0032 Perth to the Gold Coast - Week 1
11th July 2021
We drive across the biggest desert in Australia !
I am only writing this blog from home AFTER the entire trip, because I knew I would have limited time and minimal wifi while on the road. Which is why I chose to do a short summary of the journey on Facebook (which I have never really used before), and log it in more detail once I got home. And if anyone is new to my blog and thinks it is longwinded, I am not concerned – I actually write my blog for me as a diary before I forget where I have been and what I have done, so either skip the bits you don’t like, or…………get a cup of coffee and enjoy it !! I would also add that only a few of my photos are visible here - If you want to see more, click on the link at the bottom of the page. They are all captioned so you know where they are !!
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| Leaving in the rain |
Luckily I had loaded most of the van last night, and just had to throw my last bits and pieces in the back, and after hugs from all the family, I was off ! Jamie was staying with friends near the airport which was handy since that is also on the road out of Perth towards historic York, our first destination. Still bucketing down when I arrived at Jamie's place at 9 am, so once again chucked everything in the back and we set off.
It was still raining and cold when we reached York, so we went into a
small Motor Museum for a while, which was very interesting, and then grabbed a
coffee and a delicious meat pie from the bakery, and a book to keep a record of
our accounts and blog while on the road, and hit the road again.
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| Dog cemetery at Corrigin |
Since it was momentarily dry, we took the opportunity in the evening light to go to Wave Rock in case it was raining again in the morning. Another wise decision – Wave Rock was very impressive, and we then walked all over the top of it – It
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| Wave Rock |
is in fact a very large piece of rock, and not just the “wave” bit that is in the brochures. It is also a water reservoir for the local community, and in fact the unsightly wall along the top of the wave is not just to keep water from flowing over the edge of the Wave, but also to channel the run off water along to the reservoir. All quite a clever engineering feat ! We came down off the rock in the dark, just as it started to rain again, and drove back to our chalet, where we cooked supper in the provided microwave, had a beer or two, watched some tele, and went to bed – Warm and dry. And it POURED with rain ALL night. A good first night 😀
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| Wave Rock Chalet |
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| Hippo's yawn |
local children, which obviously didn’t endear him to the locals, and he ended up hiding and living in this cave, where it is still possible to see his hand prints on the ceiling, far higher than any normal sized human could ever have reached ! An interesting little side trip, but by now it had started raining again, so we headed out.
It was then a wet and muddy drive on the interesting back trails before we returned to the main road just before Coolgardie, where we stopped for a hot coffee and an excellent toasted sandwich, before heading in to Kalgoorlie.
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| Kalgoorlie super pit |
Day 22 / 3. 22nd June. Woke up in the morning and Jamie was FREEZING ! It turned out that his
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| Cold in Menzies campsite |
fancy sleeping bag was more suited to use in Hawaii, or some similar tropical environment, and the 2-3 degrees C of Menzies camp site had not provided Jamie with any warmth ! Fortunately I still had Janet’s Minus 10 Deg C rated sleeping bag in the car, so Jamie’s future didn’t look too bleak – But he still had a bad night in Menzies !!!
We heard about some statues in a lake so drove some 50 kms out to Lake Ballard – And found the most wonderful wild camp site – Bit late though ! Never mind – Anyway, it was FAR too cold out there. And due to the recent rains, the “lake” was just soggy mud, and there was no
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| Gormley sculptures in lake |
walking out to look at the statues, let alone driving out there. There are 51 sculptures scattered around this salt lake, all done by Antony Gormley, and all derived from laser scans of Menzies' inhabitants. Gormley has created many well known sculptures, including Field, The Angel of the North (the largest sculpture in Britain, located in Gateshead), and Quantum Cloud, in Greenwich. Unfortunately these smaller sculptures were very hard to see from the edge of the lake.
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| Giles Breakaway |
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| Cold at Snake Lookout |
Leonora, where we managed to find a coffee shop. It was then on to Laverton, which is starting to get more remote and desert-like ! We crossed Skull Creek into Laverton (I always wonder how some of these Aussie creeks get their names – “Bert’s Disapointment Creek” (Why was he disappointed ?), “Ransom Creek” (Were people held up here ?) etc. We found a big digger in the car park so played around that for a while before refuelling and heading out to the east. Fuel wise, I have double fuel tanks that take about 180 litres of diesel, which means I can go about 1200 or 1300 kms without refuelling. So we had filled up with
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| Troopie meets a digger |
(relatively) cheap fuel ($1.30 per litre) in Kalgoorlie, and were just topping off at each little town so that we were full of lower cost fuel before we headed out where prices are $2.20 or so a litre. The service station in Laverton had an interesting sign inside, with a separate room for the “Old Farts” to sit and have their meals !! It was then on into the desert on the dirt roads, where we found a bush campsite at “Giles’ Breakaway” – Well we had to stop there, didn’t we ? !! It was a top spot, on a cliff edge overlooking the valley below, with the walls of the cliff dotted with caves. This area is part of the Great Victoria Desert which is the largest in Australia at
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| Giles' Breakaway |
almost 350,000 sq kms, and is the 7th largest in the world. We walked around for a while exploring and taking photos, before cooking our supper and turning in. Jamie used Janet’s much warmer sleeping bag, and was toasty warm all night !! Phew !
