Four Go RTW

From Karijini we continued on to Newman and then began the long trip back down south. It took 2 days to do the 1300kms along a small strip of bitumen surrounded by red dust, passing through a lot of nothing occasionally interspersed with a tiny town with one street of services. It proved to be surprisingly expensive to find a room for the night in these places – most of them pleasant little drinking towns with a bit of a mining problem, so it was NOT preferable to be on a campsite on a Saturday night – and hotel/motel bills are paid for by mining executive expense accounts.

We took the opportunity to observe the OZ transport system too. With virtually no rail network to speak of most of the outback region relys on everything brought in by Road Trains – huge long distance rigs pulling 3 or 4 big trailers behind – signs are posted limiting the length to 53.5m (how very precise!)

Incoming supplies:

Something else we noticed was the painting of a strip of wide white lines parallel to the central thin one, similar to a zebra crossing – perplexing until we saw the sign saying ‘RFDS – Emergency Runway’!!

Multi-tasking tarmac:

Shortly after that we saw yet another warning sign for one of Australia's most lethal attractions...

...and started a ‘Road Kill Chart’, notching up roos, sheep and birds, with the scavenging dingoes and huge wedge-tailed eagles clearing up the mess. The numbers started really going up on the stretch from Meekatharra to Leonora – it seemed to be absolute carnage, maybe too many people drive at night along that road, despite all the advice about being mown down by road trains and having Skippy land on your bonnet during the hours of darkness.

Just before we got to Leonora the red dust started to change to a sandy colour instead – we were coming into gold country. One place we did stop was the deserted ghost town of Gwalia. Gold rush fever hit in the 1890’s and the town flourished to a population of 1500 people, albeit living the simple life in the traditional miners tin huts. When the mine closed in 1963 the company sent a train from Kalgoorlie (some 230kms away) to transfer the workers ready for the next operation to open up – basically if you didn’t get on that train you were stuck in the middle of nowhere, and so most people picked up what they could carry and left. The result was that in 2 weeks the town was deserted, and houses, shops and facilities were left as if they had just gone away for the weekend. Thankfully it has been preserved as it was left for the last 40 years, providing a fascinating look at life back then, although it was really quite spooky too.

Gwalia's ghostly Guest Home:

Late in the evening we pulled into Kalgoorlie and collapsed into bed, feeling slightly sheepish that 2 days travel should have exhausted us so, after some of the journeys we’ve done this year!
See ya
All love CRFS xxxx

As we left the beach suddenly the world turned red. Not just the land we were driving on but it looked as though trees, buildings and even animals were covered in fine brick dust. We carried on until we reached the town of Tom Price, in the Pilbara region, where the reason for the redness became apparent. In the 1960’s a man named Thomas Price came to the area convinced that there was iron ore worth mining in them thar hills. Despite opposition from the other members of his company he persevered and was eventually rewarded with one of the richest iron ore fields in the world. The closed town set up for the mine employees was named Tom Price on his premature death, as was the mountain they then proceeded to dig a big hole in. Iron ore is, of course, the main component in steel and thanks to the construction boom in the newly emerging asian countries – China in particular – WA’s iron ore mines are almost as valuable as gold. Rio Tinto is the main player in Tom Price and so we hopped on a tour to see what goes on.
It is absolutely mind boggling. The size of the machinery is immense and being an open cast mine it has a huge visual impact. Despite the fact that our children are girls, they were still impressed by the size of the trucks, although showed their feminine side by really, really liking the one that was painted pink!! (a breast cancer charity is one they donate lots to.)

Mine machinery WA style:

A job in the mines holds no stigma in Australia – far from it, salaries are big ($60,000 for a newbie truck driver) and accommodation, health care etc are still subsidised even though the town is now ‘open’ to all. There are many young Australians who ‘work the mines’ for a couple of years to get capital to buy houses etc elsewhere.

