Days 211 - 223

Tonight is a time for reflection. It is our last night camping on our trip, "Around Oz on a Battered Fish." Tomorrow, we will be arriving in Sydney at 10.30 am in Sydney Square. This will mark the end of our wonderful adventure. I am feeling a mix of emotions - excitement about seeing family and friends again, relief that we will finally be able to stop living out of a backpack but mainly, a huge sense of disappointment - disappointment that it will be over if I go to sleep tonight, disappointment that there are no more hidden gems of Australia to find on this trip and disappointment that we have to stop what we have loved doing for the last 7 months.

We have had a great final few weeks. It was fantastic seeing a lot of Gerard's relatives and friends in Melbourne and catching up with what they have been doing since we last saw them 3 years ago. We were spoilt rotten by Gerard's Uncle and Aunt who own an Italian restaurant, Casavini's in Doncaster, Melbourne. Each day, our plates would be bulging with gorgeous Italian food and Gerard and I would gobble everything up like two Labradors after 7 months without lasagne, gnocchi etc. We were also very relieved that we were staying in a house rather than being in the camper trailer as it rained non-stop for 3 days. We would have been soaking. All of the locals were extremely grateful for the rain as Melbourne is going through a drought and people are limited to 150 litres of water a day. To us, (we use about 15 litres of water a day for washing, cooking, drinking etc), 150 litres a day seems like a generous amount but just the fact that everyone is restricted proves how desperate the situation is.

From Melbourne, we went to the Southern Most point of mainland Australia and completed our 45 km hike to get to the Southern Most point of mainland Australia (see blog below for further details) and after a stop over at Lakes Entrance, we left Victoria and crossed into New South Wales ("NSW"), and then into Australia Capital Territory ("ACT") to visit Australia's capital, Canberra. Canberra surprised us. It is an entirely purpose built city, with lots of greenery, parks and waterways giving it a bush feel. Compared to Melbourne, there was little traffic on the roads and a healthy feel to the place, with cycle trails everywhere. We attended a media day at Old Parliament House, visited new Parliament House and went to Black Mountain. All in all, we enjoyed our visit to Canberra.

From Canberra, we headed back to the coast and met up with Gerard's sister, Theresa, her son and two nephews, who were joining us for their first weekend of camping. We arrived during a thunderstorm but thankfully, they arrived a day later to sunshine. The weather was great and we enjoyed lazy days on the beach (well, as lazy as you can get with 3 boys aged 5, 6 and 8) playing cricket, football and fishing. It was great to show them where we had been living for the last 7 months and how we had been living.

Our final night is at Royal National Park, the oldest National Park in Australia. We could not have wished for a better place for our last evening as the scenery is stunning, with our camp spot looking right out over the water. This will be a place we will come back to for a weekend trip out of Sydney, as it is only about 40 kms out of the City. It is strange to say that this is our last night and I guess I had better make the most of it rather than being on the computer. One more night only of lingering over the sky filled with stars and hearing the water lapping close by. I don't want to leave!

I will blog over the next few days and let you all know how arriving in Sydney went and what we will be doing next.

I have included some photos of the view of Canberra from the Black Mountain lookout tower, the Battered Fish and Barnacle in front of Old Parliament House, me looking very exhausted nearing the end of our 45 km hike to the Southern Most point of Mainland Australia, Gerard at the ACT Border, kangaroos taking a rest at dusk and the thunderstorm at Batemans Bay.

Take care everyone,

An emotional Rachel and Gerard x

We made it to the Southern Most Point of mainland Australia

After being spoilt rotten and fed to near bursting point with gorgeous Italian food by Gerard's relatives in Melbourne, we set off on our mammoth walking hike to the Southern Most Point of mainland Australia in Wilson's Promontory, VIC.

The trek was 45 kms return and involved two overnight stays along the way. Although we had completed numerous long treks throughout our journey, we had not yet done any overnight hikes. It did not bode well when we both put on our backpacks filled with water, dried food, sleeping bags, tent etc and Gerard nose planted to the floor and I could hardly walk. A bit of readjustment to the packs allowed us to atleast walk but neither of us thought we could walk with this weight on our backs for 13 kms to our camp.

It was a tough trek and our legs and shoulders were really feeling it after the first 4 kms. We munched our way through many brunch bars (chocolate coated of course for the energy, not to make them taste better) and after what seemed like a year, we made it to our camp site. It was a huge relief to take our backpacks off and rest. To celebrate our first achievement, we ripped opened a pack of chicken flavoured noodles - yum yum! Who said camping food was bland.

