The Last Big Surfari! - Mount Warrigal, Australia
Mount Warrigal, Australia
I have been surfing since 1965 and there was a discussion on a beach somewhere with mates many years ago after a surf session about how long we would be surfers. All agreed, forever! How long is forever? Well I remember saying I would surf until I'm 70 or I die! On the 26 of March this year, 2016, I will turn 70 and guess what? I am still surfing, albeit on a Stand Up Paddleboard, but still riding the waves. In early May 2016 I intend travelling to the Ningaloo Reef region of Western Australia in our Jayco Swan camper towed by my 2009 Mazda Turbo Diesel ute. The camper is set up fully self contained with 2 x 120ah AGM batteries for LED lighting and to run an Ironman 12 volt compressor fridge. One of my destinations, Warroora Station, insists on a chemical toilet and if you have seen the mess some people make because they are to lazy to dig a hole and bury their **** and toilet paper you would have to agree with that! So our toilet/shower tent comes along as well as a portable gas water heater. The majority of cooking will be done outside the camper on a gas stove because we don't cook inside the camper The camper batteries are recharged while travelling through a Cteck DC to DC charger mounted in the camper and charged by the ute alternator. The Cteck or a similar charger was essential as there are four batteries for the tug alternator to charge whilst travelling and it needs all the assistance it can get. There is a 100 watt solar panel fixed to the roof of the camper and this is regulated through the Cteck to charge both camper batteries. I also have a 100 watt portable solar panel that can be moved around to follow the sun. This is also regulated through the Cteck. If I need to charge one of the tug batteries it can be charged using the portable solar panel. This is unregulated so I have a portable MPPT regulator that attaches between the panel and the tug battery. The fridge in the Swan is a 3 way Thetford and will not be used on the way over as I have a Ironman Ice Cube 30 litre fridge/freezer that will ride in the back of the BT50 with the seat removed and will run on 12 volt from the auxiliary battery. The Ice Cube runs a Danfos compressor and draws 0.7 Ah/h, at 5C inside temp at 20C outside. 3 way fridges are pretty inefficient on 12 volt and only maintain the temperature they were at when turned over onto 12v so they should always be pulled down on either gas or 240v if available. The Swan slipper springs have been replaced with eye to eye springs and the axle under slung to give better clearance and tow better. I have also fitted an Alko off road coupling even though the Swan is a Touring model and not the Outback which isn't really off-road either. The original coupling had jumped off the towball a couple of times when getting out of a tricky situation at Oallen Ford on the upper Shoalhaven river just after we bought the Swan, Access to some camps in WA are a little tricky through soft sand. I don't intend to do much travelling on corrugations whenever that can be avoided. I intend travelling south from Wollongong down the Hume Highway M31 to the junction with the Stuart Highway A20 turn right toward Wagga Wagga and then continue on the Stuart Highway into South Australia until the junction with the Port Wakefield Rd A1. Follow the A1 to Port Agusta and the A1 becomes the Eyre Highway A1 toward Kimba. Continue on the A1 through to Ceduna and then on across the Nullabor Plain. Continue on the A1 to Norseman. Turn right onto 94, the Coolgardie Esperance Highway toward Coolgardie. Decide if going to Kalgoolie and turn right on 94 or continue straight ahead to Coolgardie. At Kalgoolie or Coolgardie 94 becomes The Great Eastern Highway. Follow the Great Eastern Hwy into Perth. Check out staying at Bindoon Oval caravan park on the Great Northern Highway. Go south of Perth to Coogee Beach caravan park. Good reviews. A lot of bad reviews for many Perth parks! OK! It's Anzac Day, 25 th April and I have decided on a date to set off on the WA trip. I will leave Mount Warrigal on Monday 9th May 2016. I will be doing a fair bit of free camping on my way. It's May 1, My wife Deb has decided to accompany me as far as Perth on my trip to northern West Australia! What fantastic news for both of us as I will have her company for a long part of the trip and Deb will get to see a part of Australia she has never experienced. We left Mount Warrigal on Monday 9th May in the rain and travelled to Hay, NSW, a distance of 630 klms! A bloody long drive. We stayed in a cabin because we thought it would rain all day and booked a cabin. Would you believe with about 150 klms to go the sun came out. So we made Hay while the sun shines! LOL! The next day was only a 430 k day to Morgan SA and we were spent and stayed in a cabin rather then putting the camper up. Morgan is a very pretty old river port town on the Murray a River and we thought we may stay an extra day and stay in a free camp in the Morgan Conservation Reserve, however the wind came up quite strong so we decided to venture on to Port Agusta, also in SA where we put the camper up. From Port Agusta we decided our next stop would be our namesake town, Cummins SA. On the way to Cummins we stopped for lunch at Cowell SA, a seaside town. In Cowell I had the hottest bloody pepper steak pie I have ever almost eaten! 