Jen and I were going to have the car for just one more day, and we wanted to make the most out of it. So we took a day trip into the wheat belt of Western Australia to find the teeny town of Heyden and Wave Rock. It felt rather strange to be driving through the city after having spent the past week in so much empty countryside. We had to cross all of Perth and climb the escarpment in order to get to the farmlands. On the escarpment we drove through a state park - and it was forest! As in, there were trees! This was the first forest we'd seen in what felt like forever, so we enjoyed driving through it. There were tons and tons of grass trees as well - I took pictures of them when we were in Canberra - but I had been under the impression that they were rare? Apparently not so in WA! At any rate, it was a neat forest and driving through shade was a nice change.
All too soon, though, the forest gave way to more rolling, empty, dry farmland, and we were in the wheat belt. Back to the emptiness. We saw hardly any other vehicles on the road, even though we passed through a number of small towns. It was a pretty strange drive, especially when we neared the town of Corrigin. We passed a couple of old utes (pickup trucks) which had been posed in the wheat fields. One looked like it was doing a wheelie, another was posed as if to launch itself off a pile of hay. It was very odd. Then on the outskirts of the town itself, we found the Corrigin Dog Cemetery. Yep. A dog cemetery. In the middle of nowhere! Then when we got into Corrigin proper, we passed a display explaining about the "Dog in a Ute" competition. Each year the town tries to get the largest possible number of dogs sitting in utes in the town. The event raises money for local charities, and of course also brings publicity to this little town. Strange, but true. It was that sort of day.
Once we were out of Corrigin, we encountered a new driving challenge - random single-lane stretches of highway! Yep, that's right - for about 30kms or so, each time the road entered a valley (so your line of sight as a driver was good and long), the tarmac reduced to only one lane, with wide, wide dirt shoulders. These single lane stretches were several kms long each. This meant that if you were partway down one, and a vehicle was coming at you from the opposite direction, both vehicles had to ease off so their left tires were on dirt and their right tires were on tarmac, in order to not crash headlong. Craziness. We guessed that this might have been a way to save money on road construction, but let me tell you, it was a wee bit unnerving to drive!
It took us just over four hours to get to Wave Rock. We weren't sure what to expect when we got there, but wow, it was cool! Turns out that Wave Rock is just one teeny, tiny bit of a HUGE granite outcropping that sits much higher than the surrounding landscape. For those of you who have been to my cottage, think about the exposed bedrock that is found throughout the forest there. Well, this granite outcropping was hundreds of times bigger than the largest outcropping we have back home! It was also much, much higher than the lands around it, since the soil around the granite had been eroding slowly away for millenia. The wave itself is found on one side of the outcropping, and was formed by water pouring over the edge and eroding away the softer rock beneath. The result, as you can see from the pictures, is a shape that looks like a fossilized surfing wave.
It was pretty much mandatory for us to take "surfing" shots at the rock (after all, the Lonely Planet guidebook told us to!), so we did. However once again, the heat and the flies were getting the better of us. We couldn't stay still for long because the flies would flock to our faces like nobody's business, and while they don't bite, they are absolutely the most ANNOYING critters I think I have ever encountered! They go after moisture of any sort, so they try to crawl up your nose, into your ears, onto your eyes, into your mouth... you get the picture. NOT FUN.
There was a short nature trail for us to explore that took us along the side of the outcropping, so we did. We kept catching glimpses of these little "dragon" lizards that were living on the rock - every time we approached, they'd scamper away over the rock faster than lightning! At one point, we found a slope gentle enough to allow us to climb to the top of the granite, so we did. This turned out to be a good move - it was windier up on the top of the rock and so the flies were less! It wasn't until we reached the top that we realized just how huge this piece of granite was - imagine a piece of rock about the size of the Vaughan Mills Mall, and you'll have some idea. I remarked to Jen that I wondered if this was a little bit like what Uluru would be like. The top of the rock brought another surprise - inukshuks! Or at least, little piles of stacked rocks that sure looked like inukshuks. We couldn't help but wonder if other Canadians had been here too!
We wandered along the top of the granite for a while and then slithered our way back down into the forest and the flies. The next stop on the trail was the Hippo's Yawn, another rock formation on the far side of the granite from Wave Rock. Unfortunately the picture doesn't quite show this gaping cave the way I'd like - the trees were in the way. But it really, truly looked like a hippo's mouth opened in a yawn!
The flies at this point were pretty incredibly bad, so we hightailed it back to the car and headed to the Humps, another granite outcropping about 20kms from Wave Rock. Apparently there's a whole string of these outcroppings in this part of Western Australia. At the Humps there is a significant Aboriginal site called Mulka's Cave. The entrance to the cave didn't look all that exciting, but once we were inside, it was wonderful. Basically the cave was a naturally-hollowed-out space under a GIANT boulder (as in, the space inside was the size of my parents' house). It was wonderfully cool inside the cave and there were no flies, either! (We don't understand why the pesky Australian blow flies won't spend time indoors - literally, we were being harassed by flies almost to the point of tears while reading the signs outside the cave, but once we had stepped into the shade inside, it was like there was an invisible fly barrier. We've noticed this as well with tents, cars, and houses. Strange.) (We are not complaining that the flies won't spend time inside!) The walls and ceiling of the cave were decorated with hundreds of ancient Aboriginal paintings. Most of them were the silhouettes of hands, where the ocher had been sprayed on the wall to show the outline. It was really neat. Nobody really knows how old this site is, but the guess is 20,000 years at least.
There was another trail for us to take to hike around the outside of Mulka's Cave, and we gave it a go, but the files were just too much for us. Jen and I felt a little wimpy - here we were giving in to insects that weren't even biting us! But until you've experienced Aussie flies for yourself, you won't understand how annoying they can be. So we double-timed it back to the car and headed back to Perth.
On the drive back to Perth we stopped a number of times to take pictures of some of the strange things we saw along the highway on the way out. Corrigin was high on our list, what with the whole "dog in a ute" thing, but there were other random metal sculptures scattered along our route too. When we arrived in Perth, we tried to find a place to eat dinner, as Pat and Rob were out for the evening. Would you believe we couldn't find a restaurant in suburban Perth to save our lives? I'm not kidding. We drove and drove and drove all these different main streets, with no luck. We tried driving to spots on our map where shopping malls were indicated, with no luck. I mean, come on. In a Canadian city, if you were driving down a commercial stretch of road, you'd find some sort of restaurant on pretty much every corner! Perth is definitely not laid out in the same way. After about an hour of fruitless searching (good grief), we ended up back at the mall closest to Pat and Rob's house, since we knew it at least had an open food court. And that's where we ended up eating dinner - in the food court of a mall that was only still open because of the movie theatres close by. What craziness.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Our WA Trip - Part Six - Long-Distance Driving and Drop Bears
So, Jen survived her first day of school yesterday, with all the little kiddies and everything. She found a cockroach as long as her thumb inside a binder first thing in the morning, and that kinda threw her for a loop for the rest of the day. She says her class is "very chatty" and that they are about to have a rude awakening - apparently her kids haven't had to do a lot of homework up to this point (as in, a math sheet once a week? In grade 5?) and that's not gonna fly in her class. The next few weeks oughta be interesting.
We also survived our return to trampolining last night - only barely! Six weeks off was a long time, and we both felt it by halfway through the night. I was glad to be able to sleep past six this morning, that's for sure!
I swear I spent pretty much the entire day on the 'puter yesterday. I'm gonna try and actually get outside for a bit this afternoon, but it is currently pouring rain. And I'm not complaining! This is the first rain I've seen since the day we arrived in Canberra back in December. Yikes.
Anyhow. In the meantime - back to our WA adventures...
Jen and I stayed at Monkey Mia for two nights. On our second morning there, after all the cruising and astronomy we'd done the day before, we still managed to drag ourselves out of bed for 7:30 so we could go and watch the dolphins again. There were fewer dolphins at the beach this morning, but that's OK. There was a little dolphin calf, and it was totally showing off for the crowd! While we had seen the calf the day before as well, today it seemed that it was much more comfortable with all the people. It kept leaving its mother's side and swimming in furious loops and swirls, tossing up big wakes. It even jumped right out of the water a couple of times, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. So cute!
Once we'd said hello and goodbye to the dolphins, it was time for breakfast and then we hit the road. Our original plan had been to drive back to Geraldton and spend the night there, and then drive the rest of the way back to Perth the following day. However, we changed those plans and decided to get all the way back to Perth in one day. There were several reasons for this. First, like I explained yesterday, the hostel in Geraldton gave me very bad vibes. I think I forgot to mention that there were warning signs posted throughout that hostel about the threat of bedbugs, and what to do if we were bitten (i.e., tell the management in the morning. Fun.). Secondly, there hadn't exactly been a lot to see in Geraldton on our way up the coast, so we saw no point in wasting an evening's hostelling fees to stay somewhere with nothing to do. And thirdly, at some point in the previous two days, Jen had been bitten by... something. What with the random creepy bugs on her pillow in Cervantes and the bed bug signs in Geraldton, we didn't know what to think. The bites were almost all on her forearms and her calves, and also across her knuckles, so we were pretty sure it wasn't bedbugs. On the other hand, the bites swelled nicely and were terribly itchy, so we figured it was time to head back towards civilization to find some antihistamines.
The drive back to Perth was only about 8 hours, but we sure had our adventures along the way. Driving back along that mind-numbing scrubby road was boring, to say the least. And the lack of radio stations was driving us mad! We finally caved when we reached the main highway and one of the roadhouses, and bought a CD of party tunes. These turned out to be mostly bad, bad disco from the 1970's. We listened to "Kung Fu Fighting" over and over and over as we continued south. Groan...
I swear there are at least 8,000 variations of the word "scrub" to be found as you drive south from Shark Bay back towards Perth. The emptiness of the landscape was incredible, all the more so because when you look on the map of Western Australia, we were still well into the inhabited part of the state! We saw hardly anybody else on the road in either direction... to the point where we were waving at the drivers of oncoming cars because (a) they were so rare and (b) it was something to do to pass the time. Good grief! When we finally reached the edge of sheep country and returned to a landscape of completely empty fields with fences, we felt like we'd reached civilization. This country has given me a whole new perspective on the term "empty"... and I've driven through Northern Ontario! :-)
Another bit of insanity on the drive were the road trains. We encountered these on most of the highways we drove in Western Australia, although I know they're found all across the country. A road train is basically a truck dragging up to three full-length eighteen-wheel trailers behind it. In Western Australia they're "only" allowed to be up to 35m long, but still, that's pretty long! Living in Toronto for so many years means I'm not easily intimidated by big trucks, but having a road train breathing down your neck is more than a little unnerving. (I just kept thinking about inertia, and what would happen if I had to suddenly brake!) Most of the time, though, we were driving faster than they were - which meant we had to pass the blasted things. Fortunately there were lots of passing lanes all along the highway, but still. We were driving a dinky car with no pickup whatsoever - and there were several occasions where we just couldn't pick up enough steam to get past a road train in the passing lane! Gah.
We had one other little misadventure as we headed south, which had to do with the lack of, well, anything even remotely resembling a bathroom along the way. Jen and I discovered at one point that we both had to visit the little girls' room. Badly. I mean, really - we were being good Girl Guides and keeping ourselves hydrated by drinking lots and lots of water, but such actions do have consequences. Problem was, we were on a particularly long, empty stretch of road, with no stopping place for well over 100kms, and with nothing around us but scrubby trees. And although we tried, there was no way we were going to last until the next town. So we ended up having to pull over to the side of the road and wade into the bushes/trees to find, um, a private place.
So picture this. It was stupidly hot, there were about eight kajillion flies following us around, and we really had to pee. We stumbled into the bush - carefully - watching for snakes and god knows what else - and found a screened spot under one of the few tallish trees in the known universe. Thank goodness for a bit of shade! Everything was quiet. We were about to - ah - spread out a bit to take care of business, when all of a sudden, these THINGS dropped out of the trees and right onto our heads! It was kinda like having furious cats attached to our scalps! So there we were, stumbling madly in circles, shrieking, trying to get these critters off our heads. After a few seconds of struggle, the creatures leaped off our heads, scrambled up into the trees lightning-quick, and sat there, snarling. They looked sorta like koalas but somehow more menacing. (Since we'd gone into the bush to pee, the camera was still in the car, so I have no pictures.) What the...??? Well, we sure weren't going to stick around! We hightailed it back to the car and took off! We would wait until the next town to use the bathroom - no more attempts at peeing in the bush for us!
We finally made it to a gas station with a toilet and dealt with that issue. When we went back into the little shop to buy some cold drinks, the guy behind the counter asked us what had happened to our hair (we looked more than a little worse for wear!). We described the creatures that had attacked us, and he informed us that we had been the victims of drop bears. Apparently we had unwittingly walked into their territory. Good grief! And here I though I needed to be worrying about snakes! But there was no real harm done besides badly messed up hair and a case of the shakes, so with cokes in hand, we headed back to the car and continued south.
We made it back to Perth with no further misadventures, thank goodness. We didn't get into town until around 7pm, so we stopped at a random pizza joint for dinner before heading to Pat and Rob's house. Once we got there, because we were a little worried that we might have brought bedbugs with us from the hostel in Geraldton, absolutely everything we owned went in the wash - sleeping bags, pillows, and all our clothes. We sprayed our suitcases and shoes and everything else with Raid and left 'em out in the backyard to air out. Pat was so kind to let us use her washing machine over and over and over throughout our stay! Jen and I took turns scrubbing ourselves head to foot in the shower, and then we practically collapsed into bed. What a day!
We also survived our return to trampolining last night - only barely! Six weeks off was a long time, and we both felt it by halfway through the night. I was glad to be able to sleep past six this morning, that's for sure!
I swear I spent pretty much the entire day on the 'puter yesterday. I'm gonna try and actually get outside for a bit this afternoon, but it is currently pouring rain. And I'm not complaining! This is the first rain I've seen since the day we arrived in Canberra back in December. Yikes.
Anyhow. In the meantime - back to our WA adventures...
Jen and I stayed at Monkey Mia for two nights. On our second morning there, after all the cruising and astronomy we'd done the day before, we still managed to drag ourselves out of bed for 7:30 so we could go and watch the dolphins again. There were fewer dolphins at the beach this morning, but that's OK. There was a little dolphin calf, and it was totally showing off for the crowd! While we had seen the calf the day before as well, today it seemed that it was much more comfortable with all the people. It kept leaving its mother's side and swimming in furious loops and swirls, tossing up big wakes. It even jumped right out of the water a couple of times, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. So cute!
Once we'd said hello and goodbye to the dolphins, it was time for breakfast and then we hit the road. Our original plan had been to drive back to Geraldton and spend the night there, and then drive the rest of the way back to Perth the following day. However, we changed those plans and decided to get all the way back to Perth in one day. There were several reasons for this. First, like I explained yesterday, the hostel in Geraldton gave me very bad vibes. I think I forgot to mention that there were warning signs posted throughout that hostel about the threat of bedbugs, and what to do if we were bitten (i.e., tell the management in the morning. Fun.). Secondly, there hadn't exactly been a lot to see in Geraldton on our way up the coast, so we saw no point in wasting an evening's hostelling fees to stay somewhere with nothing to do. And thirdly, at some point in the previous two days, Jen had been bitten by... something. What with the random creepy bugs on her pillow in Cervantes and the bed bug signs in Geraldton, we didn't know what to think. The bites were almost all on her forearms and her calves, and also across her knuckles, so we were pretty sure it wasn't bedbugs. On the other hand, the bites swelled nicely and were terribly itchy, so we figured it was time to head back towards civilization to find some antihistamines.
The drive back to Perth was only about 8 hours, but we sure had our adventures along the way. Driving back along that mind-numbing scrubby road was boring, to say the least. And the lack of radio stations was driving us mad! We finally caved when we reached the main highway and one of the roadhouses, and bought a CD of party tunes. These turned out to be mostly bad, bad disco from the 1970's. We listened to "Kung Fu Fighting" over and over and over as we continued south. Groan...
