The end is near

We’re both starting to feel a bit melancholy about the end of our adventure.  We only have a few days left before the loooong trip home.  The weather up til now has been wonderful but boy are we paying for it.  We’re being battered by a storm that’s come from the west and who knows when it’ll let up.  The news that we did catch showed roofs being torn off houses in Perth and we’re still 600 km east of there. Gail swears she saw white caps on the puddles along the road today. 

There's gold in there

We’ve spent the last 3 nights in Kalgoorlie in hopes of seeing the worlds largest “Open Pit Gold Mine”.  Due to the storms and rain the viewing platform into the pit has been closed.  We finally got to see it today on our way out of town and it is even more impressive than the big Iron Ore pit up in Newman!  The information says that they extract 800,000 oz of gold per year.  (We calculated it out to 25 Tons)  At the price of gold I guess they’re making enough money to keep drilling, blasting and moving rock with the Mega Machines they use.  

Kalgoorlie is quite an interesting place.  It is just what I would expect a turn of the century (20th century that is) boom town to look like.  Hollywood has the look down pat!  There are ornate hotels and buildings in the main downtown area and they have been kept up or refurbished to the original look.  We mostly just had an easy few days there except when we were being buffeted around by the winds.  Oh, well I shouldn’t complain cuz it’s all been good til now.

It’s Thursday and we’ve given ourselves 2 nights and 2 full days of driving to get back to Perth.  (We still have 3 bottles of wine to finish)  Once in Perth on Saturday we’ll spend the weekend with Bob and Heather, who we met and became friends with on the cruise.    They are a wonderful couple, our trivia partners, and have been MORE than good to us.  We’ll get the little motorhome cleaned up and ready to turn in on Monday.  As an aside, I would NOT recommend “Around Australia Motorhomes” to anyone.   More on that in a later blog.

This will stop wabbits!

The great eastern highway, the road to Perth, had all sort of interesting tidbits. We followed the great water pipeline. Back when gold was discovered, someone thought up building a pipeline from Perth to Kalgoorlie, 634 km, to supply water. They built it and it pretty much follows the highway, Pump stations are signposted, history plaques along the away and in Kalgoorlie. I think it still supplies water today. Then there is the rabbit proof fence, (on one map it’s called the vermin fence).  At the turn of the 20th century, this fence was built from the south coast of WA, to 1139 kilometers to the northwest of WA  at Port Hedland, to keep the rabbits from destroying the farmland. Some guy in Victoria brought 24 wabbits over for his own yard and so he and friends could hunt them, and guess what???   They acted like rabbits and also escaped, eating themselves westward. (Can’t ya just see Elmer Fudd with an Australian accent?)  The fence was completed in 1907 and there are actually 3 sections. Just when they thought the rabbits were under control, droughts forced the emus to seek nice agricultural areas. At one point there were more than 100,000 lined up along the fence. The grass is always greener on the other side. With the exception of the wheat belt, there really isn’t much for anything to eat out there!

We’re spending a couple of nights ins the town of Merridan which bills itself as the Central Wheatbelt.  It’s actually the boundary between the wheatbelt and the goldfields.  We’ll have a look around town today and maybe take a little hike through the bush.  Hopefully we’ll find wifi in town so we can publish this, which will probably be our final blog from Australia.  Our 2 1/2 months here have been a lot of fun and a great adventure!  We’ve been fortunate to meet many interesting and friendly people, and it’s always the people who make a trip truly memorable.  So at this point we wish you all a g’day and thanks for following our ramblings here about.

Well, Here we are just moving right along the south coast of WA.  We’re in the town of Hopetoun between Albany and Esperance.  This is a little tourist/vacation spot with nice beaches and a nearby National Park.  

