Monday, August 17, 2009

Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th August

Hi all,

 

We’ve made it just past Tom Price today! : )

 

We headed off mid-morning yesterday from Carnarvon, after a bit of food shopping and a last little look around. We did try and go to the growers market that was supposed to be on in the “town centre”, but nothing around looked anything like a market, so I Woolies’d it up, then we stopped off at a side-of-the-road stall on the way out of town. The trip to Nanutarra was fairly uneventful, but we did get there in time to have a good look around, and for both the boys to go for a swim in the river that runs just next to the roadhouse. It’s a pretty river, fairly low at the moment, but not dried up like most of the rivers, creeks and streams (or dry’s, as I’ve taken to calling them) we’ve driven over the last couple of days. I guess it’s a fair bit different in the wet season, huh.

 

So, we cooked up some dinner and bought the world’s most expensive ice creams from the roadhouse, watched a DVD then crashed. (BTW, if you’re after a good movie, Hunting Game with Richard Gere is a good’un)

 

Matt had the fabulous idea to get up before the sun this morning and go and take some pics of the sun coming up, and shining on the mountains. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m not a good morning person, but I actually made it up about 20 minutes before the sun, and got some pretty cool shots of the river and mountain. I must admit, it was a pretty good idea after all, and who knows, I might even do it again! : )

 

We were on the road by 9 after our early morning start, which turned out to be a really good thing. We had lunch at Paraburdoo, then decided to head straight on to Tom Price to stop for the night. Only thing was when we got there, the caravan park doesn’t allow dogs anymore (thanks websites, and books we have that say they do!), so we’re camped up in a side-of-the-road parking bay, which has actually turned out beautifully. As you’ll see from the photos, the view is fantastic (we’re about 10k’s out of Karijini National Park), and we’ve met a lovely Scottish couple (Derek and Flo) from Perth that are staying here for the night ‘cause they’re having troubles with their bus. We’ve made plans to follow them (or vice versa) tomorrow since we’re both heading in the same direction.

 

The thing that’s really surprised us is how mountainous it is up here! There are some beautiful looking mountains around this area, as well as a heap of cattle that we keep seeing on the sides of the roads (and avoiding like the plague!). Jack’s quite curious about them all, but was crapping himself when Matt actually tried to take him up to a couple of cows today! Speaking of Jack as well, this camp is literally red, like everything around here. We now have a slightly red (instead of white) and brown dog. He’s having a ball so far!

 

So, onwards to Newman tomorrow!

 

PS. There’s photos up on the website as well. Kylie, I made sure we took some pics of both Matt and I, thanks for the suggestion. Jack had a bit of trouble taking them at first, but I think he’s getting better… : )

Friday, August 14, 2009

The last couple of days...

Alright, since it’s been a bit busy over the last couple of days for us, I’m adding the last couple of days into one big blog. Try to keep up, I can’t promise I won’t be jumping around all over the place! : )

 

Tuesday we had a bit more of a look around Quobba Station after saying goodbye to Craig and Dale in the morning. We went and checked out the lighthouse, blowholes, Sydney II Memorial and a couple of other bits of the coastline. We ended up on a beach just South of the actual homestead, where I finally got my whale pictures, though not the jumping out of the water one I was hoping to get! They’re up on the website. Had a bit of a pack up and some lovely slow-cooked lamb shanks, mmm mmmmm!

 

We left Quobba on Wednesday morning, and headed back into Carnarvon. After a quick our through the town itself with the van in tow, we decided to stay at the Capricorn Caravan Park, mainly because of the fact that their sign out the front said “Your pets are welcome”. Matt figured that they must be a bit of alright if they were accepting of pets, and having been here for two nights already, I must say I do agree with him. The park is nice and clean, dirt roads (it’s no Suncoast!), an undercover pool and it’s far enough off the road that you don’t get all the noise of the big trucks going past at all hours like most of the other caravan parks here would do. We’ve had a nice couple of days here!

 

Wednesday afternoon We went into town to have a bit of a look around, and ended up washing Jack at the vets, then wandering down the road to a pub right on the water for a drink. There’s a couple of pics up from there on our pictures page. We had a quiet dinner in the caravan after doing some much needed washing!

