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West Coast Mission: Day 5

Kalbarri, Australia


Kalbarri Alarm Clock
After we'd kept the entire camp up all night wailing along to London Underground and singing Irish songs we thought we should make a quick exit the next day before we got lynched, especially as everyone would be up early on account of the hoards of galahs sat on the telephone wires over the road making more noise than we had. A galah sandwich would have gone down well for breakfast that day. Oh come on, I mean, we didn't get to sleep until late either...

We'd decided yesterday that we'd hire a little power boat today and head up the Murchison River to do some fishing, its only something like $90 for 4 hours so despite the weather not being great we all chucked $20 and that got us the boat and a load of bait. We just made sure we took warm clothes, a few tins of sketti and a healthy dose of optimism. Forgot the bloody goon though didn't we and everyone knows that goon aids fishing as well as keeping you warm.

There's all kinds of things to hire here, from powerboats to paddleboats and you can hire them for one hour to a full day. When we hired our boat he took the $90 plus a $20 returnable deposit. Deposit? For what? Even if there was any way we could rob off into the ocean with a tin can that didn't go much faster than a jogging pace would $20 really cover the loss?


Loody, Me And Craig

Note The Number 13 On The Outboard


Darragh's First Fish

Chiiiiiiillin'

We piled into the boat which had a number 13 ominously painted onto the outboard. I made sure I knew the exact location of the life jackets when Darragh handed control of the steering over to Becky. We maneuvered the boat over some shallow parts and rocks that we weren't meant to have crossed before lobbing the anchor over the side and wondering if we were going to be able to pull it back in again. Darragh and Becky caught their first fish ever and Craig caught a blue swimmer crab. We put bands on its claws and poked it a bit, wondering if there was any way it could feed five people before deciding that it was pointless keeping it so after thoroughly traumatising it we chucked it back in.


Craigs Got Crabs...

Ah well, noodles for dinner again then, ay.

After we returned the boat in one piece we headed back onto the highway for some more free camping where we could be as loud and as feral as we wanted without fear of revenge attacks.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 6, 2007 from Kalbarri, Australia
from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and WestCoast
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West Coast Mission: Day 6

Monkey Mia, Australia


Stromatolites
The Shark Bay area is about 130km up a peninsula that has loads of side roads where you can pull over and marvel at... well... pretty stuff. Loody had heard about Hamelin Pool, the first turn off after the highway so we dutifully drove down and checked it out.
It's the home of the stromatolites which are apparently responsible for a whole lot of the world's oxygen and if it wasn't for them then oxygen breathing lifeforms such as us wouldn't have evolved. Let's be honest, they aint much to look at but if you actually consider what they are then they're impressive and they're millions of years old. If you check them out when the tide is in apparently you can see the little bubbles of oxygen they produce.

Wow, I can't believe I managed to construct an entire paragraph about rocks. I'm proper getting into the Aussie spirit, just hand me a shrimp and a barbie to chuck it on and I'm away.

You have a choice of two areas to stay in here, Denham is a proper town with phone signal and supermarkets and it has a hostel and other places to stay. About 25km from there is the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort which is where the dolphins come to visit for feeding time every morning so we decided to stay there for a couple of nights.


Monkey Mia
Monkey Mia is fucking cool, it's $6 each to get into the resort (pass is good for 2 nights) then you can choose to camp ($12 per person per night) or there's a backpackers or cabins. They also have a little shop on the resort, an awesome self catering kitchen, a restaurant and a bar, a pool and a spa plus the beach and the dolphin interaction centre. For the first time I really felt like I was on holiday, we didn't feel like we were roughing it here at all despite still camping, I mean, it's a resort for fucks sake.

A resort!!

I'd never stayed in a resort in my adult life before, I felt so posh, the urge to decant goon into a wine bottle was almost overwhelming.


Spin Me Right Round Baby
This was pretty much the first place we'd stopped where the sea had been warm enough to have a proper frolic so I cunningly hid the map that had the words "Beach Access; Please Note That Sharks Are Often Spotted In The Bay" so no one would freak out. Oh come on, sharks? In Shark Bay? Who'd have thunk it? After an afternoon on the beach reflecting on what a hard life we lead we headed to the bar before me and Becky decided to check out the spa. We were somewhat apprehensive about getting into water at this time of night when it was starting to cool down, remember, May is autumn going into winter in this part of the world. It only took one toe in the water to realise that this was where we'd be spending the evening so we fetched some towels, the others and copious amounts of goon and spent the ensuing hours singing, splashing and playing a game with an inflated goon bag that involved clinging onto it while the others spun you round.


