15 years and counting.
Posted: June 12, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: Australia, Camping, Cape Range National Park, hiking, nature, Ningaloo Reef, Nyinggulu, outback, roadtrip, snorkelling, travel, WA 3 Comments
Osprey Bay is our favourite of the 11 campgrounds in Cape Range National Park. Cape Range is the most accessible entry point for Ningaloo Reef requiring a two wheel drive vehicle, and 20m walk into the water to see reef fish going about their business. We’ve been coming to Cape Range since around 2010, and our first favourite was Lakeside campground before a severe storm washed it away along with someone’s camper trailer, which has not been seen since.
Each of the bays offer something different. Turquoise Bay is Insta famous for its prettiness. Oyster Stacks for the amazing array of fish, and Osprey? The turtles. So many turtles, it’s turtle soup. You can also get a campsite right on the water, with a view of the ocean, sunset, and whales breaching between August and October. Of course, there’s a cost to this. Not the $20 a night we pay for our prime real estate, but eight months prior we get up around 15 nights in total at 2.30am Adelaide time, in order to book a site. Harder to get than an AFL Grand Final ticket, sites are released at midnight Perth local time, six months ahead of the available date, and book out within LITERAL seconds. Waz has it down to a fine art, honed over many nights poring over multiple screens to eventual fail yet again. His commitment and attention to the matter of booking Osprey every year is probably one of his greatest achievements to date. Determined to beat all odds, he had me lurch awake with him at 2.10am and sit in front of my laptop and iPhone with strict instructions and a timing countdown to the second for when I was to repeatedly refresh my screens.
So here we are. At our favourite place, in our favourite site. Over 16 years of travelling around Australia, we have finessed the set up somewhat. We started staying at Roadhouses where there were so many mice the ground looked like it was moving. We stayed in Backpacker Hostels with the great unwashed and your stuff went missing from the line. We’ve stayed in Motels where you wake up with mouse poo on your pillow, freakishly next to your mouth. About 2009 we upgraded to a swag. For the non-Aussies that’s a giant canvas pillowcase you put your sleeping bag in, squeeze into that, and spend the rest of the night claustrophobically seeking air around the canvas covering over head. At Mt Dare in the centre of Australia, we had dingoes sniffing our toes, and awoke to a blanket of frost on the swag exterior, and 100% condensation in the interior.
In 2010 we spoilt ourselves with a two room tent, the construction of which was longer than the time we slept in it, and a solid marriage tester. In 2011 we hired a soft floor camper trailer and giddy with the luxury, decided to buy one off Gumtree located in Brisbane, not so far from Woodend, Victoria. One week after spending four months long service leave around the country in the soft floor, Waz got all excited and bought a hard floor, our first Aussie Swag, a triumph of Australian engineering and practicality. We had moved to Perth at the time, so I was dispatched to QLD to retrieve it. I had nights on the Nullarbor alone, but the busy Roadhouses were actually scarier. To get to your room you have to walk past a line of male guests sitting outside their rooms smoking and holding a tinny of Jack and coke and silently watching you. Then there’s the vehicles that double back when you’re at an outpost service station, and the driver pulls up to chat. No refuelling.
9 years and about 200000km later we are we are in our second Aussie Swag and out at Osprey, we are an oddity. It used to be a mix of hippy camper vans, a chaotic mess of two minute noodles, incense, tie dye, and an interior that looked like it needed a forensic clean, grey nomads in well loved Millard, Coromal and Jayco caravans, and tiny two man tents housing hardy Scandinavians, shelf stable wraps, cans of tuna and boiled eggs. Now it is either enormous caravans, roof top tents, or fancy camper vans, and about every two weeks a camper trailer may appear for a night or two. The demographic has changed over 15 years as well. What were hardy fisher folk, adventurous grey nomads, alternative lifestylers and remarkably intrepid Europeans are now mostly young families doing a one year loop, retirees, 25-30 somethings on a two week break seeking Insta moments, and a considerable representation of the European and South American continents. Campsites are awash with bikes, boats, scooters, skateboards, inflatable stand up paddle-boards, satellite and Starlink dishes. Some sites look like a teenage boys bedroom, others are, well, like ours.
We’ve set up often enough now that the recriminations are long gone and we now have our assigned tasks which we have allocated without discussion. Usually set up occurs in blazing sun, occasionally with a testing wind, so the less said, the better. It takes about two hours to do the full one month occupation set up, after which there is cold beer and a swim to reinstate a sense of humour.
Not at all soft.
