Around Australia part 8

Trip around Australia Part 8

 

Sunday 16 August

 

With Mitch here we can venture further afield than the bitumen roads.  So today we are off to Python Pool and Millstream.  I had heard rumours that one of the roads in Millstream was closed due to water damage – but I hadn’t heard which one.  We bypassed the private mine road and headed out past Roebourne to the “main” road to Millstream and the Chichester National Park.  Daniel again did most of the driving.  We passed pyramid hill, which is a large square rock supported by a very large pyramid shaped hill.  It stands out for miles and is very impressive.  The road meandered around some more and we made it into Python Pool for lunch.  Python Pool is a waterfall and plunge pool, it only runs when it rains but the pool itself is a wonderful oasis in the middle of the desert.  The cliffs of the waterfall soar up and are a magnificent red colour.  After lunch we all had a swim.  Even Mitch!  The kids gave him a hard time because he will only swim if it is really hot and the usual excuse he gives is that it is not above the 26^th parallel so he’s not swimming – he didn’t have that excuse this time!  It was a balmy 28 degrees and we did enjoy the water.  The small fish didn’t even nibble our toes!  After Lunch we headed off to Millstream.  More dirt road and finally we came to the park entrance.  There was another couple of tourists and they were concerned that they were $2 short for the entry fee, needless to say I handed over a gold coin and they were so concerned about accepting it that they insisted that when they got to the visitors centre they would get change and give it back to me.  Nothing I could say would change their mind and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the visitor centre is unmanned!  When we got to the visitor centre they were most insistent that I accept the 50 cents they had found I accepted it graciously -  some tourists have a lot of pride!  I just think that if it had been me that was,$2 short – they would have been the first to offer.  What goes around, comes around. Millstream was one of the first stations established in the north west.  It has permanent water and most of the original buildings are still standing.  The bakehouses always intrigue me.  Fancy cooking bread in 48 degree heat – NOT This little black duck!!!,   As we walked around the property there are signs of what stood where, the vege garden, the tennis court (made of termite hill mud).  We walked over little bridges which cross the stream in different places – however we couldn’t do the loop walk as some of the path had washed away (I must find out whether it was a cyclone or just really heavy rain)  In Millstream there are date palms, which are due to the camel route, and there are native Millstream Palms – they are only found in this area and a quite a different palm.  The station was aquired by the WA Govt (because of the permanent water) to supply the pilbara with water in the mid 70’s.  We found the washed away road – it links up with the mine road – and we didn’t need to use it.  We took a photo of the car crossing the river as it is unusual for it to still have water at this time of year.  The drive back to the van was uneventful.  After dinner Mitch and I left the kids at the van and went for a wander to Honeymoon Cove.  It was really nice and romantic to walk on the water’s edge and not have the children around to distract us, the moon was not out and only the stars lit the way.  Yup you guessed it Mitch missed his step and rolled down the 2 foot drop off the path.  A couple of small grazes and a mighty bruise on his instep but none the worse for wear!  We had a good chuckle.

 

Monday 17 August

 

This morning, Mitch, Beth and I went for a walk around Point Samson.  We walked out of the caravan park and towards Moby’s fish and chips.  We walked along the foreshore and found the point Samson information board.  It had types of fish you can catch, a community notice board.  There is now a community hall, new centennial park (this year is the centenary of Point Samson) In the park, there is a long walkway of plaques thanking those who contributed to the cost of the park.  There were still some names that Mitch and I recognized.  We had lunch and then headed off to Boat Beach.  We cruised through Wickham, past the old scout hall, the now closed tip, and finally across the train line and on to the beach.  As the tide was out I walked across Boat Beach to the rock pools and had a look around.  I found some small hermit crabs, small fish and other interesting sealife.  As I walked both Beth and Daniel had a go at driving on the beach..  We may make a 4wdriver out of Daniel yet – he did enjoy the challenge.  As we left Wickham we stopped and picked up some fishing gear -  none of our Victorian rods are big enough or have strong enough line on them and it is much easier to use handlines than re-line the rods!  I had hoped to send Mitch and Andrew on a fishing charter – but at a cost of $280 each for the day I couldn’t do it.  There were no half day tours to be had. Andrew was disappointed.

