Category: Australia

I was the organiser of the itinerary and accommodation for the second two weeks of this trip, which brings the responsibility for the quality of our accommodation. I did the usual look at reviews and mulled over the choices trying to find the fine line between a bargain and a camouflaged dump. I think I did pretty well in Busselton, Margaret River, Denmark, and Albany. In Esperance there was a 4 lane highway behind our motel, which was sort of all right. Then we got to our chalets in the Big 4 camping place in Kalgoorlie. They had a reasonable bed and appliances but nothing else going for them. When I returned the keys before we left the next day I politely informed the manager and staff, plus a few other campers, that they had won the prize for the worst maintained accommodation in a month of travelling in their state. I left to the sounds of a strong Australian accent thanking me very much. The next night was in a motel in a Wheat Belt small town called Merredin and it all looked nice, and was, but it was also a short distance from the main train line. It was apparently quite busy during the night which I slept through, including a deliberately long and shatteringly loud whistle episode that Tony reckoned felt like it was being done in his room. The last night was in a nice standard hotel in Perth. And I am pleased to report that in this part of West A. the reception people were generally friendly and helpful.

We had 4 nights in Margaret River where we had plenty of nice food and wine, including a superb 8 course degustation Japanese meal at a place called Mikki’s . Highly recommended. We also fluked being there at the same time as the area’s Open Art Studio Festival, and there are a lot of arty crafty people in Margaret River. We took full advantage and visited about 30 of more than 130. That meant meeting a lot of interesting, and sometimes unusual, people who all did stuff that I cannot. The furniture makers got my attention the most, and I was able to use my limited woodworking experience to get into some technical discussions that led to looking in the workshops. That meant I saw, in particular, two items of kit that I would love to have but could never justify, however I might just keep a lookout for a second hand thicknesser with a very special cutting device made of lots of diamond shaped small tungsten blades. I suspect it might require a mortgage.

While in Denmark we did a recommended tourist drive and stopped at a winery unsuccessfully looking for lunch. But like in all small wineries the owner was an interesting fellow who sussed out my interest in wine quickly and made me taste his best 3 reds, which were pretty good, so I bought one of his T shirts as recompense. As we continued the search for lunch Tony googled the guy (Tony is a world class googler), and found out that last year he had abandoned some sort of entertainment event after the local council took too long to issue the necessary permits. He then put up a big roadside sign advising that any council employee wanting to visit his winery had to fill out a 100 page application form and pay a $1000 entry fee. He was subsequently forced to remove the sign. The next place we got to did do lunches and we ordered an expensive platter for four, having been warned it was quite large. That was an understatement and we tried very hard, however there was still enough left that was packed up and provided a nice picnic lunch the next day.

Most of the towns we have been to are pretty small and coffee is not easy to find after 2pm, and sometimes the evening meal choices are a bit limited. Apart from the chicken parmi mentioned in the last report we haven’t had any horrible gastronomic experiences. One of the treats of dining out has been watching Rosie convince serving staff to make her a personalised meal by taking bits out of one dish on the menu and replacing them from another. Tony and I are of the opinion that if someone goes to all the trouble of designing a meal, and having that detail printed in a menu, then you either order it or not. But apparently that is some sort of stupid male attitude.

In Kalgoorlie the self-described best meal in town was in an old true blue aussie hotel restaurant that was packed. The big dining plates were also packed and I was defeated by a caesar salad that included about half a chicken. Kalgoorlie has a hugely big hole which is a gold mine called Super Pit. It used to be lots of gold mines but Alan Bond (he of America Cup fame as well as getting jail time) had the great idea of combining them all. Eventually it got done and now you can watch big diggers filling up big dump trucks, way in the distance, and not on the day we were there you can see the next stage of the hole being exploded. There is only one working brothel left in Kalgoorlie in what used to be a street of them, so we didn’t bother having a look. Apparently in common with most of the world, bricks and mortar in this industry have been replaced by online ordering.

Our rental vehicle for this part of the trip was a very roomy Toyota Kluger. It took all our luggage and we could still see out the rear window. We assumed that getting out of the airport parking area where we picked it up had been arranged electronically, which was overly optimistic, and we had to back away from the exit security arm which would not go up automatically. We then searched for another exit which did not exist, and eventually went back to the rental office where Tony found we had not been given the necessary ticket. The Kluger has behaved itself and has been delivered to its owners at the airport without damage. (We have yet to hear from Avis about the cost of repairing the first car). In it we have done over 3000kms, and generally the traffic has been light and driving not difficult. Tony has had the most experience of unsealed roads as a result of us trying to find a sort of sculpture park at a place called Northcliffe. The GPS was put to the road name only as we didn’t have a street number, so we went down the road which led out into the country and gradually it got narrower, then it became the ubiquitous red dirt road and got really narrow. All the way there was nothing to indicate we were going the right direction, and a few of us quietly wondered if we were going where we wanted. Eventually the driver decided to turn into an isolated farm entrance to ask the way. Fierce dogs greeted the car, for some reason I thought of the film Psycho, and the wives firmly suggested that we leave immediately and return to where we had started. So we did, went to the Information place at the beginning of the road, and found that was where the park was. My favourite tourist place was Lucky Bay near Esperance which has two claims to touristic fame. Firstly it is a gorgeous very white squeaky sand bay, with turquoise and blue water, and round rocky islands out to sea; and secondly it is visited by kangaroos which of course didn’t happen while we were there. In the same area all the brochures show a very pink lake, but it has apparently stopped being pink so that got a miss. Second best tourist thing for me, excluding big holes in the ground, was the skywalk in the Tingle trees near Denmark. Kay convinced me we had done it before but it still seemed all new and those big trees en masse are quite uplifting.

