Go west, young man

Before we came to Australia, various people told us that if we had the time, we should get over to the West Coast, as we'd much prefer it to the backpacker theme park that the East Coast can seem. And by jingo they were right. So much so that if I manage to persuade Faye, we'll be heading back up north from our current base in a cosy apartment in Perth.

But if we liked it so much, why did we rush down to Perth, you may wonder. Well, as the Americans love saying, there's no I in team. In Darwin, almost at the northernmost point of Australia, we joined a convoy of intrepid but aging vehicles heading south west. Now the itinerary was no longer purely ours to form, but no matter: travelling in a gang, what a top crack!

Sadly, Ernie, a 1978 Nissan E20 with pop-top, has now been sold, and his owners are soon to be leaving for New Zealand. So now there's no F in team, as some British wits like to respond.

Since it was such an epic journey, to the extent that Faye entered a new decade in her life, here comes an epic blog entry describing our trip from Darwin to Perth.
And here's a map to give you an idea of how we've speeded up in the middle section of our lap of the island:

We did the white line (so to speak), Sydney to Cairns, from mid-May to late July - over two months.
Cairns to Darwin (blue line) took us just a week, but we were trying to catch up with the rest of the convoy.
We left Darwin on August 2nd and arrived in Perth on the 29th, so the red line took us less than four weeks. This included a final sprint from Broome to Perth in about 12 days, once we'd realised how little time we had to get down to Perth with days to spare for Ernie to be sold.

Why go back up north? Well for one, it's around 20 degrees in Perth at the moment, cloudy and windy. And Broome is rarely below 32.
And then there's the West Coast itself...

Litchfield National Park
Before we get to the coast though, there's the small but engaging matter of the Northern Territory, all blazing sun, freshwater pools and crocodiles. Litchfield National Park, like the more famous Kakadu, is just south of Darwin and full of beautiful waterfalls and pools to swim in. Unlike Kakadu, though, it's all accessible on tarmac roads - essential when travelling in rickety old campervans, even more so when the memory of $1000-worth of suspension repairs in Cairns is still fresh in the mind. Also unlike Kakadu, you're virtually guaranteed not to meet any man-eating saltwater crocodiles.


(click on image to see larger version)

Kakadu National Park
We couldn't very well just leave out Kakadu though, could we. Although too wary of our vehicles to risk the corrugated tracks to the more spectacular places, we did manage to take in some atmospheric spots.

This was a "jumping croc" cruise, just outside Kakadu. They dangle bits of meat on fishing rods VERY close to the boat. These are man-eating salties, in case you were wondering.

Katherine to Derby
Farewell NT, hello WA. Farewell Faye's twenties, hello thirtysomethings (welcome, I said). And other than a bizarre but very amusing and well-fuelled birthday celebration in a free camp by the highway (for more of which see Faye's blog), this section of the journey was remote and uneventful, but by no means dull. The scenery along the way, especially once we crossed into Western Australia, was beautiful, almost martian at times in its bleak redness. Ah, and the games of Bounce (like One-Bounce, but with no bounces) in the free camps; and the shooting stars in the outback's night sky; and the warm-up drinking games prior to Faye's birthday; and the kangaroos bounding across the highway; and even at one stage the burning bushes either side of the road, apparently controlled, but at night seeming like either the gates to hell or an overblown car advert from the eighties.

Faye's birthday camp; Bert, Ernie's mascot, getting into King's Bowl

Derby Rodeo: wildlife and not-so-wildlife

The Kimberley
Australia's last frontier, they say. In our own ancient campervans we could have done this region even less justice than Kakadu, so we decided to rent a monster 4WD, which between the six of us was around 1/7 the price of an organised tour.

Tunnel Creek; freshwater crocodile in Windjana Gorge

Wish we hadn't used a wide angle - I was closer than this makes it look! (OK, they're only freshies)

Broome
Ah, Broome. My favourite town in Australia. We managed to persuade team Ernie to stay there for three days, when I think they were keen to get down to Perth to make sure they sold the van. But I could have stayed much longer, and as I say, the fact that we still have loads of time left in Australia and that it's some 12 degrees warmer than here makes me want to redo the slog back up. We can do it in three monster days, I swear!
Saying all that, there isn't much there really. But the colour of the Indian Ocean, especially when you've been surrounded by red dust for weeks, is just breathtaking. It's a milky turquoise colour, no doubt due to some algae or microbe or something, but it's like no other sea I'd seen before. Cable Beach, just out of town, is probably the nicest beach I've seen in Australia, and bear in mind that we've now covered about 5,000km of Aussie coastline. And the waves were just right for English-standard bodyboarders.

