Westward Ho

25 January 8 April 2008

Another trip and another travelogue so delete now if you are not interested! The trip is to WA for the grape harvest at Peter's place followed by a slow return to the east via the south west of WA and the coast of SA.

We left Canberra for Adelaide on Wednesday 23 Jan 08 and stayed overnight at Hay. Found a great place on the banks of the Murrumbidgee adjacent to the town where there were a few other travellers. Next morning after a brief run we had a swim in the river after seeing some locals doing the same. It was delightful and we wished we had done the same thing the previous (hot) evening!

Onwards towards Adelaide and to a camp southwest of Ouyen. Kate had looked up our camping guide and found a free camp next to a lake in a Nature Reserve south of the road to Adelaide. After following some back roads we eventually found the dry lake and disused toilet block - think our camping guide was five years out of date and the drought had not been taken into account! We decided to stay and had a very quiet night! The night sky was amazing.

In Adelaide we stayed at Geraldine (my sister) and Dick's place at Urrbrae. We spent the long weekend with them visiting their new beach house near Victor Harbour for a welcome to the neighbourhood for Dick and Geraldine and a farwell to their friends from whom they were purchasing the property. We did a bit of cycling around Adelaide and enjoyed the cycling friendly atmosphere generated by the Tour Down Under. We watched the final criterium stage through the streets of Adelaide which was very exciting.

The following Tuesday we picked up Kate's mum and sister Tricia from Adelaide airport for the trip across the Nullabor and travelled to Port Augusta that afternoon. It was stinking hot there so Margaret and Tricia booked into an air conditioned cabin and we hooked up to power and turned the air conditioning on! Next day we started the trek across South Australia and spent the first night on the side of the road. Found a suitable spot at about 4 pm and set up camp. Kate and I slept under the awning on stretchers and Tricia and Margaret in the van. Fortunately the truck traffic wasn't too bad and we had a comfortable night.

What can you say about the Nullabor - if you haven't driven across you need to for the experience! If you have then you know that it is ever changing and a very interesting drive. The cliffs of the Great Australian Bight are stunning and it was enhanced for us by the misty background over the water and the clouds forming from the moist air rising from the cliffs - truly magnificent and wild. There didn't seem to be as much road kill this time (this was our sixth crossing) so the number of wedge tailed eagles was down. I think we only saw about five. We had another camp by the side of the road and enjoyed a peaceful night apart from the flapping of the annex. We had to put up two sides to stop being blown away by the powerful south easterly wind which persisted most of the night. Fortunately on our roadside camps the weather was kind and the night temperature dropped which enabled good sleeping.

We went past the spot where a number of truck drivers were killed recently when they became trapped in their vehicles in a bushfire. The highway had been closed then reopened when it was considered safe. Unfortunately an unexpected wind change caused the fire to change direction and increase in intensity trapping them. It was obviously a very intense fire as everything was burnt completely, just ash left. Very sad.

We spent that night at Southern Cross in the local caravan park. Once again it was a very hot night so we were grateful for air conditioning after a very pleasant pub meal. The following day we arrived in Gingin at Peter (my brother) and Leeann's place to a very warm welcome.
Kate was looking forward to spending a few days in Freemantle with her mum and sister so next day it was off to the south. We borrowed Luke's (our nephew) new satellite navigator and it worked a treat - once I had established that I wanted to go down the Brand Highway and not head over to the coastal route. It kept wanting me to turn right then recalculating and trying again at the next right turn. After a while it gave up and happily took us through Perth and onwards to Freemantle. It certainly came into its own in the narrow streets of that city and brought us to the front door of the hotel with ease. After leaving the troops at the hotel it happily navigated me back to Gingin via the same route - smart machine! I am sold on the thing, and have added it to the shopping list!

Kate spent the next couple of days touring Freemantle and Perth before saying farewell to Tricia and Margaret at the airport. We think they are enjoying the trip across the Nullabor more in hindsight than the actuality! Anyway it was great having them with us.

