Weeks 29 to 39:- The Great Australian Road Trip (continued)

When last we caught up with our intrepid travellers they were in Alice Springs in the centre of Australia, and it was their wedding anniversary! Let the saga unfold…….

What we had as a plan had us travelling steadily east to the Queensland coast and then south to Brisbane before leaving for China. So after a couple of days ‘indoors’ in Alice Springs – too cold for camping! We packed our bags and headed off. Northern Territory is huge, we have already driven from top to bottom and half way across, now we have to drive half way up and the rest of the way east across. The ‘red centre’ is certainly ‘red’ but not empty desert by any stretch of the imagination with greenery and wildlife everywhere. The distances however and enormous, and we have chosen not to just go straight to Cairns. We want to see the north west coast of Queensland so head via Normanton to Karumba before heading to the east coast. Ahead is days of 750Kms/day of tarmac roads spotting birds and other wildlife. The Western Australian habit of waving to oncoming drivers doesn’t exist here so it’s back to recycling our 4 cd’s and singing along to pass the time.

Noisy and gregarious Apostlebird

Burke & Wills junction – Burke and Wills are rightly famous explorers who perished on the way South after riding/walking from the south coast to the north coast right through the centre on an ill-fated expedition for the government of the day. Their deaths, through the mistakes they made, still serve as warning to travellers through this amazing land. Their achievements against all the odds are truly staggering. The most notable part of our visit! A few kilometres earlier we, and everyone else, had driven through a swarm of large grasshoppers/locusts, at Burke and Wills roadhouse the Apostle Birds were happily hopping from vehicle to vehicle noisily cleaning the road-kill from radiator grills/ windscreen wipers etc – nothing ‘food’ goes to waste here.

We buy drinks and head back onto the highway, turning north towards Normanton and Karumba.

Sarus Cranes

The drive north towards the coast is through increasingly remote and quiet countryside resulting in increases in wildlife. Family groups of Sarus Cranes and Brolga’s become commonplace. 

Karumba is beautiful and frustrating. It has white sand beaches, coves and inlets, a great river mouth and lovely scenery. However without a boat you can’t use any of these things. Saltwater Crocodiles abound here, and ‘Salties’ as they are known are aggressive and bad tempered killers, not to mention up to 6 metres long. If you are a mad keen fisher person then Karumba is the place to go, if not don’t bother.

The east coast Wonga Beach.

We arrived on the outskirts of Cairns and turned north to find some place nice to camp and get our bearings. We have read our guide books and head for the recommended Port Douglas to find that on a Sunday this very posh resort is heaving with people looking for Sunday lunch. It’s not a ‘camping’ place. It’s all chic resorts and bistro’s. Another time and we would have been in our element but we’re camping and trying to manage to our budget!! So after a short walk on the beach we head further north. Stopping at each resort we are shocked that the camp sites are packed with people, the pitches are tiny and many places are full – undeterred we carry on north. Finally our optimism and bloody mindedness is rewarded when we find Wonga Beach and camp 30 feet from the sea in a large park. This is way more like it – but we have realised we have to change our expectations or go somewhere else!

Cains and the coast

The change of plan – we have realised that Queensland is different. Whilst we knew this and were hoping for, an expecting, something ‘different’ we had also expected to be able to find camping in nice quite places. We’re sure these places exist in Queensland but they are few and far between – and probably a well kept secret. Our conclusion is that for what we want of this trip Western Australia is the place(s) to be. So we will go to Lawn Hill – a tropical oasis full of gorges, water falls, swimming holes and rivers right in the middle of thousands of square miles of barren dry desert. Lawn Hill was recommended by a fellow traveller, As it’s is in the west of Queensland you need to make a special effort to get there, but you’re well rewarded for your efforts, the place is beautiful. After Lawn Hill we head as quickly and directly through Northern Territory back to Western Australia, our beloved El Questro, the Gibb River Road and the rest of the west. Hopefully we can go down the west coast slowly enough to allow the weather to warm up!

Short-cuts!!

