Ayers Rock with a splash of Mad Max

This is the location you've all been waiting for....

Ayers Rock!

Yeah yeah I'm told it got renamed Uluru.. translated to English though is Ayers Rock, isn't it? I mean last time I was talking to the guys about France no one said La Tour Eiffel, it's the Eiffel Tower! In English!

When did we start naming things in Aboriginal anyway? I can't speak it, who really can, hell, there are that many dialects, even one "tribe" has trouble understanding the other one just down the road. Oh, and don't even get me started on THE OLGAS!! I can't even pronounce Kata Tjuta. Who puts the letter J after the letter T anyway.. geez.

We left Coober Pedy and began one of the most boring drives we've done. It was almost 10 hours, including the usual toilet breaks, from the edge of no where to the middle of no where.

Now, the thing is, while you'd expect this remote place to be pretty quiet, you'd be mistaken.

Driving into Yulara (the "resort" at Ayers Rock) was a shock. We haven't seen so many cars and people in the outback. It was kinda weird having to actually give way at a Give Way sign, let alone looking left and right before driving through. See we almost gave up on bothering to check if anyone was coming when we had to drive through a Give Way sign in the outback. No one was EVER coming. It was a waste of brake pads to slow down and fuel to speed up again (although, not looking and being taken out by a Road Train could have been slightly worse).

The first thing we had to do was get some sunset shots. Little did I know everyone had the same idea.

Like the outback paparazzi, thousands of people flocked to the rusting pebble to capture its colours as the sun began setting over the horizon behind us. Some with champagne, some with cigars, and some sitting on the roof of their cars (hired cars of course) but all with the cameras pointed in one single direction. With hundreds of cars and thousands of people in over-priced tour buses, the whinging celebrities have nothing to complain about when it comes to having a camera shoved in your face.

Now, for some reason, I thought I was going to get a photo of this rock that no one has ever seen before. Some how my Canon with L series lens was going to capture something unique, something magical, something Uluru.

Alas, my pic looks like the millions of pictures out there. Yep, it's an orange rock with greenish ground and blue ski. Wow!

Everyone knows it's big, but when you are there, with no buildings to compare, you forget how big it is. An information plaque in the town says it's higher than La Tour Eiffel... that's the Eiffel Tower for all you uncultured ones reading this that don't know it's correct name.

Next stop The Olgas. Gee I love looking at rocks.

Let me just say this; if you were a culture that believed in giant rainbow serpents, surely there would be giant humans too, and with no giant bathrooms, well surely you'd expect some evidence of their existence right?

Yep.

So, Kata Tjuta is Aboriginal for "I'm busting to go, and I'm too far from my bean stalk so I'll have to go here".

We spent a couple of days wandering around in the heat. It's ok, because we are tough now. Forty degrees is nothing for us. In three months we've had one day of rainy cold weather. We were hardened aussies now....  well as long as we reached our air conditioned F250 with it's glorious air conditioned seats before we could finish a 500ml bottle of water.

Talking about our hardened selves, we decided to skip Kings Canyon and Alice Springs and begin our trip home. It was just far too hot to stay. At 7am it would be 24C, by 9am 36C and within an hour 40C (in the shade). It literally takes your breath away. If you move from the shade, the heat radiating off the dry dusting ground seems to get amplified and you feel like a cheap Sunday roast. We'll have to come back when it's cooler, maybe when there is a little grass too. Oh, a nice ocean breeze and maybe a good river and lake for the jetski would be nice too. I'll be here 100% then!

So we're not as tough as we thought we were, but we know someone who is...

Mad Max!

Yep, Silverton, home of Mad Max 2.

This dusty, almost ghost town, is home to the Mad Max museum.

The owner, Adrian, from northern England has collected some of the most sought after items. Ever wondered where the steel boomerang that was thrown by the feral kid went? You guessed it, here! What about the little music box that Max gave the boy (after taking it from the dead truck drivers hand). Yep, here. Oh, even the dead truck driver is here.

What about the buggies and stuff?

And of course, no collection would be complete without a couple of fantastically built replicas of Max's car.

So without further ado, I give you the highlight of this trip. The pinnacle, unlike other Pinnacles, the Great, without the Barrier Reef, the most aggressive, without the crocs, the most awesome man made structure south of the equator.

Unfortunately, this marks the end of this amazing trip. Like a kid waiting for Christmas, we're only one sleep away from home.

We've had some serious fun. We've had some laughs, we've had a few arguments (although I've won most), but most of all, the amazing things we've seen, the places that really make Australia the place to be. The heart and soul of this country. 

Forget Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, they are just the hands and feet that carry and allow the not-so-tough to survive in this amazing country (including me). 

It's out here that you see the Aussies. It's here that you get a hello off a complete stranger and it's out here that people wave to you from the car traveling a hundred kilometres an hour in the opposite direction. It's a smile from the local shop owner, to the genuinely interesting people that come up and have a chat. 

Sure, it's not as polished, but the rough "Aow-ya-gowin mate" is at least the kind of greeting where you know the person asking it really does want to know.

So yeah, I'm kinda sad to be returning, but I realise I need the motherly bosom the big city gives me. I'll deal with being cut-off while I'm driving home from work. I'll deal with people beeping if I stop at a give way for too long, I'll deal with the feeling of being woken from a daydream, while waiting in a line at the bank, when the teller yells out NEXT. 

But I'll be happy to fill up with some cheap fuel, get anything I want from the shops, that are 5 minutes up the road, but most off all, drop my jetski in at the nearest boat ramp and jetski over to a nice grassy place to drink a flat-white with my mates.

I love Australia.

Nullarbor and Coober Pedy

With my pedal to the metal we lugged our 5 tonne mobile house of fun east.