Prior to this we were in Albany on the coast for a few days in Denmark.  We really liked it there.  We were in a campground that was right on the beach and we were luck enough to be able to back into a space and have a little view of the water.  Previously we spoke of the wineries and breweries but we finished up the Denmark area with a stop at a “Meadery.”  There were 4 different types of Mead to taste and quite frankly all were pretty nasty.  Mediciney and sweet.  yuck...  We won’t do that again!  On the bright side though we got that taste out of our mouth with a stop at a little Toffee Factory.  SWEET!!  There were lots of samples to try, and we did.  Actually ended up buying several flavors and even some “chili peanut brittle.”  We were expecting maybe some cayenne or chili powder but oh no, there were actual bits of chili peppers in the candy.  You couldn’t really taste it but the heat lingered in your throat after you swallowed.  

We then left Denmark and headed north to Hyden and the home of the Wave Rock.  Yup, It’s a huge rock that has been eroded on the side into the shape of a wave, kind of like this (.   It’s 45’ high and over 300’ long.  It was quite cool and well worth the drive up to it.  We also toured a cave with old Aboriginal art on the walls.  Very cool too.  The only campground for the area was quite a surprise as it was well kept and very well appointed.  A little place in the middle of nowhere and it had free wifi.  I know that we take wifi for granted in most of our campgrounds back home but over here they are still few and far between. So, It was a nice surprise.  

Latest in fly wear

One thing we really hadn’t expected is the fly problem they have here.  We even broke down and bought a couple of nets to go over our heads to keep the little pests off our faces and out of our ears.  They have some bigger ones that are similar to our horse flies or deer flies that bite but mostly it’s just the little house flies that are just thick and annoying. It doesn’t matter if it;s warm or cool, if you’re outside, the flies are with you. Makes enjoying a walk or hike a little difficult.

Moving east along the coast, we stopped in Esperance. This small town, aren’t they all, is a holiday mecca during the summer. It’s also the gateway to one of the more popular national parks. All along the coast, it’s dotted with national parks. Quite a few of them only have dirt roads, or unsealed, and are for 4wd, some 2wd cars. The coastline in Esperance is quite stunning. We have had 2 days of stormy weather but took a drive along the coast and if the weather clears up, there are some nice beaches to walk to and tide pools to explore. Besides walking the piers and ports areas, we went to a fish leather factory. Pretty fascinating, making leather out of fish skin. It starts out as fish skin and through the process of tanning comes out just like leather. Then they make belts and wallets and some unusual stuff.

Soon, we start heading north up to the gold country, Kalgoorlie open pit gold mine, then turn towards Perth. Our time is almost over here and in a week or so we head back home.

Wineries and breweries

Margaret River

Our long days of driving are now over and we’re really starting to enjoy Western Australia.  We’re South of Perth in the Margaret River Wine Region.  We gave ourselves a treat yesterday and took a guided tour through the area, to wineries and tasting, cheese, chocolate, venison, a distillery, and topped off with a brewery. Plus a very nice lunch included at one of the wineries. And we didn’t have to drive, at all. It was a great time. Of course we made a few purchases, for down the road, to sit and enjoy when the day is done.  We’ve also discovered that we both like a little liqueur after dinner (strictly to aid in the digestive process).  I wish we could bring some home but they don’t sell anything in 4oz containers. The distillery we visited, The Grove, served us varying kinds of port with spirits and liqueurs. They make a macadamia nut, turkish delight which is milk chocolate and rose water, fruit flavored ones and they blend them too. For some reason, they can’t serve shooters so they make up their own. We were served, in one glass, a little macadamia nut, white chocolate and coconut liqueurs, topped with a splash of half and half. No sipping, down all at once. Umm, umm good

Next day, we did our own touring. We checked out the rocks at Yallingup (yes, it’s the town name), very impressive waves crashing on the rocks, toured some galleries, pottery, silver, saw lots of rolling hills with farm land and of course grapes. Tried to do a little shopping in some of the towns, but Yallingup only had a general store and Cowaramup had about 5 stores, but not stuff we wanted. We found an ice creamery, yum, and did a little shopping in Margaret River. Got some souvenirs. Did find a brewery and had a bite. We had planned dinner, pizza, at another brewery but it appears most wineries and breweries here really only do lunch and are closed at 5 or 6 pm.