Meanwhile the grape harvest began in earnest with three successive nights harvesting Chardonnay grapes. We began at about 7 pm and continued through the night till we had achieved the target truck loads for that night which were 60, 98, 60 tonnes. On the middle night we had two harvestors working and three tractors with chase bins (one of which I drive). It was very hectic! When not grape harvesting I have been hay carting - loading round bales onto a truck and trailer with a front end loader in the paddock then unloading them into a storage area. The final night of harvesting was last night when we started at 3 am (the only time the harvestor could get here) and loaded 36 tonnes of Chenin grapes onto the truck. We could have done another 2 tonnes but did not have enough bins.

News came through the other day that they might have a buyer for the Shiraz grapes (100 plus tonnes) which had previously been contracted to Evans and Tate (they went bottom up last year owing money to the farm). Apparently there is a bit of a glut of them here and everyone is looking for buyers. It seems the grapes might go to a buyer in South Australia. With the limited water in the Murray Darling system grape production is expected to be severely curtailed so South Australian buyers have been contracting grapes from the West. They crush the grapes here then transport the grape juice across the Nullabor by tanker trucks.

Weather here has been hot, hot, hot with 35-38 degrees almost daily and night temperatures not dropping much below 20 degrees. There is usually a bit of wind so it hasn't been too uncomfortable. It has made us appreciate our air conditioner and it has certainly had a good workout.

We are off to Durian Bay with Peter and Leeann in their Winnebago this weekend to swim with the sea lions and with a bit of luck a trip on a crayfish boat. More later!

2.
Well the trip to Jurien Bay to see the sea lions did not turn out as expected but more of that later. We did get away on Friday afternoon and had a relaxing trip up the Brand Highway to the turnoff to Cervantes. Along the road in we passed a massive windfarm - I counted 50 but it turns out there were 48. I really enjoy the sight of these massive machines (blades are 40 metres) churning away - much prefer them to the sight of fossil fuel burning power stations. And this location was well away from the coast on fairly ordinary farmland so it was doing noone any harm.

Needless to say we (I) had to turn in to the visitors' viewing area and read about it. Commissioned in 2006 the farm was set up to provide the power for the Desalination plant which has been built to provide Perth with extra domestic water capacity. So supposedly the huge power requirements for that plant are carbon neutral. Makes you wonder why they haven't done the same for other power requirements.

We camped north of Jurien Bay at Sandy Cape for the princely sum of $11 per night and for that we got a composting toilet! But the coastline was magnificent with high sand dunes and beautiful water. Leeann and Peter arrived at sunset in their "new" Winnebago. Unfortunately their "house batteries" were not charged and we couldn't work out why this hadn't occurred on the drive up. This meant a bit of mucking around with his generator to get power for pumps and hot water - a little disappointing for them. Swimming was great but the snorkelling not so successful because of turbid water.

We had a couple of days of enjoying the swimming and fishing with some success at the latter. Peter, Leeann and Rachel left on Sunday afternoon but organised a trip next morning for us on a crayfish boat. The rock lobster industry on this section of the coast is world famous and 90% of the catch is exported.

Next morning at daybreak we were at the jetty ready to board "Mind Games" with Stephen, the captain, and two deckies, Stephen's son Lee and Cody. For the next 5 hours we navigated around Jurien Bay using GPS to locate over 100 pots which were each checked and re-baited.

The skipper motors up to the buoys (usually two per pot/line) and the decky throws a grab over the line then using a capstan winch hauls the crab pot to the side of the boat. The cray pot is shaped like a matchbox with one of the large sides larger than the other. You could say it looks like pyramid with most of the top cut off. They are made of pine and have a red plastic entry funnel in the top beside which is the bait chamber. It seems the crayfish cannot swim upwards through the funnel which is about 15 cm in diameter. The pot has a removable end and two escape holes for undersized crayfish and other creatures. So the pot is hauled up the side of the boat and into a cradle where the removeable end is slid to the side and the crays tipped into a stainless steel holding trough. The end is then slid back into place and the bait chamber is replenished with more bait (in this case a fish - probably a mullet or like fish). The pot and accompanying lines and buoys are then stored on deck until all the pots in that area are checked (10-15). The skipper then motors around until he finds a suitable mound on the seabed using his echo sounder. He sounds a horn and the deckies immediately launch a pot over the side together with accompanying rope and buoy. You have to admire the deckies running up and down on a moving deck moving the 70 kg pots and making sure the ropes and buoys don't get tangled. It is also dangerous work as a tangled rope when the pot is launched can easily drag things over the side including humans on occasions!

