A ghost town, a big rock and a hole in the ground

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Bev Marshall

We are in Cue, an old gold mining town 659 kms north east of Perth, and once again find there are interesting things in the middle of nowhere. Today the population is a couple of hundred, but in its hey day, the 1890s, 10,000 people made the town their home. Now the shops are deserted and you could fire the proverbial cannon down the street and not hit anyone. Some most impressive buildings stand empty and indicate the proclivities of the old town: the Gentleman’s Club, the Old Gaol, Government buildings, and the Masonic Lodge. Sadly they are closed up and so we do not see what must be beautiful pressed tin interiors. Yet there’s enough in the surrounding area to keep us here for a couple of days.

The plaque on the rotunda records that: “This rare octagonal bandstand was built in 1904 and dedicated to the pioneers of the Murchison region. It was a popular meeting place in the early years of settlement and the town’s band played here on Saturday nights. The drinking fountain was added in 1934.” It was originally built to cover the town’s first well which was believed to have been responsible for an outbreak of typhoid.

The Masonic Lodge – no more secret handshakes here

We start by driving 40kms west to the genuine ghost town of Big Bell, which between 1937 and 1951 produced 726,298 oz of gold. It was a thriving community with a school and hospital. There is still a mine out that way, but Big Bell is a ruin with scraps of corrugated iron and broken concrete the only testament to a former life. There is one standing ruin, the old hotel, which must’ve been most impressive in its day. The remains show triple brick walls, a cellar, and a multitude of rooms. Now it stands sad and abandoned by all but the ghosts. We know this as we meet an old timer later who tells tales of going out there when it was still open he said it had a “bad feel” and you didn’t want to be there for too long. Proof positive of a haunting I’d say.

The ruins of the Big Bell hotel – haunted

We carry on to Walga Rock which, after Uluru, is the biggest monolith in Australia: 5 kilometres in diameter, 1.5 kilometres long and 500 metres high. Unlike Uluru, there are only a dozen people there and most of them are road crew on a lunch break. It also has a couple of hundred metres of Aboriginal art under the overhang on the western wall.

even better, Walga Rock is devoid of tourists

Mysteriously, we are over 300 km from the sea and there is a painting of a white, square-rigged sailing ship with two masts and square portholes. While the origin of the painting is unknown, and there is no accurate dating of the ship, it is believed to have been done before 1900; one theory is that it was done by a Dutch sailor shipwrecked on the coast who was looked after by Aborigines, another theory is that it was done by an Afghan camel guide. Several rows of text under the ship look faintly Arabic, so the latter seems a possibility.

the sailing ship is at odds in the Aboriginal rock paintings

The next excursion, at the behest of Scott, is to the Dalgaranga Crater, a meteorite strike site found in 1921 by an Aboriginal stockman. This is a potentially exciting and interesting trip. Guess what. It’s not. Unless you count seeing the smallest meteorite crater in Australia – 24 metres in diameter and three metres deep – exciting and interesting. Surprisingly, not even the fact this crater is unique as the only one known to have been produced by a mesosiderite projectile, or asymmetries in the crater structure and the ejecta blanket imply that the projectile impacted at low angle from the south-southeast can rouse my interest.

And a final word of advice. When peeing in the outback, always look for ants before dropping your pants.

Who’ll stop the rain?

Posted on July 15, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Do not think Australia is all sun all the time. It rains. And it’s windy. Sometimes it rains a lot, and it blows a lot, as we find over the past weeks. The day before we leave Albany, just over three weeks ago, it rains so hard we stay in the caravan all day. A few days later, at Walpole the same. Thank God for Netflix. The wind brought down a branch so close to the neighbour’s head they packed up and left. Just as we finish dinner at the pub on our last night the power goes out all over the region – tree down. So we avoid the very south of the coast, deciding Windy Bay is probably not the best choice, and travel on to Margaret River. Within a day or so it’s thunder, lightening, just a little bit frightening. A veritable river forms along the grass area behind the caravan and the poor tent dwellers pack up and leave. On up the coast to Busselton, more of the same: at least one day quaking under the sound of hail on our tin roof. Now Bunbury, and yesterday the Bureau of Meteorology heralds the coldest and strongest front for Perth this season, warns of flash flooding, damaging winds and power outages, hot on the heels of the same three or four days ago. What can we say? It’s Winter, and at least the temperature is still in the high teens. And the caravan doesn’t leak.