 This is how a holiday is supposed to be!! Relaxing and laid back. There are a couple of beaches to check out with sea life and good surfing. We’ll take some of our wine, fresh venison salami, cheese and a baguette and sit on the beach for awhile. The weather has been beautiful.

In the campground

 Next stop  Denmark, WA.  We finished our tour of the Margaret River area and western coastline and moved here on the southern coast.   We’re in another wine region but not nearly as many wineries as Margaret River.  We toured, tasted and bought today.  We probably won’t have to buy any more beer while we’re here as we probably can now switch to wine and make it through the rest of the trip.  Too bad we can’t bring any home with us.  :(    The countryside is quite a bit like other parts of the USA.  Lots of rolling hills, pastures and trees. Some wineries had great cheeses to buy, yes we did, and chocolates to go well with wine too as a few had their own made ones.

We can tell we’re getting farther away from the equator as the temps are becoming quite cool and comfortable.  There does seem to be more humidity though.  In our park we have a space that backs right up to the Southern Ocean and there’s a flock of seagulls that are being totally obnoxious.  Now they’ve even gotten the magpies and gullahs involved.  Like a bunch of kids fighting and squawking.   

Out, Outback, headed south

Well, this writing finds us in the town of Meekatharra, somewhere in the Pilbara. (Translated =  In the middle of nowhere in the outback)  It’s Friday evening and we just pulled into the only RV park (if you want to call it that) in town.  We walked a couple of blocks into the downtown area and didn’t see a pub to get a cold beer, so we went to grocery/package store and discovered that the police chief has banned the sales of alcohol for the weekend because of “anti-social behavior”.  That’s no way to enhance the tourist industry.  Oh well it is what it is, Right?

We’ve had some excitement since we left Broome a few days ago.  We were intending to stay at a Roadhouse but due to the proximity of a bush fire and lots of smoke, we had to alter our plans and continue down the road.  The fire itself was quite something to see.  We were basically in it for about 50 kilometers.  The grass, small bushes, and other vegetation is so dry that the fire just runs through it.  We had several places where the fire was right up to the road and you could feel the heat through the window.  I’m not sure anyone was trying to suppress or fight the fire.  Then for the length of time we were driving through it, it appeared as though the wind would pick up embers and blow them to a whole new area that would start blazing.

We actually ended up driving all the way back to Port Hedland and spent one night there.  I spoke of Port Hedland in one of the cruise blogs.  It is strictly a “boom Town” as it is the major port for shipping out what is mined in this area.  Salt, Iron Ore, Copper, Natural Gas, and who knows what else.  I think China is trying to import the whole country of Australia, one boat load at a time. (lol)   Because it is a boom town prices are through the roof!  $44 for a dusty little camp site. 

Between Port Hedland and Newman, we stopped at a national park, Karijini and hiked to a waterfall pool. Very refreshing and beautiful.

Then we headed for Newman where they mine for the iron ore.  Newman is another boom town but it’s been around longer and is a little bit more reasonable.  We found a campground that actually had a TV in the “Camp Kitchen” ( yes a camp kitchen is just what it sounds like)  But we got to see a little of the news and caught up on the election.  We treated ourselves to a tour of the worlds largest “open cut  mine.”  That was quite fascinating and we got to see those huge Mega-Machine Dump Trucks in action.  Very Cool!!  The mine itself is 8km long by 3km wide and 630 meters deep.  They haul 12 - 14 train loads of ore out daily and each train hauls 42,000 tons.  They do move some rocks.

It’s now Sunday here and we’re officially out of the outback, YEA!.  We made it from Meekathara to Northam (just east of Perth) in a day and then today we went from Northam to Bunbury south of Perth and along the west coast.  We’ll be in this little town for a couple of days then will move south toward the Margaret River area.  Margaret River is a wine region with a few microbreweries scattered in.  Hope to do some, or a lot of touring and tasting. But finally, something to see besides scrub, red dirt or burnt area. We drove with more cars today than all of the 2 weeks in the north. And the temperature  is just wonderful. Didn’t need any aircon driving. The day after we left Broome, the temp was 102 with plenty of humidity. This morning 68 with highs in the mid 70s. Love it.