Posted: June 6, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: adventure, Australia, Camping, exmouth, hiking, landscapes, nature, outback, roadsides, Roadtrips, travel, WA 1 Comment
As you travel through the Gascoyne region toward Exmouth, Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo/Nyinggulu reef, the terrain quickly becomes deep red and festooned with vegetation that is generally out to get you. Soft looking spinifex will shred your shins faster than you can say “wish I’d picked another path”, and snakes, bull-ants and March flies with anger management issues sit seething in wait. Our eventual destination is Osprey Bay, 80km from Exmouth town, and 1250km north of Perth.
Exmouth was created in 1967 to support US naval operations during the Cold War, specifically a very-low-frequency transmitting station capable of sending messages to submarines. The transmissions are enabled by incredibly high spidery towers, including one that is 387 metres high, the tallest man made structure in the Southern Hemisphere until Tower 108 in Melbourne in 2019 took the title. Not sure why. In 1992, the US Navy passed command to the Royal Australian Navy and it is now run by Defence. For military buffs, Mike Hughes gives a more detailed account and the comments section has some interesting memories shared by those who worked there over the decades. Before Russia got a bit excited once more in recent times and security ramped up, you could walk around the 1960’s American base with the original architecture, bowling alley, swimming pool, and super wide streets, like it was a museum.
Over the last couple of years a veritable farm of radars has popped up, allegedly weaponised, as one undoubtably anti-vaxxer whispered to Warren. This farm turns out to be Australia’s Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC), a joint tri-nation endeavour between the US, UK and Australia, to globally track objects up to 22,000 miles above Earth, like weather, space debris, and oh yes, hostile or ‘malign’ activity.
Thundering past the radar farm every morning at around 8am, vehicles and caravans point missile-like to their allotted campsites, whereupon they circle like vultures until the incumbents vacate. Many of these stay the night before at Bullara Station, a working cattle station that started out with a few campsites on offer around 15 years ago, and now offers lodge accomodation, huts, cottages, and fancy safari tents as well for 100’s of people per night.
It features one of my favourite kinds of architecture, I call it Colonial Outback Station. Remoteness, extremely harsh environments and 1400km to Bunnings has spawned incredibly creative and beautiful re-use of practical farm equipment and materials. Horse-shoes become door pulls, windmill blades make signs, wire becomes a chandelier. Giving early settler hut vibes, you see this kind of architecture in places like El Questro, and other stations that have opened their gates to travellers wanting an authentic outback experience. With coffee. And scones. And helicopters. It makes me want to recreate it at home in Adelaide. But then it would be like the crochet beaded top I bought in Sorrento, Italy, that had no business in Woodend, Victoria.
The other thing, perhaps the main thing, about Bullara is the famed ‘Burger Night’, stated in reverential and knowing tones. People the world over book their Bullara stay for a Friday for the station beef burger and live music. Didn’t seem enough of a draw to warrant the fame, until the conga line was mentioned. It was Sunday, and with a dawning state of FOMO we resolved to book Burger Night on the way back. Tomorrow, we finally get to Osprey Bay.
You’re a galah.
Punching above its weight
Posted: May 30, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: Australia, Australian native flora, Camping, landscapes, nature, outback, Roadtrips, travel, WA, wildflowers 4 Comments
For a rural wheatbelt town of around 900 people, Northampton has managed to outdo itself in Aussie Rules football legends, producing 11 players so far. This monument to the first 9 is a stand out. Literally. Each player is life-size and eerily lifelike. I loved it, which, as someone who has zero ball skills and still asks “why has the ref taken the ball off the short guy?”, means it gets my vote as top small town artwork.
Between about June and September, the trip between Perth and Northampton is a wildflower wonder, so much so, that busloads of people tour about just to stop on roadsides to search for donkey orchids and kneel in ant nests.
Of course, it’s May, so only the husks of summer Banksias are left, smoke from burning grain paddock stubble, and a road that looks a bit like this.
You often see the darndest things in the 110km blur that Waz affords me as we speed north as if we stole something. Case in point. An adorable small wombat moseying along on the side of the road. Did I grab it from its mother and run laughing up the road with it? No I did not, American Sam Jones, actually Strable, ‘Wildlife Biologist and Environmental Scientist’, and hunter it turns out.
What a disgrace. Bless Australia, whose wholesale outrage prompted her to flee the country, before I hunted her down and ran my own kangaroo court.
Then there’s the Woodleigh Impact Crater. One of the world’s largest, caused by a 6-12 km wide asteroid smacking into the Gasgoyne wilderness 360 million years ago. Big numbers. Big hole. And yet, inexplicably, this is where people have decided to construct a pile of rocks and manmade rubbish spanning gnomes, footwear (specifically crocs?!) creepy eyed stuffed toys, and r.i.p mementoes. Some things I have no answer for.
It’s getting hot, we must be close to Ningaloo!
