The Perth to Broome drive
- Thread starter depreciator
- Start date
....or maybe it's the equivalent of the dolphin soup kitchen.
Everyone knows about them, but there's far better tucker to be had elsewhere if you go and get it yourself.
Maybe you got up at a sparrow's fart to pat the dregs of the dolphin world ??
HiEquity, we probably did pass eachother. I had that very barely perceptible finger lift. I would have liked to see Cape Peron, but I'm not sure the parcel van would have enjoyed it.
Dazz, you're probably right. Those dolphins could be the really lazy or the really dopey ones.
Incidently, I read in the paper that two of the Monkey Mia dolphins died earlier this week. They're not sure how - it wouldn't have been starvation.
Dazz, you're probably right. Those dolphins could be the really lazy or the really dopey ones.
Incidently, I read in the paper that two of the Monkey Mia dolphins died earlier this week. They're not sure how - it wouldn't have been starvation.
They would have been two of the dopey dolphins - probably mistook a turd for a pilchard.
Week two – Carnarvon to Exmouth
Life in the parcel van settled into a rhythm. Lisa swept the floor every twenty minutes when we were set up in a van park. I’m not sure why, given the ground just outside the van was invariably sandy, and given neither of us do much sweeping at home.
She also lost something about every twenty minutes in the van. Even when we’re driving and she was sitting in the passenger seat, she seemed to lose things. The loss always precipitated a frenzied search that involved moving a bunch of other things that inevitably become the subject of future searches. The cycle of loss kept going while she slept, too, so in the morning there would be a dozen things that had gone missing all by themselves during the night. (Of course, all of this is something that does happen at home, too.)
It’s partly because she’s so industrious. Suzanne (Brett’s wife) and Lisa were making squares for a rug that will be auctioned at the school fete later this year. So both of them were using the driving time to crochet squares. In our van, the crochet needles, wool, scissors and finished squares took it in turns to go missing. It could have been my imagination, but I sensed that down south where it was cold, Lisa was crocheting more quickly, with either a hope that the increased friction would warm her, or that the rug would be finished and could be put to use.
With the rug squares finished, it was time to do some painting. While we were driving. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Lisa got out these stiff, postcard sized pieces of watercolour paper, and the watercolour paints. And the water – yikes! They were all precariously balanced on her knees. I wondered if at any time it occurred to her that the whole painting while driving thing was a good idea, but I wasn’t game to ask. So she would paint a picture of what was outside – the view never changed, luckily – then dry it on the dashboard in the sun, then write on it, then mail it at the next town. So her mum, who turned 80 while we were away, got 17 postcards. And there were no spills. How’s that for industrious.
The proportion of grey nomads started increasing toward Carnarvon. Boy, they’ve got the whole wave thing nailed. I studied their technique closely. I don’t think they waved at all. They seemed to have three or four fingers permanently cocked – sort of like a claw – on top of the steering wheel. If it’s not technique, it’s arthritis.
We pulled into Carnarvon on Sunday afternoon and I found out quickly that it’s pronounced C’narv’n. It’s a bigger town – around 8,000, apparently. Buggered if I know where they were, because there was nobody around. I didn’t really get a feel for the place as it was only an overnight stay, but it had a vaguely tropical feel. It must be about 1,000klms north of Perth and they grow bananas and mangoes there. It’s got a decent river, too. And an old wooden jetty that supposedly sticks out one mile. It’s a town probably worth spending more time in than we had – especially if you want to get to the end of that jetty.
Next stop Exmouth, or Exm’th.
So it was back inland on the coastal highway and up to Coral Bay for a lunchtime swim, and then on to Exm’th.
Every tourist heading north goes to Coral Bay. There is nothing much there on land: a caravan park, some shops, a dozen houses. But in the water, they have coral.
http://www.coralbay.org/photos.htm
The people up there have a bit of a chip on their shoulder over the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland. Sure, the Great Barrier Reef is lots bigger and more glamorous, but you need a boat to get out to it. Or you need to be staying on one of the many beautiful, tropical Queensland islands that are on the reef.
Western Australia has Ningaloo Reef. It’s apparently ‘the world’s biggest fringing reef’. And, boy, they want to make sure everybody gets that message. I must have heard it said or seen it written a dozen times. (A fringing reef, by the way, is one that touches the shore.)
I was sitting outside the shops in Exm’th one day waiting, and waiting, and a local bloke next to me was doing the same thing.
‘Gidday.’
‘Gidday. Where you lot from?
‘Over east. The poor side of the country.’
‘Seen the reef yet?’
‘Yep. I’ve seen the Great Barrier Reef a few times, too…’
I could feel his hackles rise.
‘It’s rubbish,’ I lied.
He loved that.
‘Well, it’s not a fringing reef.’ He said, puffing up.
‘I know.’ I said. ‘Give me a great fringing reef over a great barrier reef anytime.’
I reckon I made his day.
But just between you and me, the Great Barrier Reef is pretty good. Still, it was great at Coral Bay to be able to put snorkeling gear on, waddle into the water, and flop down with coral below.
Exm’th, a bit further up, is the home of the whale shark viewing industry, too.
http://www.ningaloodreaming.com/whaleshark.php
There would be a dozen companies offering charters off shore to see whale sharks doing their thing. It’s all pretty organized and there were spotter planes that find the sharks and tell the boats so they can race over to where they are and toss their tourists in the water as the sharks swim past.
The cost for a family of four is well over $1,000. And it can be a bit hit and miss because some days the whale sharks aren’t there. Of course, all the tour companies have a guarantee that if you go out and don’t see anything, you can come on the next tour where there are free spots. That’s all very well (and very clever) but most tourists don’t have unlimited time to hang around Exm’th waiting for fish to hold up their end of the deal. We passed on the whale tour, but our kids did get the dolphin experience in Hawaii earlier this year – they were in a pool, so it wasn’t a punt.
Brett and co punted on the whale sharks, and thankfully got lucky. I’m glad, because there would have been tears if the sharks were taking that day off.
Exm’th only has a couple of thousand people, and if those whale sharks ever decide to relocate, the town will be stuffed. They really are the town’s only industry.
We stayed about 40klms out of Exm’th at Yardie Creek. It’s a big, red dirt park a couple of klms from the water.
The further north we got from Perth, the more ragged round the edges the van parks, and the people in them, got. We finally found the grey nomads. I was wrong about the big holding area. I ran my theory past a couple of them and though they liked the sound of it, they said they stay north at this time of year mainly because it’s warmer.
