In the trenches



You never know what you might find

 

Take a gamble on a track you have never been down before. For example the one kilometre track South to Fraser Range station on the Eyre Highway. The track winds itself into a valley surrounded by rugged, bare hills. You will come to a garden where the bougainvilleas are blooming profusely, you are greeted by the southerly wind in the mint trees and galahs are cutting through the air, screeching. Rough Aussie, colonial style outbuildings dot the valley where you can spend the night in stone cottages or there are more basic mining style quarters you can crash for the night. If you have rocked up with a caravan or a tent you’re in luck because the park has great camping facilities, powered sites, clean ablution blocks and a massive fire pit visitors gather round to tell their life story.

 

The garden with the Bogans in full bloom

If you are a semi-grey nomad you could even take a chance and ask for a job and get it. The next couple of episodes will describe some of the work that we were doing on the station.

The weather closing in

There are many ways to get fit or to flog yourself to fight the bulge. One way of physical torture I hadn’t quite experienced yet is the art of digging. One morning the station owner gathered all the boys together and gave us all shovels, picks, massive crow bars and rakes. The more skilled workers jumped on machinery called Kangas, Front end-loaders and plain and simple diggers. A network of trenches for gas pipes are to be dug around the caravan park and outbuildings of Fraser Range caravan park. This kind of blokey work is completely foreign to me usually done by workman or those men who do real work for a living. Guys with suntans, beards and long hair that you see on the side of the road leaning on shovels smoking fags. I pretty soon found out why they are leaning on their shovels. It is to wait for their spine to reassemble after collapsing in a thousand pieces. Good Lord.

 

The battle field with some of my handy work on display

Out of self defense I quickly learnt the hand signals required to work with a fully loaded front end loader thrashing its way towards the trench where at the bottom you are the guy directing this monstrosity with a massive shovel of allergy inducing red dust.  Hand signal ‘Stop’ is required at the exact moment the bucket hangs above your head in the trench. Hand signal ‘Turning Knob’ to tilt shovel down and start dropping red dust in the trench. Oh yes! Please move to the side and out of the way of the cascading rubble before turning the knob. Make sure the driver can see you and your little ‘Stop’ hand signal when there is enough rubble in the trench so that you wont have to use your puny shovel for spreading dirt more than you want to. You get to lean on that shovel for a couple of seconds before the loader is back with the next back-breaking load.

 

A scoop in action

Towards the end of three heavy days in the trenches and being shelled by loaded buckets the heavens opened up and large drops of rain mixed itself with red dirt and workmen as if whipping up a lumpy custard. Our boots became heavy with caked tennis rackets of dirt stuck to the soles of our shoes. We struggled on through the torrential down-pour as if nothing happened until I caught site of my front-end bomber trying to wipe down his front windscreen while mumbling “I can’t see a f…g thing”. This is when again, out of self defense,  I initiated a bold move and defiantly climbed out of my trench facing a possible battle with the enemy in the digger. I flung my shovel away in disdain when at that precise moment I heard the foreman yell out from his trench “that’s enough of this shit boys” and we were encouraged to get out of the rain before we would catch pneumonia. I was more worried about being buried alive and being found by a surprised archeologist 2000 years later.  “A curious primitive burial ritual from around the year 2000” would have been his or her conclusion.

A bleak resting place

 

On my way to the shower I noticed everything I touched with feet or hands had dollops of mud attached to it. I stood under the shower and the water turned that orangey, red that surrounds us at Fraser Range. A great day out with the boys. Now, where are my fags??

Grey Bits

Stay away from the area behind any moving machinery as the driver doesn’t have a clear view of what’s behind him.

Josh an awesome station hand in action

Working windscreen wipers would be handy.

Now I understand why manual labourers wear hi-vis clothing.

 

I can see clearly now

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The first day flash back

 

 

Finally…. all is done. House sold, garage saled, friends goodbuyed …  again, family hugged and tears flowed? Marcel and Julie, in the end, after a lot of planning became semi grey nomads.




Finally... the road is ours

You bet we were excited leaving Perth to find adventures and new places for us to explore. We had a vague plan to catch the rear end of the wild flower season in the wheat belt, North of Perth. All was going great. I got over my nerves towing such a big monster van out of a busy place like Perth, music  was playing loud and a last minute balancing bar straightened the caravan beautifully for a smooth ride.

We stopped at the town of Bindoon, which proudly displays the large sausage that we thought looked more like a giant colon or a “turd on a truck” Never the less 15 metres down the road, our first coffee of the life style change, was still tasting great.

