2013 October 1st - November 2nd. Sydney - Broken Hill, Perth - Mildura, Australia 👍

Dateline: November 2nd 2013. Mildura, Australia

Our heavy duty trip, there and back again

We start in Sydney, Oz. October

Our home for a few months. I'm still working, so the cruiser doubles as my office (again)

Well, it appears that my assessment of the first part of our trip was about right, mass signs of underwhelming abounding throughout the length of my receivers list. As it says above "And continues". Maybe just look at the pix is enough for most :)

Annie's menagerie. An ongoing accumulation

So, sod it, November 9th, in the Borossa Valley, South Australia, lets go....

Heres some pix of the trip.sort of in order of travel, and boring write up below

Old lovers reunited, well, not totally

Back then, October 1st, about 10:00AM, fresh (or otherwise) from our 4:50 AM (NZ time, 2:50AM Sydney time), we have arrived and trained it from Sydney airport out to the Bianco homestead, about 30Kms out of the Sydney Centre.

Did I say this before? Public transit here make Toronto look positively amateur. Deja vu or what?

We reacquaint, sorta catch up, and move into the luxurious, future Bianco over lander RV trucking accommodation at Annie and Gary's acred homestead

The cruiser is alive and well, (to the uninitiated, that the Toyota Land Cruiser), suitably maintained (thanks Gary!), and all is well with the world....

Old lovers reunited

Sydney is still a great place to hang out. 
This time it's a lot warmer

I certainly prefer this to bagpipes. Central Sydney

Down to the local Temple to give thanks

And we're off to Bathurst,
just to test my driving skills

After a few shopping trips, taking in the bank, the Telstra store (for a SIM of course - can you believe you still need your drivers licence to get a phone connection here!!!!?), the bank for new cards and of course, Costco, add in a few downtown Sydney haunts, and after a few days, we are ready willing and able to head off.

After a few minor adjustments here and there to the cruiser, we take our leave and head out on the Saturday.

This mini trip, is just a quick opener to the road. We get about 150Kms (it feels a lot longer), out of Sydney, through the Blue "Mountains" aka hill things, and take our first night in the rooftop tent.

The realities of the road. 
Luckily, we both love the outback
Cobar, quite a trek, maybe 500Km

The Outback. Its great to be back, away from the civilisation of metropolis' and towns, even villages. to be part of the road kill adventure

In some ways, its like a throwback to '50's UK
Wilkannia, run by volunteers to try to cut down on long driving accidents, aka, dead people

Oz is a big, mostly flat expanse.
There's quite a few of these weird rocks about the place
This being Broken Hill

After 3+ years, it takes a bit of getting used to again.

I check the distance to Perth. About 4000Kms, 35 hours of driving, this is direct, and, one assumes on a proverbial "good day" at the speed limits. It wont happen. This is almost like driving across Canada.

There's a few of these around. could be boots,
bra's, wigs, pants, bikes.
It's really just to break the monotony

 

Did I say that there's a lot of these?
The problem at this time of year, is the bloody flies

 

Broken Hill.
 In the middle of absolutely nowhere

And this is typical Everytown. A main drag, a few
booze and food stores. Two gas stations, coffee and go
Actual name of Peterborough

We are about 500Km north of Adelaide in Kimba. Actually miles from most places. A typical camping area
Well, typical for us, guaranteed that it's not typical for you, gentle reader

 

 

Ilge decided to do a photo journal of roadsigns

I have decided to head through the upper route, taking in Broken Hill, and apparently, lots of outback. It's all just as real as "outback" in the Northern reached of Oz as anywhere else. It's all total desert folks. I must have brought my own tools last time. Without any, I feel a bit naked, so I drop into a tool store and feel much better for it

Fowler Bay and endless flies
I nearly drive off the road there's so many of these shit things
 Absolutely brutal

500Km's the next day to Cobar, and we are in the thick of nowhere. Out survival skills are stretched to the limit as we track down ice for our Gin & Tonics.