I like the rhythm of a van park. Mornings there is lots of activity as people who are moving on pack up. Then it goes quiet. Late afternoon, things crank up again as the new arrivals show up. People get very proprietorial about their spot in a park. There are people who come to the same spot every year – I met a fair few of them.
One bloke I never spoke to raked the dirt in front of his van every morning. He did it in lines like one of those Japanese gravel gardens, but I suspect it owed more to boredom than a leaning toward Zen Buddhism.
Larry and his wife Rae were across from us. They’d been there for two and half months and it’s the fourth year they’ve been to that park – and stayed in that spot. And they’re from Melbourne. That must be a 12,000klm round trip. Larry has a pretty flash fishing boat. He likes the Exmouth area because the marlin and sailfish are only a few kilometers off shore and it takes less fuel to get to them. I didn’t ask whether he had factored in 12,000klm worth of fuel for the drive to and from Melbourne.
Being a longer term resident (and owning a flash boat) Larry was pretty popular. Every afternoon, there would be a few people sitting with him under his annex. Larry, who was a short, nuggety bloke, had a big chair. His visitors had smaller ones. It was mostly Larry’s voice I heard drifting across, so I think he liked an audience.
The nomads are very annex proud. It’s where they entertain their visitors – usually other nomads for afternoon drinks. I suspect very few people get invited into ‘the van’. Though there would be solo nomads who would no doubt do their best to lure unattached women into their van.
During a lull between visitors, Larry waved me over one day. Rae, without being asked, slipped out of the van, put a cup of coffee in front of me (it wasn’t beer o’clock yet), and then slipped back inside. Their annex was very neat. On the ground, and indeed on the ground all round his van, was beige shadecloth held down by steel pegs. It was brilliant idea. Dirt and sand fall through the shadecloth and it keeps it out of the van. If we had some shadeclothe, Lisa would have done a lot less sweeping.
‘Brought a whole roll of it from Melbourne,’ he said. It turned out that Larry owns a couple of hardware stores. I noticed Larry’s shadeclothe on the ground in quite a few annexes in that park. I bet he sold it to them.
It must have been our third morning there when I saw Larry with the boat hitched up and the annex cleared out heading off.
‘Where are you off to, Larry?’
Onslow. Up the coast. Need to get away from things for a few days.’
I laughed. ‘So, you’re having a holiday within a holiday?’
‘Yeah mate, I need a break.’
I wasn’t sure what he needed a break from, but I reckon for some of the nomads, the road has become a job. They must go home occasionally for a rest. Or if home is too far away, they just head off for a few days like Larry and Rae.
Life in the parcel van settled into a rhythm. Lisa swept the floor every twenty minutes when we were set up in a van park. I’m not sure why, given the ground just outside the van was invariably sandy, and given neither of us do much sweeping at home.
She also lost something about every twenty minutes in the van. Even when we’re driving and she was sitting in the passenger seat, she seemed to lose things. The loss always precipitated a frenzied search that involved moving a bunch of other things that inevitably become the subject of future searches. The cycle of loss kept going while she slept, too, so in the morning there would be a dozen things that had gone missing all by themselves during the night. (Of course, all of this is something that does happen at home, too.)
It’s partly because she’s so industrious. Suzanne (Brett’s wife) and Lisa were making squares for a rug that will be auctioned at the school fete later this year. So both of them were using the driving time to crochet squares. In our van, the crochet needles, wool, scissors and finished squares took it in turns to go missing. It could have been my imagination, but I sensed that down south where it was cold, Lisa was crocheting more quickly, with either a hope that the increased friction would warm her, or that the rug would be finished and could be put to use.
With the rug squares finished, it was time to do some painting. While we were driving. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Lisa got out these stiff, postcard sized pieces of watercolour paper, and the watercolour paints. And the water – yikes! They were all precariously balanced on her knees. I wondered if at any time it occurred to her that the whole painting while driving thing was a good idea, but I wasn’t game to ask. So she would paint a picture of what was outside – the view never changed, luckily – then dry it on the dashboard in the sun, then write on it, then mail it at the next town. So her mum, who turned 80 while we were away, got 17 postcards. And there were no spills. How’s that for industrious.
The proportion of grey nomads started increasing toward Carnarvon. Boy, they’ve got the whole wave thing nailed. I studied their technique closely. I don’t think they waved at all. They seemed to have three or four fingers permanently cocked – sort of like a claw – on top of the steering wheel. If it’s not technique, it’s arthritis.
We pulled into Carnarvon on Sunday afternoon and I found out quickly that it’s pronounced C’narv’n. It’s a bigger town – around 8,000, apparently. Buggered if I know where they were, because there was nobody around. I didn’t really get a feel for the place as it was only an overnight stay, but it had a vaguely tropical feel. It must be about 1,000klms north of Perth and they grow bananas and mangoes there. It’s got a decent river, too. And an old wooden jetty that supposedly sticks out one mile. It’s a town probably worth spending more time in than we had – especially if you want to get to the end of that jetty.
Next stop Exmouth, or Exm’th.
So it was back inland on the coastal highway and up to Coral Bay for a lunchtime swim, and then on to Exm’th.
Every tourist heading north goes to Coral Bay. There is nothing much there on land: a caravan park, some shops, a dozen houses. But in the water, they have coral.
http://www.coralbay.org/photos.htm
The people up there have a bit of a chip on their shoulder over the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland. Sure, the Great Barrier Reef is lots bigger and more glamorous, but you need a boat to get out to it. Or you need to be staying on one of the many beautiful, tropical Queensland islands that are on the reef.
Western Australia has Ningaloo Reef. It’s apparently ‘the world’s biggest fringing reef’. And, boy, they want to make sure everybody gets that message. I must have heard it said or seen it written a dozen times. (A fringing reef, by the way, is one that touches the shore.)
I was sitting outside the shops in Exm’th one day waiting, and waiting, and a local bloke next to me was doing the same thing.
‘Gidday.’
‘Gidday. Where you lot from?
‘Over east. The poor side of the country.’
‘Seen the reef yet?’
‘Yep. I’ve seen the Great Barrier Reef a few times, too…’
I could feel his hackles rise.
‘It’s rubbish,’ I lied.
He loved that.
‘Well, it’s not a fringing reef.’ He said, puffing up.