The normal road out of Lawn Hill travels back east and we want to go west. We debate the ‘track’ that goes north and then west versus the ‘track’ that goes south then west planning fuel, water, food and overnight stops opting for the slightly less remote ‘south then west option’. Earlier we mentioned that it’s more difficult than we had thought to get away from other people into the fabled and potentially dangerous remote bush. However, some of these tracks are brutal 4wd only tracks that are hundreds of kilometres long and travelled by few. Mainly used in small sections by cattle station staff and the odd tourist (did I just admit to being odd) these roads are as remote as it gets here. Our route back to Western Australia via the shortest ‘reasonable’ roads has two sections of serious outback dirt road the first of about 300kms the second about 450kms and we are back in touching distance of WA. You can’t go fast for obvious reasons, you can’t go too slow as the only way to deal with the road surface is to go fast enough to ride the tops of the corrugations etc. plus you can’t spend days out here, you need too much water and equipment. This turns into two long days of intensive off road activity covering approx 700kms per day through extremes of heat and dust. Ending each day looking like flour graders. Still we saved at least a day and about 600kms with our ‘short-cuts’. We feel more intrepid now!

   

El Questro

Our love affair with El Questro started on our honeymoon last year and doesn’t seem to be abating. This visit the park is much quieter and it’s even easier to find a totally deserted swimming hole or bush walk – idyllic. We camp on a riverbank in a private camp area 20 minutes drive from the station – and are plagued with moths and other nocturnal life. After two nights we go to the station and have dinner cooked in a restaurant! Civilisation eh.

Frilled Necked with attitude

Wildlife in line at the bush kitchen

Scratching is a Kangaroo super-power

Jemima sharing her breakfast

Back on the Gibb River Road (GRR). The weather has become a little unsettled, we had a shower of rain yesterday afternoon, very unseasonal and now on the first day of driving the GRR it’s raining. This could be an issue as we splash our way along. The rain is mostly light but doesn’t soak into the ground, it runs to low areas and pools. These pools can quickly grow in breadth and depth becoming hazardous. Planning on going to a cattle station stay along the GRR we turn into Elenbrae in the rain not knowing if the rain will let up enough to camp and ‘bang’, the rear left tyre deflates in the middle of the storm. The back of the car drops and the tow bar hits the rocks beneath. Not in our plan to wreck a tyre, we arrive at the station sideways in the rain.

Phil gets 5 minutes with his coffee before he spends a couple of hours getting tutored in changing a tyre (attempting to fix the puncture and realising the tyre is scrap) by hand by a guy well into his 70’s. A valuable lesson, almost worth the cost of the tyre we’re going to have to buy! Changing a tyre is not changing a wheel, this is why people travel this road with 2 or 3 spare wheels.

Optimism triumphs over experience - Phil fishing (fish feeding)

Stunning beaches just for us

Blue Spotted Eagle Ray - released

After the GRR we go south slowly spending a few days in a number of places. Notably we stay in Port Smith a couple of hours south of Broome – buy some hand lines and spend a few days having fun not catching fish from deserted beaches. It’s incredible how lucky we have been in finding totally deserted beautiful places, stunning white sand beaches for just the two of us.


We get back to Perth at the end of September and start the process of cleaning and advertising the Land Cruiser and camping gear for sale. October will be about staying closer to Perth, showing the car to anyone interested and seeing some of the sights nearer Perth, north and south. We have done what we want to do in WA and have time to catch our breath before we hit China and then return to the UK. We have visited Margaret River, famous for its wines, Jurien Bay which is so close to Perth but a tiny seaside town and the last time we use our tent.

WA has been excellent. Totally different from our experience on Honeymoon last year but all great. The north of WA is truly phenomenal, and whilst it’s got a sparse human population and cattle stations throughout this part of Australia will never be ‘tamed’. The weather and landscape are always in control, whatever you do and wherever you go you have to respect an environment this powerful.       

Our Land Cruiser.

We bought the car because of its capabilities but also the fact that this version (the 80) is simple enough mechanically to be fixed anywhere. Plus you can get bits and pieces anywhere. For an 18 year old car it drove phenomenally well, when we bought it it had done 221,000Kilometers, when we sold it 245,500Kilometers , and still it drove like a car that had done 50,000kms.

It took us everywhere:

·       Through water 3 feet deep many many times

·       Up mountains

·       Through deep soft sand

·       Along thousands of KMS of rough 4wd only tracks

·       And quietly and effortlessly along thousands of KMS of tarmacFinally we sold our Land Cruiser for £1000 less than we paid for it after 3.5 months and 24,500Kms. No wonder these cars are popular.

