Motor Homes Travels of South Australia Part 8

13 We stayed the night camped at the Caiguna roadhouse. We awoke to rumbling bellies (kidding) and made an early start; grocery stores in Esperance were singing a syren's song to us. Just as a side note, diesel along the Nullarbor is $1.97 per litre and this rattle trap that we are driving is guzzling like crazy. Esperance is on the coast and our camp ground is across from the beach. We have restocked our fridge and are giddy with anticipation for a real meal. The beach walk is a reminder of how insignificant we are. The sand is powdery fine, the wind is howling at about 40 knots and to say the surf is pounding…. is an understatement. We are small potatoes on this planet.  It is fantastic!

 

14 Today, we were going to do a 30 minute helicopter ride and see all of the good things about Esperance from the air. I am (was) so excited, I've never been in a helicopter before. But the day dawns overcast, misting rain and the wind is stronger still than yesterday (if you can imagine!) so the heli guy says he's not going to fly. Fine by me, I can't imagine being buffeted around in an eggbeater over wild oceans and rocky cliffs and wondering what to grab, my lifejacket or parachute.  So we drive. First the scenic Ocean drive and it takes us along breath taking beaches and monumental granite headlands, one two, three, four. These pristine beaches are empty. Yes the weather is blustery, but even in calm, hot days; these places are un-crowded, the Aussies are very lucky to have this luxury at their doorsteps. Next we head out of town to the Cape le Grand National Park, more beautiful beaches and diverse plant systems and granite mountains (hills), yada, yada. But we are blown away with how incredibly beautiful. Today, with the windy conditions, everything is wild and rugged but we stop to imagine what a calm day would bring and we see pure tropical paradise. The sand is like cornstarch, both in color and in texture, so fine, it scrunches under you foot step like snow. Amazing!  We are fortunate to be able to see this because the roads to get here are black top (or bitumen in their language) and every other park that we have come across has been 4x4 access only. So our advice to future road travelers of Australia - make sure you are in a 4x4 so you can see the best She has to offer. Oh, and we came across two "wild" kangaroos nibbling leaves while doing a walk in the park. This has been a great day.

Motor Home Travels of South Australia Part 7

12 Guide books are somewhat creations of fiction, not that what they tell you is in a certain location isn't there, but they make everything sound so "you have to see this!" that we find that we pull off to see things that really aren't that impressive, including whole towns. So I guess guide books are really great elaborations of the truth. Reader, read between the lines. Today we head out across the Nullarbor Plains.  (null - "no", arbor - "trees") This takes up all of the middle portion of the south of Australia; similar to our prairies, but way different. Super dry, the vegetation ranges from scrubby bush, to scrubby trees, to scrubby grass….. you get the picture, almost 2000 km of a constantly changing vista. The scenery is lovely in it's own wild and natural way. The area is a wild life preserve too, but we only saw two pair of emus and too many road killed kangaroos to count. I guess the roos come out at night and are similar to our deer in that they run toward your lights as you drive down the highway. The semi trucks out here have great big bush bumpers on them (roo bumpers) and protective screens across the windshield, so it is obviously a problem. This area also has camels. No, you are right, not naturally, but turned wild from the camels brought in to haul freight from east to west Australia in the early years. The story is that now the Aussies are rounding the camels up (instead of shooting them) as they consume precious grass lands and are shipping them back to the Middle East because the Aussie camel blood lines are more pure and diverse than what they are back in the lands of their origin. Regardless, we didn't see any, which sucks. So the highlights of today, we stopped at the Head of the Bight, (the dipped in portion of Australia that looks like somebody took a bite out of it) which is a part of the coastline that has impressive 90 meter limestone cliffs, perpendicular to the crashing ocean below, very awe inspiring. For all of the days that we have been traveling beside this South Ocean, it has been rough and windy, not an inviting piece of water at all. Next is not a highlight, but a low light, crossing the border from South Australia state into Western Australia state. They have quarantine! This station is in the middle of the Nullarbor and is 525 miles east of the next grocery store (we are heading west) and they take ALL of our fruit and vegitables! The roadhouses (rudimentary truck stops) that are sparsely scattered between this point and Norseman (next town) do serve food, buuutt… refer to the mention of "truck stop"! I'm still, typing, so you can tell we didn't starve.

