Simon & Caroline's World Tour 07/08

Fremantle looked like a nice market town as we’d caught the ferry to Rottnest, so for Caroline’s parents last day, we explored what the markets had to offer. The town square could easily have been in Italy or France, dominated by the two old churches and smell of coffee being drunk by old men on a bench with caps on. We had a little trouble finding the markets themselves, and there wasn’t much else apart from the usual Australiana on offer. Not that we could actually buy anything as we’re trying to travel light and reduce our load, not increase it!

We’d been warned by Caroline’s uncle that they weren’t impressive, but we took the detour to see the Pinnacle rocks anyway, well we’ve got to do something to write in here haven’t we?
The rocks stand upright in the patch of sandy desert, looking like a cross between termite mounds and a henge created by a very hyperactive druid. A convenient driveway weaved through the sandstone rocks and meant we didn’t need to get out of the car, but we were glad to be out of it really. With our photos taken from every possible angle, we drove on to Perth, our little northern excursion complete and looking forward to the comfortable abode of Caroline’s aunt and uncle (and of course her aunt’s cooking!).

Monkey Mia is famous for the pod of dolphins that frequent it’s shores, in no doubt encouraged by the fish fed to them 3 times a day. We’d fed dolphins on the East Coast, so were happy to avoid the crowd getting wet, cold feet in the sea and instead watch from the pier (the dolphins only got a couple of fish anyway), as well as catch a glimpse of a sea turtle swimming about. The bay is also world heritage listed for the huge sea grass fields, which means dugongs (sea cows) live here, and we just had to catch a boat to try and see them. By now we’re 1000km north of Perth and although the sun is warm, the sea is not, which makes me agreeing to be the only one on the boat to sit and be dragged along the cold water in the boom net a little odd. The trip was worth it in the end, dugong were spotted munching on the sea grass in the distance, and although we couldn’t get close because of the shallow water, it’s another wild animal crossed off the list.

The little (150km+) peninsula surounding Shark Bay has quite a bit going for it. To begin with, there are a colony of stromatolites, bacteria that has hardly changed for the past 3 billion (yes, billion) years, and are responsible for changing the atmosphere to 20% oxygen so that life as we know it could start. Or, as Caroline put it, a bunch of rocks in the sea.
The bay is also the first landing site for the Europeans, the Dutch who landed here 300 years before Cook. Neither they nor the French who followed showed much interest in the land, and as soon as they did, Britain was quick to claim it as their own.
Just to contrast my ramblings of how big a place Australia is, today we bumped into Dirk, the guy who rented our first camper from Sydney. So not only did we meet one of the few Australians we know in one of the remotest places in the country, it’s also about as far as you can get from Sydney. Maybe the world is quite small after all.

Western Australia is big – a third of Australia, and many times the size of the UK. There’s hardly anyone living there either, and nearly all of them are in Perth. So as we drove north, we were quickly in farming country with huge fields, then that disappeared and there’s just the road, red soil and bushes stretching off forever into the flat distance. Given all that, it’s surprising to see quite a few caravans and the huge road trains (think articulated lorry plus an extra couple of trailers) plowing up the road, it’s a good job the roads are long and straight so that we can actually overtake.
500km later we reached Kalbarri, the first interesting place since Perth and the only place for the last 200km that was more than a petrol station. The huge waves of the Indian Ocean crashed onto the rocks whilst they dwarfed the surfers stupid/brave enough to be towed out by jetski to tackle them. Feeling bored of the car, we took a walk to look at the coastal cliffs, where the flat land abruptly stops and falls into the sea. The clouds stretched off into the interior of Australia until they met the horizon, just another sign of how big this place is.

Not a particularily interesting day today, but an eventful one nonetheless. Realising that we were booked on an exceptionally early flight out of Perth, we tried to change to a later, more civilised time. However, it turned out we weren’t booked on any flight out of Perth, or technically we were but 2 months ago and were no shows on that flight as I was carrying a couple of mountain bikes up a hill in New Zealand. A few phone calls later and it turns out that the airline who had rescheduled our flights thought we were on the right flight, but the airline actually flying us didn’t. You’d think they have some sort of computer system to do these sort of things without hassle ;-). At least we managed to have our tickets reinstated without much fuss, good job we tried to move the flight, although in the end we were just glad to be able to fly at all.
The only job left to do was pick up the hire car in preparation for our big drive north. It was almost tempting to get another campervan, but those days are over, and the lure of a car with cruise control was too much!
Unsurprisingly I didn’t take any photos today, so instead here’s one of the manta ray from Rottnest Island, the thing was huge (that’s my shadow next to it!) and effortlessly swam around the shallows, it was definitely worth risking attack by pelican to see it.

Either Perth is a very laid back, quiet and chilled out city, or Saturday is a good day to explore a new place. Or could it be the nice sunny day? Starting off with Kings Park we walked through the grounds, passing people enjoying the sun and climbed the double helix staircase of the DNA Tower for views of, well, some trees! Around the corner we did get a good look at the city centre, a smattering of high rises with the Swan river meandering past. Come to think of it most Australian city centres are clean and tidy with big modern glass skyscrapers – something mostly missing from UK cities (ok – London has a couple, but Perth has loads and is tiny in comparison). With our feet tired out with a day of walking, we retreated to that other trademark of Aussie cities – the beaches!

Ah, the Aussies, such a great race – why say the full name when you can shorten it and stick an “o” at the end? So, catching the ferry from Freo (Fremantle), we crossed a bit of the Indian Ocean (probably “Indo Oo”) to Rotto (Rottnest Island). The name Rottnest originates from early settlers who came, saw the native Quokka and presumed the place was infested with rats. Now I’ve seen a fair few rats, and I’m not too sure how you could mistake what looks like a small wallaby the size of a cat for a rat. In case you wondered, the one in the photo is crossing a bike lane, and isn’t half the size of a car… Wildlife abounded, with a rather ferocious pelican guarding the jetty, almost stopping me from taking a closer look at the huge manta ray swimming along the beach.
The sun shone, the roads were blissfully quiet for a leisurely bike ride and the sun set over the ocean with a deep orange glow. All in all a great summers day, albeit in the middle of the Perth winter.