As we won’t get to the Northern Territory and the cultural nirvana of Uluru on this trip, we were anxious that the girls should learn something about aboriginal history and customs in Australia. So we went on a walkabout with Wilana, a local girl who told us of her family’s history and old customs of bush tucker and medicines, but was also very forthcoming about the role of the indigenous population in modern Australia, and their relationship with the local government, all of which was very interesting too.

Walkabout with Wilana:

That night at the campsite we were just heading off to the loos when we were accosted by a couple of locals – we were wary, but apparently they are more interested in Weetabix than anything else…

After a couple of days it was time to move on, this time further inland to Karijini National Park, the best kept secret in OZ. We spent 2 days exploring the different gorges and pools, staying the night at the bush camp inside the park – beautiful to see the huge night sky undiluted by electric lights, but a little un-nerving listening to the dingoes howling at 1am! The NP is stunning, most of the hikes are 1-2kms so the girls got plenty of rock-climbing practice, although the thing with trekking down into gorges is then you have to climb back out!

Dales Gorge:

Joffe Gorge:

As usual here we pretty much had the place to ourselves, and by luck more than judgement always seemed to be finishing the trail as the ‘Explore’ group headed in – we had been playing ‘tag’ with them all week!

See ya
All love CRFS xxxx

From Monkey Mia we had an overnight stop in Carnarvon and then it was full steam ahead to Exmouth (NOT a small town approximately 2 hours south of Bristol, but a TINY town clinging to the eastern edge of the Cape Range peninsula!) As the air and sea temperatures have both soared as we've moved north we stopped for lunch and a swim at picture-perfect Coral Bay on the way up, but then decided to press on to the big enchilada up north. Since we hauled out the atlas some 18 months ago, NW Australia and in particular Ningaloo Reef was a ‘non-negotiable’ stop, because the whale sharks would be in town. The mass spawning of more than 200 species of coral in March/April each year is part of a chain of events that draw the world’s biggest fish to Ningaloo Reef – one of only a few places in the world where they reliably appear regularly in any numbers, in waters easily accessible to observers. Whale sharks are harmless filter feeders, appear to be solitary animals and can grow up to 18 metres in length, although those encountered at Ningaloo are mostly immature males between 4 and 12 metres long. Very little is known about whale shark numbers, behaviour patterns and life cycle, and being fish rather than air breathing mammals they can dive to great depths for indefinite periods of time, leaving only speculation and mystery behind. So on arrival in Exmouth the very first thing we did was book ourselves on a boat!

The day dawned sunny, hot and windy – hmmmm not sure about that on the open ocean. Fin and Sadie were very keen to come too and as they are now both outstanding swimmers we had no real worries. As we were waiting to get on the boat a pair of Ospreys eyed us suspiciously, they’ve got chicks in the nest at the moment. Hopping on board, we motored out through a 2m swell thinking maybe we had been too hasty…but not to worry – as the first whale shark of the day was spotted Fin leapt into 40m of big blue without a care! What a star! (Sadie, being a girl who likes to take her time getting into the water, decided to watch a while to see if anyone drowned first!) He was AWESOME, so beautiful, gliding along below us, gently waving his tail from side to side while we had to do the 100m front crawl in record time to keep up with him. In fact it was pretty difficult as this photo shows!

Our pic of the rear end of a whale shark:

Someone else's pic of a whale shark:

We got to swim with him 3 more times, and on the last swim Sadie was brave enough to come in too, which was so cool as the ‘snorkel squeaking’ stepped up a gear. Sadie’s such a good luck talisman, on that last swim we also saw a massive turtle swimming next to the whale shark too – the shell was an amazing 1m in diameter.

