Sadly Andrew Ratcliffe and the boffins at Ericsson haven’t yet sorted out a cheap way of having access to the internet from my current location which is about 1,000km south of Jakarta, precisely 40,000ft above the Indian Ocean. So I won’t get to upload this, my final Australian blog, until sometime later.

I said goodbye to Martina about 3 hours ago at Perth airport, which was a tearful moment, but then that was to be expected. Although I’m sure at that same moment, thousands of others were doing the same elsewhere around the globe. So I’ll take solace from the fact that we aren’t alone. And thank goodness for Skype and text messaging, which will help us get through the summer. I remember something my grandma said to me when she was alive, that during WWII she and my grandfather were apart for three years! They were made of tougher stuff back then, so a few months for Martina and I really shouldn’t be too hard I hope.

It’s back to the UK I head from the Southern Hemisphere, for the second time in about six months. This time I don’t expect to be leaving again so soon. In fact after a lengthy trip away again, I feel an urge to put down some roots for a while and get into some kind of routine. But I suppose this is natural after travelling over 14,000km in a car that you have also called a home for 10 weeks. I think after a long period of normal day to day life, we all crave to get away from it all. So the reverse seems to be true after a long period without any normal routine. And it’s become clear to me that it’s almost impossible to have both of these things at the same time.

Leaving Perth in the Australian winter, where the temperature is 20°C and people are still swimming in the sea, I find myself again relishing the changing of the seasons. Many times on this trip, when the weather has been the same day after day, I’ve thought about the variable weather back home. I’ve started to think of myself as a Northern European, or rather someone who thinks that a sunny 20°C day, is a nice summers day, not a cool winters’ one. Someone who gets to see frosts and fog and snow, but also the amazing sites of spring when everything comes back to life and then Autumn, when everything goes back into the soil. After three months in Australia I realise how much I need that change in my life and how little seasonal change there seems to be in Australia. Clearly I’m generalising and there are large cyclical changes here too, but it’s not the same. So coming home really isn’t too bad, although I will miss my travelling companion of the last three months.

To end of a lighter note, I never did mention our funny sleeping arrangements in the tent. Going right back to the first week of our road trip, we were deliberating over what to buy to sleep on in the tent. I have one of those slim camping mattress, but that was never going to do for both of us. We wanted to get a large piece of foam, instead of an inflatable mattress, because they can burst and are very bouncy. But after much searching, foam was ruled out on cost grounds. A second camping mattress could have worked but that would have left a potential gap between us. In the mean time, as the days passed and we hadn’t made our minds up, we still needed something for Martina to sleep on. On one unsuccessful shopping trip to Kmart, we were wandering down the pet aisle and noticed the giant dog pillows. They were only $12 each and putting a couple end to end made a reasonable mattress. So it was that for a large proportion of the trip, Martina slept on a couple of dog pillows! We did buy a ‘bouncy’ air mattress too, but the first had to go back because it went flat repeatedly and then the second got a puncture too. So the temporary solution became semi permanent. I would like to point out though that when the air mattress was playing up, we did often take it in turns to use the dog pillows. And on that note, I’ll sign off for this trip.

Thanks again for reading.

 

Having been here for ten days now, it was high time I updated the header picture above. We’ve been so preoccupied with selling Betsy that I simple hadn’t gotten round to taking a photo of the city. Sadly yesterday was overcast, so the photo isn’t any good, but you can at least see what the city looks like.

After 11 weeks and 14,410 kilometres or 8,954 miles, it was with somewhat heavy hearts that we waved goodbye to Betsy on Wednesday evening. She’s done us proud since leaving Perth on March 16th, and despite having to replace the battery and the windscreen, we’ve had a very trouble free journey. Having lived with her for all this time, she’d become a large part of our lives and the trip too, so it was sad to see her go. But I would have been a lot sadder if we hadn’t been able to sell her and turn her back into some hard cash, so ultimately we were happy to see her move on. She’s been bought by a couple to be used for dog transport duties, so it’ll be a long time before she crosses the Nullarbor again. Thanks a lot Betsy, you big, fat white wagon you! See you on the road again one day…

You can see Betsy in action here!

