kathndes

Saturday, February 11, 2012

A quiet time Oct11-Feb12

A QUIET TIME

Its been a while since we blogged, so this will bring you all up to date. Kathy has been in Qld since October and I have been touring around within a couple of 100 klm of Perth. Spent some time at Dwellingup, Pinjara, Grimwade and Perth while waiting to start hosting with DEC in the Perth Hills. Spent some time prior to Christmas with friends and family in Perth and have been “camped” at the national park since early December. Since our last blog Kathy has been busy purchasing our new home in an over 55’s village at Burpengary. She had to get all new furniture etc. for the house as well as having it repainted, some electrical work and general improvements to improve the “liveability” (is that a word?) of the place. Gives us a base when either or both of us want to come home. I provided moral support while she did all the hard work! We are planning on heading north to do the Kimberly this year, but only after we consider it safe to do so ie cyclone free. Will keep every one posted on our travels when we are “ on the road again”. A few photos of some of the sights I’ve seen follow. Keep safe everyone.

campsite at dwellingup

campsite at Grimwade the site of an old mill town

dam that used to supply water for the town of Grimwade

part of a mural erected in a rest area south of Pinjara

hiker's hut at Bull Creek on th Bibbulum Track

campsite at Perth Hills NP

fence I had to put up to keep roos off lawn I was trying to establish

another project - extending walway near carpark Perth Hills

Monday, October 17, 2011

Out of the Pilbara and on to Perth

Our visit to Carnarvon was brief as we intend to come back this way next year. The one alarming thing we noticed was the lean on which the trees grow here. Gives you some indication of what the winds must be like MOST OF THE TIME. We have found the wind blows VERY STRONGLY most of the year. We can make that statement because we have been in this state almost one year now and you never get used to the wind. There’s a bad hair day and then a slightly less than bad hair day. Moving out of Carnarvon after re-supplies, we headed east again for the Gascoyne Junction and the Kennedy Range Nat. Park. The Gascoyne area has been really heavily hit with flooding for the past year but the land, once again, is at its best. The wildflowers have been great, again. On the red dirt again after Gascoyne Junction, another thing you never get used to. The Kennedy Range is very spectacular, and unique in its own way. We walked a couple of the gorges there, and almost got blown off the top of the escarpment. The rock formations here are very strange. One gorge is formed like honeycomb, while another is so smooth you would swear it was poured cement trowelled off by an expert. The rock colouring also is quite varied, from pinks to red to white and some yellow. We spent 3 days here before moving on to Mt Augustus, further east and closer to the desert. The road was quite good really, except for one spot where a grader was working and that was so bad and dangerous he would have been better off leaving it alone. Mt Augustus is the largest rock in Australia, but quite different to Ayers Rock in that is has vegetation growing on it. There’s several drives and walks to do here. The Cattle Pool on the Lyons River is a permanent water hole, quite deep but not very suitable for swimming because of the reeds. A lovely spot just the same. We were very adventurous and walked to the summit of the mountain. It took us 6hrs return, and very challenging for one of us. Des would have done it in 5hrs alone. The track was quite steep in places and the wind (once again) almost blew you over, especially when exposed to the SE plains. We got some nice photos, some we will put on for you to see. We will also include a few shots of some of the wildflowers we have seen so far. From Mt Augustus we had another 300km on the red dirt until we arrived at Meekatharra, refuelled and continued on thru Mt Magnet, Cue and Pindar to Geraldton. A lot of history in these old goldfields towns and a lot of new large open cut gold and nickel mines are being worked near most of these towns now. From Geraldton we were treated to hundreds of kilometres of wildflowers in bloom all along the road and in the paddocks and bush along the road. We camped in Coalseam Conservation Park intending to stay a few nights. During the early hours of our first night the rain started so we were up at the crack of dawn, in the pouring rain, packing up so we could bug out. As it was we just made it out as the road out was very treacherous (red clay & very slippery), otherwise we could have been stuck there for many days. Not something we enjoyed! Caught up with friends in Coorow and had a nice meal in the local hotel. Most of this town would not be operating today, except that the locals formed a co-op which runs most of the businesses in town, including the hotel. After a few more roadside camps we arrived at Des’s sons house in Perth and had some “family” time here. Kathy left for QLD on 13^th Oct for some R&R! See if you recognise the famous horsewoman in the last photo????