3/4 of the way through it I got hiccups from trying to get my breath! I couldn't believe the garbage bin didn't spontaneously combust! Anyway, onto Cummins, beautiful little town that relies almost entirely on grain growing, namely wheat. We rented a cabin in the Cummins Community Caravan Park, a very nice, clean park and you pay at the Cummins Takeaway Cafe as there is no onsite caretaker. Free laundry facilities as well. Cummins is an RV Friendly town. The locals are indeed friendly and really appreciate the tourist dollars the RV industry brings to the area. Great fresh bread at the bakery! Read up on Cummins in Wikicamps. Met this wonderful retired couple, John and Rose who had ridden pushbikes from Perth across the Nullabor Plain! They had covered just over 3,000 klms. Awoke to a beautiful morning in Cummins! Not a cloud in the sky after a few days of cloudy and windy weather in our travels. We have had headwinds for all the journey so far and it knocks aOff to Ceduna SA today. A 360 klm trip. Wikicamps distances are very confusing as they are done as the crow flies not by road distances, so I am using the Australian Distance Calculator. Well we didn't make Ceduna. We called into Streaky Bay and decided to hang here for two days. It is a beautiful town. We had a lunch of King George Whiting in a cafe overlooking the long jetty. Great van park, we stayed in a cabin, very comfortable. Awesome sunrise the next morning over the Bay. Deb got talking to a couple from Victoria touring for a week in a ute. Lance and Vanda. We had decided to have a BBQ on the beach using the Ozpig so we invited Lance and Vanda to share the evening. Deb cooked savoury lamb rissoles and sausages for us and Zanda cooked King George whiting in foil for her and Lance. They are a lovely couple and we had a very enjoyable evening. Up at 7.30 am and as the supermarket wasn't open in Streaky Bay we headed for Ceduna ang got supplies there. Another beautiful South Australian waterfront town on a beautiful Autumn day! Fuelled up at Penong and onto Nullarbor Roadhouse. We have done over 400 k's today so we once again took the option of not putting the camper up and staying in a motel room. Basic but very clean and tidy. Looks like an awesome desert sunset happening across the Nullarbor Plain.we are using Wikicamps to navigate this trip with a little help from Google Maps for accurate road distances. It rained very lightly during the night but it dawned a fine day so we decided to do the 6 k's from the roadhouse to Mutiwingini caves. Good gravel road but slippery in places from the overnight rain. The caves were interesting and caves 1 & 2 were accessible, we headed off to Scenic Lookout 2 for a view of the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight. Saw another pair of Wedgetail Eagles feeding on roadkill. We bush camped in a roadside rest area near Madura at Moodini Bluff about 200 metres from the road after we pulled over and got some firewood. Deb set up the camper and wished to try out a setup she thought out where the back bed is left in and the bed fly lis pulled down and tied into the stabiliser legs to waterproof that bed! It worked perfectly and saves a heap of work setting up a bed that isn't needed! I had it easy as I set about getting the Ozpig ready. Two other caravans arrived as Deb was having a bush shower! Bit of a scramble for Deb to hide naked behind the camper but no problems! During the night we had a wild dog hanging around the camper. From the look of the tracks not very big. Deb heard him a couple of times during the night but I slept through the excitement! Up early the next morning and the Ozpig still had plenty of coals so it was just a matter of putting the kindling on and we soon had a good fire going and Deb cooked a delicious breakfast of bacon and eggs on muffins, then set up the van before we hit the road. At Caiguna roadhouse Deb took over and drove the 90 Mile Straight. We continued on to Fraser Range Caravan Park when we couldn't find a suitable bush camp. A great caravan park in a beautiful bush setting. Deb cooked a