Denmark (April 2015)

Denmark is being fondly described by the locals as the Byron Bay of WA, but then without all the tourists. It does have a bit of a modern hippy vibe. The modern-hippy shire however does not like self contained free camping: all areas are signposted. It is Easter long weekend, the caravan parks are full and we don’t know where to go. We end up somewhere out of town in a spot we are certain we are not supposed to be, but reckon no ranger is going to check this area, so we’ll get away with it.

Next day we park our massive motorhome at the parking area of Ocean Beach. And sure enough a Ranger comes to warn me we cannot stay there and she takes photos of the bus. I find it a bit intrusive to be honest. But we have to be there because we are booked in for another surf lesson with Mike. He must be a local celebrity, renting out surfboards and providing lessons for sixteen years. He’s good too. Making the children practice on a board on the beach, explaining more about the waves with really cool illustrations. When they have another go in the water we can tell the new skills are carrying the kids even further than before. He explains they need to get as much ‘glide time’ as possible. Doesn’t matter if they lie on their back, sit on the board or stand.  The kids just love it, except for Hugo. He doesn’t really like getting wet.

Mike invites us to stay at his place, so we can park the bus and not break the law.

However the neighbours alert the Rangers and we have to explain ourselves again. Nicely, he accepts we are staying at Mike’s and that’s that.

We don’t want to stay too long though.

Easter is a bit different this year, without an Easter Fruit Loaf. Luckily the local bakery makes delicious hot cross buns. Our decorations have failed. Denmark can’t accommodate us, time we move on, in this case back.

We need to return to Albany because the children need to do schoolwork about ANZAC day and the centenary of the landing in Gallipoli, and where better to go than ANZAC memorial hill?

Albany 1 (March 2015)

The road between Esperance and Albany is quite narrow and with steep shoulders, which does not provide very relaxed driving. 

The campground we have selected to stay is not big enough for our large motor home, that is: we think we can get in, but we’re afraid we can’t get out.

Luckily enough there is another option at a park with a special area for big rigs, called ‘the overflow’.  We can book in but have to be out of there before the Eater long weekend. While exploring Albany by car we get the impression there is a lot to like. The main road, dipping down towards the port has a nice historic feel to it.

We find all that we are looking for right here. Firstly we get all the brochures from the information center and then do some shopping. On Saturday there is a farmers’ market and we are keen to learn what the local producers grow. It is tucked away in a small area, unpretentious, nice. No rice growers here, but plenty of apples. We’re a bit late for strawberries. On Sunday we check out the boat shed markets, with more nonfood stalls and a good atmosphere. We have to buy honey, because we finished all our own supply before entering WA.

One of the apiarists we talk to tells us his hives have a lot of chalk brood and American foulbrood disease. We are not so convinced the Western Australian beehives are that much more disease free than the rest of Australia. We certainly never had foulbrood in our hives. We checked regularly. Needless to say we did not buy his honey. Anyway.

We fill our time with collecting Woolworth’s dominos, some other shopping, a visit to the new Orana Cinema (Disney’s Cinderella, love the performance by Cate Blanchet) and a visit to the Sandalwood distillery (a bit of a joke, not much of a tour, but many very pricy products).

Highlights are the former Whaling Station, now museum. It boasts the most fantastic view, a fascinating history and very well set up. Good to know that the number of whales is recovering steadily. The other ultimate experience is snorkeling and spearfishing at Mutton Bird Beach. In the local dive shop –where we bought a long wetsuit for Laura, and a new spear for Jolmer, they had provided us with this priceless tip. What an excellent spot for beginner snorkelers. The beach is sheltered from big waves by two islands only hundred meter of the coast and the water is crystal clear. The new long suits are working well, nobody is cold and Jolmer manages to catch a feed. We feel we have landed in paradise.

We like Albany so much that we make an appointment to get shown around one of the local schools, for future orientation.

Surfing off Margaret beach proves to be tricky. We miss the nice long rollers from Surfers Beach in SA and Lucky Bay near Esperance. None of us manages to get up on the board, but that is OK, we experience different waves and surf and break. Let’s try again in Denmark.

We now have 2 boys with a B diploma. Hugo says he also has one. A B-abyploma.

Esperance and Lucky Bay

Esperance, by Apple maps pronounced as ‘Es-per-Anne-sea’, is showing it doesn’t like people with self-contained motorhomes to park in any spot that is not a caravan park. But not all parks like to welcome dogs, and we do not want to pay for some shabby campground either. So the first day we are looking for any bit of car park or street where council forgot to put up the ‘No Camping’ sign. No luck, so we try to find a very quiet street in some industrial part near the harbor, where luckily no-one stops to fine us. It is a fitting introduction to WA, where this is all we are going to get. Pay or go away.

