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Tag Archives: Western Australia
Australia day 79 – Geraldton to Dongara, WA
Geraldton has an historic centre and pleasant suburbs facing the Indian Ocean. Otherwise it has little to remark on other than the view of the drilling rig that sits prominently in the centre of the bay. We do a little shopping, visit the second-hand book shop which, rather enterprisingly, doubles up as an internet café, so that as I spend half-an-hour or so browsing the shelves, Andy can occupy himself researching accommodation in Bali. After selecting three books and exchanging three, we visit the post office to get prices for sending some of our stuff back to the UK. We are determined to seriously reduce the weight of our backpacks so that we don’t spend the next three months struggling under the strain of ridiculously heavy luggage on the next leg of our trip.
We leave Geralton behind and arrive in the small seaside town of Dongara further down the coast by mid afternoon. Dongara’s outstanding feature is the majestic avenue of fig trees that line Moreton Terrace in the centre of town. A visit to the visitors centre which is housed in the Old Post Office is rewarded with a list of things to do in Dongara which runs to an implausible three pages of typed A4. This is followed by another session on the internet. We have been trying for what seems like weeks to find an internet café that has Skype and stays open beyond 4.30 pm so that we can make some calls to the UK. Firstly to chase up on the status of our insurance claim for the expenses we incurred at the Hanoi French Hospital and secondly to change the tariff on my mobile phone which has come of contract and, for a phone not getting much use, is costing far too much at 35 pounds a month. In Dongara of all the unlikely places there is a electronics shop that has broadband access and stays open normal working hours.
The Amex claim has been dogged by problems; the delay caused by the Hanoi French Hospitals administrative failure to take the payment from our account meant that the claim couldn’t be submitted until February; the discovery that the claims email address quoted in the policy handbook delayed the claim by a further month; and since we sent the claim to the correct address in early March we have heard nothing. All call to the London claims office reveals that due to an administrative error in their automated system the claim has not been allocated to a claims officer. I’m assured somewhat apologetically that the claim will be prioritized today and someone will be able to speak to me about it if I ring back tomorrow – no-one in the claims team is available to speak to me at the moment as they are all in a meeting!
The call to Orange is more successful but only marginally less frustrating; Orange have a complex, multi-level IVR system, the sort that involves choosing from several options only to present several more and several more after that, by which time you’ve lost the will to live and are selecting any option a random just to get through to someone who will talk to you. On the first attempt I speak to the retentions team who provide me with another number to call, which turns out to be discontinued. The second attempt gets me through the phone upgrade team who transfer me to an Indian call centre and a person I can’t really understand but it seems that I can’t have the tariff I want because I wasn’t on the right contract. So I ask to close my account and, yes, I’m once again talking to the retention team! At this point I’m offered a sim-only contract with double the minutes of the tariff I had asked for from the Indian lady for 15 pounds a month. A result, but surely it shouldn’t be such hard work.
We camp just off the Brand Highway at the Midland Road Rest Area. It’s a pleasant shady site, if slightly noisy; there seems to be an electricity generating plant somewhere close by but out of sight. There are three other groups of people here including an Australia with a Japanese wife who we never see. He on the other hand is very chatty and brings over a beer for Andy as he sets about lighting the camp fire – not one for me of course – this is strictly a boys’ tete-a-tete.
Which brings me on to the absence of a well-developed sense of political correctness in this country, which in some ways is refreshing and in others quite shocking. For example, a whole variety of gollies are sold without anyone seemingly batting an eye, Wicked have a slogan on one of their vans that contains the word ‘poofter’ which would probably cause uproar in the UK and terms like ‘coon’ are used by some people without a second thought. Our self-styled pc police would have a field day here, I’m sure.
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Tagged Australia, Dongara, Geraldton, Western Australia
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Australia day 78 – Northampton to Geraldton
We return to Northampton to complete the heritage walk. All the sights historic interest are strung along the main highway and comprise a mix of 19th and earl 20th century buildings including the old post office, the old police station, two churches, and a number of shops. The interiors of some of the latter appearing little changed since they first opened. One in particular has original fittings and an overwhelming smell of moth balls. We browse the shops and pick up a rather nice silk shirt shirt for $5.
Then on to Geraldton to do some grocery shopping, check emails at MacDonalds. Geraldton is a large town by comparison with most places along the west coast, with a population of 20,000. We don’t stop long as we plan to return tomorrow and in the late afternoon we head to Ellendale Pool to camp. This is a pretty spot by a large ‘swimming hole’ tucked under a sheer escarpment. The only drawback is that, when the temperature of the water is 24 degrees or more microbes carrying amoebic meningitis become active; there is a large notice advising against swimming, but rather ambivalently providing safety instructions (such as don’t put our head under water and, hold your nose when jumping in) for those foolhardy enough to ignore the warnings. But who in their right mind, one has to ask, would put their children’s, or indeed their own lives, at risk by swimming here given the risk?
The camping area along the river has recently been upgraded and delineated with posts whih have had the effect of placing most of the area out of bounds to campers and thus much reducing what appears to have been a large camping area along the river so that with four or five vans it seems a little crowded.
Wide loads are a regular sight on the single carriage highways. They are preceded at some distance by an advance vehicle displaying a sign announcing a wide load vehicle. There invariably follows two enormous lorries. More often than not each is carrying half a house or on some occasions it might be a piece of large machinery. They take up as much as two-thirds of the road. On-coming traffic have to take whatever avoiding action is necessary, which usually entails pulling to the side of the road, to make way!
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Tagged Australia, Geraldton, Northampton, Western Australia
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Australia day 73 – Shark Bay to the Murchison River, WA
Before we leave Shark Bay to drive south to Kalbarri we stop at Hamelin Pool, the easterly of the two main bays that make up the area that is known as Shark Bay and home to colonies of marine stromatolites.. This is a sublimely serene place; crystal clear water, not a breath of wind or a whisper of sound other than the crunching of our feet on the shells compacted into ridge formations along the foreshore. Small cumulus and wispy clouds sitting on the horizon are reflected in the mirror like surface of the sea making it impossible to tell where the sea and sky meet. The absence of the horizon combined with the stillness gives this place an dream-like, other-worldly quality – as though time stood still, which in another way it has.
A 47-mile sandbar spans the bay, controlling the influence of the tides and making this area one of the few places in the world where the conditions still exist to support colonies of stromatolites. Single cell cyanobacteria which are similar to the earliest forms of life dating back 3.5bn years thrive in the highly saline waters of Hamelin Pool. Microbes such as these played a crucial role in the evolutionary process by releasing oxygen from the oceans to create an atmosphere that could support life on land. A boardwalk provides access to the three main stramatolite rock formations: discs – remnants of earlier growths before the sea level receded, mats in the shallows and stacks in the deeper waters. The water is so clear that it is almost invisible and the fish at weave their way around the stromatolites look as though they are gliding unsupported.
The old telegraph station built in 18884 is the focal point of the camp site which lies back from the beach. Decommissioned as recently as the 1970s this was originally the connecting station between Perth and Roebourne further up the coast. Now it is a rather charming, incongruous, shop selling clothes, knick knacks and souvenirs, visitors centre and tea rooms with some interesting old photographs adorning the walls.
Onward to Kalbarri through mostly low-growing shrubland with the occasional tree here and there. Until somewhere north of the Murchison River the landscape changes dramatically as we come upon an area of what must be the start of the wheat belt – and the rolling topography is covered in ploughed fields and stubble.
Tonight we are camping at the Galena Bridge Rest Area which straddles both sides of the Murchison River just off what must have been the original highway, now superseded by the National Coastal Highway and a newer and taller bridge. This is a lovely spot just back from the wooded banks of the river. It’s also very popular – there must be at least 20 vans of varying sizes from our little transit to huge caravans and Winibagos. A chat with a man from Manchester travelling with an enormous Alsatian who, after 35 years in Australia, had managed to retain a thick Manchunian accent, delays dinner briefly.
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Tagged Australia, Murchison River, Shark Bay, Western Australia
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Australia day 72 – Denham, WA
We stayed at the caravan site in Denham again last night; the free camps just outside town are requires a permit which can’t be issued for consecutive nights. So we are alternating between a paid for pitch in town and the free one’s down the coast. It’s not clear whether there is a commercial motive behind this restriction or simply a shortage of sites; in fact tonight Eagles Bluff is full and we are allocated at site at Fowlers Camp a little further down the coast. The weather seems to have recovered from the cold snap and the temperature hovers around 25 degrees when the sun is out but it becomes quite cool at night. Dark rain clouds are dropping rain further up the coast, but fortunately they are not heading this way.
We did some laundry this morning but didn’t have time to dry it before having to leave our pitch. So we spend the morning on the edge of little lagoon just outside town. To onlookers we must look like gypsies with our washing strung out across the sandy parking area! Little Lagoon is an ancient barrida – a long-dried lake which has become flooded by the sea. The undulating shrubland of Shark Bay is dotted with these dry, circular depressions from a long-ago age. The lagoon is a pale blue fringed by a white sand beach. In the afternoon we walk along the mangrove-lined creek that links the lagoon to the sea. The tide is coming in creating the odd sight of its fast moving, crystal clear flowing away from the sea. There is a narrow, deserted beach at the mouth of the creek and we sit a while enjoying the gentle lapping of the waves and the sun on our skin.