Driving, Driving, finally Broome

After leaving Coral bay, it’s been pretty much drive, drive, get gas, spend the night, drive. It’s a long way to Broome, about another 1000 kilometer past Coral Bay and pretty much nothing out there. The few towns we go through are mining towns and BIG operations. There are some very large iron ore mines farther inland but all the ore is trucked to the ports of Port Hedland and Karratha and loaded onto tankers and sent to China. Salt is also mined out here and now there are natural gas plants. It’s very industrial, dusty with red dirt and haze everywhere. Between towns there are roadhouses, just fuel stops, mini mart and usually a campground. There are about 200-300k apart but it’s best to top off at each one. And we will probably spend the night at one before we’re done as there are no towns for camping.

Friday, we moved away from the coast and started feeling the heat of the desert. We’re moving north toward the very hot area and cyclone season just started. The wind pick ed up and I would guess the temp was in the high 90s. We found a small camp in a coastal port of Dampier/Karratha and it was a little cooler. Massive road construction projects are going on everywhere so the highway is very congested at the ports too.

Today, Sat., more endless driving across endless plains of nothing. The road trains were quite frequent through all the mining towns but once clear of the last port area, we almost have the road to ourselves. Bordering on stinking hot today, dry and windy. Our choice for camping is a roadhouse, in the blast furnace desert or try a place called 80 mile beach park on the water. We opted for the water, were a bit hesitant at the 9k of dirt washboard road, but arrived to a pretty neat campground with over 130 spaces. Just over the sand dune is the Indian Ocean, 80 miles of beach, nesting turtles and nice and quiet.

From 80 mile beach, the last 350 miles to Broome. Only 1 roadhouse for gas, no towns, plenty of nothing. Most of the ground along the highway has been burned, just black dirt and trees. Finally, we made it into Broome, and it’s STINKING HOT, HOT, HOT here and the heat is just getting started. This is the land of the “wet” and there will be monsoonal rain towards December. It’s tropical and the ocean is an incredible turquoise and pretty warm. The town is small but has the necessities. Its was a pearling town but now is not more than just a small resort,beach town on the coast. It’s also the gateway to the Kimberly, a vast desert region of the north with great scenic national parks that come alive with the rains. But we’re not going there.

After we leave Broome, it will be just another 4 days of driving to get back down to Perth, not the same route we came up though, more inland through more outback. We will try a stop in Karijini park to see some of the falls and pools and do some roadhouse camping. Can’t wait. But, with power there is air conditioning!

2 sickies in a motorhome

Well, we’re off the ship and now onto our next adventure.  We picked up our little motorhome on Sunday Oct 28 right after we got off the ship, spent the rest of the day getting it stocked and ready to head north.  Bob and Heather, our ace trivia partners from the ship, live in Perth and let us wash clothes and sleep at their house before we left Monday Morning.  We can’t get over how blessed we are to become friends with such wonderful people all over the world.

Monday got off to a rather auspicious start as Gail got sick just before we left Bob and Heathers.  So after successfully navigating us through downtown Perth she crawled up into the bunk and slept for the rest of the day.  Actually neither of us is 100% as we’re both fighting colds and probably the norovirus from the ship.  We’ll get over it though then look out Australia!!.  

Our first day out we made it about 400Km to the little town of Northampton.  Nothing real eventful for the day except that I saw a lot of huge dunes of white sand.  

The next day Gail was feeling better so we both spent the day in the cab on our way to Monkey Mia and Shark Bay.  We passed through a large area of grain farming and it looks as though they’re going to be harvesting a LOT of wheat very soon.  Part of our trip took us through a World Heritage Area where we stopped at the Hamelin Pools and learned a lot about Stromatolites.  We wouldn’t be here if not for those little lumpy Stromatolites.  Photosynthesis, enough said.  We also stopped by Shell Beach which, as you may have guessed, is a beach made up of zillions of little shells.  The guidebook says up to 8 feet thick in places.

