Monkey Mia, Rocks, Rocks and Perth

The places with the most marketing are the most forgettable. Yes, I mean forgettable, not unforgettable

Welcome to Monkey Mia.

This is the place we all know. It's the place dolphins come to shore and swim around with you. It's the place where you feel like a Sea World Performer just seconds away from grabbing a fin and being taken for a ride.

Well, um, no, that's how the marketing would like you to think it's like. It's really 100 people that walk across a broken shell "beach" to the waters edge while a Marine Parks officer gives you a lecture about not touching the dolphins. Anyone that walks too deep (ankle deep) may be asked to leave. Oh, and if you think about touching them, you will end up with a fine! Yep.

Oi, don't reach down into the water, you might touch one!

So, when did the government "own" wild animals now? I must have missed that memo. Gee, I might just go to the next beach and bags a pod of dolphins for myself. I'll call it Monkey Mal and make sure no one gets too close to my pod! I might even bags a Whale or two too. I mean Japan does, although when they bags one, they really bag one! Our government should have bagsed them first and they could have given Japan a fine!

We left Monkey Mia in search of more rocks. It had been a while since we saw some rocks and were getting a little anxious. Thankfully we found the mother load!!!

These puppy's are called Stromatolites. Ok, so not really a rock per se, but it hit the spot. Now, a little education; these things are alive and thought to be the first forms of life on earth. 3.5 Billion years ago this was it. We all evolved from these. So in a way, our cousins... our family if you like. If you listen closely you may hear them bitching about each other or complaining whose house (or rock) they have to go to for Christmas lunch this year.

We stopped at the Caravan Park near the stromatolites for some Breakfast. This place was stuck in the 70's. Everything was in slow motion. Hell, even the guy that runs the place had a fish tank with his own stromatolite. 

Did I say they grow less than a centimeter a year. I guess not much happens out here and it's not like he can watch the grass grow when it's all dirt!

But it wasn't all backwards out here. They did have a mobile phone shop. 

He said I could connect any phone I wanted to a plan that suited me. He said he had a 5 metre plan, a 15 metre plan and his most popular, a 30 metre plan; that allowed you to take your phone as far as the BBQ area! Nice!

Next stop was Kalbarri. We were told to stop here as it had a good river and great fishing, plus Geraldton wasn't that nice apparently.

Picture my face when I see the water. Oh yeah, Jetskiing time for me! First stop the Visitor Information Centre, I needed to make sure the missus was going to be entertained while I was away skiing... 

This is where things went bad. First the woman said the river is only 7 km then blocked and has an 8 knot speed limit all the way. WHAT. NO WAY!

Ok, I'll jetski further south, all good. So I ask about a Fishing Charter. I'd love to catch one of those sweet game fish that everyone comes to WA for.

Nope. Fishing Ban for all the "trophy" fish from Kalbarri to Esperance (pretty much all the good parts of the West Australian coast). You have got to be joking!

Ok, how about a Dive?

At this point, she should have just said there are no things for men here. You need to go to Geraldton for all that. God DAMN Grey Nomads who said come here. Seriously, I AM NOT going to a Cafe to drink tea, eat scones and knit!

So we decided to have a look at some Gorges and Rocks. We looooooooove rocks!

Even Kawasaki Bear decided to leave the Caravan park for these rocks! Wow... roooocks.

Two nights here, and we're gone!

I was very excited about our next stop. You see, these things only happen once in a blue moon.

It's more ROCKS.... ok, so they happen a little more often than a blue moon.. ok ok a lot more often, say like "a white moon" then (well you do get a day a month when there isn't a moon at all, and some days we don't see rocks...remember that rainy day a few months ago, we didn't see rocks then!)

These amazing formations are called the Pinnacles. People come from all over the world to see them. I even come across a family from the Netherlands eating lunch from their camper in the parking lot. It was either lunch or they were celebrating their experience. You could see their glowing faces, they loved it here. Either that or they forgot to apply some sun screen, but lets say it was glowing with excitement. They traveled across the world to see these after all.

Ok, who am I kidding.... they are just rocks! God damn boring lumps of ROCKS. I'm amazed it wasn't called the Lost City for midgets or something equally as imaginary.

But let's not get to hung up on these things, I was excited.... excited to be arriving in Perth and finally able to really go jetskiing.

I planned to hook up with some guys and ski at Mandurah, just south of Perth. first things first though, we need to book into the crappiest caravan park there. I mean it can't be all pleasure... the missus and I needed something to bitch about at night.

We pulled the rig into the most mozzie infested swamp spot we could find. I lathered myself with bug spray, that oddly doubles as deodorant now, and started setting up.

After spending half an hour crawling around unhooking stuff I really needed a shower. I first needed to find the shower block. Looking around, there were; old broken caravans, dilapidated sheds and boxes covered with decomposing tarpaulins everywhere. Thankfully the missus come to my rescue and pointed to the condemned building and said "there it is, enjoy your shower princess".

