The Battered Fish swims again

Many thanks to Ningaloo Auto Repairs, Exmouth, for getting the Fish going again.

Days 129 - 141

We nearly missed the staircase to the moon in Broome, not because we were late, but because we and hundreds of others were sitting in the wrong place. A call went out saying that the moon was rising on the other side of the jetty and a stampede of people started towards the jetty to see the moon rise from the ocean – an incredible sight.

We left Broome with roughly 400 litres of WVO and new brakes and bearings for the Barnacle. The roads really have taken there toll on our little friend. We headed South to Cape Keraudren along a very long and boring stretch of road that felt like it went on for ever. Cape Keraudren was a beautiful spot set in a conservation area, with kangaroos playing on the beach. The sea looked very inviting but we did not venture in. The ranger told us that there were crocs, sharks, sting rays and stonefish all present in the waters. Our camping neighbours went out fishing in their tinnie and they confirmed the number of sharks in the water by the bounty they brought back.

We are becoming very good at “catching” fish. I say “catching” because Gerard and I are not having much luck fishing from the shore, but we always seem to be in the right place when the boats come in. Any spare fish are thrown in our direction and we dutifully catch them. Bronze whaler shark was on the menu in Cape Keraudren and very nice it tasted too!

We left the coast and headed inland to Karijini NP. There were a couple of changes in landscape from the drive from Broome to Cape Keraudren – firstly, we saw (and unfortunately smelt) a huge amount of dead cows on the side of the road and secondly, we pulled off the road several times for oversize mining vehicles that were being hauled which took up both sides of the road. Mining is huge here and almost every car you encounter is a mine vehicle with their red sand flags on top.

We are extremely glad that we took the time to go inland to Karijini as the scenery was stunning. The walks were great too, our favourite being “the Spider Walk.” We got to it after clamouring over huge rocks and braving freezing cold water. The Spider Walk is a bend in the gorge where it is so narrow that you need all four limbs to push off the walls and walk forward. One slip and you could end up on the slippery rock under the shallow water below. The narrow gorge opens up into the blissful and refreshing Kermit's Pool. What the creators of this walk did not cater for were people with short arms and legs like me. I really struggled finding footholds and to get me safely through the walk, I started singing a song to lift my spirits. The song was “Spider Pig” sang by Homer Simpson in the movies “the Simpsons”. I merrily hummed along to “Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does.” I have no idea why I started singing it but it got me through the walk!

Up until this point, we had been starting our car every morning by using aerostart (we have heard others refer to this as “start ya bastard”) and had been doing this since leaving Manning Gorge up on the Gibb River Road. As we were having no problems running on waste cooking oil once the car had started, our aim was to carry on until we got to Perth, where we could get the car properly checked out. However, lady luck ran out on us as we were leaving Karijini. Gerard was driving and felt the car losing power when he pressed the accelerator. This had happened to us previously and he immediately identified this as the waste oil fuel filter needing to be changed. He switched to using diesel and decided we would get to the next roadside rest area where we would allow the engine to cool down before changing the filter. Once the filter had been changed, we tried to start the car to test whether the filter was on properly. The car would not start, not even with aerostart. We tried several times during the day, but to no avail. As we were at a roadside rest area, we set up camp and chatted to our new camping neighbours – Noel and Shelia from Adelaide and Peter, Tracy and family from Boulder, Colorado, USA. Both kept our spirits high, (the Butterscotch Schnapps provided by Shelia defiantly helped), and said they would tow start us in the morning if the Battered Fish still would not start.

The morning came and Gerard and I nervously tried starting the car – nothing. We tried it with aerostart – again nothing. For the fourth time on our trip, we got our beautiful purple tow rope out and Peter gave us a tow start. The Battered Fish started and the idea now was to keep moving until we got to the next roadhouse, nearly 300 kms away. We managed to get there but as we needed to fill up on diesel at the roadhouse ($2.07 a litre – now we know why we don’t travel on diesel!), we turned the car off. Again, the car would not start and for the second time that day, the purple tow rope came out and Peter gave us another tow start. What a sight we must have looked being towed around the roadhouse’s car park with the Barnacle bobbing along behind. We got going and did not stop until we arrived at Exmouth, a seaside town which leads to the Ningaloo Reef (I know, there are worse places to be having mechanical problems.)