Pissed And Rowdy

Hmm, copious amount of alcohol combined with spinning round in circles. Obviously we never thought this one through properly.

I'm not sure what time it was when we got thrown out of the spa nor do I remember going to bed. I must have pulled my trademark passing out trick because the next thing I knew it was morning and the neighbours were ranting about the inconsiderate, loud bastards that woke the camp up last night.

Wow, I must have been tired, they never woke me up ay.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 7, 2007 from Monkey Mia, Australia
from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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West Coast Mission: Day 7

Monkey Mia, Australia

It was about 6.45am when I woke the others up for Dolphin O' Clock, we were here for the dolphins and damnit, I wasn't going to let a mere thumping headache and stomach churning waves of nausea stop us. Kitted out with a camera and the grim determination not to collapse before breakfast we made our way to the beach with the rest of the tourist circus.


The Beach At Monkey Mia

Tourist Circus

The dolphins rock up at about 7am and about 4 of them are in the feeding program. They take ages to get them into the program because they have to make sure that they won't be adversely affected by it and they don't give them a full day's quota of fish because they want to make sure the dolphins remain self sufficient. In days gone by they used to let you touch and swim with the dolphins but they stopped that when they started biting tourists so they put a stop to it about 6 years ago. These days they ask you to stand well back and out of the water when they start feeding, only the rangers and the lucky few picked out of the crowd to hand the fish to the dolphins are allowed in.


Well Cute

You Laughin' At Me?

And this is where standing out like a spare prick at a wedding comes in handy. Ok, so I've been turned down for jobs and people stare and cross the road to avoid me but hey, I'm noticeable, you can't miss me and if anyone is going to be picked out of a crowd it was going to be me.

  • grins*


    • Proper happy with that and it was definitely worth being turned down for that job decorating Christmas trees when I was 18.


    Yep, That's My Vast Arse In The Air As I Interfere With Nature And Feed A Dolphin A Dead Fish

    After a breakfast of fried potatoes and a quick excursion to Denham for supplies the rest of the day was spent chilling at the resort and drinking aforementioned supplies. The previous night after I'd passed out Loody had found some lesbians to play with, Maria, Jaime and Emma, who all work at Monkey Mia. Jaime and Emma are a couple and work in the kitchen and bar respectively and Maria works on reception. They'd invited us to join them at some hot springs up the road at the Francois Peron National Park that night.

    Yay, more chances to sit in hot water and get pissed! I was loving this place more and more every minute.

    We rocked up to the springs at about 9.30pm when it was pitch black and apparently this is the best time to go because if you saw it in the daylight you wouldn't get in, it's naturally hot bore water pumped into a concrete circle and you can tell when they last cleaned it by how far down you can sink your hands before they disappear. It's also not a good idea to wear white.
    Afterwards, Jaime invited us to hers with the promise of a box of Coolabah Fruity Lexia goon she happened to have stashed. When we rocked up she broke out the goon plus a bottle of vodka, some Bundy and something else with a dangerous alcoholic content and told us to help ourselves. This girl had known us five minutes and already knew the way to our hearts. Again I'm unsure of the time when we finally left Denham and headed back to Monkey Mia, the five of us plus Maria crammed into Loody's Nissan with me sprawled along everyone on the back seats being fed goon from the bag by Maria. We stayed up for a bit longer then crashed at some god awful hour when we realised we actually had to drive somewhere tomorrow... actually make it later that day, it was due to be light in a couple of hours.

    I fucking love Monkey Mia, me. I totally recommend you spend at least a couple of nights there.


    Monkey Mia

    Becky turned round to me the next day and said, "So, did anything happen with you and Maria last night?" Erm... no... she's 46. I mean, she's a good looking lass for a 46 year old but she's old enough to be my mother. Why? What gives you that idea? "You were totally flirting with each other, I thought something was going to happen."

    Flirting? Me? I deny all knowledge/ blame the goon. Ah well so what if I was, Darragh says she's bloody good at head massages.

    The girl's clearly good with her fingers...

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 8, 2007 from Monkey Mia, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and WestCoast
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    West Coast Mission: Day 8: Big Things #21

    Carnarvon, Australia

    300km after too much vodka and four hours sleep plus we couldn't pull over for a nap because as soon as you stopped the flies took up residence in your facial orifices. It's a fucking good job I'm easily amused by large, phallic objects like the Big Banana, Carnarvan or today would have been a write off.