Fowlers Camp turns out to be a picturesque campground on the edge of a very shallow and sheltered bay. Mangroves grow in the shallows and a long sandbar is revealed at low tide. In the late afternoon the fish are jumping and the quiet is broken by the occasional plop as they break the surface of the water. Andy manages to catch one, but too small to keep. This too, turns out to be a popular spot tonight, with several other vans parked up for the night.
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Tagged Australia, Denham, Shark Bay, Western Australia
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Australia day 71 – Denham, Shark Bay, WA
A very early start this morning sees us up well before dawn and on our way to Monkey Mia about 50 km from our overnight camp at Eagles Bluff for the feeding of the wild dolphins. The dolphins have been coming to Monkey Mia every morning for their breakfast since the early sixties. They come right up to the beach to be fed and this morning there are a pod of 11 – three generations of three family groups the oldest being around 35 and the youngest five years old. Now the whole spectacle is commercialised, contained and controlled by the rangers, unlike the days when people could come here for free and swim with the dolphins unfettered by rules and regulations. All of which are, of course, in the interests of humans (who apparently have an uncanny knack of getting bitten when they put their fingers in dolphins mouths) and dolphins who were being harassed and fed the wrong diet and as a consequence weren’t looking after their young or foraging for themselves. Nowadays, it costs $6 to enter the small resort area known as Monkey Mia and there is well-defined and regulated feeding ritual. The dolphins arrival is heralded by two pelicans that know the drill and want a bit of the action. At 7.30 am on cue the first of the dolphins arrive, soon to be followed by several more. Over the next half-an-hour the ranger takes us through his patter about the history of Monkey Mia and some interesting facts about dolphins all the while the dolphins wait patiently, swimming up and down the shallows only a few feet from the expectant crowd. At eight o’clock about half-a-dozen volunteers appear with buckets of fish, the small crowd step back out of the water and the feeding begins. (In the meantime the pelicans being distracted by another volunteer who craftily has a decoy yellow bucket of fish at the back of the beach; the pelicans wait patiently for their feed unaware of this subtle deceit) Selected members of the crowd are invited to hand feed the dolphins including Andy. The feeding of the last fish is synchronised to prevent the oldest dolphin from stealing from the others. The buckets are filled with water and emptied into the sea; this signals to the dolphins tat the feed is over and immediately they head back out to sea. Feeding time is over. Until the dolphins decide to come back, which they do about 10 minutes later and the whole ritual begins again. The dolphins are fed up to three times a day as long as they come back before midday and the amount of fish they are given is strictly controlled. .An experience definitely worth making the 100 km detour to Shark Bay and much better than dolphin-watching from a boat.
We spend the rest of the day at Monkey Mia walking along the beach, sun bathing and fishing. The weather is as good as a hot English summer’s day and this is a very pleasant place to spend it doing nothing much.
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Tagged Australia, Denham, Shark Bay, Western Australia
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Australia day 71 – Denham
It was a freezing cole night and we wake to find lots of cndensation on the inside of the van roof. It’s remarkable how radically the weather has changed since we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn just south of Coral Bay. There was a big storm around the Perth area last Thursday which brought power lines down and left 85,000 homes without electricity and it seems to have affected the weather system right up the coast. We are hoping that it is a short cold snap and normal services will be resumed shortly! But in the meantime we are taking no chances and have bought a couple of cheap fleece rugs-cum-blankets for extra warmth at night.
Despite the increasing cold at night, today is a gloriously sunny, although chilly, start to the day, with clear blue skies. A welcome change after several predominantly cloudy days. It’s a good da for a bit of sight-seeing and Ocean Park Natural Marine Exhibition makes for an interesting stop a few kilometres outside Denham. Here there are several types of live sharks in an open topped tank – tiger sharks, lemon sharks and reef sharks – along with two huge cod, which don’t get eaten by the sharks so long as the latter are fed regularly! There are several other tanks with a variety of tropical and temperate fish, shovel nose rays and sing rays, turtles, sea snakes, the incredibly well-camouflaged rock fish, snappers, crayfish emperors and much more.
Further round the coast lies Shell Bay with it’s wonderfully white beach that has been created naturally from hundreds of millions (and more) Fragum cockles which grow in profusion in L’Haridon Bight and are washed up in the bay in such proliferation to create a 120km beach thought to be up to 4000 years old. Compacted shell has been quarried for building blocks and used as building blocks although now only for renovation purposes. Loose shells, not surprisingly as a renewable resource, ard continue to be mined commercial for paths and driveways