Ok, they are not pictures of the caravan park, that's the old convict built Fremantle Jail (I refuse to write Gaol, that word just looks dumb). However, if they offered a Powered Van Site I would have stayed the night there. The toilet block was better than our one after all. Also, the razer wire would have stopped to locals from wandering in drunk to see their mate that lives in the park permanently!

But I can tough it out... because tomorrow is jeskiing day!

Thanks to the boys that showed me around. It was good to get out and be "normal" again. 

We did come across a pod of dolphins that I claimed my own too. I'm just sending the WA government a letter now. If they go anywhere near my pod I'm going to send them a typed up bit of paper, about the size of a shopping docket, and tell them they have to pay me for going too close to MY dolphins.

Well, that's it for Perth, it's now time to head east; the home stretch... a bloody long stretch that is too. But before we get home, I need to see Ayres Rock....Remember I love rocks! Oh, and the lucky buggers that live in rocks at Coober Pedy, wow!

The Coral Coast of WA

After watching all those people working in the mining towns, it was time for me to have a holiday, and what better place to have it than the Coral Coast of WA.

I needed to make a decision, Exmouth or Coral Bay? 

Exmouth is a bigger town, where as Coral Bay was described as a little sea side village with little more than a shop.

One of the things I was keen to see was the VLF Antenna (yep boring I know). But, working as an Electronic Communications Engineer for the Australia Defence Force in my younger years, and the transmitter and antenna at Belconnen in Canberra, this was like an Artist looking at the Mona Lisa. 

You see, my little UHF radio in the car is a mere 5 Watts, the ones at Belconnen ranged from 10,000 Watts to 250,000 watts, but this baby can transmit 1,000,000 watts! Yes, that is one million watts!! With as "little" as 100,000 watts (or less even) you can hold a flouro light in your hand as a torch while not connected to anything (they didn't have OH&S back in the 90's). Ok, ok, the missus is hurrying me up and can't believe I rattled on about this in my blog too. Well, yes, MY BLOG so if I want to be boring, I'll be boring.

So yep, our first stop was Exmouth. 

Well, what a mistake that was really. We pulled in to Exmouth Cape Holiday Park and was allocated the only dirt site in the park. It was cramped and packed in one small area. Oddly more than half the park was vacant though. I thought no way, and moved to a nice grassy site.

By the time I had unpacked and about to head back up to reception, we had the assistant manager come down to see us. For maybe 5 minutes he whinged about us moving from our allocated space. I let him complain a little longer, until he felt tough, but agreed we wouldn't move. 

The next day we took a trip into the Canyon's. One drive was along the ridge, the other though the dry river bed. I swear some parts of Australia feels like another country and this was no different.

While away, the park manager called my phone four times to whinge a little more like a kid. Apparently my trailer was over the imaginary line! Thankfully I had no signal so didn't have to actually hear his miserable whining voice. Maybe he should get a job in the mines rather than deal with people in a caravan park! Wondering if this place is for-real we decided to leave and head to Coral Bay.

Coral Bay, it's an oasis on the west coast. A truly magic place. You literally walk off the pristine soft sand beach, and can snorkel over the top of Ningaloo Reef (a Fringing Reef). It's no more than a half a metre from the waters edge in places.

It's worth noting that the Coral Bay Caravan Park uses Bore Water. This is very high in calcium and a little salty. The taps and hoses are white and brittle from the calcium. Because of this, the locals suggest rubbing a little baby oil on your skin after a shower. Ok, I'll give that a go.

Now, I either applied too much or didn't rub it in enough, because my shirt was slipping off faster than a stripper being handed a fifty. I had problems with my shorts staying up too, so went looking for some suspenders. No good, apparently they went out of fashion in the seventies. I thought about sneaking into a Grey Nomads van but I'm not really the sneaking type, not to mention caravan windows are quite small and I didn't want to get stuck half way in. So with no suspenders my only option was to eat a few extra jam donuts to "tighten" up my shorts.

With my shorts a little tighter, it was time for another swim. 

Coral Bay is home to Whale Sharks and Giant Manta's. We missed the Whale Sharks (they come earlier in the year) but the Manta's were here.

This is an amazing animal. Gliding peacefully through the water without a care in the world. It wasn't worried about having twenty snorkelers oh'ing and ah'ing through their snorkels, while holding onto their swimmers with one hand, and leaving a baby oil slick behind them.

Looking like a prune, almost fitting in with the Grey Nomads, it was really time for us to spend more time above the water rather than in it.

I know, the next part is going to freak you all out.

I rode a Seadoo!

Ok, well, not exactly a Seadoo, but still something made by BRP.

At least it couldn't sink right? 

WRONG.

