all of us.

It has been a revelation – isn’t everything in this country? – to discover the Pilbara region and the diversity of landscapes. We now head west and will stay on some working cattle stations as we head to the coast again.

O for Ore-some

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Many people dislike Port Hedland because of the never ending red dust and the overt industrialisation that gives the town its reason for being: it is the biggest bulk export port in the world, exporting predominantly iron ore, manganese, lithium, and salt among other things.

However, we end up spending more time here than we thought we would just because it is all so interesting. We take some tours to find out more about this red dirt town. The Seafarers’ Harbour Tour takes us out into the harbour so we get up close and personal with the massive ships in port. The Twilight Tour takes us around the land based operations that feed the port. The Eco Salt tour takes us out to the massive salt ponds and tells us about the traditional Aboriginal use of the land and how they are working together in the eco projects. A city (I use the term loosely) tour clues us in to the history of Port Hedland including the lengths people must go to to batten down the hatches in cyclone season. The building code in Port Hedland is apparently the most stringent in Australia, requiring extensive roof fastening to prevent beheadings when roofing iron flies off during high winds.

The roof is reinforced with the battens running vertically down the walls, and the roofing iron is also battened

Iron ore is the reason for the existence of Port Hedland. The Pilbara holds the biggest deposit of iron ore in the world and the world is hungry for it, particularly China which takes 60% of the exports. So this blog includes a lot of awesome facts and figures, but I still won’t be able to convey the massive entity that is this production.

More about the Pilbara in a future blog, but we know we’re there as we encounter more and more trucks on the road, quads – four trailers of ore – heading to the Port. Couple that with huge trucks moving the biggest diggers you’ll ever see and it is wise to pull off to the side of the road when you see the flashing lights coming your way.

The ore is loaded on to very, very long trains for transport to the ships. The trains are three kilometres long and comprise 268 ore cars with a locomotive at each end and two in the middle; each ore car carries 140 tonnes of ore. I’ll do the maths for you, that’s 37,500 tonne per train and there’s a train an hour – and this is just BHP. The trains dump the ore, two carriages at a time onto conveyor belts – it takes 30 seconds – which transfer the ore to loaders then into bulk holds on the ship. There are 500 kilometres of conveyor belts around the Port, in case you are wondering. All the conveyors and loaders are autonomous and are run from Perth.

BHP is the biggest player in these parts, followed by FMG and the Johnny come lately to mining in these parts, Roy Hill, owned by the redoubtable Gina Rinehart. Yet Gina made so much money last year she gave all employees a 50% bonus on their salary (this is according to our tour guide). The various companies’ relative holdings are reflected in the number of berths they own for loading (see port map below – PPA are port authority general use). It takes four tugs to bring a bulk carrier in and out of the harbour. BHP own their own tugs, which they had custom built.

At any time there can be 60 ships at anchorage off Port Hedland for two to six days waiting for their turn to enter. Air Traffic control has nothing on the harbour dance. Ships must be a minimum of 14 days at sea (COVID restrictions) no matter where they come from, and when they dock seamen are not allowed ashore. The pilot is flown out by helicopter to bring the massive ships (360 metres long and 60 metres wide) into a channel only 190 metres wide. As the tidal flow can be up to 7.4 metres, there’s two sailing windows over a 24 hour period allowing 5 or 6 ships to come in to load; the turnaround time to fully load is 24-36 hours. When a fully loaded ship departs there is 24 centimetres, yes 9.4 inches, clearance to the harbour floor. And that is what a plimsoll line is for – to show the maximum depth for a fully loaded ship

The ship on the left is leaving, on the right it waits to load. The plimsoll line shows the difference between a fully loaded and empty bulk carrier.

What’s the bottom line? When iron ore was $100 per tonne, BHP was shipping $95 billion worth of ore a year. The latest price is somewhere around $220 per tonne, so you can double that. We understand it is $15 a tonne to extract, so I’ll leave it to you to do the maths and weep – or buy shares.

Rio Tinto is the world’s largest exporter of seaborne salt – meaning salt that is produced from evaporating seawater, as opposed to the Siberian version of mining salt – 5 million tonnes of salt every year, with most of it going to Asia and the Middle East for industrial use: in glass, industrial chemicals, and soaps and detergent. We drive out of town to inspect the evaporation flats. The whole farm is 21,000 hectares, so that’s a lot of fish and chips and tequila shots. They say the operations are a biodiversity area with greater than 1% of the world population of Red-necked Stint, Curlew Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Red-capped Plover, of which we see none. Port Hedland is also the most important known Australian site for Broad-billed Sandpiper and the endangered Asian Dowitcher – of which we see none. Back in town we watch $4.5 million bulldozers crawl over massive salt mountains. The dozers have another $1million of salt specification protection applied before use, and this is repeated every 9000 hours.

