A road trip

A pitstop at Bow Lake.  Ken's on his new Yamaha Super Tenere 1200 and I'm on my Kawaski KLR 650.

The bush is closed because of bears...we stuck to the pavement.

A stop in Edmonton to visit Shaun and Iris was fun.  Nice to see them.

Farther north Ralph built a place in Mclellan, haven't seen him in a few years.

After being home for 2 weeks it was time for a road trip on the bikes.  Ken had just bought a new bike and was itching to get on it.  Not only that, we were in need of a truck and camper to travel south to Mexico in this winter.  We looked at a few trucks along the way, didn't find anything but we had a great time visiting friends and camping.  3000 km, we just can't seem to sit still.

Guess where we are?

YVR, Starbucks and Haida art.

Gassman Aussie facts:

1.  30,100 km traveled in 170 days.

2.  cheapest petrol, $1.37-most expensive petrol, $2.22

3.  cheapest bananas, $.99/kg-most expensive bananas, $4.99/kg

4.  lots of free camping-most expensive caravan park, $42.00 (no power)

5.  worst beer, Emu-best beer Boag's Brewery

6.  hottest day, 38 degrees C-coldest day, -2 degrees C(we scraped our windshield on White Lightning the day we left Melbourne!)

7.  lowest point latitude, 12 degrees south, highest point latitude, 43 degrees south

8.  most rain in Daintree, 15 cm in one day, driest place ???? rain always follows us

9.  going-left Kelowna at 3:30 pm got to Auckland at 7:00am, two days later

10  coming home left at Melbourne at 11:45 am got Kelowna at 6:15 pm same day

Completing the circle in Melbourne

You gotta love the lighthouses here. This one was built in 1872 and moved 15 km to the spot in Kingston SE, where it resides now, in 1974.

Mt Schank, a volcanic crater was a great complete circle rim walk.

The lagoon in the crater at Tower Hill NP.

A look at the 12 Apostles located along the Great Ocean Road.

We arrived early at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Grounds) to take in an AFL (Aussie Football League) game.  I'm not much of a sports fan but the game was fast, a bit nasty and good fun when watched live.

 

73000 people attended the big game between Melbournes' Hawethorne Hawks and the Sidney Swans.  The home team won after a back and forth battle.  Boy, those Aussie fans love their footy!

Melbourne by night.

It's funny how, when you have in your mind that when it is time to start heading for home everything else start to seem unimportant.  After leaving Max in Adelaide we started toward Melbourne sticking mostly to the coast but visiting a few parks and doing a couple to short walks but I think both Ken and I were starting to think more about ending our trip and what we planned to do when we returned home.  

The road back to Melbourne took us through more farmland and eventually led us to the infamous 'Great Ocean Road' which runs along the Southern Ocean and the Tasman Sea.  The coastline was rugged and dotted with many pillars, large and small.  The closer we got to Melbourne the busier the road became, bus after bus of  tours passed us on route to The 12 Apostles and the Port Campbell NP.  Along the way it was unfortunate but a bus went of the road, killing one person the injuring others...the road was blocked for hours.  A policeman sent us and several others on a detour following a side road that he insisted was paved and in good condition, Ha!    It actually was dirt (more like mud after all the rain we had the previous days) and when we got to the other end we found out the road had been closed the day before.  Once again White Lightning came through for us!

After finishing the 'Great Ocean Road' we hit HOME on the GPS and it took us directly to the Big 4 Holiday Park in Coburg where we had purchased White Lightning and started our trip in February.  After washing the van and taking some pictures Ken put it up for sale on Gumtree and we waited, 5 days without a call, then it happened...everyone wanted it and bang it sold and we had to rebook our flights home.  The lady who bought White Lightning was great, we could keep her until we left and she would give us a ride to the airport the day of our flight.

Yahoo!  Canada here we come!

Perth to Adelaide

It has been a busy couple of weeks with lots to see and do as we made our way down and across the last bit of Western Australia into South Australia across the great Nullabar Plain. 