Shell beach

We made it to Denham, which is the nearest town to Monkey Mia, and strictly a tourist trap.  3 RV parks in town all charging $36.00/ night for an electrical sight.  We will probably ask for a tour of the park from here on out as we seemed to have picked the “Fish Camp” park.  Lots of old, possibly back to 1920, caravans (travel trailers for our American friends) permanently parked and added on to.  We literally only have electricity and there are signs all around the park advising us that we are not allowed to fill our water tank.  What a CROCK.  We did make it to Monkey Mia Wednesday afternoon only to find that just to get into the place there is a fee.  We thought there would be a fee to go into the water when they feed the wild dolphins, or to do some of the other activities like rent kayaks or swim.  Nope, gotta pay a fee to get in to pay more fees to do those things.  We decided to just turn around as we felt we’d been scalped enough here.  Oh well, live and learn.  On the bright side we did see some emus on the way back to Denham.  That was OK.

Ok, its now thursday and we’re in Coral Bay on a little peninsula at the start of the Ningaloo reef.  The main reason we’re here is that we wanted to go diving on the reef.  Although this is not the time of year to dive with the Whale Sharks we thought we could maybe see some big Manta Rays.  Alas, because of our colds and stuffy heads we’re not going to get to dive.  Hopefully we’ll recover sufficiently to take a dive down south.  

On our drive today we saw lots of emus.  The morning started with a mama and 7 babies crossing the road in front of us.  That was pretty cool.  We also have seen lots of feral goats on the drive.  Still the only roos we’ve seen have been on the side of the road after trying to cross in front of the wrong car.  Fuel is getting more and more expensive.  We paid $1.88 per liter the last roadhouse we stopped at.  Our little motorhome gets 7 Kilometers/litre (17 mpg)  Ok, could be worse.  We’re also starting to see more and longer “Road Trains”.  Semi tractors pulling up to 3 long trailers (120’ in length.)  As we get closer to the big mining areas we’ll see even longer ones pulling 5 or more trailers. Most of the road is through scrub brush, some short, bushy trees and pretty flat. It’s desert here, bordering on outback. The farther north we go the less vegetation we will see. And it’s getting warmer but now unbearable.

Even though we’re not going to be able to dive the Ningaloo, Coral Bay is a pretty little area.

Cruising 2

Water traffic

DARWIN, the top end of Australia. Far from anywhere, it took us 3 sea days plus to get here. The days at sea were fairly pleasant and we settled into a routine with some power walking, reading and trivia. Darwin was an arduous stop, being extremely hot and humid  and not a very accommodating town. The shore excursions were pretty long and expensive so our main chores that day were to do some laundry, catch up on the computer and a little shopping. The town has no close and convenient laundry and after scouring all the hostels to see if we could use theirs (no, only for guest), finally took a bus to the outskirts of town to the car wash, of all places. A small garage type building had 2 washers and 2 driers in it and we finally got the laundry done. Took about 3 hours for a normally 1 hour job. By the time we got the bus back to the shopping mall, most of the stores were closing, being open only  till 2 on Saturdays. We did manage to get a little time on the computer, but the free city WIFI was a bit slow, so no blogs got published or doing anything except check mail. The library, our best WIFI standby was also closed by now. ARRGGG. So back to the ship, extremely worn out and exhausted because of the heat. I think the forecast that day was for 91 degrees and 70% humidity, and it’s going to get worse here. But we’re leaving!

Then it was off toward Bali, another 2 days to get there but the weather was great and seas or oceans we sailed through were like glass. And onboard, we have become trivia champs, several times. We’ve hooked up with some nice people and we are cleaning up on the prizes! Some of it good stuff too. The crew members who administer the trivia refer to the prizes as crap.   All fun.

