Welcome to the final issue!
Tonight (Monday) we are at Venus Bay, on the way down to Port Lincoln. We are at a caravan park on the beachfront, and enjoying the peaceful view. Our intentions at present are to be in Crystal Brook (Geoff’s Aunty Pam) on Wednesday night and in Melbourne (Sue’s brother Geoff) on Friday night. Boat Saturday night. But of course things can change rapidly!
The CMCA rally that we attended in Kalgoorlie from Monday to Saturday (9am departure) was our second national rally. There were some 800 vans present and it was a reasonable few days overall.
Facilities were very satisfactory, rarely a queue for showers or toilets, and the venue was well served by adjacent venues in the sports complex and school. The seminars, as with the 1st rally, were a bit of a shemozzle; probably a reflection on trying to organise volunteer presenters, some of whom are always on the road, from around Australia.
We booked on 3 tours. The visit to the ‘big pit’ was cancelled due to a thunderstorm and deluge the day before, which halted mining for at least two days. The day trip to ‘ghost town sites’ was not too good. Only 3 towns still had some buildings and life. The other 4 were “here is where the town was” as the guide pointed to a site devoid of all signs of habitation. A half day trip to the 3 towns would have sufficed and been enjoyable! Then there was the ‘Hay Street tour”’ as it was politely termed. A mixed group of around 20 had a fabulous two hours at Questa Casa with the madam and one of the girls. Interesting, very amusing and something of an eye opener. They are actually illegal, contrary to what everyone thought, but yet are governed to some degree by Council bylaws – ‘go figure’ as a common expression in WA says.
Spent the evenings partying, culminating with the ‘Fields of Gold’ Ball on Friday night. Consequently photos were not dealt with as had been intended. Tough!
And so to the Nullabor plains. Unfortunately the hills and trees somewhat restricted our view of that which the title suggested. And with up to 500 vehicles each way each day it is now hardly one of the last great epic journeys. We had left some time for side trips, but the distance of the ‘sidetracking’ and often a restriction to 4wd saw this somewhat curtailed. Suffice is to say that we covered around 1100 from Norseman to our current location from around noon Saturday to 2pm (WA time) today. And we were indeed followed the whole way by a cold wind out of the Southwest – warm to hot in the car – jolly unpleasant outside until the wind died around sunset. Some fabulous scenery along the south coast; high cliffs with thunderous waves breaking and throwing spray mist over the cliff tops.
Saturday and Sunday night were bush camps. Saturday night we were treated to a very eerie experience. All night we could hear a strange ululating moaning sound like wind blowing through something. A didgeridoo was our initial reaction, but it kept on and on. Too loud for owls or similar. Not dingoes, they do not howl. Thought it might have been wind blowing through one of the many cave systems on the Nullabor. However we went to one of those the next day – no relationship between the two sounds. Guess we are left with the bunyip! Sunday night we shared a campfire with a couple from Temora in NSW. Any sounds heard that night can probably be put down to alcohol!
So – no photos this week, for reasons covered above. However there are now a number of albums up on the web and accessed through our ‘blog’ at ‘photos galore’. I am currently trying to upload ‘The Coral Coast’ but service speed is slow and I fear it may yet stall. [picasaweb gallery has been uploaded and linked to the Photos Galore page]. More may yet appear, but no promises – check it out over the next week or so.
Cheers and thanks for your company
Geoff & Sue