The next day, with less weight in our backpacks, we treked to the Southern Most Point of Mainland Australia. WE HAD MADE IT! Battling against 75 kmph gusts at the point, we took some photos of us looking rather wind swept at the point (see above).

The journey home was again a really tough trek. By this time, my calf's had completely seized up and my shoulders had been rubbed roar from the weight of the backpack. To top it all off, the rain started and I was wishing that every corner or hill we came to would be our last. I have never been so happy to see the Battered Fish and Barnacle when I reached the car park after completing our trek.

Looking back on the trek now (after a good nights sleep, hiking shoes off my feet, dry clothes etc), I am really pleased we made it and I can now say that we enjoyed it. We had a fantastic remote camp spot in the middle of the forest, saw some echidna's (which we had not previously seen), some snakes on the hiking trail and the scenery was great.

We can now proudly say that we have made it to the Eastern, Northern, Western and Southern most points of mainland Australia, all in one year.

I have included some pictures of Gerard hiking to the point, Gerard and I at the point and the South Point sign.

Days 197 - 210

In the words of Bon Jovi, (que appropriate music and air guitar), “it’s the final countdown”. We have 15 sleeps left in our little traveller’s world before we hit Sydney, civilisation, hot showers and proper toilets. Are we looking forward to this? NO, long live the Battered Fish adventure we say.

Time is now precious and we have been making the most of each day since we left Adelaide. During our time in Adelaide, we visited the Fleurieu Peninsula, taking in yet more beautiful wineries in Maclaren Vale and the seaside towns of Victor Harbour, Port Elliott and Goowlah, made a visit to Parliament House (see blog posted on 27 November), had a press conference in Botanical Park and caught up with our friends, Noel and Shelia. It was a very hectic 3 days but great fun. Whilst in Victor Harbour, we caught a horse drawn tram (a slower mode of transport compared to the Fish but still sustainable) pulled by a Clydesdale horse called Carmen (so the poster entitled "horse talk" told us) over to Granite Island.

From Adelaide, we headed inland to the Grampians, a stunning area for keen bush walkers and nature lovers alike. We set up camp in an idyllic spot, with only black wallabies (that at first sight we thought were puma’s) for company. We spent our time bush walking in preparation for our hike to the most Southern point of mainland Australia and learnt quite a bit about the rating of certain treks. For instance, when they say something is classed as “moderate - hard, with some parts of the track being difficult to identify”, they actually mean you have to scramble over fallen down trees, over large boulders and wade through bracken to keep on the track. Also, when something has a “Mt” in front of it, one way is going to be purely up hill and the other purely down hill. We amateur bush walkers learnt the hard way, but had a great time in the process and are very much looking forward to our first overnight hikes in Wilsons Promontory next week.

From the Grampians, we headed for the coast and stayed in Great Otway National Park, about 5 kms behind the seaside town of Lorne. Again, we were spoilt with the beautiful location of our bush camp. We had wanted to see wild koala’s for some time and thought that we would get viewings of these adorable creatures in the Grampians. However, the devastating bush fires in Christmas 2006 had claimed the lives of a lot of the koala population and we did not see any. As we were setting up camp in Great Otway, we heard a scrambling noise to the left of us. There, no more than 10 ft away from us, was a koala about to climb its home, a eucalyptus tree. About half way up the tree, it looked down at us and started making a noise like an ape makes. I could not believe that such a small animal could make such a large and strange noise. It pacified itself for a good hour munching on the leaves of the tree before it started up its strange noise again. Was it mating season we wondered? Would we witness something you only see on the discovery channel? Alas not, but we were woken up several times during the night to the koala’s calls.

We drove along the Great Ocean Road and saw the 12 Apostles and other rock formations. On the drive to the coast, the Battered Fish had her birthday. She turned the ripe old age of 400,000 kms. Thanks to the juice she has been drinking since we set out on our trip in May, she is working perfectly and still looks no older than the day she was born. We celebrated her birthday with some good friends of ours, the Vanderkellens. Have a look at the pictures we posted on the 4 December of the morning after. Bear and Rabbit really did overdo it!

The waste cooking oil is going well thanks to the help of some generous people Gerard met through a forum specialising in alternative fuels. Before we left on our trip in May, Gerard posted a message on the forum setting out our adventure and if anyone around Australia could help us out with some waste veggie oil as we visit different places. Many people replied to the message and once again, we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the Australian people. Thanks goes to Sandy and Bob from Victor Harbour, John at Morphett Vale and Matt and Barb in the Grampians for supplying us with some good quality WVO to help the Battered Fish on its adventure. Also, thanks to Matt and Barb for dinner and allowing us to use your shower after a long stint without hot water!! We did not know these people but each invited us into their homes. It goes to show that the Aussie generosity is still out there.

