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| Journal | > 2004/05 Trip Index | > Part 1: Perth - Peterborough |
| > Part 2: Peterborough - Sydney | ||
| > Part 3: Tasmania North | West Coast | East Coast | ||
| > Part 4: Victoria |
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Smiles all round as we depart!
Success! It's taken us 4 years of trip departures to finally manage to execute a hassle-free (and on time) trip departure. Everything was running smoothly (including OziExplorer) for about 40minutes until we stopped for fuel (and the first of many on-the-road nappy checks) at Midland. On restarting the engine the GPS unit (a 2 yr old Magellan Meridian) would not fire up. Technical glitches such as this are high-priority to the "business" side of our "holiday" and all occupants of the vehicle must wait patiently for the IT guru (he may be sticker-god to some, but he is IT-god to most) to find a resolution. After excessive waiting for acquisition of satellites, and even re-initialising of the unit it appeared the GPS had decided not to be a part of the ExplorOz Team field trip No. 4. With some expressive language, it was agreed that we must drive on. For about 100km we crawled along the road hoping to get the GPS to acquire enough satellites to get a fix, but it simply would not. This meant we did not record our plot file for this sector.
Miraculously, the GPS unit warmed up after 100km and by 5.45pm we had put in a decent day's travel of approximately 400km on the tar. We stopped about 120km west of Coolgardie on the western boundary of Boorabbin National Park at a good roadside p-bay with tracks out the back to good bush camps.
The "30 second" OzTent went up in just that - 30 seconds, forming an instant playground for Chardae who was experimenting with the transition from sitting to crawling and Leah was ecstatic to learn that the tent doubled as her art room where she could draw and colour-in without getting dust all over her work.
I will remember this camp as it was full of ants, centipedes and many other strange and wonderful bugs I've not seen before and for being the place where our problem list rapidly expanded.
No moon, lots of stars, bed at 10.30pm.
My day begun as I expected with a midnight call for breast milk at 12.30am. (Note, you will see from the photos that David and I sleep in a swag outside the tent so when I get up, I need a chair and light for comfortable feeding and settling the baby inside the tent). My next wakeup call was surprisingly, not from one of the kids, but the sun at 5.15am. The kids slept in until 7am giving us time to fix Problem No. 5 - a flat tyre (small stake). We carry two spare tyres on rims so simply switched one over and was able to depart camp at 7.30am.
At 8am we noticed the turnoff to Boondi Rock and went to investigate. The turnoff is well marked and leads 3km into the bush to a huge campsite, some interesting things to see, and a nice dam to camp alongside.
This trip we are marking waypoints of just about everything - PBays, PBays with campsites, points of interest, etc. Although we are on a mission to reach Sydney within 8 days, we are still ensuring that places like Boondi Rock are marked. On our return, we will add these to PointPlace™ for others to download.
The day progressed in what we call a "tar blast". So, just before 9am we passed through Coolgardie, 10am at Widgiemooltha and then stopped for a long lunch at Balladonia roadhouse (diesel $1.50) before pushing on across the "longest straight stretch in Australia 146.6km", through Caiguna where we crossed the Central Time Zone and had to advance watches 45minuutes. This is when you appreciate the early morning start. We continued on past about 45km east of Cocklebiddy (about 50km west of Madura) to a bush camp behind a P-bay.
Dinner tonight on open fire. Leah had the non-spicy version of our meal, which was sausages with a freshly cooked spicy sauce made from tomatoes, chilli, a slurp of wine, and fresh garlic with last nights left over roasted pumpkin and potato mashed together.
Departed camp 8.15am. Arrived Mundrabilla roadhouse at 10am expecting to see the animals but their gravesites are all that remain! I was told by the truckies (who recognised us) that the place has new owners since we were last through here. Fuel a little better at $1.23 (diesel).
Just past Eucla is the WA/SA border so the time zone in summer is 2.5hr later than in Perth. We choose to make this transition gradually, so we will not adjust our watches again today. Also, once across the border, you enter the Nullarbor National Park and the road skirts the coastline with numerous lookout points along the coast all the way through until the road swings away again on the final approach to the Nullarbor Roadhouse. This is our third complete crossing from Perth - Sydney and we yet have to come back across so we are not stopping at each lookout again, but certainly at some, for the views really are spectacular.
At our first stop along the coast - at Merdayerrah Sandpatch, I would love to have taken a photo of a hangglider however he was still setting up. He recognised us too, and we talked for a while. I was wondering what backup support he had, as he was on his own and his Landrover looked like it had done some miles! He was very well setup for this however, with EPIRB and a panoramic digital camera, although he did tell me a story of a recent incident when he had a long walk back to the car after becoming stranded halfway down the sandpatch. As we left, I gave him a bumper sticker, and he gave me his brochure - turns out this is Lynn Webb, professional photographer who is working while he soars above the cliffs of the Nullarbor. His gallery is in Norseman and he definitely has the ExplorOz thing happening in his life so we must go back and check that out sometime.
Next stop 1.30pm at Nullarbor Roadhouse and at 5pm we stopped for Chardae's dinner at a P-Bay camp just before Penong. We are noticing a pattern with Chardae - she seems to scream at about this time and it is best for us to stop and give her a proper dinner. Since the summer sun is still very high at this time we feel it is best to continue driving for about another hour, so this rest is important for all of us. Having not been down to Cactus Beach (Point Sinclair) previously, we decided to use the time to make the 21km drive down to the coastline.
Point Sinclair is a privately owned property taking in the whole of Point Sinclair, both sides of the main road to the Blue Lakes then back to Caves Beach. The property is classified as a Coastal Protection Reserve under the SA Government Heritage Agreement. Land use is therefore subject to certain conditions, a small camping fee and campers are to stay a maximum of 12 weeks and to keep to defined areas etc. Although it is a real surfers hangout, we found it well cared for and a delightful camp. Showers, bbqs and firewood is provided and dogs on a leash are allowed. All sites are excellent, with bins serviced daily and most have a short walkway leading directly onto Cactus Beach.
Dinner: Marinated lamb chops with sweet potato cooked on the Cobb Cooker. Have noticed our dinners have become more basic than previous trips when we had more time to attend to such luxuries, but the Cobb makes cooking pretty easy. We are also finding that dinner will never come if everyone waits for Chardae to be fed and put to bed so David has taken over the cooking and I attend to Chardae. Leah looks set to be occupied exploring the contents of her "toy bag" for many days yet, although she did ask "when will we get to Sydney?". We dread we might hear the painful whine "are we there yet?"
We enjoyed a more relaxed morning with time allocated to exploring behind the dunes and lakes in the nearby Chadinga Conservation Reserve before heading back to the highway. On departing our camp we turned our watches forward the final hour for the transition to SA and checked our larder for fruit and veg as we would be coming to a quarantine checkpoint at Ceduna (east bound checkpoint only).
At Penong we noted the fuel price had dropped down to $1.06, and at Port Augusta was $1.035. Finally, at around 6.30pm we arrived at Peterborough to the hospitality of ExplorOz Members who had invited us to stay on our way through. Although we had never met, we were instantly made to feel comfortable and ushered into showers. Once we were clean enough to be allowed to sit in the formal dining room, we found ourselves treated to a wonderful 3 course meal and settled into engaging conversation that stemmed right into the wee hours of the morning.
Read on - Part 2: Peterborough
- Sydney (via offroad route to West Wyalong)