Who would have thought that with my fat ass on it, and flogging it up a massive sand dune, I could get it sinking into the soft sand. Like quick sand, while pegged full throttle, the "Seadoo" was sinking faster than an overloaded people smuggler boat on it's way to Australia.

SNATCH STRAP ANYONE!

That was it for Coral Bay, I wish I could have stayed longer. 

Everyone should come here at least once in their lifetime. Amazing.

Next stop Monkey Mia and further south.

Goodbye Kimberley's, Hello Pilbara

Kununarra and Lake Argyle was a special place, but as with all good things, they eventually come to an end.

It was time to leave and head further west.

Now before anyone gets upset at the next thing I'm going to say, let me first set the scene. We've looked at more gorges, more rocks, more dirt and more watering holes than probably 21 million, of the 22 million, people currently living in Australia. I'm probably being generous with the million that have seen more than us too.

We left Kununarra and headed towards the Bungle Bungles. Unfortunately the caravan park there was full. Yep, full. Don't ask me how, maybe a local was having a wedding, or a cow and bull were mating, or maybe full means more than ten people stopped in and they only have enough dried out sausage rolls for six people a day?

Either way we kept driving, BUT with a plan of staying at Halls Creek and driving back. 

We finally got to Halls Creek and stopped in at the Visitor Centre to ask about the Bungles. Apparently the Bungles are a two hour drive in from the turn off at the highway, which was a little over an hour from Halls Creek. So, a round trip would be six hours. 

Sorry guys, I just couldn't face another six hour drive to have a look at some more rocks.

We decided to keep driving and aim for Fitzroy Crossing before nightfall. That meant we had to get some fast lunch at Halls Creek. The fast lunch is now referred to as the roadhouse roast, otherwise known as a sausage roll and a flavoured milk.

After hours and hours of driving, seeing massive amounts of open, desolate and isolated space we finally arrived at Fitzroy Crossing.

Now, I can't tell you a lot about 'the crossing', as the Halls Creek Roadhouse Roast made its way through my system faster than a toothpaste tube squeezed by the Hulk, however, the caravan parks ablutions were nice. They were that good I decided to visit them a few more times that night. Thankfully the roast vacated fully by the morning and I was good to go.

Fitzroy River, when flowing, is massive, but the wet season wasn't very wet. It seemed like every river bridge we crossed was desert dry. Fitzroy River was no different, except for it's enormous size, it was like an eight lane dusty highway, taking people to the end of the earth and never to be seen again.

Next stop was the highly anticipated town of Broome. We had a fellow traveller describe it as the Gold Coast of the West Coast but without the high-rise buildings.

What kind of back burning bush were they smoking! Maybe it could have been the Byron Bay of the west coast....maybe?

We arrived Saturday afternoon and decided to unpack and have dinner in Broome. Oddly, we found everything was closed, well except for a takeaway BBQ Chicken place (sort of like KFC's poor cousin). We ordered the best we could get and then asked the girl at the counter "where is everyone?". With a puzzled look on her face she replied, "what do you mean?". In a painfully obvious way, I said "are we missing an attraction here or something, there doesn't seem to be anyone around. Is this normal?". She laughed in a dumb-tourist-kind-of-way and said "yeah, this is normal".

So let's scrap the similarities between Broome and Byron Bay too.

But Cable Beach is amazing right? 

Yep, it had heaps of sand and if you walked west... I know you won't believe me with this next part.... some sea water and waves! Weird as right! Only a crazy person would have guessed it would be... um... like a beach! Like a picture of a Big Mac on a poster, the real thing just doesn't have the same sizzle. I guess all the raving reviews are by star-struck pommies escaping their cloudy, rocky, cold seaside shore at home. I bet they thought my chicken shop was a quaint little boutique takeaway not to be missed also.

The saying goes, when in Rome, do what the Romans do. That meant, at around 5:30pm the entire hippy population, and some of the sun-burnt pommies, of Broome rushed to the coast for the obligatory sunset photo.

So here is the money shot

If you want to secure your own part of the 2manyjaunts adventure, I'm taking pre-orders for copies of this photo now.

But it's now time to leave the Kimberley's and head into the Pilbara. So, if the Kimberley is the true heart of Australia, the Pilbara is the beefed up biceps doing all the heavy lifting.

At the steroid injection point of the Pilbara Body Builder is Port Hedland. This working town is a hustle and bustle of dual-cab work utes buzzing the dusty tarmac from one area to another. I can't help think I've been taken back in time to the industrial revolution and dumped right on to an 1850's job site (did they have dual cab utes back then?).

This is far from a holiday destination. The caravan parks are full of zombie looking dudes in fluro shirts on their mobile phones; no doubt calling their respective missus back on the oblivious east coast just before they turn in for the night. You see, there are no tours, no tourist magnet structures and no magic looking beaches; just the smell of sweat and the clattering of cheap diesel utes that have been flogged to an inch of their life.