Nullarbor crossing number 15
Posted: May 19, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: Australia, cape-le-grand, hiking, nature, Photography, travel 5 Comments
It’s almost 200km long, has a 147km section that is dead straight, features possibly the worlds most arid 18 hole/par 72 golf course that spans 1365km, and somewhere out there 100.000 camels roam. And I’ve driven across it 15 times, twice solo. The camels date back to the 1800s when they were brought over from British India and Afghanistan to help build railroads. All that aside, the coolest thing I reckon is its spitting distance proximity to the coast.
Last year we found this spectacular spot at sunset, right on the edge. Feeling immensely lucky to grab this piece of paradise and only slightly concerned one of us may walk over the edge in the middle of the night, we retired ready for another 1200km day driving. At 1am, the wind threatened to rip all the canvas from around us and throw it into the ocean, so we packed up and got an especially early start.
We didn’t make the same mistake this year and although we have a much more relaxed timeframe, for some reason we still feel the need to drive 12 hours a day.
Our first real stop for longer than 8 hours was Lucky Bay in Cape Le Grand, on the south coast of Western Australia. The beach is unfeasibly white thanks to being almost pure silica, squeaky to walk on and super fine. The last time we were here, there were legions of tourists feeding the resident beach-loving kangaroos various kinds of the worst extruded snacks. This time, I was ready to stage an intervention, but perhaps the crowded beach and many vehicles had changed things, the only kangaroos were up at the campsites, no doubt looking for Cheezels and Twisties.
Among the many walks on offer is the 2km and therefore easy sounding Frenchman Peak, a blob of granite rising 250 metres out of the surrounding bush. Kicking off with a wide and lovely track displaying incredibly delicate lichen, things quickly escalate and I found myself frozen on all fours clinging to tiny divots in the rock surface unable to go up or down. Waz took this pause to check his email.
We had packed in a lot. It was time to head to Perth for supplies!
Like Willie Nelson said.
Posted: May 17, 2025 Filed under: Camping, Iconic Australian images, roadtrip, SA | Tags: Australia, landscapes, nature, roadtrip, SA, travel Leave a comment
We’re on the road again! After Waz watching the countdown widget on his phone for a year, it finally said zero months/days/hours/minutes and he was officially retired. Naturally this needed a new retirement car. For a man who will wear shorts that were created in 1293 from burlap and stitched together with the hair of donkeys if it means he doesn’t have to shop, he created a time/space vacuum when he roared into Toyota, grabbed the next available, and redirected it to a 4WD outfitter in Adelaide for the works burger. It has more extras than a Lord of the Rings movie, and is constantly dinging him to ‘sit up!’ and for ‘driver inattention!’. Now there’s two of us in the car.
Our first stop was Lake Bumbunga, known for its pink colour caused by bacteria and algae that produce the magic colour. This location promises a spectacular photo were it not for the procession of travellers inexplicably trekking out to take photos of the man-crafted Loch Ness Monster embedded in the Lake.
Opposite the lake was Copper Coast Meats, a shop of doors and doors and cabinets of every meaty thing you can imagine. Odd location? Yep. Duck and fennel sausages? No worries.
Our first day destination was Coffin Bay for oysters, a more polarising snack I have not encountered. Parking was impossible, so I slowed to 40kph to let Waz roll out at the oyster vending machine and I drove on. After taking several turns I found myself at a single width, dead end, narrow road and proceeded to execute a 90 point u-turn with the ‘driver assist’ system screaming at every cm that I was about to collide with something. It was like having an ancient relative in the passenger seat that didn’t know I had a trailer behind me. The promise of Waz’s oysters with his own red wine vinaigrette at the National Park campground got me over the line without joining in on the screaming.
The next morning we ventured to the Discovery Park for a shower. We were hard pressed to decline the compelling range of goods, but the Nullarbor was calling and it was already 8am. Let’s go!
The Loaves and the Onions
Posted: December 30, 2018 Filed under: Australia, Camping, Iconic Australian images, roadtrip, SA | Tags: Lincoln National Park, Memory Cove Conservation Area 7 CommentsMemory Cove Wilderness Protection Area is a small bay within Lincoln National Park. It only has five camp spots, and access is via a key from the info centre and a skull rattling 4WD road in. Only 15 vehicles per day are permitted entry, in order to preserve the rare and endangered local flora and fauna, and naturally, fires are prohibited. Matthew Flinders named Memory Cove after eight of the ships company ‘unfortunately drowned near this place from being upset in a boat’. Flinder’s cat, Trim, made the right decision to remain on the barque Investigator, and continued on board for another year or two.