It is now merely a waiting game for us to find out what is wrong with the Battered Fish. Unfortunately for us, WA celebrates the Queens Birthday each year and this happens to coincide with us waiting to see what is wrong with our car. Deciding not to sit around and mope about the future of the Battered Fish, we have ventured out onto the reef for some snorkelling and exploration. All I can say is wow. The reef is literally 5 metres away from the beach and the array and colours of fish, reef sharks, turtles and manta rays we saw was amazing for something so close. Our favourite snorkelling place was called “Turquoise Bay”. As you can imagine with such a name, the sea was a brilliant turquoise colour and the sand a glimmering white. We snorkelled what was called the “Turquoise Drift”, where you get in one end of the beach and the current takes you down to the other. We were so engrossed with the shoals of fish that we almost forgot to get out.

The evenings too were stunning as the wildlife really came to life. There were huge amounts of large, red kangaroos hopping along on the side of the road, goannas sitting on the road catching the last rays of sun and emus crossing the road with their chicks. Looking out towards the ocean, we watched the hump back whales putting on a great tail display for us, splashing their fins and tails against the ocean before resurfacing a few minutes later and repeating their performances.

I also discovered a new religion in Australia over the weekend – AFL or Aussie Rules Football. It was the grand final where two Victorian teams were playing each other – the Hawks v the Cats. We went along to watch the game at the local pub and I had my first taste of Aussie sporting mania. Not really knowing anything about aussie rules, I tried to blend in with the crowd so I didn’t stick out as a “pommie” and shouted out some of the comments I heard at what I deemed to be appropriate moments – “Through the Guts” was my favourite, closely followed by “knock ‘im down”. At one point, I really got into character and asked Gerard “what da youze wanna drink darl?’ (I thought using “hunk of spunk” instead of “darl” was going one step too far). The Hawks eventually won, much to most of the crowd's relief, and we had teary man hugging teary man, proud shouts of “that’s my boys” and general merriment. That night, we met up with the Vanderkellens, a family we met in Mitchell Plateau and then saw again in Manning Gorge and Broome, for pizza. It was their oldest son's 8th Birthday so they were celebrating. Camping is a very social life!

So life here in Exmouth has treated us very well whilst the Battered Fish has been hanging out at the mechanics. We will hear tomorrow the Fish’s diagnosis so fingers crossed.

I have added some photos of the sea at Cape Keraudren, our time at Karijini National Park including some of the stunning gorges and Gerard and I (aka as the Spider Pigs) on the Spider Walk, the warning sign at Cape Keraudren, a Goanna we saw crossing the road, the sunsetting at the Lighthouse, the Staircase to the Moon and the stunning Turquoise Bay.

We hope you are all well and please keep your fingers crossed for the Fish’s return!

Rach and Ged x

Days 116 - 128

We left Derby with mixed feelings. On the plus side, Derby was a mecca for waste cooking oil and we managed to collect 420 litres in two days (this will enable us to travel around 2200 kms). On the down side, we took the Battered Fish to two different mechanics and neither one could fathom what was wrong with the car. We are finding that as soon as we mention that we are running on waste cooking oil to a mechanic, they automatically conclude that the problem must be something to do with that. The ironic thing is that it is running perfectly on the oil but still won’t work when we use diesel. As the weather is hot up here (between 35 – 40 degrees during the day), running only on oil is working well but we are praying that we do not hit a cool patch before the car is fixed.

We back tracked along the Gibb River Road to two awesome gorges – Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. We walked along Windjana Gorge and saw hundreds of freshwater crocodiles, all lying on the banks of the gorge in the sun. Even though there were crocs everywhere, there were still some crazy people swimming in the gorge. Walking through Tunnel Creek was another amazing experience of the Kimberley. We scrambled over rocks with our head torches on to enter the tunnel and once inside, we waded through water in the pitch black to get to the other side. At one stage, we all turned off our head torches and stood in the pitch black listening to the numerous bats. I couldn’t resist the temptation and grabbed Gerard’s leg pretending to be a croc. He literally ran across the water.

From Tunnel Creek, we detoured to Geike Gorge before heading West to the coast. After a long, hot drive, we arrived at Paradise – an idyllic spot called Middle Lagoon. The indigenous owner “upgraded” us from camping to a beach shelter. The shelter was literally just that, with a palm frond roof and sides, a sand floor to sleep on, a window without any glass or netting and a door way without a door. It was simplicity at its best. By day, we swam, snorkeled and fished and each evening, we would have sundowners on “our” beach, look out to the coast where we saw hump back whales diving and hitting their fins against the water, fire up the wooden bbq and have dinner by moonlight. Going to bed with the stars and moon above us was an experience I will not forget in a hurry.

We left our paradise at Middle Lagoon and drove further up the coast to Cape Leveque, a place we had been looking forward to visiting for some time. Although it was undeniably beautiful with its red cliffs, brilliantly white sand beaches and turquoise waters, it lacked that carefree, laid back feeling that we adored at Middle Lagoon. It catered to a completely different set as it was primarily a resort with villas, safari tents for tour groups and a restaurant. Those “undesirables” with dusty clothes, such as Gerard and I, were squashed into a camp ground. Having said all of this, we spent two lovely nights at Cape Leveque and once again, fished, swam in the sea, whale watched and enjoyed the glorious sunsets setting over the ocean.

