Mt Martha (Mornington Peninsula)

We're taking advantage of my sister's hospitality and staying at her house at Mt Martha. It will be our base for the next few days while we have the van and car serviced. We're also doing a repack as we've been carrying gear that we simply haven't used. We'll be around this area over the Christmas period doing the family thing. The boys are coming down for a few days to join us. They too are on the move with Adrian and Renee heading to the UK and, David and KT heading to Sydney. Both moves happen in early January.

Cheryl's place is great as it's close to everything (shops, beach, family, etc). It's very strange however getting up each morning and having room to scratch... 'er stretch.

Cheryl and Jim are rarely here, but the neighbours keep a good eye on the place. So far we've met their local "Mrs Bucket", "Two Dogs" and the neighbour above (who Mrs Bucket mentioned had had a small electrical fire in the past day or so). I think if pressed she would have known the nature of the affected circuit, the time of the incident and whether it was covered by their insurance. No doubt the details of our occupation will be fully reported to Cheryl upon her arrival next week.

Cheryl's garden on a really nice day in Melbourne.

The sorting is well underway.

Queenscliff

We got up this morning and I said to Rose "you now if we pack up quickly, we could make the 9am ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento". The 9am had a 1/2 price deal going for Caravans. We'd decided that we didn't wish to drive all the way back up to Melbourne then back down again to Mt Martha on the Mornington Peninsula (a half day), when we could catch the ferry across to the Peninsula then home (2 hours).

On the ferry. The first time I've seen the top of the van for quite a while.

Lorne (Great Ocean Road)

A nice place but getting busy now that the holidays are almost upon us. We're keen to get into Melbourne before the rush starts. We stayed at the Lorne campground, plugged into some power, turned the heater on and stayed indoors until later in the day when the rain let up and the wind dropped a little.

There's a couple of really nice walks around Lorne. We did one of them and met up with a couple of youngsters (a couple from Ireland and Sweden, just married) whom we chatted with pretty much non-stop for about 3-4 hours. During this time we got lost and had to retrace our steps several times. The waterfalls, crevices and the rain forests were really nice, and with the rain, they were all "operating"!

The wet weather made the walk cool but not cold. We saw the area at it's best.

Trying to be artistic..... not quite there yet, but improving!

Princetown (Great Ocean Road)

It was very windy heading down to the coast today, speed was right down but we followed the roads least travelled and stayed away from the traffic. We hit the south coast at Warrnambool and turned east. The Great Ocean Road starts around here.

We got talking to one of the park rangers. He and his wife had just finished a 10 week "loop" of Australia on a Harley. He'd decided it was pretty expensive and had no problems with the bike. Must be an exception... He told us to stay at the Pricetown Recreation Reserve. He said the other places were way too expensive. So we stayed at the reserve at $15/night right on the beach on the ocean side of the road, well out of the wind with great facilities with about 20 other happy campers.

We drove from here through to Lorne stopping at every lookout, lighthouse and any other feature along the way. It was wet and windy so we were travelling slowly and it took us all day to get there.

Our first sight of the coast east of Warrnambool.

The 12 Apostles. We were here with about 29 tourist busses (all with their own interpreters), helicopters racing overhead and all competing for space near the fence to get some reasonable pictures.

The tradies in the 1800's knew how to build things that last. I wonder if "Ashlar Bonding" is included in trade training these days.

Cape Otway Lighthouse. $20/person to tour and unless you are in the know, you only find out the price after you've driven the 15k to get here. The drive in is nice but!

The Grampians (Dunkeld)

We left Adelaide and just continued to drive. We're a little like hire ponies I think. Once we got a whiff of Melbourne, we wanted to get there. We stayed in a rest area just east of Horsham. A bit noisy but we slept well (a big drive (by our standards anyway) from Adelaide). We passed into Victoria and found it pretty much as we had left it back in May (wet and windy).

Driving east from Horsham we were keen to take a pretty circuitous route through The Grampians past a place called Zupsteins. After a 50k detour south down C216 we came to a sign that read "the road past Zupsteins may not be suitable for Caravans".... you would think they might have told us 50k further back but hey. We back tracked and managed to stay on some sealed farm roads which was a very picturesque route. Things happen for a reason.

