Australia - the West

Australia - the West

Arriving in Perth was a distinct 'waypoint'. We were now on the last leg of the journey - albeit with more than 10,000ks to go.

We went to collect the bike from the shipping company, only to discover that it had had a 900-kilo case dropped on top of it! Although it looked a bit of mess, it had suffered surprisingly little damage. It cost us a slab of beer to get the right angles knocked back into the panniers, gaffer tape and cable ties fixed the rest - at least for the time being - and without further ado we were off.

With a fairly uneventful 500ks nibbled out of our journey we arrived in Geraldton, our first overnight stop. Lunch in a local café introduced us to the establishment's owner, Kev, a bike-riding, former Pom. Aussie hospitality was in overdrive and we subsequently spent the evening at his place, chomping pizza, drinking beer and talking bikes with him and his wife Wendy.

One of the trip's first highlights was a visit to Monkey Mia, a World Heritage site where visitors come to see the dolphins swim into the knee-deep shallows. The Dolphin Study Centre is partially funded by tourism allowing research to continue while crowds of tourists are given the opportunity to learn something more about dolphin behaviour. We spent an afternoon on a world-class racing catamaran adapted for marine study. Several pods of dolphins came to see us and swam alongside the yacht - the crew can identify them by their markings and have adopted names for each one.

A slight change of plan

A few hair-raising trips along unmade roads and a close look at our chosen route had thrown up a problem - the outback roads can be an absolute hoot to ride if you're solo and have no luggage. Sections of dirt can quickly change to shale, which can just as quickly change to soft sand. However, with our gargantuan 500k payload I had grave concerns about our ability to stay upright. To make matters worse we have several 300k-plus stretches of deserted roads to access the places we wanted to visit. Reluctantly and after a lot of thought we decided to head back to Perth from where we would truck the bike to Brisbane and splatter the remnants of our budget on a 4WD.

Hutt River Province

Once back on the road we headed north again making an effort to catch up on the lost miles. Our first stop was the little known Hutt River Principality. In 1971 the then Len Casley, disgusted with government interference in farm production quotas capitalised on his knowledge of the law, proclaimed his land a principality and seceded from the Commonwealth.

Smirks of derision were slapped away when government lawyers confirmed the legality of "Prince Leonard's" claim. Needless to say there followed an exponential flurry of law-changing activity once the politicians realised that he had precluded himself from the requirement to pay taxes to the Australian government.

To this day Prince Leonard and his wife, Princess Shirley, retain the legally and internationally recognised title of HRH. Prince Leonard has issued more than 1,500 Hutt River passports (and travels frequently on one himself) and has his own currency tied to the Aussie Dollar (although not accepted outside Hutt River). Even our postcards, with Hutt River stamps, arrived in the UK as promised. With its own Army, Navy and Air Force - although with a population of only 20, they are purely ceremonial! - the Hutt River Province is the only country in the world to be formed without bloodshed.

On our arrival we were greeted in the Post Office by Prince Leonard himself, he stamped our passports and gave us a guided tour of his town and it's royal paraphernalia which included correspondence with Buckingham Palace and other royal households around the world.

Several years ago Alan Wicker made a documentary about Prince Leonard and his principality. For his efforts, Prince Leonard bestowed on Mr Wicker (or should I say Sir Alan) a Hutt River Knighthood.

Into the outback

We continued north stopping off to visit Carnarvon's Blow Holes - narrow tunnels running through the seaside rocks which flood with seawater and blast 'geyser' style further inland.

From here we travelled east onto unmade roads and into the outback. This was to be our first taste of Australia's vastness and as the Landcruiser weaved over the continually changing road surface, I had little difficulty convincing myself that it would not have been much fun on our fully loaded bike.

As if to highlight our isolation and reinforce the feeling that this was not an area that suffered too many traffic jams, we discovered that on some of the straighter stretches, the road doubles up as an aeroplane landing strip! Distances however are perceived very differently by the locals here - ask how long it will take to travel a 500k stretch and you will be told "Oh that's just up the road, probably only take you a day"!