Also in Broome's favour is the number of good restaurants, which makes it something of a food oasis considering what there is (or isn't) around it for thousands of kilometres. I reckon persuading Faye shouldn't pose too many problems...

One such establishment is an American restaurant called McDonald's. Here, the three boys finally made good on their promise to hold some sort of eat-off. Result:
1= Pete and Rich, 3 Big Macs and 3 Quarterpounders;
3 Jon, 2 Big Macs and 3 Quarterpounders, the last of which lasted approximately one hour.

Bright-eyed at the outset; the joint winners, wading gamely through no.5



Ningaloo Reef
NINGALOO! NINGALOO! NINGALOO, NINGALOO, NA NA..
And we all liked Ningaloo...
Unfortunately I haven't got any photos to demonstrate just how stunning the Ningaloo reef is - no fancy underwater cameras this time. We did it all on the cheap, which is only possible because the Ningaloo coral reef is accessible off the beach. Yes, just strap on your snorkel, swim out about 30 metres, and you're suddenly surrounded by amazing coral, hundreds of fish, turtles, and of course best of all, reef sharks. These fellas only grow up to about 2m long, but snorkelling around and suddenly seeing a bona fide shark only about 5 yards away from you is incredible. If you were alone they didn't seem to mind your presence - I followed one smallish one (1.5m-ish) for about 100 yards as it skulked about. Tremendous.
Saying that, having heard the big Australian news story this week, I would probably not have been as blasé swimming around sting rays as I was...

We also took a day trip out on a boat to swim with manta rays - these are HUGE, up to 5.5m wingspan, but completely harmless. We did manage to see them, but the water was pretty murky so it didn't quite live up to the pictures in the brochure. To make up for it though, we then went snorkelling at an area of coral called The Maze, in the clearest water imaginable. So many colours, so many creatures, but the best thing was the formation of the coral - it was like gliding around a mini underwater Manhattan, along the sandy avenues between the skyscrapers of coral.

Posing (tongue in cheek, I swear) on the beach. The waves on the horizon mark where the reef forms a natural barrier, protecting the inner lagoon, where the snorkelling is fantastic and the sharks are only little.

Monkey Mia
Situated on Shark Bay, Monkey Mia is, naturally, famous for its... dolphins.
A few generations of wild dolphins have been coming right up to the sea's edge to be fed since the 1960s I believe.
Unfortunately for me I had a mild bout of post-Ningaloo snorkel throat, and we were now far enough south to feel a nip in the air, so I wasn't up for swimming with the dolphins as the other two lads did. Still, we stood knee-deep in the sea and two or three female dolphins came right up to us. One was apparently called Nicky, so named due to several nicks on her dorsal fin from a jostle with one of the bay's resident tiger sharks.
I've still no idea why it's called Monkey Mia mind.

The Pinnacles
A few hundred kilometres north of Perth, this was our last stop together as a convoy. The Pinnacles are some odd, quite spooky limestone formations which apparently formed underground a fair old time ago. With the sun setting on our trip, what better way to end than with some late arvo snaps?


Perth
Civilisation...... Of sorts. After weeks in the back of beyond, Perth initially seemed like New York, Paris and London rolled into one. In fact, it's perfectly pleasant, has got some good shops, restaurants and bars, but really doesn't amount to much. However, the six of us managed to get an apartment pretty much in the centre of Perth for cheaper per person than a hostel room, with, wait for it, a lounge and sofas and armchairs and a telly and a video (we couldn't afford the platinum apartments with DVD players). Now that won't sound like much, but weeks of sleeping in a van, next to a road leading from nowhere much to nowhere in particular, had left me craving the simple comforts of life at home.

A week later, and I'm already a bit bored of the indoors. We could get jobs, but Perth doesn't really seem to merit staying much longer, and the weather's not that good at the moment. But get this folks - spring's already started here and we all know what comes after that...
So it's either back up north a thousand kilometres or two, to see Broome and Ningaloo again in particular, and veg in the sun, if I get my way; or down to the South West, which does sound pretty nice to be fair. But surely it'll be even nicer a few weeks later into spring?