 

Yesterday we dropped the car off for a service at Toyota (PS. they’re a bloody rip-off, don’t go to Toyota in Carnarvon if you can avoid it!), then rode our bikes with Jack in tow out to One Mile Jetty. We ended up riding out to as far as you can go on the jetty, it’s under repairs after a couple of fires and some big swells in the last couple of decades. Go there if you get a chance though, apparently the entrance fees are going towards the restoration. You can only go out to about 800m, but when it’s re-opened it’d be pretty cool I reckon. We also went to the light house keepers house museum, the house is all set up with lots of historical stuff, all four rooms plus the laundry bit off the side of the veranda look like they would have in the early 1900’s, pretty interesting. They’ve got the original lighthouse there as well, that used to be up on a wooden structure until white ants came on the scene. I love a good lighthouse, in case you haven’t guessed it, but I’m still yet to actually go inside one! One day, I hope…

 

We rode back into town after that, had a coffee and finally picked up our parcel from Norma from the Post Office (thank you very much, Australia Post), then headed back to pick up the car. Had some lunch, then headed out to Miaboolya beach for some fishing for Matt, and I took a heap of photos. Jack and Matt were sick of me pretty quickly, but I managed a few sneaky ones of them anyway! : ) We heard about a really good seafood restaurant from some other people camping at Quobba, so got all dressed up and went out to the boat harbour for a seafood feast! The trouble with that was, when we got there, a big group had just arrived and we were turned away. : ( Damn it! After a bit of a drive around, we found a Chinese place back in town that looked alright, apart from the fact that there wasn’t anyone in the restaurant. We went in anyway, and were told that we could have take away, but not eat there as they were closing early since it had been so quiet. So, after the promise of fresh seafood in a restaurant we ended up with take away chinese, luckily it ended up being a pretty good substitution, and I’ve made a reservation for seafood for tonight, so it had better be worth the wait!

 

Today’s been a bit more of a catch-up day, more washing, and Matt’s doing a few bits and pieces to the car. We’ve got shopping and a few other bits to do in town, and we were going to head out to Chinaman Pool today as well, just to see what it actually is ‘cause I’ve wondered every single time we’ve driven past the sign! Lunch first, then we’ll see I guess.

 

Tomorrow we’re heading off again, on the way out to Newman for the next adventure with Craig and Dale. We’re off to the fresh food markets tomorrow morning, then on the road to probably Nanutarra tomorrow night. So, it’s packing up everything again tonight and tomorrow morning early-ish so we can get a decent start on the day. We’ll see if that happens, though. : )

 

Until next time…

 

PS. for Nick. I was cracking up this morning when, the morning show was playing The Venga Bus, and I’ve had it stuck in my head since then! Thanks for that.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Sunday 9th August

With a bit of sadness, we left Phill and Jen’s (oh, and Chelsea’s)at Cape Burney at about 8am on this morning. We knew it’d be a long trip to Quobba Station, so we took our time on the road. It’s been a fairly ordinary kind of day, but not raining so that was a plus. We stopped a couple of times during the day, including the Overlander Roadhouse for lunch (PS. the toilets there are very­ ordinary, just in case you’re travelling up that way, take your own TP, and keep your fingers crossed that at least one of the toilets is working!). We ended up getting to Quobba at around 4:30, since I made Matt stop on the way about 5k’s shy of the station so I could try and take a photo of the whale we had just seen jumping out of the water. The result is on the photos page, you’ll just have to take my word for it that it actually was a whale! : /

 

Quobba Station is a big (and I mean BIG, like over 50k’s of shoreline on the one property) sheep station, that seems like it’s still working ie. grazing and shearing sheep. There’s a sheep in the homestead area that hangs out with one of the cattle dogs, and I swear it thinks it’s a dog. So funny, and it even has a tail, first time I’ve ever seen a sheep with it’s tail intact! We got set up here ok, a bit windy but nothing too bad. We have set the annexe up for the first time, so let’s hope it’s as good here as it was on the front lawn the first time we set it up! This seems like a pretty cool place, not too many people, and you can hear the waves crashing against the shoreline rocks, about 100m away!

 

We haven’t been able to find our friends we’re supposed to be meeting (where are you Craig and Dale!?), so hopefully we’ll catch up with them tomorrow. There’s some blowholes (yes, that’s right Kiama I said blowholeS, guess you need to get a couple more to catch up, hey?), and Red Bluff that we’ll be checking out over the next couple of days, so we won’t be bored that’s for sure!

 

 

Monday 10th September

Oh my god, I thought it was windy in Safety Bay. We were woken up initially at about 11 last night with the beginnings of some quite heavy rain. That was cool, no worries at all. Then the wind started. At about 3am I actually thought the caravan was going to blow over, or the annexe and awning would rip off the side of the caravan and fly away ala Dorothy’s house style. Holy crap, that was some pretty scary shit! Matt ended up going out at about 4 or 5am to tie down the annexe with some rope, just so it felt a bit more secure and wasn’t going to fly off. Thank god everything was ok, we’re pretty happy with the way everything’s still attached as it should be!

 

So after that, we had a bit of a late start to the day. Matt put some wood under the hot water tanks outside the showers and lit a fire for our hot water at about 8am. I was surprised at how hot the water actually was, even though it was extremely salty. We decided to head up to Red Bluff, the other campsite we were talking about meeting Craig and Dale at, and as we were just about to get there they were coming down the track towards us! So, we’ve spent a lovely day with them, went up the coast a bit to the turtle sanctuary, didn’t see any turtles though. : ( Matt and Craig did a bit of snorkelling, but the water was murky because of all the wind. I swear it hasn’t stopped here all day, but at least it’s not as crazy as it was last night!