We were heading to Coober Pedy in South Australia.

We left Mandurah in Western Australia with a plan to get lunch at Albany, and stay at Esperance.

That was the "Man" plan of course. 870km could have been done easy, but with two girls in the car and me not saying "come on" enough we only made it to Fitzgerald (626km). 

This was the first time we had to pull up and literally camp on the side of the road.

We choose to stay at abandoned school, from the mid 1960's, with a spooky old house, that was once the school hall. We parked our rig on the old cracked asphalt assembly area. The faint outline of the kids painted hopscotch lines barely visible through the weeds growing up from the cracks.

Night fell and the place got dark. Very dark. No lights, no sounds, no civilization. 

I've since vowed to watch less horror movies when I return home; I'm sure some of the random noises were ghost children, or even a Chucky doll, two inches from our unsecure pop-up-canvas-horror-coffin, otherwise known as our camper.

Damn Possums, bloody freaked me out all night.

The next day we were up early and headed to Esperance and planned to also cross the Nullarbor.

Nope, with lunch at Esperance, we didn't have a chance. This country is so big!!

We pulled up about 100km east of Norseman, driving only an embarrassing 500'ish kilometres. We found a massive bush area and set up camp.

I had convinced the missus to buy Ribs for dinner from the Esperance supermarket, thinking we'd make a powered site of course. Slight problem, we needed an oven to cook them and we never made it to that powered caravan site.

No problems, I'll start up the genny, she'll be right. While other campers use the genny to charge their batteries, I was powering the rib filled oven and air conditioner. Why not, it was hot, and we weren't slumming it in the bush.

Now I'm not one for exerting more energy than I absolutely have to, so I decided to just leave the generator on the trailer and start it up there.

Whoops, big mistake, the heat from the exhaust melted the tie down and almost started a fire that could have engulfed all my toys.

But.....she'll be right mate.....

We were off again in the morning, still feeling a little bloated from my rib fest, but quite satisfied with my accomplishments nonetheless (even though I could have started Australia's biggest F250 bonfire)

But, as I'm sure you have guessed, we didn't get as far a we planned again. No surprise there.

This time we pulled up at a lookout, just before sunset, over the Great Australian Bight. We had million dollar views all to ourselves. Magic.

We unpacked the bare minimum and got ready for another quiet night.

This is where things got strange. When you look up at the night sky, hundreds of kilometres from any town, and over water that no one uses, there are more stars in the sky then you have ever seen before. 

You almost feel like you have floated away to another planet; because the sky you are looking at isn't the one you are familiar with. 

A phrase keeps popping into my mind. "These are not the droids you're looking for".

The next morning was a race to Port Augusta. We stopped for takeaway meals and toilet breaks only. If they weren't taken at the same time there was much ranting from yours truly.
However, Yours Truly had to stop, hypocritically mind you, for a photo opportunity as we drove through the South Australian Wheat Belt. I couldn't miss snapping this for you all.

An overnight stop in Port Augusta and we were back on the road heading for Coober Pedy.

First stop, an old Yamaha FZR Supercharger and Clutch graveyard.

Ok, so they weren't parts off broken Yamaha's, they were parts off various rocket launches at Woomera. They look the same though don't they, notice that aftermarket blow-off valve fitting on the intake pipe, that's RIVA isn't it?

This is the place Australia tests all their people killing missiles (and other stuff).

We kept going and reached the various salt lakes of South Australia. Some of these lakes were massive!

This next one looked partially frozen, except it was almost 40 degrees C outside. Those "icebergs" were massive chunks of salt. It's one of the weirdest things I've seen on my travels.

Next stop Coober Pedy.

This place is known for it's Opal Mining and homes dug into hills and underground.

Old Timers Mine Home

Crocodile Harry's Home (part of this was actually in Mad Max!)

Underground Restaurant we had dinner at (it's not peak season here!) 

The only way in and out of the Restaurant. It's a lot harder going up after a T-Bone Steak, let me tell you!

These "Dugouts", as they are called, are just the beginning.

If you have watched Mad Max, this town is the real life version. In fact, some parts of Mad Max were in fact filmed here (like Harry's home above).

"I am the Nightrider. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!"

I'll let these pictures do the talking now, but don't for a minute think these are staged movie sets, this is a real town, unedited, in it's raw glory, and I love it.

The hill in the centre of Coober Pedy

Someones front yard. They all looked like this. It's not a special one.

Another persons "front yard"

On the main road!!! It looks like it's not used anymore, but probably still is. Everything looks like this!

This Hong Kong immigrant from the 1970's trying his luck finding Opal. He managed to sell us some worthless Potch for twenty eight bucks, so he is doing ok off dumb tourists I guess

Just sitting across the road from the scam artist from Hong Kong. Where is the Council demanding this stuff is moved? It doesn't even have a parking fine on the window. Well, it doesn't have a window or wipers, maybe the fine blew away?

You must come here once in your life. 

As you can see, this town hasn't changed much since the 1970's.

A working mine. Tom's mine actually

Think the Wild West, Aussie style, and that's it. 

Again, a working mine. Yes, that car has explosives in it!

Outside of Crocodile Harry's Dugout

There is a character and charm to this place, much like the naked chrome body of a Harley Davidson in a sea of boring painted vehicles. Even the local police, in their slow moving Landcruiser, give you a wave as you drive around.

Dingo Fence running from South Australia to Queensland. It's more than 5600 Kilometres long!

I could have stayed here longer, but we needed to see Australia's most famous landmark; Ayers Rock, and we are running late.

Got to go now, one of the girls need another toilet stop! Will this place do? No trees to hide behind though.

The Oodnadatta track to The Breakaways

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.