Travelling up through Fremantle and Perth early on a Wednesday morning felt strange; everyone was heading off to work, and there we were with a ‘world tour’ sticker and a ton of luggage on the bike. Strangely though, no-one gave us a second glance. I think that a foreign number plate is so unheard of that our yellow plate goes unnoticed amongst the myriad coloured plates here.
We were prepared for Australia to be a seriously big country, but it still shocked us. It just seemed to take forever to get anywhere, but we eventually did get somewhere - Green Head. We spotted loads of kangaroos on the way but won’t show you any pictures as they weren’t really looking (or smelling) their best after having been taken out by one of the road trains.
We’d been following the coast road, and Green Head was a tiny coastal town with an almost empty campsite and not much else. We found ourselves camped next to Anne and Kathy - two charming ladies who were travelling back down to South Auastralia having spent a few months on the road searching out wildflowers.
They convinced us to try some Ashtanga Yoga and spent much of the time giggling like schoolgirls. They were a delight to be with and we wish them happy travels.
Our first night’s camping in Oz, and after rustling up some fairly grim tucker and walking along the cliffs by moonlight (!) we settled down to lie awake half the night. Jetlag is horrible.
Heading up north the next day was really just long raods with very little inbetween, just the odd fuel station, homestead and road train alleviated the scenery of huge fields. Diving off at a turning to a beach, we were rewarded with the most beautiful beach - and the ‘Starfish Café’. The owner was very friendly - as everyone here has been - and took some pics of us, and even let Anita sign one of his lobster pot floats.
What a beach.
We cut short the day and camped early to give us time to pitch the tent, cook and eat before it got dark. As it’s winter, it gets dark at 6.30-ish. Der! Hadn’t thought of that.
A friendly ex-Londoner -Paul- pitched up next to us, and after us helping him get his tent up, he offered to take us with him in his beaten-up old Toyota pick-up (‘ute‘) to a hotel that he’d seen nearby. We eventually found it in the middle of nowhere and had a great time chatting with the expat Brit owner who ran the old, slightly tatty pub as a second hand bookshop, a restaurant, a bar, a hotel, a bric-a brac store and a wedding venue. It was a slightly surreal evening and great fun. £4 for a stubbie of beer though……..
Paul set off at the crack of sparrows to start training for a new job and having not slept much (have I mentioned it before?) and after a walk on the beach we set off up the coast road.
What is a swag anyway?
By this time we were on a fairly new road that confused the hell out of the satnav - It was the The Indian Ocean Highway.
The road was properly coastal by now with scrub - much of it recently burnt - as far as the eye could see. The colours were a strange contrast of white sand, black shrubs, bright green foliage, dark blue sea and pale blue sky.
Just outside Kalbarri - our stop for the night - we took a break at a coastal lookout. The whales that migrate this time of the year were hiding, probably keeping the dolphins company.
After a better night’s sleep (yay!) we did manage to see some pelicans on the beach. This was mainly due to the fact that they’re fed there at that time every day but hey, they were wonderfully strange creatures close-up. It was almost like being in a film like The Mask that mixes computer generated cartoons with real footage. I put it down to jetlag.
A bit of ‘rock pooling’ on the beach this afternoon saw Anita screaming as though a man-eating octopus was trying to drag her away. I thought, ‘she’s found something exciting’, but she carried on screaming and jumping around. When I’d stopped laughing, I went to have a look, and it really was an octopus!! It’d wrapped it’s tentacles around her leg to see if she was edible but got kicked off pdq. We found out later today that the only octopus here is quite poisonous, and this two foot long one would have had a good go at having her for lunch.
The poor thing paid for it though. Neet spent the next ½ hour trying to entice it out for a chat. Strange lady.
Oh, and we found a family of yellow and red crabs.
One final pic of Neet getting together a lunch of cheese and sun-dried tomato rolls, just to prove that we’re getting into this camping malarky.
We’ll try to update as often as poss, but the Ozzies are very protective of their WiFi internet access. £5 for an hour is a pain in the butt. We’ve heard that Ronald McDonald has free access so will drop in there if we see one.
See ya cobbers.
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