12 Apostles and beyond!

Another goal achieved and the family shot at the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road.  Nice day with some cloud and weather to the north made it a bit shady for photo's but a spectacular spot!  Cheryl has left us in Adelaide and flown up to Townsville to meet her newest Grandchild Quade Ashton Colahan son to Shane and Olivia!

Nice shot of the Apostles to the West

And to the East!

An old German lived and raised his early family for a few years in the base of this old tree.  Amazing early history of Australia and the German influence in the areas before and around Adelaide.  Have forgotten the name of the town I took this photo sorry!

Kacie chasing Lambs in the fields....you can see the last Ewe and Lamb running behind the trees on right!  M.A.D!

Kacie hanging out with a dinosaur friend in the forrest!

Bloomin big lobster!  Kingston south of Adelaide on our way to Mount Gambier and beyond.

Sunday Roast and one of our last dinners with Cheryl before she flew off to Townsville.  Sorry not quite in order these shots?

Gottal love your webber Q!....Roast pork with crackling and Rack of lamb with seeded mustard.

Great little town with old tree trunks carved into (in this case) fairy tale characters.  

Walking through the park from the Adelaide Caravan Park on our way to the city we came across a plat a tree day activity and signed up and had a bit of fun!  Was a bit funny while we were there to all of a sudden hear a lion roar!  Nearly pooped our pants before we realised we were beside the boundary fence of the Adelaide zoo!

Wind farm

Couldn't help myself........what bird is that friends?

Bucket list number 786 -  Catch a King George Whiting....check!

We put the tinny in at Ceduna where we stayed at a van park for a few days and with some advice (find a patch of sand in the bay in amongst all the grass beds, burley up and wait) managed to catch a feed of KG's.  As per ritual the first one was released and we had fresh KG's for tea. 

Happy little fisher...! Old Arthur two chins Jackson and his first ever KG whiting.  They don't fight anywhere as hard as a big sand whiting from up home way and come in quite easily for their respective size?  Also are a very slimy fish and seems to continue to excrete slime hours later back at the fillet table when cleaning.  The taste I am sad to report is also no where near as nice as your good old sand whiting of which the locals were also catching plenty along the coast as we travelled.  THis photo day before the below photo's when we managed to convince JB to come out with us.

Jessy-belle caught the biggest I think?  We should have measured them I spose but they were all legal (30cm and 31cm depending on which side of Ceduna you fish).

Kerriann and her first KG and another happy camper!

Slippery little suckers!  Don't get it on me mum!!!

Seal Colony just south of Streaky Bay at Point Labatt.  Wild coastline!  The dots on the inshore beach are the seals.  The babies were seen to come and go swimming in the shallow pools and no sign of any sharks or killer whales!

Doing it tough it seems?  Eat, sleep and snuggle!

On the way in to the seal colony we saw a sign for Hay Stacks and drove into a property and found this top little spot.  A bit stone hengishy.....?

In one of the hay stack formations was this fantastic wild bee hive.  Very cool!

We missed going to Wave Rock so this one at the Hay Stacks will have to do us.....!

Streaky Bay (I think) and very calm weather conditions.  Brought some magnificent oysters at a shed we were given instructions to find....huge bucket of oysters for $20.

Coffin Bay....more bloody oysters!

The big green shed oyster farm we were told to go to and where I got the bucket of oysters from.  All those tubes are part of this massive oyster farming operation in Streaky Bay.  Love people and went to all manner of trouble on a Sunday to get me a bucket of oyster for $20.  Don't you just love fisherman/women the world around....best people in the world!

Giving the oysters a bit of a shake and wash at Cape Donington (September Beach) in Lincoln National Park south east of Port Lincoln.  Magnificent location!  We watched a pod of dolphins here that appeared to be supporting a birthing mummy in the shallow close to the beach. 

The best oysters I've ever eaten hands down....!  Here I'm shucking a few for Kacie for Killers....one for her and two for me natural!  Kerriann could be nervous...hard to say?

Western Australia and the Nullarbor here we come South Australia!

Not the best picture but an idea of the tree we climbed.

Cut and paste from wikipedia   "Gloucester National Park contains three climbable karri trees, each in excess of 60 metres tall. The most famous is the Gloucester Tree, but there is also the Diamond Tree and the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree, which is the tallest of the three and stands at around 71 metres. Each of these trees has been fitted with metal rungs which allow visitors to climb these trees and reach the constructed lookout at the top".    This pic is the Bicentennial Tree and it was to be honest quite scary!  The metal rungs are a fair bit apart and if you slip during the climb you are dead!  What amazes me is that in this modern age of sue the pants off who ever you can for cash that this is open to the public 24/7?   Kacie (who else!?) and I climbed to the very top and I was below her one rung up and down and we both calmly talked each other up and down!  71metres up!

A shot through the rungs...definitely not for those afraid of heights!

View from the top with a nice rainbow.  Then a shower or rain was on it's way and we high tailed it back down to terra-firma!

A photo and one of the top 5 sights that I/we were looking forward to crossing the Nullarbor.  The coastline of southern Australia is magnificent and the entire way to Melbourne we had beautiful weather and flat seas with off shore breezes and a tail wind!

Queensland is that way somewhere!

A free camp nice distance off the road.  Having 410 litres of water capacity/capability has and is a God Send!  We are able to do at least 5 days with a shower every night  and not run out of water (be-it a get wet, get soaped and rinse off; it's still as good as a holly wood when you're in the bush!) oh yeah....and take a chainsaw.....easy fires are the best!

The Nullarbor was a breeze!  I think we camped two nights along the way and with a tail wind it was a very great drive and the service stations were all very nice and no drama's had whatsoever.  Had heard all sorts of horror stories about some of the roadhouses etc... but we walked in with a smile and left the same. All great folks living in a very isolated part of the Australian continent!  