‘I know.’ I said. ‘Give me a great fringing reef over a great barrier reef anytime.’
I reckon I made his day.
But just between you and me, the Great Barrier Reef is pretty good. Still, it was great at Coral Bay to be able to put snorkeling gear on, waddle into the water, and flop down with coral below.
Exm’th, a bit further up, is the home of the whale shark viewing industry, too.
http://www.ningaloodreaming.com/whaleshark.php
There would be a dozen companies offering charters off shore to see whale sharks doing their thing. It’s all pretty organized and there were spotter planes that find the sharks and tell the boats so they can race over to where they are and toss their tourists in the water as the sharks swim past.
The cost for a family of four is well over $1,000. And it can be a bit hit and miss because some days the whale sharks aren’t there. Of course, all the tour companies have a guarantee that if you go out and don’t see anything, you can come on the next tour where there are free spots. That’s all very well (and very clever) but most tourists don’t have unlimited time to hang around Exm’th waiting for fish to hold up their end of the deal. We passed on the whale tour, but our kids did get the dolphin experience in Hawaii earlier this year – they were in a pool, so it wasn’t a punt.
Brett and co punted on the whale sharks, and thankfully got lucky. I’m glad, because there would have been tears if the sharks were taking that day off.
Exm’th only has a couple of thousand people, and if those whale sharks ever decide to relocate, the town will be stuffed. They really are the town’s only industry.
We stayed about 40klms out of Exm’th at Yardie Creek. It’s a big, red dirt park a couple of klms from the water.
The further north we got from Perth, the more ragged round the edges the van parks, and the people in them, got. We finally found the grey nomads. I was wrong about the big holding area. I ran my theory past a couple of them and though they liked the sound of it, they said they stay north at this time of year mainly because it’s warmer.
I like the rhythm of a van park. Mornings there is lots of activity as people who are moving on pack up. Then it goes quiet. Late afternoon, things crank up again as the new arrivals show up. People get very proprietorial about their spot in a park. There are people who come to the same spot every year – I met a fair few of them.
One bloke I never spoke to raked the dirt in front of his van every morning. He did it in lines like one of those Japanese gravel gardens, but I suspect it owed more to boredom than a leaning toward Zen Buddhism.
Larry and his wife Rae were across from us. They’d been there for two and half months and it’s the fourth year they’ve been to that park – and stayed in that spot. And they’re from Melbourne. That must be a 12,000klm round trip. Larry has a pretty flash fishing boat. He likes the Exmouth area because the marlin and sailfish are only a few kilometers off shore and it takes less fuel to get to them. I didn’t ask whether he had factored in 12,000klm worth of fuel for the drive to and from Melbourne.
Being a longer term resident (and owning a flash boat) Larry was pretty popular. Every afternoon, there would be a few people sitting with him under his annex. Larry, who was a short, nuggety bloke, had a big chair. His visitors had smaller ones. It was mostly Larry’s voice I heard drifting across, so I think he liked an audience.
The nomads are very annex proud. It’s where they entertain their visitors – usually other nomads for afternoon drinks. I suspect very few people get invited into ‘the van’. Though there would be solo nomads who would no doubt do their best to lure unattached women into their van.
During a lull between visitors, Larry waved me over one day. Rae, without being asked, slipped out of the van, put a cup of coffee in front of me (it wasn’t beer o’clock yet), and then slipped back inside. Their annex was very neat. On the ground, and indeed on the ground all round his van, was beige shadecloth held down by steel pegs. It was brilliant idea. Dirt and sand fall through the shadecloth and it keeps it out of the van. If we had some shadeclothe, Lisa would have done a lot less sweeping.
‘Brought a whole roll of it from Melbourne,’ he said. It turned out that Larry owns a couple of hardware stores. I noticed Larry’s shadeclothe on the ground in quite a few annexes in that park. I bet he sold it to them.
It must have been our third morning there when I saw Larry with the boat hitched up and the annex cleared out heading off.
‘Where are you off to, Larry?’
Onslow. Up the coast. Need to get away from things for a few days.’
I laughed. ‘So, you’re having a holiday within a holiday?’
‘Yeah mate, I need a break.’
I wasn’t sure what he needed a break from, but I reckon for some of the nomads, the road has become a job. They must go home occasionally for a rest. Or if home is too far away, they just head off for a few days like Larry and Rae.
I reckon tomorrow. Need to do a bit of work today - that pesky Depreciation Schedule stuff.
I get the parcel van bogged in the next installment.
I get the parcel van bogged in the next installment.
this thread needs a voice over like the previews from "The Holiday".
Exmouth and the Pilbarra
Got the van bogged.
We were searching for dead starfish.
In the caravan behind Larry’s, there was another grey nomad couple who Mimi and Lulu had been chatting to – that would be their dad’s genes coming through.
They were an odd couple. He would have been about 70, tall bloke with a bit of a stoop. She would have been closer to 60. Bottle blonde, a very deep tan, and a pair of lungs bigger than I’ve ever seen outside of a magazine or a Dolly Parton album cover.
I suspect his travelling companion would have made him as popular as Larry’s fishing boat with the other blokes in the park, but I don’t think they would have been allowed to hang around that annex for drinks.
Around their site, they had a big collection of shells and stuff they had picked up on the beach. There were loads of starfish that came from one particular section of the beach. They gladly let the little girls take whatever they wanted from their display, but then the girls decided they needed to give them back some stuff in return. And they had told the girls where the secret starfish place was: out the gate and onto the road, turn left, then take the first track off to the right.
One crucial detail didn’t make it back to me – it was a 4WD track.
All went well for the first half kilometer or so. Nice hardpacked dirt. Then we hit a soft patch that tossed the little parcel van from side to side. I could hear things (possibly children) crashing and bouncing around in the back and I made the fatal mistake of stopping and losing my momentum. What was I thinking. I felt like giving myself an uppercut. ‘Bugger,’ I said to myself. ‘I bet I’m bogged.’ Sure enough, with things secured in the back, I tried to get going and the rears wheels dug in.
Momentarily, I had visions of those tourists in the desert who regularly die when they get stuck. Then I realized we had plenty of water. And plenty of food – we even had a stove so we could whip up a meal if we got peckish. And the road was in sight. And we were blocking the track, so some bloke in a 4WD was bound to come along and want to show off by pulling us out.