Ningaloo Reef isn’t just a haven for whale sharks – we also saw 3 gorgeous manta rays, several more turtles, a pod of dolphins and dugongs too. Chris went diving a couple of days later and also saw some big black tip reef sharks, turtles (yawn!) and a myriad of beautiful fish which we also saw snorkelling around the reef. Chris and I both thought it was far more diverse and better stocked than the parts of the Great Barrier Reef we saw 12 years ago, and we were glad we decided to come up here rather than make time on the East Coast. Adding in the amazing white sand beaches of Turquoise Bay (among others in Cape Range National Park) and the usual WA lack of other tourists (‘so where the bloody hell are ya?’) meant it was a no brainer.

Returning to the tent we saw emu’s walking along the road in town and through our campsite! The caravan park was great, with non-stop hot showers, and a fantastic camp kitchen with ovens! Go the jacket spud! So it was no hardship to spend the best part of a week up here – it’s a funky little town and there was a trampolining place across the road, so the girls were happy too! In one of the little shops in town we found a book called ‘Jinormous Jack’, written by a local, all about the amazing whale sharks and trying to guess what they make of it all, so from then on ‘our’ whale shark was known as Jack!

In the end we had to move on, and waved goodbye to Jack and the lovely west coast.
All love CRFS xxxx

Arriving in Australia provided the predicted second ‘reverse’ culture shock of the trip. We realised something was different as we jumped in the cab at Perth airport ‘How much?’ we enquired on telling the driver our destination. ‘Aw, about 30 bucks I’d say’ he replied. ‘How about 15?’ we said, but alas our bargaining days are behind us…

As it was late we stayed the first night in a hotel and headed off to pick up the car the next day. We’ll be living out of it for the next month we went for a big stationwagon, from a company that hires out older (and cheaper) models, but the real pull for us was that for an extra UK£40 we could hire camping gear for the whole trip. So we left packed up with 2 x 3 man tents, 4 x roll mats, 1 x cool box, 1 x table, 4 x chairs, 2 x single stove burners, 4 x crockery and cutlery, pots, pans, knives, chopping board etc. Fab!

We have some very good friends of my grandparents in Perth. Jan and her husband Bruce (sadly no longer with us) emigrated to Australia with their 3 children as ‘£10 Poms’ in the 1960’s. Amazingly the two families have stayed in constant contact with many visits to and fro for nearly half a century, and we wanted to come back and visit them on this trip (we spent a week in Perth on our way through from Africa last time around!) Jan’s daughter was out of town and had very kindly said we could stay in her house – wonderful to have some space and home comforts. It was great seeing the city and catching up with Jan and all the gossip, and cool seeing the children and grandchildren again, all quite different being 12 years older than last time!

Downtown Perth from Kings Park:


After a few days out and about in Perth, stocking up on heavier clothing (gosh it feels cold, although it’s still 25 degrees or so in the day), sleeping bags, and secret birthday shopping for the girls, we hit the road. First stop was Cervantes, about 2.5 hours drive north (we’re in the southern hemisphere now, go north to follow the sun!), where the main attraction is the Pinnacles Desert with it’s amazing limestone pillars in the reddish sand. We arrived just after breakfast and had the place to ourselves, those Billy Connolly fans will remember his naked dancing there – we remained in fleeces and trousers! The Pinnacles are awesome and it’s hard for a photo to do them justice, but here’s our best offering:

We slowly meandered the day away with stops at the beautiful beach of Jurien Bay, lunch at Leeman, and then found a cute caravan park on the seafront at Dongara to spend the night. Next day we stopped at the Greenough Historic Settlement, where the original stone buildings sit as they did in their 1860’s heyday, lovingly restored by the Australian National Trust (note to UK NT members - bring your card, you can get in for free!) We explored the schoolhouse, church, police station court and gaol, and cottages doing the aussie fly wave and trying to imagine the trials of life in such a harsh climate with no nets, no air con, and lighting fires in those tiny hot cottages to cook etc – we have it so good.