The Grampians was much as we'd left it about 40yrs ago when last we were up here on the motorcycles. It's still a nice spot with some great walks and scenery.

We stayed a little south at Dunkeld. A little cheap council park in an even smaller town.. a good bakery but!

Every walk has steps, stoops, cracks and crevices

Last time we were here there were no fences. The "degree of pucker" is now not as great...

Adelaide

We drove from Mambray Creek after a very pleasant two days. We had planned to stop at Balaklava, but the "towing" weather was too good, so we kicked on to Adelaide via the back roads.

We're ensconced in the "Adelaide Caravan Park" on the river and a short walk from the centre of town, in the suburb of Hackney. This place feels like home. The river precinct is well looked after and Adelaide is a very busy city. The architecture here is just beautiful and the weather is once again treating us pretty well. Our neighbours are from south of Perth. We had a few drinks with them last night and did a bottle of red some justice followed by a pub meal... life is pretty good... Rose has started our Xmas shopping too.

We rode today out to Henley on the coast using the bike trails along the river today and we're heading up into the hills tomorrow weather permitting.

The local brewery is done up for xmas

The whole city is done up for Xmas. Rose is rubbing noses with these two locals...

Mambray Creek

From Coffin Bay to Pt Lincoln for an overnighter. We were going to stop for a day or so, but decided to continue up the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula and stop wen we felt the need. We dropped by a few towns on the way up, but nothing really offered us anything that we hadn't already seen so we continued on.

We arrived in Pt Augusta and "closed the loop" that we'd started drawing back in May. I'm sure Pt Augusta appeals to those who have lived there for a generation or two... or possibly three, but on our list it's a great place to check out the next camp spot, which we did.

Mambray Creek is about 40k from Pt Augusta in the Mt Remarkable National Park. It's one of the new age NP sites. It must now be booked online (site unseen) and costs $18 park entrance + $10 for the camp site. SA NP sites are expensive but most are pretty well set up. Having to book online is an inconvenience but a sign of the times I think. The parkssa web site is cumbersome and presupposes that you have web access. So one online booking, 3 phone calls and a visit to the Pt Augusta information centre later we finally had our site booked.... for the wrong night! So we arrived a day early and stayed for 2 nights anyway.

Half way through our 11km walk in the national park. This walk way tagged "hard" and it took us just over 5hrs + 5lt of water.

These guys came around at 5pm. They came as a pair. Whilst one entertained the other "cased the joint". He actually came right up to the table.

 

They left and the goanna's arrived.

Coffin Bay

At the bottom of the Eyre Peninsula, about 50k from Pt Lincoln lies Coffin Bay. It's a sleepy little hollow once again on a bay surrounded by National Parks and full of Oyster leases. We did a couple of National Park walks, saw the beaches and had a seafood lunch at the pub with all locally harvested food. For the cooks among us, try making Oysters natural with diced Cherizo and Basil and a dash of Worchester. Yeah, I know, I'm not a foodie... but it was very nice.

This was taken on the coastal drive, a loop around the cliff tops near Elliston on the way to Coffin Bay.

 Where's Wally.....!

 Along the Oyster Walk at Coffin Bay.

Further along the Oyster Walk.

Venus Bay (Point Labatt)

We had planned to leave today but a local started rattling off these place names and we hadn't seen any of them. They mentioned seals so of course I couldn't get Rose away without seeing them. Sometimes the journey to these places is the destination. In this case we ended up on some dirt roads, drove passed some old towns, in the old SA stonework style. The seal colony was there, just lazing about and we snapped off a couple of good shots..

This youngster decided to put on a bit of a show. For the enthusiasts, we took this picture about 300m away with the new Sony.

The colony numbered about 40. These guys were thinking about making it 41 I think......! 