Memory Cove Conservation Area
In preparation, we conducted a round of all the local oyster fisheries in search of the mythical $10 dozen. The oyster folk were obviously out tending to their stacks as sheds stood open and unmanned. We then tried the local IGA chasing another long tale that they sold oysters for $11 a dozen. Crestfallen, we went to the only place open at that early hour – the local bakery – and consoled ourselves with a pie for breakfast. “Sauce?”, the ill-humoured woman behind the counter barked, wielding a large upended squeeze bottle with intent, “Um, yes, that would be great thanks!”, I stammered a little too eagerly trying to lift the mood, upon which the pie became mercilessly impaled on the bottle and about 300ml of sauce delivered into its meaty heart.
Finally. Memory Cove
Murphy’s Haystacks. It all began 1500 million years ago
The road from Smoky Bay to Port Lincoln follows the coast, but has just as picturesque vistas on the land side in the way of sweeping hectares of thriving agriculture. Every now and then brown signs signifying ‘photo opportunity’, ‘historical place’ or ‘point of interest’ will pop up and we randomly decide to check them out. Murphy’s Haystacks sounded like something worth a look, and the pink granite blobs formed 1500 million years ago were quite the oddity. They are on private land and entry is $2. A couple of caravans had camped overnight, owners and dogs emerging upon our arrival to leave a special kind of present for the next visitors. Which begs the question: Why do people choose free camps as an en plein air waste facility? Is this some kind of weird childhood rebellion?
Fresh Fish Cafe. If it swims, they’ll batter it.
By the time we reached Port Lincoln, the tomato sauce in pastry had faded from memory and seafood again burned in our brains. The Fresh Fish Place is a local art-meets-ocean-related homewares-meets 20 kinds of battered fish-café and supplier. I took my seat at one of the curiously baroque chairs paired with recycled boat wood tables and was immediately aware I was ruining the selfie for a couple seated across the cafe attempting to get a shot of themselves in the Italianate mirror behind me. They motioned for me to move and spent the next 20 minutes failing to nail the insta story. With about three kilos of smoked everything we could find, we made our way into the mythical Memory Cove, past large emu families and teams of boxing kangaroos.
Don’t care about the Duco
The only other people at the cove were a group of seven guys aged between 18 and 35 who covertly told Waz about the snakes around. They didn’t want to upset the little woman and besides, they had killed the snakes, so it was ok. National Parks camp sites are incredibly cheap, some as low as $6.50 per person a night, so what people do is book in one person and proceed to jam seven people on a site. But that doesn’t work, so they spill over into the Conservation area around their site, then come sunset, they light a fire.
Lucky to be here.
Early the next morning, a ute comes flying into the bay in the style of Dukes of Hazzard. It screams to a dusty halt at the edge of the boys’ camp site. Park Rangers emerge and a 30 minute discussion ensues. Somehow the boys had already dug in the fire and got away with it all, leaving soon after the Rangers. A woman soon arrives and sets up in their camp spot. She has come to Port Lincoln for a wedding and the bride-to-be handed her the keys to her 4WD, loaded up with a swag and camp supplies and pointed her to Memory Cove. Moments later she appears asking if we have any need for eight loaves of white bread liberated from their plastic bags, or ten kilos of onions. Or a bag to put them in. We spent the next 30 minutes adding egg shells and chocolate wrappers to the mix, digging bait bags out of the high tide mark and throwing 30 bait squid back into the ocean. I’m distracted by the big questions. Were the onions on special? Why don’t seagulls eat the bait?
The Loaves and Onions
I braved the extremely cool water in search of seahorses and weedy sea dragons. The weed was in beautiful shades of pink and green. A sea lion had popped up onto the rocks to check out Waz’s fishing results, so naturally I was expecting a Great White Shark to appear any moment. I stayed in until I went blue. It was time to head to Adelaide.
The darnedest things
Posted: December 13, 2018 Filed under: Iconic Australian images 5 CommentsYou meet the most interesting people out on the road. Like the guy with a buffalo’s skull strapped to his caravan.
While driving through the Gibb River Road, he stopped without warning, grabbed his tomahawk and dashed off into the roadside shrubbery. His incredibly understanding wife and curious kids stepped out of the vehicle momentarily to investigate, before immediately retreating, driven back by the halo of death in 40 degrees. A not inconsiderable time later, he reappeared carrying the head of the recently deceased and highly aromatic beast, and strapped it to the front of their car. When they made camp that evening, he proceeded to boil the head in the largest vessel he could craft to reduce it down to just a skull and horns. (I involuntarily gag at the very idea of inhaling four hours of boiling three day old roadkill, let alone the FOUR DAYS it took to get rid of the meaty bits). It is going straight to the pool room when they finally get home in a few months.