We are currently in Sorrento for a few days before we head over to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade at dusk – where little penguins come waddling up the beach from the ocean to their home. From here, we are going to Melbourne to catch up with some of Gerard’s relatives.

I have included some photos of Gerard and I at the 12 Apostles, the view of Great Ocean Road, the noisy Koala we saw at Great Otway NP, the view from one of the "Mt" walks we did in the Grampians, some vines at Maclaren Vale and Carmen the Clydesdale horse pulling the tram.

We hope everyone is well and as always, thanks for your messages and comments. One of our favourite comments has been “never mind about Gerard’s clothing, what has happened to his hair?” Fair point I say!

Rachel and Gerard

Happy Birthday to ...

The Battered Fish!

That's right, the Battered Fish has turned 400,000km.

After such a milestone it was only right to celebrate. Fortunately, we had caught up with our good friends, the Vanderkellen's, who joined in the celebrations.

After last nights celebrations, The Battered Fish is resting up today with his friends Bear & Rabbit - who seemed to have enjoyed themselves a bit too much.

In a week and as a present, we have arranged a day spa for the Battered Fish at one of Melbourne's finest mechanics where the Batttered Fish will receive a full service.

The photos are of the Battered Fish's odometer, the celebrations and the morning after.

Ranger Ged and Rachel meet the Minister

On Thursday 27 November, Ranger Ged (check out his clothing - never let a man go off shopping by himself) and I were invited to the South Australian Parliament House and met with the Hon Jay Weatherill, Environment Minister of South Australia and Hon Jack Snelling, Speaker Parliament of South Australia.

We spent time explaining to the Minister and Speaker of our adventure. We pointed out that using waste cooking oil to power our vehicle significantly reduces our emissions, particularly our carbon footprint. The use of WVO is actually recycling what is generally a waste product and as we have shown, any one could do it, especially Australians or overseas tourists.

The Minister was able to tell us that South Australia ("SA") has the best record of recycling water in Australia, was the first state of Australia to legislate permissible carbon emission levels and has reduced its carbon emissions by 7% in the last 5 year reporting period. Well done SA in leading Australia in many ways to significantly reducing our carbon footprint, keep up the good work!

We would like to express our gratitude to the Minister and the Speaker for giving us their time.

The photo is of, from left to right: Hon Jack Snelling, Rachel, Gerard the Ranger and the Hon Jay Weatherill.

Days 185 - 196

We left Coober Pedy after collecting 120L of waste cooking oil (“WVO”) and headed for the outback. We took a 4WD track to Oodnadatta (known locally as the mail run), stopping off at the stunning Breakaways and Painted Desert (where Mad Max and Priscilla Queen of the Desert were filmed). After stopping for a chat to the owner at the Oodnadatta Pink Roadhouse, we followed the Oodnadatta Track to Marree (a total of about 600kms). The track conditions were relatively good considering the amount of rain we had encountered. We took our time and stopped off at small places along the way, including a thermal spa at Coward Springs, which was extremely refreshing in the 40 degree heat. It was a great feeling to be back in the outback again – the remoteness, wide open spaces, red sandhills glowing in the evening light, whistling kites and the deadly silence of the star lit night. Throughout our journey to Marree (which took us 3 days), we saw two other cars. Because of the remoteness, we would pull off the track and camp on the side of the road each night. Our only companions were kites sauntering over and the odd kangaroo. Each evening, we would set up our chairs to watch the outback sky change colours after the sunset. It never disappointed. Ah, life was good again!

We had a slight shock when we came to Marree and encountered traffic (ok, it was only four cars and a truck but still). We checked into a caravan park for a hot shower and to fill up on water and met two other campers; Darryl, who was travelling the outback tracks for a month; and Nick, Cath and family from Sydney, who were travelling for 3 months around SA and WA, not in your typical Troopie like us, but in a Merc (although they have been living in Sydney for 13 years, they are originally from Manchester, UK and are Man United football (“soccer” to you Aussies) supporters so this explained some things!) We chatted to Darryl and he informed us that he had wanted to come to Marree for some time to see Tom Cruise. I nearly choked on my ginger beer when he told me that Tom Cruise was here in little ol’ Marree. He asked Gerard if he knew who Tom was and Gerard said of course, the movie star. Darryl looked a little puzzled and said no, he was the postman for the area between the towns of Birdsville and Marree. We had obviously not done our Marree research. We went back to our camper and Nick and Cath came over for some beers. We had a great night with them and felt slightly better that they did not know who Tom “the postman” Kruze was either.