I (Christel) have seen a YouTube clip about making string Easter eggs by dipping string in liquid starch, then wrap it around a balloon, let it dry, let the air out of the balloon and then voilà, easy as, you have your Easter Egg decoration. I have come to learn you should not trust YouTube instructors with perfect styled hair, clean hands and no mess. Furthermore: I find out that liquid starch is not something that is regularly sold in any supermarket in Es-per-Anne-sea. The craft shops sells me modpodge, it should work.

Finally we settle for some powder starch and fabric stiffener, and test the three different products with very disappointing results I must say.

Es-per-Anne-sea revenges itself after the no-liquid-starch debacle, by advising us to go to Lucky Bay. What a beautiful spot on Earth. The weirdest whitest sand, kangaroos hopping on the beach, some nice surf waves for beginners, 

and a bit of spearfishing. Laura accompanies Jolmer and films his efforts with the GoPro.

Second day in Lucky Bay all the children set out for a bit of a snorkel trip with Jolmer, but the weather is not fantastic and the ones in short wetsuits get cold quickly. Something we need to fix.

Finally we shall remember Esperance for its extraordinary fish-leather business. We had done some tanning of a few hides in Barham before we left, but never could have pictured tanning fish skins. It makes some wonderfully weird products, not pretty per se, but odd at least.

The Nullarbor

How much fun did we have crossing the Nullarbor Plains!

It all starts in Ceduna of course. The oil and water levels are perfect, the bus is ready and we are all neatly packed and ready to go.

From Ceduna to the head of the bight is not very far, but because we leave in the second half of the afternoon, we are too late to drive up to the head so we pull up for the night at the gates to the bight with a couple of other travelers. The sun sets over the plains and Laura is giving us a run down on the Eyre Highway and the plains –because we asked her to.

Plenty of fun facts about this area:

Did you know Nullarbor comes from the latin ‘no trees’? Surely Australians know this, but I was always misspelling it, because I was trying to make it look Aboriginally, like Nullaboor, or something like that.

Also the RFDS can use dedicated parts of the road as a runway for their retrieval planes if needed, nicely signposted, very nice indeed.

A bight is a very shallow bay that you can sail out of without needing to change your sail-position regardless of the direction of the wind, in the days of 17^th century ships that is.

And the longest stretch of straightness of this highway, in Western Australia, is the second longest straight road in the world, only to be surpassed by some road somewhere in the Middle East, never mind that.

The Eyre Highway connecting Adelaide to Perth and back is named after the first man to cross the Nullarbor by land in 18something.  It is now fully sealed since 1976 and very safe.

The next morning we get to the head of the bight. It is not whaling season at the moment, but a magnificent lookout nonetheless. We can see why there are no trees here: it is all limestone, in fact the biggest lime stone deposit in the world; and it makes tremendous cliffs.

We decide to stop for the other lookouts too, just because it’s so marvelous to see a coastline like this.

It is a glorious day for driving with hardly any wind, let alone prevailing winds.

We are a bit surprised to see that the Plain with No Trees is actually still quite scrubby, and scattered trees are part of the landscape throughout.

Of course we need photos of ourselves with all the major and famous traffic signs, including the warning sign for wild animals, such as wombats, kangaroos and camels. The last ones now counting up to 10.000 in numbers were abandoned after the work on the railroad track was finished. You’d think with 7 pairs of eyes and nothing else to do than look out of the windows, on a plain with hardly any trees, we’d be able to spot a camel or two, but alas.

The SA/WA border is our next state border crossing, and we learned from our mistakes. This time we have no fresh vegetables, fruit nor garlic on board, we have checked the guidelines and made sure we are spot on this time. That also means that we finished all the honey we had with us, from our own apiary.

The lady from the quarantine department is happy with this; she checks all the cupboards in the kitchen, the fridge, the belly of the bus and the trailer.

After another few hundred kilometers we pull up for a night sleep along the road and continue our journey the next day with more cloudy weather and a drop of rain, still little wind.

The straight stretch is mine, (Christel), this is too much fun, 90 miles, 146km, I am ready. I love this landscape; I love how it is so incredibly spacious. Still no camel to be seen, but that is OK.

We decide to keep going until we get to Norseman. Plenty of fun facts about Norseman too, but let’s not write a travel guide with more fun facts and anecdotes. Here is where we chuck a leftie and head to Esperance.

We have a You tube move about our trip across the Nullarbor. click the link for a really fast way to cross the desert: