28th August 2014 – Coffin Bay & Point Lincoln

After a slow start, with a cooked breakfast, we headed off to Port Lincoln in David’s car.  At first impressions, Port Lincoln is well laid out , clean and impressive with its industry, commerce and facilities.

A visit to the Information Office to check out on what are the must do things in town and the area.  We decide on an Aquaculture and Sightseeing tour boat cruise for the afternoon.   Following a walk and drive around the extensive foreshore, and David & Barbara touching base with a contact who runs a local tackle shop, we head off to the Fresh Fish Place  to purchase lunch.

The three Fisherman’s Baskets were excellent and thoroughly enjoyed by David, Michael & Dot.   Barbara had whiting.  This place had a wonderful choice of fish and seafood to buy and take-away.

Our tour starts at 12.30pm in ideal calm seas, sunny conditions.  The 7.2metre boat takes 8 passengers on the tour.   Captain Pete is very informative and entertaining.   We are taken around a couple of bays, with the various millionaires’ properties pointed out, visit a seal and sea lion nursery, view  mussel farms, along with the kingfish pens.  We are treated to Bluefin Tuna Sashimi in a beautiful sheltered cove of electric blue water and white sand.  Various birdlife is observed, including the special ones of a white sea eagle flying above, a nesting pair of ospreys, cape barren geese and many other sea birds.

The tour concludes around 3.50pm and we arrive home circa 5.00pm all tired from the fresh sea air and very satisfied with our day.

Tonight we are off to the local hotel, for our last meal together with David & Barbara, as Dot & Michael head for home tomorrow.

David & Barbara are likely to spend a day or so more in the area and then possibly head to the Flinders Ranges for a visit before heading home.

This will be the last entry for this blog.

27th August 2014 – Ceduna to Coffin Bay

Dot &  Michael are rudely awaken around 5.00am by dripping condensation  from the inside of the tent roof onto their faces.  Wiping the inside of the tent at 5.00am is not fun, with the paper towels becoming saturated very quickly. No such problem in the caravan for David & Barbara.

We pack up and this morning Michael manages to have a shower plus breakfast before leaving.  Before we start Dot rings Coffin Bay Caravan Park to arrange cabin facilities for tonight….we don’t want to get there and find them all taken.  We are on the road just after 8.00am, with a target of 395klm for the day.

We travel through very diverse landscapes, from rolling hills, sand dunes & lakes, canola & grain crops, limestone littered paddocks and dry walls.

Our initial stop is at “Murphy’s Haystacks” , and unusual grouping of large stones up to 10m high…..some resemble the old style haystack shape.

We decide to stop at Elliston for lunch and a break from driving.   At the entrance to the town, there is a Cliff-top ocean view road that provides stunning views of the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula and the island off shore.  At different locations on the cliff edge are some interesting sculptures -  Easter Island Type Heads and human face.

We then find a bakery for some bacon & cheese rolls and off to make lunch.  Nice and fresh and tasty

Then off for the remaining 155 klm, which becomes demanding for the last hour, despite the the varying scenery. Dot & Michael use the car radio, via Dot’s ipod to do some French lessons to keep awake.

We enter Coffin Bay which is very scenic and are greeted by Western grey kangaroos grazing beside the office.   The campground is very large and well laid out with a range of basic and villa cabin accommodation, plus camping sites among the treed  and grassy areas.   David & Barbara are located not to far from us, but it is in a slightly sloping grassed area, which David says is not good because it upsets the drainage flows within the caravan.

We take a quick drive around the town and take in the views from the lookout ….spectacular.    Emus grazing beside the Esplanade [ Main street] into town.  We locate an oyster production house, where David orders a dozen unopened oysters for $8.00,….but with no change for his $10.00, David finishes up getting around 20.  At happy hour we all enjoyed watching David shuck the oyster shells, whilst getting a leg shower from the water coming from the shells. David’s eating of the oysters took about a tenth of the time it took to shuck.  The Yellowtail Bubbles was very refreshing.

We shared providing the cooking ingredients tonight, as tomorrow night we are dining out as it will be our last night together.   Cornish Beef sausages [ from Kalgoorlie] and vegetables, with some nice red wine.   After mains, Barbara gets the frypan out and cooks pancakes which we have apples & ice cream with.   Funny that David’s appetite was down after all those oysters.