From Marree, we travelled South through the Gammon Ranges. We thought we had seen all of the landscape that there was to see in Australia until we reached this area. We were amazed by the mountainous scenery and winding tracks we encountered. We were stopped on the road by herds of feral goats and yellow tailed wallabies. It was absolutely stunning. Once again, we did not meet any traffic on the tracks until we reached further South in the Flinders Ranges and enjoyed some remote camping.

Once we left the Flinders Ranges, we hit the tarmac and said goodbye to the remote camping and never ending sky of the outback. We were a little sad as that would be the last proper 4WDriving we do on our adventure. To console ourselves, we headed to the wine region of Clare Valley for some wine tasting. We were told of two wineries that we must visit whilst in the region. We decided to hire some bikes and cycle along the Riesling Trail to these wineries. To take in the wineries, it would be a 55km round trip. The trail was described as “gently sloping” and we thought that this would be no problem for two fine young things such as ourselves. The way there was fantastic. We cycled through vineyards, green rolling hills and saw some beautiful stone chateaus. We got to our first winery, caught our breathe (and in Gerard’s case, wiped the sweat from his face) and went inside to start tasting. We walked inside and heard a couple talking with the wine attendant about the wine being “seriously good” and the “raspberry flavours of the wine coming through”. Oh dear, I feared that my knowledge on wine, or rather lack of knowledge, would be shown up. It probably didn’t help either that in the past 6 months, I had only drunk casked wine – best not to tell that to anyone at the winery. It is amazing how you suddenly become really interested in wine when you are at one of these places. I found myself asking about how the wine was stored, its best year to be drunk, the temperature of the wine etc. I thought I had successfully blagged my way through the wine tasting when the ultimate test was put in front of me – an $85 bottle of wine and an $18 one. Yeap, I choose the $18 one as being “far superior.” Nil points for Rachel.

After indulging in far too much food at a local cafe, it was time to get back on our bikes for the journey home. On the return journey, everything started to feel a bit more strenuous. With about 10kms left, the seat just got far too painful and I had to hover gingerly over it. The “gentle slopes” that we had encountered on the way there were certainly not “gentle” on the way back and the combination of eating too much and wine tasting started to take their toll. We did not have fun on the way back and were very grateful to see our campsite after riding for 55kms.

We learnt our lesson in Clare and decided to take the car around the wineries of the Barossa Valley. We were due to head to the Fleurieu Peninsula afterwards but were told that “schoolies week” was happening and to give the area a wide berth. On advice from a local, we headed to the Yorke Peninsula instead and enjoyed some scenic camping and walking in Innes National Park.

We are heading to Adelaide tomorrow where we are restocking on food and catching up with Noel and Shelia, whom we met at Exmouth in WA. We would usually be restocking on WVO but we hit the WVO Jackpot at Wilpena Pound Resort in the Flinders Ranges. One of the workers drove us around to where they stored the waste veggie oil and we could not believe our eyes. There was close to 600 litres of waste cooking oil sitting in 20L drums. We could not take all of it but spent the morning filtering the oil and filled up our tank and all of our storage. It was the biggest collection we had encountered on our trip so far.

I have included some photos of the Painted Desert, the outback sky after sunset, Gerard and I enjoying a thermal spa we came across in the middle of the outback, the scenery in Gammon Ranges NP, some feral goats climbing the mountains in Gammon Ranges NP, cycling through the vineyards at Clare Valley in happy times on the way, a Kangaroo with a Joey in its pouch and an emu and its children we saw at Innes National Park and the beach we camped by at Innes National Park.

Hope everyone is well and as always, thank you for your emails and comments we have received.

Rachel and Gerard.

Days 170 - 184

Rain, rain and more rain. This summed up our time in Esperance, which is a shame as the scenery was stunning. The 4WD tracks that we wanted to take were all closed due to the rain and we decided to move on and start our crossing of the Nullabor Plain.

Many Australians that we had spoken to on our trip were really looking forward to their crossing of the Nullabor. They told me that you are not a true Aussie unless you have crossed it at least one. However, I hope that when they came to do their crossing, they could see out of their windscreens better than we could. The rain pelted down and we were pretty miserable. To top it all off, due to the weather, we could not filter all of the oil that we had collected for the crossing and kept on having to stop at roadhouses and asking if we could use their undercover forecourt for some filtering of the oil. While Gerard got stuck into filtering the oil, I mingled with the truckies and got stuck into some pies and toasted sandwiches. Each time Gerard had filtered 20 litres, we set off on our next 100 kms before we had to stop again and filter more oil.

It took us five days to cross and we passed through three different time zones – WA time, Central WA time (45 minutes ahead of WA time) and SA time (1.5 hours ahead of WA time.) It all got pretty confusing.