Wood carving

Next stop BALI. Bali is one of the many islands of Indonesia but it is different . Of course it’s very tropical, very warm & humid and overall looks to be the same as other third world countries. It is congested with traffic, although a bit more orderly than some places but the majority of traffic are scooters. Since we haven’t been here we did take a tour to get an idea of the place, but it wasn’t nearly long enough. We spent all the time in city environments and didn’t get to see the countrysides, the lush terraced rice fields or temples. Guess we will just have to do that when we come back for a longer stay. We did visit an artist community, thousands of paintings, all styles, sizes and done by people of all ages. Next was a wood carving community. Here were intricately carved pieces, all sizes, some massive and very detailed. Last stop was a silversmith community. The fine silversmithing was all done by women with basically pliers, solder and fine wire. They made beautiful pictures, bracelets, pendants and large silver pieces. There are a lot of these stores around but these were ones of the better quality. We would’ve like to have visited a Batik factory but it wasn’t on the schedule. But we caught a glimpse of life on Bali and feel it’s worth coming back. It is very inexpensive for food, services and shopping. One friend on the ship when to Kuta town for shopping and got a manicure and polish for $4.00. Her husband had his feet nibbled (little fish in a tank eat the dead skin away) and a massage for $15.00.  And you can bargain the prices down and get some really good deals. I was able to get 3 silver pieces for basically one price by the time we were done.

Bhuddist temple

Tomorrow we dock in Port Headland which is where we hope to publish this blog and the previous one that we didn’t get to in Darwin.  No one can really understand why 

Cruising

We’re now in our 5th day of a 16 day cruise.  Last Friday when we boarded in Sydney it turned to winter.  We had been having great weather then a cold cyclone from the south came through, dropping temps and buckets of rain. It snowed in the mountains and in Adelaide, not seen for a 100 years. We had to wait in line outside the terminal for about 45 minutes in cold temps and a howling wind.  When the doors to the terminal finally opened at 11:00 am check in went fairly quick as we were on the ship by about 12:15 and in the buffet by 12:20.  Nice hot soup made it all worth while.  We left Sydney right on time but for us land lubbers it was a little choppy for the first night.  

Overnight and a full day at sea finally put us in Brisbane.  Gail is making sure that we are walking a lot as I’m eating well though to keep up my strength.  We made it to Brisbane on Sunday morning.  We didn’t plan any organized tours but in Brisbane just went into the city for a look and some shopping, found some WIFI at the  library and checked email.  We also got the Boise State score.. GO BRONCOS!!

Next stop the Great Barrier Reef and the town of Airlie Beach.  We did have another day at sea prior to arriving here in Airlie Beach. Nothing planned here but walked into town, did our laundry, and again got online.  This is the first ship/cruise we’ve been on that has no guest laundry, so we’re being careful about what we wear. Some balconies look like a close line with lots of clothes hanging out. We’re getting the hang of doing our drawers in the sink.  

Airlie Beach is a beautiful little beach town about 1/2 way between Brisbane and Cairns and is the gateway to the Whitsundays. It is a laid back beach town, some shopping and tourist services. The esplanade along the shore is a nice park and also had 3 public sand bottom pools. You can sit on the grass there, dip in the pools, relax like at a park. Several towns in the warmer climates have these and it’s kind of neat. The ship was anchored out a ways and we were tendered in. Check out our tender instead of a ship tender!

After leaving Airlie, we will be on the sea for 3 solid days as we travel up the coast and around the corner to the next stop of Darwin. It is getting warmer and more humid and it will be very warm in Darwin. The second day at sea, we followed the coast line, sometimes very close to land or islands. We’re traveling through a passage in the barrier reef, inside close to land. The water is an incredible light blue and shallow. The terrain is different, very sandy without the tropical vegetation. We’ve seen lots of smoke from fires  but no one will be putting them out. When we “turned” the corner and headed west, we passed through the Torres strait. Islands are around us and Papua/New Guinea is not too far away, to the north. This area is very remote with only about 15,000 inhabitants and the only roads are dirt tracks.

Ship life routine consist of meals (of course), reading, trivia, more reading, laps around the deck. We’ve won a couple of good prizes playing trivia and I think we latched onto some good players. The food isn’t too bad either!

Someone left the gate open

This may be the last blog for a little while. While on the cruise of 16 days, we don’t know what our internet access will be, other than expensive on the ship. So we leave Sydney on Fri 12th, cruise for 16 days around the top end of Australia and end up in Perth on the western side. From there we have a motorhome rented for a month, to drive the west coast north of Perth and the southern peninsula. Where all we go will depend on the weather, as we are heading into the “wet” season. And the temperatures may become too much for us the farther north we go. Guess we will just see.

