Cervantes-Geraldton (May 2015)

We continue our journey with two vehicles. Our first free campsite is just slightly north of Cervantes. A perfect spot for Pieter to look for finds on the beach, for Jolmer to take the boat out on the water, to play on the beach, try our hand at night fishing while a full moon rises over the dunes. It’s a wonderfully quiet little spot and it sets the tone for many lovely spots to come on our way from Perth to Broome, our family extended by the presence of Pieter and Els.

We pass through many beautiful places towards Geraldton. The WA museum is of special interest to us because of the Batavia exhibition. Opa Pieter is just reading a book to the children about the ‘Scheepsjongens of Bontekoe’, It has been translated into English under the title” Java Ho!: The adventures of four boys amid fire, stor and shipwreck. It is about a journey of Captain Bontekoe and his ship The New Hoorn to the East Indies, in the Golden Century around 1618, with on board three ship-boys. The travels to Batavia, now Jakarta, are anything but easy and we are all sucked in to the story. The display in Geraldton fuels our imagination and we just love strolling through the museum reading all the signs, and trying to think what is must have been like. The ship The Batavia of course found a sad ending on Australia’s West Coast in 1628 and the survivors suffered an even sadder ending on two of the Abrolhos Islands with mutiny and murder galore. A most fascinating part of history where the Dutch and Australian ancestors meet.

The HMASII Sydney memorial is also a very impressive site well worth visiting.

Kalbarri is pretty. More Dutch history: the Zuytdorp, another VOC ship ran a shore around this area in 1712. Sir George Grey who was shipwrecked in 1839 at the river mouth names the Murchison River after Sir Frederick Murchison and walked back to Perth with his crew, which all but one successfully managed. An incredible feat.

Stromatolites (May 2015)

Apart from the Pinnacles Cervantes is also one of two places on earth where you can see life stromatolites (the other is in Shark Bay further north in WA). Stromatolites are very ancient live forms where colonies of bacteria form a thin living layer that captures sand and sediment and as such slowly build rock, continue to grow over time. In fact this is as far as we know the earliest form of live –correct me if I’m wrong- and therefor worth a visit. What stromatolites need to be able to grow is very salty water, saltier than the ocean. They look like rocks in the end.

Perth (May 2015)

Firstly we need something fixed on the light weight trailer we have for the boat, which is done in no time. We can stay in this street overnight. The next day we set out to find a spot to camp. It needs to be a campsite that will allow dogs, can house big rigs and will have a cabin for Pieter and Els (Jolmer’s parents) where they can recover from a jetlag when they arrive. We settle at Banksia Tourist park, but it’s not a red hot favourite of ours.

Picking up Pieter and Els is a highlight for the children, they even make a banner. 

They are bringers of lots of hugs kisses and also quite some gifts. 

After a goods nights sleep a delegation goes into the old harbour town of Fremantle. We hope to go to the Shipwreck museum but unfortunately this is closed for renovations. Luckily we find the "Duyfken", a replica of a VOC sailing ship from the 17th century Which gives us a nice introduction to further explorations of the Dutch /Australian history of the 17th and 18th Century. 

On the farmers market of Margaret River we had bought a box of tomatoes that we still need to transform into Tomato sauce. Oma Els gives her undecided attention to stirring the pot until a perfect sauce is created. This went very well with the Fish and Chips made with the Salmon captured earlier in the week. (for Beer Batter Recipe click here).

Other business we have in Perth is getting the Toyota in for a service. Laura and I decide to make a day of it. We bring in the car in the morning and are advised it should be ready at 3pm, so we have time to stroll into town for breakfast, a haircut, some shopping and lunch.

The only thing left now before we can pick up the Campervan for Pieter and Els, is to get them both a nice camping chair, forget the cheap rental stuff. They will be on the road with us for four weeks, they need to be able to sit nicely. So Jolmer sorts that out and then we’re ready to go on Monday morning sharp. Unfortunately the rental company is not nearly as ready as we are, and after a fairly long wait, we end up getting a 4WD, with the promise someone will bring out the camper-van to our first destination that evening.

 Cervantes it is. We go and visit the pinnacles. Interesting lime stone formations.

Busselton and Margaret River (April 2015)

One box of schoolwork we have, the other will get redirected to Bunbury, surely that should work. We continue are trip towards Busselton. The last days of Woolworths domino action are expired, so for the last change we visit both supermarkets there and get a few last ones. There is also another jetty for us to walk, this time with some fishing equipment and a packed breakfast picnic. What is it about jetties that make them so much fun to walk? This particular jetty is very well kept, and sure enough is attracting many tourists, judged by the full little mini train that rides up and down. Of course we walked the whole thing and unfortunately did not catch anything worth taking home.

We also visited a caravan shop hoping to find some doorknobs for the bus’ interior but no luck.