Motor Home travels South Austalia Part 6

10 Exploring Port Lincoln; well the population is 13,600 so it is not a big place and it only takes a short bit of time to see the foreshore or down town area. We have our lunch of lovely fresh oysters and head off to the Lincoln Park Nature Reserve; but something is not sitting well with Glen and we head back to the camp ground while he is still feeling well enough to driving. We'd both be dead if I suddenly had to drive this big bus on the wrong side of the road. No it wasn't the oysters, as he says he was feeling a bit off prior to lunch. Happily though an afternoon of sleeping and resting was all he needed to be feeling better. I had even dug out our travel insurance, just in case.

 

11 It is January 26 and more significantly - Australia Day! Our brief poll of Australians didn't really answer our question as to what they were celebrating, eg. Confederation, first settlement or what? Just a celebration of being Australia, I guess. Again, we are covering a lot of ground, but take time out to drive through the Coffin Bay Nature Reserve and are rewarded with some stunning beaches, crashing ocean surf, enormous sand dunes (basically the whole coast!) and rugged cliffs. We spotted and photographed an emu in the wild. They are funny creatures. The terrain they live in is scrubby brush about 5 feet tall and their heads are just tall enough to see over the tops, so we played a game of hide an seek to get our pics.  Back on the main road, about mid day, we pull off to look at Murray's Hay Stacks. Big freaking granite pillars and knobs, not rocks, because they attached to the huge rock plate below them. The rock is dated at 1500 million years old and the formations as they stand today are about 100,000 years old. A whole village of them clustered on a farmer's sheep field. Weird things are on this earth. Our final destination today is Ceduna, the gateway to the west.  A quick drive around this town and we have seen it all. No worries (Aussie lingo) we're here to rest for tomorrow's marathon drive.

Motor Home South Australia Part 5

8 Our day starts off gently; cellar doors do not open until 10:00am, so we have a leisurely breakfast and conduct all of our internet business before heading out. We love the fact that we have good and reliable internet coverage for 99.9% of Australia, we have a cellular wireless device that we can run both of our computers off of. The toughest part of being away from home has been the lack of contact that we can have when we are in the Island Countries. Anyway, off we go. We have asked for advise on what some of the local people's favorite winerys are and Tanunda is the home of Jacob's Creek and Penfolds (both common in Canadian stores). The area of the Barossa Valley includes about 6 towns and several smaller hamlets, with no more than 6 km from one to the next. This makes easy traveling through wonderful lush vineyards on quiet paved roads. Whistler Estates is the consumer's choice so we head there first. I don't know if it is the  fact that we have nothing else to compare to yet or if our "palates" are un-tainted by other tastes yet, but the wines presented to us for tasting were Fantastic. Another case gets shipped to Mystery Ships stores. The Sauvignon Blanc's are crystal clear and refreshing, the Cab Sav's are clean and bold and the Shiraz is spicy and fragrant. Does this not make you want to go out and grab a glass? Plus, they have a kangaroo petting zoo right out their front door. What more can a person ask? Roos are pretty cool little animals and we obligingly petted them and took many pictures. Now we have to see them in the wild. We have now been directed to Artisan Wines (because her daughter runs it) and we travel across two townships to get there - remember very close.  From here we travel to Angaston (on the daughter's recommendation) for lunch via the Mengler Hill Lookout road. Beautiful views of the surrounding valleys. Penfolds in Nuriootpa is next. Although it is a very large cellar door, we are a lot disappointed in their tasting experience and the wines presented. Sometimes it is the people behind the counter that make the experience. By now we have just about had enough wine to last a life time (maybe not, maybe only until tomorrow) but I want to go the Seppeltsfield cellar door because it is listed as the oldest wine maker in the area and they have tours of their facility and fortified wines from each year since they began producing - 1858. Fortified wine is similar to port only it is aged in the barrel. Great tour, great guy, Nigel, behind the counter and we were privileged to taste 100 year old Fortified wine - Absolutely Delicious! We round our day by having dinner at Appellations a restaurant with a fixed menu, matched with appropriate wine tastings. Superb!