Our trip through the South West of WA – caravans show where we base ourselves, and flags are day trips away

Yet we are still having a great time, and there are enough days with few showers or gorgeous all day sun to do all the things we want to do.

The coast from Albany along to Walpole is a lovely beach/surf coast – the biggest wave surfed in Australia was off this part of the coast. If you read Tim Winton, and/or have seen the movie of Breath, the filming takes place along here. If you like watching big wave surfing, go here. But aside from the history and beauty of the coast, the Australian bush just north is more fascinating. This part of WA is home to the Tingle trees – love the name – which only grow here and are quite remarkable. Not only can they grow to 25 metres (75+ feet) tall, they have wide buttressed bases with a large hollow inside. This is created over a long period of time by fire, fungal and insect attack, yet they keep living and growing for up to 400 years. Now that’s resilience.

Scott attempts to reach across the Giant Red Tingle

Many of us who drink wine know Margaret River as the main grape growing area of WA, yet its 2021 harvest tonnage is barely 24,000 tonnes, and overall makes up only about 2% of Australia’s total grape crush. I’m not sure what is smaller than boutique, but many of the 175 wine producers crush less than 50 tonnes (about 4,000 cases). Given the comparative size of the vineyards and crops, we marvel at the extravagance of some of the wineries and revel in the quality of their restaurants. It is our duty to consume a few degustation lunches with matching wines so we can judge fairly. Besides, when it’s raining, what better place than a cosy winery restaurant?

As you can see on the map above, Margaret River is about halfway along a jutting out bit of the west coast. At the south end is Cape Leeuwin where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet, and the northern end is Cape Naturaliste. In between is a stunning surf coast (the Margaret River Pro is part of the World Tour) and a landform with around 150 caves, with several open to the public. We take a tour of Jewel Cave, the largest tourist cave in WA. It boasts one of the longest stalactites in the world and there’s a lot of sparkle through the three massive chambers which extend to a depth of 253 metres.

This formation is the Karri Forest – for obvious reasons.

And we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. We visit a tourist town of over ten thousand, yet there’s no businesses, no shops, no schools. You know how, back in the day, someone stole their neighbours garden gnome, took it around the world and sent photos of it back to its owners? Well Gnomesville seems to be the place every garden gnome washed up. It started when the council, against public opinion – that’s unusual – put in a roundabout. Overnight a gnome moves in. By the weekend there’s two AFL teams, wearing team guernseys, of gnomes set up in a game. This becomes a traffic hazard as everyone slows down to look. The council makes a sensible decision – that’s unusual – and moves them to the verge. So many years on they and their multinational mates sit with no gnome to go to, or from broken gnomes and every cheesy pun you can think of – so I’ll say gnome more.

Maybe we could live here

Posted on July 6, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Albany is an attractive town of 35,000 on the south coast of Western Australia (WA). European history dates back to the early 1800s: establishment of the settlement in 1826 predates Perth, though we know indigenous Menang people were in the area for thousands of years prior. As part of the long running English/French antipathy, the English settle Albany as a military outpost to keep the French out. In subsequent years, the fact it is a deep water port has added to its history.

panorama of Princess Royal Harbour from Mount Clarence

Scott is excited to find the (Princess Royal) harbour is one of the best natural harbours in the world, in that it’s deep enough to take any ship, and is protected from big seas and high winds. It is part of the larger King George Sound (all so colonial) and full of beautiful beaches, bays and, yes, historical killing grounds: the last working whale processing factory only closed here in 1978.

The whale station is now a museum but looks as though it could start up again any minute – most of the equipment is still there, as is a lingering odour, a bit like an abattoir. One of the last whale chaser boat rests on shore and you can stand at the bow and yell “Thar she blows!” if you feel so inclined. There’s also the killing and flensing floors, and massive rendering silos to examine, along with lots of photos which, once seen can not be erased from your brain. It’s interesting. but very grim. A couple of days later on a boat trip, the skipper tells us he remembers going on school camps, when he was seven or eight, to the whaling station when it was still operational. What a fun day out for the kids, watching flesh stripped and blubber boiled down for oil.

