IAN and DIANE'S TRIP AROUND AUSTRALIA: ALBANY TO VENUS BAY

ALBANY TO VENUS BAY

Saturday 26th January 2008 (Australia Day) we watched the cricket for most of the day and I read half a book until we went to the speedway for the Junior National Titles. The drivers range in age from 10 to 16years of age and there were 84 cars in total there. There was 24 heats run over the night and these kids put on some very exciting racing. No quarter is given by the drivers and there were some spectacular crashes. It was a good night.

SPEEDWAY

Sunday morning we went fishing up stream from the Caravan Park and caught 2 bream the one Diane caught was 35cm and I caught one 28cm, there were others caught but they were undersize. After lunch I washed the boat and then played with the computer for the afternoon, mainly trying to put the phone numbers from the mobile phone to the computer. I had trouble saving the numbers and I still haven’t got it worked out yet.

Monday morning Di and I went fishing in the morning, first we went down stream towards the bay and then we went upstream to where we caught the fish yesterday. We caught one bream; they didn’t bite like they did the day before. After lunch I took Dave and Pat for a ride in the boat up the Kalgan River to the narrows where there are rocks restricting you from going any further.

Dave is an old truckie from way back and talks like one too, they come from Townsville and are travelling around like us. Dave has a 2004 Ford Falcon Ute and he let me have a drive of it as I was asking him a lot of questions about what he thought of it. I was surprised how well it handled and how comfortable it was.

Tuesday morning and it has been three days since Diane’s last shopping fix so we set off to town and I dropped her off at Target and was instructed to come back in two hours. I went to Supa Cheap and browsed around the shop and left with about $84.00 worth of stuff for the car. I then went to the car-wash and washed and vacuumed the car that badly needed doing. I found Diane in one of the Ladies fashion shops and then we had a coffee before heading back to camp. It was raining off and on all day and between showers I packed up and reloaded the boat onto the car.

Wednesday morning we left Albany and drove east along the South Coast Highway. We went into Bremer Bay that is 63km off the Highway and situated on the coast. It is a nice light town on the Bay and has some nice sheltered beaches with the whitest of sand that I have seen for a long time. We had lunch at the beach car park and then kept going until we came to Jerramungup where we fuelled up while we decided where we were going to stay for the night. It was freezing and drizzling with rain when I fuelled up so we decided to keep driving as it was warm in the car.

Just 5km short of Ravensthorpe is a free camp so we stopped there for the night. A bus converted into a Motor-home pulled in as well and I had a talk to them and he was telling me that he was getting about 5km per litre out of his Mercedes engine. I was surprised as other people with the same sort of rig were only getting about 3km per litre. He was also towing a caravan that he had converted in a trailer for his Suzuki. I asked him what he had done to it to get that good a fuel economy and he said that the main thing was a larger exhaust and bigger air cleaner he also had the fuel pump tweaked.

Thursday morning and the weather is the same drizzly, cold and gloomy, today our destination is Esperance where we will stay for between 4 to 7 days. At Ravensthorpe we turned right and went down to Hopetoun that is 53km away and on the coast. We filled our water tank at the toilets down on the waterfront and then drove around the town for a look. This is a place that is going ahead with new sub-divisions everywhere. There is a mine of some sort between Hopetoun and Ravensthorpe that is fuelling the growth we think.

After Hopetoun we went back to Ravensthorpe and fuelled up at the BP Garage that was .08 cents cheaper than the Caltex Garage. After leaving Ravensthorpe we stopped at Munglinup for a cup of coffee and there was a Toyota Motorhome there and it had a Map of Australia on the back and Old Bar painted on the map. We spoke to the young couple in the Motorhome and it was Dean & Kathy Duggan from Old Bar (Melinda Duggan’s brother) they have been on the road about as long as we have.

We arrived at Esperance about 2.00pm and set up in the Seafront Caravan Park. After lunch (a late lunch) we went around to find Les and Irene (known as Rene) Spence at unit 14/63 Windich Street Esperance. Les is related to Diane and is Charlie Liddell’s 2nd cousin. We had a quick drive around to orientate ourselves with the town.

We arranged to met Les and Rene at 10.00am on Friday morning to go through the Family Tree records that they have. Les was surprised at how much information Diane had about his family and Diane inturn was surprised as to how much more information she was able to obtain from them. Les has some of his Family tree information up in Perth with his nephew who is going to send it down immediately so hopefully it will be here on Monday for Diane to have a look at. They have invited us around for a roast dinner on Sunday.