Last week before we arrived back in Perth we had our penultimate night on the road, staying in a strange place that calls itself The Principality of Hutt River. Back in 1970 after a dispute with the State Government of Western Australia over wheat quotas, the owners of the Farm proclaimed their succession from said Government. It seems they resorted to using an old British law dating back to 1495, which enabled them to declare independence in a pretty clever way. It’s all on the Wikipedia page if you’re interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutt_River_Principality

The Principality is in actual fact little more than a farm yard and its surrounding fields. They have a small government office where you can have your passport stamped and a gift shop where you can buy Hutt River issued stamps. When we arrived the last of the day visitors was leaving, so we were able to have a long chat with the son of Prince Leonard I, who originally founded the principality. He was very friendly and even let us have showers in one of his back rooms, as the camp shower block was out of use. Surprisingly no one else had chosen to stay in this tiny nation that evening, so we had the entire campsite to ourselves. Unfortunately there isn’t much to see and you can tour the entire country, minus the fields in about half an hour. Pictures are here.

In the morning we got our passports stamped for the novelty value, before heading south for our last full day on the road. As we’d stayed so long in Quobba, we still had quite a distance to drive, so most of the afternoon was spent on the road. By about 3pm we’d made it to the little coastal town of Dongara. We had intended to head slightly further south and spend one final night in a rest area. However, we then decided it would be nice to stay in a town and go out for dinner. So we found a nice campsite and were informed that they had free nibbles being served at 4.30! This was a first at a campsite and the offer of anything free has always excited us on this trip. And as luck would have it we had a bottle of wine in the car, so we took that over to the bbq area and had a great few hours eating free nibbles (well the campsite did cost $33) and chatting with other holiday makers. By around 8 o’clock people started to drift away and we realised we were no longer hungry. Dinner was hastily abandoned and lunch the next day was planned. We retired to the tent for our last night sleeping rough and watched a movie.

Our final morning was again sunny and bright, like so many have been on this trip, but as we’re now in winter here, the temperature was considerably cooler than in March when we began. We went through our breakfast ritual one last time and hit the scenic coast road around 11am. At noon we pulled up in a little town to stretch our legs and I immediately recognised one of the British cyclists we’d seen over two weeks and 1600km ago! Colin had overtaken us whilst we’d been covering no distance in Quobba. It was lovely to catch up with him again, particularly as we’d been musing as to whether they would have overtaken us or not. We had a nice long chat and learnt that John and Francis, the couple from Scotland, were about a day ahead, in cycling terms. We bid Colin farewell and drove a few k’s south to Jurien Bay and lunch.

After a lovely meal, where for the first time in my life, the waiter managed to spill my drink in my lap, we motored on looking out for our other cycling chums. Sadly we never saw them. Mid afternoon we made a brief stop at one final National Park, to walk and drive amongst The Pinnacles, pictures here. With a little sadness and a temptation to head north, we turned Betsy Perthwards one last time, accelerated to 100kph, hit the cruise control button and headed home.

We left Lucky Bay late on Friday afternoon, heading for a rest stop about one hour south. After a quick dinner and maybe an episode of Dexter of two, I can’t remember now, fell asleep. I was woken in the middle of the night by heavy rain and saw that the outer and inner tent were stuck together. This means moisture can come straight through and leave the inside of the tent wet. I also felt around under the air mattress and saw water here too. The rest area was so flat that the heavy rain had soaked under the tent and we were basically sleeping in a puddle! But the sleeping bags were dry and there wasn’t much I could do at 4am, so I went back to sleep.

The next morning, during a dry spell, I spent a while pegging the tent out properly and managed to dry the inside too, before the rain came again. I spoke to a few passersby about the weather further south and was told that it was equally bad down the coast. So we decided to stay where we were for the rest of the day and another night. So for about ten hours we basically sat in the car and watched the rain. It wasn’t even a pretty rest stop. Although to break up the day, I did go for a short walk up the highway at one point! The only remotely interesting thing to happen was that another couple decided to stay for the whole day and night too, but even though they were literally 50m away from us for 36 hours, we didn’t even speak to them.