    The Big Banana

    Come to think of it, for a lesbian I'm far too easily amused by phallic objects.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 9, 2007 from Carnarvon, Australia
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    West Coast Mission: Day 9

    Carnarvon, Australia

    The track to Red Bluff is one of those tracks that cause worried passengers to lean over and ask, "You do have a spare tyre, right?"

    Of course I have a spare tyre, I even checked it in Perth to make sure it was round and would remain so when stuck to the vehicle. I neglected to mention that I haven't got a fucking clue how to change it but I figured that with two blokes in the convoy one of them would at least pretend to know what they were doing.

    First stop up the road is the blowholes, its just where the ocean forces itself through holes in the rocks causing a whole load of spray and a photo opportunity.


    The Blowholes

    We decided that the car park here was where we were gonna camp tonight as there were none of those irritating signs that said we couldn't and with that we headed up the 70km unsealed road to Red Bluff that I'd heard about from a man called Mark who I had a beer with at Rainbow Lodge once. Its a cunt of a road, seriously, its probably the worst road I've ever tried to get the Falcon up and with Loody's Nissan following behind at snail's pace we started to wonder if it was going to be worth the damage to the underside of the cars and the abject boredom endured when you have to negotiate an unsealed road without the aid of goon or power ballads.

    Then we rounded the last corner and fuck yes, it was very much worth it.


    Red Bluff

    It's a fucking awesome place to spend an afternoon and a great way to get at least 94% of your RDA of salt as you get repeatedly dumped by the huge waves. They warn you that later on it gets sucky in the sea and you have to keep an eye on the peninsula in the distance; If you see a wave clearing that then get the fuck out as fast as you can.

    Ok then. No worries. Watch for killer waves and your mates being carried out to sea to their doom. Got it.
    Red Bluff was one of those perfect moments, just the five of us on a deserted beach miles from anywhere, hurling ourselves into the waves, body surfing and experimenting with different ways of potentially drowning. A classic I Love My Life moment.


    Burying Bexster

    Waves At Red Bluff

    We made it back for sunset, set up camp and started drinking before a man on a quad bike rocked up and asked us what we were doing here. Becky jumped to the rescue responding quickly, "Eating...?"


    Chillin' At The Blowholes At Sunset

    Oh. Nice one Becky. Sticky situation averted!

    He asked us if we were intending to stay the night, I asked if we were allowed, he said technically no but he didn't give a fuck, he was just going to charge us the going rate of $5.50 per site and we could stay where we were. Oh ok, so it wasn't going to break the bank so we opened our wallets and after fending off the moths we handed over the cash for two sites and he advised us to check out the beach and the snorkeling at the nearby official campsite in the morning.

    In hindsight the official campsite would probably have been a better idea than camping near huge jets of sea water that sent a fine spray over everything nearby every time they shot into the air.


    Drenched

    Ah well, live and learn.

    Dry out. Live. Learn.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 10, 2007 from Carnarvon, Australia
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    West Coast Mission: Day 11

    Exmouth, Australia

    It was exactly a year ago today that I landed in Australia, was fetched from the airport by John and Dom at 6.45am and proceeded to drag a traumatised and shattered Emma round Brisbane so we could buy SIM cards, open bank accounts and laugh in the face of jetlag. Oh come on, its not my fault she can't sleep on planes on account of the abject terror now is it.

    I would have loved to have celebrated the same way I'd celebrated my arrival in the country, that is copious amounts of disco and booze, but we were going to be spending the next day on a boat on the open sea and paying $330 for the privilege so instead we did that other thing we do so well; As little as possible on a beautiful beach.


    Where The Sea Goes Dark? That's The Coral

    Coral Bay is awesome but not somewhere you'd want to spend a few days unless you were working or made of money, its shockingly expensive, like, incomprehensibly expensive, as in you'd probably have to take out a second mortgage just to feed yourself for a week. The others headed to the beach while I headed to a pay phone to book us onto a campsite in Exmouth and onto a whale shark tour. I managed to get us on for the next day, a Sunday, with a small amount of coaxing and the promise of five people on the boat.

    Nice one bruva.