The river trip takes us across Oyster Bay – more oyster tasting – and up the Kalgan River. Originally a French explorer, Baudin, charted and named the Rivière des Français in 1803, but of course Aboriginal people were there long before: there are fish traps dating back 7.500 years. Kalganup translates as place of many fishes. It is a beautiful trip on a calm. blue day, and we watch pelicans and osprey diving for fish.

The Kalgan bridge – we had to lower the roof of the boat to get underneath

Albany sits not just on the ocean but between what the Australians like to call mountains; Mount Clarence (177 metres) and Mount Melville (152 metres). Despite their Tom Cruise-like aspirations to height, they are both worth our time to visit. We yomp up the steps at the summit of Mt Clarence not only for the view, but to the dramatic Desert Mounted Corps Memorial.

Albany has a proud ANZAC history, as the harbour is where the Australian and New Zealand troopships gathered before sailing off to the First World War. Mt Clarence would have been their last sight as they sailed away, many never to return. This is also the site of the National ANZAC Centre and Albany Forts. The forts now operate as a museum and you can explore the barracks, armouries, underground magazines and gun emplacements. Sorry Mt Melville, but you’ve only got beautiful views.

“Now, I have the means to deploy my evil plan to rule the world”

It’s hard to know where to begin when talking about the landscape, national parks and coastline around the Albany region. We take trips out to Torndirrup National Park which stretches out from the south western part of town and curls around the harbour. It is home to some of the most stunning rock formations you’ll ever see. Granite formations such as the Gap, the Bridge and the Blowholes are self explanatory, but don’t prepare you for the power of the ocean smashing into them and carving them out.

the Bridge, which ultimately will all fall down.

We commit to a tramp/walk/hike out to Bald Head at the far end of Torndirrup which takes us along cliffs and wave smashed beaches, up and down gullies, great granite slabs and bushy promontories. The views are stupendous: we traverse a narrow isthmus where the Southern Ocean roils on the right and the harbour exudes calm on the left. You know you’re alive.

As we travel around Australia we look at places with a could we live here kind of eye. Not that we are thinking remotely about moving, but when you look at a town like Albany and evaluate the plusses, they start to stack up. And I didn’t even mention the fishing.

Wheatbelts and salt lakes

Posted on June 30, 2021 by Bev Marshall

As much as we enjoy Kalgoorlie it becomes time to move on. We head south towards the coast, travelling down the eastern side of the Wheatbelt. The West Australia Wheatbelt stretches east from Perth on the coast and covers 154,862 square kilometres in the south-west of the state. In this area there are 200 towns, but the overall regional population is just 75,000. WA comprises 33% of Australia’s landmass (2,529,875 km²). The population is just three million, with two million of this living in Perth, so it is easy to see why the Wheatbelt is so sparsely populated.

In South Australia we had become used to seeing great swathes of barren grain paddocks, with massive machinery tilling – or some other technical term – and either preparing for, or doing planting. I think Scott feels a pang when he looks at the tractors, though he wouldn’t admit to missing his Iseki.

field preparation somewhere on the Yorke peninsula

Only six weeks or so later we see the first green shoots appearing in the WA grain fields, but it is still difficult to visualise what they will look like in another few months.

At this point we are travelling on our first extended red dust road, taking the less travelled route south. Forewarned by other travellers about the mess that results from red dust blowing into the caravan through air vents, Scott sacrifices a yoga mat – not my good one – to cut templates and covers the vents. We are rewarded with a dust free interior even if the outside looks like it has taken a bath in paprika.

We are heading to Hyden, aka the middle of nowhere, to check out Wave Rock. Yes, yet another stunning land formation. I tell you this country is full of them. Over millions of years wind and rain have undercut the base of the massive Hyden Rock to create a 15 metre high, 110 metre long curving granite shelf that resembles a gigantic striped surf wave ready to break. It is, quite simply, beautiful. Walking up and across the top gives a sense of how extensive the rock is, and in nooks and crannies there are lovely little pockets of flora.