Sunday morning came and went and we packed up and hit the road south to Carnarvon. After shopping, refuelling and a brief spell Skyping, we decided on a whim to head back north and take the turn off for the Quobba Blowholes (pictures here). Here, over thousands of years the sea water has found its way under and in between the rocks, thus making a series of tunnels that start underwater and surface above ground. So when the waves crash against the coastline, water and air are forced out of these holes, creating a huge 20m torrent of water and a very interesting high pressure air soundtrack. We arrived at sunset and immediately thought we’d made the right decision. After sundown, we drove a few miles further north on a dirt road, to the campsite at Quobba Station. Unlike so many other campsites we’d stayed at, where you’re given a neat grass square to camp on and you’re cheek by jowl with other campers, here we had a huge wild area to choose from. We chose a lovely spot with sun shade and bbq area and only about 150m from the shower block. Nice. You can’t really appreciate a hot shower, until you go without for a few days!

Delighted with our choice to come to Quobba, we spent the next few days, soaking up some sun, exploring the coast and enjoying not driving hundreds of kilometres every day. On the third day we discovered the sheltered beach just south of the blowholes and were again amazed by the snorkelling. All you had to do was walk into the sea, put your head under the water and there were fish literally everywhere. On our first swim we saw several octopuses, some stingrays, a huge blue starfish, a baby lion fish (very poisonous) and dozens of other fish, in all the colours of the rainbow. It was really a great find and a lovely quiet spot, not really mentioned in the guide books. A Timelapse of the beach is here.

The next day we were disappointed in having to leave Quobba and head back to Carnarvon to get food and water, as there are no supplies available there and I also needed some internet signal so I could call home and wish my mum a happy birthday. After we’d again stocked up and Skyped, we both decided that with more than a week left to travel the 900km back to Perth, we could afford to spend more time in Quobba. So for the second time, we retraced our steps back north and out to the coast.

This time we decided to see if there was space at the campsite by the beach, rather than at the station. This would mean sacrificing showers and flushing toilets though. The camp hosts gave us a warm welcome and we immediately felt at home putting our tent back up, just 8km south of where we’d been that morning. We spent a further five days at Quobba, snorkelling, walking and just enjoying the peace and quiet. It was a wonderful find and some of the best days of the trip.

One evening the camp hosts, a couple in their early 70’s I would guess, noticed I had a laptop and asked for some computer advice. We ended up going back to their shack, rather like an overgrown beach hut from any British seaside resort and sitting around drinking coffee and eating biscuits, whilst I sort of fixed the problem. For those in the know (Rauf etc) I went into the Bios and changed the boot order as for some reason it had the CD-ROM at number 1. Thanks for teaching me this in the first place Rauf, particularly in light of what was to come in the way of thanks.

The couple, whose names escape me and became known as The Grandparents, were so happy they gave us two fillets of a fish called a red lipped emperor, which had been caught that day. The next day for lunch, Martina used the fish in the nicest meal we’ve had since our travels began in March. It was delicious and all done outside on a $15 camping stove!

Over the coming days the grandparents couldn’t stop thanking us for our help. When the second pole broke on our tent and it started to really be a pain to sleep in, they said we could put it up inside one of the unused shacks. This meant we’d be out of the wind and the rain and the tent should stay upright. To get a better idea of what I mean by ‘shack’, have a look at the Quobba and Campsite pictures. We were thrilled by their offer, so we upped sticks and carried the still erected tent, about 200m down to the shack. About an hour later I saw the grandparents walking over with their hands full of stuff. When they arrived it soon became apparent that they’d brought over a bucket of hot water, a generator and an electric hand shower, so we could both have a quick hot shower in the shower tent (see pictures). We were so chuffed I must say! Then to top it all off, there was more to come when we finally came to leave a few days later. We popped in to say goodbye and pay up for our final three nights and were told in no uncertain terms, that we were to keep our money and have another cup of coffee and biscuits instead! Our eight days in Quobba were fantastic and to meet such generous people was a fantastic added bonus.

A new post below and loads of new photos here and there. In particular I’ve neglected to upload any wildlife shots for ages, so take a look at these if you have time.

Over the last two months we’ve been cruising at about 95kph to conserve fuel and save money. Betsy is a big fat girl and at this kind of speed she’ll do about 32mpg, which isn’t bad considering she weighs 2 tonnes and has a thirsty 3 litre V6. The idea was to then spend this saved money on some scuba diving on the west coast.