In the afternoon we went for a long walk done to the Jetty and right out to the end of the Jetty and back. There is a resident Sea Lion that they call Sam that lives around the Jetty and he was sleeping on the sand near the Jetty when we were there. I had a talk to a fellow from Perth who has the new 200 series Landcruiser twin turbo diesel V8. He said that he is using about 21 litres per 100km towing his 21ft van and it has only done 5000km so it has a bit of loosening up to do yet. I have used to date5064.67 litres covered 26650km at a cost of $ 6718.37 which adds up to 19 litres per 100km with my diesel/gas or 5.25km per litre or 14.85 miles per gallon at an average cost of $1.32 per litre. Gas brings down the average price. Diane has made an appointment to have her hair cut on Monday.

Saturday morning we went for drive out to Cape Le Grand National park which is 53km east of town. Once you enter the park there are massive outcrops of Granite and Gneiss, exposed by erosion over the millions of years we took a photo of Frenchman’s Peak and then followed the road to the end where the last 6 km are dirt road until you get to Rossiter Bay. Rossiter Bay is named after a Captain of a ship that helped Matthew Flinders with his circumnavigation of Australia and they have erected a Cairn there in his honour. It is a lovely Bay; all the bays in this National Park are very nice at the southern end of Rossiter Bay the sea weed is about 1m deep and very spongy to walk on.

We then visited Lucky Bay, Thistle Cove and Hellfire Bay. At Lucky Bay we drove onto the beach and collected some white sand; some to send to Mona and some for ourselves to show you at home. The sand is very fine like talcum powder and so white. At Thistle Cove we saw a brown snake he was about 500mil long, just lying on the rocks.

The last beach is Le Grand beach and they have made a nice picnic area there. The beach is wide and white with the very fine sand, the water is clear then turquoise turning to blue as it gets deeper, it is a beautiful sight. We decided to drive back to Esperance on the beach; it is 22km to Wylie Bay where you get off the beach at the western end and then drive the rest of the way on tarred road. Just near Wylie beach is Bandy creek that has been dredged out to form a harbour for the fishing fleet. They have made rock walls on both sides and it seems to be a nice safe little harbour.

When we arrived back at camp Diane hurt her back at the toilet by just turning around at the wash basin so she went to bed to rest it, I went for a drive down to the other caravan park to see if Dave and Pat had arrived yet as I couldn’t get them on the phone. They had just finished setting up so I stayed and had a drink with them before heading back to camp.

Sunday morning and Diane’s back is not much better so she stayed in bed while I washed the caravan (it was way overdue). Not many caravan parks on the west coast let you wash your van due to the water shortage. Les and Rene invited us to lunch for a pork roast, we arrived at there place at 11.45am and left at 2.30pm, we had a lovely time they are a very nice couple. Diane’s back needed a rest so we went home and she lay down again. At 5.00pm we went around to Dave and Pat’s for a drink and then home for a light dinner.

Monday Diane’s back is a bit better but still not right. Diane had a hair appointment at 9.00am and then we visited the old village situated within Esperance. The village has the information centre, Blacksmiths, Doctors, Chemist, Court House, Church and one or two other buildings. We did some grocery shopping on the way home for lunch.

At 1.00pm we went around to Les & Rene’s and they took us for a drive along Twilight Beach Road and back past the Pink Lake on the way home. The scenery is just spectacular with Granite Rocks running down into the water with beaches in between the headlands. The Pink Lake is now white after a storm had washed away the Algae that turned the lake pink. They mine the salt from the lake to make table salt and cattle lick blocks.

Les had received all the paperwork from Perth about his family history so we had a cup of coffee while Diane poured through the paperwork to see what she could find. She has now filled in a few more holes and got some photos as well. We had drinks again at 5.00pm with Dave and Pat who are heading to Kalgoorlie tomorrow.

Tuesday morning and the wind dropped down overnight and it should be a nice day unless the wind starts to blow again. Diane did our washing in the morning and I went to the caravan dealers to buy a new switch for the range hood over the stove and a wheel to go on our door so that the door won’t rip the awning if it hits it.

I fuelled the car and refilled our caravan gas bottle in the afternoon and while I was out I went to the jetty and found the two sea lions there so I took some photos of them and then edited them when I got home. 4.45pm we went around to Les and Rene’s to say goodbye to them, Rene had a tier in her eye when we left, and they were a lovely couple.

Wednesday morning we were packed up and left Esperance by 7.50am on our way to Kalgoorlie. It is just on 400km north and possibly a lot hotter than Esperance. We went straight through Norseman as we will stop there on our way back and before we cross the Nullarbor.