The boat goes out every day and only has three days off every month during the season. The pots are removed from the ocean during that time and I am not sure why - it may be the time they moult into a larger shell, memory not so good. It does mean the pots dry out which prevents or kills the myrid of sea creatures which attach themselves to the sides of the pots and most importantly for the wood worm which destroys all but a few species of wood when they are immersed in salt water.

The mortal enemy of the crayfish is the octopus. We saw about four hauled up in the pots and the resulting shells of crayfish which the creature had devoured. They are quickly dispatched by the deckie and taken back to shore for bait.

The crayfish are all measured very carefully as they must be more than 75 cm along the thorax. Far more were thrown back than were kept which probably indicates a healthy population of growing young ones. The crew ended up with two large boxes of crays which we were told amounted to $1200 so it was an average day for them. They gave us a couple to sample which was very kind of them.

Kate took half a seasickness tablet before departure and another half later when the seas were larger and the boat started to sway. Unfortunately she felt very lethargic and got to the stage when she could hardly talk because of a dry throat. But she wasn't sea sick!! I didn't bother and for most of the trip felt okay watching the deckies at work. I would have liked to have helped but couldn't imagine how I could have stayed upright on the heaving deck. During the last hour I felt a bit more queasy and was very grateful to step onto dry land back at the dock!!
All up it was a fascinating day and we will never eat a lobster in future without remembering the work which goes into landing them on the dinner table!

The plan was to go and swim with the sea lions on the next day but it was not to be. Kate had a little "deja vous" feeling as she had the same phone conversation with the tour provider four years earlier when told that it was unlikely there would be a tour next day because of rising seas due to a gale warning. So we abandoned Jurien Bay and headed back to Gingin. We have been doing cattle work and some much needed maintenance on the many trees which adorn the property. It seems likely the property will be sold in the next six months so the owners wish to tart the property up ready for potential buyers.

We will be heading off soon on our elongated trip back via the south west of WA. The car and caravan performed faultlessly on the trip over. Our "new" Landcruiser is much more stable on the road than the Discovery so driving is far more relaxing. We covered 4600 km on the trip over using 884 litres of fuel for an average consumption of 19 litres per 100 km. We are very happy with our purchase.

3.
We are back on the road and arrived at Esperance this morning. Fortunately the caravan park has wireless internet so I am sitting in our airconditioned caravan writing this email on our laptop. Our little temperature gauge says that it is 43 degrees outside but inside it is a pleasant 29 degrees. I stepped outside a minute ago and it was like walking into an oven!

It was sad to leave Peter and Leeann as we had enjoyed being their "neighbours" for the past three weeks. They had been great company and had made our stay delightful. We had the caravan set up on a large 120 x 40 metre stretch of green grass which Leeann assiduously waters through the summer months. It adjoins their house and is in front of a large stable building which in a previous life could house 20 horses. Now it only houses Rachel's horse and several motorbikes!! We had views across much of the farm including the vineyard blocks through some large gum trees. It was really lovely to sit outside the van as night descended with a much deserved drink after a day's work on the farm.

It is rather amazing to come from the drought ravaged eastern states to this little oasis where water is plentiful thanks to the Gingin Brook and a bore (which of course is all monitored and paid for). I managed to wash the caravan for the first time in two years and even washed the car twice, wait for it........with a hose!! Felt really guilty but it was great!! Kate says Ruth will never forgive me!

Driving southwest from Gingin we connected up with the freeway which has extended Perth's development north along the coast. It is quite an amazing transport corridor with a commuter train running down the middle of the freeway and bike paths adjoining it. We drove straight to Perth with no holdups then continued on to the relatively new southward equivalent where a new rail link has been built to Mandurah down the middle of the freeway. I don't think we dropped below 80 kph all the way. It is a little startling and unnerving to be sitting on a freeway at (100 kph) and be overtaken by a train travelling at 120 kph.

