Submitted: Monday, Apr 28, 2008 at 18:29

Setting off later than desired on Saturday morning, after hubby faffed around for half an hour trying to remember what he’d forgotten to pack and in the process giving the front door a good work out (which incidentally had fallen OFF the previous night, such is the rustic- ness of the rental house we find ourselves in) and then another fifteen minutes spent waiting while he fiddled with his new GPS (God I hate those things….they cause just as many arguments and hold ups as does ME trying to read a REAL map!) and finally we were on the road!

Our two youngest and one tag along (friend of my 12 year old daughter, and a novice at “real” camping) were with us on this trip.

The two eldest no longer come camping as they are too “old” for that now and we- the parents are too daggy to spend time with anymore.

So off we went with the dutiful stack of egg and mayonnaise sandwiches I insist on torturing the family with for “breakfast in the car” on the first morning.

It’s tradition you see.

In the future all these wonderful memories of our camping trips will come flooding back to them at the mere whiff of egg and mayonnaise…

Besides, I like to eat them in the car just to see hubby grimace and squirm, hanging his head out the window pleading for us to hurry up.

(Payback for all the nasty odours he subjects US to in the tent!)

As is also tradition, we began our game of “spotto” with each child (including Richard at his request) having their own written lists of 30 items to spot on the journey.

(That’s a lot of stuff to think of you know, and guess who writes the lists each time!)

For each three items spotted a lolly is handed out as the reward.

Since the lolly jar is under my feet, along with the tissues, camera bag, rubbish bag, and other miscellaneous homeless articles, I consider it my domain and hence I am very tough with the lolly rations.

Our first camp site was at Kokerbin rock.

This is the 3rd largest monolith in Australia after Mt Augustus (WA) and Uluru, and is a really nice little spot with flush toilets, a tap and firepits.

(Loads of flies though.)

We took the walk up to the top of the rock and enjoyed the 360 views of the surrounding countryside.

Our meal of beef stroganoff (pre prepared at home), went down well and the evening proved to be an enjoyable one spent chatting with some other campers, sharing their fire and indulging in a lovely bottle of strawberry liquor we’d brought along, followed by a few glasses of wine.

It was a cold night and we found ourselves rugged up in beanies, gloves and ugg boots!

The kids played spotlight and amused themselves in the tent while we got just a little tipsy by the fire.

Sunday morning saw us head off on our second planned route towards Coolgardie / Kalgoorlie where we had planned to camp that night.

On the way we had discussed our route and whether to head, as originally planned, to Kalgoorlie and then head south to do the Holland Track or whether to head north from Kalgoorlie in search of better weather.

We had pretty much decided to head north as the weather did look more promising that direction, and we had no real desire to get wet.

Searching out a suitable camp spot around Kalgoorlie, having looked at one that seemed a bit dodgy (burnt out car on the isolated tar road leading up to the campsite spelt the possibility of hoons tearing up and down at night) we considered staying in a caravan park in town instead.

After much debate we headed for one of the caravan parks, pressed the buzzer and were directed to site number 1, and told they would see us in the morning.

Upon driving in and seeing site number 1 which was a pathetically tiny patch of dirt squeezed in among hoards of other tents we did an immediate u-turn and headed out.

Not being fans of caravan parks at the best of times but to PAY to sleep with other campers breathing down your necks is just not our idea of fun!

We decided to head on to Rowles Lagoon which was about 100 km’s or so further on from Kalgoorlie, arriving around 7:30 pm. After successfully setting up camp in the dark and once again having the luxury of another pre prepared meal (beef curry) we were soon settled around the camp fire for the night.

The kids were having a ball of a time toasting marshmallows (to be a nightly feature, though carefully rationed, whenever we had a fire) and us settling back with our glasses of wine.

Many wines later we went to bed with a full moon, obscured somewhat by the cloud cover.

We were in no great rush to get up in the morning as we had decided to camp there for two nights.

We thought the flies were bad at Kokerbin Rock but the next morning we were descended upon by about a trillion of the buggers, which was unpleasant, but “all part of it” as hubby says.

They became part of US as we ingested more than a few!

It didn’t stop us from having fun though and we passed the day by going on various walks investigating animal tracks and later helping the kids build two elaborate “cubbies” in the bush out of fallen branches.

That afternoon we received an unexpected visit by the caretakers of Credo homestead, a (short drive from the campsite of which the lagoon is part of the property), who said if we had the time the next morning when we left to feel free to drop in for a look.