We passed signs that warned us of kangaroos, camels and wombats on the road. Unfortunately, our first sighting of a wombat was of the squashed variety on the side of the road. We also saw tons of skippies who had suffered a similar fate.

The road was always busy with both travellers and road trains. We had a “small” run in with a 3 carriaged road train (about 40 metres long). I told the driver on the two radio that I will slow down if he wanted to overtake me. I did not get a response and pulled off the road slightly for him to pass me. Over the two way radio, I heard a very angry driver saying “Fing 4WDrivers. How would you like it.” Not knowing what he meant, he overtook me and deliberately went over to the hard shoulder and flicked stones up at the car. I heard him saying “So, how did you like that, you punk. How Fing wide do you think you are.” I then realised that I had accidentally thrown stones up at him when I pulled over for him to pass. I apologised to him over the radio and told him I was having a fat day. Another lesson learnt.

Not long after we had crossed into SA, the sun started to shine. We drove into Ceduna, where the quarantine station was and were greeted with a cheery sign: “Welcome to Ceduna. Drowsy drivers die.” We stopped for a couple of days in a sleepy little beachside town called Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula to recharge our batteries and restock on food. That whole peninsula is stunning, with golden hay fields backing onto sand dunes leading into the ocean. We did some cliff top drives around the peninsula and stopped off to see a sea lion colony. I had never seen sea lions before and it was great fun watching them play and swim in the ocean.

Further down the peninsula, we stopped off at a lookout and saw some surfers making their way down a rocky track on the cliff with their surfboards over their shoulders. We thought they must have been crazy to surf this area as the sea lion colony was not far away and is known for having great whites (or white pointers as they call them here) present in the waters. We sat down and watched the surfers, who managed to get some great waves. Whilst I was taking pictures, Gerard saw a single fin appear not far from where the surfers were. We looked around to see if we could see any more fins or jumping from the water as this would mean it is a dolphin. We could not see any of this and thought we were about to witness a horrible attack on the poor surfers. Gerard started to yell at the surfers about the fin he had seen but they could not hear us. All of a sudden, we saw about seven more fins appear and realised that there was nothing to worry about – it was just a pod of dolphins. Phew! We watched as the dolphins went right up to the surfers and started to surf the waves along side them. One or two dolphins would jump through the wave just as it was about to break. It was fantastic to see. The surfers eventually had enough and climbed back up the cliff. We asked them what they thought when they saw the fin. They replied that they had seen the fin and were extremely relieved when it made a beeline for them that it was only a dolphin.

From Eyre Peninsula, we made our way up to Port Augusta. Before we got to Port Augusta, we once again made the mistake of camping too close to the road in a roadside rest area and had the worst night’s sleep of our trip. It went a little something like this: we pulled into a free rest stop area at about 5pm. It was a nice spot, right by the beach, but was quite full and a huge thunderstorm had just started in the area so we decided to move on. The next road side rest area that was described as being not next to a road was another 200 kms on so we made our way to this. We arrived at 9pm in the pitch black and with the rain pelting down. We set up the camper trailer but the ground was rock hard so we could not put any tent pegs into the ground to secure the tent. We got into the trailer and all we could hear were road trains, one after the other. They did not stop all night. The wind picked up and before long, both Gerard and I had to get out of bed to stand on either side of the trailer to stop the tent from blowing inside out. As we got back into bed to try and get some sleep, the tent did blow inside out, twice, which involved us getting up each time to stand in the corners until the gusts died back down again. A huge thunderstorm broke out and the thunder was clapping right above our trailer, making the trailer rock. A road train then decided to come and stop right next to us to take off one of his trailers. He then drove away, only to be replaced about 30 minutes later with another road train picking up the trailer. The road train driver decided to play us some loud music, which was nice of him. When first light broke, we got out of the trailer, assessed where we were (we were literally 5 metres from the roadside) and got the hell out of there!

We headed inland from Port Augusta to Coober Pedy and the landscape quickly changed. We left the beautiful, lush, green grass and coast behind and came to low scrubland. The whole area looked extremely dry and there were eagles everywhere devouring their road kill. We stopped and watched one feeding frenzy of eagles and could not believe that they did not fly off as we drove slowly passed them. Times must be hard for them around here.

We are now in Coober Pedy, which is an opal mining town, and you will be pleased to hear we are back to the weather we enjoy, bright sunshine. It is an extremely strange but fascinating town. The weather gets so hot here that most of the locals live in underground houses called “dugouts”. We visited some of the “dugouts” and an underground church and hotel. There is absolutely no grass in the town and water is strictly limited. From here, we are heading Northwards to visit some sites where Mad Max and Priscilla Queen of the Desert were filmed. We are then going to the Gammon Ranges and Flinders Ranges before heading to Adelaide at the end of the month.