Returning to the big city was a bit of a shock. Heaps of traffic, buildings everywhere, and when we went to lunch in a mall there were suffocating numbers of people, many of whom were extremely large. I think we will cope and get used to it all. Over the last month we have driven well over 6000kms, had a range of weather from cold windy rain to 30% sunny, been in desert conditions and forests with huge trees, had plenty of laughs as well as long silences as the kms ticked away at 110 kph, and managed to play together nicely without any friction. Not bad really for a bunch of oldish people who all have fairly firm opinions about most things. There was a certain funeral hogging all the media attention during some of our time away. I have very firm opinions about the place of that family and their involvement in our political system, which I expressed once and was then regarded as an outcast by the other three. In order to maintain cordiality I suffered in silence thereafter. At least it meant when checking the news each morning there were large bits I could skip over. Tony would feel very lonely without his mobile phone but whenever we needed directions or information he was onto it in a flash. He also showed great bravery when he went into a pub that had lots of big TVs all showing AFL and asked if they would mind changing over to the All Blacks rugby test. The answer was one word starting with “N”. Rosie is a bit of a researcher which proved very useful in finding places others might have glossed over. And Kay is an expert spotter of fauna that no one else gets to see, and we assume she really did see these things. She certainly saw the Wallaby that did damage to our first car. My only claim to fail was managing to miss a couple of Kangaroos that had a go at getting in front of us while I was driving.

In finishing I must pay tribute to the missing Agricultural Correspondent who would have had quite a lot to say if he had been allowed to join in, but I will summarise by saying there are lots of very big paddocks full of canola and wheat.

Dennis.

It was a road trip with friends and neighbours Rosie and Tony Dickens, starting from Perth and staying at Geraldton, Kalbarri, Denham, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Tom Price, 80 Mile Beach, and Broome. We had a Renault SUV thing with a funny name that was roomy and reliable, and we nearly had two of them because that’s what the rental company had organised for us on our arrival. Tony sorted that, but maybe we took the wrong one because ours became very unlucky. Towards the end we managed to have our windscreen hit by a stone from a strange looking yellow caravan which quickly became a long crack and unrepairable; then we hit a Wallaby which caused some damage that the hire company may possibly not find; then a day from the end we got a flat tyre (after dark) and were unable to get it repaired. So the expectation is lots of correspondence and dollars will change hands with Avis. We shared the driving based on 90 minute stints and I secured the record for the longest straight at 36 kms. The main roads were very good, the traffic sparse, and driving was pretty easy. I didn’t like passing the big long roadtrains, which was really no problem because they indicate when you can, but hanging out on the wrong side of the road for much longer than I am used to created a degree of internal concern. We are now experts in what a real aussie male needs to drive around Australia. You start with a large 4wd ute or SUV, and add on the biggest bull bars with winch and heavy hook. Then you need anti-stone flaps across the width at the back, an extended wing mirror, a heavy duty tow bar, huge knobbly tyres, a fat long aerial or even better, two of them, a commodious roof rack, and most importantly an aggressive looking snorkel. You either tow a suitable caravan or some sort of complicated trailer that probably has an extendable tent-like deal along with all the other paraphernalia needed. Finally you add on a boat, canoes, surf boards, or anything else necessary for complete self sufficiency in hostile territory. The suitable caravan ideally is dual axle, high ground clearance, metal construction, and preferably painted black and grey so it looks rugged and able to go anywhere. The best place to see all of this is in one of the huge camping grounds available along the way.

We stayed in a couple of the camping grounds using their chalets which were pretty good and comparatively reasonably priced. The further you get from Perth the more expensive places to stay become. At Tom Price (more detail later) we reached the peak with a motel room that from the outside looked like it was some sort of detention centre and the impression was only a bit diluted when you stepped in. Ours was very small and dim, one of two lights didn’t work, and later we found the shower door was missing. All of this for a mere A$270 a night, and there were 133 rooms that looked mostly occupied. It’s a Rio Tinto mining town and there is not really any other place to stay.

Most of the places we visited are small and isolated and apart from Tom P were on or near the coast. So there were lots of pretty beaches with fine white sand and the surf breaking on reefs often very close to the shore. Tourquoise Bay lived up to its name and was one of the nicest beaches I have seen. The coastal roads are essentially flat because that is the landscape and we would describe the vegetation as scrubby. There are no big trees because there is not a lot of fertility in the always red soil. I used to wonder why so much of Australian art featured red dirt and now I know. As Mrs Marsh said “It really gets in” but this time it was dust in clothes, not teeth and toothpaste. Apologies to anyone not about when that advert appeared on TV.