 

Tuesday 18 August

Today we decided that it is fishing day.  Daniel decided to stay back at camp and catch up on some of his uni work.  So we gathered our new handlines and bait and headed out to Cossack.  Andrew and I set up first and enjoyed tossing out the prawns and feeling the fish/crabs stealing our bait.  Mitch and Beth drove down to the cemetery that Beth had been eager to see.  Mitch was even letting her drive!  When they returned they joined us on the old wharf, tossing in pieces of prawn and losing them.  Suddenly, I had a fish.  I reeled him in only to find he was an undersized brim.  Mitch helped by releasing the fish off the hook and dropping him back into the water.  No one else caught anything but we did enjoy sitting in the sun and playing at fishing!  One of the things that Beth discovered while at the cemetery was that one of the Japanese joint venture companies sent an interpreter over and translated the inscriptions on the old Japanese tombstones.  These are now displayed on a sign in the cemetery.

 

Wednesday 19

 

This morning I woke up with a sore belly, so Mitch took the kids looking for table hill.  This is a large flat topped hill (actually not far from Harding dam) with a Telstra tower on top.  There is a 4wd road up the hill and a glorious view of the surrounding area including a huge stretch of the railway track.  Apparently they drove around and couldn’t find the hill, so they wandered around Wickham again taking more photos and leaving me to enjoy laying on my bed for the day.  By evening I felt well enough that we could celebrate our “early anniversary” and we went to dinner at the Samson Tavern – well we tried to have dinner there but it was full and had many people waiting for tables so we decided to head out to one of the other restaurants “Ta Ta’s” and had a lovely meal with delicious deserts which were completely made on site, icecream, honeycomb – the lot. I abstained from desert  (not going to challenge my tummy too mucht)  It was a great way to celebrate our 22^nd wedding anniversary.

 

Thursday 20

This morning I am much better and today we headed off early and went to Wittenoom and Karajini National Park.  It is a round trip of about 800km. A big day out!  The town of Wittenoom has actually been closed by the government of WA.  There are now no services, electricity, it has been removed from maps, signs etc.  There are only 3 – 4 people left living in the old town and the government is still trying to get them to move out of town due to asbestos.  The old township is located in Wittenoom Gorge and there are some beautiful cliffs and rocks and pools in the area.  The road you drive on through the gorge is the old mine road and because of that it hasn’t been maintained for 30 years.  There are big chunks of the road that are missing, washed away by high water levels and you need large wheels to get through some of the potholes and over the rocks.  The old town only has 4 or 5 buildings still standing, it was a town of about 1000 people with many streets, houses, shops, fuel other facilities.  There is  a gem shop still open and it was great to look around the rocks and jewellery and souvenirs she had for sale there.  We picked up a couple of mugs that said “I’ve been to Wittenoom and lived!”  The gorge continues up to the road to the mine entrance.  The gate is open and you continue up crossing over the river a few times and we found a really pretty spot to get out and have some  lunch.  We got out of the car and looked around and were about to settle on the ground when we realized that all that fluffy blue stuff on the ground was asbestos and I figured that Sitting amoung the stuff and eating was NOT a good idea so we piled back into the car and went back down past the mine gate and found another spot to have lunch with no obvious asbestos.  The town and surrounding area (up to the mine gate) have been cleaned up by the shire and WA government but the mine site has not been cleared at all.  We did enjoy our lunch beside a pretty pool with some small fish, but it was a quick lunch and off to Hammersly Gorge.  The road to Wittenoom is bitumen up until the last 40km and then dirt.  To get to Hammersly Gorge you continue down the dirt road, which actually has the cliffs get so close to the edge of the road you can stick you hand out of the window and touch the stone.  Hammersley gorge looks like a giant came along and screwed up the rocks in his hand and tossed it back down.  We hiked down to the pool and took some great photos and clambered over the rocks.  The climb back up the cliff was a challenge for all of us but fun nonetheless.  Back into the car and head back to camp – I had allowed 4 hours to get to Wittenoom via the bitumen road and 1 – 2 hours exploring the gorges and 3 hours back on the dirt road.  Well as we are heading back to the dirt road to Roebourne, we pop a tyre.  So in a pile of red dirt, we get to christen the new trolley jack and change the tyre.  (Mitch was driving – I haven’t had a flat tyre yet!)  It was a hot and dusty job but we got it done, then made the decision that with no spare 300km on a rough dirt road was not smart and so we came back via the bitumen.  So a planned 800km day ended up being 900km.  We called in at the Whim Creek Hotel at 7.30 looking for dinner only to find that the meals closed at 7!  It took another hour to get back to camp and a very late dinner of tinned spaghetti on toast for everyone!