I swear there are at least 8,000 variations of the word "scrub" to be found as you drive south from Shark Bay back towards Perth. The emptiness of the landscape was incredible, all the more so because when you look on the map of Western Australia, we were still well into the inhabited part of the state! We saw hardly anybody else on the road in either direction... to the point where we were waving at the drivers of oncoming cars because (a) they were so rare and (b) it was something to do to pass the time. Good grief! When we finally reached the edge of sheep country and returned to a landscape of completely empty fields with fences, we felt like we'd reached civilization. This country has given me a whole new perspective on the term "empty"... and I've driven through Northern Ontario! :-)
Another bit of insanity on the drive were the road trains. We encountered these on most of the highways we drove in Western Australia, although I know they're found all across the country. A road train is basically a truck dragging up to three full-length eighteen-wheel trailers behind it. In Western Australia they're "only" allowed to be up to 35m long, but still, that's pretty long! Living in Toronto for so many years means I'm not easily intimidated by big trucks, but having a road train breathing down your neck is more than a little unnerving. (I just kept thinking about inertia, and what would happen if I had to suddenly brake!) Most of the time, though, we were driving faster than they were - which meant we had to pass the blasted things. Fortunately there were lots of passing lanes all along the highway, but still. We were driving a dinky car with no pickup whatsoever - and there were several occasions where we just couldn't pick up enough steam to get past a road train in the passing lane! Gah.
We had one other little misadventure as we headed south, which had to do with the lack of, well, anything even remotely resembling a bathroom along the way. Jen and I discovered at one point that we both had to visit the little girls' room. Badly. I mean, really - we were being good Girl Guides and keeping ourselves hydrated by drinking lots and lots of water, but such actions do have consequences. Problem was, we were on a particularly long, empty stretch of road, with no stopping place for well over 100kms, and with nothing around us but scrubby trees. And although we tried, there was no way we were going to last until the next town. So we ended up having to pull over to the side of the road and wade into the bushes/trees to find, um, a private place.
So picture this. It was stupidly hot, there were about eight kajillion flies following us around, and we really had to pee. We stumbled into the bush - carefully - watching for snakes and god knows what else - and found a screened spot under one of the few tallish trees in the known universe. Thank goodness for a bit of shade! Everything was quiet. We were about to - ah - spread out a bit to take care of business, when all of a sudden, these THINGS dropped out of the trees and right onto our heads! It was kinda like having furious cats attached to our scalps! So there we were, stumbling madly in circles, shrieking, trying to get these critters off our heads. After a few seconds of struggle, the creatures leaped off our heads, scrambled up into the trees lightning-quick, and sat there, snarling. They looked sorta like koalas but somehow more menacing. (Since we'd gone into the bush to pee, the camera was still in the car, so I have no pictures.) What the...??? Well, we sure weren't going to stick around! We hightailed it back to the car and took off! We would wait until the next town to use the bathroom - no more attempts at peeing in the bush for us!
We finally made it to a gas station with a toilet and dealt with that issue. When we went back into the little shop to buy some cold drinks, the guy behind the counter asked us what had happened to our hair (we looked more than a little worse for wear!). We described the creatures that had attacked us, and he informed us that we had been the victims of drop bears. Apparently we had unwittingly walked into their territory. Good grief! And here I though I needed to be worrying about snakes! But there was no real harm done besides badly messed up hair and a case of the shakes, so with cokes in hand, we headed back to the car and continued south.
We made it back to Perth with no further misadventures, thank goodness. We didn't get into town until around 7pm, so we stopped at a random pizza joint for dinner before heading to Pat and Rob's house. Once we got there, because we were a little worried that we might have brought bedbugs with us from the hostel in Geraldton, absolutely everything we owned went in the wash - sleeping bags, pillows, and all our clothes. We sprayed our suitcases and shoes and everything else with Raid and left 'em out in the backyard to air out. Pat was so kind to let us use her washing machine over and over and over throughout our stay! Jen and I took turns scrubbing ourselves head to foot in the shower, and then we practically collapsed into bed. What a day!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Our WA Trip - Part Five - Shark Bay World Heritage Area
And back to the adventure! It's now January 14th and Jen and I are finally on our way to Shark Bay. I was glad to leave Geraldton - there was something about the hostel that I really didn't like. I couldn't even put my finger on what was bugging me. It was strange because since Jen's far more experienced than I am with the whole hostelling thing, I've been following her lead when it comes to deciding whether or not a place is 'good'. But in Geraldton, she was OK with the place, and I was not, for the first time all year. Go figure.
Anyway. We left Geraldton and headed northwards once more. I would like to point out that the only point along the whole way north where we had any cell reception was on the beach in Geraldton. And once we left the town behind, we lost radio stations - for good. We'd forgotten to bring along the road trip CD's I'd made for the Great Ocean Road trip, so we had no music, either. Yikes!
There is absolutely NOTHING on the road north of Geraldton. Nothing. I mean, you know there are few landmarks when the roadhouses (gas stations) are marked on the state's map! (Yep. All two of them.) There were no trees, just more of the endless variations of the word "scrub", and lots and lots of wind. Randomly, we saw a number of feral goats grazing at the side of the road. At first we thought they must be escapees from some local station, but no, they're wild. It was also bizarre seeing the roadkill on the sides of the road... there are no vultures here, but I guess that the goannas (big lizards) or something else must be picking the bones clean, 'cause that's what we kept seeing - dessicated skeletons of roos and other critters.
About four hours of driving through this nothingness brought us at last to the Shark Bay World Hertiage Area. This place is special for a number of reasons. First, it's very isolated. (I did mention the endless drive through nothing but scrub, right?) Shark Bay has the largest sea grass beds in the world, and a huge population of dugongs, which are a threatened species. Also lots and lots of sharks. Hence the name Shark Bay. But most significantly for me, Shark Bay is one of the only places in the world where there are stromatolites growing. As a nature nerd, this was something I HAD to see on my Aussie trip. So off we went!
We arrived at Hamelin Pool around 12:30, and it was HOT. I'm talking well over 40C, with no humidity, no clouds, and no trees for shade. Boy am I glad our car was air-conditioned! We checked in with the lady at the little souvenir store (there was a sign asking all visitors to report there before going out walking, for their own safety)... she advised us that it was too hot to do the entire walk (no kidding) and suggested a couple of short walks instead. We went to visit the shell quarry, which was cool. The whole bay is hypersaline, so very few critters can survive in the water. However there's one species of clam that can, and it does, in the zillions. The entire beach front was made of tiny coquina shells! Back from the beach itself, in the dunes made of shells, there's a quarry where blocks of solidified shells used to be cut and used for buildings. It was nifty but it was so hot we only stayed there briefly.
After a short drive, we finally arrived at the stromatolite pool. It's hard to describe - likely it's easier for you to go and take a look at the pics in my "Western Australia - Part Two" album. Basically stromatolites are piles of bacteria that live together as a colony, and they produce oxygen. So we walked out onto this boardwalk over a shallow, salty bay, full of these blobs of bacteria and mud. Why are these so cool/significant? Well, scientists are pretty sure that the stromatolites represent how life started on earth over three billion years ago. And since the stromatolites produce oxygen as a waste product, they were the organisms originally responsible for changing earth's atmosphere into something that the rest of us could all breathe. So in a very real way, without the stromatolites, no other forms of life as we know it would have evolved.
See why I had to see 'em? :-)
The heat was just incredible. It wasn't too bad when we were on the boardwalk over the water, but when we got back onto the beach, it hit us like a wall. We high-tailed it back to the car and the air conditioning. In fact, we skipped eating lunch and just headed for Monkey Mia, the end of our travels for the day. This turned out to be another hour and a half down the scrub-and-nothing-else road. Every time we crested a hill, we kept expecting to see the resort, and it felt like it took forever for us to get there. I will no longer complain about the monotony of driving through Algonquin Park's back roads... the scenery in Shark Bay was just so empty it was mind-numbing!
Monkey Mia is a little resort literally in the middle of nowhere, situated on a bay of brilliant turquoise water with red hills and - yes - scrub, all around. Our tour book called it a "slice of paradise" and I would agree. I'm glad we were there in the slow season though! The resort has a hotel, a hostel, cottages, and a trailer park - so there were lots of options for accommodations. We stayed in the hostel. Basically once we had our keys and had moved our stuff into the room, we crashed and took a nap. It was glorious. Then we threw on our swimsuits and hit the beach in the late afternoon. This too was glorious. We emerged from the water feeling much better. We decided on the spot that we would spend our entire time at Monkey Mia (a) in our bathing suits and (b) without our shoes.
We enjoyed dinner at the "Monkey Bar", the much less expensive of the two restaurants at the resort. And afterwards we took a loooooong walk down the beach. It was so cool! The water was very shallow and crystal clear, and we saw rays, skates, and lots of other fish. We also surprised a green sea turtle, who was poking around near the shore. It kept sticking its head up out of the water and eyeing us from about 20 feet offshore. When it realized we were staring back, it slapped its flippers on the water and dove under. We couldn't wait to go snorkeling the next day.
The real reason we'd come to Monkey Mia was for the dolphins. This place is famous for its wild dolphins that come right in to shore every morning in order to get fed. The dolphins have been coming to the beach at Monkey Mia for over 30 years,, every morning, without fail. How crazy is that? It used to be that members of the public were allowed right into the water to interact with the dolphins, but it was discovered about 15 years ago that this practice was causing the dolphins a lot of harm. It was kinda the equivalent of feeding ducks or seagulls all your scraps - the dolphins were no longer wild, they no longer cared for their young, and - worst of all - they contracted diseases from us humans! So nowadays the dolphin interaction program is very strictly run by the park rangers, and things are much better.
We arrived at the beach around 7:30 in the morning. The dolphins were already there, along with quite a few people. More people arrived steadily up until around 8am. The dolphins just cruised through the shallows, occasionally rolling over to eye us and see if we had any fish. We had to stay right out of the water until the park rangers allowed us in, and even then, we had to stay in a straight line and only go in as far as our ankles. While the dolphins might have been a little wary of us, they sure knew who had the fish! The rangers were in water up to their knees and the dolphins would go right up to them and bump them with their beaks! The rangers gave a good talk about the history of the dolphin feeding program and dolphin biology. They apparently only feed female dolphins (the males can be really aggressive), and even then, they only feed certain ones. The dolphins can come into the beach up to three times each morning, but no food is offered after that. And the rangers only give the dolphins about 1/3rd of their daily intake in the public feedings; the animals are expected to find the rest on their own. This helps to keep them wild and ensures that the mothers will teach their calves how to hunt.
Needless to say, I snapped lots of great photos!
Oh, and the pelicans! Australian white pelicans are the largest pelicans in the world (for those of you who have seen the brown pelicans in South Carolina with me, these birds are TWICE the size!). The pelicans at Monkey Mia aren't stupid and know all about the dolphin feeding thing. Understand that these birds' beaks are almost as long as my arm - they can be a pretty serious nuisance! So when the dolphins are getting fed, two volunteers from the park are on pelican patrol - as in, they have another bucket of fish that they entice the pelicans with, to get them away from the dolphins and the people. It was crazy!
Anyway. We grabbed breakfast once the dolphins had swum off, then headed to the dive shop to rent some snorkel gear for the day. The guy at the shop was dubious - he said that the conditions weren't all that good for snorkeling (the wind had really picked up). We told him we had no choice, we were signed into a sailing cruise in the afternoon and had to leave the next day. His response - "Girls, you've gotta learn to relax!" It was like he was amazed we'd try to cram so much in! Ha ha! Well we rented the equipment anyway and tried snorkeling over the seagrass beds. And the guy was right - with the wind and everything, lots of sand was being kicked up off the sea bottom and visibility was terrible. But we saw a few things and it was a good practice session, so no worries!
It really was a jam-packed day. We came in from snorkeling (more than glad that we were wearing our rashies to protect us from the sun), dried off, took a nap in the shade, ate lunch, and headed off to the jetty to get on the catamaran. We spent the entire afternoon on the boat, cruising around Shark Bay. It was great. Jen and I got to help winch the main sail into place. We sailed waaaay out into the bay and saw dugongs, sea turtles, and huge shoals of fish. In fact, the tour operators were thrilled with all the wildlife we spotted - apparently we were sailing on the best day they'd had in weeks!
The wind out on the bay was fierce, and our ship was FAST. The catamaran we were on had once been a racing boat, so at a couple of points the crew turned it into the wind and let it RUN. It was like flying. I'd never been on a sailboat of any type before, and it was great. There was netting in between the hulls of the ship, and for a good portion of the way back, Jen and I laid down in the rigging on our bellies. This felt somewhat like flying, skimming just over the surface of the water - except for the parts where the boat hit particularly big waves and we got drenched. Ha ha!
We returned to shore for about an hour, so Jen and I grabbed some ice cream, wrote postcards, and chilled out in the shade. Then it was back onto the boat for the sunset cruise. Once again, the temperature drop as the sun went down was astounding. I'm glad I took my fleece! There were only four other guests on the boat with us for the evening cruise, and it was the same crew as for the afternoon excursion. So once again Jen and I helped hoist the sail. Coolness. We also helped stow it at the end of the cruise. The waves were huge in the evening so it was a wild, bouncy ride, but lots of fun.
Back to shore again, and another hour-and-a-bit break - so we grabbed dinner at last. Hot food felt great after so much time on the water! Then, as the sun was almost set, we headed out to the "Awe-stronomy" tour - again with the same guys who had run the boat tours for us earlier in the day! (They knew us by name at this point.) Our main goal with the astronomy session was to find the Southern Cross constellation. I mean, really. It would be completely ridiculous for us to come back from this trip without knowing how to find Australia's most famous constellation! The guy running the tour had a fantastic green laser (argon?), which he could point at a star and we could follow the beam all the way. I gotta get me one of those - although I understand that they are very expensive and banned in the US. The laser is apparently powerful enough to truly blind an airplane pilot, if pointed at a plane flying overhead. Crazy.
So yeah, suffice it to say that by the time the astronomy session was over at 10:30pm, we'd had a very, very full day. The temperature had dropped nicely so our hostel room was nice and cool for sleeping in, which was a nice break. And sleep we did!
Anyway. We left Geraldton and headed northwards once more. I would like to point out that the only point along the whole way north where we had any cell reception was on the beach in Geraldton. And once we left the town behind, we lost radio stations - for good. We'd forgotten to bring along the road trip CD's I'd made for the Great Ocean Road trip, so we had no music, either. Yikes!
There is absolutely NOTHING on the road north of Geraldton. Nothing. I mean, you know there are few landmarks when the roadhouses (gas stations) are marked on the state's map! (Yep. All two of them.) There were no trees, just more of the endless variations of the word "scrub", and lots and lots of wind. Randomly, we saw a number of feral goats grazing at the side of the road. At first we thought they must be escapees from some local station, but no, they're wild. It was also bizarre seeing the roadkill on the sides of the road... there are no vultures here, but I guess that the goannas (big lizards) or something else must be picking the bones clean, 'cause that's what we kept seeing - dessicated skeletons of roos and other critters.
About four hours of driving through this nothingness brought us at last to the Shark Bay World Hertiage Area. This place is special for a number of reasons. First, it's very isolated. (I did mention the endless drive through nothing but scrub, right?) Shark Bay has the largest sea grass beds in the world, and a huge population of dugongs, which are a threatened species. Also lots and lots of sharks. Hence the name Shark Bay. But most significantly for me, Shark Bay is one of the only places in the world where there are stromatolites growing. As a nature nerd, this was something I HAD to see on my Aussie trip. So off we went!
We arrived at Hamelin Pool around 12:30, and it was HOT. I'm talking well over 40C, with no humidity, no clouds, and no trees for shade. Boy am I glad our car was air-conditioned! We checked in with the lady at the little souvenir store (there was a sign asking all visitors to report there before going out walking, for their own safety)... she advised us that it was too hot to do the entire walk (no kidding) and suggested a couple of short walks instead. We went to visit the shell quarry, which was cool. The whole bay is hypersaline, so very few critters can survive in the water. However there's one species of clam that can, and it does, in the zillions. The entire beach front was made of tiny coquina shells! Back from the beach itself, in the dunes made of shells, there's a quarry where blocks of solidified shells used to be cut and used for buildings. It was nifty but it was so hot we only stayed there briefly.
After a short drive, we finally arrived at the stromatolite pool. It's hard to describe - likely it's easier for you to go and take a look at the pics in my "Western Australia - Part Two" album. Basically stromatolites are piles of bacteria that live together as a colony, and they produce oxygen. So we walked out onto this boardwalk over a shallow, salty bay, full of these blobs of bacteria and mud. Why are these so cool/significant? Well, scientists are pretty sure that the stromatolites represent how life started on earth over three billion years ago. And since the stromatolites produce oxygen as a waste product, they were the organisms originally responsible for changing earth's atmosphere into something that the rest of us could all breathe. So in a very real way, without the stromatolites, no other forms of life as we know it would have evolved.