 

9 Gotta cover some ground today. We're headed for Port Lincoln a mere 8 hour drive from Tanunda. We pass through the balance of the wine growing country and into grain lands - all harvesting is long completed - and along the coast again which is blown sand dunes and scrubby bush. What a day of contrasts. Port Lincoln is on the Eyre Peninsula and is a major shipping port for South Australia. The whole area is noted for their tuna fish harvest (they farm tuna here too) and their oyster production. The peninsula is also reported to produce 30% of Australia's grain crops. Viterra grain terminals are everywhere. Can't wait for fresh oysters for lunch tomorrow!

Motor Home South Australia Part 4

6 Wine Tour Day! Woo Hoo! Darn, they only open at 10:00 am, what will we do with ourselves until then? This is actually a really great way to see the country side. We set off with map in hand and a handheld GPS unit to back it up to find our first Cellar Door, Bird in Hand. We are pretty anxious to see this place as we have experienced some pretty good Cab Sav's by them in Canada. Sadly, we are a bit disappointed, but buy one of their tasting selections anyway maybe it will taste better when we drink it by ourselves. Our day is spent criss crossing around the area seeing the sites and tasting the wines. This part of Australia was settled by Germans and it is reflected in the style of the buildings.  Petaluma Cellar Door, a beautifully refurbished, original mill building, located in a wonderous garden setting, is our choice for a delectable lunch with a pre-requisite wine tasting. After a day of 5 Cellars doors though, Bird in Hand, Nepenthe, Petaluma, The Lane and Shaw and Smith, we are wined out and even though it is early in the afternoon, we head back to the camp ground via the grocery store, to just hang out. As I have mentioned time and time again, Aussie Land has a huge variety of weird and wonderful birds so bird watching is always on our list, our new bird it the Galah. According to the Aussie couple who provided us with it's name, it is a very stupid bird and will fly right into your car - hmmmm? Anyway, it is very pretty with it's grey/green top feathers, rose colored breast and white head crest.  

 Because we have had such a hectic day (whew, wine testing is tough!) we support the local economy and eat out at BBQ Hill Chinese, no wine with dinner tonight, Thank you.

 

7 Sunday morning has us walking off to church, it is much easier to find churches here than in New Zealand, as there really is a church at the address that we find by google-ing. This community (church community anyway) is all elderly people, the Priest greeted us directly in his opening, as we really stood out in the crowd.

   We're moving on to Tanunda today, but first we stop in the small town of Hahndorf. Hahndorf was settled by German immigrants in the 1850's and is very quaint and touristy with lots of old buildings still in use. We walk up and down the main street checking out all of the shops. Remember, we are still in wine country and at the end of our walking, there is a cellar door for Somerled wines. Somerled, was the name of the owner's, Grandfather's horse, who won the local steeple chase in 1908. I love horses! We had a great chat with the owner Rob, while he showcased his wines and we came away with a new favorite - Sparkling Pinot Noir - very refreshing (it is 35 degrees out today) and light, lovely clear color and great taste. We ordered some to be shipped to the boat.

     It is still early afternoon when we arrive in Tanunda. This is the heart of the Barossa Valley wine making region. Hey, somebody has to do this job! On entering our camp site, Glen nearly jumps out of his seat… there are still some collector cars and rods (and their owners) hanging about the grounds. Our camp set up is swift, park, plug the unit in, roll out the awning, flip out the chairs and walk over to admire the cars. Car guys are car guys no matter what part of the world you are in. We spent the rest of the evening swapping car tales and travel stories with our 7 new friends.

