Day 26

Early in the morning I was woken by the tent flapping around in the wind.  It brought back memories of the morning in the Wahgunya Conservation Reserve when the wind blew the tent half over and a couple of short rain showers made packing up a mess.  Thankfully this time the showers didn't arrive, though it certainly felt like it was going to.  Still, I jumped out and re-pegged a few sides and corners to try and stop the tent wall flapping in my face.

An hour and a half later we were up, then soon after that we were dressed, fed and packed, moving off about 7:50. We weren't planning any particular activities for the day and the plan was now to just get home; Morgs wants to be home by the Saturday so that

Day 25

We started the day early - packed and driving away by 8am. 

About an hour or so into the drive we came upon at least one car and caravan parked half on the road and a number of people standing around on the road.  "What on earth is going on here?" we thought to ourselves and subsequently asked to the travellers in the car in front.

The answer we got was not what we expected: "A truck has rolled over up ahead and there is a chemical spill.  They won't have it cleaned up until mid-afternoon, so get comfortable."  A quick inspection up the road showed a long line of caravans and trucks and a police car way up the road.

With seemingly plenty of time to spend we had a little chat to the other travellers around us - four separate Victorian cars all on their way home - and then took the opportunity to photograph such a strange situation.

I started counting all the cars/caravans as I walked down the line but lost count around 5 due to the number of people saying G'day.  Walking down the line of vehicles the cars and caravans were switched for prime movers and road trains... the sort of vehicles that travel in the dark.  Eventually we got down to the first truck and the police car. 

The accident scene was cleaned up fairly well and the rolled truck was no-where to be seen.  Talking to the truck driver at the front of the queue he said he arrived on the scene about 2:30am (it was now 9:45am) and that the emergency services were already on the scene when he got there.  He also said that the latest word from the police was that they would open up the road and start feeding cars through at about 10am.  That was a hell of a lot different to what we were first told!  Guess we'd better go back to the car then; lucky I moved it completely off the road before we left it unattended!!

I actually plotted a couple of waypoints at our vehicle location and the first truck in the queue; the line of cars was about 1300m long!  I counted them on the way back; 47 vehicles in total, around 20 of them trucks, 2 normal cars (plus us) and the rest were mostly caravans and the odd motorhomes.  We were 39th in the queue.  A few minutes after arriving back at our car the line of cars already started moving, so in the end there wasn't even a moment of boredom, sitting down with that feeling of endless waiting.

Of course once we were past the crash site the only things in front of us were about 20 caravans/motorhomes travelling at 80-90kph and another 20 trucks travelling at 100kph!!  On one clear, straight downhill section of road we overtook over half a dozen caravans in a row!  WEEEEEE!!!!!

About 20 minutes later we rolled into Coolgardie.  Not the most exciting of towns, but there looks to be a whole lot of history going on.  Since we're trying to get home we didn't stop but we could see there were plenty of information boards explaining the history of the town - possibly photos of old buildings that used to be or are still located on the site in front.  Put it this way - Morgs' idea of hell would be a trip to Coolgardie with her dad and myself.

The other thing of note in Coolgardie is they have the widest, most luxurious lanes in the main street; I think I'd struggle to kick a footy across from footpath to footpath.

We continued on to Kalgoorlie instead of taking the shortcut road down to Norseman.  Given this is the first time we've ever been in this area of the country I thought it was well worth a quick look.  What we found was a large, well serviced town with a big main street and plenty of history.  I noted that the median strip had fake grass... fair enough given that we're in the desert.  The one thing we had to do in Kal was stop by the Super Pit, but firstly we had to stop off at a cafe for coffee.  It was only 11:45, but we thought that since we're heading east it's probably a good idea to gradually have lunch earlier and earlier, so we added food to the coffee order as well.

Next up we headed on to the Super Pit, which unsurprisingly wasn't that hard to find given that it's several kilometres long, wide and half a kilometre deep.  After being thoroughly impressed with the enormity of it all we were getting in our car to go find a loo when a few guys, who had just arrived, asked whether we were aware that the blasting was going off at 1pm or not.  We had no idea, but given there was a growing number of visitors here we figured it was happening soon.  Given it was 12:42pm we decided we'd go find a loo quickly and try to get back for the blasting (I couldn't hold another 20+ minutes). 

