The wrap up

We’ve done it!  We’ve driven more or less all the way around the Australian continent, had an amazing time, met some super people, seen a lot of extraordinary sights and have enjoyed every minute.

I suppose it’s almost compulsory to add in the facts and figures, so here goes:

• Distance travelled - 24,035 kilometres (14,945 miles)
• Fuel used - 2,595 litres (685 gallons)
• Average fuel consumption - 10.79 litres per 100 kilometres (26.17 miles per gallon)
• Breakdowns - Nothing serious.  Stone guards on both rear wheels were shaken off by corrugations, second battery failed and was replaced, and power assisted brakes failed temporarily
• Tyres - No punctures, although we’ve worn about 3 mm of rubber, mainly on rough tracks in the Limmen National Park and on the Gibb River Road.

Oh yes, Kim took some photos - 11,500 of them!

That’s it.  Time for a rest.  I’m probably too old now for any more long trips, but I’ve not yet given up on the shorter runs. 

Watch this space.  In the meantime it’s goodbye from me, goodbye from Kim and goodbye from Vin Rouge.

The Last Leg

The Mitchell Highway from Orange to Sydney via Bathhurst and the Blue Mountains could do with some serious maintenance.  Bumpy, patched and rough, it chicaned through undulating and pretty countryside, passed through small towns, arable farmland and orchards.  We bumped along, stopped in Narromine to look at the statue dedicated to the cricketer Glen McGrath and again in Bilpin, to buy some locally grown apples.

We climbed up one side of the Great Dividing Range, passed through low cloud and the morning chill to descend into the flatter land that took us around the northern suburbs of that great urban sprawl known as Sydney.  We spotted the stately Warratah, the official floral emblem of NSW blooming alongside the road.  Naturally Kim had to stop and take photos and of course with no power assisted brakes, stopping took a lot of heavy footwork on the pedal.

For the first time in weeks we stepped into a real house!  Jillian, who lived next door to us in Brisbane a couple of years ago, had moved to Sydney and we enjoyed catching up with her news over a pleasant and relaxed lunch.  Then it was on to Peter and Katherine, our very good friends from Hong Kong days where we would enjoy not only a traditional G&T or several, but the pleasures of sleeping in a genuine bed.  Luxury! 

Thanks to a loan of Peter’s pressure washer it was time for Vin Rouge to have a thorough wash down and remove the insect cemetery from the front of the vehicle.  It must have made poor old Vin Rouge feel better because the power assisted brakes started to work again shortly after setting off north.  Katherine is a potter.  Her work is well known and she was exhibiting at Artisans in the Gardens.  Judging by the crowds, it was a popular exhibition.  So while Katherine talked to visitors about pottery, we wandered around the Botanic Gardens, stopping to watch the harbour whilst enjoying ice creams.  It made a pleasant change to be tourist for a while.

And of course, Kim found some flowers.

We spent a lovely evening in Tamworth with Lisa, a friend of Kim’s from way back.  Next day we decided to make it back to Brisbane in one hop, arriving as day became night.  We’d stopped to help a chap who’s vehicle had spun off the road but apart from that had a fast run all the way.

Now it’s over.  It’s been an amazing adventure.

To Nullarbor and Beyond!

The Eyre Highway, or Nullarbor does go on for a very long way.  Even at the checkpoints there seems to be a lot further to go.  At Kimba, which according to its signpost is ‘Halfway across Australia’ Vin Rouge was almost, but not quite squashed by a big galah!

We crossed the border into South Australia where time gets just plain silly.  In three days we changed time zones three times, moving not in solid hours, such as any normal country, but firstly 45 minutes, then another, and then 30 minutes.  Kim complained that she was suffering ‘Land Rover lag’ using this as an excuse to sleep in late.  One difficulty associated with the Nullarbor is the head wind.  Yes, we had it all the way across, not only a head wind but sometimes a head gale.  At times Vin Rouge, which is as aerodynamic as a brick, really struggled to make any headway above 70kph. 

At last we were through, 1,300 fairly tedious kilometres in three days.  The town of Ceduna, although well inside the South Australia border, is where the quarantine station is located.  Its purpose is to ensure that fruit flies on fresh fruit and vegetables are not brought into fruit growing areas and we were thoroughly checked to ensure compliance.  Carrying on to the small town of Winnulla, we camped overnight close to some giant grain silos.  The whole area is one vast wheat field, crops as far as the eye can see.  It’s farming on a grand scale.  The crops are harvested, stored in massive grain hoppers and silos, transferred to mile-long trains then transported to the docks for export in bulk tankers.