It's just distances folks

You never get used to it. Eating sandwiches is the worst

On our way to Broken Hill, we stop at a volunteers coffee wagon and meet the ladies. This is in Willcannia. It says a lot that the volunteer coffee wagon is more popular than the local coffee shop..... which has heavy duty reinforced metal doors. Hmmmm. I fill up. The prices are ridiculous, but Wait! it will get worse.

Real outback. I have no idea what this is telling me
Ah! It's me having a piss

Broken Hill is a mining town from way back, silver apparently. 1200Km from our starting point. Surprisingly, you can get an excellent salad here.  for some reason (probably mining), there is an actual water pie fed lake in the town. Its surrounded by sand and dust, not much green here, and monuments to dead miners seem to be the art of choice.

But this is telling me that this is a really cool pix to send to everyone I still work with

There's quite an art aspect here, from the "Big Picture" - in a local art gallery (10 tonnes of paint to finish it), to the Living Desert sculptures about 8K out of town on a hill overlooking the town. Incredibly memorable more due to the amount of flies than the sculptures, which were actually, not bad.

BUT! The flies - worse that mozies in Northern Ontario.

We are beginning to divine, or maybe re divine, the way outback Australia lives, well, if you can extrapolate from caravan park habitues, there is a lot of mobility here. Many folks simply move around the country, trailing their caravan, typically semi retired, workers at some form of technical level. Often from UK aways back. I guess its the same everywhere, but about 30 - 40% of all the parks appear to be permanent residents, complete with dog and flowers at the front of their caravans. I guess its all they can afford

The great Australian Bight. We are here for the Whales
"Sorry mate, you just missed them"

This could become a simple litany of places we drove through and what we learned at each, but, we've been here and done that before. Suffice it to say, its a bloody long way, and there's a LOT of desert. There is a surprising amount of farming. (Almost) endless swathes of wheat and barley, like 700Kms of it, both side of the road. We get internet 300Kms from the nearest town, we play "name that roadkill" and watch the stars.

Hey! There are many worse ways to pass the time
as you sink into the void of retirement
Madura, about 150Kms inside western Australia

We wonder how you can grow anything in the outback when native species so obviously cling to life. Well, it appears that its the summers that are totally dry, so vegetation has to live through 6 months of no rain. But, farmer planted crops get winter rains and are harvested during the no rain period, hence Australia is one of the biggest wheat exporters in the world. Just goes to show huh.....

Anyway: To cut to the chase, the roadtrip was (sort of maybe), daily moves:

Sydney - Bathurst 150Km

Bathurst to Cobar: 450Km's

Cobar, via Peterborough to Kimba (supposedly half way from Sydney to Perth - it wasnt. 570Kms

Kimba via Cedona to Fowlers Bay: 450Km

Fowlers Bay to Madura: 550Km

Madura via Norseman to Esperance: 730Km's (Yes, I was dead!) STILL 1120Kms from Perth!)

Esperance to Albany: 480Kms

Albany to Margaret River (second major objective): 380Kms

Margaret River, via Dunnesbury, Busselton and Madurah to Perth: 270Kms

Last time around Oz, we did the Full Monty; lots of 4 x 4 and oooodles of raw hard rugged outback. The Nullabor was just a flash by to get back to Sydney for our flights out. Not so this time

Deep, deep into the Nullabor. Note number of Roo's

As far as 4 x 4 goes, our first attempt is at the road house in Balladonia, there is a dirt road down to "Cape Arid" national park, I want to test out the 4 x 4 and my sad skills at such, but I can't find any info regarding the state of the track, so we head to Esperance instead. Lucky really, as the next morning, I find a pool of oil under the car. Somehow the oil filter had come undone and was quite loose. Easy to fix in Esperance. In Cape Arid where lots of 4 x 4 track would have meant it had fallen off before I noticed? Hmmmmmm Maybe no 4 x 4 atlas was not such a bad move

We rest up at some green camping area

The Nullabor is huge
2 - 3 days just for that

Big sheets of outback colour by the 
side of the road. Beats roadkill

Al Hum Do lelah! 

The road has some colour occasionally

For whales, we drop into several places hoping: Ceduna, nope, Fowlers Bay, nope, Australian Bight, "gone two weeks ago", Eucla, nope, Esperance, nope, Albany, gone. 