Land Cruiser scrubbed up well for an old un!

Having sold our trusty Land Cruiser and all our camping gear in one go to an English family that moved here a year ago we join a gym and wait the last week for our China adventure to start.

We can’t wait for China and we know that it’s the beginning of the journey homeward. China, then Hong Kong and then London. There’s so much catching-up to do.

The Fitzgerald family have been here already!

Lake Kununara

Week 21 to 28: Australia. The great roadtrip.

Perth

As Perth was our first and last port on Honeymoon it feels familiar as soon as we land. This is good as we know what to do and where to go, and bad as we don’t want to be here, we’ve been here and done most things here, we want to be on the road north to warmer weather and new experiences.

First step get oriented, find out how to buy a car and find some other resources. Next, get some essentials – so we buy really cool hats!! Then, buy a car – we find the right car, or so we think, so we set about buying it only for it to take a week to be ‘sorted’ (new brakes, fixed lights, etc) and we impatiently collect our new family member – only for it to be making a horrible noise! Engine mount rubber bush replaced (mechanics eh!!) we head out of Perth. It’s now lunchtime 1^st July and 10 days after we arrived. We are unprepared but free to leave so we hit the open road keen to start our great adventure.

Our travel companions - two hats and a car!

Getting out of town – heading up the West coast

Yes, we thought this was fine for four months.

We have a $10 (3 man) tent from the local free ads paper and have never pitched it! We have a few bits and bobs – some creature comforts! We get to Cervantes and decide to stop before it’s too dark to erect our tent! Tent is very small but fine, we find beer and fish and chips – all good, we watch the sunset and stand on the beach – all very nice, though it is getting chilly. We go to bed and feel the temperature plummet. The sleeping bags we have, and a very summer weight tiny tent are no protection against the 2 degrees the temperature gets down to, even wearing the beanie hats we got in Perth (yes we got two hats each). We use most of the night to plan some extra, and very necessary, shopping.

We generally know we are not fully prepared but there are known and unknown ‘unknowns’ about prep for driving round Australia. That’s a long way of saying we are naïve and inexperienced as well as underprepared. The rigs that some people are pulling around with them (kitchen sink and all) don’t really make us feel any better either. The plan is to head north aiming for the places we went on Honeymoon, but stopping anytime we want, and acquiring stuff when we see or need it. That’s the plan anyway!

We buy a fridge knowing we need to keep food fresh and cool, where we plan to go you can’t buy fresh whenever you want, plus it will give us the freedom to camp in the wilds away from civilisation. So we have a 12volt 35litre capacity fridge. The car has space for a second battery so we buy one. The fridge is plugged into the cigarette lighter and doesn’t seem to be working that well. We don’t know what the new battery is powering, or whether it’s being charged but we keep on experimenting. Ideally we would like a 12v supply in the back of the car but….

Biting the bullet we call into a vehicle electrician to get a new 12v socket fitted to find that whilst we have all the right bits they are not talking to each other – we get him to fit everything properly and hey-ho, our biggest problem becomes the fridge freezing everything. Did I say naïve and inexperienced! 

The open road

This is, as you will know, a very big country. Phil starts playing a game of ‘how many kilometres driven between having to adjust the steering for corners, obstacles, hazards etc. and gets to 51 kilometres through many 26’s, 34’s etc. etc. before Jemima tells him that the game is now more boring than the straight roads. We have no CDs and there is no radio reception – we need a new game!

Our overnight before we hit The Cape Range National Park is a working cattle station. This is Bullara Station. We are warmly welcomed and set about erecting our tent in a corner of what was the mustering yard and are ably assisted by two sheep and a lamb.

Tent pitched we light our first campfire, open some beers, cook some food and settle in. Next morning is the highlight of the stay. To have hot water you have to stoke the Donkey! This is placing more firewood under a large open-air caste iron boiler. This is so that we can enjoy the open-air shower! This is a big square building with walls that don’t go all the way to either the floor or the roof and which contains a massive rain shower-head in the middle. Water hot, we shower, and it’s fantastic. 