See why I had to see 'em? :-)
The heat was just incredible. It wasn't too bad when we were on the boardwalk over the water, but when we got back onto the beach, it hit us like a wall. We high-tailed it back to the car and the air conditioning. In fact, we skipped eating lunch and just headed for Monkey Mia, the end of our travels for the day. This turned out to be another hour and a half down the scrub-and-nothing-else road. Every time we crested a hill, we kept expecting to see the resort, and it felt like it took forever for us to get there. I will no longer complain about the monotony of driving through Algonquin Park's back roads... the scenery in Shark Bay was just so empty it was mind-numbing!
Monkey Mia is a little resort literally in the middle of nowhere, situated on a bay of brilliant turquoise water with red hills and - yes - scrub, all around. Our tour book called it a "slice of paradise" and I would agree. I'm glad we were there in the slow season though! The resort has a hotel, a hostel, cottages, and a trailer park - so there were lots of options for accommodations. We stayed in the hostel. Basically once we had our keys and had moved our stuff into the room, we crashed and took a nap. It was glorious. Then we threw on our swimsuits and hit the beach in the late afternoon. This too was glorious. We emerged from the water feeling much better. We decided on the spot that we would spend our entire time at Monkey Mia (a) in our bathing suits and (b) without our shoes.
We enjoyed dinner at the "Monkey Bar", the much less expensive of the two restaurants at the resort. And afterwards we took a loooooong walk down the beach. It was so cool! The water was very shallow and crystal clear, and we saw rays, skates, and lots of other fish. We also surprised a green sea turtle, who was poking around near the shore. It kept sticking its head up out of the water and eyeing us from about 20 feet offshore. When it realized we were staring back, it slapped its flippers on the water and dove under. We couldn't wait to go snorkeling the next day.
The real reason we'd come to Monkey Mia was for the dolphins. This place is famous for its wild dolphins that come right in to shore every morning in order to get fed. The dolphins have been coming to the beach at Monkey Mia for over 30 years,, every morning, without fail. How crazy is that? It used to be that members of the public were allowed right into the water to interact with the dolphins, but it was discovered about 15 years ago that this practice was causing the dolphins a lot of harm. It was kinda the equivalent of feeding ducks or seagulls all your scraps - the dolphins were no longer wild, they no longer cared for their young, and - worst of all - they contracted diseases from us humans! So nowadays the dolphin interaction program is very strictly run by the park rangers, and things are much better.
We arrived at the beach around 7:30 in the morning. The dolphins were already there, along with quite a few people. More people arrived steadily up until around 8am. The dolphins just cruised through the shallows, occasionally rolling over to eye us and see if we had any fish. We had to stay right out of the water until the park rangers allowed us in, and even then, we had to stay in a straight line and only go in as far as our ankles. While the dolphins might have been a little wary of us, they sure knew who had the fish! The rangers were in water up to their knees and the dolphins would go right up to them and bump them with their beaks! The rangers gave a good talk about the history of the dolphin feeding program and dolphin biology. They apparently only feed female dolphins (the males can be really aggressive), and even then, they only feed certain ones. The dolphins can come into the beach up to three times each morning, but no food is offered after that. And the rangers only give the dolphins about 1/3rd of their daily intake in the public feedings; the animals are expected to find the rest on their own. This helps to keep them wild and ensures that the mothers will teach their calves how to hunt.
Needless to say, I snapped lots of great photos!
Oh, and the pelicans! Australian white pelicans are the largest pelicans in the world (for those of you who have seen the brown pelicans in South Carolina with me, these birds are TWICE the size!). The pelicans at Monkey Mia aren't stupid and know all about the dolphin feeding thing. Understand that these birds' beaks are almost as long as my arm - they can be a pretty serious nuisance! So when the dolphins are getting fed, two volunteers from the park are on pelican patrol - as in, they have another bucket of fish that they entice the pelicans with, to get them away from the dolphins and the people. It was crazy!
Anyway. We grabbed breakfast once the dolphins had swum off, then headed to the dive shop to rent some snorkel gear for the day. The guy at the shop was dubious - he said that the conditions weren't all that good for snorkeling (the wind had really picked up). We told him we had no choice, we were signed into a sailing cruise in the afternoon and had to leave the next day. His response - "Girls, you've gotta learn to relax!" It was like he was amazed we'd try to cram so much in! Ha ha! Well we rented the equipment anyway and tried snorkeling over the seagrass beds. And the guy was right - with the wind and everything, lots of sand was being kicked up off the sea bottom and visibility was terrible. But we saw a few things and it was a good practice session, so no worries!
It really was a jam-packed day. We came in from snorkeling (more than glad that we were wearing our rashies to protect us from the sun), dried off, took a nap in the shade, ate lunch, and headed off to the jetty to get on the catamaran. We spent the entire afternoon on the boat, cruising around Shark Bay. It was great. Jen and I got to help winch the main sail into place. We sailed waaaay out into the bay and saw dugongs, sea turtles, and huge shoals of fish. In fact, the tour operators were thrilled with all the wildlife we spotted - apparently we were sailing on the best day they'd had in weeks!
The wind out on the bay was fierce, and our ship was FAST. The catamaran we were on had once been a racing boat, so at a couple of points the crew turned it into the wind and let it RUN. It was like flying. I'd never been on a sailboat of any type before, and it was great. There was netting in between the hulls of the ship, and for a good portion of the way back, Jen and I laid down in the rigging on our bellies. This felt somewhat like flying, skimming just over the surface of the water - except for the parts where the boat hit particularly big waves and we got drenched. Ha ha!
We returned to shore for about an hour, so Jen and I grabbed some ice cream, wrote postcards, and chilled out in the shade. Then it was back onto the boat for the sunset cruise. Once again, the temperature drop as the sun went down was astounding. I'm glad I took my fleece! There were only four other guests on the boat with us for the evening cruise, and it was the same crew as for the afternoon excursion. So once again Jen and I helped hoist the sail. Coolness. We also helped stow it at the end of the cruise. The waves were huge in the evening so it was a wild, bouncy ride, but lots of fun.
Back to shore again, and another hour-and-a-bit break - so we grabbed dinner at last. Hot food felt great after so much time on the water! Then, as the sun was almost set, we headed out to the "Awe-stronomy" tour - again with the same guys who had run the boat tours for us earlier in the day! (They knew us by name at this point.) Our main goal with the astronomy session was to find the Southern Cross constellation. I mean, really. It would be completely ridiculous for us to come back from this trip without knowing how to find Australia's most famous constellation! The guy running the tour had a fantastic green laser (argon?), which he could point at a star and we could follow the beam all the way. I gotta get me one of those - although I understand that they are very expensive and banned in the US. The laser is apparently powerful enough to truly blind an airplane pilot, if pointed at a plane flying overhead. Crazy.
So yeah, suffice it to say that by the time the astronomy session was over at 10:30pm, we'd had a very, very full day. The temperature had dropped nicely so our hostel room was nice and cool for sleeping in, which was a nice break. And sleep we did!
Back to School
Boy am I tired.
I spent today at Jen's new school, helping her set up her new classroom. She's taken a six-month contract to teach 5/6 French Immersion - and the first day of school is tomorrow! Now, we didn't know that this was going to happen when we'd set up our WA travel plans - so we just got back from our trip on Friday, and this past Monday was a public holiday because of Australia Day. This meant that today was the ONLY day she had to put her room together, meet with her grade partners, and all that fun stuff. I know that any teachers reading this will likely be shuddering... imagine walking into a brand new school, with a completely different curriculum and rules and everything, and having only one day to get everything organized before the kiddies come. Yikes.
The reality was that Jen had to spend most of the day in meetings, which meant I was left alone in her room to tidy up. It was more than a little strange, trying to organize a classroom for someone else. The teacher who had the room before Jen was, unsurprisingly, a packrat (why do only the messy teachers decide to retire/leave the school?), and there was a ton of old stuff that needed to be tossed. The chairs we had were primary chairs, and the desks were junior desks. So all the chairs had to be swapped out. I cleaned out and dusted every shelf in the place (the room was filthy), organized the books and put up a few posters. I think that what was strangest about the whole experience was that it's JANUARY. We've been seeing "back-to-school" commercials on TV for the last couple of weeks and it's been just so unreal. Huh. But the reality is the kids come tomorrow and Jen will be hitting the ground running. Oh, and trampolining starts again tomorrow night. Needless to say, Jen's gonna be one tired puppy by the end of the week.
As tiring and grubby as my day was, I'm quite sure that Jen's was worse. Each time she came back into the classroom, she had a little more of that "deer in the headlights" look. She's not the only teacher new to the school, but she does appear to be the only new teacher with any teaching experience. I can still empathize with her - I know how overwhelming starting new is. I mean, come on. First she came back from the morning meeting with, of all things, a mandala to colour in (part of a big staff cooperative activity) - and it's due Friday. Then she came back with arms piled high with rules, regulations, procedures, etc. After a meeting with her grade partners she informed me that she was now going to be teaching T-ball (every teacher in the school teaches/coaches a sport; there is no gym class - instead, there is "sport" once a week for everyone at the same time) and is the French rep for the 5/6 teachers. Oh, and she has a "new teacher checklist" that has to be completed by the end of the first term and handed in to the VP. On top of all this, there's no set curriculum in Australia The individual schools decide what they're going to teach to each grade, there are no exemplars to work from, no state-approved rubrics, nothing. Good grief. I know she'll be just fine.
Jen's school is pretty cool. Like most of the schools here, it's built around a series of courtyards. This particular school is very old (established in the late 1800's) and so the original buildings of the complex are really beautiful. The library has vaulted ceilings with all these nifty details! True to form, however, Jen's classroom is not located in the old part of the school. She's in a portable. However I'd like to point out that if we had portables like this in Canada, most teachers wouldn't ever teach in a true building again! Her classroom is attached to her teaching partner's classroom through two adjoining conference rooms. One is filled with 8 NEW computers (and 4 printers, including a colour laser printer!); the other is the grade 5/6 literacy room and conference room. At the end of the portable block is a set of bathrooms, so the kids (and the staff!) don't have to trek all the way in to the main school for that issue. She's got a set of sinks installed in the outside wall of the portable. Oh, and all the hooks for the kids' coats etc. are also located outside, under the eaves of the portable. Her classroom has two walls of huge beautiful windows and, best of all, an energy-efficient air conditioner!
The rest of the school has other neat bits too. Most Australian schools, including this one, don't have gymnasiums. In fact, it's quite common for schools here to not even have an assembly hall - all the assemblies happen outside! This school is located in an older part of the city where land is at a premium, so there is unfortunately no grass for the kids to play on. Instead, all of the paved courtyard at the centre of the building complex is paved, and painted with the lines for various games. It's a very efficient setup, with different parts of the yard demarcated for different grades, so it's easy to tell if the kids are in the right place. And best of all, there's a WICKED COOL creative playground - shielded from the sun by a huge canvas sheet. Tucked around behind one of the buildings is a Secret Garden, which is only for the Preps (Kindergartners) and Year Ones. This is a series of funky-shaped sandboxes, big trees, and greenery - again, all shaded from the sun. It's a neat place. I must admit I'm envious of Jen for having the opportunity to work there. Unfortunately, I won't be around long enough or consistently enough to be able to be a helpful volunteer - I have enough to do in the next few weeks with getting us ready for our next big trek to the Great Barrier Reef at the end of February. Ah well! At least I got to see it today!
We accidentally caught the wrong tram on the way back home tonight, and took a rather scenic route through a part of Melbourne that neither of us had seen before. I sent Jen to our room to take a nap while I cooked dinner, and then we both vegged out and watched an hour of Simpsons before even considering doing any computer work. So needless to say it's now getting rather late, and there's no way I'm gonna do any more blogging tonight. So the next installment of our WA adventures will have to wait until tomorrow.
I spent today at Jen's new school, helping her set up her new classroom. She's taken a six-month contract to teach 5/6 French Immersion - and the first day of school is tomorrow! Now, we didn't know that this was going to happen when we'd set up our WA travel plans - so we just got back from our trip on Friday, and this past Monday was a public holiday because of Australia Day. This meant that today was the ONLY day she had to put her room together, meet with her grade partners, and all that fun stuff. I know that any teachers reading this will likely be shuddering... imagine walking into a brand new school, with a completely different curriculum and rules and everything, and having only one day to get everything organized before the kiddies come. Yikes.
The reality was that Jen had to spend most of the day in meetings, which meant I was left alone in her room to tidy up. It was more than a little strange, trying to organize a classroom for someone else. The teacher who had the room before Jen was, unsurprisingly, a packrat (why do only the messy teachers decide to retire/leave the school?), and there was a ton of old stuff that needed to be tossed. The chairs we had were primary chairs, and the desks were junior desks. So all the chairs had to be swapped out. I cleaned out and dusted every shelf in the place (the room was filthy), organized the books and put up a few posters. I think that what was strangest about the whole experience was that it's JANUARY. We've been seeing "back-to-school" commercials on TV for the last couple of weeks and it's been just so unreal. Huh. But the reality is the kids come tomorrow and Jen will be hitting the ground running. Oh, and trampolining starts again tomorrow night. Needless to say, Jen's gonna be one tired puppy by the end of the week.
As tiring and grubby as my day was, I'm quite sure that Jen's was worse. Each time she came back into the classroom, she had a little more of that "deer in the headlights" look. She's not the only teacher new to the school, but she does appear to be the only new teacher with any teaching experience. I can still empathize with her - I know how overwhelming starting new is. I mean, come on. First she came back from the morning meeting with, of all things, a mandala to colour in (part of a big staff cooperative activity) - and it's due Friday. Then she came back with arms piled high with rules, regulations, procedures, etc. After a meeting with her grade partners she informed me that she was now going to be teaching T-ball (every teacher in the school teaches/coaches a sport; there is no gym class - instead, there is "sport" once a week for everyone at the same time) and is the French rep for the 5/6 teachers. Oh, and she has a "new teacher checklist" that has to be completed by the end of the first term and handed in to the VP. On top of all this, there's no set curriculum in Australia The individual schools decide what they're going to teach to each grade, there are no exemplars to work from, no state-approved rubrics, nothing. Good grief. I know she'll be just fine.
Jen's school is pretty cool. Like most of the schools here, it's built around a series of courtyards. This particular school is very old (established in the late 1800's) and so the original buildings of the complex are really beautiful. The library has vaulted ceilings with all these nifty details! True to form, however, Jen's classroom is not located in the old part of the school. She's in a portable. However I'd like to point out that if we had portables like this in Canada, most teachers wouldn't ever teach in a true building again! Her classroom is attached to her teaching partner's classroom through two adjoining conference rooms. One is filled with 8 NEW computers (and 4 printers, including a colour laser printer!); the other is the grade 5/6 literacy room and conference room. At the end of the portable block is a set of bathrooms, so the kids (and the staff!) don't have to trek all the way in to the main school for that issue. She's got a set of sinks installed in the outside wall of the portable. Oh, and all the hooks for the kids' coats etc. are also located outside, under the eaves of the portable. Her classroom has two walls of huge beautiful windows and, best of all, an energy-efficient air conditioner!
The rest of the school has other neat bits too. Most Australian schools, including this one, don't have gymnasiums. In fact, it's quite common for schools here to not even have an assembly hall - all the assemblies happen outside! This school is located in an older part of the city where land is at a premium, so there is unfortunately no grass for the kids to play on. Instead, all of the paved courtyard at the centre of the building complex is paved, and painted with the lines for various games. It's a very efficient setup, with different parts of the yard demarcated for different grades, so it's easy to tell if the kids are in the right place. And best of all, there's a WICKED COOL creative playground - shielded from the sun by a huge canvas sheet. Tucked around behind one of the buildings is a Secret Garden, which is only for the Preps (Kindergartners) and Year Ones. This is a series of funky-shaped sandboxes, big trees, and greenery - again, all shaded from the sun. It's a neat place. I must admit I'm envious of Jen for having the opportunity to work there. Unfortunately, I won't be around long enough or consistently enough to be able to be a helpful volunteer - I have enough to do in the next few weeks with getting us ready for our next big trek to the Great Barrier Reef at the end of February. Ah well! At least I got to see it today!