Just off of the Nullarbor, heading
to Perth

We eventually find the whales off of Dunsborough. About 120Kms south of Perth. At least we think we see them. they are Sooooo far away, there were no pix we could be bothered to take, so you have to take our word for it.

After the whales, its Margaret River. Our first Australian destination, for the Reds, Cabs, Merlots and Shiraz', hopefully

Its already time for a service (yep, nearly 5000Kms, just on this trip), so I book it in during our day at the wineries. 

7 days of solid travel and we are here
Margaret River. Average plonk
I really should check the distance on the map
before I do this stupid thing again

A full day and finally, we find wines we enjoy, quite a few actually. We chose Margaret River Tours, once again over the phone we use the web and call as we're on the road. It was great, and we actually bought several wines. Maybe (?) a first. This is our standard approach, find someone to drive us and give us the background and commentary. It usually works, and we end up having a great time.

We find a country club and stop for grub. We easily convince ourselves that that's a whale

Two days at Margaret River - its a lovely place, the cruiser is ready to go so we head to Perth  Not quite, hold on!. 36 hours later, and the clutch master cylinder is suddenly out of action. We limp into a 4 x 4 shop, and they do a great instant fix. I book up a full repair once they get get the spare parts. We head north and camp. Time to investigate Perth. We camp to the North

4560Kms, the lot, plus a few deviations, about 5000Kms - this in 10 days, 2 of these sampling the best wines Margaret River can offer

We have come to the new world, (is this it?) looking for wine and animals, left Sydney looking for birds and whales and a great Shiraz. Well, achieved most of these

Perth. It's a lovely place. Very small and cozy

 

I find a great bike rental place, and we're off

Perth, what a lovely place, very impressed. Lovely bike paths, obviously a rich place, business and commerce works well here. The more of these largish cities we visit, the more I find my hometown of Toronto is really decades behind and is more concerned with cheaper taxes than a vibrant city. Sigh (yes, including Mr. Fords antics to date)

Thats it for the west coast folks. No, just an average road trip. Except for Margaret River, all in the rooftop tent. Luckily, its been dry and fairly warm. Most camp sites are relatively basic, often without an enclosed room, so we've been living a pretty basic existence this time. Ah, what we do for our Viticulture research

Perth must be a lovely place to live. Modern, lots of parks. Easy to get around. (Tiny)

Oh well, we have done our trip out, now its time to head back.

By day:
Perth - Hyden: 335Km

Hyden - Norsemen, dirt: 325Km

Norsemen - Caiguna roadhouse: 372Km

Caiguna - Eyre Bird Sanctuary 4 x 4: 44Km

Eyre Bird Sanctuary - Eucla: 290 Kms

Eucla - Ceduna: 490 Kms

Ceduna - Wuddinna via Streaky Bay/ Seal colony: 250Kms

Wuddina - Port Pirie:350Kms

Port Pirie - Mildura: 450 Kms

View from Kings Park overlooking Perth downtown

We head to Hyden, the place that has the "Rock Wave". Upthrust granite, the same stuff we found in the middle of Australia at Uluru. Flies, flies and mosquitoes, even after dark. We are still camping, cheap, and surprisingly comfortable (for us aging hippies anyway - your mileage WILL vary). Hyden is on the limit of the outback. We've been through about 250Kms of farming - again, mostly wheat, and its almost a relief to see desolation again. The camp site reflects this. Your not here for the facilities, that's for sure.

We have the choice of a long tarred coastal road, 
or a shorter backcountry to Norseman
The cruiser has zero problems here, of course

A quick wander for me around "The Wave" next day, and a coffee at the local bakery, and we head to Norseman. A pleasant enough trek. Some dust, but a good dirt road.

The "Rock Wave" at Hayden
Interesting enough to camp at

On the way, we divert to some cliffs for a "picnic". Wow, the flies are unbelievable. Last time, when we travelled in winter, we don't remember them, now, they are everywhere. UGH!..... Hmmmm Mmmmmm, tuna and fly salad sandwiches.

Norseman, a town in decline. Lots, well half the shops are for sale. Like many other small towns, this one appears to have outlived its usefulness. As it's at the starting point to the Nullabor to points East, it still seems to survive. again we camp, this time, the clouds we've seen in the west turn into rain. we get damp and wrap up the tent in a shower.