delicious dinner of rissoles, sausages, and steamed veggies in an awesome camp kitchen and made good use of the onsite fire-pit. We have decided to call a rest day and stay another night. We are on the western end of the Nullarbor Plain. It has been an amazing journey so far and in no way was the trip boring. Got a great night sleep, no wild dogs! Deb cooked pancakes on the little propane cooker. We are waiting to see if Paul Cusack was going to meet us in Perth and if not we will head off south from Norseman to Esperance. Paul called, not meeting him in Perth. We have met two awesome couples staying in the park. Larry and Mervene from Freemantle on their way back home from the East and Wally and Audrey from Queensland on their way to Perth. Mervene went on a walk on the Fraser Range and got lost! The station manager went out on a quad bike to find her. She had the good humour to laugh about it on her return! Left Fraser Range with Deb driving on our way to Norseman for fuel and then on to Esperance, a distance of 321 k's. Esperance is a beautiful mix of a small port town and a tourist destination. We decided to stay in a motel or cabin for two nights. The motel won and we chose the Esperance Beachfront Resort! Beautiful comfortable two room unit for a reasonable $109 per night right across the road from the beach and decided to stay at least another night. $109 a night in a resort is a good deal! Deb has decided to fly from Perth to the Gold Coast on the 26th May to a family gathering and booked a seat on the Red Eye Special! Our second day at Esperance, a bit cloudy in the morning but a beautiful sunny afternoon. We will probably stay until Monday morning then head to Hyden and Wave Rock. Went out to Cape Le Grande today. Very nice! See the pics! Many thanks to resort manager Neil for telling us about Cape Le Grande and the beautiful ocean beaches to the west! Monday 23/5/16 and we leave beautiful Esperance on our way to Wave Rock. Seen lots of pics but in real life very spectacular! A little disappointing that signs abound saying thieves were targeting parked cars whilst watching two feral brothers who should have been in school riding pushbikes around cars and vans in the carpark whilst mum with Mohawk haircut sits in shelter shed watching antics! Needless to say not a very long visit to the Rock some 200 metres away through scrub for us! We got some quick pics and hightailed it back to the van. All good, nothing missing and brothers feral still checking cars! An American tourist said I should have taken the board and got a few pics standing on it under the Rock. Sounds OK but not for the fins on the board! We moved on to the town of Corrigin where we booked into a motel for the night as a drive of just over 500 k's makes a van putup not on with rain pending! 250 k's into Perth tomorrow is an easy run. We will check it a couple of van parks south of Perth to book into. Deb flies to the Gold Coast for a family do on Thursday evening and I won't see her again until she flies into Broome late July for a two week reunion! Going to miss my beautiful wife! Arrived in Perth and made our way to Woodman Point Holiday Park. Pretty close to Fremantle from there not far into the centre of Perth. Fremantle is a neat place with many beautiful old buildings. Sydney was like this before politicians from both major parties sold their sorry ***** for 30 pieces of silver to developers and turned Sydney ugly! Checked Freo out and then went for a run to Rockingham, a neat beachside suburb where the navy has a dockyard. Deb flies out Thursday 26th May to the Gold Coast on the red eye flight! Supposed to leave at 11.30 pm but runner an hour late! We had left in plenty of time and had dinner in a neato Indian restaurant, the Haldi, in Fremantle and continued onto Perth Airport. We had done a practice run the day before and the freeway to the airport was choked with traffic due to road works so we left Freo at 7.30 pm just in case, giving ourselves 4 hours! The flight being an hour late stretched this to 5 hours! SFA to do for 5 hours at Perth Airport. Deb finally flew out about 12.25pm. Next morning I get up to drive up to around Geraldton, however the engine light came on and it's off to find a Mazda dealer. Didn't affect the performance of the ute but the service department via their computer informed me n oxygen sensor had failed and needed replacing. Friday afternoon now so the ute is booked in for 8.00am Monday! Looks like a little longer in Perth so back to the van park and book for a couple of more days! Saturday, a little housekeeping, some shopping and a test run using Google Maps on the iPhone as satnav as I have had a challenge getting around Perth. Test run was to where the Mazda goes in on Monday. All OK! Sunday and booked in for a tour to Rottnest Island. Bus pickup at van park 9.00am to Fremantle for ferry to island. 