So continuing after Lightning Ridge, we drove and drove on the edge of the outback, through Dubbo and down to Katoomba. There are several mountain towns in the Blue mountains, west of Sydney. But it’s not like being in US mountains, these “forest” are mainly gum or eucalyptus trees. But the cliff views are sensational. We met up with some friends we made in the Cook Islands (5 years ago we crashed their wedding at the Rarotonga bungalows). They now live in Katoomba and have a new family. It was great just catching up with them. We also took a couple of hikes in the area, the best being the National Pass. This trail was built in 1908, chiseled out of the cliffs, steps made of natural stones, down, over, through numerous waterfalls and cut across the cliffs, halfway up from the floor. It was magnificent, sometimes scary with the edges and heights. And a workout climbing all the stairs back up.

After 5 days in Katoomba, we decided to make a road trip to Adelaide, South Australia. Pretty much drive drive drive, pass a road train, drive drive drive. Lots of agriculture, mostly bright, yellow canola growing, sheep, rolling hills. Then all of the sudden nothing. We hit the outback. As we were driving, I noticed there seemed to be a fence running all along the edge and I started thinking silly thoughts. Like maybe this is the gate to the outback. Sure enough, we came across a gate labeled Hells gate, could be the same thing. Then an actual sign to the outback! We couldn’t resist.  

Driving the back roads provides some amusing pictures and signs. In a small town along the Murray river we saw the Chookman and his indescribable house boat. And the road signs are interesting, even if we don’t know what they are talking about. Town names and street names are funny too. At one point, Bill got bored so he decided to see how fast the car could really go. He hit 154k, =96mph. Luckily, no kangaroos jumped out. Zoom, Zoom, little Hyundai.

Adelaide was the farthest west we drove and it seemed to be a large, pretty mellow town. Did some shopping in the city, drove along the coastal towns and beaches. At one beach, we stopped for a minute and happened to watch some boaters load their boats on the trailers. The tide was out and they had driven the car and trailer to the water, now they’re loading back up but no boat ramp. One guy lost his trailer on the beach, walked it down, winched the boat  up onto the trailer and guess what? The trailer front end goes up and it’s getting tougher to load the boat. It was pretty hilarious watching him. He did succeed, threw a rope around the hitch and drove off. I thought he was going to tow the trailer like that but he finally did hitch it up properly. Too funny.

Lightning Ridge

We’ve made it to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney in a roundabout way.  A few days ago we left Newcastle and had a little time to kill so we decided to make a little detour.  We spent 2 nights in Lightning Ridge.  This is one of the few spots in  Australia where they mine for Black Opals.  So we thought “why not?” and off we went.  

Once we got outside of Newcastle it didn’t take long for us to get into the bush. We went  through hot spots like Quirindi, Gunnedah, Narrabi and Wee Waa! Not quite to the outback but we were definitely in the bush! Our travels took us through a lot more farming areas.  In fact, we went right past the Australia Cotton Research Center.  It seems that cotton is grown a lot more here than I ever would have expected.  In addition to huge farm fields, we saw lots of Eucalyptus trees, Koala signs but, no real koalas.  We also saw quite a few emus and kangaroos.

Folo the colored doors

Lightning ridge is quite a quirky little town.  It’s built around a ridge that is mined for Black Opals.  Most opal have a bluishness to them, black opal have red flecks in them and are pretty rare. We took a tour of a worked out mine that was actually quite interesting.  At the deepest we were only about 30 feet below the surface.  Of course the gift shop at the end really got our (Gails) attention.  The owner did give us a volume discount. 