Venus Bay

What a little gem of a place, on a bay, oysters, seals and fish everywhere. The wind was howling when we were there, but only the odd "zephyr" made it through to our camp. A really good "character" in the place. Everyone smiling, and plenty of time for a chin wag. The usual 10 minute tasks took an hour, unless you looked outside first, and if the coast was clear, did what you needed to do. It wasn't a quick get away when we left although that was what we'd planned. I thought we would have been safe around 5:30am but as luck would have it.... "Hey fletch I was meaning to ask you about that coupling.... yada yada yada....!!!" Well one thing led to another and what can you do... 7am rolls around and Rose is starting to make faces...!

We met some interesting people here. A diver who'd retired after 30 years. A farmer who had left Harvey Bay for a 6 month holiday 12 years ago. He had a 35ft bus, with the closed in trailer, small 4x4 and tinny. There's a lot of people who travel this way.

I tried some fishing. Not much luck with bait, so I pulled out a lure thingy, cast it, and "whack"... I pulled in a nice sized Salmon Trout. I had to ask someone what it was. Next cast, I pulled in another about the same size I knew what the second one was so I didn't feel as ignorant. Both fish were hooked through the back. Seems they were excited about the lure but turned away too late. I caught a third but he dropped off. Very nice fish to eat fresh.

The Venus Bay back beach. Very craggy cliffs.

The jetty at Venus Bay. The site of our Salmon Trout landings.

Everybody likes their picture taken in "the bay"!

Eyre Peninsula - (The Hay Stacks)

We drove through Ceduna a few days ago on our way to Smoky Bay. There's not much to say about Smoky Bay other than it's a good place to drive through. We stayed the night in a very rustic setting, a fisho's paradise. There are several places in the immediate vicinity however that are quite unique. The Hay Stacks is one of them. These large sandstone rocks sit atop a hill just off the main highway. They are unique, and you could liken them to stonehenge perhaps in prominence.

They are in the middle of a farm. The farmer takes his couple of dollars and will let you camp there too.

Some unique colours

Nullarbor

I was last across the Nullarbor in an old HD Holden about 45 years ago. Dad drove us from West to East along the old highway which included about 500k of dirt road. We four kids sat across the back seat with a towel on our laps shuffling a chunk of lock ice from one to the other to try and stay cool. I recall the trip took three days and two hours, but who was counting. I think we relied on windows and fresh air back then.

Today the road from Eucla to Ceduna travels closer to the coast. We took on fuel at Eucla and filled a gerry can wt a additional 20lt. We'd heard the fuel price was around $2/lt at Nullarbor so we avoided it altogether.

There are lookouts over the Great Australian Bite at varous points. There used to be many more but they have been dug up. I suppose the responsible parties had decided with the increasing numbers of travellers now, there was a risk that needed to be better managed.

We drove through Ceduna this morning after overnighting at a a small roadside stop with several others.  The drive over was uneventful with tail winds early each day. The winds were southerly in the late afternoons and became a little boisterous later on. Rose had a drive one afternoon and went a little sideways in one big gust... it got the heart rate up a little for both of us.

 The first lookout on the Nullarbor

The second lookout. We had lunch here... a really nice place on an exceptional day.

Us two... not standing too close mind!

Norseman

We drove up from LE Grand NP today to Norseman. The wind on our nose for the whole trip. Not our best fuel consumption day.....

Norseman, as with many inland WA communities is slowly dying. The infrastructure (predominantly mining and transport) is becoming more independent and portable. Norseman is expensive, although fuel isn't too bad. We stopped and paid the Visitors centre a "backhander" to use the CMCA installed dump point and some water for our tanks. We also filled up a 20lt can with diesel.... just in case.

We're now parked up in a rest area 108k East of Norseman. We had stopped earlier but we've now got a tail wind so we drove for another hour or so. We're miles from anywhere and the Telstra reception is the best we've had... go figure!

The drive across the Nullarbor has begun....

Rose cooked up a fantastic meal this evening... it was definitely worth a specific mention!  

Esperence

A wheat port which is pretty busy at the moment given it's harvest season They run the 53m road trains in to town all day every day. The drivers are pretty good and allow us "wobbly's" a little bit of latitude, as we do with them. I actually passed one today..... it was parked!

