Albany/Denmark

They call this area down here The Great South and I'll give the tip it is fairly magnificent. Full of history too. As those of you that may be more knowledgeable of modern Australian history will know Albany is where the expeditionary fleet that sailed to Gallipoli set off from, 36 ships and 20,000 men from Australia and New Zealand in late November 1914 from King George Sound.. The following month a further 20 ships and 10,000 men set off and sadly for many of them this was the last time they saw Australia. 

We learnt an awful lot from the Princess Royal Fortress museum complex atop Mount Adelaide. The Albany barracks now shares the sight with the HMAS Perth interpretive centre, Australian Light Horse Museum and the Military Heritage Centre. Really well restored and laid out and the kids (and adults) had fun climbing on the naval guns and moving them about. Finn gave one of the missiles a very close inspection, or was he having a sulk.

There is a great view of Princess Royal Harbour and King George Sound from Mount Clarence which is surprisingly close to the city centre. Apparently Albany has a very deep harbour and it was deemed critical to the defence of Australia during the latter half of the 20th  century hence the big gun batteries pointing out to sea. Apparently we were fearful of Russians at the time but fortunately the guns were never fired in anger.

Callam wrote quite well about Whale World which we visited and it must be said it is an impressive exhibition with plenty to see and do. Be warned though the big oil vats that have not been used in 30 years still have a bit of a smell about them especially on a warm day. A must see though if you ever get down here. Here are some more pictures of the place to give you a nautical taste.

 A flag

 A sperm whale without flesh

 Something to do with a ship with Norweigan writing.

 A view from the flenching (cutting up deck).

 A ships hand break.

Part of a dead whale, too big to get it all in.

Some rope.

We also went to the Valley of the Giants which Marley has also covered in her blog. If you don't like bouncy walkways 50m above the forest floor it may not be your thing but if you like very old and very big trees you will be impressed. 

On the way back back to Denmark we visited Dinosaur World....where they had a really cool collection of birds.

Whale World by Callam Thomas

Today we went to Whale World. At the start we went on a big ship it was called Cheynes 1V.

We looked at the harpoon that killed all the whales. Then we went under the ship to see the explosives. After we got off we went to the cutting up deck.

 At the cutting up deck they cut up little bits of the blubber from the whale to put in the boilers to cook them. This turns the blubber into oil and other stuff like fertiliser. Only men did it because it was very disgusting. The next place we went to was a place where we watched a show. It was called spectra vision theatre. It was about the day of the whaling station. We also watched a movie called Giants Existed it was about whales and how they protect there babies. They stopped whaling in 1978. Now all whales are protected.

By Callam.

Cape Le Grand National Park

Cape Le Grand is just a place like no other. White, white beaches, turquoise waters very large granite boulders that are sometimes the size of mountains and stumpy little tress with the odd emu or kangaroo thrown in and of course the 20 pod of dolphin that swam past us at Lucky Bay. Not sure what it is about the place, its other worldliness, its sheer beauty but every person I saw that day had a massive grin on their face like that they had been introduced to something they could not have believed existed. 

Frenchman's lookout is an extraordinary granite mountain with a hole in it at its peak. The Aboriginal story says this mountain is an eagle (Walich) that took two children that wandered away from camp against the advice of their parents and stole two of the eagles eggs. The walich got angry and picked up the two children and dumped them in the sea, every time they tried to swim back the walich would pick them up and dump the back. The two children are the rocks at the bottom of the mountain

At Lucky Bay we drove onto the beach for a few km and stopped for a picnic, swim and beach cricket. The sand here was whiter than the car.

At Hellfire Bay I taught the kids how to kick each other like a footy.

And here is a picture of a kangaroo having a kip on a bed of seaweed.

I am thinking of doing a Flickr account due to the amount of photo's that we are taking.

The treeless plain to Esperance

There are six airstrips on the Eyre highway between Ceduna and Norseman, one kangaroo, two emus, five wedge tailed eagles and the only camels that exist are dead, or hiding. No wombats either, they may have been  in their burrows hiding from the rain. However, there a lot of signs to warn the wary traveller of camels, kangaroos and wombats but I believe they are only there to provide photo opportunities. We started the trip out of Ceduna playing spotto with windmills, yellow cars, emus, camels and yellow cars. We gave up with windmills on the outskirts of Penong which for one reason or another has more windmills than Holland.

Eddie Eyre described the Nullarboor as "a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams". Obviously his impression was influenced by way of him choosing to hoof it across in the middle of summer. If he had travelled by air conditioned car at this time of year his view may have been slightly different. And contrary to its name it is full of trees. But it's a wide open road, a wide open road......

The sky was big and empty

My chest filled to explode
I yelled my insides out at the sun
At the wide open road

it's a wide open road, it's a wide open road.

Thanks to Dave McComb and The Triffids.

When the kids were asked what they saw when we crossed the treeless plains they said "stuff, trees and nothing." There was actually a lot to see. First stop out of Ceduna was The Head of the Bight which was a 12km detour off the highway. Not sure what bit it but it must have been big, the cliffs went on forever above an unbelievably blue sea. Pictures don't justify the sight we saw but I'll paste one in anyway. Bloody WOW is how I can only describe it.

Be warned though, the flies are, well they seek every orifice on your face. 