Shades of Europe! So we cleared the city effortlessly and continued down the coast stopping at Bussellton for a swim and walk out on the jetty(2 km). We thought we would find a free camp further on at Dunnsborough or Cape Naturaliste but we were surprised at the development which had occurred there. Seems anything near the Margaret River area is being or has been developed for the tourist whether local, interstate or overseas. So in the late evening we found ourselves at the extremely pretty town of Yallingup. We wandered the beach in the late evening and watched some surfers catching the waves on the new craze (to us anyway) of standing on large surfboards and using a long handled paddle to build speed to get on the waves. Some of them were quite graceful.

Next morning we wandered south and called in at Vasse Felix winery (as recommended by Julie and Milton!). Had a pleasant coffee and Kate tasted and purchased some wine. You get the impression after a few visits to wineries that every winery has a flash restaurant, stunning grounds, a well laid out tasting room including local artefacts and winery-embossed clothing, and maybe a sculpture garden. Maybe this is the only way to make it onto the "tourist trail". I must not be cynical as a non-believer, it does make for a pleasant, if expensive, (whoops sorry!) experience.

Onwards to Hamelin Bay where we set up for a couple of days. Out came the fishing rods (not fast enough for my fishing-tragic partner) and to the beach for some pleasant hours. The beaches in this region are stunning and the water very clear. We did some snorkelling and watched the stingrays in the shallows. They seem to be used to humans coming right up to the water's edge at times (I am sure someone feeds them). I think Australian's are much more hesitant to interact with rays after Steve Irwin's tragic death but it didn't seem to worry some of the overseas visitors we saw! We did a day trip from there to Augusta and Cape Leewin which is right on the tip where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. This was a truly stunningly picturesque location. One could imagine it being a wild place in storms but fortunately it was very calm and overcast for our brief visit.

Unfortunately for us the weekend coming up was the long weekend in WA so we had to vacate the ocean and head inland to Pemberton - most of the seaside caravan parks were booked out. We spent a couple of days exploring the karri forests including a run and ride on our mountain bikes. A culinary highlight was the delivery to our van of a marron and trout dinner prepared by the local hatchery (marron is a freshwater crayfish local to WA). Delicious!

We went to the famous Gloucester tree but were not tempted to climb it. For those not familiar with WA forests, in years gone by the Forests Department constructed lookout platforms on the tops of strategically selected trees throughout the karri forests to give early warning of fires during the fire season. They are no longer used for this purpose but a couple have now been made tourist attractions. The Gloucester tree is one of them and anyone can climb it. 25mm steel rods which are about 70 cm long have been sunk into the tree at 50 cm intervals spiralling up the tree. The Lonely Planet describes the 60m climb as "nerve wracking". Needless to say this bunny with the yellow stripe down his back was not tempted to go more than two rungs! Even the "egging on" of two smug elderly senior citizens who had recently descended could not shame me. We did of course have cycling shoes with metal cleats on them so it would have been irresponsible and unsafe............! Well that is my excuse and I am sticking to it! Kate went up a little higher than me, would have gone all the way but she was sensitive enough not to shame me. I remember driving up to the tree in 1982 on a gravel road and seeing a sign and that was about it. Now there is an entry gate with a manned booth for the entry fee (we avoided the charge by riding bikes!) and hotmix roads and carparks. Signs, toilets, shelters, you name it it is there. Progress!

We moved on to Walpole for the tail end of the long weekend and stayed in an out-of-the-way caravan park as all the others were booked out. Next morning we managed to get on the local cruise through the lakes system. We agreed it had to be one of the better ones we have ever been on. Whilst the scenery was good and the local history interesting, the guide had all of us in stitches. He managed to get an informal question and answer session going pitting one side of the boat against the other. Some of the yarns he told were very funny highlighted by a bungled hold up attempt of the local bank.

We have been fishing at various locations and have had mixed success. We caught some whiting at Hammelin Bay and some herring (know as tommy ruff in the eastern States). So no big fish but a number of small ones.