24th – 26th August 2014 - Kalgoorlie to Ceduna across the Nullabor

Sunday 24/08/14 – We commence the long drive across the Nullabor.  We made good time reaching Fraser Range before lunchtime, so after a quick look we continue and stop at Balladonia for lunch.  The roadside and beyond is covered in small gum trees and wattles – some a mass of colour.

We continue onto the Caiguna Blowhole [approx 5klm before Caiguna], where we have a very good bush-camp, up to 3klm off the highway, which helped  minimise the road noise, especially from the road trains.  After 572 klm for the day we are glad to get out of the car and have happy hour after setting up camp.  The nights are very clear and quite cool.

 

Monday 25/08/14 – We pack up early and are on the road before 7.30am visiting the Blowhole 10metres from the highway, but some 5klm from the coast.  Another big day ahead as we intend to stop at Nullabor [SA], resulting in losing 1.5hours as we turn our clocks forward. We manage to cover 530klm plus the detours off the highway to view the Great Australian Bight.  We have been travelling through many klms of treeless plain.  Facilities at Nullabor are basically non existent for campers without a caravan.  We get in late in the afternoon to setup – [ground only allows tent pegs to go in approximately 2- 3 “] , and the required cookup of vegetables [& fruit] to negate the handover at the next day Ceduna Quarantine Inspection.   The sea mist rolls in after dark.

 

Tuesday 26/08/14 – We wake up to a tent saturated not only on the outside from the sea mist, but also on the inside from our breathing condensation.   Great fun packing up a saturated tent and ground sheet……we are getting over this.   In addition it is bitterly cold, so we visit the roadhouse for warming coffee and also have a bacon & egg toastie for breakfast.  Whilst we are doing this Barbara is baking a zucchini slice to use up the last of her fresh veggies, in order not to hand over later in the day at the Quarantine Inspection.

We finally move off circa 8.00am and head for the Head of the Bight, where we are told that there were circa 170 whales [ including calves].   There was a free campground, with facilities, at the entrance to the National Park..[better than the Nullabor Roadhouse.  It was brilliant morning with bright sunshine making visibility excellent, reflecting of the whales in the distance as they broached the surface, as well as their movement trails through the water.  The cliff tops has decking walkways which provide excellent views of the mothers and their calves cruising and frolicking in the waters directly below.  We also see dolphins fishing and playing around the whales,[once Michael puts on his polaroid sunglasses…blind beforehand], which were often in close groups of 4 – 6.  The markings on each are very distinctive.   Cameras were clicking and binoculars in use for well in excess of 1.5 hours…….what a great start to the day!!!!!

We make Ceduna mid afternoon, after 300 klm [ the last hour of driving demanding] and after the Quarantine check, a declined caravan park, we finally get a place at Shelly Beach Park.  Dot & Michael are looking forward to a cabin, due to a saturated tent in the  car.  However no cabins available, so need to erect tent to dry then set up.  Fortunately very sunny and in the mid to high 20s, so tent dries very quickly.

David has meantime gone into town to purchase a second hand spring set, which on his return he removes broken one and refits the purchase to the caravan, with very  minimal help from Michael.  As he starts to prepare to jack up the van, he identifies an internal flood due to a running tap, which needs to be cleaned up.  This subsequently blew fuses in the caravan and then the park for their site.  Once everything dried out, the matter was rectified at their park site.

While this was happening Dot was reviewing a couple of alternate caravan layouts of a Mt Martha and a Scoresby couple who have been stopping at the same parks since Southern Cross and the Kalgoorlie mine tour.

The campground is directly behind the dunes, with a section with power facilities on top of the dune viewing the beach and sea.  This area  can be booked.  The apartment/cabins are located in the same area.

Good camp kitchen facilities utilised for tea.

23rd August 2014 – Kalgoorlie & surrounds

Up early and off in David and Barbara’s car  for a round trip of  360 klm to visit and return from Lake Ballard, to the north.  Lake Ballard is a salt encrusted dried lake where an Englishman has created and erected 51 statues across the dried lake surface.  The statues have been modelled on local residents of nearby communities. We all take time and wander around taking in a percentage of the statues – adult  male and females, as well as children.

On the way and return we come across a number of historic gold mining towns that in their “ hayday” supported sizeable population, pubs and service stores.  The telegram boy would travel by push-bike for hundreds of miles to deliver a single telegram.