The first night at Rowles there had been another group down the road a bit, possibly a 4 wheel drive club and one other lone camper.

The second night we had the place to ourselves which was great.

We couldn’t understand why no one else was out enjoying this experience!

Had another small fire the second night and pasta for dinner, more cremated marshmallows, more wine and then another good nights rest.

We were away the next morning fairly early, so we took up the invitation of the caretakers of Credo station and dropped into the homestead for a quick visit.

Well, some 2 – 3 hours later after morning tea, tours though the homestead, old shearing sheds and other workings we bid them farewell and headed off.

These are the experiences that I am so glad that our kids will get to participate in.

Some of the people you meet, (and the people at Credo were no exception), have the greatest stories and life experiences that leaves their mark on you.

I just smile now when the kid’s teachers complain about the times we are taking them out of school to do a trip, because I know that the lessons they are learning while out traveling will show them more about life than anything they are likely to learn in a classroom.

So off we headed onto the dirt roads now on our way to our next two night stop at Niagra dam.

This is one of our favourite camp spots which is good for staying at if you want to do some day trips out to Kookynie and some of the other old gold mining “ghost towns” in the area.

It now has one flush toilet, one pit toilet and water can be collected from the dam for washing up etc.

On the way into the camp ground there are lots of piles of old railway sleepers along the road which both times we have collected and used for firewood as we’d seen others doing.

However a neighbouring camper we’d been chatting to seemed concerned at the risk that these old sleepers might contain creosote and remarked of a story he’d heard of three young blokes found dead next to their fire (not sure where this was) after inhaling the deadly fumes.

Since we had already used them previously and were still alive we figured we were ok, but it did make me feel a little nervous so I tried not sitting too close to our “poison fire” and shoo’ed the kids off to go and play.

Our fellow campers shut themselves in their caravan and had disappeared by morning.

Gwalia is a great place to visit from here which is what we did and spent most of the day pottering around the old museum next to the mine, having a look at the old Hoover house, and exploring the remains of the town of Gwalia which has been wonderfully preserved by some of the townsfolk there.

It’s well worth a look around if you’re ever in the area.

We read somewhere that sometimes the caretakers of the old houses will actually cook a meal and sleep in one of them to really give that illusion of the homes still being “lived in”.

Compared to most of the old ghost towns, of which you are lucky to see a few old bricks in the dirt and hundreds of broken bottles littering the site, this one is really a treat with much of the original old furniture, crockery and cutlery, (even old shoes, clothes and linen) still decorating the homes.

It was here we saw an emu taking a stroll across the road and down around the old tin shacks and he didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by me following him with my video camera.

The kids had a ball both nights at Niagra dam playing spotlight with a hoard of other kids that they had “collected” from the other camp sites.

On the second night they appeared with at least nine other kids in tow which kind of reminded me of the pied piper of Hamlet.

There was even a couple of older teenage boys among them from Kalgoorlie that joined in the fun which I thought was nice(and I made sure to tell MY “I’m too old for camping” teenagers about that!)

Our next destination was to Sandstone, again along the dirt roads where we saw loads of either REALLY big goanna’s or a kind of perentie lizard.

Hubby did his Steve Irwin thing and tried to get up real close with the camera while we all sat and squealed in the car expecting him to return with a shredded shirt after one of these things decided to use him as a tree!

One in particular didn’t look very impressed about having his photo taken!

It was along this road that I insisted we stop so I could photograph some lovely green fluffy looking pom pom bushes, which at a distance looked so very soft and lush sitting there in the red dirt.

Well, after reaching down to touch one I have now dubbed them “needle bushes” as they are as prickly as sin!

You definitely wouldn’t want to accidentally squat on one of THOSE or you’d end up with a bum like a sieve!

We saw a couple of emu, lots of eagles and quite a few dead roo on the side of the road much to the fascination of our little tag along who had never seen so much road kill before and requested a few stops to have a closer look at the corpses.

By this time the kids had turned quite feral, were covered in red dirt, all sported skinned shins and various scratches and were busy sharpening sticks into pointed spears using rocks in the back of the car ( successfully too!)

Quite a few souvenirs of animal skulls had been smuggled into the backseat too!

It was now day six without a shower and believe me the children were even beginning to SMELL feral!

The night before at bedtime there had been quarrels in the dark among the girls about who or WHAT it was that smelled so bad under the sleeping bags.