If you get a van go for the full oven....great for pizza, pies or dim sim's for lunch along the track!  This was while waiting for laundry to dry at........somewhere?

Western Australia visitor info centres have a clean up Australia bag that contains heavy duty bags, a set of tongs and some info and a fantastic idea.  Here's Jess cleaning up all the rubbish around one of our free camps along the way.  Still can't understand people that leave their rubbish everywhere they go....I have no idea why?   Australia needs to hammer the 'Keep Australia Beautiful' campaign like they did when we were kids.  Picking up other peoples toilet paper is a drag.

Margaret River and Cape Leeuwin - a quick Post to catch up!

Great Shot! Crowls mentioned this magic spot the 147 year old Busselton jetty which has an underwater observatory at the end and a train that takes you the 1.84 kilometres to the end where in the old days they loaded timber for export to foreign shores.  We arrived and the weather was coming in as you can see! The underwater observatory was unfortunately closed and the train was going to be a while so we stayed, sat, saw and had coffee! 

 A little town just north of Margaret River called 'Cowaramup'.  Firstly, many of the towns from the Margaret River area all the way to Ceduna have names that end with 'up' or 'rup'.  We learned from the web that the word 'up' from the traditional land owners of the region refers to 'a place of' so if there's heaps of cows, then the place name has cow in the name and ends in 'up'!  Then theres a version about Danish and 'rup' but bugger them....Anyway I digress, the locals have absolutely nailed it tourism wise by buying hundreds of these fibreglass cows of all shapes, gait and size that are scattered throughout the small town.  Only days old and still most with concrete bases yet to be dug into the soil the affect on tourism for the town was so evident as everyone was stopping to take photo's of the cows!  10 POINTS TO GRIFFINDORE!

Thats the Indian Ocean meeting the Southern Ocean....south western point of mainland Australia view here is from Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse..apparently the tallest lighthouse in Australia. 

Nice shot of the girls on top of Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.

Entrance to Lake Cave one of the many caves that run through the Margaret River area. We visited Crystal Cave and this one and very beautiful indeed.  Tried to get the photo's underground to work but only got a few by long exposure and sitting camera on deck. 

Lake Cave - Water level is a bit lower than when first discovered.  This shot has what they call the table. Very nice suspended 5 tonne of caltrite...calcium stalactite/mite thingamy jig......pretty cool to see,  photo's do no justice.

How to save a fortune on the road....make your own lunches!  Food is better, fresher and we can heat up soup etc... (background is pumpkin soup on the portable gas stove) for lunches on the run.  

See you soon!

Down to Perth......

Perth!

From Hamelin (near Monkey Mia) we headed south to Perth via Kalbarri and the coast roads and locations to Geraldton and beyond.  A camp here and there and photo's follow with the appropriate comments!   No hand feeding great white sharks but hopefully nothing to boring.....?

This is moon rise inlad at an elevated coastal caravan park on the coast somewhere between Indonesia and Antarctica....(presently can't remember the place.....?)....what was cool was the moon rose due east as the sun set west and I won't bore you with another sunset but the following morning exactly where the sunset the moon followed course.....sort of had to be there kind of thing but cool in the least..!!!!

Moon setting over the ocean in the West....through the binoculars it was really nice!

The best I could do without a super zoom! Moon setting at about 7am.

On our way south we stopped and unhooked the van and did the drive through the Pinnacles.  Scientists still can't figure out exactly what caused these formations but it was very different and nice to know that when we got back to the information centre the explanations provided were only hypotheses....we don't actually know everything us humans!

The Pinnacles (near Cervantes WA).

Another top little spot just north of Jurien Bay WA (council camp only cost between 7 and 10 dollars a night BYO water and use provided toilets with gas mask, gloves, gum boots and heaps of chemicals).  Photo taken with ocean behind me.  It was basically empty with the school holiday a few days away and unsure why it wasn't packed?  The weather was perfect as it has been everywhere we've been but it seems everyone heads North for the coming winter.  We have yet to feel a very cold wind or temperature and still could snorkel at this spot.  Tried to find a few lobsters which Jurien Bay and environs are renowned for but alas not one could I see? Heaps of Abalone shells and kelp like sea weed and grass, stayed in the shallows to avoid an encounter with something big and snappy!

This is what the place is famous for.....fortunately we caught one and it tasted pretty much the same as painted or greens (which is surprising as painted and green eat grass and WA lobbies are omnivourous....)? Hoped that they would be like the oysters in Ceduna and due to plentiful supply a bit cheaper than East side but computer say noooooh!

Yay!!! The double decker bus tour of Perth.....! Really easy way to see the city and learn a bit of history. We scored the top deck front seat which was fantastic and fun to dodge branches and see the sights from an elevated and relaxed atmosphere.

Freemantle - Lost fishermen memorial...wonderful!

Thought we were back on Karumba wharf.....very similar to Raptis colours!

JB with a statue of a Lobster fisherman at the memorial wharf.  Really nice but would love to have gutted and filleted the morons that use the cray basket as a rubbish bin.  We cleaned it up and said a prayer for the lost at sea!  God bless all our fishermen and women, sun on your faces and breeze easy!

Driving past this we were chatting in the car that it must be a convent or boarding school.....yeah right...Swan River Brewery.... GOLD!

Kings Park at Perth, simply stunning!

HMAS Submarine 'Ovens' amazing experience to see how our sub-mariners live and work!  This is the girls playing in the main torpedo bulkhead.  Kacie pushed the red button but it was fortunately disconnected!

MORE TO COME...Love to all! xxxx