Driving towards New Norcia we came across our first set of hills and we noticed our wonderful  newly purchased used Ford Ranger was struggling to get up the hills carting a large load. In fact, she was slowing down to a disappointing 60kms on the upward slopes. In a zone, clearly meant for driving one hundred, we were blocking a string of 10 tail-gating cars. It seemed like they were trying to commit hara-kiri on the back end of our van or wiping themselves and everyone else out with perilous overtaking moves. This contributed to the uncomfortable paranoid, self-conscious state slow-going caravanners feel. I will never, ever complain again (or worse) when sitting behind a wobbly van on the road.

Our wobbly van

 

Chuffing up one of these hills, all of a sudden the engine kicked out of whatever it was I was telling it to do. Several lights started flashing on the dashboard like a glow-worm party on a dark night. One second we are surging forward, the next we dropped lamely to wet rag status. Our car had developed a severe case of turrets syndrome.



Our car close to the edge

This is when the need arises to have that discussion about staying calm and enjoying every moment of the trip. Even if our car has turned into ‘Kevin Bloody Wilson’.

We check the manual and adding all glow-worms together we come to the conclusion that we have to stop. At a convulsing 30 kilometres per hour we cuss into New Norcia and pull up at the roadhouse. We realised we have to stay overnight and find ourselves lucky that the roadhouse provides camp spots on the other side of the highway only three hundred metres away. Timidly, and as not to offend our car any further, we gently encourage her to stumble onto the oval and temporarily laid her to rest.

 

The New Norcia monastery



The roadside assistance came only two hours later and the jovial mechanic fixed the apparently common problem for this make of car within 15 minutes, by chucking a bit of tape around some melted wires underneath the driver’s seat. “Good to go around Australia mate” he pronounced, to our disbelieving ears.

We stayed four more days in New Norcia which turned out to be a great place to visit. We shared a fire with two sets of hilarious grey nomads that owned the same vehicle as us. Sometime later we spotted them laying underneath their own cars checking for melted wires.
 



The view from the old bakery

The bakery sold us with some beautiful fruit bread and more discussion took place on how not to blow the budget next time. New Norcia was also the place when this stingy Dutchman asked the lady behind the tourist counter for a semi grey nomad discount. Bewildered, but surprisingly she gave us $5 off the price of entree for the town tour. The monasteries and church were interesting places to visit. Breaking down in New Norcia must have been divine intervention.



The church at New Norcia

Grey Bits

It may pay to check if the hand break of the caravan you are towing is in the off position. I will deny profusely that  I may have possibly caused those cables to melt over the exhaust by leaving the break lever locked in.

Learn to drive your car properly before your journey. We found out five months into our trip that we had something called a “sports” mode. This appears to be the automatic setting for when you are towing. Our brilliant car also has something called a “six speed” shift. This great, little, important feature allows you to gear down before a hill manually but without a clutch. A nifty invention that prevents your car from overheating when towing a caravan that may or may not have the breaks on.

 I was told by a reliable source that ladies like to drive clutch-less not clueless or crotch less.

Get yourselves a membership with some cool roadside assistance, especially when travelling beyond the black stump. We were lucky that New Norcia is near civilization.

 

A Camino shell. Maybe we should have walked

Be prepared to spend a long time waiting for assistance. We could have become grey nomads by the time help arrived.

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Walking with sharks: Day 5, the end

Please note that some of this story is hard to stomach and has a theme of death that crops up more than I wished for.



This is my fifth and final day in the boots around this beautiful Peron peninsular. I am walking from Herald Bight to Monkey Mia.

Sometimes adventure bites you hard in the proverbial, exposes weaknesses and tests your resolve. Are you ready?

 

Herald Bight was there in all of its glory that early morning. Shortly after being dropped off with the advice this was “an easy walk” and cynically told to “just keep the ocean on yer left” by my skilled adversary, I left Herald Bight behind and cut across the base of Guichenalt Point through a splendid Herald bluff..

Maybe you have realized by now that my mind wanders into the almost insane when I hike for long periods of time. Today my thoughts were drawn to the many different shapes of boulders on the beach that would have broken off the top of the cliff in a random, unpredictable time gone past and thundered down with brutal force. What would it be like to be crushed or bowled over by one of those? I spent time watching the tops of those red walls feeling very small and vulnerable. After a short time I became complacent about the rock-crush idea.

How does that happen?