Meals were sometimes fun. Tony managed to be forgotten by the staff 3 different times, so the rest of us got on with eating while he pretended to be patient. Early on Rosie and Kay ordered a Thai salad and were shocked when it had lots of chilli to the point where the delicate palates couldn’t cope. They got a quick and free replacement. We were strongly advised to stop at a place called Northampton, a bit north of Perth, and find the cafe that sold its world famous vanilla slice. I was told it was very good and there seemed to a lot in one serving. At 80 Mile Beach there is only a camping ground which boasts a well stocked mini mart, so we decided to see what we could find there for our evening meal. At check-in I was told that it was chicken parmi night for $19 each if we wanted. We said yes and later collected a box each, with a generous pile of chips and a round thing which was reconstituted chicken with a bit of ham and cheese on top. I had no problem dealing to it. At the other end of the scale we also had some delightful meals in very nice restaurants. As the sommelier of the group I have visited a lot of booze shops along the way and no matter what brand they were the selection was the same. Plenty of red choices, but 99% of the whites were Sav Blanc and Chardonnay and 1% Moscatto or funny Reisling mixtures. I did also see a bottle of Chenin Blanc once. But we haven’t gone thirsty.

The tourist sights are many kilometres apart and not always what they are supposed to be. At Kalbarri there was a sign that said we could see pelicans being fed so we rocked up along with others, but the birds didn’t appear. We went the next day and one turned up, and I reckon it was the one I saw earlier on the beach menacing a kid who had a little fish on his line. Then there was the time we paid a fee at Monkey Mia to watch dolphins landing on a beach for a 300gm feed of fish. Lots of us were there and after a couple of hours left sorely disappointed. The locals must laugh at the dumb tourists. On the other hand, at Exmouth, Rosie and Tony went out on whale spotting boat and saw so many whales doing whale stuff they never need to do it again. Prior to that we had dutifully gone out in a boat with windows on its side so you could sit and look at a coral reef and associated fish. The coral there is more brown than the Pacific stuff and the fish not as plentiful. But it was an easy way of having a look and the coral is very healthy and varied. Spotting some of the local wildlife when not expected is fun. Emus sometimes cross roads with seemingly no regard for the big lumps of metal speeding along them. Rock wallabies blend in well with their surroundings, but once you see one there are usually more. Large lizards also like crossing roads and the dingos we have seen are very handsome animals. During the last few days there have been the remains of several cattle in the side of the road and thankfully we haven’t had a close up experience of that.

Geographically nothing much happened until we went inland to Tom Price, unless you are a fan of flat land and straight horizons. Eventually we had hills, the bigger of which are called mountains, and lots of interesting and extremely old rocky stuff. Like the oldest known and 3.5 billions years old. Tom Price was the manager of a big US mining company who spent many years trying to get the WA government to build the roads and ports necessary to develop the Pilbara area for mining. Eventually he retired from the fray, went home and had a fatal heart attack without knowing approval had been granted. So the little town and Rio Rinto mine were named after him. We went on a tour of the mine, and I thought we would see a huge hole in the ground with big trucks circling around the inside. Actually there are many big holes over thousands of hectares, and conveyor belts of up to 40km long. They have their own power plant that also supplies the town, and the longest private railway in the world. The trains that take the ore to the coast are over 2km long and the load is worth about A$3,000,000 plus, depending on quality. If you meet the beginning of one at a crossing the wait is apparently long enough to have a cup of tea. The trains are basically autonomous but by local law have to have a driver in when they get to the port. The whole setup is immense .

Nearby is the Karijini National Park which Rio Tinto were allowed to put their railway line through, and another mine encroaches on it. Guess who has the real power in WA. The park has some very attractive gorges and nice hidden pools which we clambered in and about, sometimes quite precariously. They are colourful given the reddish rock although sort of small, compared to what we are used to.

The locals we have met, mostly briefly, seem friendly and I haven’t been subjected to any NZ sheep jokes. The reception staff since leaving Perth give you a very strong impression that tourists are a boring nuisance and they would rather be somewhere else. The only exception was the place in Tom Price which was managed by nice Sri Lankans. The motel we stayed in Denham was memorable for the worst mattress ever and no reception person at all. There was a note on the office window telling you your room number and that the key was on your table. TripAdvisor reviews suggest the gentleman who owns it is not someone you really want to meet. Our last and reasonably nice place in Broome threatens you with surcharges of $100 and $200 should you not wash your dishes or not take your rubbish outdoors to the wheelie bin. We of course dutifully complied but I also used most of the liquid soap in the shower to wash my jeans.

When you look at a map of Australia Perth to Broome is not a large part of its circumference, which certainly shows the obvious – Australia is a big place. Driving it has been a positive experience and Tony wants to go across the North some time to complete the full job having already done the rest. I think I will be happy with what we have done by the time we finish. Now we fly back to Perth, pick up another car which hopefully is a friendly one, and spend the next fortnight in the south. This will involve less driving than the 3000+ks just done, and we have packed our summer clothes to bottom of our bags in anticipation of a considerably cooler climate.

Dennis.