We accidentally caught the wrong tram on the way back home tonight, and took a rather scenic route through a part of Melbourne that neither of us had seen before. I sent Jen to our room to take a nap while I cooked dinner, and then we both vegged out and watched an hour of Simpsons before even considering doing any computer work. So needless to say it's now getting rather late, and there's no way I'm gonna do any more blogging tonight. So the next installment of our WA adventures will have to wait until tomorrow.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Our WA Trip - Part Four - The Pinnacles, the Pink Lake, and our Brush With Royalty
And I'm back. Jen and I got sucked into watching the men's final at the Australian Open Tennis tournament on TV last night, so I never quite made it back to my computer yesterday as originally planned. Not that either of us are tennis fans or anything... but somehow, we had to watch this! The tournament was taking place right here in Melbourne and we could've gotten grounds tickets (which, like the grounds tickets for the Melbourne Cup, would have allowed us to mingle with a huge drunken mob and see the game on a Jumbotron) - but we were quite happy to stay home and enjoy our living room, large screen TV, and comfy couches. What a rough life. :-)
So. Back to the WA story. On January 12th we headed north out of Perth along the Great Coastal Highway (there seem to be a lot of things in this country with the title "Great" in front of them), heading to Cervantes and the Pinnacles Desert. We stopped briefly back at Hillary's Boat Harbour to buy rashie shirts. I really, really didn't want to repeat the back-frying experience I had when I went snorkeling in the Florida Keys. So hey, if these shirts would help, so be it! I had to buy a guy's shirt in the end 'cause the girls shirts don't fit me, but I love mine! Methinks it's gonna become part of my canoeing attire.
At first, as we drove out of Perth, we found ourselves in more of the rolling farmland that has become so familiar to us. In fact, I remember commenting at one point that it seemed somehow unfair that we'd endured the trip all the way across the continent to find landscape that looked pretty much exactly like what we find outside of Melbourne! The big difference was that the land was really, really dry. I mean, in Victoria at least there was some green in the fields, if only a little. In Western Australia, the only green was in the leaves of the gum trees. There were no green fields at all. How the farmers manage to grow anything out of that parched ground is completely beyond me. There's a good shot of what much of the farmland looked like in my album "Western Australia - Part Two" - the one with Jen standing beside the statue of Prince Leonard. Every time we thought the landscape couldn't get any drier, it somehow did!
Getting a bit ahead of myself. The whole royal visit comes a little later in this narrative. We soon left the farmland behind and exchanged it for a scenery made up completely of low, scrubby bushes. It was cool because there were all these low, rolling hills, so every time we crested a hill we could see for miles and miles in every direction. We started out fairly far away from the ocean, but as we traveled north, we kept getting closer, until at times we could see the sea from the tops of the hills. Eventually we took a left turn off the highway and passed a wind farm and headed for the coast. There were all these ENORMOUS sand dunes as we neared the water; they were made of white, white sand, as opposed to the red dirt of the surrounding land. The dunes were likely several stories tall, and in places overtaking the vegetation. What a strange land!
The town of Cervantes itself is teeny tiny. There was a gas station, a general store, a pub, the hostel, and a few houses, and that was about it. So it wasn't exactly hard to find our way to the hostel. We checked in, dumped our stuff in our room, and headed to the general store to buy some breakfast and lunch foods. GOOD GODS. You could tell we were away from the city - the prices were astronomical! But it's not like we had a lot of choice (there being a grand total of one store and all), so we shut our eyes, gritted our teeth and spent $25 on food which should have cost us $10. Then after a quick lunch back at the hostel, we were off to Nambung National Park and the Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles Desert is... eerie. It's made up of thousands of limestone pillars, sticking up out of the sand, at the edge of the sea. Ha! When I first learned about the Pinnacles, I thought that we would be heading to a point in the Outback, away from the ocean. So I was more than a little surprised to discover that the Pinnacles were almost literally on the beach. Turns out that the Pinnacles were formed from ancient sand dunes, as lime-rich sea shells from long ago were compressed and tuned to stone. I found a nifty 3D website which lets you do a bit of a tour through the Pinnacles, so check it out: http://panoramas.dk/fullscreen5/f52-australia-pinnacles.html. When we were there in the afternoon, the wind was howling through the desert and the sand was being kicked up like there'd be no tomorrow. I'm glad we were both wearing capris, because the force of the sand being hurled against my legs was... uncomfortable... to say the least. It basically felt like we were being sandblasted.Now I understand a bit better about the danger of sandstorms. I later found sand everywhere imaginable, including inside my pockets and in the zipper of my pants. Good grief.
On the other hand, I'm really, really glad it wasn't hot. Jen and I wandered around the Pinnacles formation for at least a couple of hours, admiring the strangeness of the landscape and wondering whether or not any movies had ever been filmed here. The place would sure be a good backdrop for an alien planet! Eventually though we knew we'd have to leave and head back to town to find some dinner. We stopped briefly along the way at Kangaroo Point, to walk along the beach. So I can now officially say I've dipped my toes in all of the world's oceans, since the west coast of Australia is on the Indian Ocean. Cool, huh?
We ate dinner at a little cafe that was right next to the general store. Although it was empty when we arrived, it filled quickly with a mix of tourists and locals, and we were glad we'd arrived when we did. We both ate way too much for dinner (the ice cream did us in), so we afterwards we headed to the main beach in Cervantes to walk it off. I swear Jen is a dirt magnet. Or at least, her favourite blue shirt sure is! While we were finishing off the ice cream, she managed to dribble chocolate on her shirt. Again. (This shirt apparently can't remain clean for more than about 5 minutes after she puts it on. Of course the fact that there was maybe a grand total of 2cms of stick for her to hold onto on her ice cream didn't help. Poor Jen.)
We drove back out to the Pinnacles to watch the sun set in the desert. We weren't disappointed. Although it wasn't the most spectacular sunset colour-wise, the newest crescent moon was high in the sky and I got some cool pics as the sun finally went down. The place was even more eerie in the dusk, as all the colours changed and became more muted. There were also far fewer people out there with us, which was nice.
Jen drove us SLOOOOOWLY back to Cervantes, in the dark, as we were afraid of hitting wildlife. This is a serious danger throughout Australia. But the only wildlife we saw was a fox and a rabbit - hardly local! We had a few issues when we got back to the hostel. Both of us badly needed a shower, as we were completely covered in a fine layer of sand and grit. (Note to self - sunscreen and blowing sand is a BAD combination.) However the hostel's shower stalls left a lot to be desired. Jen got in under the water first, and was going along just fine, until I stepped into the stall next door and turned the water on. That cut off the hot water to her stall, and the screaming...! Ha ha! It's not like I had it easy, either... the shower head in my stall was on a flexible arm, that would not stay put in a suitable position to get anything above my shoulders wet. I did a lot of ducking. And then, just to make life more complicated, the light in the bathroom was apparently on a motion sensor - aimed at the sinks, not the shower stalls - so halfway through our showers the lights went out and it was very, very dark. Ah well. We survived the ordeal in the end, and it sure felt good to crawl into bed!
The next morning, I woke up to find Jen sleeping on an upper bunk. When we'd gone to bed the night before, she had been on the other lower bunk. What the...? Apparently, not long after she'd closed her eyes to go to sleep, she'd rolled over and realized that there were little bugs crawling all over her pillow! YUCK! So she'd hightailed it outta there and slept on the top bunk for the rest of the night. We were not impressed with the hostel's owners - when Jen went to complain about the bugs, the grand sum total of their reaction was "oh". Harrumph. We have no idea what the bugs were, but I started worrying, for the first time, about bed bugs. Icky!
Anyhow. Time to continue northward. We had to gas up the car. So for those of you in Canada who may be complaining about fuel prices, let me tell you - gas in rural Western Australia was sitting at $1.67/litre. OUCH! Cost us almost $60 to fill up the tank on our itty bitty compact car. We only had another 2 hours or so to drive to get to our next destination, Geraldton. This is a fair-sized town about 450kms north of Perth, and the centre of the rock lobster fishery in Western Australia. The hostel in Geraldton was right on the beach, in an old, rickety, 2-storey building. We got there just after the check-in desk closed for the afternoon, but we had reservations and it'd be open again at 4pm. So we took our lunch stuff down to the beach and enjoyed munching our sandwiches and watching the waves roll in, then we got back in the car and headed off on the day's adventures, which we figured would involve another couple of hours' driving around the Geraldton area.
When we were researching for our Western Australia trip, Jen had come across a reference to Prince Leonard of Hutt River, a sheep station owner who seceded from Australia in 1970 and formed his own country. This struck us as so odd that we decided to try and find Hutt River. Now, it's not like there are signposts in this part of WA pointing the way to "Australia's Second-Largest Country", and the directions in Lonely Planet were pretty crummy. So we ended up on this lonely highway on our way to Port Gregory, where Jen had read that there was a pink lake. Random piece of trivia - the reason the lake is pink is because it is full of some microorganism that produces beta-carotene by the ton. There is an extraction facility at Port Gregory, and the 'mined' beta-carotene sells for something crazy like $24,000/kg!
No, I'm not kidding. It really was a pink lake! I'm talking bubble-gum, Spark pink. How cool is that? It is a salt lake and we could see the crust of salt all around the edges - if we were back in Canada, I would've sworn that there was ice all around the edges of the lake. We pulled the car over and got out to take a closer look. I know some of you have already heard about the lake-biting incident. So here goes. The edge of the salt crust/lake LOOKED completely solid. Not so much! Jen took a step down onto it, so I could snap a picture of her on the lake, and immediately sank right through up to her knees in putrid smelly mud! I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe or move, let alone help Jen. She eventually worked her way free and made it back to solid ground, but her legs and sandals were a mess. I went back to the car and got one of our water bottles and a bandanna and we cleaned her off as best we could - and that's when we discovered that Jen had actually cut herself on the salt crust as she sank. It was just a scrape, but it did bleed - and that leads us back to the fact that this has gotta be the first time I've ever heard of someone getting BITTEN by a lake! Ha ha ha!
(Yes, Jen is still talking to me.)
We got back into the car and I drove the rest of the way to Port Gregory, which was really just around the corner, in order to find a place to finish cleaning Jen up. We ended up back down at the beach, where Jen waded into the ocean - wincing as her scrapes hit the salt water. We stopped at the general store to buy a much-deserved ice cream, and to get directions to Hutt River from the locals, and then we were off again, back on track for our original adventure!
The Principality of Hutt River turned out to be WAAAAY down a nice, red-dirt road (all the dirt here is red, it's crazy) - about 30kms down. Let me fill you in a bit about Hutt River. Back in 1970, the owner of this sheep station, Leonard Casley, got fed up with the Australian government over wheat quotas. So he seceded from the country. I don't know what legal loophole he found, but he did, and he is legally his own country. Apparently the Western Australian government threatened to come in with tanks, and he pointed out that they couldn't do that if he was still a part of Australia, and if they were acknowledging that he was a separate country then they couldn't invade him anyway 'cause he'd haul them into the UN, and they backed down!
So yeah. Now Hutt River is its own little country - larger than the Vatican, smaller than Lichtenstein, with about 20,000 head of sheep and 22 permanent residents. It's got its own post office, government building, church, and museum. Prince Leonard stamped our passports with the appropriate entry and exit visas (yes, these are legit) and showed us around. He's made up his own money, his own stamps, and his own constitution. It was just so surreal I can't even put it into words. His wife, Princess Shirley, asked us if we'd like a cup of tea. They do get tourists/visitors regularly, so they have a tea shop. We declined the offer (it was blazingly hot) but did admire Prince Leonard's collection of awards and medals - some of which are exceedingly rare and have only been given out to a very, very few people.
I should point out that the man has a PhD in physics and is absolutely brilliant. He's currently taking the federal government to court over who owns the land in WA. Back when Perth was established, the British government only proclaimed the area around Perth for England - not the rest of the state. In fact, apparently nobody's claimed the rest of the state - officially. So Prince Leonard recently proclaimed it for Hutt River. Not sure where this is going, but if he wins the court battle, he will suddenly be one very, VERY rich man - Western Australia has HUGE deposits of minerals and precious metals. Anyway, at the end of our visit we got to shake hands with royalty - and there are pictures on facebook to prove it!
What a strange, strange day. It was a long drive back to Geraldton, and we got there just in time to dive into the local grocery store and snatch dinner at the Thai restaurant underneath the hostel. I'm astounded at how fast the temperature changes here - when we left Hutt River, it was crazy hot and we were more than glad to have an air conditioned car. When we stepped out of the car in Geraldton, I was wishing I had my sweater!
The next day we would be heading to Shark Bay, a place I've wanted to see for a long time. And which I will tell you about - tomorrow!
So. Back to the WA story. On January 12th we headed north out of Perth along the Great Coastal Highway (there seem to be a lot of things in this country with the title "Great" in front of them), heading to Cervantes and the Pinnacles Desert. We stopped briefly back at Hillary's Boat Harbour to buy rashie shirts. I really, really didn't want to repeat the back-frying experience I had when I went snorkeling in the Florida Keys. So hey, if these shirts would help, so be it! I had to buy a guy's shirt in the end 'cause the girls shirts don't fit me, but I love mine! Methinks it's gonna become part of my canoeing attire.
At first, as we drove out of Perth, we found ourselves in more of the rolling farmland that has become so familiar to us. In fact, I remember commenting at one point that it seemed somehow unfair that we'd endured the trip all the way across the continent to find landscape that looked pretty much exactly like what we find outside of Melbourne! The big difference was that the land was really, really dry. I mean, in Victoria at least there was some green in the fields, if only a little. In Western Australia, the only green was in the leaves of the gum trees. There were no green fields at all. How the farmers manage to grow anything out of that parched ground is completely beyond me. There's a good shot of what much of the farmland looked like in my album "Western Australia - Part Two" - the one with Jen standing beside the statue of Prince Leonard. Every time we thought the landscape couldn't get any drier, it somehow did!
Getting a bit ahead of myself. The whole royal visit comes a little later in this narrative. We soon left the farmland behind and exchanged it for a scenery made up completely of low, scrubby bushes. It was cool because there were all these low, rolling hills, so every time we crested a hill we could see for miles and miles in every direction. We started out fairly far away from the ocean, but as we traveled north, we kept getting closer, until at times we could see the sea from the tops of the hills. Eventually we took a left turn off the highway and passed a wind farm and headed for the coast. There were all these ENORMOUS sand dunes as we neared the water; they were made of white, white sand, as opposed to the red dirt of the surrounding land. The dunes were likely several stories tall, and in places overtaking the vegetation. What a strange land!
The town of Cervantes itself is teeny tiny. There was a gas station, a general store, a pub, the hostel, and a few houses, and that was about it. So it wasn't exactly hard to find our way to the hostel. We checked in, dumped our stuff in our room, and headed to the general store to buy some breakfast and lunch foods. GOOD GODS. You could tell we were away from the city - the prices were astronomical! But it's not like we had a lot of choice (there being a grand total of one store and all), so we shut our eyes, gritted our teeth and spent $25 on food which should have cost us $10. Then after a quick lunch back at the hostel, we were off to Nambung National Park and the Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles Desert is... eerie. It's made up of thousands of limestone pillars, sticking up out of the sand, at the edge of the sea. Ha! When I first learned about the Pinnacles, I thought that we would be heading to a point in the Outback, away from the ocean. So I was more than a little surprised to discover that the Pinnacles were almost literally on the beach. Turns out that the Pinnacles were formed from ancient sand dunes, as lime-rich sea shells from long ago were compressed and tuned to stone. I found a nifty 3D website which lets you do a bit of a tour through the Pinnacles, so check it out: http://panoramas.dk/fullscreen5/f52-australia-pinnacles.html. When we were there in the afternoon, the wind was howling through the desert and the sand was being kicked up like there'd be no tomorrow. I'm glad we were both wearing capris, because the force of the sand being hurled against my legs was... uncomfortable... to say the least. It basically felt like we were being sandblasted.Now I understand a bit better about the danger of sandstorms. I later found sand everywhere imaginable, including inside my pockets and in the zipper of my pants. Good grief.
On the other hand, I'm really, really glad it wasn't hot. Jen and I wandered around the Pinnacles formation for at least a couple of hours, admiring the strangeness of the landscape and wondering whether or not any movies had ever been filmed here. The place would sure be a good backdrop for an alien planet! Eventually though we knew we'd have to leave and head back to town to find some dinner. We stopped briefly along the way at Kangaroo Point, to walk along the beach. So I can now officially say I've dipped my toes in all of the world's oceans, since the west coast of Australia is on the Indian Ocean. Cool, huh?