 

Friday 21

 

After such a  big day yesterday, none of us were up early at all.  We took it very easy and after lunch decided that we really did need to either fix or replace the spare tyre and maybe even get Dan a  haircut.  We headed for the Karratha Industrial Estate and found Beaurepair tyres.  We dropped off the tyre and headed into town to kill some time.  The queue for the barber was still 8 deep with one hairdresser on duty and we decided that today wasn’t the day for a haircut either.  I had seen a beautiful picture of Python pool in one of the shops in the shopping centre and asked Mitch if it was a picture that appealed to him as much as it appealed to me.  I felt it had all the colours right and was a stunning photo.  Luckily he agreed so we became the proud owners of a new photo for the lounge room.  (I will have to find somewhere in the van to put it that it won’t get damaged.  They certainly can’t  take it on the plane with them!!!!  (the back of the wardrobe was a perfect fit)  After purchasing the picture we went back to the tyre place only to find that the tyre was irrepairable and a new one was needed.  Of course they didn’t have a tyre the same as the one we killed, nor one to match the spare but that’s OK at least I have a good spare tyre again.  For a little extra on the cost of the tyre, you can now get 4wd insurance on the tyre – if I have a puncture Beaurepairs will fix it for nothing, if I destroy it (like I did this time) they will pay prorata for wear.  If it has 50% of treat left they will pay 50% of the cost of the tyre, all this for the life of the tyre! This sounded like a good deal to me!  We headed back to the van and had a quiet evening.

 

Saturday 22 August

 

Today the display homes in Karratha are open for inspection.  We have been looking at house designs and kit homes for our block at home.  So Mitch and I left the “kids” with instructions to play nice and headed into town for some private time alone.  We cruised through the two homes that were on display.  They were fascinating because they were transportable homes.  Built to cyclone standards, they are contstructed in Perth and trucked up on two or three trucks.  Each unit weighs about 26 tonnes and are put together on site in three days.  The plaster, tiling, plumbing, electricals, everything is done in Perth and only the connections between the units and the connections to the ground of plumbing and wiring from the power supply to the meter box is done on arrival in Karratha.  Unfortunately the site has to have good truck access and they only work to a slope of 1 in 12.  No good for us.  So Mitch and I wandered over to the real estate agents only to find that like all good businesses in Karratha they shut at 12 noon on Saturdays and don’t re-open until Monday.  We then headed over to Cleaverville beach.  This is a site that many retirees and travelers use instead of the local caravan parks.  There is a small fee and a few conditions (ie you must have a chemical toilet) but otherwise it is pull in find a site and enjoy.  I had never been out there and Mitch had only ever flown over it.  We found it to be quite windy, but you could find sites away from the wind.  The beach wasn’t the best, it had a few rocks but you could overlook that.  There was a few places where you could probably catch a nice sized crab in among the mangroves.  We drove over sand dunes and onto the beach (following the roads of course) and we had some fun in 4wd.  Then it was “lets make sure the kids haven’t killed each other yet” so we headed back to the van.  We didn’t even get a coffee together!

 

Sunday 23 August

 

This morning we all woke rather sadly knowing that we had to put Mitch, Bess and Daniel onto the plane and back to Melbourne.  They were leaving the sunny clime of 29 degrees to go back to a top of 8 degrees.  (Glad it was them and not me, really!)  Daniel drove to the airport (fretting all the way about how much fuel was left in the car)  He  has managed to get over 20 hours while he was up here so he should only need the next 15 hours or so with an instructor to get his low speed maneuvers up to par and he can go for his licence.  (In Victoria, all learners must have a minimum of 120 hours driving experience before they can go for their drivers licence)  We dropped them at the terminal with their bags and I went and found an (illegal) parking spot.  There are so many cars at the airport!  I joined up with them as they were checking their bags in.  (the flight was called for boarding just as they checked in their bags).  Andrew and I walked them to the departure lounge and rather than pass through security we said our goodbyes there.  Andrew was upset at seeing them go – he wanted them to be able to come on the rest of the trip with us.  He did enjoy having someone other than me to play with!  Back to the van we drove, with an urgent stop for fuel at Karratha.  Once back at the van Andrew went off to play with the friend he had made earlier in the week and I enjoyed some peace and quiet.  The van feels somewhat empty now.  I decided it would make packing up tomorrow easier if I could do some now, so I took the jumpers back into the van and put the excess chairs away.  I put the bikes back in the car and tied them down.  In the process I found Bethany’s hat, Dan’s present for a friend and Beth’s shell collection.  It really is quiet in the van now.    