Straight to the pool room!
Then there’s the guy who had a substantial-looking metal detector. The minute a campsite is vacated, he does a whip around. I couldn’t help but ask if he had seen the wonderful BBC series ‘The Detectorists’, (he hadn’t). Judging me as a person unlikely to take up the detector, he cagily revealed that the best places are carparks, especially where people change, like at the beach, or caravan parks. Surfers, and cashed up types like Kite Surfers, and Triathletes are the best for dropping stuff like money, jewellery, watches.
The best haul was $60 in coins in 20 minutes at a place that would not be revealed, but average coin hauls came in at around $16-20 a car park. Beaches swallow many a wedding ring.
Ombre grass. Boorabbin
Which reminds me of a set of keys I found on the coral floor while snorkelling at Oyster Stacks in Cape Range, Ningaloo. When we got back to our car, a set of four slightly confused visitors from Hong Kong were standing at the car next to us. We enquired as to the whereabouts of their keys and their sun reddened faces lit up at once. “You found them?”. Well yes, but batteries and salt water do not a couple make, and the old style key you usually get hidden in the electronic case was missing. As they stood there in their swimsuits and cute reef shoes, clutching a yellow pool noodle and snorkel gear, without phones, wallets or mobile coverage, going pinker by the minute, we knew we were the ones to take them 40km back to the hire company to get sorted.
It transpired that the hire company was useless. We ended up buying them lunch, a new battery, fixing their key, and driving them back to their car. And this is when I learnt that what is obvious to me e.g. never swim with your electronics in your boardies, apparently is not obvious to all. So many lessons.
Eyre Highway, Nullabor Plain
By the time we reached Ceduna, our self-administered starvation diet would end. When you cross the Nullabor, the border between WA and South Australia deprives your fridge of all that is fresh and good. If you don’t eat bread, or things in packets, the only thing you can find at roadhouses (a petrol station with souvenir stubby holders) is a menu released some hours ago from the burning embrace of the deep fryer. (To be fair, the roadhouses do make all sorts of fresh sandwiches and salads, and homemade desserts that were not in evidence that long ago. A time when you could buy DEEP FRIED LASASGNE. Oh, yes.)
It’s got fancy. Ceduna Oyster Bar
But to Ceduna. We rolled up to the oyster shack just 30 minutes inside closing time, but things had changed. Where once you sat on the roof of the shipping container/shop in a roaring estuarine breeze, now they had expanded out the back, with flasher tables, chairs, and upscale cocktail forks. Upon sighting the $19/dozen price tag (a staggering 33% increase since 2015), Waz immediately cut the standard four dozen order down to two. These two dozen were gone in minutes, and a plan hatched to purchase more, direct from the oyster suppliers. “To Smoky Bay!”, the cry went out.
Limo on the Nullabor. Why not?
Smoky Bay has an immaculate caravan park with a kitchen and barbeque area the stuff of legend on Wikicamps. With our fridge offering nothing but eggs and UHT milk, we popped out to the General Store and found little that passed the paleo test. “No problem!”, said the lovely store man, “Have some whiting, and a slab of our own butter, and a tomato!” We repaired to the famous camp kitchen and were quickly joined by a collection of retirees, the number of which we had not encountered in one place on this trip. Bottles of wine came out, along with stories about all sorts of eyebrow-raising goings-on in Old Perth. Waz got very excitable, and taking an over generous draught of a Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon, proceeded to cough, spraying most over the woman opposite him, with lateral collateral damage to the rest of us. Reminiscent of an episode of Dexter, the spray left a body shaped mark on the wall and floor, but happily did not slow the nights momentum.
Crime Scene clean up. Rare sighting of Waz’s other half. (Thanks Mum for Waz’s knitted beanie). Smoky Bay
The next morning, we had to dig deep for our down jackets and beanie; it was strange to be cold. We were headed for Port Lincoln via every oyster supplier within a 25km radius and the promise of a magical place called Memory Cove. Memory Cove had just five small camp spots, entry was by key from the info centre, and the road rugged, deterring crowds. How romantic!
A kangaroo. Just because.
Whats on the menu at WOKA?
This is what happens when the Head Chef at WOKA stares into an unpalatable fridge and declares it Guest Chef Day.
Behold! the Salad of Fridge Remnants Curiosity: shunned red cabbage sauerkraut, almost soft sliced tomatoes and beans, wisps of coriander and spring onion tops forming a pillowy foundation for last nights Piggy Chook, salvaged with artisan Triple Cream Brie and a Dressing of Mysteries.