We ate dinner at a little cafe that was right next to the general store. Although it was empty when we arrived, it filled quickly with a mix of tourists and locals, and we were glad we'd arrived when we did. We both ate way too much for dinner (the ice cream did us in), so we afterwards we headed to the main beach in Cervantes to walk it off. I swear Jen is a dirt magnet. Or at least, her favourite blue shirt sure is! While we were finishing off the ice cream, she managed to dribble chocolate on her shirt. Again. (This shirt apparently can't remain clean for more than about 5 minutes after she puts it on. Of course the fact that there was maybe a grand total of 2cms of stick for her to hold onto on her ice cream didn't help. Poor Jen.)
We drove back out to the Pinnacles to watch the sun set in the desert. We weren't disappointed. Although it wasn't the most spectacular sunset colour-wise, the newest crescent moon was high in the sky and I got some cool pics as the sun finally went down. The place was even more eerie in the dusk, as all the colours changed and became more muted. There were also far fewer people out there with us, which was nice.
Jen drove us SLOOOOOWLY back to Cervantes, in the dark, as we were afraid of hitting wildlife. This is a serious danger throughout Australia. But the only wildlife we saw was a fox and a rabbit - hardly local! We had a few issues when we got back to the hostel. Both of us badly needed a shower, as we were completely covered in a fine layer of sand and grit. (Note to self - sunscreen and blowing sand is a BAD combination.) However the hostel's shower stalls left a lot to be desired. Jen got in under the water first, and was going along just fine, until I stepped into the stall next door and turned the water on. That cut off the hot water to her stall, and the screaming...! Ha ha! It's not like I had it easy, either... the shower head in my stall was on a flexible arm, that would not stay put in a suitable position to get anything above my shoulders wet. I did a lot of ducking. And then, just to make life more complicated, the light in the bathroom was apparently on a motion sensor - aimed at the sinks, not the shower stalls - so halfway through our showers the lights went out and it was very, very dark. Ah well. We survived the ordeal in the end, and it sure felt good to crawl into bed!
The next morning, I woke up to find Jen sleeping on an upper bunk. When we'd gone to bed the night before, she had been on the other lower bunk. What the...? Apparently, not long after she'd closed her eyes to go to sleep, she'd rolled over and realized that there were little bugs crawling all over her pillow! YUCK! So she'd hightailed it outta there and slept on the top bunk for the rest of the night. We were not impressed with the hostel's owners - when Jen went to complain about the bugs, the grand sum total of their reaction was "oh". Harrumph. We have no idea what the bugs were, but I started worrying, for the first time, about bed bugs. Icky!
Anyhow. Time to continue northward. We had to gas up the car. So for those of you in Canada who may be complaining about fuel prices, let me tell you - gas in rural Western Australia was sitting at $1.67/litre. OUCH! Cost us almost $60 to fill up the tank on our itty bitty compact car. We only had another 2 hours or so to drive to get to our next destination, Geraldton. This is a fair-sized town about 450kms north of Perth, and the centre of the rock lobster fishery in Western Australia. The hostel in Geraldton was right on the beach, in an old, rickety, 2-storey building. We got there just after the check-in desk closed for the afternoon, but we had reservations and it'd be open again at 4pm. So we took our lunch stuff down to the beach and enjoyed munching our sandwiches and watching the waves roll in, then we got back in the car and headed off on the day's adventures, which we figured would involve another couple of hours' driving around the Geraldton area.
When we were researching for our Western Australia trip, Jen had come across a reference to Prince Leonard of Hutt River, a sheep station owner who seceded from Australia in 1970 and formed his own country. This struck us as so odd that we decided to try and find Hutt River. Now, it's not like there are signposts in this part of WA pointing the way to "Australia's Second-Largest Country", and the directions in Lonely Planet were pretty crummy. So we ended up on this lonely highway on our way to Port Gregory, where Jen had read that there was a pink lake. Random piece of trivia - the reason the lake is pink is because it is full of some microorganism that produces beta-carotene by the ton. There is an extraction facility at Port Gregory, and the 'mined' beta-carotene sells for something crazy like $24,000/kg!
No, I'm not kidding. It really was a pink lake! I'm talking bubble-gum, Spark pink. How cool is that? It is a salt lake and we could see the crust of salt all around the edges - if we were back in Canada, I would've sworn that there was ice all around the edges of the lake. We pulled the car over and got out to take a closer look. I know some of you have already heard about the lake-biting incident. So here goes. The edge of the salt crust/lake LOOKED completely solid. Not so much! Jen took a step down onto it, so I could snap a picture of her on the lake, and immediately sank right through up to her knees in putrid smelly mud! I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe or move, let alone help Jen. She eventually worked her way free and made it back to solid ground, but her legs and sandals were a mess. I went back to the car and got one of our water bottles and a bandanna and we cleaned her off as best we could - and that's when we discovered that Jen had actually cut herself on the salt crust as she sank. It was just a scrape, but it did bleed - and that leads us back to the fact that this has gotta be the first time I've ever heard of someone getting BITTEN by a lake! Ha ha ha!
(Yes, Jen is still talking to me.)
We got back into the car and I drove the rest of the way to Port Gregory, which was really just around the corner, in order to find a place to finish cleaning Jen up. We ended up back down at the beach, where Jen waded into the ocean - wincing as her scrapes hit the salt water. We stopped at the general store to buy a much-deserved ice cream, and to get directions to Hutt River from the locals, and then we were off again, back on track for our original adventure!
The Principality of Hutt River turned out to be WAAAAY down a nice, red-dirt road (all the dirt here is red, it's crazy) - about 30kms down. Let me fill you in a bit about Hutt River. Back in 1970, the owner of this sheep station, Leonard Casley, got fed up with the Australian government over wheat quotas. So he seceded from the country. I don't know what legal loophole he found, but he did, and he is legally his own country. Apparently the Western Australian government threatened to come in with tanks, and he pointed out that they couldn't do that if he was still a part of Australia, and if they were acknowledging that he was a separate country then they couldn't invade him anyway 'cause he'd haul them into the UN, and they backed down!
So yeah. Now Hutt River is its own little country - larger than the Vatican, smaller than Lichtenstein, with about 20,000 head of sheep and 22 permanent residents. It's got its own post office, government building, church, and museum. Prince Leonard stamped our passports with the appropriate entry and exit visas (yes, these are legit) and showed us around. He's made up his own money, his own stamps, and his own constitution. It was just so surreal I can't even put it into words. His wife, Princess Shirley, asked us if we'd like a cup of tea. They do get tourists/visitors regularly, so they have a tea shop. We declined the offer (it was blazingly hot) but did admire Prince Leonard's collection of awards and medals - some of which are exceedingly rare and have only been given out to a very, very few people.
I should point out that the man has a PhD in physics and is absolutely brilliant. He's currently taking the federal government to court over who owns the land in WA. Back when Perth was established, the British government only proclaimed the area around Perth for England - not the rest of the state. In fact, apparently nobody's claimed the rest of the state - officially. So Prince Leonard recently proclaimed it for Hutt River. Not sure where this is going, but if he wins the court battle, he will suddenly be one very, VERY rich man - Western Australia has HUGE deposits of minerals and precious metals. Anyway, at the end of our visit we got to shake hands with royalty - and there are pictures on facebook to prove it!
What a strange, strange day. It was a long drive back to Geraldton, and we got there just in time to dive into the local grocery store and snatch dinner at the Thai restaurant underneath the hostel. I'm astounded at how fast the temperature changes here - when we left Hutt River, it was crazy hot and we were more than glad to have an air conditioned car. When we stepped out of the car in Geraldton, I was wishing I had my sweater!
The next day we would be heading to Shark Bay, a place I've wanted to see for a long time. And which I will tell you about - tomorrow!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Our WA Trip - Part Three - Perth
OK, time to pick up the threads of our WA adventure. First off, I re-read last night's post and now realize how tired I must have been - I didn't include the links to any of the pics I've taken on this trip! They're in four different albums:
Adelaide
Western Australia - Part One
Western Australia - Part Two
Western Australia - Part Three
The pics that go with this section of the story are in "Western Australia - Part One". I last left the tale on the train platform in Perth, where Jen and I met Pat and Rob, who were kind enough to give us a place to stay while we were in town. I really can't stress enough how wonderful it was to have someone waiting for us at that station! Looking back, I think I was more tired coming off the Indian Pacific train than I was getting off the plane from Canada. Yikes. On the other hand, maybe this train experience will make my flight home seem short. Who knows?
Pat and Rob were eager to show us around Perth, so they offered to take us on a bit of a scenic route on the way back to their place for lunch. It was ridiculously hot, so we were glad to view the city from the comforts of an air-conditioned, tinted-window car, as opposed to hoofing it around on foot. They drove us up to Kings Park, a huge and beautiful greenspace that overlooks downtown Perth. We walked to one lookout where I took a few good pictures of the city, but we couldn't stay out in the sun for more than a few minutes because of the heat. Then we took a short walk down one of the nature trails and over this cool elevated walkway. Basically it was a bridge that spanned a dip in the landscape, but the effect was that you suddenly found yourself walking through the treetops as the land fell away beneath our feet. It was pretty neat. But even that short walk left all of us drained because of the heat, and soon we headed back to the car.
Pat and Rob tried to point out other interesting sights as we drove towards their house, but unfortunately neither Jen nor I were really able to absorb any of it - we were simply too tired! I know I was fighting just to stay upright in the back seat of the car, let alone stay awake. I think Jen might have had to poke me when we got to Pat and Rob's house. Once we got home, Pat made us lunch while Jen and I threw a load of laundry in (we'd only brought minimal clothes with us so any chance to do laundry, we took it!). After the lunch and the laundry were done, Jen and I both crashed on our beds (Pat and Rob have two spare rooms, so we didn't even have to share!) and took a nap. I guess Jen must've woken up before me - she basically came and woke me up for dinner! Methinks I was a wee bit tired. :-) However, after the days on the train, being able to stretch out on a real bed was such a luxury, I enjoyed every minute of it!
Pat and Rob have a very cute, fluffy white dog named Kobe. After dinner, since we hadn't done any real exercise all day, Jen and I took Kobe for a walk around the neighborhood to stretch our legs. It was still too hot to go far, but we did a little exploring and tried to get Kobe to run with us across the nearby cricket oval. Not so much. He was happy to walk along with us, but didn't seem to understand that he could run around off his leash on the oval! Or maybe he was just too hot. When we took him off his leash, he kept turning for home. So home we went. And back to bed! And that's how we spent our first day in Western Australia!
I can't tell you how good it felt to sleep in a real bed. One of my goals for this whole Australia trip was to become more thankful/appreciative of what I have. Let me tell you - that train ride sure made me appreciate a real bed! (You know - the horizontalness, the softness, the pillow, the ability to actually stretch out...) I didn't really want to get up, and neither did Jen, but we only had a few days to explore Perth, and a ton of things on our list, so we had to get going.
We caught the train downtown to do some wandering around. I've been on transit systems in a number of different cities, and Jen of course has had the luxury of traveling in many different countries, and we both agreed - the trains in Perth are AWESOME. They're bright, clean, new, fast, and with an easy-to-understand ticketing system. I'm pretty sure the train line we were on was the newest in the network, but that hardly mattered. It was a wonderful system to ride on. On top of that, Perth has a network of free "CAT" (Central Area Transit) buses that circulate through the downtown core. FREE! What a concept! The CAT bus stops tracked the buses electronically, so you could press a button and it would tell you how long until the next bus. Very cool. So yeah, to put it mildly, we liked the Perth public transit system a lot. We didn't get lost on it once! (More than I can say for, oh, Sydney... or Melbourne...)
Downtown Perth was bustling full of people, which was a nice change after the emptiness of Canberra and Adelaide. Our first stop was the information centre, so we could get maps to find our way northward to Monkey Mia in a few days' time. Then we were off to find the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Jen and I agreed that so far, this had been our favourite art gallery. It was just the right size! We toured the whole building in just a couple of hours and didn't emerge feeling completely overwhelmed by everything that we'd seen. We really liked the works by James Angus, who had a special exhibition going on. He does all these crazy surreal sculptures, where he takes ordinary items and represents them in new and intriguing ways. For example, he had a sculpture called "Basketball Dropped From 30,000 Feet". And that's exactly what it was - a stone sculpture of a basketball as it would look when it hit the ground after such a fall. There was also a bicycle which, upon first inspection, looked completely ordinary. However when you looked at it more closely, you realized that everything (and I mean everything) on the bike had been repeated three times... it was almost as if you were looking at 3 identical bikes, overlapping each other as if it was one image only slightly out of focus. Hard to explain but very cool. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos in the art gallery, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It was neat.
We sat in a courtyard just outside the art gallery to enjoy lunch, then wandered right next door to the Western Australian Museum. This was also very well done. I know I've said it before, but we've yet to come across a museum in this country that we haven't enjoyed. There were great displays on minerals, meteorites, fossils, and local Aboriginal history. Not surprisingly, I loved the dinosaur models that were in one of the main galleries - they were so lifelike! Jen and I emerged from the museum in the late afternoon, feeling like our brains were about to explode from all the information we'd tried to cram inside.
It wasn't quite time to head back out to Pat and Rob's, so we wandered back around the downtown shopping district a little bit more. We were especially enchanted by the arcades in Perth. I don't think I've quite explained arcades yet. I'm not talking about shops with a bunch of video games inside. In all the Australian cities I've explored, the downtown shopping area is riddled with these narrow streets between main buildings, that run all the way from one big city block to the next. At home in Canada, such places would be simple alleyways and not very exciting. Here, they're full of shops and cafes and people. In Perth there's a particularly cool one called the London Arcade. After stepping through an ornate archway, looking down the length of the arcade to the other side, you'd swear you'd somehow been transported to England. My guess is that store locations in these arcades is at a premium, 'cause I sure couldn't afford most of the goods shown in the windows!
We finally headed back to Pat and Rob's house for another yummy dinner. They're both vegetarian and everything Pat fed us was simply delicious. After dinner, Jen and I helped Rob do a little bit of planning - he and Pat are hoping to come to Canada in a couple of years and travel across the country by train. So we gave them what advice we could, and volunteered our parents' houses (hee hee!) as places to stay along the way, should they so desire.
January 10th was to be our last day exploring Perth before we took off to drive northwards. The first thing we did that morning was to head back to downtown via the train, so we could pick up our rental car for the next stage of our adventure. We rented a bright orange Kia Rio (we named her "Mia" almost immediately) - and she was a standard car! I've never driven a standard before. But it was less expensive to rent a standard car, and Jen convinced me that now was the time to learn! We agreed that she would do all of the big-city driving, and that I would get to practice once we were well away from other vehicles.
We drove north about 15kms out of the city to visit the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA). This aquarium is smaller than the one in Sydney but more expensive! On the other hand, this aquarium is dedicated exclusively to the waters off of Western Australia, and had good displays on the various underwater environments that can be found along the state's length. We learned that AQWA has the largest collection of live corals to be found anywhere in the world. Almost all of their tanks depicting scenes from various coral reefs had live corals instead of just models, as is the usual practice. Their Shipwreck Cove exhibit was also really cool. This is their largest tank, and you travel through a long Plexiglas tunnel, watching the sharks, rays and fish swimming by on both sides and overhead. The tunnel is a loop so you end up coming out where you went in, and there's a long rock down the middle of the tank so you can't see the people on the other side of the loop as you go along. Also, there's a slow-moving conveyor belt in the floor, so all you have to do is stand still and the belt takes you all the way around! What a clever way to eliminate pushing, shoving, and "hogging" of good vantage points. We went around twice. :-)
Jen was more than a little disturbed by the "Danger Zone" exhibit, with displays on all the different fun animals in Australian waters that can hurt/kill you. I enjoyed watching the seals and rays in the outdoor exhibits. But, not surprisingly, there were about eighty billion kids and families at the aquarium, and there got to a point where we really needed to leave.