Back to the plan
Last year we missed swimming with Whale Sharks by a month or so. This year we head for Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef in the Cape Range National Park (taking 6 days to drive there from Perth rather than the 1 hour flight last year). We stay at some cool places along the way and see lots of interesting wildlife but our goal is Ningaloo and we get there only to find that it’s at the peak of the school holidays. Everywhere is full, trips out on the reef are chocker and the price is astronomical (2 hours snorkelling cost more than our advanced dive course!). Plan ‘B’ we will dive/snorkel someplace else and continue north for better weather. However our time in Ningaloo isn’t completely wasted as we take a long walk along the remote beaches and dunes and are inundated with Kangaroos, Emu, Bustard, and even an echidna. Awesome.

How many times, it's with a 'U'

Hey Shelia, two humans over there...

There's never a loo when you need it.

As we have come further north the days have been getting warmer but the night can still be cold. However, in Exmouth we have drizzly rain, who said anything about rain in Western Australia, we didn’t plan on that! And the next night, 8^th July, staying in a free rest area next to a river bed ‘the Beasly River’, we get full blown rain. Phil has strong memories evoked of camping and packing a tent in the rain – not positive. What happened to the drought we hear so much about!

The next morning we pack up our muddy tent and head to the small mining town of Tom Price and settle into our first proper campsite for a few days. We have a new pass-time, a field guide to Australian Birds and have been marking the ones we see. This now includes all the utterly comical antics of galahs. At Tom Price we decide to test the off-road capabilities of our 18 year-old Toyota Land Cruiser by climbing the mountain lookout. The road is a very rough track up to the lookout at the top of ‘Mount Nameless’, I kid you not, the car found the journey very easy and the view was breathtaking.


Next stop from the Honeymoon trail is Broome. Perth to Broome is 2255 Kilometres the short way – we have already racked-up 3500. Again we hit Broome during the school holidays. (Honestly we barely have any idea what day of the week it is let alone when school holidays are!) Campsite prices are more than we want to pay and we don’t want to stay in the middle of Broome Anyway. We have slowly found out what the (Beasley River) rain was all about. A bad weather system has hit Darwin and most of the northwest corner of Australia has had unseasonal rain. Without further ado we book two nights further towards the North West corner and set out to drive the 175 Kilometres to Middle Lagoon on Cape Leveque. The drive is interesting. The road is an unmade track that is graded flat periodically. The weather has ‘unmade’ the unmade track to the extent that the 2 hour drive takes nearly 4 with deep sand, heavy rutting, deep water crossings, rough corrugations and everything else that can be crammed into 175 Kilometres of off-road entertainment, and it’s also searingly hot, all the more pleasant! Once we’re there we are told that ‘unseasonal rain’ meant that 470mm of the stuff fell over 24 hours, no wonder the road was battered. After two days of walking on the beach we can face the return journey and head back to Broome for dinner and Mango Beer at Matso’s, something we also enjoyed eleven months earlier. Our first meal out since leaving Perth.

And this is the good road...

The aftermath

The Gibb River Road

The last stop on our Honeymoon Rediscovered adventure is El Questro near the Northern Territory side of Western Australia. The choice is a simple one: nearly 1000 Kilometers of tarmac road through two ordinary outback towns; or the Gibb River Road (GRR) which is 230 kilometres shorter, takes us directly to El Questro but is an ‘unsealed’ road the same as the one to Middle Lagoon. Easy choice really!! The GRR is iconic amongst Australians, an old cattle droving route to the port of Wyndham and a feature of most peoples plans to see Western Australia. It is also the only viable option for seeing many of the most famous and beautiful National Parks. We set off on the GRR finding it easier than the Cape Leveque road but it’s rough, hot and dusty. We stop at Windjana Gorge and can’t believe that we are camped yards from the mouth of the gorge.  This is more like the camping we wanted to do. The gorge is breathtaking. We do the three-hour trek and see crocodiles, bats and loads of birds.

Next stop for us is Manning Gorge a long hike that rewards us at the end with another breathtaking gorge, swimming hole and waterfall. The water is cold, but totally refreshing after the walk and we even manage to find ourselves a two metre square bit of beach in the middle of the Outback. You can’t say fairer than that! Back at camp there’s another swimming hole that we spend the afternoon relaxing in until it’s beer o’clock and it’s back to the tent for a campfire and dinner.