Now that Jolmer is not working in Manjimup we have some time on our hands, anticipating the arrival of Jolmer’s parents end of April. We decide to take up residence at a sheep farm just outside Margaret River for about two weeks. It is truly unfortunate we both don’t appreciate wine. We can tell for those who do, this would be an amazing region to enjoy. Lucky for us, with wine growers come the gourmet style food produces –and by that I mean nice, well grown fresh produce- and so we have a really good time at the weekly farmers market. Also the local Aquatic centre offers a great opportunity to swim some more with Tim. The public library accommodates my need to work on getting my research published and the campsite is lovely too.

Better still: the surf-world-tour-championship is on. How much we love Australia: all of this is very well set up. All you have to do is rock up. There is parking; there is grass to sit on; watching the surf and keeping an eye on the big screen. We have never seen real people go out on real waves that high. Also we had no idea two surfers compete against each other in heats. Now it is no longer just about who does was, but strategy and tactics come into play. We enjoyed it so much, we went twice, once to watch the men in action and again to see the women. Very cool crowd.

Other things we do include getting the children to climb at an indoor climbing wall –lots of fun- and visiting Lake Cave –very beautiful little cave.

On one of our daytrips we go to Hamelin bay and during a quick scout we spot a school of salmon close to the shore. We all rush back to the car and get snorkel gear and the spear gun. Once in the water it takes about 5 minutes for Laura and me (Jolmer) to find the salmon again. With a well-aimed shot we claim a 76cm specimen. What a magnificent fish and what a magnificent meal as fish and chips! Christel and Laura are experts in making beer batter for the fish. Find the recipe on the Bus-Tucker site.

At the campsite we find some time to wash the whole bus and trailer and wax/buff/shine the bus as well. Couple of hours later he looks just as good as when we first picked him up in Alice Springs. On the way back from where we wash the bus to where we were camping we get stuck in the soppy grass of the hilly paddock. Oh dear. And the lady had said we could stay there only if we weren’t going to make deep tracks with the bus. We end up hooking up the trailer to someone’s 4WD while Jolmer skirts the bus uphill into it’s spot.

The inside also gets a good cleanup. Ready to meet my parents from The Netherlands. We’re heading for Perth.

No mail today. Manjimup (April 2015)

Jolmer was set out to do some locum work in Manjimup. On our way there we paid a short visit to Mount Franklin National Park: a short stroll to a nice lookout platform.  More Karris to be seen. From the information display there is also another 600 meter walkway to the summit. How hard can it be? It didn’t say however that the route would take us a couple hundred meters up, although I feel I should have been able to figure it out.

Never nice to get confronted with your own lack of fitness while the children are chatting and joking away as if this climb is like walking on any flat surface. How do they do that?

At the top is a fire watch and weather station. The low hanging clouds formed a spectacular vista. Worth the climb, worth a sweaty shirt underneath my rain coat and worth a little extra deodorant. Who cares?

The work in Manjimup that was in the pipeline eventually never came through. Unfortunately we asked the school of distant education to send the work for next term to Manjimup and when we arrived there the mail had not.

It started to rain and we needed to hang around a couple of days until after the weekend.

Greenbushes is where we set up camp: it’s a free site in the midst of the towns sport facilities. We parked right next to the tennis courts because we figure there is the least amount of mud at the time we need to drive out again.

Good thing we brought tennis rackets. Between showers the children got out on the court and had a lot of fun.

On Monday still no mail.  We cannot contact the school for a tracking number because of the school holidays. Jolmer is also awaiting the arrival of a surfboard. Apparently you cannot ask the post office to hold anything that is larger than a certain standard size, so we’re redirecting the surfboard. But the schoolwork has to get collected once it arrives. We give it one more day. 

Tuesday I drive the children in the bus to Donnybrook and Jolmer drives to Manjimup: one of the two boxes arrived. By now we are almost on a first-name basis with the staff at the Manjimup post office and the team from the help desk phone line. Because we have no tracking number we have no idea where the second box is. Most likely it will arrive later.

Donnybrook in the meantime is a fantastic place, known for a lot of apple growers producing delicious fruits, and, more importantly, Australia’s largest public playground. Ignoring the rain, promising the children hot chocolate should they get soaking wet, we enter the fun park, amazed by the variety of equipment. The Flying Fox in Kerang is still the number one Flying Fox so far, but the rest of the play area is just a lot of fun, and indeed the best playground in Australia. I am being challenged to play tag in the giant web, no worries there. Then I’m challenged to go on the purple slide, which proves much more tricky. It doesn’t have a normal set of stairs to take you to the top of the slide, but a narrow winding tube. As I am trying hard not to get stuck I can hear Peter at the top talk to a newfound friend: “I am waiting for my mum, she is very big”. Not helping.