No self respecting Land Rover owner passes near to Wilmington without stopping at the Toy Museum.  True to form we dropped by to be greeted by David Christie and his son Adrian who informed us that a blue Land Rover towing a large boat had been through a few hours earlier and all was well.  The driver had left a message in case we called by.  Somehow both the car and the trailer had been fixed and he’d completed more than 700 kilometres without problem.  That news made our day.  Adrian showed us his latest project, a hybrid of various LR parts.  Although not quite complete, Mike had a drive and found it a lot of fun - very fast, amazing cornering and brakes that would stop a road train.

Over the border, into New South Wales and yet another time zone.  Broken Hill, known for its silver mine was our stopover point.  We weren’t too taken with the place.  It’s dominated by a massive slag heap and although there’s a few attractive buildings, they’re almost lost amongst the mass of ‘practical but ugly’ constructions.  However, at Bells Milk Bar, a throwback to the 1950’s, we had enormous milk shakes and enjoyed the nostalgic surroundings. 

Pro Hart is a well known Australian artist who started his working life as a miner before making a name for himself as a painter.  His work, some of it graphic, other work conceptual and yet more critical of mining avarice, we found challenging but moving.  He’d even painted one of his Rolls Royce cars in commemoration of Australia and the millennium.  We wondered; shouldn’t that have been a Holden?

Now Vin Rouge has been on its best behaviour for weeks.  With only a couple of minor issues through the remote and rough tracks we’ve been driving, the car has decided that it’s time to go home.  It probably heard us talking about it and so the vacuum pump (needed for power assisted braking) failed.  I can hear it thinking ‘let’s get home asap, no need to slow down’.  As it would take a couple of days to get a new pump flown in at extortionate cost, we elected to drive back to Brisbane and ship in a new pump from the UK at a quarter of the cost.  However, it’s Sydney first to catch up with some friends before the last leg north to Brisbane and home.

A Big Hole

Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie are about 50 kilometres apart so why does our esteemed navigator take us over 600 kilometres from one to the other?  The answer seems to lie in some rather skinny cast iron figures.  Anthony Gormley (of Angel of the North fame if you’re in the UK) apparently took laser scans of over 50 local inhabitants from the nearby town of Menzies and planted the castings in the salt lake known as Lake Ballard.  Now if I was one of those depicted, I’m not sure that I’d be too flattered, but you can make up your own mind!

Oh well, at least the sunset was something special

Kalgoorlie is famed for a hole in the ground, locally known as the Superpit.  It certainly lives up to its name.  A kilometre wide, close on 3 kilometres long and half a kilometre deep.  Huge trucks, each hauling out 200 tons of ore operate 24/7, and that ore is processed to extract gold.  Apparently a piece about the size of a golf ball is retrieved from about seven trucks of ore.  It must be profitable judging by the number of trucks we saw working.

The buckets are pretty impressive too.  Here’s one of the smaller variety.

Mike hit the throttle fairly quickly (in case Kim decided she wanted some gold jewellery!) and we rapidly made the 200kms to Norseman, a pleasant little town named after a prospector’s horse that kicked up a gold nugget in 1894.  It also put us at the beginning of the Eyre Highway, otherwise more generally known as The Nullarbor, or colloquially ‘Nullarboring’.  It’s 700 kilometres to the South Australian border, then another 470 kilometres to Ceduna where it technically ends, although there’s still another 400 kilometres to travel before we get to Port Lincoln at the southern promontory of the Eyre Peninsula.

The Nullarbor is one of those iconic Australian drives.  It’s long and straight.  In fact, part of it is the longest stretch of dead straight road in Australia.

It also boasts the world’s longest golf course.  Each of the eighteen holes is located at a stop along the way.  Special certificates are issued to those who complete the entire course.  The journey should us three days.  If we tried the golf, with our handicap it’d be Christmas before we competed the route!  Instead, at the end of day one, we were able to camp overnight at the Wedgetail Roadhouse at Cocklebiddy.  It’s not a large place!