With an early start and 340km of dusty corrugated road under our belt we arrive at El Questro. El Questro is a wilderness park/station that has opened its doors to those who really want to explore the best of the Kimberly. Last year we were ‘guests’ of the homestead; a luxury, eight-roomed homestead with gourmet meals, canapés, open bar and private pool overlooking the chamberlain gorge. This year, we have our car and our tent. But in all honesty (canapés, gourmet meals, free flowing wines and air-conditioning aside) we have just as much fun this time around. We have a shady spot for our tent, build campfires, do the moonshine and El Questro Gorge walks, swim in the local swimming holes and refresh ourselves under waterfalls. Although the station is relatively busy there is so much to do that you can spend hours at a time on a walk without seeing anybody. It’s bliss. There’s even a little bar where we make the most of happy hour from 5-6pm before heading back to our camp. This is exactly what our adventure is about and we spend hours watching the wildlife, including seeing a bower bird building its bachelor pad ‘bower’ – and contributing a few Malaysian and Thai coins which go down a treat with his ladies. This really is pure bliss.

Our time at El Questro makes us realise that we need to slow down a little bit. We’ve raced trough most of WA in three weeks and at five thousands kilometres – that’s a pretty speedy rate.

Next inline for us is the Bungle Bungles, an iconic area of stripey sandstone domes that are so remote they were only discovered (by non-aboriginals that is) in the 1980s. Another hair-raising 4WD only road in means that these ‘bee-hives’ are really only viewed by the committed…or perhaps by those that should be committed! They are great to see (see the associated pics) but boy oh boy the journey is not to be done by the faint hearted.

And that was WA. A beautiful wilderness of ocean and desert, crammed full of spectacular gorges, mesmerising boab trees and wonderful wildlife. And of course…massive expanses of nothing!!!

Next for us – Northern Territory (NT)

Episode one is before we even hit NT. We have seen everywhere in Kununarra that you can’t transport fruit, veg or most things organic between states for fear of transmitting pests and diseases – fair enough. Like good citizens we ditch our chillies, dried apricots, and other assorted fruit and veg. Admittedly not much as we had planned to not have much at this stage. We slowed at the border only to be roundly ignored. Turns out it’s only for people going the other direction, i.e. into Western Australia - DOH.

Heading into NT feels totally different to us. Everything we have done so far has been fairly familiar due to our visit last August/September. That is all changed now as we head further east than we have ventured before. However, as the landscapes change slowly we haven’t seen many differences so far. Still Boab trees, dead Kangaroos and Whistling Kites everywhere.

After several overnight stops along the Stuart Highway we eventually reach the tropical coastal town of Darwin. Having spent much of our time so far in the middle of ‘the bush’ we are quite excited about being in a small city. But to our surprise…we hate it!!!!  

We are packed into a small cramped caravan park (arghh – who are all these people?), which is sandwiched between the city airport and the air force base. At first we are amazed as a number of fighter jets fly over just meters above our heads, however, our amazement turns to horror as they continue to fly over our heads for the next three days morning, noon, and in particular, all through the night. What we learn afterwards, when we put our pedal to the metal and hightail it out of Darwin as fast as we can, is that they are currently in the middle of a war game with Indonesia!! We would have left even sooner had the car not been in the garage having an oil change and new radiator fitted. Honestly, it was not a good three days.

Having realised that we like the company of ‘the bush’ way more than ‘the city’ we make our way down towards Kakadu and Litchfield national parks with a fantastic stop at a place called Mary River along the way. We spend five nights at Mary River an amazing little campground that makes you feel totally in the wilderness while still having access to showers and relax and get over our city experience. We get a little too close to nature as the tree frogs love the showers (and Phil’s feet – see pic), we spot a gigantic croc on the riverbank where we are camping, we are hit by a plague of cane toads and a gigantic spider with furry legs and everything takes a liking to our tent. Yikes. In Litchfield we manage to pitch our tent under a beautiful flowering tree that at night becomes the home to fruit bats! Fascinating, until we spend the entire night listening to them peeing and worse on our tent. Well, I guess we have to top that off some how and so head to Kakadu where we spot our first possum, and wake in the night to a mysterious sound of something rummaging through our pots and pans in the front section of our tent…

The unwelcome wildlife

After waking Phil to be told “it’s okay it’s not in here it’s in the trees”, Jemima keeps the maglite nearby. And sure enough something creeps back in and starts rummaging through the bowls. Maglite on - a startled ‘something’ runs up the middle of our tent. It looked like a rather large rat, but hopped like a kangaroo!!! When we work out what it was, we’ll let you know.  