We found a nearby McDonalds (the only thing they're good for) and then got back to the Super Pit just on 1pm.  Thankfully all the other spectators hadn't left so we knew the blasting hadn't begun.  We had no idea where the blasting was supposed to be going off... I missed seeing the first blast since I was walking to find a better viewing spot of the lower parts of the pit, but I still definitely heard it and saw the dust cloud.  Then a minute later as I was turning around to ask Morgs if she saw the blast she responds with "You've just missed a second one right now".  Sure enough I turn around and there's a second, much larger dust cloud rising up in the air!  A few seconds later the thunder-clap roar of the blast arrived - three times at least - as the sound bounced around the distant walls. 

Even though I missed seeing the explosion, I still enjoyed hearing the blast!  In fact I think the sound was more impressive than the sight.  We were lucky enough to have been there at the right time of the day and even luckier that the other guys mentioned the blasting was only minutes away!

Moving on, we filled up the tanks on the way out of Boulder, and made for Kambalda and Norseman.  Not a lot going on there.  At Norseman we arrived back on a stretch of bitumen we had driven before and followed it back to Balladonia.

Given the delay in the morning with the truck roll over, which was apparently an ammonium nitrate spill, we hadn't quite got as far as we wanted.  On the plus side it meant we got to camp the night at Newman Rocks, which had been highlighted by Dad on his trip as a place worthy of a camp for the night.  There were a few other campers there that night, one of which was a caravan running a bloody generator until 9pm.  Seriously... that's what solar panels and battery banks are for!

It was a bit windy when we arrived, but it settled down an hour or so after sunset.  Overcast sky kept the air temperature fairly warm and we didn't need the sleeping bags zipped up that night.

Day 24

Days 22 and 23 were basically spent relaxing at Mat and Nat's place.

Today (Monday) was the day we returned home.  A comment I made to Nat as we were leaving was that it felt strange saying goodbye this time because usually when we say our goodbyes to them at their house it would mean we'd have a 45min drive to the airport, catch a 4hr flight back to Melbourne and we'd be sleeping in our beds that night and that would be the end of our holiday.  But no, not this time.  We've still got a very long drive ahead of us!  Five or six days of driving, in fact.

One last thing to do in Perth; we headed into the inner northern suburbs to catch up for a coffee with a uni friend of mine.  Then we made our way out of the city and pointed the bull bar in the direction of Kalgoorlie.  To get there we had to drive past Northam; one of the two towns that was the base for a project that I managed for a while a couple of years back. 

To get to Northam we had to drive through Bakers Hill, which fittingly enough has a superb bakery up on the hill.  I learnt of it during the WA project and had to take Morgs there for a pie and chocky milk.  She's been raving about Jesters Pie's, so I had to show her what a real pie was like - she thought they were "OK, but still not as good as Jesters"... I think she just doesn't want to admit that I was right.  To this day I still have never driven past Bakers Hill without having a pie and chocky milk there.

To get to Bakers Hill we had to fill up in Midland... man, I'm writing this thing backwards.  The only interesting thing of note there was that I noticed the lady behind the counter at the servo was filling out a "Drive-off report" form. 

OK, Midland, Bakers Hill, Northam... that's about what I got up to.  I had never driven past Northam before, even though the WA project extended out as far as Meckering and Cunderdin, so it was interesting to actually see those towns.  Before arriving in Meckering we saw a sign "Meckering Fault Line".  "That was odd", we thought.  Further along as we came into Meckering there was another sign indicating tourist information for the Meckering Earthquake and fault line.  There was no way we were going to drive past since our interest had already been caught.

It turns out around the late 1960's there was a massive earthquake in the area which shifted parts of the earth's surface more than a metre over about 40 seconds.  Along the fault line, what was once flat crop country there was now a raised section of land!  In some places the earth even opened up!!  I think the quake measured 6.9 on the Richter Scale and the epicentre was around 10km from Meckering, but don't ask me how deep underground it was. 

Some buildings in town were flattened.  The water pipeline that crosses the countryside was "telescoped", and there is a piece of it at the tourist site in town.  A section of the railway line was also badly warped and was relocated to the townsite.  A lot of the crop land that had surface flatness issues were bulldozed and graded back to flat, although there are still some sites where the fault line is still visible today.  One such site was about 12km SW of town, so we went down to have a look.

Sure enough, when we got to the location you could see this big step in the ground - one side of the paddock was about 1m higher than the other side and the difference in height changed over about 2-3m on the ground.  No crop in this paddock though, so it's nice that the owner has left the land the way it was damaged by the earthquake.  Take away the tourist signs and you wouldn't even know what had happened.

