Ok, we're some way behind on the blogging, so going to try to keep this short and sweet (I can hear the deep sighs of relief from here)...
First thing on Monday, I called a tour operator and booked us on a sea-lion and dolphin tour at Baird Bay – extraordinarily exciting! Jen was a bit nervous about being in the water with them, so she was booked on as tour photographer for the day. We drove up the coast from Coffin Bay to Streaky Bay, stopping to look at the coast a few times on route.
Streaky Bay camp-site is the busiest camp-site we've seen – it was rammed. Luckily, they had some unpowered sites left. Once inside the camping area, a sign warned that there was a mouse infestation! We set up camp then went to the tiny camp kitchen and spent the evening there eating dinner, playing on the internet and talking to the other campers who came through. Fishing is the go on this coast, and pretty much everyone was there for that purpose. We met a nice family who were camped next to us, and let the young boys have a sneaky peak at the tent on the roof. The parents said they'd been kept awake all night the night before by the sounds of mice trying to get into their tent... It didn't bode well! They'd been out to buy mouse traps, and had (at the recommendation of the hardware store) bought traps which are basically sticky paper. Sounded pretty grim – once a mouse lands on the paper it gets trapped, and you have to bludgeon it to death! Once left alone in the camp kitchen, as we quietly researched on the web, the mice began to make themselves known. One even came out of the grill above the oven! They're actually quite cute, but I can't say I slept very well – everyone (including Jen) had wound me up by saying the little blighters would quite happily climb the ropes up to our tent on the roof!
We awoke on Tuesday early and found no mouse damage, but they had had a good go at our neighbouring campers. Three had made their way into their tent over-night, one under the parents' bed! Two were bludgeoned after being stuck on the sticky paper, not a pretty sight apparently! So we were fairly happy to leave Streaky Bay!
We headed down to Baird Bay for the sea-lion and dolphin tour. There were about 12 of us on the boat. I wasn't overly impressed with the people running the tour, although the boat itself was first class, but the time in the water with the sea-lions was amazing. They told us that the sea-lions would play with us for as long as we stayed in the water, and they weren't wrong. Unfortunately it was freezing, so I couldn't stay in as long as I would have liked, even with my wetsuit on. They warned us not to try to touch the sea-lions from above, or to dive down on them from above, but said if we put a hand out, they might well come and nuzzle us, and if we dived, the sea-lions would follow. All true, and it was amazing – Dad, all those hours swimming under water rather than on top finally had a purpose! The sea-lions are incredibly playful, and love to join in as you dive down, doing whatever you do with twice as much grace, and five times as many tricks! One of the younger ones was diving down and chasing me, then coming up to do spinning jumps out of the water! I think he thought it was a competition, and was very disappointed with my attempts to imitate him. Really wonderful experience. One the best things I've ever done.
I even managed a few underwater shots with the disposable waterproof camera we bought.
After the sea-lions, we had a fairly rushed swim with the dolphins. The dolphins are more aloof and we were warned that they may stay for an hour, or disappear within minutes. By the time we found them I was shaking uncontrollably with cold, but forced myself in and waited as a large pod of dolphins circled around us. The boat immediately shot off, and a teenager was understandably quite concerned about being left in the deep water without an immediate escape route - the water where we met the dolphins was much deeper, and more likely to be inhabited by sharks as well as dolphins. Two of the tour operators came into the water with us this time, both wearing long cords from their ankles. These emit a pulse to try to repel sharks. The boat circled around to effectively corral the dolphins around us. All in all, it was all a little discomforting. The dolphins swam through though, and I had my brief encounter with them in the wild. They're nowhere near as fun as sea-lions (at least not in this environment, they were probably too worried about the sharks as well!), but they were beautiful nonetheless.
And as we left, one put on a little display of tail flapping for Jen.
That night we camped a spot in the sand dunes near Point Brown, as recommended to us by the Dutch couple in Coffin Bay. Really beautiful spot, only locals tend to go there as its completely unmarked, but a little windy for us on the coast. And, would you believe it, there were more mice! Luckily again, none made it into the tent, but there were a hell of a lot of little footprints around the car in the morning!
Wednesday we awoke early to start the long drive across the Nullabor. We filled up with fuel and water at Ceduna,then set off onto the “treeless plain”. We detoured on route to go to the coast to watch the surfers at Cactus Beach, a famous break here in Australia.
We camped that night at 157k Peg Rest Area (which I later realised was numbered 666 in the Camps Guide, number of the beast!)
Great sunset that night.
Presumably in an attempt to break the monotony of the Nullabor crossing, someone has constructed the Nullabor Links – the World's Longest Golf Course! The 18 holes stretch between Ceduna and Kalgoorlie, par 72, and 1365km! We didn't partake.
On Thursday we set off quite early again, stopping for views over the Nullabor Bunda Cliffs, before crossing the border to Western Australia. The border crossing was uneventful, the lady asked if we had any fruit or veg, had a quick look in the foot wells and the fridge, then let us through. The drive along the Nullabor itself was fine, a lot more trees than we thought (Jen spent quite a few minutes shouting “there's a tree”, “there's another tree” etc....) Then we drove along Australia's longest straight road – 141kms. That night we camped at another rest area, Woolbra Homestead, and woke up on Friday morning in a rain cloud, which was a bit bizarre.
Friday we made it to Norseman,the official end of the Nullabor, and decided to head up to Kalgoorlie, so Jen could once again try to hunt for gold...!
On Saturday we went a-gold-digging (well, detecting) on a tour with a group called “Finders Keepers”. They drove us out to a pastoral lease where they have permission to fossick, playing some pretty awful gold-digger music on route (not the Kanye West kind), then sent each pair out with a metal detector and a pick to find their fortunes. One of the four couples did find a small nugget of gold (about the size of a small marble), but unfortunately it wasn't us. Boo hiss! We spent about two and half hours searching through the scrub in the heat, and found zilch. Not even an old bullet. Perhaps Jen's not destined to find us our fortune out here after all... Hmpf.
That night we headed into town and watched United play City – not a great game, but what a finish, one minute to go and the glorious Paul Scholes breaks the sky blues' hearts – He scores goals m'lord, He scores goals.
On Sunday we visited the Super Pit Lookout. The Super Pit is a huge hole in the ground, carved out by giant machinery which is made to look like a tonker toy when seen climbing the contours of the pit from above. And its full of gold. Some stats they give you at the lookout – 800,000 ounces of gold are excavated each year, the pit works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, its approximately 3.5 kilometres long, 1.5 kilometres wide and 360 metres deep. Its a staggering sight.
Then we made our way back down to Esperance on the coast and camped in town at Bathers Paradise, the cheapest camp-site we could find. It was fine, save for some noisy French backpackers who were up late playing drinking games in the camp kitchen next to our camp. We restrained ourselves from telling them the joke about the difference between Thierry Henry and Lenny Henry (Thierry Henry's still BEEPing French)....
On which note, we'll sign off and try to catch up (as I write this, I'm sat on a beach just south of Freemantle, three weeks ahead of the time of this blog). Sorry its not quite as short as I'd hoped!
Love to all,
Claire, of Jen and Claire Fame
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