Our initial plan was to do an organised dive with the whale sharks who visit the Ningaloo Reef at this time of year. However, after some research we found out that you could only snorkel with the biggest fish on earth and it cost $375, or about £250! This seemed like a lot and after so long on the road, was more than we were willing to spend. So we decided to do a dive underneath the famous navy pier at Exmouth. This would involve being security cleared into the naval base, so we were quite excited when we woke on Thursday morning. Sadly in a rare occurrence on this trip, the weather had taken a turn for the worse overnight and the dives had to be called off for the day. We were a little disappointed but decided to head down the coast to Coral Bay and try our luck there.

The next morning we found ourselves in a different town due to dive on a different part of the Ningaloo Reef and hopefully snorkel with a manta ray too. The weather hadn’t really improved, so we kept our fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be two days and two dive trips cancelled. Thankfully on arrival at the dive centre, everything was still on, so we kitted up and headed down to the dock and our boat. It was one of those weird days when the air temperature is lower than the water temperature. So in between dives it was really rather cold on the boat. Thankfully there was plenty of coffee and food to help us stay warm. The dives themselves were pretty good, with warm water and good but not great visibility. There were lots of different fish species to see including several large sting rays, like the one that sadly killed Steve Irwin a few years back.

But the highlight of the day came when the spotter plane pilot called in the coordinates for a manta ray, close to the boat. We headed for its position and were instructed to get ready with our snorkelling gear and await the instruction to jump in after our guide. She positioned herself close behind the huge fish and signalled for us to get into the water. As we neared our guide I strained to see something in the water below her position. Then all of sudden, an indistinct dark shape appeared slightly ahead and below of me. I kicked slightly harder to get closer and was quickly rewarded with my first sighting of a genuine monster of the deep. Although manta rays are filter feeders and as such are almost totally harmless.

The water depth was hard to gauge, maybe 5m, so it was hard to tell how far below us the ray was and therefore how big it was. But after about ten minutes the fish rose up from the bottom and it just kept getting closer and larger, until it stopped about 50cm from my outstretched arm. It was only then that I realised just how big this it was. As you can see from the picture (not mine) manta’s are wider than they are long, except for the thin tail, and this particular specimen was easily 3m across!

After about 30 minutes following this majestic beast it decided we’d had a good enough look and with one beat of its enormous wings, it simply accelerated away into the murky blue yonder. An unforgettable experience… now I just need a waterproof housing for my camera!

 

The road heading south-west out of Broome is a very boring one. In fact for about 200-300km, nothing seems to change at all. This didn’t bode well for Martina’s birthday, which was fast approaching on May 9^th. We were heading into an area known as The Piblara, which is rich in all sorts of minerals and oil and gas to boot. There are several large towns on the coast here, but they’re really only here to serve the natural resources industries.

On the morning of Martina’s birthday we found ourselves in the familiar surroundings of a road side rest area, with quite a few others who had spent the night here too. I was up earlier than Martina as usual, so had time to prepare a nice breakfast. Although living out of a car meant that I could only stretch to sliced pineapple and then a moderate fry up. I think it was well received though.

After about an hour on the road we arrived in Roebourne and as luck would have it, the information centre was in the old jail house, which was also a museum. Not only that, but it was a free museum and they had free tea and coffee too. This might not sound like much, but we’ve been on the road so long that we like our freebies and when it’s on your birthday it’s even better!

We then moved on to the larger town of Karratha, which isn’t pretty, but did enable us to resupply and buy some birthday treats. Lunch was taken on a small beach a few miles outside of town, before we headed to the visitor centre at the large Gas works. Now this might not sound very exciting, but Martina did part of her final degree at a Nuclear Power Station, so she finds all this stuff interesting. There are large natural gas reserves off shore and they’re piped on shore to be refined and sent around the world. Sadly you don’t get to do a tour of the plant, but the films shown at the visitor centre were pretty good.

We then moved on again to our rest stop for the evening. It was so similar to the one at the start of the day, that as I’m writing this I’m finding it hard to separate the two. But I do remember we’d bought some cold beer, which had stayed cold for once and had a nice evening sitting outside and drinking. Oh yes and I cooked sausages and mash for dinner, at Martina’s request of course. We had discussed treating ourselves to a hotel for the night, but we decided to save our money for some diving instead. That’ll follow in the next blog. It wasn’t a classic birthday, but I think Martina had a nice day!