AQWA is situated at Hilary's Boat Harbour, and there are all sorts of fun shops along the quay. We browsed in those for a while, and then wandered across the Harbour to the Naturaliste Marine Discovery Centre. This is a research institution, but it also has informative displays on local marine life, fisheries, and environmental issues. Admission was only $4 and we found the information in the displays much more useful than what was at AQWA! (To be fair, AQWA is aimed at families and kids, and the Discovery Centre was definitely aimed at adults.) We learned about the Western Australian pearling and rock lobster industries, tried on a deep-water diving helmet, and explored a fun touch pool. Pretty neat!
Our last stop was a dive shop at the very end of the Harbour. We originally went in looking for one of those laminated underwater guides to local fish, as we were planning on going snorkeling. But the real find there were "rashie" shirts. These are Lycra shirts worn by surfers and snorkelers to protect them from sunburn. The ones we were looking at had an SPF of over 50! The dive shop had some really cute ones on sale (they fit Jen, of course, but not me) - but we were running out of time and needed to head back to Pat and Rob's for dinner, so we resolved to stop by on our way north in the morning.
After dinner, Jen took me out in the car and taught me how to drive a standard. This was an adventure in itself. I now understand why Jen and Vicky sit so darned close to the steering wheels in their cars... it's in order to be able to reach the clutch! I found it strange sitting so close to the wheel, but I got used to it. And I think I only gave Jen a minor case of whiplash as I tried to figure out how to get the car to "go" into first gear. She said that I picked it up a whole lot faster than she expected, but let me tell you, it was a little scary trying to figure out how to shift gears and brake without stalling the car! I was glad that I wouldn't have to drive in the city, at least on this trip. But hey - if I can get comfortable with a standard car, then I can buy a standard when I get home and save myself some serious dough. I think that the locals in Pat and Rob's suburban neighbourhood must've thought we were crazy... I circled the blocks many, many times.
So on the morning of the 11th, we packed up, said goodbye to Pat and Rob, and headed northwards on the next stage of our adventure. Which I will tell you about another time. It's taken me two hours to type up this part of the adventure and I need a break. Stay tuned!
Adelaide
Western Australia - Part One
Western Australia - Part Two
Western Australia - Part Three
The pics that go with this section of the story are in "Western Australia - Part One". I last left the tale on the train platform in Perth, where Jen and I met Pat and Rob, who were kind enough to give us a place to stay while we were in town. I really can't stress enough how wonderful it was to have someone waiting for us at that station! Looking back, I think I was more tired coming off the Indian Pacific train than I was getting off the plane from Canada. Yikes. On the other hand, maybe this train experience will make my flight home seem short. Who knows?
Pat and Rob were eager to show us around Perth, so they offered to take us on a bit of a scenic route on the way back to their place for lunch. It was ridiculously hot, so we were glad to view the city from the comforts of an air-conditioned, tinted-window car, as opposed to hoofing it around on foot. They drove us up to Kings Park, a huge and beautiful greenspace that overlooks downtown Perth. We walked to one lookout where I took a few good pictures of the city, but we couldn't stay out in the sun for more than a few minutes because of the heat. Then we took a short walk down one of the nature trails and over this cool elevated walkway. Basically it was a bridge that spanned a dip in the landscape, but the effect was that you suddenly found yourself walking through the treetops as the land fell away beneath our feet. It was pretty neat. But even that short walk left all of us drained because of the heat, and soon we headed back to the car.
Pat and Rob tried to point out other interesting sights as we drove towards their house, but unfortunately neither Jen nor I were really able to absorb any of it - we were simply too tired! I know I was fighting just to stay upright in the back seat of the car, let alone stay awake. I think Jen might have had to poke me when we got to Pat and Rob's house. Once we got home, Pat made us lunch while Jen and I threw a load of laundry in (we'd only brought minimal clothes with us so any chance to do laundry, we took it!). After the lunch and the laundry were done, Jen and I both crashed on our beds (Pat and Rob have two spare rooms, so we didn't even have to share!) and took a nap. I guess Jen must've woken up before me - she basically came and woke me up for dinner! Methinks I was a wee bit tired. :-) However, after the days on the train, being able to stretch out on a real bed was such a luxury, I enjoyed every minute of it!
Pat and Rob have a very cute, fluffy white dog named Kobe. After dinner, since we hadn't done any real exercise all day, Jen and I took Kobe for a walk around the neighborhood to stretch our legs. It was still too hot to go far, but we did a little exploring and tried to get Kobe to run with us across the nearby cricket oval. Not so much. He was happy to walk along with us, but didn't seem to understand that he could run around off his leash on the oval! Or maybe he was just too hot. When we took him off his leash, he kept turning for home. So home we went. And back to bed! And that's how we spent our first day in Western Australia!
I can't tell you how good it felt to sleep in a real bed. One of my goals for this whole Australia trip was to become more thankful/appreciative of what I have. Let me tell you - that train ride sure made me appreciate a real bed! (You know - the horizontalness, the softness, the pillow, the ability to actually stretch out...) I didn't really want to get up, and neither did Jen, but we only had a few days to explore Perth, and a ton of things on our list, so we had to get going.
We caught the train downtown to do some wandering around. I've been on transit systems in a number of different cities, and Jen of course has had the luxury of traveling in many different countries, and we both agreed - the trains in Perth are AWESOME. They're bright, clean, new, fast, and with an easy-to-understand ticketing system. I'm pretty sure the train line we were on was the newest in the network, but that hardly mattered. It was a wonderful system to ride on. On top of that, Perth has a network of free "CAT" (Central Area Transit) buses that circulate through the downtown core. FREE! What a concept! The CAT bus stops tracked the buses electronically, so you could press a button and it would tell you how long until the next bus. Very cool. So yeah, to put it mildly, we liked the Perth public transit system a lot. We didn't get lost on it once! (More than I can say for, oh, Sydney... or Melbourne...)
Downtown Perth was bustling full of people, which was a nice change after the emptiness of Canberra and Adelaide. Our first stop was the information centre, so we could get maps to find our way northward to Monkey Mia in a few days' time. Then we were off to find the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Jen and I agreed that so far, this had been our favourite art gallery. It was just the right size! We toured the whole building in just a couple of hours and didn't emerge feeling completely overwhelmed by everything that we'd seen. We really liked the works by James Angus, who had a special exhibition going on. He does all these crazy surreal sculptures, where he takes ordinary items and represents them in new and intriguing ways. For example, he had a sculpture called "Basketball Dropped From 30,000 Feet". And that's exactly what it was - a stone sculpture of a basketball as it would look when it hit the ground after such a fall. There was also a bicycle which, upon first inspection, looked completely ordinary. However when you looked at it more closely, you realized that everything (and I mean everything) on the bike had been repeated three times... it was almost as if you were looking at 3 identical bikes, overlapping each other as if it was one image only slightly out of focus. Hard to explain but very cool. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos in the art gallery, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It was neat.
We sat in a courtyard just outside the art gallery to enjoy lunch, then wandered right next door to the Western Australian Museum. This was also very well done. I know I've said it before, but we've yet to come across a museum in this country that we haven't enjoyed. There were great displays on minerals, meteorites, fossils, and local Aboriginal history. Not surprisingly, I loved the dinosaur models that were in one of the main galleries - they were so lifelike! Jen and I emerged from the museum in the late afternoon, feeling like our brains were about to explode from all the information we'd tried to cram inside.
It wasn't quite time to head back out to Pat and Rob's, so we wandered back around the downtown shopping district a little bit more. We were especially enchanted by the arcades in Perth. I don't think I've quite explained arcades yet. I'm not talking about shops with a bunch of video games inside. In all the Australian cities I've explored, the downtown shopping area is riddled with these narrow streets between main buildings, that run all the way from one big city block to the next. At home in Canada, such places would be simple alleyways and not very exciting. Here, they're full of shops and cafes and people. In Perth there's a particularly cool one called the London Arcade. After stepping through an ornate archway, looking down the length of the arcade to the other side, you'd swear you'd somehow been transported to England. My guess is that store locations in these arcades is at a premium, 'cause I sure couldn't afford most of the goods shown in the windows!
We finally headed back to Pat and Rob's house for another yummy dinner. They're both vegetarian and everything Pat fed us was simply delicious. After dinner, Jen and I helped Rob do a little bit of planning - he and Pat are hoping to come to Canada in a couple of years and travel across the country by train. So we gave them what advice we could, and volunteered our parents' houses (hee hee!) as places to stay along the way, should they so desire.
January 10th was to be our last day exploring Perth before we took off to drive northwards. The first thing we did that morning was to head back to downtown via the train, so we could pick up our rental car for the next stage of our adventure. We rented a bright orange Kia Rio (we named her "Mia" almost immediately) - and she was a standard car! I've never driven a standard before. But it was less expensive to rent a standard car, and Jen convinced me that now was the time to learn! We agreed that she would do all of the big-city driving, and that I would get to practice once we were well away from other vehicles.
We drove north about 15kms out of the city to visit the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA). This aquarium is smaller than the one in Sydney but more expensive! On the other hand, this aquarium is dedicated exclusively to the waters off of Western Australia, and had good displays on the various underwater environments that can be found along the state's length. We learned that AQWA has the largest collection of live corals to be found anywhere in the world. Almost all of their tanks depicting scenes from various coral reefs had live corals instead of just models, as is the usual practice. Their Shipwreck Cove exhibit was also really cool. This is their largest tank, and you travel through a long Plexiglas tunnel, watching the sharks, rays and fish swimming by on both sides and overhead. The tunnel is a loop so you end up coming out where you went in, and there's a long rock down the middle of the tank so you can't see the people on the other side of the loop as you go along. Also, there's a slow-moving conveyor belt in the floor, so all you have to do is stand still and the belt takes you all the way around! What a clever way to eliminate pushing, shoving, and "hogging" of good vantage points. We went around twice. :-)
Jen was more than a little disturbed by the "Danger Zone" exhibit, with displays on all the different fun animals in Australian waters that can hurt/kill you. I enjoyed watching the seals and rays in the outdoor exhibits. But, not surprisingly, there were about eighty billion kids and families at the aquarium, and there got to a point where we really needed to leave.
AQWA is situated at Hilary's Boat Harbour, and there are all sorts of fun shops along the quay. We browsed in those for a while, and then wandered across the Harbour to the Naturaliste Marine Discovery Centre. This is a research institution, but it also has informative displays on local marine life, fisheries, and environmental issues. Admission was only $4 and we found the information in the displays much more useful than what was at AQWA! (To be fair, AQWA is aimed at families and kids, and the Discovery Centre was definitely aimed at adults.) We learned about the Western Australian pearling and rock lobster industries, tried on a deep-water diving helmet, and explored a fun touch pool. Pretty neat!
Our last stop was a dive shop at the very end of the Harbour. We originally went in looking for one of those laminated underwater guides to local fish, as we were planning on going snorkeling. But the real find there were "rashie" shirts. These are Lycra shirts worn by surfers and snorkelers to protect them from sunburn. The ones we were looking at had an SPF of over 50! The dive shop had some really cute ones on sale (they fit Jen, of course, but not me) - but we were running out of time and needed to head back to Pat and Rob's for dinner, so we resolved to stop by on our way north in the morning.
After dinner, Jen took me out in the car and taught me how to drive a standard. This was an adventure in itself. I now understand why Jen and Vicky sit so darned close to the steering wheels in their cars... it's in order to be able to reach the clutch! I found it strange sitting so close to the wheel, but I got used to it. And I think I only gave Jen a minor case of whiplash as I tried to figure out how to get the car to "go" into first gear. She said that I picked it up a whole lot faster than she expected, but let me tell you, it was a little scary trying to figure out how to shift gears and brake without stalling the car! I was glad that I wouldn't have to drive in the city, at least on this trip. But hey - if I can get comfortable with a standard car, then I can buy a standard when I get home and save myself some serious dough. I think that the locals in Pat and Rob's suburban neighbourhood must've thought we were crazy... I circled the blocks many, many times.
So on the morning of the 11th, we packed up, said goodbye to Pat and Rob, and headed northwards on the next stage of our adventure. Which I will tell you about another time. It's taken me two hours to type up this part of the adventure and I need a break. Stay tuned!
Australia Day
Happy Australia Day, everyone! Jen and I arrived back in Melbourne on Friday evening, with just enough time to spare to buy some groceries, order pizza, and drop our books off at the library so they wouldn't be overdue. We spent most of today with the laundry, the email, and all that other catching-up stuff. Wow did it feel good to be home.
When I was planning and booking our big WA trip, I hadn't at all paid attention to the fact that January 26th is Australia Day - and we were far too tired to go out and enjoy all of the festivities which went on all over Melbourne, all day long. However, we did end the day with style. All our housemates (and Irene and Ben, who'd come in from Tasmania for the weekend) got together for an impromptu barbecue, using whatever food we had on hand. Then most of us headed downtown to watch the fireworks over the Yarra River. They were pretty good... we especially liked how they shot half the fireworks off the tallest building in town. But the show was only 10 minutes long and left us feeling a little short-changed.
The crowd downtown was nothing like what I've experienced in Ottawa for Canada Day in the past. The whole atmosphere was much more laid back and relaxed than I seem to remember from home, even though there was just as much revelry and undercover drinking going on. The crowd was also pretty spread out and at no time did I feel like we were going to be crushed under the weight of all the people (unlike a few Canada Day experiences I'd rather just forget!). Also, once the fireworks were over, a good chunk of the crowd didn't simply head home - like us, many folks chose to wander up and down the banks of the Yarra River, where there are lots of good bars and night spots, and also lots of buskers. We watched one enterprising young man named "Dakota Jones" (yep, a complete take-off of Indiana Jones) balance on top of a pole and brandish a fire whip. Cool! We stopped at a bar for a drink (courtesy of our housemate Olivier), and then headed for home ourselves.
I spent a good portion of the day uploading all my pics from our WA trip to facebook, but of course I still have a ton of stories to tell you from that trip. However, they will have to wait 'till tomorrow, 'cause I'm going to bed!
When I was planning and booking our big WA trip, I hadn't at all paid attention to the fact that January 26th is Australia Day - and we were far too tired to go out and enjoy all of the festivities which went on all over Melbourne, all day long. However, we did end the day with style. All our housemates (and Irene and Ben, who'd come in from Tasmania for the weekend) got together for an impromptu barbecue, using whatever food we had on hand. Then most of us headed downtown to watch the fireworks over the Yarra River. They were pretty good... we especially liked how they shot half the fireworks off the tallest building in town. But the show was only 10 minutes long and left us feeling a little short-changed.
The crowd downtown was nothing like what I've experienced in Ottawa for Canada Day in the past. The whole atmosphere was much more laid back and relaxed than I seem to remember from home, even though there was just as much revelry and undercover drinking going on. The crowd was also pretty spread out and at no time did I feel like we were going to be crushed under the weight of all the people (unlike a few Canada Day experiences I'd rather just forget!). Also, once the fireworks were over, a good chunk of the crowd didn't simply head home - like us, many folks chose to wander up and down the banks of the Yarra River, where there are lots of good bars and night spots, and also lots of buskers. We watched one enterprising young man named "Dakota Jones" (yep, a complete take-off of Indiana Jones) balance on top of a pole and brandish a fire whip. Cool! We stopped at a bar for a drink (courtesy of our housemate Olivier), and then headed for home ourselves.
I spent a good portion of the day uploading all my pics from our WA trip to facebook, but of course I still have a ton of stories to tell you from that trip. However, they will have to wait 'till tomorrow, 'cause I'm going to bed!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Our WA Trip - Part Two - Westward Ho!
So here I am once again, sitting in an Internet cafe in Adelaide, on the last day of this 21-day adventure. We've got to be up at 6am tomorrow morning so we can catch the train back to Melbourne. We've spent a good chunk of the day wandering around the city just enjoying the glorious weather, and my feet are more than sore. So it seems only fitting that now I get to finally tell you a little more about this big, crazy adventure we've been having!
I last left off the story on Jan 5th, and our trip to Adelaide. So let's continue from there. (I will try to not get distracted by the guy sitting at the computer next to me, who appears to be researching... um... female body builders. But if I start to ramble, blame him.) :-) We woke up on Jan 6th having enjoyed a good night's sleep at the hostel, but knowing that we also had to be checked out of the room by 10am. Since our train to Perth wasn't going to be leaving until around 6pm, this left us with a bit of a luggage problem. Backpacker Oz is a cool place and very laid back - they let us just leave our bags in the front lobby, where they could be watched over by a staff member during the day. So that's what we did - after locking our suitcases, of course!