Campground from the escarpment - Kennedy Range

Sunrise from lookout - Kennedy Range

Honeycomb Gorge - Kennedy Range

First sight of Mt Augustus

Cattle Pool near Mt Augustus

View from summit trail Mt Augustus

Sun setting on Mt Augustus

Old goal and police station - Mt Gould built 1888

Post Office, Police Station & Courthouse - Cue - built 1896

Stained glass window St Carmel's church - Mulewa

View inside St Carmel's church

Rear view St Carmel's church - Mulewa - built 1927

View from lookout Coalseam Conservation Park

One face of the Rotary clock tower at night- Moora

Mural dedicated to the draught horses used around Moora

Mural showing 1943 Army encampment - Moora

Tin soldier in war memorial at Moora

Cornflowers - one of WA wilflowers

More WA wildflowers

Wreath flower

More wildflowers

Ride 'em cowgirl!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Newman to Coral Bay

We overnighted at a free camp just south of Newman and arrived at the visitors centre at 9am, in time to do a tour of the BHP Iron Ore mine, almost in the heart of town. What a sight!! 5.5km long and 2km wide - this is the largest open-cut iron ore mine in the world. They move literally millions of tons of earth per year at this site. The ore quality is so pure and rich that they can mix some lower grade ore with it and still meet export quality. The trains running from the crushing site here to Port Headland harbour are over 3.5km long and have six locomotives (spaced along the carriages) to pull/push it. It takes 8hrs for the train to travel 426km. The trucks shifting the ore and overburden around the mine site carry 200tonnes and when fully loaded are heavier than a 747jet at takeoff. Note the photo of Des standing in front of one. Not a lot more at Newman, so we headed west toward Karajini National Park. The country this side of Newman is remarkably different - lots of mountain ranges and lots of scenery. We stopped about 100km west in the hills at Mt Robinson, with 8 other vans and 3 motorbikes. Such a beautiful spot with a fabulous view from the van window. Shame landscape photos don’t ever do a place justice. We arrived at Karajini National Park mid morning and spent the day setting up camp as we were staying 5 days here. We were surprised the road was bitumen all the way to the campground, but then thousands of people come here yearly. Next day we travelled a shocking corrugated road 60k to view many of the gorges in the park. Our second day we trekked the gorges closer to the campground. They are more spectacular and have lots of waterholes in which you can swim. Some never see sunshine so they are freezing, but a couple of others were very inviting and lots of people swam. Too cold for anything other than my feet. The red dirt here is shocking. It gets into everything and is hard to get off your skin. Weather is beautiful with nights dropping to 6deg and days reaching 30deg. After leaving Karajini NP we headed to Tom Price - another mining town. Rio Tinto runs the mines here and the iron ore deposits are huge and very pure. We did a bus tour of the mine and were surprised at how much better it was than the Newman tour. We were taken very close to working areas and viewed the pit (well one of them) up close. We did a 4x4 drive up the local mountain (Mt. Nameless, 1600mtrs above sea level). The views were spectacular, but the trip was pretty scary for one of us. Tom Price is the highest town in WA, 700mts above sea level. The Pilbara region is really spectacular - very rugged and so different from any other country we’ve seen anywhere. The mountains are soooooooooo different and we have seen it at it’s very best. The plant life, including the Spinifex, is so lush and green that it’s hard to imagine what it must be like at the end of summer. Temperatures out here can reach above 48deg on a summer’s day, so the plants would scorch. The wildflowers are starting to come out in all their glory, but not as good yet as we saw when we travelled down the Darling river last year. We reached Exmouth in a few days and it was amazing to see the ocean again. Exmouth is almost as isolated at Tom Price, we were very surprised. The country going into Exmouth is horrible - what you would expect the Nullarbor to be like - all Spinifex, hardly any trees and lots of termite mounds. We decided to stay in a caravan park near the national park because getting a campsite in the NP is such a problem. We did a small boat trip up one of the gorges and that was the highlight of our stay there. Not a place we would go back to, or recommend to anyone else either. About 25km south we dropped the van and took a trip up the nearby range. Another scary trip for one of us. Not 4x4, but near enough. The gorges up there were also spectacular. At one point the track was one car width with about 300mtrs drop each side. We are now at Coral Bay - a very lovely spot. Quite small, but gets hundreds of tourists. The coral reef is very close here and snorkelling and glass bottom boats are very popular. At 3.30pm they feed fish in the bay. It is a marine sanctuary so they give the public handfuls of fish pellets and you can throw them to the fish. There’s dozens of fish come in each day for this, some beautiful reef fish as well as larger ones. We almost walked on a baby stingray in the shallows after leaving the feeding area. This is a fabulous place for holidaying with children as the water is shallow enough for them to have so much fun, and yet it is as clear as crystal. The colour of the ocean is just spectacular. We will move on to Carnarvon tomorrow. Hope you enjoy this blog.