I have included some photos of the stormy but beautiful sea at Esperance, our crossing of the Nullabor, some sea lions we saw, the surfers with dolphins beside them, an outback sign warning of the flies, an eagle in mid flight, a picture of Coober Pedy from the local scenic spot “The Big Winch” and St. Peter and St. Paul's underground Catholic church.

Hope everyone is well and as always, thanks for all your emails and comments.

Rachel and Gerard x

Days 156 - 169

After filling up with oil at Kalbarri, we hot footed it down to Perth, stopping off at a few roadside rest areas along the way. At one stop, we were so close to the road that not only could you hear those lovely road train drivers who felt it necessary to honk their horns as they passed at various stages of the night (which made us think that the road train was about to smash through the camper trailer), but the camper shook as they went passed.

With Perth came luxury – hot showers and proper toilets. It felt fantastic. We got to see quite a few suburbs of Perth as we stayed for the first two nights with Les and Carol (who we met up at Mitchell Plateau when we were having problems with the Battered Fish), two nights with Gordon and Sally (who we met at Francis Peron National Park), and two nights with Bob and Sal, the Aunt and Uncle of Angie Mount, a great friend of mine in England. We were totally spoilt in each place and are extremely grateful to everyone for accommodating, feeding and cleaning us!

We really liked Perth and found time to do a few touristy things. We ran around the foreshore of Cottesloe Beach admiring the ocean scenery and watching games of beach volleyball, visited Freemantle and its Saturday morning markets stopping for a lazy cup of coffee and had an afternoon at Hillary’s marina, (which, if you exchanged canal boats for yachts and speed boats, reminded me of Brindley Place in Birmingham on a nice summer’s day), where we finally caught up with Gerard’s cousin Anthony, who is working in the mines in WA, over a couple of coldies. The highlight was probably Rottnest Island. After the ferry ride over, we hired bikes and set off to explore. Little Salmon Bay was our first stop, where we snorkelled a snorkel trail of underwater plaques and saw some huge fish, which Gerard thought would go well on our barbie.

We also did and saw some non-touristy things such as watching Gordon and Sally’s pet sheep, “Lamby”, being sheered for the summer, joining Sal in a mixed doubles tennis tournament in Subiaco and going into the ABC studio’s for a radio interview, after a press interview in Kings Park. We really packed it in but had a great time.

From Perth, we headed South West, passing through lush, green fields, tall Karri trees, flowing rivers and something very pleasing to the eye, acres of vineyards. The scenery was in stark contrast to North WA, where all we saw for km after km was low scrub, road kill and empty rivers. We drove through a forest of karri trees dotted with beautiful wildflowers and putting all thoughts of The Blair Witch Project aside, we decided to camp in the forest for the night. The clouds came over and there was no moon or stars for light – it was pitch black and if I’m honest, a little bit scary. The next morning, we were not woken up by the birds, but by a huge thunder storm. For the first time in over 3 months, we heard the pitter patter of raindrops falling onto the canvas and quickly got up to shut the windows and doors, which we leave open during the night (we find this amusing as when we were living in both the UK and Sydney, we locked our doors and windows the whole time and here out in the bush, probably when you are at your most vulnerable, we leave everything open). The thunderstorm rumbled on for a while and much to our annoyance, the rain continued on and off throughout the day, and for the next four days and nights. Our camper trailer was sodden and leaking. I realise that my complaints about four day’s of rain in over 3 months will fall on rather deaf ears to those English folks but when you are camping, it sucks. Everything gets wet and small jobs such as lighting the camp fire take an age because the wood has to dry out first.

We decided to don our almost matching rain coats and brace the elements. The bad weather did have some huge advantages for us. We found an absolute gem of a place called Lake Jasper, where we had the entire lake, white sandy beaches and camping areas totally to ourselves. We got a huge bonfire going, cracked open a bottle of warming Frangellico and totally forgot about the rain. Many of the tourist attractions, such as the 61 metre tall Gloucester Tree, were also tourist free without a “wicked” camper van in sight.