Boulders of fear

 

Halfway through the dodging of the always stationary boulders I spotted a large turtle above the tidemark. On approach, I knew something wasn’t right. No turtle tracks were coming up from the beach and its body was sitting too low and still on the sand.




Death giving me a wink

Having seen the energetic egg-laying lady turtles from Dirk Hartog Island only a week earlier  I was horrified to find this turtle in a semi-decomposed state with hollow eyes staring at me. The feeling of horror exacerbated by a yellow ghost crab hiding from me in its right eye socket, while a much bigger yellow crustacean completely uninhibited started tearing strips of skin off the turtles face. Near vomiting, my hands moved automatically and started taking (possibly) inappropriate photographs of this Haloweenic scene. What does that tell you Mars? Swim as hard and fast in the ocean before letting the ghost crabs in.

"You've come near enough"

Being even more determined to survive the day I continued on and experienced the stark contrasts nature has to offer when a large white breasted sea-eagle allowed me to come within ten metres. The graceful bird took flight, posing for the camera as it expanded its mighty wings.



Taking to the air

 



Thrashing about in the shallows

 

 

I was very pleased that during this last day the sharks were back, putting on a show in the shallows. Some of them were thrashing wildly exposing almost their entire body; some were so close to the shore I could have put a leash on them and taken them for “walkies”!!

  



Shark swimming here.............................................semi grey nomad walking there

 

 

I sat down after rounding Cape Rose for a long lunch, four hours into my walk, trying to reset my aching body. This proved not an easy task for the semi-grey nomad. Rather stiff, I kept a slow pace at the water’s edge towards Monkey Mia which had come into view at Cape Rose. With the temperature rising above thirty, the Southerly dropping out all together and the humidity levels feeling steam-room high, it became uncomfortable to walk. The beautiful white, sandy beach disappeared making way to treacherous rocks and slippy banks of granite. That's all you need.





Looking back from Cape Rose

 

  

Two kilometres from the end my body felt seriously depleted. I start eating all my leftover snacks and began to drink my unfrozen, but cold, two litres of water that I saved for the end, having already drunk four litres of water today.

 

In the distance I saw an odd shape in the water. What is it? I strained to look at it through sweat- burning eyes. It looks like a goat. It is a goat. What’s a goat doing in the water? Why isn’t it moving? Is my educated friend playing a prank on me here? Has he thrown a taxidermy goat in the water just to freak me out. Nah, that's too far fetched. I am rubbing even more stinging sweat into my eyes trying to lose the spell of an exhaustion fuelled hallucination.

  



 

Goat of silence

 

  

When I drew near, the goat had still not moved an inch and stayed half submerged in the bay. Shark Bay no less. Overlooking nanny goat there were two kids half a metre tall. They look as baffled as myself and are patiently waiting for mum to come out of the shark infested water. Time passes, and except for some pleading bleats of the young ones, nothing changes. I come to the conclusion that nanny-goat has passed on to a better place in goat heaven with lots of green pastures and billy goats to frolic with. Several options run through my mind.

 

I just take those gangly kids, one under each arm, and walk the last couple of kilometres to the ranger's office in Monkey Mia and say: "Hello, meet Billy and Kid. I found them down the road but you can look after them now. See ya!!!"

Or

Let’s just take these cute little rascals back with me to the national park we live. Wait!! Isn't there a full goat eradication program in swing? Would I not be taking a non-native animal into a national park? Yes, you would. 
 

How can you not take me??

 

I chose to do the ever-so-hard option after severe internal dialog where swearwords were hurled back and forward at each other. I walked.

One last glance over my shoulder confirmed the death of the nanny goat as she collapsed into the water. "It is nature’s way" I tell myself.

I reported Billy and Kid's predicament to the rangers office at Monkey Mia as soon as I got there. Feeling like a tired stranger in a fully blown resort with dolphins cruising past and people sipping Pina Coladas on deckchairs as if nothing ever happened, I realised that I had finally completed my walk with sharks. 





 



Walking into the Monkey Mia resort

After my office visit I managed to stumble down to the beach where, without changing, I walked straight into the hyper-salinized water. It proved to be a big mistake. Six hours of hot, sweaty hiking had chafed the dark region where the sun ain’t shining, red raw. Literally, rubbing salt into the wounded proverbial was a nasty shock, but maybe apt punishment for not doing enough for the wildlife today.

Cruising past

 

As Olivia Newton John once sang: Let’s get philosophical.