We rang both Rachel and Melissa on the way, Mel is suffering from morning sickness but otherwise well and Darren, George and Riley are well. Rachel, Tim, Charlie and Hannah are well, Rachel had some questions about shares for me, and it’s good to keep in touch.

We arrived at Kalgoorlie at 1.30pm and we are staying at the Top Tourist caravan park in Boulder. I had a quick look at the super pit in the afternoon while Diane was having a lay down to rest her back. It is hard to believe how big the super pit is and tomorrow we are going to watch the next blast at 1.00pm, you are allowed to watch from the lookout.

I spoke to Markus on the phone and he said that they have sold there Landcruiser for $7,000 which is great for them. Markus is in Melbourne until he flies to Sydney before departing for home.

Thursday morning believe it or not it was raining in Kalgoorlie, everyone is saying how unseasonable it is but there you are. We visited the Museum and then went to the visitors centre in Kalgoorlie and had a walk around town. Kalgoorlie is a big place and has a lot of old huge buildings built back in the Gold rush days. The first gold claim was registered in 1892 by Bayley and Ford at Fly Flat in Coolgardie. Not long after three Irishmen Flanaghan, Hannan and Shea stumbled across 100 ounces of alluvial nuggets close to what has since been coined the “Golden Mile” the richest square mile of gold bearing earth ever discovered, this is where the Super Pit is today. At 12.15pm we went up to the Super Pit lookout to watch the blast at 1.00pm.They clear the pit area where the blast is to take place 30 minutes before the due time.

When the blast takes place you see the ground lift in a wave motion and then you hear the sound of the blast and then the dust. The ground is drilled to 10m and they set the explosives in the holes; once the blast has taken place the ground can be 10m higher than it was before the blast. We booked to do the mine tour on Friday morning with Matt at “Finders Keepers” tours. Matt also does Gold detecting tours he started the business 2 years ago as a part time hobby and it is now his full time profession.

Friday morning and it is still raining but we did the tour of the Super Pit any way. The windows of the bus fogged up and that made it hard to take photos which were disappointing. Matt did a marvellous job describing how the mine works from getting the rock out of the ground to pouring the gold bars. There are 32 or 33 dump trucks that carry 220 odd tonne of rock out of the mine per load each and they get about 20 loads per day each. The huge front-end loaders that fill the trucks only need 4 buckets full to load a truck. The trucks either take their load to the overburden dump or to the crusher to release the gold.

It take seven 220 tonne truckloads of rock to produce a tiny two-ounce nugget.
More than 50,000,000 ounces of gold have already been mined on the Golden Mile.
About 85 million tonnes of ore and waste are removed per year- that’s 232,000 tonnes per day.
The mine works 24 hours per day 365 days per year.

One of the hazards with this mine is that there is 3500km of old underground tunnels and shafts that they have to find as they dig deeper and the old railway tracks and timber props all have to be found and removed by hand from the loads before the rock can go to the crusher. Believe it or not the rock can be crushed easily but timber breaks the crusher mandrels. At the present there is 48 acres of timber and old iron, railway tracks and implements that have been extracted from the loads.

It was a very interesting morning and well worth doing, you certainly come away knowing more than you did before you went there and it blows your mind on the enormity of the whole operation. The pit itself is 3.8km long, 1.8km wide and 520m deep and they are about to extend the western side another 200m towards town. The pit has another 10 to 14 years without further extensions. The main ore body has been already exhausted but it is still profitable for them to keep going.

After the tour we went to the Super Pit shop that is a non profit shop, any profits are donation to charities around the town like the Flying Doctor service. Across the road from the Super Pit shop is a hotel that has a mine shaft in the floor of the Bar area with a glass lid on it so that you can see into the shaft.

I went back to the Finders Keepers tour shop and had a talk to Matt about the latest metal detectors and how to use it. If we didn’t have the house to build I would have bought one as I have always thought I would like to do some prospecting.

We then did some grocery shopping taking care not to buy too many fruit and vegetables as we will be going through the fruit fly gates in a couple of days near Ceduna in South Australia.

Saturday we left Kalgoorlie and went to Coolgardie to have a look around, Coolgardie is were the Gold rush in the area started in 1892. Coolgardie is a dilapidated town now with a lot of the shops closed and in disrepair.