The wind howled through the tree (I think there’s only one!) and so we took solace, and warmth, in the roadhouse, ate an enormous and very good dinner, drank a drop of perfectly acceptable Shiraz and slept like logs, despite the wind.  The only other Land Rover we saw all day had broken down.  The owner had bought it a couple of days earlier and was towing a large boat from Perth to Sydney, and having flown over to collect his purchases, had no spares and few tools with him.  He was in a bit of a pickle.  A wheel on the trailer was wrecked and so was the spare.  On top of that, something was squealing with his vehicle.  A mechanic told him that it was the viscous fan, and had that been true, we could have replaced it because we had a spare.  However, the problem was a small bearing on the fan belt tensioner, a part that we did not have.  He was hoping to find a truck with space to take everything to Sydney, or at least to a town with a repair shop, and had been waiting three days.  We couldn’t do very much for him but did spend an pleasant few hours explaining to a first-timer some of the joys of Land Rover ownership.

Day two and we’ve completed 850 kilometres, ending up at the Nullarbor Roadhouse.  The sun has gone, stars are gathering for their nightly display and the temperature is plummeting.  So it’s out with the hot water bottle and an early night.  Tomorrow we’ve some 350 kilometres to do before we reach the quarantine station at Ceduna where the vehicle will be checked for fresh fruit and vegetables.  We could be on tinned rations for a couple of days. 

A Little Bit North and a Little Bit East

Pemberton, another of those small Australian towns that grew rapidly due to a rush to extract the natural assets and then equally rapidly declined. At one time Pemberton was quite a large railway hub used for transporting timber to the coast. Not much is left, a couple of locomotives and some rolling stock rusting gently into oblivion, some serviceable track and signs where the track has been reclaimed by the forest. One stretch remains usable and a tram car runs twice daily for ten kilometres through picturesque forest, crossing a few rivers, skirting some farms and crossing a road or two. 

Whilst on the tram we learned that most of the timber exported went to England where it was used for building railways. Forest was cleared both sides of the railway track to prevent fires and therefore much of the re-growth we saw was no older than about seventy years. As a lesson in nature’s ability to recover from man’s excesses, it was impressive. We even had a kangaroo to show us the way.

We thought the Northcliffe Understory Art Trail a clever idea - artworks representing aspects of nature set amongst the trees. Maybe we’re art philistines, but we came away with the feeling that most of the ‘art’ was rather contrived. However, we did find a series of five installations by Kati Thamo fascinating and rather charming. Each depicted a children’s story and was set out in such a way as to make it look as though someone could be reading the story to children sitting close by. Maybe that happens!

Travelling onwards we passed through Denmark, notable only for its overpriced fuel, to Albany. The ANZAC memorial is impressive, almost overwhelming in its scale and is positioned to overlook King George’s Sound where the first fleet set sail for war in 1916. It’s also the place where the first dawn service took place, a ceremony that now takes place annually, not only in Australia but in other countries too.

Having some years ago visited the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which depicted the catching and processing of whales in the nineteenth century. We were interested to see that one of the last whaling stations, Albany, finally closed as late as 1978. We found it fascinating that closure was forced not really because of activities by pressure groups but because demand for whale products declined, mainly because developments in plastics and fuel oil rendered them obsolete, and the cost of catching the beasts soared. Now before the greenies start demanding retribution for writing this, let me add that every part of the whale was used. In the early part of the twentieth century, there were simply no viable alternatives for the fine oils and other products obtained. Certainly it was a horrible process and it’s satisfying that whale hunting is now largely in the past. But a whole new set of much more difficult issues are now with us. Whale products were natural and degraded naturally. Plastics don’t. Perhaps there’s some lessons to be learned here.

Heading sort of north east, we passed through the Stirling Range National Park where Kim further indulged her passion for flowers, especially orchids. I’ve lost count of how many varieties of wild flowers we’ve seen. Certainly it’s in the hundreds. Even so, it’s probably only a small part of what’s growing in WA. We’ve been amazed at the sheer variety and quantity of flowering trees, bushes, shrubs and plants. Some are tiny, little more than a single stem with a minute flower at the top. Others are large bushes smothered in colour. Here’s a couple of Kim’s favourites, the unusually named Donkey Orchid and the Spider Orchid.

Now Mike is getting a bit ‘flowered out’ and would like to see something different, so we headed north to a spot on the map called Hyden. There’s not much there apart from a really strange natural phenomena known as Wave Rock. Formed over millions of years by rain and wind, the shape does resemble a large wave, such as surfing enthusiasts might appreciate – as demonstrated by Kim.