And then, something spooky happened. As a kid, I had avidly watched the Leyland Brothers TV show ‘Ask the Leyland Brothers’. They got themselves into and out of some tricky spots. I started singing the theme song to myself under my breath, ‘Travel all over the countryside, ask the Leyland, ask the Leyland, ask the Leyland brotheeeeers.’ Mike Leyland died last year, but on that remote, sandy track, in my moment of need, I think Mike came to me. I was channeling Mike Leyland.
Quick as a flash, I knew what he would do (allowing for the fact that what he would NOT do is drive a parcel van down a sandy track to a beach). I got everybody out of the van. Their weight was probably incidental, but in my moment of expected triumph I wanted an audience. Then I cleared the sand from behind the rear drive wheels and the front wheels by hand. I started the engine, rocked the van a bit (more for effect than anything), and then drove slowly out the way I went in. I kept going backward toward the road with the family following on foot. Then I hit the only remaining soft bit between us and the road. Only one side got bogged this time, but it was deeper and the van took on a disappointing lean.
I jumped out and did the sand scooping thing again. I was less confident this time, but I had a few ideas up my sleeve. Plan B was to use some of our towel collection under the drive wheel. Plan C was to jack that side of the van up and pack under the wheels with some of the rocks and stuff lying around. All of that came to me in an instant, courtesy of Mike. Plan D was to wait till someone (someone like Mike) in a 4WD came along to tow me out - and admonish me.
I was impressed that I had four plans up my sleeve. And overjoyed that I didn’t have to go past Plan A. In hindsight, I should have been more confident in myself and made a much bigger deal of our predicament to the girls so I could bask in my ultimate triumph.
The next day we walked to the beach and got some dead starfish.
It occurred to me as we prepared to leave the coast and head inland that there are probably Stromatolites all over the place on this bit of coast, but with that fringing reef hogging the limelight, nobody would notice them.
From Exm’th, we went east into The Pilbarra.
Heading east, we spent a night at the Nanutarra Roadhouse. It’s a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. They have space for about 30 vans and tents round the back on a couple of acres of red dirt. It was bone dry, the country out here, but the road had lots of flood signs, so in the wet there must be alot of water around.
http://www.exploroz.com/Places/57351/WA/Nanutarra_Roadhouse.aspx
The camping areas at roadhouses are different from all others. They’re like an airport transit lounge. Nobody hangs around them for longer than they have to, and in the morning everybody scarpers. People only stop there because they don’t want to drive at night and risk hitting anything. And on the roads up there, it’s not kangaroos you need to worry about, but cows.
The grazing properties up north don’t seem to bother much with fences along the road. Every 10 klms or so we would cross a cattle grid with fences heading off at right angles to the road. So the highway goes through people’s properties. And if those cattle grids are 10klm apart, the paddocks are probably roughly 100 square kilometers in size. I reckon dead cows on the road would outnumber dead kangaroos by about five to one, so cattle are either five times more numerous than kangaroos, or five times more stupid.
The Nantarra petrol station is much talked about by travelers. The grey nomads who get together in eachothers annexes to do what all travelers do – swap stories of the road – would devote whole sessions to the Nanutarra Roadhouse. It is known to have the most expensive fuel in the country. Fair enough, I reckon. The nearest alternative north or south is about 200klms. Heading east, the way we were, it was closer to 300klms. We were certainly a captive market.
The food at the petrol station also gets talked about. I’ve never had a $24 steak sandwich, still haven’t, but if I’m ever inclined to have one I’ll know where to go.
One thing that amazed me on the approach to the Nanutarra intersection was the location of the Royal Flying Doctor Service airstrip. It’s on the highway. Not next to it. On it. There is a warning and a few things painted on the road to let drivers know that as well as looking out for kangaroos and cows, they should keep an eye out for the odd plane.
The Nantarra petrol station is at a T intersection. It’s on the coastal highway. Heading north, it’s Karratha. Heading east, our direction, it’s mining country, towns like Tom Price and Newman, and some really big holes.
We were given a couple of spots to park round the back of the petrol station. There was a grey nomad couple already connected to the power pole and he said the other outlets were buggered. I said we didn’t really need power for one night, but he was indignant. ‘We all paid our $30. You should have power, too.’ So he went looking for the bloke who ran the place. He came over and our mate said, ‘Only one outlet works. We were in the same spot last year and only one worked. The bloke who wired it all up must have been a ********.’
‘That would be me,’ the other bloke said. He wasn’t inclined to do anything rash like fix it after that, but it really didn’t bother us. Old mate, though, was determined that we had power. So he rooted around in his van and came out with a tangle of adaptors and leads. He connected his van to ours, and then our van to Brett’s. So we had power, which we didn’t really need. But it did keep the fridge running, I guess.
Incidently, do you know how often a fridge motor goes on and off during the night? I had no idea. It’s probably because I’ve never spent the night sleeping on the kitchen floor with my head next to the fridge.
We left first thing and headed for The Pilbarra and the town Tom Price – about 300klms east. Stopping for lunch at Paraburdoo, I could tell we were in mining country when a bloke in a new convertible Jaguar pulled up at the bottle shop and walked out with a slab of beer on his shoulder.
We spent the night at Tom Price in their van park. It’s in the foothills of the Hamersley Range, an impossibly old mountain range that is about 1300 metres at its highest point. It’s a tired, weathered collection of hills worn down over millions and millions of years by wind and water, and more recently (and rapidly) by Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue Mining etc. Towering over the van park at Tom Price was a beautiful red, rocky hill. It has a lookout on top, but only 4WDs can get up there. It’s called Mt Nameless – not much point thinking too hard about a name I guess when it’s going to get dug up one day. We stopped at a level crossing just out of town to let a train go past. On the engine was a big ‘Rio Tinto’. There were 233 trailers full of iron ore behind it, so that train would have been a couple of kilometers long. But honestly, there are so few people out here that the miners could dig a hole the size of Tasmania out there and if they kept quiet about it nobody would ever know.
Next day we headed to Karijini National Park.
http://www.australiasnorthwest.com/en/Destinations/The_Pilbara/Pages/Karijini_National_Park.aspx
There was a sign on the road telling us that we were entering a ‘remote area’. They advised us to make sure we had adequate water and that we tell ‘someone responsible’ where we were going.
Brett is very responsible, so I said to him, ‘Brett, we’re heading in.’ Of course, we were following him, so I hope he told someone responsible.
