The Importance of Eating Right

As Virginia Woolf once wrote, "One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well."

And I'm a firm believer in that food can really make most situations an enjoyable one. You can be freezing, burning, bored, tired, embarrassed, hurting, dripping wet, dirty, or any innumerable other horrible things, and a good meal or a nice snack can make the world of difference. Food can also make good things amazing: snacking and reading, blogging and eating chocolate cake and coffee, walking and ice cream, food and sex, you name it - there isn't much that I can think of that can't be improved upon with some food!

But what do you do when you are cold, wet and miserable in the middle of nowhere, a long way from your nice fully stocked fridge and household of cooking appliances. Same thing you would do if you were there, cook! This is my kitchen out here:

I've made stews, curries, pasta sauces, roast beef, stir fry, pancakes, porridge, salads, the list can go on and on. And all on these little stoves running on unleaded fuel 6 inches from the ground.

One great time that comes to mind is when we were in Coral Bay. We headed over to cook in the camp kitchen using my stoves rather than by the tent to be a bit sociable. All around us people were cooking pasta with tinned tuna, pasta and tinned tomatoes, pasta and ketchup (!!!). And we begin chopping up all these fresh vegetables and putting together a rich, spicy, aromatic vegetable curry with the flavours wafting throughout the kitchen. People kept stealing glances in our direction the whole time. As it was dished out, steaming and colourful, people openly stared at our plates before forlornly looking back at their own camping creations. 

It doesn't take much, just a bit of thought and will to spend the extra few minutes on something fantastic!

I think Scott Adams best summed up my feelings towards food and cake, "I love you like a fat kid loves cake." - Meta, I know.

On a side note - I also won a bet that night that I could eat a curry upside down.

Until next time!

Dolphins and Emus and Sharks, Oh My!

Well it's time to start heading back to Perth, but not without a dozen or so stops along the way!

Carnarvon, Shark's Bay and a brief stop to gain some vertical elevation at a horizontal feature

First stop on the way down south is Carnarvon. We did spend a fair amount of time in the town on the way up, picking up George, so we decided to skip the town and just head straight to the blowholes. The blowholes are an impressive site on the coast, about 50km outside of the town centre. They occur on the coast on a set of limestone where the abrasive force of the ocean has worked its way through the cliffs as small passageways and now provide eruptive exits for the water hitting the cliffs as the waves pummel the coast. For maximum effect, aim to go during big swell and low(ish) tide - be aware though that these cliffs can be dangerous in big swell, and between the churning waters and jagged cliffs are not somewhere you want to end up.

After a night with the flies (and this time also massive hornets) at the Overland Roadhouse, we started making our way into Shark's Bay - unfortunately check in for most campsites ends at about 1800 and we weren't going to make it in time all the way in. About 2.5 hours from the highway, we arrive at Monkey Mia, perfectly timed for the third dolphin feeding of the day. This occurs up to three times a day and is carefully controlled by park rangers (only 500g per serving for specific dolphins) and has been going on for more than 50 years. The longest a single dolphin has been coming to the beach is 38 years, called Notch, introduced by her mother and now bringing a calf of her own. There is lots of research that also occurs at Monkey Mia around the dolphins, sharks, rays, dugongs and whales depending on the season.

There's only one campground in the reserve area, not unreasonably priced at $16 pppn, but they had a very reasonable deal for $20 pppn including a pub dinner and a drink. Monkey Mia is still very popular even in the off season and we met some very nice fellow travellers here. During the summer, there are plenty of overly-inquisitive emus wandering around the place looking for food and water in the harsh summer months. Feeding should be actively discouraged, and make sure all your food is packed up securely and out of site.