Next day we left Walpole via the Valley of the Giants where we did the Tree Top Walk. If the Gloucester tree was nerve wracking then this walk was spine chilling. I wasn't prepared for it and it sneaks up on you. The walk is about 400 metres and goes out over a valley on a narrow walkway the flooring for which is see-through mesh. The Walkway is supported every 30 - 40 metres or so by a vertical pole. The walkways snake through the canopy of the tingle forest and at one point is 40 metres above the floor of the forest. I couldn't wait to get off it as apart from having a see-through floor the sections sway about as you walk on them. Not a very secure feeling for one who is not happy looking down!

We passed through Albany on that day but did not stop as the town was overrun with passengers from the QE2. Lovely town but we decided to move on. About 80 km out of Albany we turned towards the coast and stopped at Norman's Beach which was about 26km off the main road on dirt. This turned out to be a beautiful camping ground on the beachfront. Cost $8 per site and it was collected on a Saturday, if you were there. We were not so a free camp. The beach had a rock shelf about 100 metres off shore so the water was very calm and clear. We snorkelled and saw some beautiful fish and a large stingray. We also fished further along from a surf beach landing a feed of herring - a great spot and one we would love to come back to.

So we will spend a few days here at Esperance and the nearby national parks before heading back across the Nullabor.

4.
Since the last email we have been here in Esperence and in the National Parks to the east. What a wonderful coastline with great headlands and off shore islands with fine white sand and turquoise water (I think the two are related!). Many of the granite islands drop away dramatically to the sea with smooth rock faces. It is great scenery.

Esperance is a bustling town enhanced by the mining boom. The port of Esperence exports grain, mainly wheat, nickel and iron ore. They have nearly 200 ships per year including a recent 200 tonne giant loading iron ore. I would really like to have seen that in the harbour, I think it would have filled the area. Interestingly the nickel is coming from a new massive mine which we passed at Ravensthorpe. The nickel is delivered in containers so they have imported a massive container crane from China to load the ships.

Esperance has a wind farm nearby which supplies about 20% of its and nearby areas requirements (they had the first wind farm in Australia. The rest is supplied by a gas fired power station. They are not connected to the national grid.

We did a wildlife cruise as recommended by other caravaners and it was very good. We saw dolphins, sea lions and NZ fur seals. They also have some local white breasted sea eagles on two of the islands we passed which flew around the boat and dived on a fish thrown out by a crew member. It was fantastic to see the eagle diving from 50m up down onto the ocean. They seemed to pick up the fish without touching the ocean.

After our cruise we went for a ride along the coast on the bike path from hell. We were initially very impressed with this path when we drove our car past it, hot mix surface, beautiful scenery along the coast and well off the road. When we rode it however we found it an extremely difficult challenge probably impossible to the average recreational cyclist - the hills!! I am sure we couldn't have ridden it on our road bikes because the grades were so steep. For all that however it is a remarkable path with magnificent scenery.

Next we headed for the National Park to the east and stopped at a camp site at Cape Le Grande. We were successful after a while fishing from the rocks and managed to land four snook (long thin fish). We also hooked a 5 foot ray or banjo shark. I say we because it was a combined effort. Kate hooked it and thought she had snagged her line. Part of my role in this fishing life is to do the dirty work like unsnagging lines and re tying them if we loose tackle! So I took her rod and moved along the rocks to try and unsnag it. After straining to the point of breaking the line I suddenly felt it move. I wasn't sure what was going on but after much straining and dragging I finally could see this ray shark. After getting it to the water's edge and taking the photo we let it go.

So the place was so nice we ended up staying for 4 nights. We explored the many beaches and coves by car and bike. One of the highlights was climbed Frenchman's Peak which is one of a number of rock granite outcrops which rise above undulating ground. The Peak rises spectacularly with bare rock sides to a cap which has eroded away underneath. In addition erosion has left a cave which opens north and south. Thought of another way there is a rock bridge at the top of the hill. It took us half an hour of hard climbing to reach the peak and the views were spectacular. To the west we could see Esperance, to the north the flatter wheat/desert country, to the east more bays and islands of the coast and to the south islands and the southern ocean.