Kakadu is a world heritage site full of ancient rock art, gorges and the fantastic yellow waters billabong. It is a true wilderness. It is the only National Park to contain a complete, and completely unchanged, river system – the Alligator River (mis-named by an English guy that didn’t know the difference between the Croc’s he saw and an Alligator that he couldn’t have seen!!). We camp in the wilderness, explore the ancient rock paintings and book ourselves on two cruises of the Yellow Waters, Alligator river and wetlands. Sunset watching myriad water birds do their thing is magical. The second cruise is early the next morning a 6am start to catch the sunrise over the same waters. Beautiful, awesome, gobsmacking and wonderful – except for the massive cloud of mosquitoes that have decided to drain every drop of Jemima’s blood. Bitten half to death (last count was over 40 bites) we decide that we have ‘done’ Kakadu, pack up, and leave – wetlands come at a hefty price!!

Douglas Hot Springs

Our ‘bible’s’ are The Rough Guide, Camping Australia (version 5) and a road atlas. Not in the Rough Guide and tiny on the map, Jemima spots Douglas Springs in the Daly River area. There seems to be camping and we need a break in our journey so that’s where we head. Pulling into the camping area (down 7km of sandy unmade track) we camp and wander off to find the springs. What we find is an area of the river with people sat chatting and relaxing. There are thermal uprisings that heat the water, in some places too hot to put your hand into. Not ones to stand on ceremony we change and get involved, loosing three hours just wallowing in the sandy crystal clear bath and chatting to new friends about places seen and to be seen. Next morning we head for Butterfly Gorge, a nearby walk some 17km further down the distinctly 4WD only track (amazing how much of Australia really is 4WD only). We see about two butterflies, do the walk, which is tough enough to get the heart racing and head back. Time to spend another three hours in the big sandy bath. This time watching a White Bellied Sea Eagle eating a snake it has caught and taken to a perch above our heads, fascinating and gruesome. Five o’clock arrives and it’s time for beer and nibbles before we cook dinner. Oh, it’s a hard hard life. 

Journey down to Alice Springs

Our friends at Mataranka

We’re now heading down to Alice Springs to spend some time in the red centre, visit Uluru and the MacDonnell ranges but with 1500kms to do to get there a couple of stops are required along the way. We stop at Mataranka, ‘home of the Never Never’ and more hot springs, Daly Waters one of the oldest pubs in the outback and then Ti-Tree. At Ti-Tree we realise that driving nearly 1500kms south in a couple of days brings an unwelcome surprise. In Darwin two weeks ago the temperature stayed around 26 degrees overnight and it was too hot to sleep. In Ti-Tree, it’s bloody freezing!! We have every layer we own on the bed the Pjyamas are back on, as are the beanie hats but still we spend most of the night awake huddling like frozen penguins trying to keep warm. Oops. Our two-week camping trip in and around Alice Springs may need re-evaluating.

Okay, so our visit to Alice Springs also coincides with our first wedding anniversary. So we splash out, ditch the tent for two nights and book into a little self-contained motel unit. The night before our anniversary we regress to our old habit of take-away pizza and red wine, we play on the Internet and catch up with lots of people – including speaking to Jemima’s parents for the first time since we have arrived in Oz and at long last post some blog!! Internet access is few and far between out here so we make the most of it.

The day of our anniversary we write some more blog ‘hello – this is us’….we will be speaking to Jemima’s sister Clare and seeing her new arrival ‘our nephew Zach’ for the first time in about an hour….and then it’s champagne and home made canapés and lots of reminiscing.

That’s it for now guys. I hope you have enjoyed our mammoth first eight weeks in Oz, hopefully we will update again soon so the next chapter won’t be so much of a novel!! Bye for now.   


P.S. A few more shots to give you more of a flavour of what we've been doing.