The Upside
Posted: December 11, 2018 Filed under: Australia, Camping, Iconic Australian images, roadtrip, SA, WA | Tags: #thisisWA #roadtripstate 10 CommentsSo how it is possible for an over-cleaning, hair curling/straightening, workout earring-wearing gal to contemplate any of this? It’s all about having the necessities – wine fridge, eqyptian cotton linen, and a Lagouile cutlery set. And a vehicle that can pull a camper trailer. Which is where Waz comes in. In the 14 days between Waz declaring we were to be on the road and departure, he avoided the distracting jobs like packing up and house maintenance, and applied himself instead to the purchase of a vehicle (bye-bye Telstra salary sacrifice and unlimited fuel).
Exmouth to Perth
Fearing death up Ship Creek, Waz made multiple trips to ARB, the mecca for 4WD enthusiasts needing gear ‘built for the harsh conditions of the Aussie outback’, and spent hours pouring over 4WD accessories from the eastern states. Faux necessities like a ‘snatch strap’ and random hitches were purchased, and a custom drawer/fridge slide fit-out ordered from Queensland. The vehicle was a no-brainer because it had a snorkel (what is it with guys and snorkels?) and UHF radio (listening to the truckie channel), cream sheepskin seat covers (already but a shadow of their original selves), dual batteries, rear coil airbags, one of those little mats on the dash, and a bull bar (OK, he had a point, that looks cool) with a rack of extra LED lights.
The heart of WOKA
From Exmouth we were headed East, via Perth, for installation of the custom drawers. These drawers are felt lined, lockable, come with a sneaky pull out table (that I cannot bring to use because it is the only thing not ruined by travelling so far), and a slide out thing for the fridge with renders access to the fridge only available to those over 180cm.
Dawn at Madura Lookout, Nullabor Plain
We like to do the 1300km trip in two days, usually 900km in the first and a fast run to Perth the next morning. Hours in the car are not spent in deep and meaningful dialogue, rather, we listen to true crime podcasts. I provide feedback to the podcast with things like “Why are you not checking under the swimming pool??!”, “Well, duh! Of course it was the husband!!”, and Waz says “SSSSShhhhh.”
Not just a roadside stop, outstanding floral diversity – Boorabin camp.
Driving into Perth after only a few weeks away seems a little weird. Familiar, yet not home. After 24 hours in the big Western smoke, a stellar install of said draws by the immensely practical Geoff, and we were on the road again, and dreaming about oysters at Ceduna. We dropped in for a cup of tea and sponge at the farm of some lovely people we met at the Landor races. He has a transport business, so when I said we were leaving Perth, he said “Righto, we’ll see you at 2pm then.” We got there at 1.54pm. He also suggested a great little free camp up the line at Boorabin. Never mind wikicamps, Truckies are your goldmine for road trip nuggets.
Boil the billy? That will take a massive fire. Madura Lookout, Nullabor Plain.
I’ve crossed the Nullabor seven times now, and it almost passes in a blur, except for the game of counting down to oysters. The other thing is that people tell me they imagine it is an arid desert scape. Not so! Vegetation and wildlife abounds, and free camps a plenty. We pulled in at dusk at Madura Lookout and after 30 minutes driving around and around, tempers fraying just a teeny bit at the edges, we gave in to the idea that stunning views were only possible with a night of flapping canvas.
Surely a home for teeny tiny people? I don’t understand. 100 extra points for the flag.
For all of my commentary on millennial backpackers, they have my respect. A very small 2WD car pulls up and four adults get out. They set about erecting a tent 1.5m x 1.5m suitable for five year olds camping out in the backyard. They then pull out two camp chairs and shelter from the relenting heat in a two square metre patch of shade. The others sit on the ground snacking on a bag of potato chips. At night they magically evaporate into thin air, then reappear in the morning. It is an eternal mystery to me. WHERE DO THEY SLEEP and WHERE ON EARTH DO THE COLD CORONAS COME FROM?
Queen size or I don’t leave home.
For those people who cannot conceive of a life without comforts, I’ll let you into a secret. It’s pretty comfy. Our home is an Aussie Swag Camper Trailer. They were the gold standard Aussie trailer, locally made and thoughtfully designed, until foreign imports forced them out of business in February 2018. Waz bought ours one week AFTER we did our last four month trip in 2015. I drove to Brisbane to pick it up and it only took 48 hours before I started talking out loud to myself.
Last week: “Why would we need a groundsheet?!!”, he asked. (Hello, car snorkel.) This week: “Can’t believe you took so long.”