Only in Australia could you be allowed to climb the Gloucester Tree. It is a 61 metre near vertical climb, with no ropes or bars holding you in. You just have to grip onto the iron stakes, which have been hammered into the tree, and climb. I climbed first and Gerard started just behind me. About 20 metres into the climb, I started feeling a little shaky and looked below me at Gerard. All of the colour had drained from his face and he informed me that he was not doing so well and needed to go down, he could not go up any further. He had frozen mid climb and clung onto the iron stakes. It was awful for me to watch but I could not do anything as I had started to feel queasy myself. We both regained our composure and rather shakily, made it to the top and back down again. I did not realise until the next morning that when I was climbing, I was so focused on holding for dear life onto the iron stakes and taking my time that I had only used one leg to push off for the next iron stake the whole time. My left bum muscle the next day was agony!

There were also some down sides to the rain – mozzies and flies were in almost plague proportions at Windy Harbour. At the camp, we were hassled by mossies who bit through your clothes. Down on the beach, we had to constantly wave our arms around like 70s disco junkies as flies landed on us like we were some uncovered food. They are the worst we have encountered on our trip so far.

We continued on in the rain to Albany, which was a town built around the now forbidden Whaling. The whaling stations shut down in 1978 and rather ironically, Albany now thrives as a town for watching migrating whales. We visited the old whaling station, where we learnt about whaling from some rather graphic video footage and pictures. The job of a Fleanser has to be the worst job in history (if you are eating at this very moment, you may want to put the food down as I describe the job of a Fleanser!). They were the ones who pulled off the whales skin using a winch and cut the thick blubber away from the whale. They would then feed the blubber into a pot of boiling liquid to extract the oil form the blubber. This would then be shipped of to the US and Europe. The job was so dangerous due to the boiling liquid and sharp instruments they used that no one would offer them job insurance. The museum was fascinating and well worth a visit if you are in Albany. It even has the last whaling boat used, Cheynes IV, for you to explore where you can impersonate Leo and Kate with your Titanic impressions. Of course, Gerard and I did not do anything so childish.

From Albany, we slowly made our way to Esperance, stopping off at small beach side towns along the way. The weather improved enough for the camper trailer to dry out and our moods improved significantly. We even had highs of 21 one day, which was positively freezing compared to the weather up North, but any sunshine was welcomed with open arms.

With the change of weather came wildlife. We continually had to dodge bobtail lizards and snakes on the road as they were coming out of their hiding places to bask in the sunshine. The birds also came out. We saw white-tailed black cockatoos, brightly coloured parrots, kookaburra's and owls in the evening time. We also heard on the radio about some recent sightings of some slightly bigger animals - a 6 metre great white shark just off the coast of Albany. I am definitely not getting in that water just yet!

We are currently in Esperance, where we will be staying for a few days before we go into Cape Le Grand National Park and Cape Arid. The roads are 4WDrive mud tracks so we are waiting until they dry out a little before we head in. Our next trip will be crossing the Nullarbor Plain to head into South Australia.

I have included some pictures of the bobtail lizards and other lizards we saw on the roads, some of the beautiful beaches on Rottnest Island, me climbing the Gloucester Tree, the flies at Windy Harbour on Gerard, the beach at Black Point (just before we reached Lake Jasper), a parrot we saw having his breakfast and the Elephant Rocks.

Hope you are all well and as always, thanks to all who have emailed and blogged.

Rach and Ged x

Days 142 - 155

I know that the question on everyone’s lips has not been how will the financial market meltdown affect you, but what was wrong with the Fish. We got a few emails and comments with suggestions for what could possibly be wrong with the car, for which we were very grateful. However, what we have quickly learnt is that it is not easy trying to do mechanical repairs whilst on the road – we do not have a workshop to hand or as many of the tools as we would like. After going through all of the suggestions, it still boiled down to one vital part – the Injector Pump (“IP”). When we purchased the car, it had done 366,000 kms and still had its original IP. Due to time constraints and money, we decided not to change the IP before we left Sydney. Just under 24,000 kms later, we were slightly regretting that decision as this is what the problem with the Fish turned out to be. Once a new IP was freighted up to Exmouth from Perth, and then fitted, 8 days later, the Fish was back on working form once more and our trip could continue.

Continue it did for a few hundred kms until our next problem reared its ugly head. The veg oil fuel lift pump also decided to give up the ghost. This meant we had to travel on diesel until we got to Carnarvon, where we purchased a new one. We felt dirty using diesel for this time! Everything is running fine now and we are once more back on the sweet smelling WVO.

Once the Fish was fixed, we went back to Cape Range National Park, where we spent three very windy nights. We went snorkelling at some of the places we visited last time and also got to see hundreds of Loggerheads turtles up “very close”. When I say “very close”, I literally mean just that as we came across them at mating time! It really was an incredible sight for there were turtles everywhere – the majority were in the shallow surf but there were some big fellows having a rest on the beach after their morning’s exertions. It can’t be easy with a flat stomach and a rounded hump.