It is up here we can better see the delicate stone fence built by early settlers to channel the rain into the Hyden dam, built in 1928 for the town’s water supply. Early settlers were drawn here for the sandalwood trees, which they harvested and exported to Asia. In the mid to late 1800s up to 14,000 tonnes was being exported each year. Do I need to say there aren’t many left here? Demand is still great, however, and there is a thriving sandalwood industry, with about 20,000 hectares in plantations.

The top of the wave gives a great view over the surrounding area which features several low lying salt lakes, the remnants of ancient river systems. When the land was cleared of native vegetation to plant crops such as wheat, oats and barley, the shallow rooted crops didn’t soak up rainfall in the same way, so rain water trickled down into the deeper salt deposits. As the water table rose, so did the salt and subsequent evaporation created the salt lakes. There are hundreds peppering inland WA and if you go looking – just google salt lakes Western Australia images – you’ll find gorgeous aerial photos

the stripes are caused by minerals washing down in the rain.

salt lakes viewed from the top of Wave Rock.

We arrive at the coast once again, at Albany, and after a week there declare it is a place we could easily live. But more of that next time. For those who asked for more orientation, here’s a map of this blog’s journey.

Are we there yet?

Posted on June 25, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Today we elect to do the walk/bike track upstream along the Margaret River to the 10 mile dam. This is billed as an easy forest track to a catchment that’s part of the town’s water supply. The river is a lot smaller than I expected, but as there has been rain in the past week it has more water than we might expect.

We park at the beginning of the track, on the north side of the river. It takes a bit of finding the start, and I’m ready to give up in the first five minutes – then we realise we are on the wrong path. Once we correct that error, it’s a beautiful ride with towering gums, lots of info boards adding to our knowledge of native flora, and gorgeous views of the river.

So that’s the first half. It gets trickier and as a few trees have come down with the storm a couple of weeks ago we face several points of “so high, can’t get over it, so low, can’t get under it”, though actually we can get over it by lifting the bikes. As you can imagine, this is the kind of riding one of us really enjoys.

We ignore the sign which says “winter alternative route” and find ourselves looking at a ford across the river and a sign stating “unsafe to cross”. What do you think? Yes, we cross. Scott does a barefoot reccy then rides both bikes across while I show my mettle by carrying both pairs of shoes. That water is cold.

By the time we reach the damn dam my legs seem to have forgotten how to propel the wheels. Bear in mind my bike better suits cycling around town – perhaps with a basket of French bread on the front and bellbirds circling about, singing and showing the way. You know, like a Disney movie.

After an exploration of the dam track we decide to take the country roads back to the car. When I consult the map I find we are, in fact, as close to the caravan park as we are to where the car is waiting. I elect to take the easy option (surprise!) and follow the road, while Scott carries on, reconnects with the bike trail and goes back to the car. We arrive home at roughly the same time. But what he doesn’t know is I first go to the Vinnies (charity op-shop) next door to the caravan park and donate my bike.

Digging Deep

Posted on June 19, 2021 by Bev Marshall

We have no intention of going north at the end of the Nullarbor, but I see a brochure for the Golden Quest Discovery Trail: it’s not gold mining that attracts me, but a sculptural installation 180kms north of Kalgoorlie. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Perth International Arts Festival in 2003, they commission a major work by British sculptor Antony Gormley and he chooses a massive salt lake, Lake Ballard, as the installation site. Fifty-one tall, angular figures a couple of hundred metres apart, gaze into the distance. The nearby small town of Menzies (population 108) must be home to unusual bodies, as Gormley took digital scans of locals, abstracted these and cast them in alloys made from the mineral rich local soil.

one of the 51 figures of Gormley’s “Inside Australia” installation at Lake Ballard

Luckily for us it is an overcast day; unluckily there has been rain in the previous week and the surface of the lake is gluey in parts. We spend a couple of hours squelching from sculpture to sculpture and heading out to what we think is water, but must be an illusion as it keeps retreating. By the time we reach it will be midnight at the oasis and we’ll be sending our camels to bed. At the end of our visit we climb an atoll for the overall view. At no point on the walk, or from the elevation, can you see the whole installation, but the outlook is an almost perfect horizon.

Back in Kalgoorlie everything is interesting, even if it does seem to be environmental vandalism at times. Digging for Earth’s treasures is not an eco friendly activity.