Central Nullabor (Null = None, Abor = trees)
and it pisses down. A lot. I do some consulting

To Balladonia where they make (on site) incredible sausage rolls. They are a meal for 2 people, for fuel and on, through the rain (this is the desert), to Caiguna. There is good signal for the phone/ internet here, so we hang out. We wait for access to the Eyre bird sanctuary near here, we hope to make it down there once the rain ends. It continues to piss down 

All night.

Next day.

At last! What the old Gal is built for
We are heading to the 
Eyre Bird Sanctuary

We go anyway

Yes, you definitely need 4 x 4 here

The sanctuary is just that. Finally, a 4 x 4 track to test our (me & the truck's) skills, very remote unless you have real 4 x 4, including, letting air out of the tyres. The real thing.

Did I mention the flies? Just unbelievable
Do you want flies with your sandwich?
Do you want a sandwich with your flies more like it
Deepest Nullabor

The sanctuary is a B&B, with a difference. Totally remote. Birds, sand, tracks, an old telegraph house, renovated.

Just the night, rain again, then to Eucla to clear out our fruit & veg. Yes, pretty much every border demands that you throw out your fresh produce for various reasons.

Oh god! We have about 3 minutes of peace
then every fly in the world is in your eyes, ears, nose etc

There's not much to do at the sanctuary, so we do it

4 x 4 time. I finally got some ROI here

Back at the Australian Bight for a fly few free picnic

On across the Nullabor, amazingly, full internet. Never fails to amaze me, to the Great Australian Bight where we have a picnic overlooking a sea quite devoid of whales. This little area quite devoid of anything except whales in season, is now a kind of last respite homeland for the remaining Aborigines. None of them appear to have much in the way of bankable assets 

Lovely view though. This is on the other side of the desert. Soon, its back to farm land.

Ceyduna, and we arrive late, chat to some locals and miss the pub grub by a few minutes.There is a Canadian at the local hotel desk. She, like several others we've met, tell us how easy it is for people (under 30), to get jobs here. Hmmmm, methinks I can off load the kids into this life changing direction. For them and us.....

Living in style, well, my kind of style. Oysters

However, back to the plot, I'm out looking for grub, and I'm out in the streets. There are a lot of drunken abbo's about. A lot of anger and shouting. It reminds me of South Africa. Not a pleasant experience. Sad, and a little frightening

Next day, its all gone, the atmosphere is back to small town Australia, complete with Puccini and Mozart on the local pa system (yes indeed)

There's still a lot of south Australia left

Down to the local Seal colony, via Streaky Bay complete with smoked fish and, yes, of course, a dozen oysters, and finally head off for a night at Wudinna, a real outback town, but positively booming with grain fields. Everywhere. Incredible outback night skys out here

One of my many weaknesses

I know. It doesn't say anything to me either

Off to port Augusta, a grimy hot industrial town at the top of the inlet, but fantastic oysters (is this a trend?), but little else. Port Pirie, site of a huge lead zinc and nickle smelter (we ask a local "well, you know you wash your hands a lot") and end up, computer in hand at the local working mens football club for fish and chips (again?). Well, at least I can plug in my machine and work out some customers problems. 

Mildura. A (second rate) time share
At last, I can invite Annie and Gary to my home

Today, Saturday 2nd November, we forsake our gypsy footloose anything goes lifestyle, for a timeshare in Mildura. A real bed, free laundry, a barbecue just outside, and our Oz mates, Annie & Gary. All looking to just hang out by the pool, learn and play bridge till the small hours, and maybe take silly cruises, sample some local wines at a cellar door or two, have some decent coffees and indulge in pretentious food eatings. What fun.

Uh Oh. Looks like its time to clean up my act. wine tasting

Bingo! Yes, really.
Fortunately, I was washing my hair

The week trickles by at the pool, the barbecues and bridge. We take no prisoners.