We arrived back in Kalgoorlie circa 2.00pm, where we book in for a tour by the Madame of Casa Questa, one of the remaining two brothels in Kalgoorlie. The 3.30pm tour is so popular that us four plus another couple are asked to come back at 4.30pm.  The Madame provides a historical insight of the industry and how it fitted into Kalgoorlie in the early mining days and was subsequently quarantined and consolidated in Hay Street.   It was very informative and entertaining, including a tour of the starting stalls and the “working rooms”.  Our tour went for circa 1 hour 20 minutes.

22nd August 2014 – Southern Cross to Kalgoorlie-Boulder

We were on the road by 7.00am  and made good time reaching Kalgoorlie around 9.15am.  Coffee drinks were had whilst we waited for the tour commencement and had discussion with other travelling Victorian caravaners who were booked into the tour.

The tour necessitated all participants to wear safety vests & glasses, long sleeve shirts & pants and closed footwear.  We were given a history of the gold finds as we headed out to the mine on the bus.  The tour bus took us into the mine at the top and indicated that in certain sections that there were miners & enormous dump trucks and shovels working up to 1.5klm below the surface, with their own road network to bring the ore to the surface. 

The pit is huge and at a depth of 600 metres, 1.5klm and 2,5klm across.  We were given an explanation of how they were developing the mine now and over previous years. We saw this later at a display centre with photos taken on an annual basis over the last 25 years. During an explanation of operations and the mine vista, Michael recognised and caught up with a couple of Rotary cricketers from Horsham who were also on the tour.

We returned to town central around 12.15pm with indications that a blast explosion of the mine face would be happening at 1.30pm.  We along with many others arrive at the superpit entrance pre 1.00pm, only to find the gates shut due to maintenance work to the entrance road, required due to rain overnight.  The gates to the superpit road were finally opened around 1.40pm, but the blast explosion had already occurred. We nevertheless get an alternate view of the superpit with the help of binoculars.  Ordinary work vehicles look like an ant compared to the huge dump trunks and shovels…binoculars give a better view.

We check into Swiss type chalet accommodation which is well appointed with all cooking facilities available for a family of 4.  After this we head off with David & Barbara to take in the views of the city and surrounds from a number of lookouts.

We are using this as a base for tomorrow to take in the city and surrounds.

21st August 2014 – Bindoon to Southern Cross

We experienced a very wet and windy night…….and it was great packing up the tent & tent fly this morning in the rain and on Monbulk type red soil.  The tent fly was put into a large plastic bag, similar also for the under tent tarp.

We were accompanied  by rain as we took  the scenic route through the hills as we headed eastward, through a range of small communities servicing the wheat and canola industries.  The canola is a mass of yellow at present.  The interesting town names include Tooday, Goomalling,

At a mid morning break at Wyalkatchem, we visited their Museum of Agricultural Farm Machinery.  We all found this interesting and all agreed that our forebears were very innovative in what they created to make work easier or more efficient.

Lunch break at Merredin [on the Great Eastern Highway] to get out of the car and stretch our legs.  It was something we both desperately needed.

After a break we pushed onto Southern Cross, arriving around 3.00pm, where a  number of calls were made to Kalgoorlie Information Centre to book a mine tour for tomorrow morning.  This will necessitate and early start by 7.00pm to get there in time for the 10.30 tour.

20th August 2014 – Dallwallenu to Bindoon

We are on the road circa 7.30am and head south to Wongan Hills with the aim of just a short day driving.  No luck with the caravan park having cabins/camp kitchen.

After viewing the range of  local flora in the cemetery, where a woody pear is in flower and very profuse, and a  number of unsuccessful telephone calls looking for accommodation, we head  north west to New Norcia.   New Norcia is the only monastic town in Australia run by the Benedictine Monks.  We book into a 2 hour town tour plus additional tour of the Museum.

The tour is fascinating, providing an insight into the establishment of this self sufficient town, originally by  Spanish monks in the 1830s  and their interaction and involvement of the local aborigines at the time.   The Abbott position continued to be appointed from Spain for the first 100 years.  Currently they produce bread, olive products, wine, fruit & vegetables not to mention their large land holdings with sheep and cattle husbandry.   The special chapels and school buildings for aborigines [stolen generation] as well as orphanages and borders are in the process of  being renovated or upgraded to meet various Government OH&S requirements.   It was a a very informative afternoon.

We drive south looking for a spot to camp, with rain threatening.   Eventually we arrive at Bindoon and set up camp in the dark around a Council cricket ground.  It was challenging for Dot preparing a pasta meal in the rain.  We all enjoyed this in David and Barbara’s caravan where it was dry.