The town exists because, on 15 June 1893, Paddy Hannan and his mates find a nugget of gold and stake a claim. Within weeks a flood of prospectors are pick and shovelling and digging and tunnelling, so now about 3,500 kms of tunnels snake under and around the town. It is not unknown to find a mine head (entry) under an old house during demolition. Better than finding it while you live there I guess. Surprising to me, is that the area is an earthquake fault line, and in 2010 a 5.2 shake damaged historic buildings and put a temporary stop to mining. The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding Paddy’s original find is called the Golden Mile, one of the richest square miles on earth.

It’s a very big hole with a little bit of gold in it

The Superpit is a yawning open cast mine right on the edge of town. It’s 3.5 km long, 1.5km wide, and 700 metres deep. Yielding 1.9 ounces per tonne of rock, it hardly sounds worth the trouble, but in 2019 the mine produced 456,000 troy ounces (14.2 t) of gold. So that is pretty much worth the trouble at today’s price of $1880 an ounce. The owners clearly think there’s plenty more to be had as the closure date has been extended to 2035 and they are spending up large on new equipment: three new diggers at $A18 million each; 40 CAT 793 trucks at $A4 million each. The scale is mind boggling – the truck tyres alone cost $40,000 each and weigh 5 tonne.

If you ever need an explanation of the “time is money” adage, it is here: the operation runs 24/7. Truck drivers have to hot seat: when one takes a break, the truck is not idle. Another driver takes over so there is no down time. Driving is a 12 hour shift, seven days on, seven days off, seven nights on, seven nights off, and pays around $110,000 a year. There is no FIFO (fly in fly out) so workers live locally. Yet every second shop is closed or empty so all that gold money does not seem to be flowing into the town. Or maybe it is – with a population of around 30,000 has 22 pubs, many are beautiful historic buildings dating from the late 1890s and early 1900s, though their heritage value is unlikely to be the reason for their continued existence.

And if you are wondering what all the gold is for, the answer may be found on your person or on someone close to you, or in your house: it is jewellery. Yes up to 80% is used in jewellery. Some is in electronics, for example your iPhone has about 0.034g, though at today’s price that’s only about $1.80 so barely contributes to overall cost. The remaining percentage is finance and investing, think gold bars, coins etc, dentistry, medicine and the space programme.

One way to strike it rich (not) is gambling. In Australia Two Up – betting on the toss of two coins – is an unregulated gambling practice and therefore illegal. However, in a strange legal aberration you can play on ANZAC day. A perfect way to remember those who lost their lives in war. It turns out it is also legal to play at Kalgoorlie on a Sunday, so of course we drive out to the historic Two Up ring a few kms out of town. There is a very active session in progress, and it seems $50 is the basic bet. Hundreds of dollars and changing hands. Eventually we understand the rules, but as much as I like a game of chance, at $50 a throw this is too chancy for me. I won’t go into the intricacies, you can read them here.

The spinner uses a kip to toss the pennies: you can see how salubrious the scene is

Kalgoorlie turns up all kinds of interesting facts about outback life. The town water supply comes along a 530kms pipeline from a weir in Perth, thanks to the perseverance and ingenuity of C Y O’Connor. It took seven years and much wrangling to get the Coolgardie Water Supply Scheme underway the tap gets turned on in 1903. Sadly, in an early manifestation of bullying and cancel culture, O’Connor committed suicide in 1902.

Coming up: after an unexpectedly interesting few days in the dry of the central west, we head down the eastern border of the Wheatbelt, through the salt lakes to the south west coast of WA.

Crossing the Nullarbor: Part Two – Western Australia

Posted on June 10, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Eucla is the first town after the border crossing from South Australia. Given you are relieved of any and all fresh produce at the border you would think some enterprising shopkeeper would have a well stocked chiller truck or at least a greengrocer stall. Not so. Aside from no vegetables, Eucla’s claim to fame is the historic 1877 telegraph station which linked West Australia to the rest of the country and improved communications significantly. It is ironic that 144 years on, WA seems determined to keep itself as insular as possible from the rest of the country.