The Swag has a 60 Litre fridge, queen sized bed, raised hard floor (try getting up there, snakes!!!), kitchen sink and four burner stove. It also features a massive pull-out draw under the bed for your clothes which I attack with a constantly critical Konmari eye. As the weeks go by, more and more clothes are relocated to a giant suitcase in the car – Items Not Suitable For Camp Life – and basic utilitarian kitchenware is replaced with beautiful (Waz: “It’s an egg flip. WHY do we need a different one?”) utilitarian kitchenware. A gas hot water system means I get a shower of sorts. We have our Alessi coffee pot, retro enamel cups. It’s not exactly roughing it.
Until I am beset with flies, mosquitoes, sandflies, midges, ticks, no aircon, defiant 37 degree heat, 40km winds, permanently damp clothes in 80% humidity, and feet that require a savage scrubbing daily. Then I remember, you don’t get our day-to-day from the comfort of home.
BONUS SEGMENT: Whats on the menu at WOKA?
Wazza’s Outback Kitchen Australia Presents Finger food: A foundation of pure beef – without added hormones – and hidden vegetable, layered with foraged spinach, roast beetroot, fresh grated parmesan, heirloom tomatoes, and finished with Nonna’s green tomato relish.
When you think you know everything
Posted: December 2, 2018 Filed under: Australia, Iconic Australian images, Landscapes, WA | Tags: Ningaloo Reef, Osprey Bay 3 CommentsI am reminded that when you think you know something, you know nothing Jon Snow.
About six years ago at Osprey Bay we went for a snorkel to the right of the boat entry point and saw nothing but sea grass and three fish. We declared the area barren and religiously snorkelled a small circle to the left every year since.
FAIL. Turns out I am terrible at taking photos underwater with something with no viewfinder. Most shots are on this weird angle and miss the main subject completely.
And then there’s my dodgy underwater filming (nod to The Blair Witch Project for unintended style inspiration)…y
This trip we had a chat with an American couple who said they had seen 40 turtles to the right. Say whaaaat? I figured that if I divided that by ten, it would be about right. Off we went, and presto! proceeded to bang into eight turtles more interested in sea grass than us. You literally had to swim around them in one metre of water. It was mating season and they were fuelling up for what appeared to be a game of turtle Stacks-On* at sunset.
FAIL. A case for not giving me the underwater movie camera.
We chatted to another couple who said neighbouring Sandy Bay was great snorkelling too. Back when we knew everything, we wrote it off as all sand and kite surfers. Apparently not. It teems with amazing coral and abundant fish-life just waiting for us; Moray eels, stonefish, and octopus a plenty. The strong current means crystal clear water at hightide, and very few other people with adequate kicking power.
Two Octopus holding tentacles (awwwww!) and hanging out with their friend (do you think they know it’s coral?)
I’ve always been super jumpy with fish over 1.5 metres like sharks, sting rays, and even manta rays, no matter how many times I’m told they are harmless, but by this stage I was spending five hours a day in the water. The nerves had to go; it was time to make friends with the reef sharks.
Waz testing a hands-free approach
At dawn and dusk, Waz would generally fish while I would tour the coral. There were always reef sharks hanging around with intent, circling me with their beady Mona Lisa eyes. I settled on a new strategy: to swim toward them. And thus, my love of sharks was born.
The well-kept secret that is Ningaloo is showing signs of a security leak, thanks to WA Tourism’s successful campaigns in Europe and Asia. If you fancy a bit of fish time or simply white sands and turquoise water, go soon. While it is more difficult to access than the Great Barrier, it is already much busier than it was six years ago, and of course the ever present threat of global warming means every year is precious. You won’t be bothered by President T either (only The Orange One would give himself a nickname), who will be kicking back at Mar-a-Lago safe in the knowledge that the phenomenon is a hoax invented by the Chinese, and dead when Florida and Mar-a-Lago is underwater.
An absolutely awesome young teenager from the camp across from us was travelling Australia with her family. She loved the water as much as I do and appeared every time I got the snorkelling gear out. Despite the worst goggles in Christendom, and just a bikini (I’d turn white and feel nothing after 20 minutes without a wetsuit) she never tired of it. She was handy with a loom, (everyone with a child aged between eight and 15 would know what this is) and sold key rings in AFL team colours to campers and gave me our camp mascots.
Our own tentacle holding Octopus camp mascots created and gifted by the lovely L.
She also had her own fishing gear and knew all the fisher person speak. She, along with many other camp kids we meet, is going to be an amazing adult.
Munty (our name) the resident one legged Corella who has perfected a cute head tilt and suitably dishevelled appearance for snacks.
For those travelling to Exmouth to see the Whalesharks, Cape Range offers fantastic snorkelling from the beach:
Oyster Stacks – most variety, tidal limitations, and a bit of current
Turquoise Bay – the most instagrammable
Lakeside – has the big things
South Mandu – an amazing drift 20 metres from shore
Why did the lizard cross the path?