Got the van bogged.
We were searching for dead starfish.
In the caravan behind Larry’s, there was another grey nomad couple who Mimi and Lulu had been chatting to – that would be their dad’s genes coming through.
They were an odd couple. He would have been about 70, tall bloke with a bit of a stoop. She would have been closer to 60. Bottle blonde, a very deep tan, and a pair of lungs bigger than I’ve ever seen outside of a magazine or a Dolly Parton album cover.
I suspect his travelling companion would have made him as popular as Larry’s fishing boat with the other blokes in the park, but I don’t think they would have been allowed to hang around that annex for drinks.
Around their site, they had a big collection of shells and stuff they had picked up on the beach. There were loads of starfish that came from one particular section of the beach. They gladly let the little girls take whatever they wanted from their display, but then the girls decided they needed to give them back some stuff in return. And they had told the girls where the secret starfish place was: out the gate and onto the road, turn left, then take the first track off to the right.
One crucial detail didn’t make it back to me – it was a 4WD track.
All went well for the first half kilometer or so. Nice hardpacked dirt. Then we hit a soft patch that tossed the little parcel van from side to side. I could hear things (possibly children) crashing and bouncing around in the back and I made the fatal mistake of stopping and losing my momentum. What was I thinking. I felt like giving myself an uppercut. ‘Bugger,’ I said to myself. ‘I bet I’m bogged.’ Sure enough, with things secured in the back, I tried to get going and the rears wheels dug in.
Momentarily, I had visions of those tourists in the desert who regularly die when they get stuck. Then I realized we had plenty of water. And plenty of food – we even had a stove so we could whip up a meal if we got peckish. And the road was in sight. And we were blocking the track, so some bloke in a 4WD was bound to come along and want to show off by pulling us out.
And then, something spooky happened. As a kid, I had avidly watched the Leyland Brothers TV show ‘Ask the Leyland Brothers’. They got themselves into and out of some tricky spots. I started singing the theme song to myself under my breath, ‘Travel all over the countryside, ask the Leyland, ask the Leyland, ask the Leyland brotheeeeers.’ Mike Leyland died last year, but on that remote, sandy track, in my moment of need, I think Mike came to me. I was channeling Mike Leyland.
Quick as a flash, I knew what he would do (allowing for the fact that what he would NOT do is drive a parcel van down a sandy track to a beach). I got everybody out of the van. Their weight was probably incidental, but in my moment of expected triumph I wanted an audience. Then I cleared the sand from behind the rear drive wheels and the front wheels by hand. I started the engine, rocked the van a bit (more for effect than anything), and then drove slowly out the way I went in. I kept going backward toward the road with the family following on foot. Then I hit the only remaining soft bit between us and the road. Only one side got bogged this time, but it was deeper and the van took on a disappointing lean.
I jumped out and did the sand scooping thing again. I was less confident this time, but I had a few ideas up my sleeve. Plan B was to use some of our towel collection under the drive wheel. Plan C was to jack that side of the van up and pack under the wheels with some of the rocks and stuff lying around. All of that came to me in an instant, courtesy of Mike. Plan D was to wait till someone (someone like Mike) in a 4WD came along to tow me out - and admonish me.
I was impressed that I had four plans up my sleeve. And overjoyed that I didn’t have to go past Plan A. In hindsight, I should have been more confident in myself and made a much bigger deal of our predicament to the girls so I could bask in my ultimate triumph.
The next day we walked to the beach and got some dead starfish.
It occurred to me as we prepared to leave the coast and head inland that there are probably Stromatolites all over the place on this bit of coast, but with that fringing reef hogging the limelight, nobody would notice them.
From Exm’th, we went east into The Pilbarra.
Heading east, we spent a night at the Nanutarra Roadhouse. It’s a petrol station in the middle of nowhere. They have space for about 30 vans and tents round the back on a couple of acres of red dirt. It was bone dry, the country out here, but the road had lots of flood signs, so in the wet there must be alot of water around.
http://www.exploroz.com/Places/57351/WA/Nanutarra_Roadhouse.aspx
The camping areas at roadhouses are different from all others. They’re like an airport transit lounge. Nobody hangs around them for longer than they have to, and in the morning everybody scarpers. People only stop there because they don’t want to drive at night and risk hitting anything. And on the roads up there, it’s not kangaroos you need to worry about, but cows.
The grazing properties up north don’t seem to bother much with fences along the road. Every 10 klms or so we would cross a cattle grid with fences heading off at right angles to the road. So the highway goes through people’s properties. And if those cattle grids are 10klm apart, the paddocks are probably roughly 100 square kilometers in size. I reckon dead cows on the road would outnumber dead kangaroos by about five to one, so cattle are either five times more numerous than kangaroos, or five times more stupid.
The Nantarra petrol station is much talked about by travelers. The grey nomads who get together in eachothers annexes to do what all travelers do – swap stories of the road – would devote whole sessions to the Nanutarra Roadhouse. It is known to have the most expensive fuel in the country. Fair enough, I reckon. The nearest alternative north or south is about 200klms. Heading east, the way we were, it was closer to 300klms. We were certainly a captive market.
The food at the petrol station also gets talked about. I’ve never had a $24 steak sandwich, still haven’t, but if I’m ever inclined to have one I’ll know where to go.
One thing that amazed me on the approach to the Nanutarra intersection was the location of the Royal Flying Doctor Service airstrip. It’s on the highway. Not next to it. On it. There is a warning and a few things painted on the road to let drivers know that as well as looking out for kangaroos and cows, they should keep an eye out for the odd plane.
The Nantarra petrol station is at a T intersection. It’s on the coastal highway. Heading north, it’s Karratha. Heading east, our direction, it’s mining country, towns like Tom Price and Newman, and some really big holes.
We were given a couple of spots to park round the back of the petrol station. There was a grey nomad couple already connected to the power pole and he said the other outlets were buggered. I said we didn’t really need power for one night, but he was indignant. ‘We all paid our $30. You should have power, too.’ So he went looking for the bloke who ran the place. He came over and our mate said, ‘Only one outlet works. We were in the same spot last year and only one worked. The bloke who wired it all up must have been a ********.’
‘That would be me,’ the other bloke said. He wasn’t inclined to do anything rash like fix it after that, but it really didn’t bother us. Old mate, though, was determined that we had power. So he rooted around in his van and came out with a tangle of adaptors and leads. He connected his van to ours, and then our van to Brett’s. So we had power, which we didn’t really need. But it did keep the fridge running, I guess.