From Cape Leveque, we decided upon some bush camping at another gorgeous spot, James Price Point, about 50kms North of Broome. It was Sarah’s last few days and we wanted her to enjoy the solitude of camping before she flew back to Sydney. We could not have wished for a better spot as we had the beautiful beach to ourselves and enjoyed some cliff top camping overlooking the ocean – it really isn’t a bad life this camping malarkey!

We arrived in Broome, intent on one thing, alcohol! As we had been in Aboriginal communities for the last few weeks, once we had ran out of beer, there was nowhere we could restock. We all felt pretty thirsty and decided to go out in Broome, something that Gerard and I had not done since Darwin. Suddenly, vanity (or was it reality?) hit me and I had to go through my clothes and pick out the least dusty item (even though we are washing our clothes in our makeshift washing machine – a bin filled with water in the back of the car – red dust gets into everything). Poor Gerard did not have anything that was not stained with waste cooking oil. Dressed in the best attire I had (shorts, t-shirt and flip flops) and with brushed and washed hair, we hit Broome. Unfortunately, no one told my camping body clock that we were out for the night and we would defiantly not set any records for the amount we drank or how long we spent out!

The rest of our time in Broome was spent looking for waste cooking oil, going for walks along Cable Beach, enjoying the beautiful sunsets and consuming vast amounts of fresh food and drink.

We have included some pictures of the whales we saw on the North coast, some of the sunsets we enjoyed, Tunnel Creek, Windjana Gorge, our beach shelter at Middle Lagoon, the beautiful red cliffs at Cape Leveque and some of the wildlife.

We are staying in Broome to watch the Stairway to the Moon, a natural phenomenon caused by a full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats at Roebuck Bay at extremely low tides to create an optical illusion of a staircase reaching to the moon, before heading South along the coast and slowly making our way to Perth. We hope everyone is well and enjoying their time. Thank you to all who have commented on our blog or sent emails. As always, it is great to hear from you.

Rachel and Gerard x

Days 103 - 115

Days 103 – 115

BEWARE: a lot of mechanical terms are used in this blog which, of course, I understand completely!

We left Kununurra after collecting 80 litres of WVO and headed for an area called Diggers Rest. We arrived at Diggers Rest around 5pm WA time (that is 7pm Sydney time, 6.30pm Adelaide time and who knows what time Hong Kong time!!). We found that instead of it being a bush camp area, it was a working cattle station. Gerard got out of the car and spoke with the owner who told us we could camp in our “own paddock”. We drove around the corner and were greeted by 450 goats, numerous horses, chickens, bulls, heifers, emus and dogs in our “paddock”. It was a little surreal to say the least! For the first time in a while, I can honestly say it was not the birds that woke me up in the morning, but the call of some hungry kid goats “bleating” away quite merrily. We bade farewell to “Old McDonnell’s Farm” after taking a wander around the station and seeing the cars they use to muster and brand the bulls (the “Bull Catchers” as they call them), which had obviously seen a lot of action over their time.

We headed for the first gorges of what we hoped would be many, the beautiful Emma Gorge and El Questro, before we took the track leading up to Mitchell Plateau. Mitchell Plateau is a huge area with its main attractions being the largest waterfall in Australia and its untamed coastline with white beaches and turquoise sea. We stayed at a gorgeous bush camp called King Edward River, which had a series of waterholes and waterfalls that we could swim in that were deemed as “safe” – (“safe” up here means no salties, only fresh water crocs!).