 

Craig and Dale have been at Red Bluff for a couple of nights, and said they sat around yesterday afternoon watching whales cruise on past their campsite (in the water, of course!). Craig showed us the photos they’d taken, and the whales were so close to the shore you could have easily swum out to meet them, if you were allowed to of course. We sat around for an hour or more at Red Bluff when we got back from our day trip, and watched some of the largest members of the ocean blow water out of the sea. No more spectacular aerial manoeuvres from them, but it was still pretty cool.

 

While I think about it too, we’ve been told that you don’t get notified when we put up new photos on the website, so we’ll just make sure we mention it in the blog when there’s new ones and you can go to the website and just check them out from there. Sorry for the confusion, we didn’t realise it wasn’t going to work that way. There are some new pics up there from today for you to check out.

 

We’ve made plans to meet up with Craig and Dale in Newman in 10 days time, so we’re going to take our time getting there, chill out for a couple of days and get organised for the next leg of the journey. From Newman, we’re leaving the caravans and heading south to the Canarvon Ranges for a bit of a trip through there for a week or so. Then back to Newman, and probably north a bit from there. We’re so excited to be getting out to places like this, and it’s even better to have someone else to do it with!

 

We got back here (to Quobba) at around  5, after a quick stop in at Korean Star, a shipwreck off the coast. You can’t see anything from the shore, but there’s a big Rio Tinto operation happening near there (thanks for the tip, Craig!) that’s pretty cool to check out. (See the pictures on our website!). We’ve had a lovely dinner of whiting (thanks Dale!) and “chips” (sliced, cooked potatoes), and were supposed to be heading over to a nearby campsite for a few drinks and a bit of a chinwag with some fellow ExplorOz-ians, but we’re both too knackered so bed’s looking like a great option really soon.

 

Oh, that reminds me, Mum, you’ll love this one, and Dad you’ll be so proud! I bought a stack of Bali DVD’s with us that we hadn’t watched yet, so we thought we’d break one out last night. We started watching The Boat That Rocked, I fell asleep, and got woken up at the end of it when Matt was having a sad because the end of the movie wasn’t on the DVD! If I wasn’t half-asleep at the time, I would have laughed!  : )

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Moving on...

Still staying with the lovely Phill and Jen in Cape Burney. We headed out for dinner in Gero last night, had an awesome feed and a great night out, thanks guys! It’s been great just to chill out for a couple of days with these guys, and little Chels, we’re going to be sad to leave in the morning.

 

Jen cooked us the bestest breakky this morning, which was awesome since we all had a couple of drinks last night! No mess in the caravan this time, though… We’ve had a pretty relaxed day, Jen and I went for a spot of shopping and I finally bought us a TV, hooray! It works a treat and now we finally have an HD TV. : D That’ll keep me entertained at least!

 

D

Friday, August 7, 2009

The story so far...

So, our first night on the road (Tuesday) we spent camped up in a roadside rest area just South of Gulilderton. It was a fairly uneventful evening, almost a full moon, and bloody noisy anytime a car went past. We didn’t do a lot having not tv, so got up early and got on the road. That was perfect timing, it started raining almost as soon as we pulled out of the rest area, and was pretty miserable until we got here to Jen & Phill’s in Cape Berney, just south of Geraldton.

 

We’ve been parked on the front lawn of Jen and Phill’s place until now, having a tops time catching up with Jen and doing a bit more last minute stuff to the caravan. Still got a bit to do, but we’ll hopefully have a bit of time over the next couple of weeks to be able to do those…

 

Thanks to everyone who’s signed up to our blog so far, there’s heaps of you! We will get around to sending out individual emails one day (I hope!), but until then keep on reading!

 

PS. Photos to come soon as well, I’ve just got to start taking some! : )

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

First Day on the Road!

So, we know we’ve been a bit slack with the blogs this far, but we finally made it! We finally moved out of our house on Friday morning, then moved all the way across the road… We lounged around on Lyn & Drew’s driveway for a couple of nights, before parking up at Justin and Kat’s last night for one last celebration with an awesome roast and some drinkies. Feeling a bit seedy this morning, we dumped some last stuff off at the storage unit, then headed ‘round to say goodbye to the PGSR crew before finally heading up to Yanchep to visit Tammy, Brady and Minnie.

 

 We’re now officially spending our first night on the road, camped up in a roadside rest area just South of Guilderton. We’re off to Geraldton tomorrow to crash on Jen and Phill’s front lawn for a couple of nights, then heading further North to Red Bluff. We’re hoping to spend a bit of time with Craig and Dale from Busso, then no real plans after that.

 

So far, everything’s running pretty smoothly, and it’s great to actually be out here! There’s more pictures to come when we get the chance as well.

 

Matt and D