Next stop (after a supply stock up in Geraldton) was pretty little Kalbarri. We ended up staying 3 nights here at another lovely campsite right across the road from the beach, walkable to the shops, sand and playground which meant only using the car for trips out. In between laundry loads we headed off to the Murchison Gorge and Nature’s Window, involving a 1km walk along the steep gorge edge, the girls delighting in watching our horrified faces as they skipped about like mountain goats. Stunning red rock, gum trees and great views all worth it though:

Nature's Window:

Every morning in Kalbarri several pelicans gather on the shore as a volunteer feeder heads down with a bucket of fish. It’s very cool watching these wild birds waddle about and compete with the seagulls for a morning snack.

Cute pelicans:

We also went to the Rainbow Jungle to look at the amazing bird collection and see them in the free flight aviary – we couldn’t believe how beautiful the birds were, so colourful. Just a little bit further along the coast was Red Bluff lookout, where we could see the surfers catching a wave on a Sunday morning:

The next day we headed up to Monkey Mia, in World Heritage-listed Shark Bay, a journey of some 350kms with a break halfway at the lovely Billabong Roadhouse. We stopped at Shell Beach for a look at the tiny cockleshells that make up the entire beach – stunning – and carried on for a supply stop in Denham. Monkey Mia is where we were for Sadie’s birthday and although the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort has a lovely campground we decided to upgrade to a ‘villa’ for the 2 nights of our stay. The resort is the only building at Monkey Mia itself, but it’s sensitively developed, and has a really laid back feel to it.

We had thought hard about the girl’s birthdays on the trip (birthdays are HUGE in the Edmeads house) and decided we obviously couldn’t have a big party or similar, so thought we would try and make it a day that couldn’t have happened at home. So, that morning (the birthday morning!) Sadie opened some presents and then we headed down to the beach to see the dolphins. We had seen them a little way out the night before, but now there were about 10 or so right near the beach. (‘Shall we catch breakfast this morning dear or go to the jetty?’) Guess what - Sadie was chosen to hand a fish to one of them! Although they are fed from the beach, they only receive about ¼ of their daily requirement from the buckets, so have to head off to hunt themselves for the rest of the day. They’re so gorgeous and smart, and the researchers remain convinced that they get great intellectual stimulation from their visits – after all they are wild, and are free to come and go as they please, which they do throughout the day. Later that morning we went out on a short (2 hr) catamaran sailing trip, stopping at the Black Pearl Farm on the way to see what goes on there, and then off for a look at some more wildlife – we saw more dolphins, a turtle and a dugong which was cool, plus the girls loved the boom-netting on the back (a big net stretched across the stern where you can sit in the wake as the boat goes along). More presents back at the beach, then we had a tea party with cake and candles and ‘Happy Birthday’ in our room, received congratulatory phone-calls and then watched a movie til bed-time, a great day had by the birthday girl! The next day we were off north again, but just couldn’t resist seeing those beautiful dolphins one more time before we left:

Monkey Mia Dolphins:

See ya
All love CRFS xxxx

We spent our last night trying to come up with lists of favourites from the 7 wonderful months we’ve spent on this glorious, gracious, fascinating, frustrating, interesting and occasionally intimidating continent, but we simply couldn’t. So we totted up some figures instead:

No. of countries visited: 8

No. of Special Administrative Regions visited: 1

No. of land borders crossed: 6

No. of birthday elephants washed: 2

No. of tigers sighted in the wild: 1

No. of turtles swum with: 3

No. of overnight trains: 6

No. of Rugby World Cup games watched live on TV: 0 (:-(!)

No. of temples visited: too many to count!

No. of beds slept in: 42

No. of UK visitors: 10 (impressive!)

No. of Thai words learned: 23 (pitiful!)

No. of upset tummies: 1

No. of beers drunk through a snorkel: approx ½

No. of jars of marmite consumed: 1.5

No. of hats blown overboard: 2

We now move on to Australia, where English is the first language, but there’s no challenge in that; we will hire a car, but then the journey will only take a couple of hours, not all day; and sunglasses and DVD’s are now really expensive! Asia - we miss you already!!

See ya
All love CRFS xxxx