Today (Saturday) we are heading off across the Nullabor with the aim of staying a few days at Fowler's Bay before heading for Adelaide and Melbourne.

5.
Leaving Esperence we travelled north to Norseman then turned right to head across the Nullabor after first checking to find out the prices of fuel on the way. There is one company which owns several fuel outlets on the Nullabor and their operational mission statement is something like "rip off the travellers". So it is important to plan to avoid them - on this stretch Balledonia, Caiguna, Cocklebiddy, Madura and Border Village. As an example, on the way over Border Village had diesel at $1.88 and less than 10 km down the road at Eucla it was $1.68. So we had to make Norseman to Mundrabilla which is about 650 km, probably equivalent to the maximum distance we could tow if we drained the tanks. Unfortunately we had to purchased 21 litres of fuel at Cocklebiddy at $1.88 per litre to make sure we could get to Mundrabilla where the price was $1.68.

We stopped on the side of the road for the first night then turned off the Eyre Highway in South Australia for Fowlers Bay. We had started reasonably early after our side-of-the-road stop and as the day wore on it got hotter and hotter. When we stopped for lunch our little electronic thermometer in the van registered 41 degrees. A little later the air conditioning in the car seemed to be loosing efficiency and we thought it was cactus. Fortunately after a bit it resumed operation and hasn't stopped since. Hopefully it was only a momentary protest at the difficult task it was being asked to achieve because it was bloody hot! Apart from that we are very happy with the car's performance. I had a transmission temperature gauge put in before leaving and it didn't rise above 85 degrees during that horrible day so I was very happy.

We found Scotts beach, a remote beach in the Fowlers Bay Conservation Reserve, and we had the place to ourselves after the locals left on Sunday evening. The water was fairly brisk but after 40+ degrees we weren't complaining. So we had the quietest night yet with only the breaking waves to serenade us, much better than the trucks on the Nullabor.

Next day we fished before deciding to move to a different beach in the same Reserve (the real reason was that Kate remembered a nearby beach where we had a wonderful time fishing in 2004). Unfortunately the fishing wasn't so good this time and we headed for Ceduna next day.
A traveller's dilemma - on the way to WA from SA they confiscate all your fruit and vegetables at the border. On the way back the SA authorities confiscate all your fruit and vegetables at Ceduna. Why is it so? Does one State believe that the other State has some disease it doesn't? Beats me! We expected to loose everything on the way over and planned accordingly. We knew we would loose our fruit on the way back and planned accordingly. But we didn't think we would loose the vegetables on the way back. Bummer!

We spent one night in Ceduna before travelling south down the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula to Streaky Bay then 50 km south to Baird Bay. Why Baird Bay I hear you asking?

You might remember from a previous email that Kate has been keen to swim with sea lions - she isn't anymore! At Baird Bay we were able to take a boat ride which visited a sea lion colony and we could swim with sea lions. They are truly beautiful creatures and we had a great time snorkelling with the young ones. Unfortunately there was one older one that took to nipping people in the water and unfortunately decided to try and take a piece out of Kate's leg. It also nipped me on the leg so I am also cured of swimming with them. The "Eco" tour operator shrugged off the incidents as just part of the tour but I am not sure how long he will be in business if the biting continues! Kate had a big bruise on her thigh to prove it, fortunately she was wearing her wetsuit or it could have been worse.

The second part of the tour proved to be very much more satisfying as we were able to swim with dolphins. The operator motored over to a certain part of the bay and found a pod of dolphins. Dolphins always like to ride the bow wave of boats and the tour operator took advantage of this to enable us to swim with the dolphins. We were dropped off then the boat circled us with the dolphins swimming in front of the boat. They obviously knew we were in the water and seemed to come over to us out of curiosity. So we observed them swimming under us and alongside us and so close that we could have reached out and touched them. Fantastic!
The township(?) of Baird Bay has about 20 houses and we were told three full time residents. It also has a camp ground and we were able to camp for the princely sum of $5 a night. For that you get a composting toilet and a sheltered BBQ with picnic tables. Lighting is provided by solar panels. It is a lovely spot overlooking the bay. We decided to prop there after our sea lion tour and avoid the overcrowded caravan parks at Easter. A few local wheat farmers arrived for some Easter fishing, their families following a day later. The little camping ground was rather full but nevertheless great fun.