Stocked with supplies, we headed south, essentially inland, into the core of the Pilbara, the place where it all originates (sort of).

Welcome to Tom Price.

If you ever wondered what Man can do to the earth, wonder no more. This was once a mountain, but now nothing more than a hole in the ground.

What was once there has been shipped to China by the millions. A two kilometre train carries 3 million dollars of "Australia" to China every week.

No doubt the keyboard I'm typing this blog on has a little Tom Price in it. I'm also sure the rusty steel of my camper was due to some kind of reaction with miners sweat before it left Oz.

Oddly, while Tom Price is a town of workers, you could be mistaken for it being just a normal outback town. It has a similar feel to our little coastal towns back home, just that the coast is a mere six hour drive away.

This is where things got weird. You see, I was talking to my cuz, who lives in Tom Price, and mentioned one of the stickers at the roadhouse just up the road. He was a little puzzled that there was a roadhouse "just up the road". I said yeah, it's called Auski. He laughed and said "that's almost 160k's away, hardly just up the road".


I suppose after 16,000'ish kilometres, and given that 160 kilometres is a paltry 1% of my travels, I guess to me 160k's is a short trip. You see, if you can go there and back on a tank of fuel, and without a food stop, it's a "hey dear, just ducking down the road, be back shortly" kind of drive, isn't it???

After a few beers and some good laughs over a couple of days, we headed for Exmouth and Coral Bay.

Stay tuned.. 

Kimberleys - Lake Argyle and the Ord River

I'm going to open this post by saying, OH MY GOD!

Lake Argyle and the Ord River is a must see for anyone living on Earth. If you are reading this and not from Earth I'm sure you have some alien landscapes just as amazing.. but if not, forget visiting Pine Gap or Area 51, head to the Kimberley's.

I'm going to let the pictures do the talking in this update. I'm sure they will speak for themselves, plus it means you don't have to listen to my ramblings.

But before I show you all the pictures, I'm sure you are wondering what I have broken lately? 

Well NOTHING! Ha. 

Ok, that's not exactly true. You see, we had to leave Kakadu early to arrive at Kununarra before dark. That meant that the wildlife is a lot more active. Unfortunately, the thing we broke this time was Skippy's cousin. I guess it was only a matter of time before I hit one, I mean they are everywhere! Thankfully we didn't break anything and thankfully 5 ton of F250 meant it was painless for skippy too. So RIP skip and sorry I couldn't stop in time.

We finally arrived in Kununurra, 800+ kilometres from Kakadu, at around 5pm. Or was that 3:30pm, or maybe 5:30pm Sydney time??? Either way, sometime in the afternoon. The time zones are screwing me up.

After an overnight stop for fuel and food we headed to Lake Argyle.

So, without further ado, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the main attraction; Lake Argyle

We immediately unpacked (to the missus' disgust) again and had a look around.

A swim here!

And then the worlds best sunset cruise around Lake Argyle

The next day I had to take the jetski onto Lake Argyle. 

You can't imagine the sheer size of this lake. Estimates put it at around 20 times larger than Sydney Harbour. It's beyond huge. I was probably only able to explore way less than a quarter of this massive lake.

If I'm honest, the feeling of not only being the only jetski on the entire lake, but the ONLY boat, made me feel a little weird (sort of a little freaked out like when you need to walk outside at night after watching a scary movie). All of the "what ifs", the "what could go wrong", seem to haunt you while you're cruising around in total isolation. No wakes from other boats, no ripples, no breeze, no sound! No one to hear your screams... ok, the last one was a little theatrical, but it would be true.

Try to imagine it. Imagine you survived an apocalypse in Sydney and found yourself looking for any sign of life on the harbour, BUT it was twenty times bigger!!

However, the isolation, got me thinking. I wonder if I could jetski from Lake Argyle to Kununarra? I wonder if the river is deep enough? I wonder if I can convince the missus to drive 70 kilometres with camper and trailer back to Kununarra and meet me (assuming I make it).

Well, the stars all aligned for me and tomorrow was the big day. I'm jetskiing down the Ord River! Yeer har!

With day time temps around forty degrees, we got up early and packed everything up to beat the heat. I was in the water by 8am. By the way, the water temp up here is around thirty degrees.

And off I go.

What a buzz. There were small channels, mini rapids, bush tunnels, shallow crossings, steep gorges and even a Croc. Yep, a Croc. This was meant to be a "management" zone, but there are warnings everywhere that some Croc's sneak up the Ord.

I made it. Whoo Hoo.

This, by far, was the most adrenalin fueled jetski ride of my entire life and I didn't even go over 80 kph! It was truly an adventure like none other.

Next stop is the Bungle Bungles, assuming we beat the wet season, it's just started raining here tonight.