Incidently, do you know how often a fridge motor goes on and off during the night? I had no idea. It’s probably because I’ve never spent the night sleeping on the kitchen floor with my head next to the fridge.
We left first thing and headed for The Pilbarra and the town Tom Price – about 300klms east. Stopping for lunch at Paraburdoo, I could tell we were in mining country when a bloke in a new convertible Jaguar pulled up at the bottle shop and walked out with a slab of beer on his shoulder.
We spent the night at Tom Price in their van park. It’s in the foothills of the Hamersley Range, an impossibly old mountain range that is about 1300 metres at its highest point. It’s a tired, weathered collection of hills worn down over millions and millions of years by wind and water, and more recently (and rapidly) by Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue Mining etc. Towering over the van park at Tom Price was a beautiful red, rocky hill. It has a lookout on top, but only 4WDs can get up there. It’s called Mt Nameless – not much point thinking too hard about a name I guess when it’s going to get dug up one day. We stopped at a level crossing just out of town to let a train go past. On the engine was a big ‘Rio Tinto’. There were 233 trailers full of iron ore behind it, so that train would have been a couple of kilometers long. But honestly, there are so few people out here that the miners could dig a hole the size of Tasmania out there and if they kept quiet about it nobody would ever know.
Next day we headed to Karijini National Park.
http://www.australiasnorthwest.com/en/Destinations/The_Pilbara/Pages/Karijini_National_Park.aspx
There was a sign on the road telling us that we were entering a ‘remote area’. They advised us to make sure we had adequate water and that we tell ‘someone responsible’ where we were going.
Brett is very responsible, so I said to him, ‘Brett, we’re heading in.’ Of course, we were following him, so I hope he told someone responsible.
Nice work Scott - as usual.
A couple of points:
- Carry a tyre pressure guage. If you ever get bogged in soft stuff again, keep letting the tyres down (to 10psi if you have to!) until you can just drive out. Another option to consider prior to towing but don't exceed 30-40 km/h until you get somewhere you can pump the tyres up again! Handy to have a compressor if you're a long way from anywhere for this...
- Mt Nameless has a name. Unfortunately it's not used, which is a pity as I find its current title somewhat insulting given that fact...
A couple of points:
- Carry a tyre pressure guage. If you ever get bogged in soft stuff again, keep letting the tyres down (to 10psi if you have to!) until you can just drive out. Another option to consider prior to towing but don't exceed 30-40 km/h until you get somewhere you can pump the tyres up again! Handy to have a compressor if you're a long way from anywhere for this...
- Mt Nameless has a name. Unfortunately it's not used, which is a pity as I find its current title somewhat insulting given that fact...
Letting down the tires was a last resort because it would have been a long, slow drive to a servo to pump them up again.
Karijini and onto Broome - Part 5
Coming from the eastern side of the continent, I’m used to national parks that have a bit of grass, some nice shady trees, a river, maybe even a shop somewhere close that makes nice coffee. Karijini has none of that sort of namby pamby nonsense. But it does have a great gorge or two. And I’m pretty sure they’re not old mining pits, though the fact that there is a waterfall called Fortescue Falls in one of the gorges made me a bit suspicious.
On the first afternoon, we left our red dirt, unshaded campsite to walk down into Dales Gorge to Circular Pool. It was a steep climb down and a much steeper one up, but worth it. These places are classic Qantas TV commercial locations.
http://www.google.com.au/images?hl=...tle&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQsAQwAA&biw=1123&bih=736
The next day we went down the other end of the gorge to Fern Pool and the suspiciously named Fortescue Falls. We all had a swim there. It was really cold at first, and then just stayed really cold. Then we walked to the other end of the gorge and came up the same path as we did the day before.
Halfway up, Brett pointed out some pretty red lichen on a rock. ‘It’s blood,’ I said. The red drops on the ground gave it away. So some time earlier that day somebody came to grief either heading up or down that path.
I learnt at the very impressive Karijini Visitors Centre that although the rocks around The Pilbarra are sedimentary, there are no fossils. They are so old that the layers were laid down before there was anything to fossilize. So that’s before the Stromatolites had done their very impressive thing.
The visitors centre at Karijini is apparently in the shape of a giant goanna, but I reckon you’d need the perspective of a helicopter – or of another giant goanna – to appreciate that.
http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/content/view/391/1270/
We didn’t see any goannas of any size in Karijini. Didn’t see much wildlife on the whole trip, for that matter. Apart from cows. There were plenty of kangaroos too, of course, but they’re a bit like seagulls in the city. Once we saw a dingo scamper across the road ahead, but that was about it. There was a big sign at Karijini warning about dingoes and explaining why it wasn’t a good idea to feed them, but the kids took the warning of marauding packs of wild dogs more as a promise. Even I was tempted to leave some food out one night to see if we could get any ‘marauding dingo’ action to liven things up.
The Pilbarra is also supposed to be the home of the bilby. Didn’t see any of them either. Australian desert dwelling marsupials are pretty dreary, though. Yeah, yeah, I know that the whole marsupial pouch thing is sort of interesting (and no doubt handy for them), but I think we all have to admit to ourselves that when we go to one of the Aussie zoos, we all race past the ‘desert marsupial’ enclosure to find something a bit more interesting, or at least something that looks less like a large rat.
I did read at the visitors centre that there is a snake that lives in The Pilbarra and nowhere else called the Olive Python. And surprisingly for an Aussie snake, it doesn’t carry enough venom to kill a campsite of people. It grows to 6 metres in length and lives on miscellaneous marsupials, so that makes them useful I guess.
Leaving Karijini we headed further east to meet up with the road that goes up through the middle of the country from Perth to Port Headland.
I had a chat with a road train driver when we filled up. They’re such big, intimidating things, those road trains.
http://outbacktowing.tripod.com/
And because the highway is only one lane each way they seem even bigger. I asked him how long his rig was. (I used the term ‘rig’ hoping that it would make me sound knowledgeable and we could bond.) He said he wasn’t sure exactly how long his ‘truck’ was, but he said 53 metres is the longest allowed. I was going to bet him $50 he couldn’t reverse his three trailers, but thought I should sound him out first. He said it’s not hard to reverse them as long as he doesn’t have to go around a tight corner. He was so confident, I didn’t mention the wager I had in mind.