Most of the mining in the area is small privately owned and financed by rugged individuals.  They are a hearty lot. :)  They start by digging a shaft down about 30’ to where the soil and conditions are right for the formations of the opals then find a seam of potential ore and then they commence to digging tunnels along the seam.  Most of the digging is done with picks, shovels and a small jack hammer.  The digging is mostly through sandstone and clay so no real layers of hard rock.  Then they use a wheelbarrow to haul the ore back to the shaft where it’s dumped into a bucket on a rail that will take it to the surface and dump it into an old cement truck mixing tank where they will wash out the silt and dirt and hopefully left at the bottom is the rock with opal.  Nothin’ to it. Quite a lot of discarded cement mixers around too. Surprisingly there are only a few open pit mines. Lots of “tailings”, piles of whitish rock, are pretty much everywhere, mostly clay remains. You can go fossicking (digging around) on these piles in hopes you will find your own opal.

Hoist

This area is also on the border of Queensland and probably has a lot of wet weather come summer time. Farther north, it’s called the wet and so much rain falls that many roads are impassable. Most of the vehicles are high clearance, SUVs or a sort of a pickup with a small bed and in pretty rough shape. Most of the miners we saw looked like a typical miner, long beard, mish mash of clothes or overalls, dusty desert rat. Camps (or their homes) were the same cobbled together whatever could make a wall. Pretty funny actually.

Miners camp

G'Day from Down Under

Well, After many months of planning we've finally made it back to Australia.  We've been here a week now and currently are in Newcastle.

United Airlines cut our connection time from Sacramento to San Francisco down to almost nothing due to a really late departure from Sacramento.  We did make it though and then had to suffer through 13.5 hrs cramped 3 across on a 747.  Thank goodness for Tylenol PM.  Suffice it to say that this will hopefully be our last international flight on a domestic US carrier.  Enough whining and on to the fun stuff.

Our first few days were spent in Sydney at the Victorian Court Hotel.  A small but comfortable room that was within walking distance of most of the neat Sydney attractions.  Once we got rested up we went out exploring and just left our rental car in the hotel car park.  We were able to walk to the Royal Botanical garden and Mrs MacQuaries Park just across a small bay from the Sydney Opera House.  Had a great view of the Opera House with the Harbor bridge in the background.  We cut across the arboretum and headed for downtown Sydney.  At one point we were checking our city map and a lady stopped and asked if we needed help.  We explained that  we were looking for an Optus mobile phone store and she lead us right to it.  I love these people they are so friendly!!

Got our mobile phone re-ignited and then we were off again.  We found a coffee shop, had a smoothie and used their wifi.  Pat and Norm we're sorry we couldn't Skype.  We then spent a couple of hours just sitting in Hyde Park watching people and reading.

Ocean pool

We have found that things are quite expensive here.  The exchange rate is right now about $1.05 American to get $1.00 Australian and they have a General Sales tax of 10%.  There must be some serious "sin Taxes" because a bottle of beer cost $7.90.  I can get a 6 pack of Blue Moon back home for that!

The next day we did venture out in the car and went to the famous Bondi Beach.  It was a beautiful beach and it's famous for the surfing and the Lifesaving club.  Didn't get to see any surfers get saved but they did have a John Deere towing a machine that cleans the trash out of the sand.

The last day in Sydney was pretty much a carbon copy of the first day but spent more time at the Arboretum.  There was a "spring flower" display.  Beautiful and lots of flowers were in bloom.


On Friday we were able to get out of Sydney and head to our friend Deb's house in Newcastle.  We took the scenic route and I'm sure glad we did cuz we went right through Bucketty.  We can now cross that off our bucket list. :)

We've had a wonderful weekend with Deb and her daughter Sophie.  In addition to showing us around her town she introduced us to friends of hers, Steven and Carrie, who showed us a wonderful afternoon in the Hunter Valley which is the areas premier wine country.  We had an wonderful lunch at an Italian (I mean REAL Italian) restaurant and winery, then to a little shop that specializes just in desserts.  WOW!!  Steven and Carrie are members at one of the winerys so we got to have a special wine tasting in the "Members Only" room.  Pretty cool for "trailer trash" like us, Huh?

We don't have any plans for a couple of days after we leave Newcastle so we've decided to head up to Lightning Ridge, a Black Opal mining area.  It's about an 8.5 hr drive northwest of here.  We'll be getting close to the outback.  More on that adventure later.