The next day, Zoe went to all three feedings in hopes of getting chosen, but to no prevail. So she consoled herself with an ice cream and off we set for Kalbarri via the Sharks Bay World Heritage Trail. Sharks Bay is one of only a couple hundred Natural World Heritage sites in the world, defined by four criteria:

1. An area of outstanding natural beauty - self explanatory
2. Hosts an outstanding example representing major stages of Earth's history, including the record of life and significant on-going geological processes - stromatolites at Hamelin Pool are rock like carbonate structures built by cyano-bacteria colonies on the surface, similar to the first forms of life on earth 3.5 billion years ago
3. Hosts an outstanding example representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution of ecological processes - transition zone between major ecological ecosystems (terrestrial and marine), with many endemic species and others living at the extremes of their ranges
4. Contains the most significant natural habitats for the conservation of biological diversity, including threatened species of outstanding value from the point of view of science or conservation - Shark's Bay is the home of many critically endangered plants, mammals, reptiles, birds and fish, several of which are endemic to the area. 

On top of being an outstanding example of a Natural World Heritage site, Shark Bay is also home to at least 100 species of reptiles and amphibian, 240 birds, 320 fish, 80 coral, 218 bivalves and 820 species of plant, at least 70 of which are also endemic to the area. So you will can't help but experience some incredible natural observation whilst there.

Leaving Monkey Mia, there are plenty of stops along the 'World Heritage Drive' back to the highway. There is the incredible Francois Peron National Park, unfortunately a high clearance 4x4 is required to access most of the park, so Claire wasn't quite up to the task that day. Our first stop of the day, was a beautiful lookout at the top of Eagle Bluff overlooking a bay where you can observe (best with binoculars) a large number of wildlife. We saw a good number of sharks, rays and even the dolphin pod swimming across the bay (being pursued what looked like a large number of small sharks). Luckily we had a friendly Canadian with a set of binoculars to confirm or deny our suspicions of what certain blobs were.

Three dolphins, 2 calves and lots of smaller dark patches chasing

My cockles are already warm

Next stop on the way out was Shell Beach. A unique beach made up of billions of cockle shells of a particular species that has been able to proliferate unchecked by its natural predator due to the high salinity conditions of the ocean around this area. 

Final stop on the way out were the stromatalites at Hamelin Pool. This is one of only two places in the world where living stromatalites exist and provide a modern day analogue to the earliest form of life from ~3.5 billion years ago. These were critical to the development of the Earth's atmosphere as they released oxygen as they photosynthesised. The pictures is probably slightly less than exciting for those outside of a geo background but hey.

Once we were out of the Shark Bay area there were two quick stops: the Tropic of Capricorn, and a bit of beach driving. Unfortunately, no super exciting outside footage as the GoPro is still deciding to play dead. And then we were on our way to Kalbarri, Geraldton and beyond.

Now just imagine it was 3500 Ma, a lot hotter and a lot less oxygen

Disclaimer: the actual Tropic of Capricorn is likely quite a ways back up the road, as it's moving north at a rate of ~0.47 arcseconds (~15m) per year and I don't know when this sign was installed.

Until the next time.

As Northern as a Yorkshireman

After racing up the coast to reach Exmouth, we are now as far north as we will likely be travelling in Australia. There's a possibility of getting up to Cairns on the east coast, but I'm not sure yet whether time will permit.

Exmouth Excitement

We spent about a week in and around the Exmouth peninsula. Originally developed as a World War II military base (evident by the old bunkers, monuments, the naval base and the massive radio antennae that used to be used for communication with submarines), now a days, Exmouth relies on tourism for its survival. With the spectacular Cape Range National Park and the incredible Ningaloo Reef on its doorstep, it's no wonder the town's population almost triples during the peak holiday season.

The beginning and end of our time in Exmouth was spent in the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort generally relaxing and trying to avoid the sun and oppressive heat. The staff were incredibly nice and friendly (with just a couple of exceptions unfortunately), prices on par with most of WA camping: $10-15 pppn and very nice and clean facilities, including a 25m pool that was very nice to use to wake up in the morning (alas - it had no shade for afternoon swimming). But, by far the most important and exciting feature this caravan park has, is the little Italian restaurant called Pinocchio on the grounds. Owned and run by the wonderful Sabrina and Salvatore, there are a good variety of reasonably priced (for WA) food and drink options, but most importantly is the gelato stand. This is some of the first, proper Italian gelato I've found in WA (hand made in house by Salvatore) and even though I've yet to visit a lot of Australia, I can confidently say, that this is the best ice cream that there is on offer in this country!