 

 

Monday 24 August

Our last morning in Point Samson.  We are booked on the 9.15 Port to Port tour departing Roebourne Information Centre at 9.30.  Just as well I repacked the car and van yesterday afternoon, cause we needed to pick up a couple of things at the Wickham shops before we did the tour!  We were perfectly on time, and even managed to park the car and van in the Information centre’s car park!  The tour took us first to Cape Lambert, which is the port for Pilbara Iron’s mining endeavors.  There were 23 of us on board the bus and we were driven through the security gates and on to the site.  There are huge conveyor belts running all over the place.  There are two types of iron ore coming in one is piezelite (don’t quote me for spelling!) which comes from the mine in Pannawonica and the other is maramamba (spelling?) from the West Angeles site. The ore from Pannawonica comes in lump form and as the train comes in it is detached from the locomotive and the 346 cars are automatically fed through the car dumper.  The car dumper grabs hold of each car (while still attached as a train) and rotates each one 180 degrees and the ore lumps fall into a chute which feeds the constantly moving conveyor belt.  The lump ore is run through a sizer and then deposited into the stockpile.  When it is to be loaded onto the ship, the reclaimer digs through the stockpile and places the ore back onto another conveyor belt which then takes it out over the 3km jetty and onto the ship loader where it then falls into space and down into the bowels of huge iron ore transport ships.  The Ore coming from West Angeles is already processed into “fines” which are really small pebbles (about 5mm).  The cars carrying this ore go through a double car dumper which again goes onto the conveyor belts and into a separate stockpile.  This ore has no further processing and so waits to be collected by the reclaimer and put onto the conveyor belts to the shiploader and into the bowels of the ships.  The site has the capability of holding huge amounts of ore but while we were there, the stockpile was looking very depleted.  There are 5 trains a day with 346 cars of ore, and there were 5 ships waiting out at sea to be loaded.  Something tells me that they can load ships faster than they can mine the ore!  The tour guide was really informative on the mine and the vegetation on site, she could name all the plants on site, what the local aboriginals used the plants for and give us both the botanical and common names.  I found out on this trip that there is a white mulla mulla as well as the usual purple ones.  After the Cape Lambert tour we then went to Cossack.  There was time allocated to have lunch as well as wander around the town.  As Andrew and I had been here with the others, we sat at the table and chairs with an icecream for a while.  We then looked at the art gallery located beside the café and bumped into an old friend who was manning the shop.  Phyllis has lived in the area for over 30 years and we have friends in common.  I chatted to Phyllis for a while (Andrew went to watch the fishermen) and then it was back onto the bus for the final trip to the Cossack lookout and back to the Roebourne Information centre.   .  Back at the information centre I managed to talk to the tour guide Johanna Kelly for a while (again reminiscing about the “old” days.  (her children are about the same age as Bess and Daniel)  I also caught up with Ruth Ellis who is managing the information centre – she is so heavily involved in everything it is hard to say exactly which organization I knew her from.  But it was great to catch up.  We left Roebourne later than planned, it was 2.30 already so we started the long drive South.  We got as far as the Robe River and decided that was far enough.

 

Tuesday 25 August

 

We were up bright and early this morning with a huge day’s drive ahead of us.  We “lost” time yesterday doing the Port to Port tour and had hoped to be further down the road but it wasn’t to be.  So by leaving at 7am we should be at Monkey Mia by 4.30.  Andrew was hungry by 8.30, so by 9am we decided it was morning tea time. Lunch was delayed until 11.45 and he was “starving” all afternoon – despite the fruit he ate as well!  The scenery changed from the rocky basalt hills of the Pilbara to flat ground for as far as the eye can see.  Along the way we saw feral(?) goats, cows (of course) and finally we saw our first flock of emu strutting their way across the road.  We stopped when we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and took a photo of the sign with the car in the background.  One of the habits that all drivers have up here (excluding police and truckies) is we wave.  Yup every car, van, truck gets waved at, and everyone waves back.  Today we saw a car that was cheating this rule – he had a hand on a suction cup attached to his windscreen.  He was waving without using his hands!!!  Now as I say, truckies don’t wave (they think they’re above that, and the police certainly have more important things to do than wave at all the tourists driving up and down the road.  Mind you, my number plate “Turist” gets a smile and a wave 9 times out of 10 even from the police!  We arrived at Monkey Mia at the proposed 4.30 only to find there is no powered site until Thursday next week!  The dolphins are fed at 7.30 am.  Hmm, so it is the 20 mins back to Denham and an unpowered site and another early start tomorrow!