We were all looking forward to our first shower at the caravan park at Sandstone – the only reason we were staying there.

The caravan park there at Sandstone is only a small one, all dirt, but the amenities are fantastic.

Very clean….and oh that shower felt GREAT!

It was quite busy and of course it’s always so claustrophobic being so close to other campers after having been out in the bush but the shower alone was well worth the stop there.

Richard and I had to laugh at one couple who pulled up in one of those Ultimate Campers..

They took it over on the dirt…to the hose…washed it all down, moved it RIGHT in front of the path way to the amenities (which I thought was a bit rude) and then the woman spent an hour sponging it down with yet more water, and then hosed down the steps once they had set it up.

Why do that? Waste all that precious water when you’re set UP on dirt and only going to drive it OUT on a dirt road the next day?

Strange people.

Next morning we headed off to Payne’s find deciding to stay again at another caravan park because the previous time we’d been out that way the owner of the park had been so kind to us when we got into a spot of bother regarding our gas bottle. (Hubby forgot to pack the right gas bottle fixture and we had nothing else to cook with! This is not the first time he’s done this either!) The owner – Tony, had very graciously searched all his sheds for us and eventually lent us a gas bottle that we later returned to relatives of his who live close by to us.

It was only a relatively short drive and we could have traveled further but we wanted an easy day and a chance to once again thank Tony for his favour the last time.

Besides it’s not usually crowded there, had only cost us $16 previously, and the kids were fascinated by the frogs living in the women’s toilets.

What a disappointment it turned out to be.

Though Tony is still the owner (though the place is up for sale), some other old very sour guy was in charge and he charged us $20 to begin with then later came over and said it would be $5 extra for each child on TOP of that as he didn’t realize they were ours!

$35 to stay at a rather run down little caravan park with a noisy generator that ran all night, road trains roaring past, filthy amenities and the unpleasant stink of leaky septic tanks?

As well as that when the kids went into the shop with some loose change to buy a few lollies they came back quite upset and told us he was really rude to them and told them to “hurry up and choose their lollies because he had OTHER customers!”

We won’t be staying there again.

We were going to spend the last night camping at New Norcia behind the roadhouse – as we’d read you can do on the net, but after the experience of Paynes Find we decided another free campsite completely in the bush was in order, well away from noisy road trains, generators and sour faced old farts!

Consulting the camp 3 book we found a camp ground 30 km off the main road from Pithara called Petruder Rock.

Though it felt like forever getting there and the initial dismay of discovering that “Ye old Dunny”, as the sign said, (the only toilet there) was simply unusable due to the long drop being a very very short drop and completely full, though old, and covered in spider webs we decided to stay there anyway.

I had not realized, but all this time… during all our morning tea and lunch stops along the roadside each day, that our little “novice camper” had NOT been going off behind the bushes to pee, as the rest of us had.

Poor kid must have been hanging on for dear life waiting for us to go through towns and reach our campsites, because it was here at our last camp that she suddenly burst out and said “I did it! I pee’d in the bush!”

She was very proud of herself too, and I think found the experience quite liberating.

That was until the next time…when the wind was blowing.

Ahh weeell…

It turned out to be a really nice little spot with a couple of little “ponds” in the rock teeming with very fat little tadpoles which delighted the children and kept them amused for hours.

The really disappointing thing was to see all the broken glass around the camp ground.

I don’t understand that!

I cannot for the life of me imagine sitting there, drinking a beer and then smashing the empty bottle by throwing it against the rocks like that?

What sort of person takes the time to go out into the great outdoors, finds a pretty spot in the bush and then ruins it for everyone else?

Despite many warnings to keep their shoes on, two of the kids cut their feet on broken glass.

Anyway, we had a lovely night there, watched a spectacular sunset, baked a cake in the camp oven, ATTEMPTED to make damper (which ended up as hard as rock) and relaxed by the fire listening to the frogs who sang to us all night long.

Our last stop was at New Norcia where we only briefly stayed long enough to enjoy a cuppa and eat the cake we’d baked the night before, which was delicious!

We’ll save doing the tour for another time and perhaps even make it a weekend trip there and REALLY explore the place as it deserves to be explored.

All in all a most enjoyable trip and well worth it.

The weather was fantastic, not a drop of rain, and with the exception of all those bloody flies it’s a great part of the country to explore.

Tags: 4WD, Accom/Campsites, Camp Cooking, Camping, Places/Destinations, Travel Journal, Travelling with Kids, Family
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