And there I’ll leave it. We’re heading north towards the goldfields.

The bottom left hand corner

There’s a place called Cape Leeuwin in far south west Australia.  It’s as far down in the bottom left hand corner as it’s possible to be, sports an impressive lighthouse and is where the Indian and Southern oceans meet.  There’s a helpful sign pointing out which ocean is which and it’s even possible to see the sea swell approaching from two different directions. 

However, before making it to the corner we dropped in at a few other places.   First stop was Busselton, or as we renamed it ‘Ripoff-on-Sea’.  We were warned about the excessive prices charged by seafront restaurants so avoided them.  However, when the tourist office booked our camp site on the seafront we were quoted $37 which we somewhat reluctantly accepted.  That’s a high figure for a patch of dirt and the use of the facilities.  Upon arrival at said camp they upped the charge to $46 on the grounds that it was a “long weekend”.  And the showers were terrible.  So small that it was impossible to avoid clothes and shoes becoming wet.  So a tip from Vin Rouge – avoid Busselton sea front unless you want to be ripped off.  OK, rant over.

But the walk along the second longest pier in the world (good old Southend-on-Sea is the longest) was bracing as piers should be.   And we found a pretty good fish and chip shop so it wasn’t all bad!

As luck would have it, we’d been recommended the Big Valley Campsite near Margaret River, the very well known wine growing area.  Well, what a difference.  Upon arrival we were treated as though we were old and welcome friends, found a site that suited our needs and checked on about an hour later to make sure that everything was good and we were comfortable.  The camp was busy with lots of families camping and caravanning.  Kids played ball until dark, fed the sheep, chooks and a pig rejoicing in the name of Henry.  It was impossible not to smile at everything that was going on.  And – wait for it – the showers were amazing.  Hot enough for par-boiling and with sufficient pressure to blast away the aches and pains of a day’s travel.  We stayed two nights!   Now we don’t usually do this, but we’re including a link to their website.  If you’re in the area, don’t miss it and do allow a couple of days.  You won’t be disappointed.  http://bigvalleymargaretriver.com.au/

This corner of Australia has a lot to offer and we did partake of some of the delights.  Visiting a lavender farm, watching the stingrays right by the beach at Hamlin Bay, being awed by the enormous Karri trees in the Boranup Forest, watching surfers on the giant rollers at Rivermouth, visiting a venison farm, chocolate factory and cheese dairy and of course checking out the Margaret River wines. 

But it gets cold at night in these latitudes so we’ve resorted to the Vin Rouge central heating system – a hot water bottle.  We’re ready to snug down for the night so we’ll finish here.  Bye for now.

The Swan River

The river was named by Captain James Stirling in 1827 apparently because of the number of black swans he saw.  We found only two.  However, we did see quite a lot of the sights that adorn the riverbanks.  Firstly, just inside the narrow dredged entrance  is Fremantle, Western Australia’s  largest and busiest general cargo port used for the export of wheat, petroleum, LPG, alumina, mineral sands, fertilisers, sulphur and other bulk commodities.  Not bad really as the river is so shallow it requires dredging to get the ships in.  Further upstream the river opens out until it resembles a lake.  The tidal range is small, about a metre, and the flow correspondingly slow which results in a lot of silt.  It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a river dredged across its width to permit the ferry access to both banks.

But there is a lot to see.  The marine museum at Fremantle, apart from housing exhibits on pearling,  whaling and the history of immigration to Australia, is the home of Australia 2, the yacht with the strange winged keel that won the Americas Cup in 1983, much to the chagrin of the Americans.

In Perth there’s a bell tower that is home to the bells originally hung in St Martins in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London.  Some extra bells have been added to create an installation of eighteen bells, quite an impressive sight, and a great deal of sound.  The tower also exhibits time pieces from all over the world.  A fascinating display.

Kim never misses an opportunity to look at flowers and so a walk through the Kings Park was ‘de rigour’.  In spring splendour we were amongst the thousands of people strolling through the grounds.  With the river in the background the view was beautiful.

We met up with Jeff, who we’d met earlier in our travels.  He’s a resident and enthusiastic promoter of the city, and somehow managed to wangle us aboard the Duyfken, a replica of the Dutch vessel captained by Dirk Hartog's that made landfall in 1616 near Sharks Bay.  The replica was built in Perth and is used mainly for training young people to sail.  It must be quite a shock to them to find out first hand just how primitive the conditions were for the sailors of the time.