25 minutes to Rottnest, ocean a little choppy but not too bad! Got off ferry and saw my first quokka! What cute little buggers but he was asleep! Apparently semi-nocturnal animals and plenty will come out in the afternoon. So wish Deb was here to share the experience. Went on a bus tour around the island with commentary. Very interesting history. Was once an Aboriginal Penal Settlement and not many brothers ever came off here alive due to the brutal treatment by the prison guards and malnutrition. Pretty sad as there has been carbon dating of aboriginal artefacts back 20,000 years. They a arrived here by land bridge before one of the many natural climate changes caused a massive rise in ocean levels or there were earth movements that lifted the land? Definitely not man made as so many too lazy to do the science claim is happening. Back from the bus tour and time for some food! A curried Rotto pie and a small flat white. Then this cute little quokka ambles up to the table I'm sitting at and, well I just had to get a photo so I put the pie down and got the iPad into picture mode and bent down to little mates level to get the shot of a lifetime only to hear a squarking commotion beside me! Stopped snapping and started looking just in time to see a crow making of with the rest of the curried Rotto pie! Ah well! Worth 1/2 a curried pie for sure! Plenty of surf, some of it huge, on the island. Apparently the water temp is 4 degrees warmer then the mainland because of a warm current. I have seen all I wanted to see so I caught an earlier ferry back to Freo (Freo, Rotto, getting into the swing of the locals!) only to find I have to sit around for 1 1/2 hours for the courtesy bus back to the van park. Sitting in a ferry terminal all alone. Good thing I enjoy my solitude! Saved! The bloke who repairs the pushbikes has to take a family into Fremantle CBD as they got off the ferry at the wrong stop and has offered to drop me back at the caravan park! This morning Wed June. I had the great fortune to catch up with son in law Miles Bennett, Cleo's dad whom I love like a son. He was a blessing in the days after Ben's death as we're all my family. He got me off my bum and out surfing again! Just what I needed to ward off the black dog of despair/depression! Had a meat pie and a coffee for lunch at Lancelin in a Chinese bakery in a small Aussie seaside town! Beautiful drive up with picturesque views of the Indian Ocean. Fuelled up at Jurien Bay and then through to Geraldton. Travelled 428 k's today to Geraldton and staying in a cabin at Batavia Coast Caravan Park so I can watch the State of Origin. Once again NSW just not good enough - again! Maccas for brekkie, more fuel, then onto Kalbarri. Such a beautiful place and so much to see I decided to stay a week and take advantage of a 10% discount at the Anchorage Caravan Park. Fri June 3. Went out to Murchison Gorge in Kalbarri National Park sightseeing. Pretty impressive, see the pics. In the afternoon I visited Red Bluff and some of the other coastal cliff lookouts. Big swell rolling in from the Indian Ocean. Sat June4. Got a good nights sleep and it started to rain about 11.30 pm Fri and still raining at dawn. Banana pancakes for brekkie and out to watch the surfers attack the big swell at a point break near Red Bluff. Water must be cold as they are all wearing long john wetties! Rained on and off most of the day. The sightseeing flight is still on and what a buzz! 5 seater aircraft and I'm up front next to pilot! Flew over Murchison Gorge and so much more to see from the air. Day was overcast so the colours didn't stand out as much as yesterday but if you get up to Kalbarri then take the sightseeing flight over the gorge and the ocean cliffs. Look at the pics! Sun June 5. Overcast and a little cool. Off to Port Gregory and the Pink Lake which is a 120klm round trip. Len the Viet vet said to watch the coppers as they're "Re d hot"! So I stuck to the speed limit! Port Gregory was a pretty small fishing village with the Indian Ocean on one side, the Pink Lake on the other and one little general store and a caravan park. Whilst at Port Gregory got a text and pics from Deb showing me the jetty under water because of the rain they have been having. So I rang her and during the conversation we decided she and Chelsea would fly to Broome and continue with me on the Last Big Surfari around Aussie. Wahoo!!! On the return run to Kalbarri I called in to see Island Rock and Natural Bridge in the Indian Ocean side of Kalbarri National Park. Very spectacular cliffs and far below I could see a pod of dolphins frolicking in the waves.