Motor Home South Austalia Part 3

4 The trip today will see us cover quite a few miles, so we are up early and off. Within 1 hour we are pulled over for our first site of the day, the limestone cliffs of "ship wreck coast".  Absolutely stunning! The next 10 km are spent stopping and starting as another bend in the coastal highway brings more of nature's architecture. They have a famous site here called the Twelve Apostles (only six are still standing) and it is the etching of the limestone coast by the ocean that separates these 100 foot pillars out of the main land cliffs and then slowly over centuries pulverizes them into the sea. Further along is the town of Mt. Gambier and they have the distinction of having numerous limestone caves formed right inside the town. One is an amazing sink hole that looks like an old rock quarry, but is not man made. They have planted a tropical botanical garden in the bottom creating a lovely "secret garden" effect. The town's water source is from "the Blue Lake", another limestone crater, formed with volcanic help. The carter is blocked off from any entrance (it IS their drinking source) but they do have a viewing platform. It is the most amazing shade of blue, indescribable. We haven't downloaded our pictures yet so hopefully the color comes through in the photos. The town of Robe is our final stop and our camp ground here is based on a beautiful beach.  Another cute sea side town, lots of tourists, restaurants, pubs. When we ask for a Tooey's New (beer) in the pub, we are advised that w are in the "wrong State". It seems that Australians are very loyal to their own State produced beers. This doesn't bother us of course, so we have South Australia's Cooper Ale and Sparkling Ale. Good stuff.  Dinner is out at one of Robe's very fine sea food restaurants, Sails. We talk to everybody (our kids would be appalled) and strike up conversation over dinner with the Australian couple next to us. This is a great way to discover what is good to see and what is tourist hype, not to mention that we meet a lot of really interesting people too.

 

5 Next along our route is Kingston, lobster capital of Australia. So "when in Rome…" we detour off the road to find a vendor of "live" lobster. After much choosing and weighing and wrapping up, we have our two x 1.5k live lobsters (cray fish) ready to go. Well, we should Maybe have asked what the price Might be before we went to all of that trouble. $225.00 later, we have to console ourselves with how good these guys are going to taste when we finally sit down to eat them. (sheesh!) It is a driving day again today and we are driving beside a large, long, ocean estuary. It is very dry here. We are headed into wine country, the Adelaide Hills, and Mount Barker is the location of our caravan park. Tonight we "PIG OUT" on fantastic lobster and we have enough left over for another meal, so we feel much better about our "investment".

Motor Home South Australia Part 2

3 We navigate our way out of town and head off on the Great Ocean road. Lots of cute little sea side towns and gorgeous sweeping ocean views, shining sandy beaches and rugged cliffs. We stop to walk on the beach to see if there are shells for our collection on the boat, but it is very windy and cold today and there are no shells, so our beach walk is rather short. We have a sandwich in the camper (how exotic!) and stop for a beer in Apollo Bay. We wanted to try their locally brewed stuff, but a taste test convinced us to go for a brand we know. Next stop is to take a walk at Kennett River to see koala bears, they look so cute and cuddly. One fellow tells us a story of an Asian tourist who throws his camera at his buddy, saying, "take my picture with the bear" and scoops a sleeping koala out of a low branch. The buddy is too stunned by what his friend is doing to take the picture and in the mean time the cuddly little koala has woken up and is now scratching his holder's face off. Lesson - Do not let cute and cuddly fool you. Those claws that they hang in the trees with are very pointy and strong! Oh, but they are soooo cute! We came across one on the ground and he just ambles over to a tree - no big rush to get out of our way or reach. Glen has 100 photos, at least. Now as we drive along, we find that they are very prolific here in this region. Our next stop is Mait's Rest a rain forest walk in the Great Otway National Park.  It is a light 30 minute hike and has lots of beautiful rainforest vegetation, Jurassic Park ferns and trees, cool moist fragrant air. Today is getting pretty packed with "doing stuff", just because it is all very close. We are on the Otway Peninsula now and the site of an old majestic light house, which of course instigates a walk around the grounds and a trip up the light house stairs. There are information people spotted about and we get a low down on the history. Our camp ground tonight is Bimbi Park and we find that we didn't have to make a special trip to see koala's as they live right in the camp ground. This is more what a camp ground should be like, with towering trees and spacious sites. The city caravan parks are basically parking lots with toilet/shower facilities, no ambiance at all.