Ah. This is lovely. 
The Jacaranda are out in Mildura

For some reason, I still can't catch up with this blog thing there, so I have to take it on the road, and eventually (YESS! Tonight, November 11th), finally release this to the yawning masses

I've lost count of how many 1000's have clicked through my trip monitor by now, maybe 8, 9000? 

So, what stands out about this "generic" outback trip?

Obviously some pseudo intellectual pot boiler here

  

Mildura night life.
Actually, they were fun. A great night

Annie has "always wanted to try a tasting dinner"
And that's all it was. We all went out for a sandwich after

We did lots of BBQ's and boozing. Plus some quasi moral and political jibes

• This trip is just too easy. Next time, I think I'll take a 4 x 4 course before I go anywhere, PLUS make sure I have my 4 x 4 atlas with us (see below)
• Roadkill, a lot around Broken Hill, less as we head west, more live than dead in Western Australia
•  I'm drinking a LOT of milk, hitting 2 litres a day - it's medicinal, get over it. I am getting fat though. Hardly any exercise as all I seem to do is drive, eat, sleep, fart etc.....
• Speaking of which, this all day driving means I'm not exploring the outer reaches of Australia's fun places to be in. All driving and no play makes Jim a fat boy (see above)
• Amazed at how much farm land there is here, literally hundreds of K's of it as far as the eye can see on both sides of the desert, most in desert environs. Somehow, all this wheat, barley and oats grow in areas with only desert levels of rainfall.......
• We come to terms with Australia's food and coffee. pies, bacon and egg sandwiches and less than average coffee
• On the outback roads, there appears to be a pecking order or something. Lots of folks in 4 x 4's wave as they pass. Car drivers seldom, and women drivers, never
• We monitor our progress and pass the time with the "recognise the roadkill". I'm not sure if lots of it on the side of the road shows how much there is, or how stupid the animals are. 
• Simply taking the "bitumen" option ie, roads from Sydney to Perth & back, is, well, not really much of a challenge
• Fuel costs as much as living: the trip works out at about 20 cents a Km, at 5000Kms from Sydney to Perth, thats $1000 just to travel there (FYI, Diesel is about $Oz1.60/ litre, about 30% more than Canada
• The roadhouses are remote little towns on their own. Looks like you need to be a special person to survive for long in the middle of nowhere.
• I finally have realised, now that I need my 4 x 4 Australia atlas. That is where the real Australia is. The Nullabor, yes, it's long, and desolate in many ways, but not the challenge of the backroads; the moral: Never leave on an Oz tour without you 4 x 4 driving atlas
• Oz is really just one huge outback. The few green bits are usually man made. Some, do stand out as having enough rainfall and being capable of supporting plants and animals year round. Guess who lives there now? No,  not the original occupants
• I can see that the Aborigines in several areas would have had a pretty easy life for hunter gatherers. 

What do I understand now, this time around?

Maybe the Australian psyche.... I feel that all the 4 x 4 crowd and jolly swagmen are out there challenging their environment, and the environment challenging them. Its certainly a hell of an experience travelling through the wild outback needing 4 x 4, rather than a motor trip, however long, on the real road.

It becomes increasingly obvious that Australians have got used to the good life via their masses of cheap to get to raw materials: mining, iron, gold, coal etc, wool, agriculture, old stuff. Every where, people have newspapers, hmm, ok, but the classifieds are huge. Where's the internet savvy generation? But internet appears to be expensive, nowhere is wifi free, and ridiculous rates ($6.00 per half hour? C'mon...). I think the ongoing complaints about "boat refugees", to be fair, not from everyone, is simply a miss directed backlash to blame "foreigners" for the prospective degradation of the Oz lifestyle. well, in actual fact (my fact of course), is that the ailing lifestyle will continue to decline until Oz works out that it cannot prosper without change. It also cannot truly prosper until the natives (the white ones) realise they need lots of immigrants, lots of new views on everything and lots of new ideas.

In short, lots of change. Any change.

So late 20th (the 21st will need to wait awhile yet) Century here folks

Tonight (if anyone's made it this far) we are only 8 days away from Malaysia. 

Stay tuned for our South Australia travels to find the perfect bicycle hire and vineyards.

Yes, this one goes on and on.

To be continued........

Jim

From Your Correspondent