We had been given the tip to go out to Le Grand NP or to Cape Arid, so we stocked up and went to Le Grand. We arrived at the beach camp ground an hour later, proceeded to the beach and we're able to look back across the bay to Esperence. We'd come around to the south side of the bay. We're glad we did. Esperence I'm sure is a very nice place, but it's expensive and less than impressive, but it serves it's purpose. The NP's though are great.

The night we arrived, we survived another thunderstorm They predicted strong winds and of course "hail". No matter where we go we seem to encounter hail. The front of the van was hail damaged in Perth, we had another dusting of hail in Denmark, and now it's forecast again, so we pulled the car in under the awning and tied the awning to it. We were braced for everything or so we thought. At 2:30am the wind started to strengthen so there I was moving the car and pulling down the awning. Neither the strong winds nor the hail eventuated but the next day was blustery and occasionally wet.

There is a walk that runs from the campground to "Hellfire Gorge". They said three hours one way, and it was every part of that. We walked over wet sandstone, slipped and slid around for pretty much the whole of the walk and finally decided to avoid any further risk and head for home.

At the start of our walk to Hellfire Gorge. We're looking back towards Esperence, and our campground is just to the right of Rose's head nested amongst the scrub and protected by sand dunes.

Rose is starting to carry more weight in her backpack in training for our Tassie hike.

 Further along the same walk.

Hopetoun

Turn left at Ravensthorpe, and about 50-60k later you would arrive at Hopetoun. It's on the coast and used to be small a "olde worlde" sort of place. Along came BHP who said they wanted to build a mine, then a couple of years later they apologised and said that they really didn't, but to show our gratitude we'll invest in some infrastructure for you. So they did. New houses, shops, a stone wall port, and while we're at it we'll even push a road out into the Fitzgerald National Park (NP).

So you now arrive in Hopetoun and you are confronted with the largest commercial car and caravan cleaning bay I've ever seen, and a brand new $40m, highway that runs 20k into the NP. But wait there's more. The new boat ramp and NP camp ground only costs $10/night.... and it's absolutely awesome! So we used the road, the cleaning facilities and the campground with about 3 other people!

The beaches and the bays are what we've come to expect from the southwest. They are spectacular in every way. The walks are everywhere and always through something new at us every day.

The view next to the campground looking West across Hamersley Inlet.

Looking East from the new lookout in the NP across to Hopetoun.

Bremer Bay

We had a big day with the Bluff Knoll walk, visiting the "Lily", and Ongerup. Rose said don't mention Ongerup as it's claim to fame can be summed up by playing host to 90% of the remaining Australian Malleefowl population, a roadhouse that's off the road managed by a 75yo, and a $m bowls club (must have been a GFC program). We wanted to buy diesel, but they only had a "highflow" pump. I'm sure we were the only customer for the day..

We drove on to Bremer Bay because "Bremer Bay" was shown on our map in BOLD type. We arrived to find the 250 residents getting ready to accommodate the tourist influx which starts in December when the population grows to about 8000-10000.

It's claim to fame besides the peace and solitude is a Museum which really is quite a collection of equipment that has been put together over the past 200 years by the one family (the "Wellstead's"). The rest of the town is really a holiday destination for farmers. A nice place, but a bit quiet at the moment..!

It must have been in the water for a while, but there was no note inside. There is a crab in this picture...

 These Pelicans get around...

We spent hours at the Museum. An example of one of the bikes on display. They had tractors of every size and shape, motor bikes, vintage cars, sewing machines, hand made spanners. Apparently they've thrown nothing away since the family arrived. 

The Lily (Dutch Windmill)

We continued along to Bardon to check out the working Dutch windmill in the area. This used to be a working flour mill built by a dutch couple who have since retired. The windmill is still a landmark.

Hom-de-hom-de-hom.....!!

Stirling Ranges

We decided to escape the wet weather and so we headed north into the Stirling Ranges. A bush camp was mentioned to us at the base of three of the peaks. It was called Mt Trio bush camp and caravan park.  A cocky had fenced off part of his wheat farm and we overnighted there with about twenty others.  We awoke to the sun shining so off we set to climb the Bluff Knoll, one of the twenty five most popular walks in Australia.