We continue along the highway but take another off-road spin to check out the Madura Cave. As I mention in the last posting, Part One of Crossing the Nullarbor, we are on a massive limestone plate – therefore there are often caves or sinkholes where the softer limestone erodes. The Madura Cave is one such place and it is spooky revelation. It is not a deep cave, more of a shallow overhang. Once we get used to bats flying at us, we find ourselves in a kangaroo boneyard. When they are sick and/or dying they seek out the cooler space and hide from predators, but as there is no actual hospital or aged care facility, they die sad and alone.

there are many kangaroo skeletons in and around the cave

As we come over the Madura Pass we get great views of the Roe Plains, again proving the Nullarbor is not all a long flat straight road – that is yet to come. We pause at Madura for the night, and play the 9th hole of the Nullarbor Links, the world’s longest golf course. It is an 18 hole par 72 course which starts in Ceduna and ends in Kalgoorlie 1,365 kms later. At 16 roadhouses along the way (plus 2 holes in Kalgoorlie) there’s a (sort of) green tee and some terrain that gives new meaning to the word fairway. The rough is very rough. It says everything about my interest and expertise in golf that I take 5 shots on the 125metre par 3 hole. I am much, much worse on the 16th hole but make up for it all on the 19th.

There’s little to say about the road from Caiguna to Belladonia (this is quite the Geography lesson isn’t it) except it is Australia’s longest straight – 146.6 kms. It is very long, and very straight.
Arriving at Balladonia provides more excitement however, as there is a great museum at the Roadhouse. I say that with no trace of sarcasm. It really is very good and has informative displays and artefacts illustrating the history of the area. The highlight is a chunk of Skylab: those whose memories go back as far as 1979 will remember the disintegration of NASA’s space station and the fiery reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, with bits landing within a 150km radius of Balladonia.

This country is very happy to honour its equine heroes, as we find in Goondiwindi and Port Lincoln. In the tiny town of Norseman, essentially the end of the Eyre highway and the point at which you toss a coin to go north to the goldfields of Kalgoorlie, or south to the coast and Esperance, there’s another horse statue. Not a racehorse, but a simple prospector’s mount, Hardy Norseman. In the 1890s his owner tethered him to a tree overnight and by morning the horse had unearthed a piece of gold bearing quartz – Norseman becomes the second richest gold-field in WA.

But more of gold in the next instalment.

Crossing the Nullarbor : Part One – South Australia

Posted on June 5, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Ceduna is the last real town on the Eyre Highway if you are driving west across the Nullarbor. I expect a dusty country town where the theme to The good The Bad and The Ugly rings out and tumbleweeds roll down deserted streets.

Yes, it’s small, but has several good looking shops, a beautiful waterfront and a vibe that you feel would be upbeat – if it weren’t Sunday afternoon. Although the local population is about 1,500, there are at least four caravan parks, three liquor stores and a well stocked supermarket – everything a grey nomad, or any nomad, needs before travelling 1,000+ kms to the next town.

You don’t need to have suffered Sister Rose through fifth form (year 10) Latin to know Nullarbor means no trees. But some things you believe about the Nullarbor are big fat lies, as is a lot of what the nuns told us. While the road referred to as “crossing the Nullarbor” runs 1194 kms from Ceduna to Norseman, the treeless Nullarbor is only about 350kms. What’s more, big shock: it has trees. Yes, most of it is low scrub but there are trees. Not towering eucalyptus, granted, but a couple of metres high is a tree in my book. Now, are you sitting down? It RAINS on the plain, and we are not in Spain.

lies, all lies – none seen, dead or alive

And despite the advertised kangaroos, wombats and camels, do we see any? No.

Out first stop is only 130km from Ceduna and we take a 20 km detour to Fowlers Bay. The sea grass we have seen on all the beaches so far is a variety found only in South Australia and it appears here in haystack proportions as a storm last week pushed it up onto the beach. There is soft white sand underneath and it also forms dunes back from the beach. The settlement has no power grid and is strictly solar, the water supply coming from the skies, or drawn from soaks under the dunes, which Aboriginal people used for centuries.

The dunes aren’t massive, but they are beautiful and we do not realise how beautiful until we take the 4WD road around the back and down the long white beach behind them. The views out over a series of long while sand bays is gorgeous, but the crumbling cliff edges reminds us how fragile the coastline is, and how violent the weather must be at times. We have to drop the tyre pressures to drive along the appropriately named Scott’s Bay, but the Landcruiser takes it all in its stride.