We spent the morning at the South Australian Museum, just a few blocks from the hostel. Like all the museums we've been to so far, this one was pretty cool. It was also FREE. (I like free.) It was a confusing building though - it looked like they'd cobbled together three or four older buildings with some new, modern hallways, and the site map was uncharacteristically unhelpful, so we actually managed to get lost a couple of times! I really, really liked the giant squid display. It wasn't a real specimen, but a life-size casting of one, set in a simulation of its natural environment in the ocean depths. The display was set up in one of the stairwells, vertically - so on the 4th floor you were standing on a see-through plexiglass, looking down at the tail of the squid. On the 3rd floor you were at eye level. On the 2nd floor you saw nothing but tentacles, and on the 1st floor there was the ends of the squid's grasping arms and the ocean floor. Very cool.
Another display the museum is famous for is its opalized fossils. Australia is the only place in the world where fossils have formed in this manner. The centrepiece of their display were portions of a plesiosaur's opalized skeleton. I couldn't even begin to guess how valuable such a find is! The museum also had a fantastic gallery displaying artifacts from various Pacific cultures. What was really cool about this gallery was that it had been preserved pretty much in the state that it was in when the museum first opened in the late 1800's. How cool is that? A museum preserving its history as a museum!
We headed back to the hostel for a quick lunch and got changed into our swimsuits, then grabbed our boogie boards and headed for the beachside suburb of Glenelg. We'd decided to try and tire ourselves out as much as possible so that when we got on the train in the evening, we might have a fighting chance of falling asleep. When we arrived at Glenelg, we were met by hurricane-force winds! Walking onto the beach felt somewhat like being sandblasted. Not so much fun, but the waves were huge! So was the current, as we discovered very quickly upon entering the water. We had to walk up-current quite a ways, then wade out into the surf and try to boogie, all the while keeping an eye on the beach for our bag... so when we'd drifted past it, we knew we needed to get out and repeat the whole process over again. Lots of fun but definitely tiring!
With only a little time to spare, we hoofed it back to the hostel for a quick shower and change, then it was off to the train station to catch the Indian Pacific. What a huge train! I couldn't count all the cars, it was so long, but I think we had at least 28 cars on the train (almost 800m long). Unfortunately, as "3rd" class passengers, we were pretty much confined to the day-nighter seats, our own lounge car, and our own buffet car, so I never got to see how the other passengers spent the journey. I can tell you that the day-nighter seats on this train were not nearly as comfy as those we'd experienced on the Overlander the day before. There were no arm rests between the seats (thank God for Jen's pillow, or we might have actually killed each other) and the train was absolutely packed, so finding space on the racks for our luggage was quite the challenge. There was also not nearly as much leg room as on the Overlander train.
I was having a hard time hiding my disappointment. I wasn't sure how we were going to survive two nights in these cramped conditions! Even the TV screens, which were positioned along the train car like we have on some coach buses back home, weren't a help. They showed a movie that first night but we couldn't watch it... our seat was right at the front of the car and the only TV screen in front of us was broken! Jen tried watching the movie through the reflection in the train windows, and I tried the same by watching the reflection in the door to the next car, but that didn't exactly work. Gah.
That first day we rode through endless kilometers of flat farmland, and pretty much nothing else. We passed through the town of Port Augusta around 11pm, and after that, it was time for us to try and sleep. NOT SO MUCH. I couldn't stretch my legs out all the way because of the seat in front of me. I couldn't keep my knees bent because it cramped my back, not to mention the pain in my knees. Even leaning towards the window didn't help because of the gap between the seat and the window. To put it mildly, it was a horrible night. Jen, in the aisle seat, didn't fare any better. We woke the next morning (or rather, opened our eyes with the rising sun and gave up the pretense that we'd had any sleep) both feeling grumpy and tired.
The landscape had completely changed overnight. We woke up to a scene of vivid red sand dunes covered in short, scrubby trees. They slowly gave way to flatter and flatter land, with few trees and then none, and before we knew it we were on the famous Nullarbor Plain. (Some of our Aussie friends call this place the GAFA - the Great Australian F*** All. Now I understand why.) This place is HUGE... twice the size of Britain and apparently the largest single piece of limestone found anywhere on Earth. There are absolutely no trees (hence the name "Nullarbor")... just endless, low scrub and sand forever and ever. There is no surface water at all across this stretch of Australia, for something like 2000kms. How they ever managed to build a train line across this landscape is completely beyond me. Makes the challenge of building the railway through the Rockies look easy by comparison!
We stopped mid-morning in Cook, which is one of the most isolated settlements in Australia. The population of Cook is currently 4 people, whose job it is to maintain and refuel the trains that pass through. Apparently something like 50 trains cross the Nullarbor every week, including the Indian Pacific. Cook used to be a much larger place but now it is a ghost town. It was eerie walking through it... we had about a half hour where we could get off the train and stretch our legs, and we were glad to do so! But all too soon we had to climb back on and keep on going.
The next town we passed was Forrest, with a grand total population of 2 people. The only reason Forrest still exists is because it has an airstrip long enough to land a jumbo jet on - so it's an emergency landing site for planes as they cross the continent. Apparently the couple who live in Forrest also run a bed and breakfast, as occasionally light aircraft land and the folks want to spend the night. You need to understand just how vast and empty the Nullarbor is... there were no other towns, no roads, no sign at all of any human habitation other than the railway... and that's what we passed through for the rest of the day. We saw wild camels, wedge-tailed eagles, and a few other birds from the train, but that was about it.
They played a second movie on the train that evening. Jen and I tried a new strategy for watching it, 'cause by this time we were both sick of reading and just staring out the window. Some of the TV screens in the train car were pointed backwards, so if we swiveled ourselves completely around in our seats, we could watch the screen behind us. Jen ended up on the floor in our footspace, and I ended up stretched out on the chairs. This worked relatively well and we decided we'd try sleeping that way when night came.
First, though, we had one more stopover at Kalgoorlie. We arrived in Kalgoorlie around 8pm, and it was HOT. The train would be refueled etc. for about 2 hours, so we had ample time to get out, stretch our legs, find something to eat that wasn't microwaved, and psych ourselves up for another uncomfortable night. The town was basically completely closed except for the pubs, so that's where we ended up eating. It was creepy walking around Kalgoorlie... this is a huge mining town, and the site of the largest open pit gold mining operation in the world. (We took a tour on the way back, but I'll talk about that later). In its heyday, Kalgoorlie had a pretty bad rep as a rough town, so we weren't sure what to expect. Turns out that in our wanderings, we almost wound up in the famous red-light district! (But again, more of that when I talk about our return trip.)
We got back on the train around 10:30 and tried to settle into bed. Jen ended up curled up with her sleeping bag in the space between our seats and the ones in front of us. I tried sleeping sitting up with my legs stretched out straight in front of me on our chairs. Well. Jen was comfy, but I sure wasn't! My knees and back were NOT HAPPY AT ALL with this trip. I tried my best but there was just no way I could sleep in that position. I was getting desperate. I so wanted to sleep - and I wanted Jen to have a night undisturbed by me too! In the end I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow and headed to the lounge car, where there were comfy long benches. We had been told by the train staff at the start of our journey that we were absolutely NOT allowed to sleep in the lounge car. Let me tell you - I sure wasn't alone! All over our train car, other folks were stretched out just like Jen... and pretty much all the useable benches in the lounge car were occupied too. But there was space for me and I took it. I figured if the train staff complained, I would tell them that (a) my knees were killing me and (b) I would be gone by 6am, when the buffet car opened for breakfast. And so that's how we spent the second night! I actually slept, and so did Jen!
We woke up early on Jan 8th, knowing we were almost at Perth. Overnight, the scenery had changed again, and we found ourselves passing through thickly wooded, rocky hills. We crossed the Avon river, the first surface water we'd seen in two days. Craziness. The best part was to come though - as we finally, FINALLY pulled into the Perth train station, we saw an older couple holding up a sign that read "Becky and Jen" - this was Pat, our friend Carroll's aunt, and her husband Rob, whom we would be staying with while in Perth. I can't tell you how thrilling it was to have someone meeting us, and holding a sign! We waved to them madly as they passed our window, but they didn't see us. One of the other folks on our train commented on the sign, and we got to turn and say "that's for us!". It was a wonderful feeling.
We stumbled off the train more than a little woozy and tired, but happy to be in Western Australia at last. It was blisteringly hot - something like 38C and humid on top - but we didn't care. We were OFF THE TRAIN. That night we knew we'd get to enjoy a bed that didn't move, and that was actually horizontal. What simple pleasures!
I will have to leave the adventure there for now, as my time is almost up. We head back to Melbourne tomorrow, and I will keep adding installments as quickly as I can!
I last left off the story on Jan 5th, and our trip to Adelaide. So let's continue from there. (I will try to not get distracted by the guy sitting at the computer next to me, who appears to be researching... um... female body builders. But if I start to ramble, blame him.) :-) We woke up on Jan 6th having enjoyed a good night's sleep at the hostel, but knowing that we also had to be checked out of the room by 10am. Since our train to Perth wasn't going to be leaving until around 6pm, this left us with a bit of a luggage problem. Backpacker Oz is a cool place and very laid back - they let us just leave our bags in the front lobby, where they could be watched over by a staff member during the day. So that's what we did - after locking our suitcases, of course!
We spent the morning at the South Australian Museum, just a few blocks from the hostel. Like all the museums we've been to so far, this one was pretty cool. It was also FREE. (I like free.) It was a confusing building though - it looked like they'd cobbled together three or four older buildings with some new, modern hallways, and the site map was uncharacteristically unhelpful, so we actually managed to get lost a couple of times! I really, really liked the giant squid display. It wasn't a real specimen, but a life-size casting of one, set in a simulation of its natural environment in the ocean depths. The display was set up in one of the stairwells, vertically - so on the 4th floor you were standing on a see-through plexiglass, looking down at the tail of the squid. On the 3rd floor you were at eye level. On the 2nd floor you saw nothing but tentacles, and on the 1st floor there was the ends of the squid's grasping arms and the ocean floor. Very cool.
Another display the museum is famous for is its opalized fossils. Australia is the only place in the world where fossils have formed in this manner. The centrepiece of their display were portions of a plesiosaur's opalized skeleton. I couldn't even begin to guess how valuable such a find is! The museum also had a fantastic gallery displaying artifacts from various Pacific cultures. What was really cool about this gallery was that it had been preserved pretty much in the state that it was in when the museum first opened in the late 1800's. How cool is that? A museum preserving its history as a museum!
We headed back to the hostel for a quick lunch and got changed into our swimsuits, then grabbed our boogie boards and headed for the beachside suburb of Glenelg. We'd decided to try and tire ourselves out as much as possible so that when we got on the train in the evening, we might have a fighting chance of falling asleep. When we arrived at Glenelg, we were met by hurricane-force winds! Walking onto the beach felt somewhat like being sandblasted. Not so much fun, but the waves were huge! So was the current, as we discovered very quickly upon entering the water. We had to walk up-current quite a ways, then wade out into the surf and try to boogie, all the while keeping an eye on the beach for our bag... so when we'd drifted past it, we knew we needed to get out and repeat the whole process over again. Lots of fun but definitely tiring!
With only a little time to spare, we hoofed it back to the hostel for a quick shower and change, then it was off to the train station to catch the Indian Pacific. What a huge train! I couldn't count all the cars, it was so long, but I think we had at least 28 cars on the train (almost 800m long). Unfortunately, as "3rd" class passengers, we were pretty much confined to the day-nighter seats, our own lounge car, and our own buffet car, so I never got to see how the other passengers spent the journey. I can tell you that the day-nighter seats on this train were not nearly as comfy as those we'd experienced on the Overlander the day before. There were no arm rests between the seats (thank God for Jen's pillow, or we might have actually killed each other) and the train was absolutely packed, so finding space on the racks for our luggage was quite the challenge. There was also not nearly as much leg room as on the Overlander train.
I was having a hard time hiding my disappointment. I wasn't sure how we were going to survive two nights in these cramped conditions! Even the TV screens, which were positioned along the train car like we have on some coach buses back home, weren't a help. They showed a movie that first night but we couldn't watch it... our seat was right at the front of the car and the only TV screen in front of us was broken! Jen tried watching the movie through the reflection in the train windows, and I tried the same by watching the reflection in the door to the next car, but that didn't exactly work. Gah.
That first day we rode through endless kilometers of flat farmland, and pretty much nothing else. We passed through the town of Port Augusta around 11pm, and after that, it was time for us to try and sleep. NOT SO MUCH. I couldn't stretch my legs out all the way because of the seat in front of me. I couldn't keep my knees bent because it cramped my back, not to mention the pain in my knees. Even leaning towards the window didn't help because of the gap between the seat and the window. To put it mildly, it was a horrible night. Jen, in the aisle seat, didn't fare any better. We woke the next morning (or rather, opened our eyes with the rising sun and gave up the pretense that we'd had any sleep) both feeling grumpy and tired.
The landscape had completely changed overnight. We woke up to a scene of vivid red sand dunes covered in short, scrubby trees. They slowly gave way to flatter and flatter land, with few trees and then none, and before we knew it we were on the famous Nullarbor Plain. (Some of our Aussie friends call this place the GAFA - the Great Australian F*** All. Now I understand why.) This place is HUGE... twice the size of Britain and apparently the largest single piece of limestone found anywhere on Earth. There are absolutely no trees (hence the name "Nullarbor")... just endless, low scrub and sand forever and ever. There is no surface water at all across this stretch of Australia, for something like 2000kms. How they ever managed to build a train line across this landscape is completely beyond me. Makes the challenge of building the railway through the Rockies look easy by comparison!
We stopped mid-morning in Cook, which is one of the most isolated settlements in Australia. The population of Cook is currently 4 people, whose job it is to maintain and refuel the trains that pass through. Apparently something like 50 trains cross the Nullarbor every week, including the Indian Pacific. Cook used to be a much larger place but now it is a ghost town. It was eerie walking through it... we had about a half hour where we could get off the train and stretch our legs, and we were glad to do so! But all too soon we had to climb back on and keep on going.
The next town we passed was Forrest, with a grand total population of 2 people. The only reason Forrest still exists is because it has an airstrip long enough to land a jumbo jet on - so it's an emergency landing site for planes as they cross the continent. Apparently the couple who live in Forrest also run a bed and breakfast, as occasionally light aircraft land and the folks want to spend the night. You need to understand just how vast and empty the Nullarbor is... there were no other towns, no roads, no sign at all of any human habitation other than the railway... and that's what we passed through for the rest of the day. We saw wild camels, wedge-tailed eagles, and a few other birds from the train, but that was about it.
They played a second movie on the train that evening. Jen and I tried a new strategy for watching it, 'cause by this time we were both sick of reading and just staring out the window. Some of the TV screens in the train car were pointed backwards, so if we swiveled ourselves completely around in our seats, we could watch the screen behind us. Jen ended up on the floor in our footspace, and I ended up stretched out on the chairs. This worked relatively well and we decided we'd try sleeping that way when night came.
First, though, we had one more stopover at Kalgoorlie. We arrived in Kalgoorlie around 8pm, and it was HOT. The train would be refueled etc. for about 2 hours, so we had ample time to get out, stretch our legs, find something to eat that wasn't microwaved, and psych ourselves up for another uncomfortable night. The town was basically completely closed except for the pubs, so that's where we ended up eating. It was creepy walking around Kalgoorlie... this is a huge mining town, and the site of the largest open pit gold mining operation in the world. (We took a tour on the way back, but I'll talk about that later). In its heyday, Kalgoorlie had a pretty bad rep as a rough town, so we weren't sure what to expect. Turns out that in our wanderings, we almost wound up in the famous red-light district! (But again, more of that when I talk about our return trip.)
We got back on the train around 10:30 and tried to settle into bed. Jen ended up curled up with her sleeping bag in the space between our seats and the ones in front of us. I tried sleeping sitting up with my legs stretched out straight in front of me on our chairs. Well. Jen was comfy, but I sure wasn't! My knees and back were NOT HAPPY AT ALL with this trip. I tried my best but there was just no way I could sleep in that position. I was getting desperate. I so wanted to sleep - and I wanted Jen to have a night undisturbed by me too! In the end I grabbed my sleeping bag and pillow and headed to the lounge car, where there were comfy long benches. We had been told by the train staff at the start of our journey that we were absolutely NOT allowed to sleep in the lounge car. Let me tell you - I sure wasn't alone! All over our train car, other folks were stretched out just like Jen... and pretty much all the useable benches in the lounge car were occupied too. But there was space for me and I took it. I figured if the train staff complained, I would tell them that (a) my knees were killing me and (b) I would be gone by 6am, when the buffet car opened for breakfast. And so that's how we spent the second night! I actually slept, and so did Jen!