After Coolgardie we headed south to Norseman to fuel up and to have our lunch. Norseman is another well known gold area and was discovered by a horse called Norseman in 1894 when it was pawing at the ground with its hoof and dug up a Gold Nugget, not far from Norseman is

where they found the largest ever Gold Nugget in 1931 at Larkiville Mine near Widgiemooltha. We then headed east over the Nullarbor, we camped about 144km along the road at Newman’s Rocks.

Sunday morning we left our Newman’s Rocks campsite and drove into Balladonia 40km east, for a toilet stop. We then covered in total just over 400km to our next overnight stop just after Madura Pass. Along this stretch of road is the longest straight stretch of road in Australia it is 146km long and ends at Caiguna. We stopped for lunch at Cocklebiddy and put 50 litres of diesel and 20 litres of gas on board. Diesel was $1.85.5 per litre and gas was $1.07 per litre. This is the highest price we have paid for diesel so far on our trip.

Monday morning and we look forward to another day on the Nullarbor plains’ we left Madura Pass at 8.30am and drove into Mundrabilla which was 90km from our overnight stop. Fuel at Mundrabilla was only $1.68 per litre for diesel so we filled our tanks. We passed through Eucla on our way to the WA/SA Borders, we stopped there for morning tea and I rang Rachel to tell her where we were and to see if everything was OK at home.

After the border we drove east on the Eyre Highway coming close to the Great Australian Bight on a few occasions and we took some Photos along the way. We had lunch at one of the Lookouts and then drove to a campsite 70km east of Nullarbor Roadhouse for the night. It has been another long day driving but tomorrow we will be in Ceduna SA.

Tuesday morning and we left camp at 9.00am as it is only a short day today around 220km. We stopped at Nundroo for fuel as it was only $1.51 per litre for diesel so we filled up our tanks. 2km short of Ceduna we stopped and had a salad lunch to use up the last of our groceries before we went through the Quarantine gates that are 1km from Ceduna. We shopped for more fruit and veg’s after setting up camp.

In the last two days we have had to put our clocks forward 1.5 hours, 45min’s at Border Town and another 45 min’s at Ceduna, so we are now only 30 min’s behind Taree time.

We are staying in the Foreshore Caravan Park; we stayed here last time we were in Ceduna. It has been blowing all day again and in the afternoon the wind was that strong that I decided to rollup our awning for the night. We went for a walk and only got half way along the jetty before we turned back because of the wind.

Once we went past the Head of the Bight we had completed our circuit of Australia as we have been to the Head of the Bight before. We will now be trying to travel on roads that we haven’t been on before, as much as possible anyway.

Wednesday we drove around Ceduna for a look and for the rest of the day we hung around the caravan as the wind was still blowing and it was cold. I met Max Glenn who worked with Charlie Liddell back in the 1950’s; Max is now living in Coffs Harbour and is in his 70’s. Max’s sister June married Ralf Godwin. There was a group of 5 caravans from Coffs Harbour that come to Ceduna every year fro a month or so.

We went to the Hotel for a Roast beef dinner that night it only cost $9.90 per head. They have recently spent $7 million on refurbishing the hotel, it is very nice now.

Thursday morning we packed up and left Ceduna and called into Smoky Bay on the way for a drive through look. After Smoky Bay we went to Streaky Bay where Dave and Pat where going to stay for a couple of days. After having a cup of coffee with them we said our goodbyes and headed for Venus Bay where we will stay for a week at least (as long as the wind settles down).

After setting up camp I unloaded the boat ready for fishing tomorrow. We will be chasing the King George whiting when we go fishing. The caravan park at Venus Bay is on the waters edge and has a lovely outlook, the worst part is that it only has bore water on tap and it is as salty as the ocean. We have to fetch our drinking water from a tank. The weather has been nice today and the wind only came up in the afternoon.

We went out fishing on Friday morning at 9.00am and caught 3 King George Whiting but I dropped one at the boat, we also caught an Australian Salmon. The wind started blowing at about 12.30pm so we came back in. The water is very clear and you can see the bottom easily at 3 metres, the temperature of the water is cold. Venus Bay is a fairly big expanse of water with plenty of places to fish.

We watched the cricket Adam Gilchrist’s last game on his home ground in Perth in the afternoon when the played Sri Lanka.

Saturday morning I booked in at the park for another 3 nights, purchased another two bags of cockles (Pipis) and then went fishing only taking one and a half bags of cockles. We found a spot were the fish were after losing a lot of bait in another spot and consequently ran out of bait when we were on the right spot. We caught 6 King George whiting and a small trevally, we threw two small whiting and the trevally back. We arrived home at 12.30pm for lunch.