Speaking of tourist signs, the local council mustn't have much money in their annual budget for litigation; a sign at the earthquake tourist information display stated "All persons entering or using these facilities are warned that they are doing so entirely at their own risk".  In addition to that the sign at the fault line paddock also states "Enter at own risk"... fair enough, it's most likely private property anyway.

Heading to the fault line paddock we also noticed the sign out the front of "Homestead Red Farm Home stay".  This was where a few of the guys from work lived during the WA project.  I never heard any of them mention about the Meckering Earthquake or the fault line.

Thoroughly amused by what Meckering had to offer (not much else though... The Big Camera had closed down a loooong time ago), we carried on eastward.  Cunderdin was surprisingly larger than I expected.  After that we were in territory that was outside the WA project scope and I knew nothing of the towns beyond.

In the middle of nowhere (Baandee lakes, maybe?) there was a burnt out car on the side of the road.  Burnt out cars are not all that uncommon - usually old Fords, Holdens or Toyotas.  Although this particular car was unusual.  When we drove past at 110kph I thought it was a Porsche 911, then after I turned around and drove past again I thought it was an Audi.  It turned out it was a Nissan 280Z or similar model... still, not your average burnt out wreck in the middle of the desert.  It appears as though it's had a frontal impact and caught fire.  You'd think that the vehicle salvage would have been covered by the insurance company... the orange sticker on the side that was left by the police suggests it's been there a little while.

We were hoping to get close to Kalgoorlie for the night, but Southern Cross was looking much more realistic at this stage.  The Camps Australia book suggested four potential campsites east of Southern Cross, but three of them were labeled as Rest Areas and the other was a National Park campsite right next to the highway.  None sounded appealing so we thought we'd check out the caravan park in Southern Cross first, which was adequate so we decided to stay there the night.

As I was pulling the tent out of the car it made me realise that it had been a whole week since we last had it set up at Bremer Bay.  Even though we've been on holidays for nearly 3.5 weeks it didn't feel laborious to be putting it up; in fact it was quite the opposite.  I think the week off from setting up the tent and the 3 nights at Mat and Nat's has revitalised our enthusiasm for camping out the rest of this trip.  Well it has for me anyway.

Morgs finally snapped a great shot of an Australian Ringneck in the wild at our campsite.  Those things are so flittery - they never sit still for more than a few seconds, and usually have their backs turned to our long lens.

Day 21

Today's the day our holiday transforms from explorative to therapeutic activities.  All we have to do is drive the 2 hours north up to Perth, meet up with our Perth friends and stay with them for the next 3 nights.

Rather than drive the boring freeway to Perth I thought we'd follow the Old Coast Road through Australind - much more scenic.  I thought we'd do one last explorative activity and check out the Leschenault Conservation Reserve.  There's a dozen or so paid camps here and a few bush walking tracks.  The reserve harbours a number of birds - both water birds in the Leschenault Estuary and land/tree birds in the conservation park.  We saw 28's and kookaburras and Morgs found a rock with a shell in it, which she suspects is a fossil - very sciency and therefore very cool.  I found another sandy track onto the beach, which I suspect is a popular fishing spot as there were plenty of wheel tracks onto the beach and a steepish gradient into the ocean.

Back on the main highway again we saw a sign "Vineyard 28" with a parrot on it's logo.  So we thought we'd have to try at least one winery considering we had passed through the Margaret River area without even stepping into a bottle shop let alone visiting a vineyard.  Morgs assessed the bottles to find the one with the most parroty label and lucky for her it was the Sav Blanc - her favourite type of wine.  Even luckier for her it actually tasted pretty good so she bought a couple of bottles of it.

Again, rather than following the boring freeway, we took the Old Coast Road through Mandurah, although I was beginning to regret doing this after the umpteenth set of traffic lights or road works.  We made it into Perth city about midday and went straight for the shopping mall that Morgs most wanted to go to as it had the shops she needed.

After Morgs had caught up with her retail therapy we headed on up to the northern suburbs to spend a couple of days of R&R with our friends Mat and Natalie and their two kids.  We're very much looking forward to seeing them all and seeing how much the kids have grown.

Day 20

After a much better night's sleep we packed up late, once again, and took the Caves Road tourist route north towards Margaret River.  We didn't explore any of the caves because all but one of them charged for entry and because we've been in a number of caves on previous trips. 