And now, for everyone’s favourite segment: What’s on the menu at WOKA?**
Bug and grass fed Chicken, tenderly embraced by prosciutto that once roamed the same pasture, kept company with chargrilled vegetables – a Symphony in Yellow – and finished in Spanish spice.
*A game where one person is ‘it’, someone yells “Stacks ON!” and everyone else jumps onto the person that is ‘it’.
**WOKA – Wazza’s Outdoor Kitchen Australia
Campers, they are a changin’.
Posted: November 20, 2018 Filed under: Iconic Australian images 12 Comments
Exmouth is the town you go through to get to Cape Range National Park, which is fringed by Ningaloo Reef, one of the largest fringing coral reefs in the world. It was once a naval base for US intelligence during the cold war and the ghost town still exists with its extra wide roads for the American cars they imported so the families would feel at home. It is the gateway to my favourite place in the world.
Once upon a time you had to line up at the entrance of Cape Range National Park at 6am to get a campsite at one of several camps. You would sit there until 8am when the ranger arrived, and like a nightclub at capacity, would be allowed in as campers left. Generally, the vacated campsites all ran out within 12 minutes, and if you had joined the line too late, you would learn your lesson and be back the next morning at 5.45am.
These days you can book up to six months ahead online, which suits those with a solid schedule and a vision. Like a Taylor Swift concert, people all over Australia set their alarms for midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time and feverishly refresh their browsers to snag the oceanfront sites. Waz decided he was that guy, and he wanted to win. At 12.14am he announced triumphantly that we were headed for Cape Range in May 2019. This was one of a number of signs he was becoming too comfortable with having no job.
Cape Range National Park
And now for a Massive Anecdotal Generalisation. After a solid ten years of camping outside school holidays, I’ve noticed a sizeable shift in camper demographics. Before, you could rely on the following:
75% grey nomads chasing the sun
10% young families on the great Ozzie Roadtrip #homeiswhere thevanis
10% European backpackers
and 5% everyone else.
The grey nomads would book sites for 28 days at a time. The backpackers would drive in after dark and out before 7am so they could avoid paying the ranger, leave tomato sauce and tuna tins in their wake, fill the air with Gauloises cigarettes, and (if local businesses are to be believed) the french steal stuff off washing lines and communal fridges. The families would have adorable barefooted children bike riding laps of the camp area well after dark.
Full house at Osprey Bay
Fast forward 2018:
65% are young families travelling Australia for up to three years at a time. The children are the same, with more creative names like Axel and Shayelar. Seven year olds bring their own fishing kit and school you on local fishing conditions. Two year olds called Summa and Raiyn run barefoot across sharp rocks chasing lizards and snakes. The dawn chorus is no longer strains of Slim Dusty, but rather, the sound of a baby massacre as the Under Twos wake up and realise it’s UHT milk again.
Backpackers keeping it real, and the kangaroo they never see at 6am
The millennial backpackers have swelled to 15%, half still flirting into the night, littering cigarette butts and low on hygiene factors, but no longer driving offensive Wicked Campers, which have gone covert (thanks to collective Australian/NZ blowback). The other half are a new breed of cashed up ‘camping’ internationals, driving Winnebago’s, and sporting one-piece mask-snorkels.
The grey nomads have been chased out by the well organised internationals and families, making up only 15% of the campers. They also taken their solar off the grid to free camping.
The remaining 5% are the same; people like us and newly married older couples “avoiding their families”.
Fleeing the grasp of youth
Arriving at Osprey Bay at the witching hour of 3pm (full sun, long day driving), I unpacked a camp chair and a palm sized Wolf Spider flew out and made a bid for my foot. Ten year old Atticus from next door, magnetised by my shrieks, ran over and begged to deal with it, declaring the arachnid pregnant and in search of a nesting site.
Atticus visited frequently over the next two days and proudly told us innocent stories of how his Dad grabbed a turtle and went for a ride, “the turtle didn’t mind”, and his Mum proudly relayed how they had played with a squid until it “inked” them, how he grabbed a python in the Kimberley and how his Dad, despite many attempts, failed to get his hands on a fresh water crocodile at Windjana. I had no words.
Which brings me to the next massive generalisation. All of a sudden, the boom in young families who sell the house and hit the road are a different breed to a few years ago. They are outdoorsy enough to leave the comfort and security of a mortgage and organised sport, yet somehow missed the lesson about NOT TOUCHING THE WILDLIFE. Is this the Steve Irwin generation?
The fish were where I left them
I took to the water. Osprey Bay was as good as ever, but this time it was turtle mating season. One large turtle had a very long tail. A neighbouring camper queried, “Do you think the tail is something to do with arousal?”. I had no words.
As I see it 