 

Luckily, I had the absolute privilege to experience the raw peninsular wilderness that taught me much more about survival, death, nature's balance and human limitations. This may be something that we all could learn more about in this beautiful setting that is the Peron Peninsular.

 

However, dear readers, a large part in my heart calls out to discourage you not to walk in my footsteps. I have found pristine biridas, beaches untouched by coconut oiled humans, sharks to walk with, drop boulder bears and, ooohh, those amazing cliffs of Shark Bay. Nature, here on the peninsular, needs to be protected from our human frivolities and kept in that crude, fragile balance I found it in. It is a dangerous place to be, even for semi-grey nomads. Yeah Mars!!  Even by writing about Shark Bay I am guilty of generating more interest in a place that may be best left alone.

In the end the choice to travel into Shark Bay and explore its coastline is up to you. So, if you go, please, take care!!

 



Grey Bits


I was reassured by my erudite comrade that baby goats, the same height as the two I saw, would have no problem surviving on their own.

Please note, that this hike is through very wild, uninhabited country. In my opinion it is not advisable to attempt this hike without a support team or proper communication devices like a satellite phone or  EPIRB and hiking experience is a must.

Let the Department of Parks and Wildlife  know where you are going to be and when you plan to return. Phone (08) 9948 2226 or click on the following links www.sharkbay.org, www.dpaw.wa.gov.au for more information.

The best time to walk around the Peron Peninsular is at low tide. You can check the tide at www.seabreeze.com.au

The end

First job

First Job

“Here we are. In this special place. What are you gonna do here?”
"What show or song are we gonna get from you?"

Waterboys

We were never going to be this far North. A series of recommendations by friends new and old saw us rock up to Denham, Shark bay. Not a bad place to be after all. Every time we roll over the hill at the entrance of town the turquoise water of the bay just takes your breath away. Julie had rang up for a possible cleaning job going in Denham and scored an interview. It was a cleaning position at holiday apartments. The era of dreaded dunny polishing had begun. We were both required to front up for a meeting. We rode our bikes along the stunning Denham foreshore. For the first time ever we attended a job interview dressed in shorts and T-shirts. We were greeted by the lady owner and stood around awkwardly as no seats or drinks were offered. In the office she berated a cute fresh-faced child that had taken over her computer. “I can't wait for the holidays to be over" she muttered. The husband came in to introduce himself and proceeded to tell his wife to focus on the job at hand. How uncool! We had decided Julie would be the one to start working as it was only two weeks since I had finished working and Jules had been a hard working lady of leisure for..... 

How long?

 



Julie finding better toilets to clean elsewhere.

It wasn’t long before Julie worked out how much hard and fast work was required. Maybe it should be put that Julie was not paid an awful lot for cleaning a sea of units and their bathrooms, floors and kitchens. “How spoilt are you?” you must be thinking. I can tell you, it wasn’t the work or the money Jules was adverse to or that the boss was tough.  It was the way she was treated. Isn't it always the way? We are on this quest around Australia full of smiling energy that it makes your jaw hurt. We are looking for a certain meaningful change of direction. Exposing ourselves to people who are a deflated burnt out mess is not high on our agenda right now and does not fit the plan. No matter how hard Julie tried, short abrupt answers were used as chosen reply. At no time during Julie's fleeting relationship with the boss was any attempt made for extended niceties let alone a conversation. A friendly, but polite phone call was made, after three days of tasting Windex and Pine-o-clean.

Meanwhile….

I was recovering at the Denham tourist park from this horrible corky I got when I decided to test to the car to see if it would move at all if I walked into it real fast. It didn’t. Sitting with iced-up leg, elevated on stool, I managed to send an e-mail to the volunteer coordinator of Parks and Wildlife in Perth. “Does the ranger need any help at all?” Surely there must be more to life than sitting around this beautiful place while the missus is slaving away picking grime out of cracked kitchen floor tiles? The answer luckily was yes. Within a matter of a few days, the Ranger Chris emailed, called and picked us up for induction as voluntary camp ground hosts at the Peron homestead. All very impressive! Right?

That day of the induction I fought hard to ignore the pain from that corked leg. I walked almost as normal and managed to kneel down to change a sprinkler or two. This was an opportunity to good to miss. In the end we all got along like a house on fire and even managed to bribe Ranger Chris with some coffee and cake back at the caravan park.

A male emu running away with chicks at the homestead.