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| Our 100th car wreck ! |
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| Caged fuel bowsers |
about 1 wreck every 4 kms !!
We stopped mid morning for a bite to eat, and the rubbish drum in the lay-by had more bullet holes in it than your mother’s finest colander ! We kept a wary look out while eating our wraps 😱 Heading on to Warburton was a pretty mind numbing drive, with a lot of dirt and corrugations on the road, which become tiresome after an hour or two. But at the same time, the scenery is fascinating because you just will not see similar anywhere else in the world. I wouldn’t want to live out here, but seeing it all really makes you appreciate not only how big
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| Wine gums always help ! |
Australia is, and also how isolated it is, but also how stunning and unique it all is. I love it. Munching on Wine Gums (I got two black ones !) we stopped at Tjukayirla Roadhouse – Pronounced Chook-a-yer-la – where the fuel pumps were encased in strong mesh ! Sizable display of Aboriginal art inside, but it was incredibly expensive 😞 The roadhouse is also the site of the last official dunny for 240 kms, but that didn’t worry us as we are “self contained” in Troopie, of course ! A little further up the road we passed our hundredth roadside wreck for the day, so we stopped to take a celebratory photo. Arriving in Warburton we had to cross a big flood across the road, and then found an even more heavily fortified gas station
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| Floods into Warburton |
and camp with the fuel bowsers again all locked in mesh cages to prevent theft, and the local petrol is specially treated to discourage “sniffing” (a common problem out here), and the shop was relatively limited in its offerings. However, as it was about 3.30 pm, Jamie and I decided to stay here, where the camp site is behind heavy steel gates, with strong fencing all around it. It isn’t just a camp site – a lot of local workers (road, telecom, fire services etc) all live here on a Fly In Fly Out basis, so there is a full camp and accommodation for them in the compound. As a result, the services are excellent – Great showers and
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| Warburton camp site |
toilets, good camp kitchen and cooking facilities etc – So we passed a very pleasant and secure night, locked inside our compound in Warburton. Sausages and mash for dinner, and then played cards.
Day 24 / 5. 24th June. We woke up early – Not sure what time it was because we were close to the WA / NT border where the clocks go forward 1 ½ hours, so my phone had self changed during the night and the time on it was 7 am. So I woke Jamie up, and he asked what time it was, so I looked at my watch and it said 5.30 am (because it was still on WA time !) Jamie was not amused, especially since the outside temp was 0.9 deg C, and he was all
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| On the Gun Barrel ! |
warm in Janet's sleeping bag ! But after packing up, the showers were great, and armed with the giant padlock code, were able to let ourselves out of the locked gates to head on our way east some 250 kms to Warakurna Roadside. Warakurna is also the site of Giles Telegraph Station, but we didn’t realise this at the time, thinking they were separate, so unfortunately we didn’t visit it. Next time !!
I should explain here that Giles is quite a common name out here, so I was well received ! Ernest Giles was an explorer here in the 1870’s, most famous for trying to find a way from Ayers Rock / Uluru to the coast in the east, but obviously he was out in the centre at some stage. He got to the coast on his 3rd attempt, in 1876.
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| Kata Tjuta (Olgas) at sunset |
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| Sunset at the Olgas |
Afghan cameleers who worked in the Outback from the 1860’s to the 1930’s, and many camels were turned loose when their outback haulage business was replaced with vehicles, and these have since bred in conditions that are just perfect for camels. Nowadays the “Ghan” train runs from Adelaide to Darwin, and is named after these early pioneers.
As we approached the Olgas, we turned into the sunset viewing spot but hardly anyone was there – Most had left because there were clouds covering the sun, and the rocks were just dark and rather boring. After
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| Perfect timing ! |
about 15 minutes, suddenly the sun started to appear below the clouds and the rocks slowly turned from black into bright red – A truly amazing sight that you can only truly appreciate if you look at a series of 8 photos I took over a period of just 4 minutes. We had scored the jackpot, arrived at exactly the right time, and seen one of the most amazing sights in the world. (Brilliant tour guide ? 😂)
After chatting with a French couple, we headed 25 kms into Yulara and the Uluru camp site where we set up in the dark and turned in, exhausted after a long day.