As you might imagine the stretches of road here are extremely straight and I am sure the bends were only added by the navvies due to boredom. There is a ridge which is part of the Hampton range that runs to the right travelling westwards that goes on and on and on which led me to think about Ridge's career in the Bold and the Beautiful. This ridge actually came to an epic end after the road led us up it and then down again with epic view of the plain that went on forever. So dumbfounded by the view I was unable to gather my wits and take a snap. Then we drove on to the Nullaboor road house to stop for a stretch or to get the fizziness (Finn's term for pins and needles) out of our legs. Don't stop here unless you are desperate or rich, we were simply ignorant. I got a tin of coke out of the fridge and put it on the counter and asked how much it was. Bloke said deadpan "an arm and a leg." $4 was what he actually meant which rivalled the $5 I paid for a middy at the Streaky Bay Hotel.

After driving all day we pegged up at Border Village (100m short of the SA/WA border) had a meal and flaked it.  It is a very weird place time wise at Border Village because they either operate on SA time, WA time or a thing called Our time. I asked a trucky from Brisbane what time he made and he told that it does not matter where in Australia he is it is always Queensland time because if you try to keep up with all these "ridiculous" time zones you'll end up in the twilight zone. 

We had planned to stop overnight at Frasier Range, an old sheep station outside Norseman the next day. Weather conspired against us. It all started off quite well with fine and at the start of the 145km straight we came across three Japanese cyclists on there way to Perth, I had to laugh when I saw them because I was expecting them. To make absolutely certain they were Japanese I got out of the car and asked them where they were from. They all laughed when I burst out laughing. 

A little way down the road it started raining and Amanda took over the driving while I tried to get some sleep, not possible with our children who like  take turns at shouting at each other. By the time we got to Balladonia we had decided that we would push through to Esperance which made for a 900km driving day. It poured with rain for 100km out of Norseman but by the time we got to Esperance in the dark it had abated. Unable to find anywhere open we managed to pitch tent outside a camp ground just opposite a beach. Yesterday we went for a drive and I must say this is a stunning stretch of coastline. It has been raining this morning hence I have had time to update the blog, now the sun is out it is time to go and play. Here are a couple more pics of where we are. I'll post in a couple of days with our experiences here. 

Eyre Peninsula News

English explorers are a funny lot, Flinders named Port Lincoln after his home town. I'm not sure if there is anything here that resembles Lincoln, England. First of all it's a beautiful place with not a carrot field in sight. If you do visit make sure you shoot up to Mount Winter and see the incredible views of sea and land which spread for miles around. Come to think of it a lot of it is very flat just like Lincolnshire, no carrots though, only Finn.

Best place to start in Port Lincoln is the Axel Stenross maritime museum and watch the video that fills you in on the history of the place and why they love tuna so much...it makes them very rich. If Col and Dot are on duty at the front desk they will tell you what is worth while doing and seeing. Col is about 80 and advised me not to dive with the White Pointers so I didn't. He seemed too sensible to ignore and besides they charge a small fortune for the privilege.  Instead we went to the fish shop and bought some flake, bread crumbed it and ate it. That's the closest we will get to a shark thanks. The king prawns and Coffin Bay oysters were pretty good too.

Not sure why Coffin Bay is named so but I do remember a surfer recently got attacked by a shark there. The kids were being irritating so I suggested that we go for a swim there. No sharks there that day but there were plenty of jelly fish which scared Marley and Callam but Finn, yes 'ol Finny boy just went and picked one up and chased his brother and sister with it. Finn is becoming one with the sea after catching a blue swimmer on a hand line off the jetty at Port Lincoln.

We have been in Streaky Bay for three days now and had some little adventures around the rugged coastline here. I think it would be better that I just paste a few pics in here rather than bore you all with some description of the Bauer Loop drive and the snow white sand hills which the kids went down on their boogie boards. I also did my Steve Irwin piece on the double headed, pine cone, shingleback lizard. You can see the video here, not very informative and quite childish really but funny according to those that were there.

The Nullarbor beckons. We will take two days to cross it, not sure where we are stopping although I am sure we will not be cramped for space. So in the next couple of days expect the usual shots of straight roads, Nullarbor signs, shoe trees and probably the start of my very own GPS tree seeing as bloody Neville Navman has decided to expire so I will ceremonially peg the sod to a rock I suppose, if I can't find a tree. Off to bed to watch Wolf Creek. Sweet dreams and happy birthday Brad, I think you are now older than me. Cheers, Dave.

Port Lincoln - Streaky Bay

We had a great time exploring around Port Lincoln. We visited a Maritine Museum, Tumby Bay and Coffin Bay for swim. Marley got a nasty splinter in her foot from the Jetty but with the assistance of a local we got it out. We ate amazing seafood and met another family with 3 boys who are also doing an around Aus trip. Finny also caught a big crab on a hand line! He was super excited! The journey to Streaky Bay was not too long and we stopped to look at Murphy's Haystacks. These are great big isleberges which are granite rocks just sitting in the middle of a field. They were mistaken as haystacks hence the name. We arrived at the caravan park to 40 degrees heat! The kids played in the shade while David and I set up. I turned so red in the face that David was worried for my health and sent me for a swim with the kids. The water in the Bay is weird though because it only comes up to my knees no matter how far out I go. All the boats are tied up way off shore. Good for Finny though. We are off to find a REAL beach with waves tomorrow. Fussy kids I have. HAPPY CANBERRA DAY TO OUR ACT FRIENDS! Love the Thomo's.