The next day, we left early with our packed lunch and water to go and see the Falls. We had only got 10 kms up the road before the car stalled. Despite numerous efforts of trying to restart the car, the car would not start. Even though it was only 7am, the sun was already up and hot (the highs of the previous few days had been 42 degrees) and so I remembered the advice from Ray Mears survival programmes (!) and unpacked our picnic rug under the very little shade that there was, got hats out for everyone and set up camp to wait for the next car. Three hours past before the first car came up the track. I am not quite sure what we would have looked like to those people as Sarah was reading a book, Gerard was eating and I was plucking my eyebrows! Three aboriginals got out of the car and asked what was wrong. Before they examined under the bonnet, Pauley wanted to know which tribe I was from (apparently, I am the same colour as a local tribe near to them!). Niceties over with, they examined the car, tightening this and that, watching Gerard change the filter, pumping the air out of the fuel injector etc (I told you there were a lot of mechanic terms being used in this blog!). About 30 minutes past before the next car arrived, Les and Carol from Perth, closely followed by Julie and Alan from Townsville. They all asked what was wrong and pulled up in front of us to help out. Every car that past (6 in total) all got out and helped and we were very grateful to all for sparing their time to stop with us. At one stage, there were 10 people looking at the car (well, 4 blokes by the car, 6 women standing in the shade!) and Julie decided to get out her polished tea pot together with tea cosy to make everyone a cuppa on the side of the road! Despite everyone’s efforts, the Battered Fish would not get started and we unrolled our beautiful purple tow rope for the first time for Julie and Alan to tow the Fish back to our camp. Whilst Gerard sweated away in the Fish being towed, Sarah and I sat in Les and Carol’s air conned car – bliss after the heat of the day! Les and Carol were also staying at the same camp and in the afternoon, Les came over and he and Gerard spent the afternoon getting every spanner out of their respective tool boxes trying to fix the car. Eventually, the car started and we were once again extremely grateful to Les for spending so much of his time helping us out.

The next morning, it was a bit like ground hog day as we packed up lunch for the day, filled up water bottles and left early to go to the Falls. Thankfully, the car started first time and sounded healthy. We past “the hill of death” where we had stalled yesterday and got to the Falls no problem at all. First stop was to the scenic helicopter flight pad where we surprised Sarah with an early 30th birthday present of a hour helicopter flight over the coastline and to the Falls (the emissions from this will, of course, be offset!). All I can say is “Wow”! Neither of us had been in a helicopter before and after we got used to the noise and the fact that we had no doors, we sat back in silent amazement of the views. The pilot took us over the coast line where we not only saw white sands and turquoise seas, but also sharks, salties, turtles and stinger rays in the sea. On such sightings, he would take the helicopter down as near to the sea as possible so we got a good view of everything. I was not in a hurry to jump into the sea for a swim after the flight! The Falls were also great to see, although I am sure that in the Wet they are far more impressive with the amount of water that would flow through them.

After four days at King Edward River, we left to rejoin the Gibb River Road. The car had been running perfectly since it had stalled and we had travelled over 300 kms without a problem. We were within 2 kms of our next gorge when we switched the car over from oil to diesel. Suddenly, it stalled and once again, we had a waiting game on the side of the track as we could not get it started. (My eye brows didn’t need plucking this time so I wondered what to do!). Before long, Dave and Bernice from Derby came by and offered to help. Once again, we were overwhelmed by their generosity with their time as not only did they tow us to the nearest camp spot 37 kms away at Manning Gorge but stayed with us that night so that Dave could help Gerard with the car in the morning. This time, they drained out the diesel from the car as we were only having problems with the car when we ran first off on diesel or last thing at night. They (and others who had surrounded the car as the bonnet was up!) came to the conclusion that our so called “diesel” was actually kerosene. They held proper diesel in a clear jug up against our diesel in the car and the colour difference was noticeable even to me. With this new information in hand, we started the car up with some aerostart and drove 7 kms to the nearest roadhouse to use the public phone to phone a mechanic. We got 4 kms before the car stalled and guess what…..it wouldn’t start again, not even with aerostart. For the third time in as many days, we unravelled our beautiful purple tow rope and got a tow from the caretaker at the roadhouse back to our camp!

With the car not starting, we enquired how much a tow would be to Broome, as that is the first major town on this section of the road. To go 450 kms, it would cost us $4500 to be towed!! I told Gerard that I don’t care how he got the car started; we just had to get it going as there was no way we could afford $4500!!! Gerard studied his new bible (the Landcruiser manual) and the next day, he found where the fuel was leaking from and did a patch job on the car to get it started. To celebrate, we eventually took a walk to Manning Gorge, where we had been staying for the last three days. The gorge itself was stunning, with a waterfall cascading down into a deep, clear pool. We spent the day relaxing at the Gorge and doing rock jumps from the fall. Even though the jumps did not look high from across the pool, once you were up there, it felt really high!

With the help of some tape and aerostart, we have arrived safely in Derby, where we are getting all the electronics on the car looked at, before we drive the final 150kms to Broome. We are also restocking on oil and food for our next journey which will hopefully be “breakdown free”!

I have included some photos of our breakdown journey across the Gibb River Road (we are thinking of renaming the blog “Around Oz on a Tow”), the waterfall at Manning Gorge, Emma Gorge, the Bull Catchers, rock jumping at Manning Gorge, a picture of the boab tree that we are encountering now that we are in Western Australia, pictures from our flight of the coastline, crossing Pentecost River and Mitchell Falls.

We hope you are all well and thanks all for your emails and comments,

Rach and Ged x