Second stop is another 200 odd kms on at the Head of Bight, allegedly the most spectacular land based whale watching site in the world. There’s a boardwalk out to several viewing platforms on the edge of the crumbling cliffs. Southern Right whales migrate past here between May/June and September. The mothers give birth here and the shallow waters are perfect for the babies to grow and learn how to be whales before heading back to the Southern Ocean in October/November. We see a few spumes indicating whales coming to the surface but it’s a bit early in the season, so we fold our metaphorical tent and continue west. The Head of Bight is 25km out from the Nullarbor roadhouse, which should really fly a pirate flag as it robs you blind for diesel; $1.92 a litre, when the most we’ve paid to date is $1.44.

We free camp overnight on one of the many rest/camping areas off the road. It is a huge area with lots of trees and evidence of many previous tenants in the form of fire places and wheel tracks, but we are the only ones this night. We scavenge wood and light a fire in time for a beautiful rainbow to shower us in gold – in our case a gin and tonic.

It is a quiet night until there’s a downpour at 3.00am, another at about 5.30. The drive today is alternating showery and sunny spots, though at one point I almost stop as it rains so heavily I can barely see the road in front. We side track to take in a couple of lookout spots for the Bunda Cliffs which stretch for 100kms along the Bight. It is here you clearly see the differentiation of the limestone layers that makes up the Nullarbor – the world’s largest flattest piece of limestone at 200,000 square kilometres and up to 300 metres thick.

We arrive at the Border Village and Checkpoint Skippy to cross into Western Australia.

nothing says Australia like a giant kangaroo with a jar of vegemite

We have to complete Western Australia’s G2G pass before crossing the border. I won’t bore you with the meaningless and pedantic questions on the multi page form, but the police have all our info on-line and check our data and identities. As an aside no-one seems to know what G2G stands for but I think it is good to go. If you have been in Victoria within the last 14 days you are turned back: in fact we meet a young family who had one day out of 14 in the North of Victoria, nowhere near Melbourne and the COVID outbreak, and they were turned back. After the police interrogation we are frisked for fresh fruit and vegetables by a quarantine officer, who seems particularly keen we don’t have potatoes or onions. I don’t know what they have against a potential hash brown outbreak, but we are nightshade and allium free.

We’ve made it to WA. Only another 700 kms to Norseman, and the end of the Nullarbor.

The smell of money

Posted on May 27, 2021 by Bev Marshall

The foreshore of Port Lincoln is lovely: a long beach fringed with Norfolk pines, a wide grassy recreation area dotted with BBQ areas and picnic tables, and at the centre two large statues – a tuna fisherman and a horse. We’re at the south eastern end of the Eyre peninsula in a town of 16,000, but it boasts the highest number of millionaires per capita in the country. What is responsible? The tuna or the horse?

More millionaires per capita than anywhere else in Australia

If you picked the door with the tuna on it you’d be right. Large fortunes are made in the tuna fishing industry, as the sashimi grade Southern Bluefin tuna is sold directly to the lucrative markets in Japan. More about the horse later. Port Lincoln isn’t a town to hide its light under the proverbial bushel – in this case the bushel is overflowing with seafood. The town has the largest commercial fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere, including 39 prawn trawlers fishing the Spencer Gulf and 77 lobster (crayfish) vessels plying the coast.

Some of the large fleet of prawn trawlers

Known as the Seafood capital of Australia, Port Lincoln is famous not only for tuna but also prawns (best ever), Kingfish and King George Whiting. The industry also farms mussels and abalone. I see an ad for a seahorse farm and I’m fascinated – is this a new delicacy? or perhaps they’re racing them?

After all, Australia has a propensity for erecting statues of famous racehorses as we found in Goondiwindi; we can’t miss the statue of Makybe Diva, three times Melbourne Cup winner and highest stakes earner in Australian history – over $14 million in her racing career, and owned, incidentally, by a tuna fisherman. Clearly not one of my syndicated horses.