We took a detour into Hamlin Bay, then up to Boranup Lookout; not the greatest of views.  We continued on via a couple more detours on some minor dirt roads within Leeuwin Naturaliste NP, then into Prevelly, which appears to be popular with younger tourists - the first lot of tourists we've seen all holiday that are younger than us! 

The bushland between Margaret River and Prevelly is where the bushfires occurred a couple of years ago.  The regrowth is thick and well under way.  There were many areas of bushland with wild lilies everywhere - more prevalent around here but also in areas further north and south in the National Parks.  We're unsure whether they are natural or introduced, but either way they were certainly different to the usual flora.

We went into Margaret River for a morning coffee and a treat.  Had to visit the Fudge Factory and make a few purchases!  I was keen to check out the town of Margaret River as well as the surrounding park land because I had heard many people comment about how beautiful the area is and how great it is to holiday in Margaret River.  I can't say I was blown away.  Sure, there were some scenic areas around it, but nothing that you couldn't find in Gippsland or the Yarra Valley or Western Victoria.  The town was fairly, well, ordinary.  Not that it was bad, just that there was nothing that stood out as being worth travelling across the entire continent for.  Basically, there was nothing there that I couldn't get anywhere else that was closer to home.

There was one more shop that Morgs wanted to look at before we left so I decided to wait in the car, which was parallel parked on the main street.  I had my head down looking at the map when I suddenly heard something cracking and breaking and I felt the car moving oddly.  I looked up, planted my foot hard on the brake and realised that the car parked in front was a lot closer than usual!  At first I thought the car in front had reversed into my bullbar.  Then when I realised that there wasn't a driver in the car that reversed into my car I looked in the mirror and realised that the car behind was a lot further behind than it was before and that it was in fact my car that had moved!  Oh, shit.  I must have pulled the gear stick into neutral for some reason and the handbrake did what Landcruiser handbrakes do best; not work!  Bugger.

I reversed back to where my car had been previously parked, made sure I yanked the handbrake on hard and put it in gear, then got out to assess the damage.  No damage to the front of mine, of course, but the bumper of the car in front (an Xtrail) appeared to be slightly bent in, although the plastic bumpers on modern cars tend to bend back into shape afterwards.  I thought I'd better do the right thing, give them my details and fess up to my mistake, after all we have been on the receiving end of unscrupulous assholes that aren't man enough to admit their mistake when they've scraped their car down the side of our 5-day old Lancer.  The lady owner has my details now, and she later reported that the back door wouldn't open, so it looks like an insurance claim will be required in the near future and all will be good.

Moving on, we took the Caves Road again north up to Yallingup for a quick look, and then up to Dunsborough.  Checked out the light house at Cape Naturaliste (well, from a distance), then had lunch at Eagle Bay brewery.  As we drove in Morgs noticed more Carnaby's on the grass next to the drive way, so she grabbed the camera and started snapping away while I went into the brewery to grab a table and order some food. 

Morgs had a pant-wettingly good time as the cockatoos weren't too concerned about her being there and Morgs was able to get within a few metres of them, getting a couple of great shots of one juvenile in a bush, among others.

After another great lunch and a great pint of beer we kept moving north... well, east now, around Geographe Bay.  (I just wanted to say "Geographe").  We stopped for an ice cream at the jetty in Busselton (longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere at 1.8km), but found that they are now charging $2.50 for a walk along the jetty!  Get real...

We could see there were big rain clouds coming over and were already menacing Bunbury so we got back on the road.  Driving out of Busselton we found ourselves briefly on the first freeway since leaving the Calder Fwy just before Bendigo on Day 1. 

On a section of the Bussell Highway that was not freeway grade I foolishly requested that we finish off our last match in the Five-5 car cricket tri-series.  Morgs had won the first two matches, and therefore the series, so I was playing the last match for pride and Morgs was playing for the clean-sweep.  Morgs had previously scored an average score for her final innings before we reached Busselton, but when we were heading for Bunbury in the rain I really shouldn't have asked to finish off my final innings when all the cars coming the opposite direction had their headlights on (headlights meant it was a dot ball).  I scored very dismally.

We found another caravan park cabin in Bunbury and set ourselves up for the night.  Bunbury was as I remember it - pretty, scenic and I could possibly live there but I might get bored after a while.  I thought that maybe if the sky above the horizon was clear there could be a cool sunset over the ocean, but it wasn't to be.