South of Freemantle we found a wide variety of landscape including the beautiful Margaret River wine district with limestone caves interspersed among the rolling hills. We were captivated by even more beautiful beaches but also we found a rugged coastline, both were made more dramatic by the winds and high seas. The weather, continuing in the true Gassman fashion, turned stormy around Esparance with an extreme weather warning and high winds up to 116 km/hr which blew us across the Nullabar Plain, 1200 km with not a town in sight and little for fuel stations but White Lightning once again purred along, happy to be on the road. The notable stop along the Nullabar was a small detour into the Head of Bight to see the Southern Right Whales. The vantage area was perfect, a boardwalk takes you to a viewing station high on the cliffs where you can look down at the whale cows with their calfs, even in the rough water we were able to see over 12 sets as they travelled along the coast line.

After the Nullabar we headed down the Eyre Peninsula stopping in at several small towns, Venus Bay, Coffin Bay (where we say more Emus then we ever had before, oh and had a great feed of oysters), Port Lincoln, and Port Augusta where we put new front tyres on White Lightning before heading to the Flinders Range NP. 

The weather cleared for the Flinders and we had a somewhat sunny day to drive through the park. We ended our day with a stay at Parachilina Station where we treated ourselves to a dinner out...The Feral Antiipasto plate. 

Next on our route toward Adelaide was the Yorke Peninsula where we spent a night at Marrion Bay and visited the Innes NP. The wind just out blew us off the Cape. It continued to be a windy and rainy day as we made our way though the Adelaide Hills with its many wineries. The wind blew us right to the doorstep of Max (an old friend of Kens who he last visited in New Zealand 25 years ago). Max wined and dined us and guided us through a nice scenic drive around the Adelaide Hills including a look over the city from Mt. Lofty.

We enjoyed our stay with Max (and Toby, the every faithful Jack Russel) but sadly after a couple of days it was time to move on...the last leg of our trip. Back to Melbourne.

Busselton pier, measuring in at 2.2 km.

Cape Leeuwin lighthouse, south of Augusta, WA.

Jewel Cave south of Margaret River.  Amazing cave formations, it contained ever "ite" there is!

The water running into Circular Pools in the Walpole Wilderness Con. Park looked like frothy milk on a cappiccino, brown, light and foamy.

A huge Eucalyptus tree in the Tingle Forrest.

Between Walpole and Denmark, WA, Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk was a 600 metre boardwalk up in the tree canopy, nice view.

Parry Beach, along the South Coast Highway, WA.  Another lovely sunset.

The Blue Pools, South Coast Highway...not exactly swimming weather but we could imagine how busy a nice spot like this would be in the summer.

A mural on the pubic amenities in Hopetoun, WA.

King of the castle on top of Mt. Barren in Fitzgerald River NP.

The view of Doubtful Island Bay from Mt. Barren, Fitzgerald River NP.

Lots and lots of beautiful beaches to be found aroung Esperance, WA.

Beautiful coastline, as seen from the comfort of our own vehicle...White Lightning.

It will never cease to amaze us the colour of the soil, trees and sky, what a combo.

The Nullabur Plains, the big highlight 145 km of very straight road, thank goodness for the tailwind.

At the Head of Bight the Southern Right Whales lounge with their new calves.

Yes, still many long distances with not too much to see but we enjoyed a great audio book on the iPad.

A storm hanging over Murphy's Haystacks in the middle of some farmers field.

Talia Caves near Venus Bay, SA.

Just nice countyside.

"What you lookin' at?"  A local Emu at Coffin Bay NP.

Desert Pea flower.

The Flinders Range NP SA was a pleasant break with mountians, at last.

We tied the Ferel Plate Antipasto which included, goat cheese, emu pate, camel salami, kangaroo pastrami, camel mettwurst with roasted peppers and mushrooms...served with fresh baked bread.  OMG, sooo good.  Really.

Prairie Hotel, near the Flinders Range, under a Super 'Moon Dog'.

A little warning at the Cape in Innes NP.

Just a little windy!

Ken and myself with our tour guide Max at the top of Mt. Lofty.

Kaiserschharren

We kept meeting up with this great Austrian couple, Christian and Nadja, and to our delight Nadja made us a delicious breakfast one morning....Kaiserschharren :)

Kaiserschharren 

4 servings

6 eggs

3 cups flour

1 cup milk

salt to taste

sugar

cinnamon (optional)

Seperate  eggs and whip whites until stiff.  Mix together flour, egg yolks, milk, salt and a bit of sugar.  Fold in egg whites.  Heat pan adding butter to melt and pour in dough to cover the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle with pancake with sugar. Flip pancake when brown on the bottom (don't worry if the pancake breaks) when second side is brown sprinkle with more sugar (and cinnamon if desired) and break pancake into small pieces, cooking any dough that has not finished cooking.  Serve with apple sauce and/or yogurt.  Yummy!