But wait, there’s more about seafood – the famous Coffin Bay oyster beds are 45 mins away so we book the Oyster Farm Tour. Which turns out to be less of a tour and more of a wade through the shallows wearing extremely unflattering chest waders, sitting half submerged at a long table, hearing about the farming of oysters, then learning how to shuck them. Oh, and then eat them. I try, really I do, but they are still just a snotty gobfull, even when washed down with decent bubbles.

But the south of the Eyre peninsula has other attractions. We hear about Memory Bay, a remote beach at the end of the road through Lincoln National Park. To preserve the wilderness only 15 vehicles a day are allowed in, and we need to get a key to the locked gate which takes us onto the road to the cove. At the Information Centre we pay $10 park fee (laughably reasonable – hello New Zealand?) and hand over $50 deposit for the gate key. The Woman taking our money relays the following information from the Ranger:

the road is is a poor state and only 4wd
reduce tyre pressures to 18
keep to the track
if you get stuck we aren’t there to pull you out

So, I ask, if we get stuck what do we do? Well, there’s Rupert and he charges $400. Showing deep confidence in our 4WD skills, and out of Scott’s earshot, I ask for Rupert’s number. Which, of course, we do not need. The road is very rough, but more rocks and potholes than drifts of sand, so we don’t get to use the fancy crawl mechanism the Landcruiser has – it drives itself out of trouble if youtube is to be believed. Indeed, I check all my fillings are still intact when we arrive.

Dental concerns aside, the trip is gorgeous and runs through several different landscapes over the 20km – which takes us nearly an hour and half in case you were wondering. There are lots of emu running amok, kangaroos bounding around and stunning coastal views.

Island hopping

Posted on May 19, 2021 by Bev Marshall

Suffering from PTSD after our dealings with bureaucracy, we leave the caravan in Adelaide and take a 45 minute ferry to Kangaroo Island; if they aren’t hitting the vineyards, Kangaroo Island is Adelaide residents’ preferred weekend away and the greatest attraction is wilderness. That said, the island boasts a brewery (nah), a gin distillery (hell yeah) and a couple of vineyards (didn’t go). Six times the size of Singapore, Kangaroo Island, or KI to use the local term, has a population of just over 4,000 so overcrowding isn’t a problem.

We hear there’s spectacular scenery and we’re interested to see how the island is recovering 16 months after the devastating fires. About 46% of the island burned and roughly 50,000 koalas died – which explains why we see just one the whole trip, along with a handful of kangaroos. At one point we do stop to let an echidna cross the road. Why did it cross the road? Only the echidna knows.

Leaving mainland Australia for Kangaroo Island

We take the road to the south to Flinders Chase National Park – this is where we see Nigel no-mates, the koala, up a tree outside the visitor’s centre – clearly he’s on the payroll. The park was completely burnt out in January 2020 and the bush regenerates at different speeds and in different forms. For example mallee, a shrubby lower growing eucalyptus, regrows from the base, whereas some other varieties sprout new growth from their dead burnt bodies.

The long and curvy Cape du Couedic road in the park is an Instagram favourite but this article has before and after pics showing what was lost in the fires. We can see the regrowth now and it is hard to imagine how terrifying the fires must’ve been.

Sixteen months on from the January 2020 fires, regeneration is slow

We take a long walk from the lighthouse down to Admiral’s Arch, a natural formation carved out by the sea. Stalactites hang down and frame a nice view of the ocean but I have to wonder at the sign announcing a Bush Fire Last Resort Refuge – you’d literally be between a rock and a hard place if this was your last resort. Tough decision, being burned alive or flinging yourself into the surf pounding the rocks. Let me think about it.

if this is your last refuge you know you are in trouble

The energy of the sea and wind is visible in the way they continue to sculpt the Remarkable Rocks, which are one of the most recognisable features synonymous with KI. A series of massive granite domes stretch to the water’s edge where the Roaring 40s howl in from the Southern Ocean lashing the landscape and sculpting a bevy of designs that would make Rorschach weep.

It isn’t warm enough for swimming, even for those of us more used to Wellington temperatures, so we limit our beach adventures to walking – Stokes Bay is a hidden gem where the entrance isn’t obvious. You need to walk through and between an array rocks which, in places, are so narrow they act as a default body shaming space. Fortunately we make it through.

Scott and Bev are not caravanning

continuing our travels, but not by caravanning

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