So we are fans of Port Hedland – it isn’t pretty but it is interesting.

here’s a map to show the relative ship loading facilities

So what’s happening?

Posted on August 7, 2021 by Bev Marshall

A few of you, my gentle readers, ask what’s happening for us with the latest Australian COVID cock-up. More on that in a moment. For now we are enjoying this, the beach shown below. At the far end you can see some trees which mark the caravan park where we’re staying. At the moment we’re on our eighth day at this aptly named and very beautiful 80 mile beach. The nearest town is Port Hedland, 250kms away and only a roadhouse in between. There’s nothing to do but walk the beach, read, potter, fish (Scott – and no, nothing worth keeping) and take naps. The down side? It isn’t at all nice for swimming as there’s not much clarity, lots of stingers, maybe sharks – though it’s possible there’s as much chance of a shark attack as there is catching COVID here but I’d as soon risk neither. And the caravan park shop doesn’t have an espresso machine.

Here’s a particularly big stinger – they get stuck on the beach as the tide goes out

First, breaking news: we haven’t been hospitalised with blood clots: 29 days ago we had our first Astra Zeneca (AZ) jabs. The reason I even mention blood clots is the potential risk of blood clots forming (between 4 and 28 days) after vaccination has been blown out of proportion, and is part of the reason the vaccine roll out in Australia is a complete dog’s breakfast. Never mind the proverbial piss up in a brewery, they literally can’t organise a vaccine programme in a pandemic.

So here’s the current state of play. As New Zealand ordered only Pfizer vaccine, the Astra Zeneca “problem” probably has not arisen at home. Despite the fact that AZ is 100% effective and is widely used around the world, and is what most countries have built their vaccination programmes around, that is ignored.

Here in Australia there is much panic-inducing reportage, along with mixed messages from the Federal and individual State Governments (thank God New Zealand has one Government for the whole country) and various health experts, about AZ. At first the recommendation is it’s for over 40s, then they amend the advice to over 50s, then over 60s. At the same time the Government announces the phasing out of AZ while they order more Pfizer.

Even so, they are contracted to manufacture 52 million doses of AZ at God knows what cost, and they’ll “donate” unused vaccines to “poorer countries”. The upshot? People in all age groups including all the COVID at risk groups think, well, I’ll wait for the Pfizer cos the Government doesn’t think AZ is any good. Then, in what is hardly unprecedented, ScMo does another about face – he must be dizzy by now – and goes on TV telling anyone over 18 to go and get AZ as soon as possible!

Then there’s the anti-vaxxers, COVID deniers, and lockdown protestors, who all like to get together, mask-less, and “exercise their freedom”. Ironically, if they got jabbed they’d have more freedom. Still they hold fast to crystals and sunshine to protect them from the virus. At a protest in Sydney last week one protestor was so incensed at the idea of stopping community transmission he punched a horse. Who punches a horse? The horse showed greater maturity by not punching back.

How does the popping of the trans-Tasman bubble impact us? The eight weeks Jacinda set takes us to September 17th. We’d planned to come back to NZ at the end of October, so decided to hold fast to hope and stay on. Surely NSW and Queensland can get their shit together before then. Oh how we laugh. Our second vaccination (AZ, so not available in NZ) is due on August 20th, so arguably we have to stay here for that.

Western Australia has, perhaps, the most strict border arrangements and the Premier, Mark McGowan, is ready and more than willing to shut things down at a moment’s notice. He is well supported by the public. Everywhere we go scanning in is routine and staff will remind you to do so if they think you’ve forgotten. It doesn’t escape us that the economy of WA is massive and relies on mines, pipelines, drilling and off shore work continuing. The export of iron ore must not be stopped – more on that in the next blog when I introduce you to the delights of Port Hedland, the largest bulk export port IN THE WORLD.

We are prepared to linger longer in WA if we can’t get home when we plan – might be when we find out if we can live in Albany as we wondered a few weeks ago. If the NZ/Australia border opens and we have to go into quarantine, so be it – we knew that could happen when we left. The issue might be getting a booking if what I read on Stuff is true.

It is tiresome hearing about Aussie athletes at Tokyo, because of course New Zealand’s fantastic efforts and achievements are of little interest here. I also never thought I’d be able to name each State’s Premier and Chief Medical Advisor, but there you go.

Suggest you hold off buying us Christmas presents, as we may not make it home by then.

Scott and Bev are not caravanning

continuing our travels, but not by caravanning

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