We woke up early on Jan 8th, knowing we were almost at Perth. Overnight, the scenery had changed again, and we found ourselves passing through thickly wooded, rocky hills. We crossed the Avon river, the first surface water we'd seen in two days. Craziness. The best part was to come though - as we finally, FINALLY pulled into the Perth train station, we saw an older couple holding up a sign that read "Becky and Jen" - this was Pat, our friend Carroll's aunt, and her husband Rob, whom we would be staying with while in Perth. I can't tell you how thrilling it was to have someone meeting us, and holding a sign! We waved to them madly as they passed our window, but they didn't see us. One of the other folks on our train commented on the sign, and we got to turn and say "that's for us!". It was a wonderful feeling.
We stumbled off the train more than a little woozy and tired, but happy to be in Western Australia at last. It was blisteringly hot - something like 38C and humid on top - but we didn't care. We were OFF THE TRAIN. That night we knew we'd get to enjoy a bed that didn't move, and that was actually horizontal. What simple pleasures!
I will have to leave the adventure there for now, as my time is almost up. We head back to Melbourne tomorrow, and I will keep adding installments as quickly as I can!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
No Waves
Time for a quick rant. This morning we got up early and got ourseves all dolled up to go to the beach and do some boogie boarding. Board shorts, "rashie" shirts, boogie boards, the works. Headed out of the hostel around 9:30am and were at the beach around 10:30.
Wouldn't you know it, there were NO WAVES? None. I mean NONE AT ALL. The water was pretty much as smooth as glass. As in, perfect canoeing conditions. GAH.
You see, when we headed through Adelaide on our way out to Perth, we spent a glorious afternoon down at Glenelg, enjoying the waves (and the gale-force winds). Turns out that was not exactly the regular weather. Today's was. So no waves for us. Wow did we feel like idiots with our boards and this completely flat water! Fortunately there were a few other boogie boarders, also dragging their boards dejectedly through the water, looking for non-existant waves.
We've vowed to spend some of our precious upcoming weekends down at Torquay or other spots along the Victorian coastline that might actually have waves.
In other news, I forgot to add in yesterday's short blurb that:
(a) Jen got bit by some crazy bug out west and the bites on her legs were all bruised and it looked like she had leprosy.
(b) She then fried her legs when we went snorkelling.
(c) After adding aloe gel to soothe her burns, her legs took on a distinctly green tinge and it looked like she was going mouldy.
(d) To add insult to injury (literally), when we got off the tram tonight on the way back to the hostel, we discovered that Jen had sat on a wet seat - so she got to walk all the way home with a wet bum.
Poor Jen! Send her your love, everyone!
Wouldn't you know it, there were NO WAVES? None. I mean NONE AT ALL. The water was pretty much as smooth as glass. As in, perfect canoeing conditions. GAH.
You see, when we headed through Adelaide on our way out to Perth, we spent a glorious afternoon down at Glenelg, enjoying the waves (and the gale-force winds). Turns out that was not exactly the regular weather. Today's was. So no waves for us. Wow did we feel like idiots with our boards and this completely flat water! Fortunately there were a few other boogie boarders, also dragging their boards dejectedly through the water, looking for non-existant waves.
We've vowed to spend some of our precious upcoming weekends down at Torquay or other spots along the Victorian coastline that might actually have waves.
In other news, I forgot to add in yesterday's short blurb that:
(a) Jen got bit by some crazy bug out west and the bites on her legs were all bruised and it looked like she had leprosy.
(b) She then fried her legs when we went snorkelling.
(c) After adding aloe gel to soothe her burns, her legs took on a distinctly green tinge and it looked like she was going mouldy.
(d) To add insult to injury (literally), when we got off the tram tonight on the way back to the hostel, we discovered that Jen had sat on a wet seat - so she got to walk all the way home with a wet bum.
Poor Jen! Send her your love, everyone!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Back in Adelaide
Hi there! Long time no write! And I have only six minutes until this computer session will time out, so I'm gonna make this short.
Jen and I are now back in Adelaide after our fantastic trip to Western Australia. We're here for two more days before finally heading back to Melbourne. We hope to find some time to get back online tomorrow, if everything works out.
In the meantime, here's the synopsis of what we've been up to recently:
Jen and I are now back in Adelaide after our fantastic trip to Western Australia. We're here for two more days before finally heading back to Melbourne. We hope to find some time to get back online tomorrow, if everything works out.
In the meantime, here's the synopsis of what we've been up to recently:
- We have shaken hands with a Prince and Princess.
- We encountered dolphins, dugongs, and sea turtles at Monkey Mia.
- We have driven through more kilometers of brush scrub than I care to count.
- We got our car dirty. The rental people complained.
- We surfed at Wave Rock.
- We toured a submarine and a prison.
- We went snorkelling at Rottnest Island.
- I got sniffed by a quokka.
Of course there's much more to tell than that, but I've gotta have more time to tell it all in! Our train trip back to Adelaide was MUCH better than the outbound trip, and left us feeling that we might even survive our future train trip on the Ghan when we go to Uluru in March. For now, we're off to wander around Adelaide a bit more and then find ourselves some dinner and - wonder of wonders - a bed that is (a) completely horizontal and (b) not moving. Hooray!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Our WA Trip - Part One
Well hello again! I'm getting to write to you a little sooner than I'd expected... the hostel we're in tonight had pretty good rates for Internet, so Jen and I have a blessed hour in which to catch up with the rest of the world. So I'll tell you as much of our travels as I can before my time runs out, and then you'll have to wait until the next installment!
I am writing to you from Geraldton, a town about 450kms up the coast from Perth. It's a sizable place and the heart of the west coast rock lobster fishery, so there are lots of boats and a big processing plant. Today we shook hands with real royalty and Jen managed to get bitten by a pink lake. No, that's not mis-spelled. She got bitten by a lake. But all good stories have to begin at the beginning, so let's go way back to Jan 5th, when we got on Metlink to start this adventure... you'll have to wait for a while for the pink lake story...
So. On Jan 5th we headed out for this, the longest and likely craziest of our Australian adventures. We needed to get to Southern Cross railway station (Melbourne's equivalent of Union Station) to catch the Overland train to Adelaide. This should have been an easy task... get on the Upfields train, like we usually do, and get off at Southern Cross. Well, wouldn't you know it, they were doing track repairs, and none of the trains from our sector of the city were stopping at Southern Cross! Yikes! The train conductor came over the PA and told us that anyone going to Southern Cross had to get off at North Melbourne and catch the train from there.
So, dutifully we got off the train at North Melbourne and puffed our way up the ramp to figure out what platform we needed to be on to get to Southern Cross. And of course, all throughout the station were posters saying that to get to Southern Cross, we had to catch a train to Flinders Station and then backtrack! What? We could have done that by staying on the train we had originally been on! GAH! So we ran back down to the train platform, caught the next train that came in, made it to Flinders, hopped two platforms over, and finally caught a train that actually STOPPED at Southern Cross. All of this dragging our suitcases behind us and clutching our boogie boards under our arms. Needless to say we were a little tired by the time we got to the right station.
Next, we had to figure out where to check our luggage. We found the Overland train on platform 2 and hoofed it all the way to the front of the train, where the workers were loading luggage. They were kind enough to check our boogie boards (which aren't strictly allowed, but we smiled nicely and batted our eyelashes) and our small suitcases for the trip. We got on the train with about 20 minutes to spare before departure, which was stressful for me because they basically closed and locked the train doors behind us once we got on. Stupid bloody Metlink, making us late!
Anyway, we were finally on the train. The Overland has recently undergone a complete overhaul, and the train cars were very nice. The seats were roomy, the arm rests were actually comfortable, and the little fold out tables were actually of a useful size. Our seats were at the very back of the car, and for whatever reason, we had a ton of extra legroom - I couldn't even touch the seats in front of us with my legs stretched all the way out. It was great.
We were on the Overland for about 10 hours, as it wound its way towards Adelaide. For the first little while, we passed through rolling farmland with endless herds of sheep, random scattered gum trees, and pretty much nothing else. Then the land flattened out and we passed through an endless plain of wheat and other grasses, with mountains showing only vaguely on the horizons. I was surprised that this part of the country was so flat! I knew that the Nullarbor plain would be flat, but we weren't going to go through that for another couple of days. Anyway, the terrain didn't really get interesting again until we were almost at Adelaide, when we suddenly found ourselves travelling through big steep hills which were thickly forested.
Ten hours is a long, long time to be on a train, and even with regular stretching, we were both getting antsy and were ready to get off. So wouldn't you know it, about an hour outside Adelaide, the conductor came on the PA to tell us that the train was under slow orders because of the heat, and that we would likely be arriving into Adelaide about a half an hour late. No problem, I thought, that'd put us in around 6pm. In the end, we didn't arrive until after 7pm, and Jen and I were both annoyed and HUNGRY! About the only good thing from the last hour of that trip was the funny announcements the conductor made as the train was preparing to enter Adelaide, such as, "Please make sure you check your seats and ensure you take all your belongings with you. Should you feel the need to leave anything on the train, please make sure it is something we will enjoy." And our favourite, "When the train arrives at the station, please do not stand up until the train personnel tell you it is safe to do so. We occasionally jostle the train slightly in order to gently wake up our first class passengers." Ha ha!
The next step was to get to the hostel and check ourselves in. After a brief scramble with all the other passengers to get our luggage, we were ready to get our bearings and head to the main street, where we should have been able to catch a free bus which would drop us right off at the hostel. Only problem? Apparently there are two train stations in Adelaide (who knew?) and I had written down the directions for the wrong one! There was NO main street anywhere near where we were! There was a shuttle bus loading near the entrance to the train station, so Jen went over and asked him if he knew how to get to Backpack Oz... and the guy offered to take us there for $4 each. We took him up on his offer.
Ten minutes later we were signed in at the hostel, had booked our shuttle to return us to the RIGHT train station the next day, and were ready to go looking for dinner. Adelaide, like pretty much every Aussie city/town/hamlet we've been in, seems to roll up its streets at 6pm. There was no traffic and nobody walking about! We wandered northward for a few blocks, towards the city centre, and happened upon a nice little Thai restaurant, where we enjoyed a fabulous dinner. It was also at the restaurant that we realized something funny was going on with the time. Apparently, like Newfoundland, South Australia is on its own time zone - a half an hour different from the rest of the country! This explained why the train seemed to be SO late... we had lost a half hour somewhere along the way. Strange! Good thing we figured that out before we went to get our shuttle back to the train station!
Phewph! And that was only the first day of the trip! However, my time is slowly running out and I really need to check my email, so I'm going to sign off for now. More another day! Tomorrow Jen and I are heading to Monkey Mia, on Shark Bay. They're famous for the dolphins which come to visit their beach every morning. Oh, and the stromatolites. Can't wait!
I am writing to you from Geraldton, a town about 450kms up the coast from Perth. It's a sizable place and the heart of the west coast rock lobster fishery, so there are lots of boats and a big processing plant. Today we shook hands with real royalty and Jen managed to get bitten by a pink lake. No, that's not mis-spelled. She got bitten by a lake. But all good stories have to begin at the beginning, so let's go way back to Jan 5th, when we got on Metlink to start this adventure... you'll have to wait for a while for the pink lake story...
So. On Jan 5th we headed out for this, the longest and likely craziest of our Australian adventures. We needed to get to Southern Cross railway station (Melbourne's equivalent of Union Station) to catch the Overland train to Adelaide. This should have been an easy task... get on the Upfields train, like we usually do, and get off at Southern Cross. Well, wouldn't you know it, they were doing track repairs, and none of the trains from our sector of the city were stopping at Southern Cross! Yikes! The train conductor came over the PA and told us that anyone going to Southern Cross had to get off at North Melbourne and catch the train from there.
So, dutifully we got off the train at North Melbourne and puffed our way up the ramp to figure out what platform we needed to be on to get to Southern Cross. And of course, all throughout the station were posters saying that to get to Southern Cross, we had to catch a train to Flinders Station and then backtrack! What? We could have done that by staying on the train we had originally been on! GAH! So we ran back down to the train platform, caught the next train that came in, made it to Flinders, hopped two platforms over, and finally caught a train that actually STOPPED at Southern Cross. All of this dragging our suitcases behind us and clutching our boogie boards under our arms. Needless to say we were a little tired by the time we got to the right station.
Next, we had to figure out where to check our luggage. We found the Overland train on platform 2 and hoofed it all the way to the front of the train, where the workers were loading luggage. They were kind enough to check our boogie boards (which aren't strictly allowed, but we smiled nicely and batted our eyelashes) and our small suitcases for the trip. We got on the train with about 20 minutes to spare before departure, which was stressful for me because they basically closed and locked the train doors behind us once we got on. Stupid bloody Metlink, making us late!
Anyway, we were finally on the train. The Overland has recently undergone a complete overhaul, and the train cars were very nice. The seats were roomy, the arm rests were actually comfortable, and the little fold out tables were actually of a useful size. Our seats were at the very back of the car, and for whatever reason, we had a ton of extra legroom - I couldn't even touch the seats in front of us with my legs stretched all the way out. It was great.
We were on the Overland for about 10 hours, as it wound its way towards Adelaide. For the first little while, we passed through rolling farmland with endless herds of sheep, random scattered gum trees, and pretty much nothing else. Then the land flattened out and we passed through an endless plain of wheat and other grasses, with mountains showing only vaguely on the horizons. I was surprised that this part of the country was so flat! I knew that the Nullarbor plain would be flat, but we weren't going to go through that for another couple of days. Anyway, the terrain didn't really get interesting again until we were almost at Adelaide, when we suddenly found ourselves travelling through big steep hills which were thickly forested.
Ten hours is a long, long time to be on a train, and even with regular stretching, we were both getting antsy and were ready to get off. So wouldn't you know it, about an hour outside Adelaide, the conductor came on the PA to tell us that the train was under slow orders because of the heat, and that we would likely be arriving into Adelaide about a half an hour late. No problem, I thought, that'd put us in around 6pm. In the end, we didn't arrive until after 7pm, and Jen and I were both annoyed and HUNGRY! About the only good thing from the last hour of that trip was the funny announcements the conductor made as the train was preparing to enter Adelaide, such as, "Please make sure you check your seats and ensure you take all your belongings with you. Should you feel the need to leave anything on the train, please make sure it is something we will enjoy." And our favourite, "When the train arrives at the station, please do not stand up until the train personnel tell you it is safe to do so. We occasionally jostle the train slightly in order to gently wake up our first class passengers." Ha ha!
The next step was to get to the hostel and check ourselves in. After a brief scramble with all the other passengers to get our luggage, we were ready to get our bearings and head to the main street, where we should have been able to catch a free bus which would drop us right off at the hostel. Only problem? Apparently there are two train stations in Adelaide (who knew?) and I had written down the directions for the wrong one! There was NO main street anywhere near where we were! There was a shuttle bus loading near the entrance to the train station, so Jen went over and asked him if he knew how to get to Backpack Oz... and the guy offered to take us there for $4 each. We took him up on his offer.
Ten minutes later we were signed in at the hostel, had booked our shuttle to return us to the RIGHT train station the next day, and were ready to go looking for dinner. Adelaide, like pretty much every Aussie city/town/hamlet we've been in, seems to roll up its streets at 6pm. There was no traffic and nobody walking about! We wandered northward for a few blocks, towards the city centre, and happened upon a nice little Thai restaurant, where we enjoyed a fabulous dinner. It was also at the restaurant that we realized something funny was going on with the time. Apparently, like Newfoundland, South Australia is on its own time zone - a half an hour different from the rest of the country! This explained why the train seemed to be SO late... we had lost a half hour somewhere along the way. Strange! Good thing we figured that out before we went to get our shuttle back to the train station!
Phewph! And that was only the first day of the trip! However, my time is slowly running out and I really need to check my email, so I'm going to sign off for now. More another day! Tomorrow Jen and I are heading to Monkey Mia, on Shark Bay. They're famous for the dolphins which come to visit their beach every morning. Oh, and the stromatolites. Can't wait!
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