We enjoyed our time in Perth.  It’s a clean, tidy city that seems to have bypassed some of the more unpleasant aspects of large conurbations.  Perhaps we’ll come back for a more leisurely visit sometime.

But the clock is ticking and we’re aware that we’ve been on the road for getting on for four months – and we still have quite a way to go.  The wine producing area around Margaret River beckons and we must move on.

Wind and flowers

Another name for the wind flower is the anemone, which must be one of the few flowers we’ve not seen.  Whilst Kim has been impressing people with her knowledge of the Latin names for many of the species, Mike’s categorisation is a great deal less complicated (red, yellow, blue, white and other).  But there’s no denying that the swathes of colour spreading across the fields is a remarkable spectacle.

So we’ve seen the flowers and we’ve also experienced the wind.  Greenhough is the most windy place in Australia and so is much of the nearby coastline.  This is just one of the trees growing almost horizontally as a result of the constant westerly winds.  Vin Rouge was being thrown about in the gusts, which is very unusual as it’s a heavy vehicle, and Mike was getting very fed up fighting the forces of nature.

High winds and roof top tent living are not the best of partners so we diverted inland, passing some 70 giant electric generating windmills at the Walkaway Wind Farm.  Naturally Kim found a lot more wild flowers to stop and photograph along the way.  Edging back towards the coast we reached another of those weird Australian phenomena know as The Pinnacles.  Thousands of naturally occurring columns were once buried beneath layers of sand, but centuries of wind have exposed them and created a sandy desert surrounded by bush land.  The whole place has a strange, almost eerie feel about it.

But the wildflowers beckoned and we wanted a night free from gales and so it was foot hard down to Moora, a small town amongst some hills and out of the wind.  However, we’ve noticed that  the temperature drops quite noticeably each evening now we’ve travelled south and so we’ve reverted to our old favourite central heating system – the hot water bottle.  Tucked under the duvet (called a doona in Australia) it warms the bed.  On top it warms the tent.  A comfortable night results.

The Western Wildflower Farm we found a delight.  Kim was in her element finding about how the flowers were cut, dried and packed before being exported to Europe and Africa.  We even had a free cup of coffee.

The farm, in addition to producing 15,000 acres of flowers, also raises sheep and Mike had the opportunity to get away from flowers for a while to watch the seasonal shearing.  Four shearers were going flat out keeping another four sorting, compressing and packing the fleeces.  It looked, and must be, very hard work.

Our next stop, the Chittering Wildflower Festival at the small town of Bindoon.  The displays were grand and Kim was thrilled to find this specimen very appropriately named the Enamel Orchid.  It really does look as though it has been given a coat of gloss paint.

Mike by now was getting rather ‘flowered out’ and wanted a bit of a change.  The town of New Norcia is Australia’s only monastic town having grown from a missionary in the 1850s.  Now largely a tourist attraction with a certain amount of educational content, it proved to be an interesting tour among the European style buildings.  It’s history may be interpreted many ways but there’s no doubt that the Benedictine monks acted on what they thought were the best principles at the time.  We just enjoyed the architecture.  To avoid getting into the dubious subject of religion, I’ll finish here with a fine view of St Ildephonsus College.  No, we don’t know how to pronounce it either!

  

Flower Power

Think of the Australian Outback and you think of naked red dirt with a few scrubby bushes, some stunted trees, spinifex and the occasional spot of colour.

Spring in Western Australia comes as a huge surprise. Acres and acres of wild flowers, hundreds of species and a bewildering array of colour. For several years Kim has wanted to see the spring blossom (she is a trained florist after all) and our route was timed to make the most of the spectacle. Given that pictures speak much more than words, I’ve included a selection (although they don’t really do it justice) and leave you to decide just how good they are.

One plant I really must emphasise as it grows only near to the town of Mullewa is the ‘wreath flower’. Take a look at these and you’ll see where the name derives.

We’ve been amazed at what we’ve seen. We expected colour but didn’t expect the variety and certainly didn’t expect the quantity. It’s been a real highlight.

Sadly, in a few short weeks, the colour will be gone and all that will be left will be naked red dirt with a few scrubby bushes, some stunted trees, spinifex and the occasional spot of colour. But hidden in that red dirt will be the seeds ready to burst into life next spring when the rain has done its magic.