After the excitement of our crocodile cruise we decided to skip Darwin and head down to Litchfield National Park. Unlike Kadadu there’s no entrance fee and therefore much less expectation too! We arrived on a busy Saturday afternoon and were lucky to find one of the last free camping spots. After a little research we realised it was a bank holiday in the NT, so the park was suitably full.

Litchfield is famous for its beautiful swimming spots and literally a stone’s throw from our campsite, were the Burley Rock Pools. Which consist of a series of deep pools and short waterfalls.  We had a quick dip Saturday afternoon and then spent a very lazy Sunday swimming and snorkelling and lazing around the campsite. It was a lovely relaxing weekend I must say!

On Monday morning it was time to head briefly south again to Katherine, before pointing our white steed west, for the long, lonely road to Broome and the ocean. I say brief, but by the time we’d made it to Katherine, shopped, filled Betsy with fuel and washed our clothes at the laundrette it was about 4pm. We set up camp at the first rest stop we came to and put up a temporary washing line for our clothes. Exciting stuff.

The next day we set off early for the long drive back into Western Australia and the town of Kununurra. The landscape during the day was much better than some days as we swept through yet another National Park and crossed the mighty Victoria River. In fact we also passed through the spot where the infamous Beagle finished her journey in land up the river. This was none other than the ship that Charles Darwin sailed around the world on! We also had an interesting encounter at a rest stop.

As we were taking a break to make coffee a small helicopter buzzed over our heads and circled around the rest stop. It then proceeded to land next to our car. Naturally when the pilot got out, we wandered over and asked him what he was doing. He was of course waiting for his wife to arrive with the caravan and give him some fuel! They were on their way from Perth to Darwin, with him flying his helicopter and her driving the car. He was clearly rich and eccentric and unlike the road train he didn’t offer us a ride. But he did let us have a good look as his chopper…

That evening in Kununurra we experienced the strange phenomenon of not enough time zones in Australia. Kununurra is right on the very eastern side of Western Australia, which must be about 1000km east from Perth. WA is 90 minutes behind the NT, so we had to set our watches back. But this meant that the next day, the sun would rise at 0545 and set at 1700. Now I’ll leave you to decide whether that’s a useful use of your daylight hours.

We drove westwards for the next two days and things did start to get a little boring I must say. Thankfully we met some interesting people under the shade of an amazing 1500 year old Boab tree (see above picture), on the evening of the second day. All three were cycling around Australia, two were a retired couple from Scotland and the other was a man from Essex. So not only did I have three people to talk to about bikes, but they were all from the UK to boot.

They’d all covered huge distances over the previous few months and had by sheer coincidence turned up at the same rest stop that evening. Knowing how hard it must be to carry enough water out here, where rest stops can be 100km or more apart, I did my bit and offered them all some of our water. We then sat around all evening, eating and talking about our respective adventures. We actually had a great evening, moaning a little about how expensive Australia is, what great places we’d visited and talking quite a lot about bikes. Over the course of the evening I realised how much I’m missing my cycling and seeing these people cycling such huge distances unaided, inspired me to get out there and cycle even more in the future. So I’m now really looking forward to the Lands End to John O’Groats ride, I’m doing next summer.

By the afternoon of the next day we’d finally made it to Broome and laid eyes upon the sea for the first time since leaving Whyalla, some four weeks previously. As Martina’s birthday was coming up, I thought it would be nice to treat her to an evening out, something we’d had precious little chance to do so far this trip. Thankfully Broome has the oldest open air, walk-in cinema in the world, so we had somewhere interesting to go for the evening. The 6.15 film was the intriguingly titled Water for Elephants so we bought two tickets and took our seats. It’s a rare thing that I get to go to the cinema knowing literally nothing about a film, so I sat down with particular relish, knowing the entire story would be new to me. What unfolded was a great story about the circus in 1920’s America. It was a really refreshing subject and made all the more enjoyable by the lovely surroundings and the occasional jet aeroplane that took off quite literally right over the cinema screen. See pictures of the cinema here.