    It was weird leaving Perth and going on a mission without Kliff, we'd already done the Great Ocean Road together and then, just as we thought we'd parted company, we hit the Nullabor together with Tim and made it to Perth. But the South West Loop and the West Coast had to be done without him, him and Neil were off working on a cattle station near Carnarvon and they were out of mobile phone range so we couldn't even catch up with them when we were in the area.
    Never mind though ay, everyone follows the backpacker trail, no doubt we'd bump into each other again somewhere along the way, it was never going to be goodbye with me and Kliff, just until we meet again.

    I was mincing about checking out the coral and the sea turtles, making sure I didn't swim too far out in case the spotter planes mistook my arse for a whale shark and people tried to snorkel with it when Loody swam up with someone I didn't recognise on account of the snorkel mask. It took me a few seconds.

    Kliff! And Neil was here too, sprawled on the beach pulling his usual Forgetting He's Ginger trick and slowly turning red.


    Chillin' At Coral Bay

    They'd quit the cattle station because for some reason shovelling dead, rotting cows into a heap for burning didn't appeal to them too much and they were spending their last dollars on fuel to get them up the coast to find work. We had to make it to Exmouth for 6pm to check into the site and pay for the whale shark tour so they tagged onto our little convoy and we made our way up the peninsula stopping only to take photos of the massive termite mounds and a Big Prawn which was a similar colour to what Neil had turned.


    Termite Mound

    On Convoy

    We stayed off the goon and got an early night, we were going to be picked up at some obscene hour the next day and bundled onto a boat where we'd be expected to swim very fast with something significantly larger than us with fins and a big tail and the ability to breathe under water. The entire timing for the West Coast trip had been based around this moment and I'd been planning this for nearly a year.

    A hangover wasn't an option.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 12, 2007 from Exmouth, Australia
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    West Coast Mission: Day 12

    Exmouth, Australia


    3 Islands Marine Charters
    When I were but a wee bairn, much longer ago than I'd care to let on (narrows eyes at younger but by no means better looking friends) I liked reading books about dinosaurs and animals and sea creatures and stuff. I remember a particular photo in a book and the paragraph of text next to it. I don't remember the name of the book, just this segment, it was about a quarter of the page and it was a photo of a whale shark next to a diver. I even remember what some of the text said, it mentioned that an adult whale shark could easily fit two adult humans in its mouth but they were harmless filter feeders, eating only plankton and krill.

    And that's when I decided I wanted to swim with them.

    About 20 years later and I was sat at a computer in a hostel in Echuca, typing "whale shark australia" into Google and 3 Islands Marine Charters came up along with numerous other companies that ran tours to snorkel with the world's largest fish at Ningaloo Reef, Exmouth. The best time to go was May, I was meant to be in New South Wales the following May and Emma didn't want to budge on that. Fortunately we split up a couple of months later and it was sealed; I was going to be in Exmouth in May 2007 and I was going to swim with whale sharks.

    I was chuffed to pieces when the others decided they were going to do this with me, after all its not cheap and we were all on a budget, I'd been budgeting for this for months and so had Loody since I'd told her about it in Perth. It was kinda sprung on the others but they were up for it.

    This was going to be amazing.


    Just The Five Of Us

    We were picked up from the campsite at 7.30am by Andy, the videographer, who greeted us with the words, "You're a lucky lot aren't you, getting a private charter!" It was only going to be us, the crew and enough food to feed a small army on board today. Andy had said to the lass who prepared the food that there were 5 of us, not 15. She said we'd looked hungry :) Fuck I love my life.


    Snorkelling
    Bless Andy, he tried to liven us up on the bus journey to the boat. He's actually quite funny once it's not 7.30 anymore and you've been fed but until then his enthusiasm and banter was more likely to get him maimed or killed. We stopped to pick up Kelly, the divemaster whos job it was to spot the whale sharks once we were in the water and to make sure we knew where it was so we could swim with it. That was the eye candy for the day sorted then.
    We got to the little boat and met Noz, a shy bloke who would be driving the safety boat (do you drive boats? I don't even know) which would pick us out of the water if we were in trouble or too tired to swim. We met Richard, the skipper and the guy who owns the company once we got to the big boat and then we were off to a little snorkel site.

    I don't have anything witty or clever to say about today, it was just awesome. We spent the morning snorkelling and eating before the spotter planes radioed in that a shark had been seen.

    I'd researched these tours ages ago and read all kinds of testimonies. You share the shark with about 4 other boats and only 10 people are allowed in the water at a time. You can usually fit about 20 people on a boat so I was prepared for the fact that we might only get a few minutes with one shark and thats it and I'd made sure the others knew this too.