Every ice cream since has had the bitter taste of disappointment.

On our penultimate day, we decided to go for a kg of chocolate,
banana and amaretto ice cream.

There is a myriad of wonderful flavours that change regularly, from the regular chocolate, ferrero, etc. to some more original mixes, such as Tim Tam, amaretto, banana and tirimisu. We went back every day (and sometimes twice) to get ice cream, and I would thoroughly recommend anyone within 100km, to visit there (which is exactly what we did one afternoon whilst in the national park).

The rest of our time in the area was spent in the National Park. We camped at Lakeside, one of the few camp grounds with a a bit of shade provided by mature trees. We spent a few days enjoying the picturesque landscapes of limestone gorges, pristine beaches and beautiful near-shore and shallow reefs. In the waters are a plethora of flora and fauna to observe from rays to sharks to coral. Unfortunately we weren't there in season (winter) for any of the big migrations (whale sharks, manta rays, doogongs, dolphins and humpback whales), but it was the right time of year for turtle nesting and hatching! We went for a walk along the beach one night to hopefully see some nesting turtles but unfortunately we only saw one baby turtle being eaten by a crab and one turtle nest being raided by another crab - so a little bit of a sad ending to that venture, but we did get a great view of the Milky Way:

I love me some long exposure

Unfortunately my GoPro decided to flood at 3m on my first snorkel, so I don't have any underwater footage, but I will hopefully post some submarine pictures from Will in the album later. There are also a number of hikes through the limestone gorges, most notably at Yardie Creek and Mandu Mandu sites - here there's lots of opportunities to see an abundance of wildlife such as fish in the creek, turtles, galahs, pelicans, osprey, kites, falcons, eagles, kangaroos, hares, goats, black tailed rock wallabies and plenty of reptiles and insects.

Yardie Creek looking west towards the sand bar

When we weren't galavanting through the bush of the Cape Range, a lot of time was spent trying to rig up some kind of shade (mostly successfully and significant improvements made each day), napping in the searing heat or failing at fishing for short periods of time. There were plenty of sharks spotted throughout the week, including one feeding on something in some very shallow water by the beach one time when we were thinking about going for a late night snorkel. Gave that one a miss that night, and so I still have all my appendages to continue this blog!

Until next time.

The New and Improved Family

And we're off!

This first week (and a bit) has gone rather quickly. We spent the first three days driving straight up the coast (with a day in Carnarvon - more on that later) to Exmouth, in order to meet a very good friend of mine and his girlfriend for a few days of sun, sand and shenanigans around the Ningaloo reef. 

The first day was rather short - setting off in the evening, picking up Zoe and then stopping by Kim's best friends place for a very civilised cheese and crackers and slightly less civilised game of cricket with a 5 year old and crawling around the floor with a 10 month old. After a slightly longer stop than planned, we high tailed it a whole 30 minutes to a camp site at Moore River. I did the obligatory group photo day 1 and had a little play with my camera which resulted in a picture I'm quite happy with:

Obligatory first day group shot - a "before" if you will permit me

Happy snappy night time shot

The next three days were rather uneventful with all the driving, so I will swiftly move on to the new introductions. First up, I will introduce you to Claire:

Yes, Claire is a car...

I've had this car for a little over a year now, but it was only on the drive up the coast last week that I finally named my trusty Rav 4. I decided to name my car Claire after a very good friend of mine for a multitude of reasons. I bought this car at about the same time the human Claire came into my life, they're both very strong and fully capable no matter what anyone else may say and despite their misleading demeanor and of course they're both gold (though my Rav 4 is slightly more on the beige/champagne side). So I've decided that Claire will help me get around Australia for the next couple months as human Claire has helped me this past year.