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| Underwhelming sunrise at Rock |
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| Better sunrise on other side ! |
out into the scrub a little where there was hardly anyone, and were thus a lot happier (Jamie and I have the same inbuilt hatred of crowds and queues !) However, the sun rise view was PATHETIC – The viewing point is in totally the wrong position, and as a result the sun hardly lit up the Rock at all. I grant that the sun may rise slightly further round later on in the year, but after the brilliant display last night at the Olgas, we left Ayers Rock vowing to return to the Olga’s next time for sunrise, not Ayers Rock. We could see the Olga’s glowing in the sunrise, while Uluru stayed mostly dark. Viewing
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| Sturt Pea |
the now empty car park, we obviously weren’t the only ones who felt this way, but while the majority of the cars and buses turned left out of the car park in order to return to their hotels and caravans at Yulara for breakfast, Jamie and I turned right and went for a drive right around the Rock, and were rewarded with some magnificent (and close up) views of the sun on the Rock – I TOLD you the viewing spot was in the wrong place !! We then returned to the campsite for our showers etc, had a coffee and cheesy and ham croissant from a van that was doing a roaring trade, found a bunch of Sturt Peas right beside the van just waiting for a photo, and then headed out to King’s Canyon 3 hours up the road, passing some more spectacularly wrecked cars along the way 😳 We also passed the giant Mt Connor mesa.
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| Kings Canyon walk |
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| Kings Canyon resort |
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| Great steak for supper ! |
lost somewhere along the way, and ended up hiking for miles around the camp site before we eventually found our way home. Along the way, Jamie somehow turned into Papa Smurf, which cause great hilarity – Well, it seemed funny at the time !!
Slept like LOGS !!
Day 25 / 7. 26th June. Bit of a late start this morning, for obvious reasons, and we had trouble putting our awning back in its bag ! Eventually we succeeded, and after a quick toilet emptying ceremony (hey, it’s a part of life on the road – Get used to it !) set off up 200 kms of very average dirt track, and
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| Redbank Gorge |
on top of a sudden steep and twisty section of road, we found Gosse Bluff, a lookout over all the surrounding countryside. There was a high top Troopie there that originated from the same rental company as my Troopie, so we stopped and had a chat – Simon and Laura from near Cologne in Germany. Had a good chat with them before continuing on our way to Redbank Gorge, where the walk was a fairly vigorous one along a rocky creek bed, requiring quite a lot of clambering by the end. The end of the gorge was very scenic, although at this time of year quite a lot of the local small fish turn up their tails due to a lack of oxygen caused by little or no water flow. Thus it was slightly smelly in places, but all totally natural and part of nature’s way, so we clambered our way back to the car and set off to the next gorge at Ormiston where I hoped to camp,
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| Camp at Hargrave Lookout |
having been there a few years ago with Janet. However, on arrival at about 4 pm the entire parking and camping area was not only full, but overflowing – And overflowing so much that people were already starting to have some “discussions” about how much space some people had taken up. Jamie and I very quickly made an executive decision and drove straight through and out the other side ! Ormiston Gorge may be one of the more scenic gorges, but not for us this time.
We only drove a sort distance up the road and found a steep hill of the road which led up to a lookout over the entire valley – And there were only 3 or 4 campers up there !
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| Sunset at Hargrave Lookout |
An incredible camp site. We set up camp right on the edge and were having a cold beverage when two gentleman came over and started up a conversation – They were Janek and Stanislav, originally from Poland but now from Adelaide, and before long they asked us if we liked Vodka, because Janek made his own. (I think they accepted us when they saw my Poland stickers on the car from our drive there in 2016 !). Naturally we said we would be delighted to sample their vodka, and a short while later they came back from their motorhome with a Ballantyne’s bottle (should have given us a hint) containing a red syrupy liquid, which turned out to be delicious ! They make it from cherries, and I asked them what type of vodka they used to blend with the cherries. “Oh no, we make our own vodka too” said Janek with a twinkle in his eye – My god, we were drinking bootleg vodka ! After one glass we hadn’t gone blind, so we had another, and soon after Janek and Stan had to go back to their motorhome where Janek’s wife was apparently waiting impatiently – I don’t think she approved of their vodka drinking ! There was also a young English couple next to us who were working at Penfolds winery, however no Grange Hermitage was forthcoming so we moved into our abode, cooked a delicious spag bol, and shortly afterwards were sound asleep, dreaming of Vodka distilleries in Poland – or Adelaide !
So the end of the first week found us safely across the Great Victorian Desert, through The Olgas and Ayers Rock, and into the canyons around Kings Canyon. We had seen some incredible sights, met some great people, and had a lot of laughs along the way - Not a bad way to spend a week of your life.
Rest of the pics are here :- https://photos.app.goo.gl/9bz1Sbuu1Dz7kw8U7
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