He had just delivered 85 tonnes of ammonia nitrate – explosives for the mines. It had to come by road from Perth because that’s the only way they’re allowed to transport it. We were chatting around 7am and he said he would be on the road till 10pm that night and probably cover 1200klms. I asked him whether the kangaroos annoyed him. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘They just made it harder to clean the truck.’
‘What about the cows?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘They’re a bigger thud.’
‘What about families in little parcel vans?’
‘Bigger thud than a cow.’
Then he told me that road trains can’t really stop in an emergency. If they try and stop, the third trailer often rolls over and creates all sorts of problems as it careens down the road on its side at right angles to the truck. He said he’s had it happen to him and didn’t enjoy it much.
I shook his hand and said goodbye. He held my hand a little too long and looked at me and said, ‘Don’t forget, we can’t stop.’
Having seen the film Duel often over the years when Denis Weaver was pursued by that mad trucker (possibly for wooden acting), I was glad that he pulled out first.
Mine vehicles outnumbered tourists on that part of the road. There were loads of white 4WDs with yellow stripes down the side cruising up and down the highway. I had a chat with one of them at a roadhouse.
‘Are you blokes engineers?’
‘Nah. I’m a worker. Driller’
I guessed he drilled holes for explosives. He had borrowed an engineer’s 4WD to go and pick up a drill part. It was a 400klm round trip. I didn’t ask him whether it was because he forgot to bring it to work that day. He said you could tell the engineers and geos (geologists, I guessed) because they have clean clothes.
‘They just drive round all day. Stop their car. Get out….’
I joined in, ‘Scratch their head and scratch their balls.’
‘Yeah. Then they get back in with the air con on and **** off.’
There was a bloke next to us who was obviously an engineer, but I wasn’t worried about offending him – he didn’t have a road train.
There were lots of dead cows on this stretch. We came upon a fresh one early one morning. It was on the side of the road and in the middle of the road was a pile of cow dung. So some time during the night, that cow would have thought to itself, ‘Hmmm. I think I’ll just wander out onto the road and do a big ****.’ That would have been its last thought. Except for maybe, ‘I wonder what those lights are?’
At another spot, there were two dead cows – one on either side of the road. They were Brahmans. They’re a big breed of cattle and these were bloated, making them even bigger. Both of them had their legs on one side pointing up. All it needed was a sign across the highway saying, ‘Welcome to Cattle Country.’
I met a bloke in Broome who had been on one of the cattle stations up there. It was a 2 million acre property. Pretty modest, apparently. The property has its own road train that they use to move cattle around the place because it’s quicker than making them walk. That road train has never been on the bitumen. The week before they were moving a bunch of cattle and the road train got bogged. Next time you have a lousy day at work, your email goes down, or someone takes your favourite coffee cup or something, consider the annoyance of getting a 50 metre truck with 150 cows on it bogged on a dirt road 70klms from the homestead (the property was 100klm across) and then having to get bulldozer to drive 70klms and have a go at pulling you out. I was going to tell him my tale about getting the parcel van bogged, but I’m not sure he would have been all that impressed.
We skirted round Port Headland because all the nomads said there was no point going there. We didn’t see much of it, but it was really spread out. Not surprising, I guess, if they have 2klm long trains and 50 metre trucks rumbling into town – I bet their roundabouts are really big.
We had heard about a place called 80 Mile Beach. It was 200klm north along the coast from Port Headland. It’s a campground set up by the farmer who owns that strip of coast. We got there and fell into the sea. It was late afternoon, the sea was cloudy, and there were blokes catching surface fish (salmon) in the surf, so it was perfect shark water, but it had been a long day.
I found the tail of a small shark on the sand afterwards. Not sure why somebody would bother cutting it off, but I knew Mimi would love it, so I picked it up for her. It went to join the dead starfish collection, and the sea urchins, and various shells, and a rock that Lulu was convinced was shaped like a dingo’s foot, and one that was shaped like Western Australia, and the growing coloured sand collection. There were pockets of the parcel van that were starting to smell like bouillabaisse, that french seafood stew.
That road from Port Headland to Broome is impossibly desolate. The scrub on the side of the road was a bit high, so there was nothing to see. And when there was no scrub, there was nothing to see anyway. It was so boring, even the truckies were waving to us.
We hit one patch where as far as we could see in any direction it was just red sand and red pebbles. There were no trees, no fences, no cows, nothing. If NASA ever want to have a test run at a Mars colony, that would be the place to do it. With Lisa doing the packing – though perhaps leaving out the hot water bottles.
Next episode, the last one, I blow the lid on the Broome Cable Beach camel ride scam.
Coming from the eastern side of the continent, I’m used to national parks that have a bit of grass, some nice shady trees, a river, maybe even a shop somewhere close that makes nice coffee. Karijini has none of that sort of namby pamby nonsense. But it does have a great gorge or two. And I’m pretty sure they’re not old mining pits, though the fact that there is a waterfall called Fortescue Falls in one of the gorges made me a bit suspicious.
On the first afternoon, we left our red dirt, unshaded campsite to walk down into Dales Gorge to Circular Pool. It was a steep climb down and a much steeper one up, but worth it. These places are classic Qantas TV commercial locations.
http://www.google.com.au/images?hl=...tle&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQsAQwAA&biw=1123&bih=736
The next day we went down the other end of the gorge to Fern Pool and the suspiciously named Fortescue Falls. We all had a swim there. It was really cold at first, and then just stayed really cold. Then we walked to the other end of the gorge and came up the same path as we did the day before.
Halfway up, Brett pointed out some pretty red lichen on a rock. ‘It’s blood,’ I said. The red drops on the ground gave it away. So some time earlier that day somebody came to grief either heading up or down that path.
I learnt at the very impressive Karijini Visitors Centre that although the rocks around The Pilbarra are sedimentary, there are no fossils. They are so old that the layers were laid down before there was anything to fossilize. So that’s before the Stromatolites had done their very impressive thing.
The visitors centre at Karijini is apparently in the shape of a giant goanna, but I reckon you’d need the perspective of a helicopter – or of another giant goanna – to appreciate that.
http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/content/view/391/1270/
We didn’t see any goannas of any size in Karijini. Didn’t see much wildlife on the whole trip, for that matter. Apart from cows. There were plenty of kangaroos too, of course, but they’re a bit like seagulls in the city. Once we saw a dingo scamper across the road ahead, but that was about it. There was a big sign at Karijini warning about dingoes and explaining why it wasn’t a good idea to feed them, but the kids took the warning of marauding packs of wild dogs more as a promise. Even I was tempted to leave some food out one night to see if we could get any ‘marauding dingo’ action to liven things up.