Next up, is George. Or George Aslan II to be precise:

A refined name for a slightly less than refined trailer

This little(ish) bugger is the reason we got stuck in Carnarvon for a day after only two hours of driving. We very quickly realised that we weren't going to have quite enough space in the car as Zoe was already cuddling a lot of the gear in the back and we were going to have a fourth permanent person on this trip when Sam joins us in a couple weeks, let alone two extra temporary family members for the next week or so when we meet up with Will and Sam (different Sam). So we hit the internet to find out the best option for extra storage space, between a roof rack and a trailer. We managed to pick up George here for a mere $100 (down from an advertised $800!), but then had the very fun job of getting him road worthy as he was currently unregistered - and so it begins... First up, poor old George has been sitting in a back garden unloved and unused for a few years - so he needs a new plug, so we head to the local garage who promise to call us back within an hour when it's done - 2.5 hours later, I give them a call - oh yes, it's been done for ages... Alrighty, so next up we go to the post office to try and organise a change of registration - they send us to the bigger Department of Transport office down the road. Drive on down there: yep, here's a form to fill out with all yours and the sellers details on, and by the way, you need to have it inspected, but not at the normal garage, at the registered Toyota dealership just out of town. Back to the previous owner's house for a bit of a sit down form filling session and then off to the Toyota dealer. 

"Yep, we can inspect it, have you got a weight certificate?"

"A what now?" - Apparently, trailers are registered and taxed by weight in WA, but this garage and the other one don't have a vehicle scales, the RAC a bit more out of town does... So down the road we go. Something else was on the scales and unmoveable at that time, so a couple hours and $35 later (yes, $35 to put a trailer on a scale and print out a piece of paper) - back we go to the Toyota dealer. Inspection takes about 10 minutes, for which my assistance was required and involved a couple tape measurements. 

"Great, come back tomorrow to pick up the documentation."

"What!?" Apparently the documents need to be faxed to Perth, checked and returned, and apparently, at 1530, the people required to make this happen have already left the office... But at least it should be done by 0900. So 1100 rolls around - no phone call. I call them up, and once again, apparently they've had the documents back for a couple hours... great. Another $40 down the drain for another bit of paper and 10 minutes of someone's time to take some measurements. Back to the DoT. Finally after about 24 hours, I finally drive away with a legally registered and slightly cleaner trailer. I'm pretty sure it would have been cheaper and easier to not do the right thing and just pay the fine for an unregistered trailer...

So we load up George and off we head for Exmouth, and 6.5 hours later we arrived in time to set up the tents, chilled out in the pool for a bit and had dinner with a cider that didn't feel quite as well deserved after the debacle with Goerge and then to bed to get up very early to head to the airport to pick up Will and Sam.

Which segues perfectly onto the introduction to the two new temporary family members:

The intrepid explorers

Will is a very good friend of mine back in the UK and Sam is his girlfriend. We spent a few days in the National Park on Ningaloo reef enjoying the amazing snorkelling and relaxing before they had to head back to Perth for Sam to get back to work. More on those few days in another post!

Which brings us to the final new member of the gang: John. He's a bit sensitive and is currently head deep in a tub of guacamole so I can't currently upload you a photo of him. But I will paint a picture - John is a lit bit twisted (literally), and a little bit hairy as he tends to catch a lot of fluff on his head, he's also a spoon (literally), and Zoe found him in the middle of a dirt track on one of her jogs. She felt inspired by her older brother to name it John.

There was one other very temporary family member:

I have no idea what it is, and it didn't survive long enough to name, but it looks like a giant flea. If anyone has any insight - do let me know!

And so that sums up the new editions to the travelling family. I'll close with a cheesy silhouette photo!

And so it begins

It's the first night of the adventure!

I finished at Fringe festival last night :( and have some wicked posts about that to come. And today I set off with Zoe and Kim a whole 90 minutes outside of Perth! This was planned however, as for the next 3 days, we'll be making a blitz all the way up the coast to Exmouth to meet some friends there, before slowly working our way back down the coast.

So I'm going to sign off here for the night, as need some sleep after only 3 hours last night and get some better posts and photos up soon!