Our instructions from the station owner was turn left, park and walk three kilometers straight up, (height 1027m).  We gained 1000m in 2k's!  It took us 4 hours.

Bluff Knoll looking back along range....we made it... yeah!!!!

I'm sure the track does not go to the right....

Denmark

Someone suggested we stay at the ocean beach caravan park, so we did. A very nice place. We booked in for 1 night and stayed for 3. The weather went from 25deg max to 15deg max. We had very light hail one evening and the diesel heater was on whenever we were home.

We met a group of people from Bunbury who were cyclists, and as luck would have it were also friends / played bridge with some friends of ours (Jock and Margie) also from Bunbury. We had a ride with them, went to lunch, to the Lakehouse for coffee, and sundowners. A great bunch of people. We shared many stories and could have stayed another week without going over old ground.

I caught a good sized whiting in the inlet. The water level in the inlet was reaching it's maximum when the enviro's will reopen the sandbar. When the bar is open the schnapper (which have been trapped in the inlet for a year or so) start to run. It becomes a bit like tailor season on Fraser Island when that happens.

The walks along the beaches from Denmark heading west to Walpole and east to Cosy corner and Albany are just magic. Had the weather been better we would have been out there much more

It was Rose's birthday on the 13th. We were up early and walking, then out for dinner. We left our car by the beach in the afternoon and walked out to waterfall beach and back. When we returned someone had placed some flowers with a note on the windscreen. The note said "Happy Birthday Rosey" Well done Janice/Vicki......

On the heritage trail with some of the Bunbury crowd. The trail runs for about 70k.

View from the lookout looking back towards where we were staying at the inlet.

Walpole

A funny little place on the coast. From the main road as you drive through it's hard to tell how close to the coast it is, but turn right and drive 200m and you're on top of a large protected inlet.

Both the walking and cycling tracks pass through Walpole so we were in our element.

The bike trails are very well looked after. This one ran along side the Frankland River. We're about 20k out when this was taken.

The Caravan Park at Coal Mine Beach (next to Walpole). A nice place and being renovated. They actually run cable TV to your site

Mother and Joey. (The head belongs to the Joey).

Shannons

Shannon's Campground is along the road from Pemberton to Walpole. It's in the Shannon State Forest on the site of the past town of Shannon (an old logging town). They are going to redevelop it and are spending millions.

There are some great walks.

The log bridge on our way around a 5k loop. The bush is indicative of the surrounds including the campground.

Pemberton (Big Brook Arboretum)

You know, you don't need to look too far to find some great places visit and to park a caravan for a few nights. The National Parks in WA are generally cheap and very accessible. When travelling outside of peak holiday periods they are more so. We've stayed at some very nice and reasonably priced places. Security is not a really big issue, but we've never left our van alone in any out of the way places. We have left the van and gone walking or cycling, etc but only when there are one or two more vans around and we've met the other campers.

We found such a place about 6k from Pemberton called Big Brook Arboretum. In the trees, next to a dam about 2k off the road, fire pits, long drop dunny's, etc. We went in for one day, and stayed for two. $10/night/person, (or $6:60 concessional) compared to $35/night closer to town.

We were either out walking on the Bibilman or cycling on the Munda Biddi tracks over the 2 days. Pemberton have the whole side of a hill devoted to MTB's so we had a little play around the easier sections.

I was in  Pemberton years ago and found sections of some old rail tracks that would allow you to toboggan down the side of a hill and shoot out across the river. We used to spend most of the day using this. It's now considered too dangerous and has been partially dismantled.

 The view from the top of the Gloscester Tree... 54m up. You climb the tree to an old fire spotting platform using steel spikes that have been hammered spiraly into the trunk. I climbed it 45yrs ago and didn't get the same buzz when I climbed it last week. White knuckled more likely.  

Track clearing here takes on a new meaning. Trees like these are commonplace.

Some people bring their pets. Some pets need more care than others.

One the road out.