The fishing was great from the nearby (3.5km) ocean beach which we rode to on our bikes over very rough tracks - frequent limestone outcrops. Generally we had the beach to ourselves and we landed a good number of tommy ruffs, one 40 cm King George whiting and three good sized salmon. Kate landed the largest salmon after a good fight. We thought we would have to ride back to put it in the fridge as we landed it early in the morning and we intended fishing for most of the high tide. Fortunately our neighbours came past and took it back in their car fridge. I mention this bit of trivia because when we got back they teased Kate and said there wasn't much of the fish left as after they had each photographed each other they said it had got a bit knocked around so they ate it. Fortunately they were only kidding and we had a beautiful baked fish that night after cooking it on the BBQ.

Next stop was Elliston for a day then we travelled to Melbourne stopping at Port Augusta, Adelaide and Horsham. The trip was uneventful but much busier than on the western side of the country! We can also report that with the end of summer the grey nomads are on the road again and heading west! We passed lots and lots of caravans heading the other way.

Our Ben arrives here on Saturday night so we will spend a few days here catching up with Julia and the rest of the family before wandering back to Canberra.

6.
Not too much excitement on the last part of our trip from the west. Ben arrived on time at Melbourne Airport and apart from the shock of the parking fee ($10) it was great to catch up with him. We spent a few days in Melbourne checking out Julia's newly purchased flat before heading south east for a few days at the coast.

We were at Julie (Kate's sister) and Milton's place at Venus Bay when the destructive winds hit Victoria. We battened down the hatches of our caravan and the house and watched the wild weather. It wasn't long before we had lost power in the house so we were grateful we had the Bushtracker especially when the power was off for more than 24 hours (no power in a tank dependent house meant no water as pumps need electricity). With our own water supply and solar power we were even able to watch TV and enjoyed a comfortable night.

Next day the winds were still howling and Ben and I got a bit of cabin fever so we decided to go out for a ride. It was fairly difficult with gusts nearly flattening us but we managed to pedal to the surf beach (No 1 beach). Here we saw an amazing sight with white caps everywhere. The underlying rollers were breaking on the sand but beyond them the wind waves were at right angles to the beach and the sea was like a boiling cauldron. On the beach the wind was picking up dry sand so that there was a moving sea of sand about 30 cm high.

We watched for a while then decided to go to the next beach upwind and see what it was like there. After a hard fought battle with the wind we got to No 2 beach and bravely decided to ride back along the beach to No 1 beach. The wind was still howling and the sand-sea peppered us as we pushed the bikes to the hard sand. Once on the bike I was instantly doing about 30 kph without peddling and it was quite unnerving. The wind was blowing my T shirt up my back and the sea of sand seemed to be passing me at a prodigious rate so that I almost felt as though I was standing still. This was all happening as I flew along the beach at between 30-40 kph. Frightening!

Ben, who was behind me and as always had his little digital camera at the ready, managed to film some of it, how I don't know. The film is full of noise and I don't appear to be moving much the sand was going past so fast.

In a very short time we were approaching No 1 beach and I wasn't sure how I was going to stop. I should explain that the ocean beach at Venus Bay is a long curved beach running about 10 km to the west and 16 km to the east which was the direction we were going - all of it is rideable at low tide. After No 1 beach there is only about one spot to get off the beach and that was about 13 km up the beach. It was impossible to walk into the wind so you can see it was fairly necessary to stop at No 1 beach. I did manage to ease the bike towards the ramp and finally slowed in the soft sand. Ben with a 50 m wide beach to pull up on nearly managed to clean me up as he couldn't pull up as quickly. I lifted my bike out of the soft sand and the wind instantly blew it up to the horizontal like a flag. After that I have no desire to be caught in a cyclone!

We abandoned the beach and Venus Bay to return to Melbourne and then on to Canberra. Ben is with us for another week and a half before returning to England. We are settling back in to the suburban life cleaning up the garden after weeks of neglect.