We left Cape Range (after the Fish gave the Vanderkellen’s car, “the white gerka”, a little kiss goodbye – sorry Vandi's) and headed South to the Quobba Coast. It was still blowing an absolute gale around Cape Range and we thought heading South may be less windy. We were very wrong. We drove to Red Bluff and could hardly open our doors to register for camping. The coastline was extremely dynamic, high cliffs and huge waves pounding the rocks and the beach, and the landscape was low scrub with few trees to shelter you from the wind. We camped in a beautiful spot right on the beach. When the wind died down a little, we could see hump back whales about 200 meters out to sea. I don’t think I will ever get bored of that sight.

Before leaving the Quobba Coast for the area of Shark Bay, we stopped off at the Blowholes. As the wind was still strong and the waves bigger than ever, the blowholes were fantastic, blowing water into the air a good 20 metres.

The area of Shark Bay is World Heritage Listed, and like every other part of the Western Australia coastline we have visited, absolutely stunning. We struck pure paradise for the second time on this trip when we drove over sand dunes and soft sand tracks to get to Francis Peron National Park. We were rewarded for our efforts by white sand beaches, bright orange sand dunes and turquoise waters teeming with sea life.

As soon as we finished putting the awning of the camper trailer up, the wind died down and the water became like glass. We went for a walk at low tide to see what seafood we could forage for dinner and saw turtles, cow-tail sting rays, black tip reef sharks, shovel nose sharks and dolphins, all in the shallow waters. Food wise, we picked up cockles, pipis and mussels and boiled them up for dinner with some garlic and wine.

Our camp spot was once again right on the beach with only one other couple, Sally and Gordon from Perth, sharing the whole stretch of beach with us. On our last day, they invited us out in their tinnie for some fishing. We went about 3 kms out and saw dolphins and the dugongs, which are apparently hard to see as they are so shy. I felt slightly embarrassed about my fishing skills, or more precisely, my lack of fishing skills, but Gordon assured me that you could not miss out here and even his mate, “who was such a bad fisherman he couldn’t even catch a cold” caught fish out there. Right, no pressure then!

On my first cast out, I forgot to free the reel so that the line could unwind on my throw. Bugger. Pretending it was a dummy throw (like a dummy swing in golf), I calmly freed the reel and casted out again. Much better this time as the line actually went in the water. I tried to get Gerard’s attention to ask him what I do if by some miracle, I actually do get something on my line, but before I could do this, I saw and felt my rod twitching and I was in for a fight with something. Everyone on the boat stopped fishing and looked at me fighting with this thing, shouting instructions about what to do. In the end, it turned out that there was nothing on my line, I had gotten snagged. Bugger again! Gerard caught the first fish of the day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the pink snapper we were all hoping for, but the inedible, ugly looking toad fish. Things did get better throughout the morning with everyone catching snappers, Gerard catching a small lemon shark, Gordon catching a Spanish Mackerel and me catching my first fish ever, a stripey sea perch. Each fish we caught was identified using our trusty "guide to fish" book, measured to make sure it was the correct size and either thrown back, or kept for dinner if it was the right size. We had a fabulous morning with Sally and Gordon and I now have the bug for fishing.

We left Francis Peron after an hour of Gerard digging us out of some soft sand (my fault!). On the track out, we saw a lot of spotted Goanna’s and to our delight, a thorny devil (no, not Gerard, it’s a reptile). We headed on a 4WD track West to the most Western point of Australia, Steep Point. We travelled over huge sand dunes and corrugated tracks to what seemed like the end of the world. We eventually arrived at a homestead and registered. As I was registering, I noticed the lady sniff the air and go and check her kitchen as she thought she had left her frying pan on. I told her that we were running our car on waste cooking oil and she said that we were the first car to go out to Steep Point on WVO. Once we found the most Western point, we got out the car and were hammered by the wind. It looked as if there was a huge storm going on out to sea, with huge waves and swell.

We are currently in a beautiful little town called Kalbarri, where we are restocking on WVO before we head down to Perth for Wednesday/Thursday. We are hoping to catch up with a few people from our travels and some old friends.

I have included some pictures of the beautiful Francis Peron NP, the thorny devil we saw, dolphins, an exhausted looking turtle after its morning exertions, a pelican, a cow-tail sting ray, me with my first catch, Gerard and I at Steep Point, the view from the top of Red Bluff over the coast, the waves pounding against the rocks at Point Quobba, Gerard enjoying the blowholes and the Vanderkellen children, Clancey, Lilly and George on top of the Fish.

Hope you are all well and thank you to all who have emailed and blogged.

Rach and Ged x