On the way to our new posting we had to drive 6km over a red dusty road. About 3km's in of our leisurely cruise it was halted by two male emus with his 6 chicks blocking our way. While we were waiting Chris explained to us that the male emu does the nesting and takes care of the chicks. He went on to tell us that at the homestead the male emus are known to fake fight each other. They would puff out their chest and make themselves as tall as possible. Whoever was the winner would end up looking after the all the chicks combined. Numbers of the flock could rise dramatically. Chris recalls seeing 26 chicks with one father.

"In my opinion the winner here is the real looser" said Ranger Chris.

After several minutes waiting we chose to carefully overtake the running herd. Carefully, but at high speed. They ran on and on, in front of us until, finally, exhausted, one of the males took a right-hand turn into the bush and immediately disappeared with every other emu in tow. What an introduction to our new work place.

For years I have been dreaming of this kind of work. Lots of diesel and dust. Being surrounded by deathening silence. Time to think and grow. Create.

Write.

The deathening silence of the diesel generator waiting to be refuelled.

There it is! Only after three weeks of travel. We are the new camp hosts of The Peron Homestead,

Shark Bay.

Night falls over the homestead.


 

 

Fifty cents: Part two

Fifty cents: Part two

After 26 years of living in Australia there is still an intrinsic strand of stingy Dutchness left in me. My way of selling the left over landfill in our garage sale is to put prices of what I thought the item was worth. A stack of vinyl LPs and singles, worth fifty bucks right? WRONG! Julie’s flat rate for everything was just 50 cents. How much is this dress please? A customer would ask. ‘ 50 cents’ Julie replied with a sideways glance at me. Our customers immediately gravitated to Julie – funny that!

People came in droves. Word of the 50 cent shop spread like ticks on a roo. Many returned for a second and third helping. Our stock was picked clean like vultures around a fresh kill.



We had all sorts coming to our garage sale.



Very early in the morning a young Kiwi fly-in, fly-out worker came around and selected a few items. He stacked them up in a corner and asked how much it all was. I told him that it was about $20 dollars. He said that that was very cheap but that he had to go home and get the money to pay me. When he came back he gave us fifty dollars and refused to take the change.

One man came on his bike.  He was dressed up in orange and red lycra while the whole world was wishing he wasn’t. He bought some knick-knacks and revealed his best advice for the ‘Aussie’ traveler like us how to wash your clothes. He took a good half hour to explain how to wash clothes by hand in a small bottle. Excitedly he started making hand gestures while his jiggly bits bounced up and down “you just got to shake it” and it did. Other customers were rolling their eyes in the back of their heads. Good thing he came back ten minutes later with the actual bottle he uses and gave another jiggling demo.  He was a lovely man with such disarming helpfulness which may have been too much for some.

Just as we were about to pack up on our second garage sale we were suddenly blinded by a flash of sunlight on chrome. A sleek Mustang appeared as in a nostalgic time-warp back to “Happy Days” and canned laughter. A middle aged non-Fonzy lookalike hopped out with his daughter. No greasy comb job in sight. To my surprise Julie was clearly batting a few eyelids at the man with the car. “Ohh” Julie lovingly uttered. “Is this a 65 model. I was born in 1965”. In a suave voice the man said “Sorry Mam! It’s a 64….. and a half.” Would you like to take her for a drive, Mam? “Hah!!” I thought. Julie would never fall for that trick. “Oooh. Yes please.” She said. “You clean up the garage sale dear and I will be back soon”. She hopped in the driver’s seat and drove off leaving me to pick up my jaw off the ground. Many times after we have laughed about this. It turned out he was a Federal police man and bought lots of our junk.

The people we met during the three garage sales were very nice to us and definitely not a bunch of galahs. 

Many were interested in our semi grey nomad story. The whole thing was just a great experience and hey!? If 30 customers per day buy 20 items for a minimal of fifty cents it is worth doing. Even this stingy Dutchman has to admit that.

More semi grey nomad tips for a Garage sale.

·         Try and detach emotionally from the merchandise. Sometimes deep breathing is required.

·          If you can’t detach yourself find somewhere to store it.  Ask yourself how important all this
           stuff is to you when you are about to take off on the adventure of a lifetime.

·         Give it away. You will have to bin it anyway as you can't take it all. Be generous to others that
           may need it more than you.

·         To enable to get the most out of your stock start several months before you leave. This will
           reduce overall stress.

·         Move into your caravan way before hitting the road. This will enable you to test all the
          equipment, give you an indication what you need on the road and distance yourself from the
          house and those things in it.

·         You will find out during this process that you can live with very little. I have taken this as the
          biggest lesson out of this.