    We got in the water with 6 sharks.

    Six!!

    Some people don't even get one and we got six!

    It's amazing, you can't describe the feeling, you launch yourself into the water and stick your head under looking for it then the first thing you see is this massive gob coming towards you and your heart leaps into your mouth closely followed by the rest of your internal organs.
    Then you realise you should probably get out of its way on account of it being about 10 metres long and thus a lot bigger than you. The excitement never wears off.

    Later, as we headed back about 30 dolphins swam alongside the boat. We'd been stuffed full of good food, had a once in a lifetime day out in the water and I'd fulfilled a lifetime ambition.

    How fucking perfect could this day get?

    I promptly tripped over the edge of the little boat as we pulled up to shore and ended up face down on the shore line.

    I knew Abi and Dave were doing the West Coast, I just didn't know where they were on account of the fact we'd never been in range at the same time, we just kept picking up voicemails and texts from each other. When we got back from the trip there was a note at our site, they'd checked into the campsite and recognised my car. Kliff and Neil came round later an all and we made up for the lack of goon the night before until I pulled my usual passing out trick.

    Oh come on, its not like no one knows what happens when I'm allowed to lie down.


    PERTH CREW: Loody, Darragh, Kliff, Neil, Me, Becky, Dave And Abi

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 13, 2007 from Exmouth, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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    Big Things #22

    Exmouth, Australia

    This beast is on the road between Coral Bay and Exmouth and I think there is actually a reason for it being there, as in the building behind it has something to do with prawns. Not sure what, though.


    Yet Another Big Prawn

    Still, I reckon the one in Ballina would kick this ones arse in a fight.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 12, 2007 from Exmouth, Australia
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    West Coast Mission: Day 13

    Rocklea, Australia

    We'd decided to head inland after Exmouth to check out Karijini National Park. It's somewhere around 700km to Tom Price, the nearest town to Karijini so we just did it in two trips and spent tonight at a free camp.

    I woke up to Becky and Craig hurridly packing and asked what was going on, it wasn't like Becky to be up early, she usually needed gentle coaxing and usually from a distance with a cup of tea, full body armour and a big stick.

    Becky: We have to leave. Now.
    Me: Why?

    I didn't recall being that loud last night.

    Becky: We robbed the combi...
    Me: (blinks) You did what now??

    We'd found an orange VW camper abandoned on the side of the road and Becky wanted the badge off the front of it so we'd duly rocked up and taken it. This apparently wasn't enough, we'd managed to persuade her not to steal the actual van on account of her not being able to steer a fucking paddleboat, let alone a vehicle but she wanted the contents and after I'd passed out they'd all decided they wanted the contents too. They got chairs, clothes, cushions and Darragh got himself a hammock.


    Oops!

    The rest of the day was uneventful, the highlight being watching Darragh hang his new hammock and promptly fall through it.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 14, 2007 from Rocklea, Australia
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    West Coast Mission: Day 14

    Tom Price, Australia

    We wanted a full day in Karijini so we'd decided to spend tonight at a free camp near Tom Price and get an early start on the park the next day. The trouble was we didn't know how to spend today but I'd developed a habit of handing my map book and a highlighter to other travellers who'd been where we were going and someone had highlighted Hammersley Gorge so we stocked up on supplies and headed there for the afternoon armed with a bag of goon, an iPod and some speakers.

    Hammersley Gorge is wicked, its a perfect place to disturb the peace. I have to admit, the water is a wee bit chilly but once you've apologised in advance for potentially knocking people out with your nipples you can relax and just enjoy the tunes, the goon and the company.


    Hammersley Gorge

    More Gorge Action


    Having A Dip

    Goon In The Gorge

    By the time we got off the unsealed road that lead away from the gorge it was dark and I couldn't find the first free site option so we headed to a place called Halfway Bridge where I circled round a tree. I realised the car wasn't actually going anywhere and there was a somewhat disconcerting grinding noise.

    That would be the six large rocks in a ditch I'd managed to drive into then. There was a 4WD and a caravan on another corner of the site so we figured that if it came to it maybe they'd tow us out after most of the rocks had been pulled out. We sent Craig over to talk to the guy with the words, "Go on, you're Australian, it'll sound better coming from you."

    It didn't. The guy was an arse. We managed to get the rocks out the next day anyway and the Falcon had enough power to pull itself out.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on May 15, 2007 from Tom Price, Australia
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