 

Wednesday 26 August

 

Up nice and early and left the van park with plenty of time to get to Monkey Mia.  The 20 minute drive was a good way to wake up – it wasn’t too cool, although Andrew was complaining he was freezing and put the heater on full bore!  I turned it off and told him he could put a jumper on if he was cold.  I figured with the heater on we could be roasting by the time we got to Monkey Mia and the car would never cool down again. On arrival at the reserve, we lined up with about 75 other people, some were on the jetty and others like us were on the beach.  There is a short stretch of beach which is off limits for swimmers at any time and this is where they feed the dolphins.  The rangers go to great length to explain that they only feed certain dolphins and that the amount they are feed is dependant on their weight etc, as the dolphins are expected to continue to forage in Shark Bay for the rest of their food.  There is now a $4000 fine for feeding dolphins, so if you are fishing and a friendly dolphin sticks their nose out of the water and smiles and batts their pretty eyes at you – you are NOT supposed to feed them.  Hmmm, I wonder how many people still feed the dolphin if no-one else is around. I think I would.  Anyway, after the 25 minute dissertation on dolphin behaviour, explaining the procedure and pointing out which dolphin was which – the fish for feeding was brought ceremoniously down to the feeding area.  The “volunteers” then were able to call random people out of the crowd to experience feeding the dolphins.  About a dozen people were chosen out of the 75 and only those lucky few could get anywhere near the dolphins themselves.  (I wonder who you have to bribe to be one of the lucky dozen?)  Anyway by 8.45 we were on  our way again headed this time for Cervantes and the Pinnacles.  It was a pretty drive, watching the scenery go from marsh flats, to red dirt and low shrubs, to red dirt and bigger shrubs.  Canarvan showed its banana plantations which just pop up out of nowhere,  Then back to the red dirt and low shrubs, then white sand and low shrubs as we headed through Geraldton, and slowly the shrubs grew in size to be large gum trees.  As we turned off the highway to the Indian Ocean Drive to Cervantes the sand dunes were becoming more and more prevalent.  We checked into the van park and guess what my first job was -  yup WASHING!  Andrew went to play on the playground at the front of the Van Park.  He has been really good about  2 full days of driving.

 

Thursday 27 August

 

This morning we headed into the pinnacles near Cervantes. We parked the car and van and looked at the information centre and gallery.  Then we went for a 1.2 km walk among the pinnacles.  It is a really eerie feeling, these things just sprout up out of the ground like a moonscape.  The ground is rock hard, some places have soft sand but where the pinnacles come out of the ground, it is hard.  Your shoes sounded like you were walking in a stone floor.  After the walk we went back to the car and unhitched the van so we could drive the 4km circular drive through the pinnacles.  We stopped the car at one point and had our lunch – you couldn’t go off the road, but just sitting in the car eating our sandwiches and watching the pinnacles was magic.  We headed back and rehitched the van and headed for Perth.  We took the freeway from Wannaroo through the middle of Perth down to Rockingham.  The map I had showed the freeway all the way down to Mandurah but the section from Rockingham to Mandurah is not open yet, It was disconcerting to find myself second guessing which way to go but made it to my Nicky’s place in Pinjarra without getting lost or having to turn around once.  Andrew was most impressed – he was having visions of me getting lost again!

 

Friday 28 August

 

After an evening of chatting with Nicky till 3 in the morning, funnily enough I was awake again at 7am.  I hope I have not set some sort of morning routine of waking early – that would be bad!  After the rest of the household was off to work and school, Nic and I sat down and showed off our photos.  Mine of my trip, and hers of her time in Tasmania.  This took us up to lunch time, so then we went out to the shops and we both picked up some food supplies and then headed over to the park and we fed the ducks from the middle of a suspension bridge.  Andrew enjoyed this, laughing as the ducks fought each  other for bits of bread that were flying down from the bridge.  We took the shopping back home and then picked up Kayla from school.  A very quiet afternoon followed as both Nic and I were starting to nod.  I figured I should spend the time catching up on my journal.  Nic has a special dinner planned for tonight so it should be fun.