You just have to try it, the Austrians can't be wrong!

Thanks for a great breakfast Christian and Nadja!

Broome to Perth

Be careful what you wish for...  We were sweating it out in the humidity of the north, in Darwin, and then as we travelled south we were stopping and buying flannel pjs and extra blankets, and pulling on our shoes instead of sandals. The days were staying relatively warm with a few showers but the nights were dipping down to 2 degrees.  Traveling south the weather was bound to be cooler.

We headed south to Karijini NP where White Lightning was put to the test on a couple of terribly corregated (washboard) roads.  We hiked both Dales Gorge (we camped here at the NP campground) and the Weano Gorge, both were very nice but Weano Gorge was a little more fun as we had to do a bit of clinging to the rock walls and climbing down walls into pools by toehold and handrail...in spots we felt like spiderman.  White Lightning and our clothing will never be the same after the fine RED dirt (get the idea of how red the really is?).  

We very disappointed when we were unable to snorkel The Great Barrier Reef so we bought fins and snorkels in Broome and were very excited to be able to try our hand at snorkeling on the Ningaloo Reef on the west coast.  People here say the Ningaloo Reef maybe isn't as big but is definitely as good as The Great Barrier and it's easier to get to because you can walk out to it from the beach.  We snorkeled 3 times on the Ningaloo, at Cape Range NP near Exmouthe, at Coral Bay and again near the Blow holes where we did a drift snorkel, getting pulled along by the tidal currents.  Sad to say the water was a little too cold to stay in very long but we managed to see coral, some colourful fish and a ray.  

The west coast was loaded with National Parks and we seemed to be skipping down from one to the next.  Kalbarri NP offered us more great walking trails in the gorges along the Murchison River and some great views as we walked the cliffs along the Indian Ocean.  The countryside began to change when we started to arrive in the area of Kalbarri, farms of sheep, cattle and oats/wheats.  It was nice to see green fields again!

Along with the green we started to see white, big white sand dunes amongst the green.  The last NP we visited before Perth was the Namburg NP with its very strange boulders standing straight up out of the desert in the middle on no where.

So many different parks with so many different characteristics, (but we are getting a bit gorged out).  We have been running into some of the same people all along the way down the west coast and in Perth we stayed with Elspeth and Michael and had a great time visiting and reminiscing about our vacations  north along the coast.  They make and market a coconut frozen nondairy organic dessert, we spent one evening testing flavours. Yummy, check out their website at coconutz.org and hit 'about' for a great ad, Michael made the whole site.  Good work!

Dale's Gorge, Karijini NP.

Red Capped Robin

Weano Gorge, Karijini NP.

The Lighthouse at Cape Range NP, near Exmouthe.

Turquoise Bay, leading out to the Ningaloo Reef.  It looks inviting but the water was a little cool at 20 degrees, not to mention the wind, brrrr.

Water, water!  I'm thirsty after that long flight.  Little Corellas with their light blue eyes.

Coral Bay, still another change to snorkel and the water was a bit cooler...18 degrees and still windy.

Storms out to sea make for interesting clouds.

The Blow Hole (blowing water up to 20 metres in the air) just north of Carnarvon, WA.  We camped there for a couple nights and had perfect conditions low tides and high seas...lots of water pressure. 

The coastline in the west can be very rugged.

There are so many types of tent campers etc but this one looked something like we might see at home, only loaded on a 4X4 ready for the Australian Outback.

Looking out over a gorge along the Murchison River from Hawks Head, Kalbarri NP.

These Tawny Frogmouths sat on a branch above our campsite all day and we didn't notice them until sunset.

Looking through Natures Window at Kalbarri NP. at the head of The Loop walking track.  Nice and sunny here but by the time we were finished it was pouring rain.

A Bottle Brush flower, new buds were coming out after a week or so of good rain (which they got before we arrived...luckily!).

The Natural Bridge, Kalbarri NP.

White sand dunes looked like piles of flour in amongst the green foliage, just north Green Head WA.

Another great sunset over the Indian Ocean.

I'm standing amongst the Pinnacles, Namburg NP.  A moon-scape of standing rocks set in the desert.