Motor Home Adventures in South Australia Part 1

1 Our motor home adventure begins by flying from Gold Coast airport to Melbourne.

Tiger Air is the carrier, I booked them because they were cheap. Then I had all kinds of second thought as some locals we have met were telling us horror stories about them, kind like our Canadian national air line (no names mentioned) but all turned out ok.

Arrive Melbourne 1:15 and grabbed a cab to Britz (company name) to pick up our unit - it is junk so we express our disappointment and are fortunate to be able to upgrade to a Maui (better unit) as this is the height of their rental season. Our 1st night is at the Ashley Street caravan park after getting groceries at Coles. Dinner is spaghetti a la camper. The Australian open is on in Melbourne right now, sight seeing here might be crazy.

 

2 The first real day of exploring sees us take a city bus to downtown Melbourne and walk around, it is 41 degrees today (that is hot!) We tour an 1858 church and gauk at all of the old architecture, they really like to preserve their heritage buildings.  There is a free bus that takes tourists around to see the general downtown sites, so we save our feet and ride it for the full 90 minute circuit. A hidden little alley, that goes for about three blocks,  is like a large food court, any kind of food type you can imagine, each vendor has a couple of tables out front and this is where we choose to have lunch. At the day's end we take the bus back to our camper, there is no way we would have been able to negotiate city centre with "the beast". Our steak dinner is fried as the camper grill does not work. Camping can be so challenging.

Mooloolaba to Gold Coast

Well it is finally time to finish off 2011, since we've been home to Calgary and are now back and it is 2012. Man! Where does the time go?

 

O.K. so it's Nov/11 and we were heading into Mooloolaba Marina, this is an in between spot after exiting the Great Sandy Strait and making the run to Brisbane. It is a nice marina and everybody is extremely friendly. We met Peter there, who is one of the Nordhavn sales persons for Australia. He is quite excited to have two 64 ft Nordies so close.  This is going to be our last night together with Eric, Anne and Bear so we have dinner out planned. Peter agrees to show us a really good place to eat and joins us for the evening, which is a good thing as he gives us a lovely walking tour of the waterfront/town area and finds us a great place to dine. Eric and Glen of course pepper him with questions about boats. We are quite pleased to learn that our sturdy little ships are holding their resale value well as they are of a very sought after model.  Do we want to sell them???

 

The next day, Glen and I say our goodbyes to Oso Blanco at 2:00 pm as we are heading out on an overnight jaunt that will take us out and around the protective Islands by Brisbane so that we may enter the coast line further south for the Gold Coast and they will continue down to Brisbane where they will stay for the next 3 to 4 months.  Gold Coast is more of an area than a separate city, and it is a very upscale area with multitudes of estate homes crowding the cannel waterways that go for miles and miles, manmade and natural rivers. After crossing the bar safely from the open ocean into the Gold Coast Seaway, we meander our way over very shallow waterways up to the Coomera River and after about two hours we are at our destination of Gold Coast Marina. This was recommended to us as there are lots of boat trades people and services here. But we find after a few days that it is a little too remote and too busy with work so we meander back along the Coomera to Sanctuary Cove Marina.  This is a great place with great shopping and lots of restaurants and bars. The beautiful Hyatt Sanctuary Cove is located here. This marina will be our home base while we go home. There is a Horizon boat dealership here and because we like all kinds of boats, we tour some 80 footers just for fun. The salesman, Colin, turns out to be a "decent chap" and long story short, he agrees to step into our boat a couple of times a week to make sure that all is going well. The marina guys are supposed to be checking, but Colin will be our second line of defense.

 

We rented a car for a couple of days, mainly to get us to the Brisbane airport to go home, but also to explore a bit. So we head inland about an hour to a place called Tambourine Mountain, reported to be a quaint little community with rain forests and boutique shopping. The rain forest isn't quite like those of Fiji or Vanuatu, but nice just the same. We see some really strange birds. I can see where a bird book is going to be a must. We stop at a winery and wander through the shops and of course have a lovely lunch.  The afternoon is spent driving through Surfers Paradise and Southport, towns, to view Marina Mirage, where we had planned to stay initially, but price and location got the better of us in Sanctuary Cove, less than half price of Mirage, quieter and all of the same amenities.