The Pilbarra is also supposed to be the home of the bilby. Didn’t see any of them either. Australian desert dwelling marsupials are pretty dreary, though. Yeah, yeah, I know that the whole marsupial pouch thing is sort of interesting (and no doubt handy for them), but I think we all have to admit to ourselves that when we go to one of the Aussie zoos, we all race past the ‘desert marsupial’ enclosure to find something a bit more interesting, or at least something that looks less like a large rat.
I did read at the visitors centre that there is a snake that lives in The Pilbarra and nowhere else called the Olive Python. And surprisingly for an Aussie snake, it doesn’t carry enough venom to kill a campsite of people. It grows to 6 metres in length and lives on miscellaneous marsupials, so that makes them useful I guess.
Leaving Karijini we headed further east to meet up with the road that goes up through the middle of the country from Perth to Port Headland.
I had a chat with a road train driver when we filled up. They’re such big, intimidating things, those road trains.
http://outbacktowing.tripod.com/
And because the highway is only one lane each way they seem even bigger. I asked him how long his rig was. (I used the term ‘rig’ hoping that it would make me sound knowledgeable and we could bond.) He said he wasn’t sure exactly how long his ‘truck’ was, but he said 53 metres is the longest allowed. I was going to bet him $50 he couldn’t reverse his three trailers, but thought I should sound him out first. He said it’s not hard to reverse them as long as he doesn’t have to go around a tight corner. He was so confident, I didn’t mention the wager I had in mind.
He had just delivered 85 tonnes of ammonia nitrate – explosives for the mines. It had to come by road from Perth because that’s the only way they’re allowed to transport it. We were chatting around 7am and he said he would be on the road till 10pm that night and probably cover 1200klms. I asked him whether the kangaroos annoyed him. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘They just made it harder to clean the truck.’
‘What about the cows?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘They’re a bigger thud.’
‘What about families in little parcel vans?’
‘Bigger thud than a cow.’
Then he told me that road trains can’t really stop in an emergency. If they try and stop, the third trailer often rolls over and creates all sorts of problems as it careens down the road on its side at right angles to the truck. He said he’s had it happen to him and didn’t enjoy it much.
I shook his hand and said goodbye. He held my hand a little too long and looked at me and said, ‘Don’t forget, we can’t stop.’
Having seen the film Duel often over the years when Denis Weaver was pursued by that mad trucker (possibly for wooden acting), I was glad that he pulled out first.
Mine vehicles outnumbered tourists on that part of the road. There were loads of white 4WDs with yellow stripes down the side cruising up and down the highway. I had a chat with one of them at a roadhouse.
‘Are you blokes engineers?’
‘Nah. I’m a worker. Driller’
I guessed he drilled holes for explosives. He had borrowed an engineer’s 4WD to go and pick up a drill part. It was a 400klm round trip. I didn’t ask him whether it was because he forgot to bring it to work that day. He said you could tell the engineers and geos (geologists, I guessed) because they have clean clothes.
‘They just drive round all day. Stop their car. Get out….’
I joined in, ‘Scratch their head and scratch their balls.’
‘Yeah. Then they get back in with the air con on and **** off.’
There was a bloke next to us who was obviously an engineer, but I wasn’t worried about offending him – he didn’t have a road train.
There were lots of dead cows on this stretch. We came upon a fresh one early one morning. It was on the side of the road and in the middle of the road was a pile of cow dung. So some time during the night, that cow would have thought to itself, ‘Hmmm. I think I’ll just wander out onto the road and do a big ****.’ That would have been its last thought. Except for maybe, ‘I wonder what those lights are?’
At another spot, there were two dead cows – one on either side of the road. They were Brahmans. They’re a big breed of cattle and these were bloated, making them even bigger. Both of them had their legs on one side pointing up. All it needed was a sign across the highway saying, ‘Welcome to Cattle Country.’
I met a bloke in Broome who had been on one of the cattle stations up there. It was a 2 million acre property. Pretty modest, apparently. The property has its own road train that they use to move cattle around the place because it’s quicker than making them walk. That road train has never been on the bitumen. The week before they were moving a bunch of cattle and the road train got bogged. Next time you have a lousy day at work, your email goes down, or someone takes your favourite coffee cup or something, consider the annoyance of getting a 50 metre truck with 150 cows on it bogged on a dirt road 70klms from the homestead (the property was 100klm across) and then having to get bulldozer to drive 70klms and have a go at pulling you out. I was going to tell him my tale about getting the parcel van bogged, but I’m not sure he would have been all that impressed.
We skirted round Port Headland because all the nomads said there was no point going there. We didn’t see much of it, but it was really spread out. Not surprising, I guess, if they have 2klm long trains and 50 metre trucks rumbling into town – I bet their roundabouts are really big.
We had heard about a place called 80 Mile Beach. It was 200klm north along the coast from Port Headland. It’s a campground set up by the farmer who owns that strip of coast. We got there and fell into the sea. It was late afternoon, the sea was cloudy, and there were blokes catching surface fish (salmon) in the surf, so it was perfect shark water, but it had been a long day.
I found the tail of a small shark on the sand afterwards. Not sure why somebody would bother cutting it off, but I knew Mimi would love it, so I picked it up for her. It went to join the dead starfish collection, and the sea urchins, and various shells, and a rock that Lulu was convinced was shaped like a dingo’s foot, and one that was shaped like Western Australia, and the growing coloured sand collection. There were pockets of the parcel van that were starting to smell like bouillabaisse, that french seafood stew.
That road from Port Headland to Broome is impossibly desolate. The scrub on the side of the road was a bit high, so there was nothing to see. And when there was no scrub, there was nothing to see anyway. It was so boring, even the truckies were waving to us.
We hit one patch where as far as we could see in any direction it was just red sand and red pebbles. There were no trees, no fences, no cows, nothing. If NASA ever want to have a test run at a Mars colony, that would be the place to do it. With Lisa doing the packing – though perhaps leaving out the hot water bottles.
Next episode, the last one, I blow the lid on the Broome Cable Beach camel ride scam.