We camped overnight surrounded by the mountains of the Karijini National Park. An early start saw our first real 4WD section as we detoured to the top of 'Mt Nameless'- whoever came up with that memorable title was undoubtedly having a bad day, you'd name it something, even if it was after your horse or your dog! 19th Century pioneers of Australia were, however, undoubtedly brave but had an uncanny ability to state the obvious. Names such as Lake Disappointment, Mt Disaster, Deep Water Point, Accident Creek, Disaster Inlet and Far Away Bay to name but a few, leave little doubt as to the circumstances surrounding the origin of their titles.

This is Iron Ore country and from our elevated vantage point we could see the open cast mines cut into the side of distant mountains. Apparently the soil here is so rich in iron ore that you can pick it up with a magnet.

Despite the ongoing draught the rivers provided enough water to fill the deeper creeks and keep waterfalls flowing. The area is brimming over with gorges and clear water pools - a welcome sight after a hot and sweaty walk. Being out of season was a double whammy as we frequently had the place to ourselves. Having not seen a soul for hours we felt it was reasonable, on our first stop, to go 'commando' style and so with factor 30 rubbed into our snow white butt cheeks we piled into the water.

Millstream National Park

From Karijini we headed north into Millstream National Park which, if it was possible, was even more deserted. We appeared to be the only people there. We drove all day without seeing another vehicle on the road and the empty landscape showed no signs of life! Our campsite that night obviously catered for a small crowd but we were the only people there. We spent the evening trying to imagine what manner of creatures could be responsible for the array of croaks, whistles, rasps and rustles that emanated from the nearby scrub.

Given enough time, perhaps about a life-time, all of Australia's outback attractions could be visited, however we had 26 days to get to Brisbane, a journey of over 10,000ks so for now it was back to the tarmac. Once out of the national parks, the northern stretch of Western Australia is fairly desolate. The landscape is flat and unchanging for several hundred k's at a time. Even the coastline is just one long and very remote stretch of sand, so we decided to knock a massive 850k's off our journey. Fortunately the travel time was reduced by a combination of the deserted roads, our 1,000 kilometre fuel capacity and the fact that most of the journey could be done in fifth gear.

The Kimberley

We spent a day relaxing in Broome before heading into the Kimberley - one of the country's last great frontiers. With searing heat and massive seasonal rainfall, it's an explorers challenge. Despite the fact that we'd be sticking to recognised 'roads', we'd been advised, by several sources, to exercise caution, plan ahead and most importantly carry plentiful reserves of water.

250 k's along the Gibb River Track we turned off into the King Leopold Ranges Conservation Park, some thirty k's of paint scraping bush track then took us to Bell Gorge and undoubtedly the most isolated camp site we've stayed on. At one point, after dark, a car drove into the camp, probably having seen the enormous fire I'd built. It turned around and drove off, but then stopped just out of sight. Several minutes later it moved off again. We'd read about a few unpleasant 'incidents' that had taken place in the outback - the hairs on the back of my neck bristled and I located a very big stick. "Just campers looking for an isolated spot" I told myself. The sky had now clouded over and we were treated to an awesome electrical storm over the distant Leopold Range. We sat around the fire, sipped a few Bourbons and relaxed - but I didn't let go of my stick!

Fly-fever

Next morning we set off in search of fuel and found ourselves at a solitary Roadhouse 360ks from the nearest anything where we topped up with what has to be the most expensive fuel in Australia. As we travelled east the temperature had gradually been creeping up and the atmospheric dryness would turn our sandwiches crusty in the time it took the make them. We also suffered an onslaught from what is undoubtedly the most irritating creature we'd ever encountered - the 'friendly fly'. Imagine a blue bottle whose one mission in life is to persistently dive-bomb your face, paying particular attention to your lips, ears and eyes. Now imagine a small army of them, every second, all day - demented daydreams about inflicting a slow and painful death on each one of them soon becomes a disturbing source of amusement. Picture Lucy's surprise, next day, when she asked in a local store if they had any hat-nets for keeping off the flies and was told "no love, don't stock em. We don't get that many flies round here"! Guess you just get used to them!

Mud bath

I'd been a little disappointed that our journey so far had lacked mud. I'd been looking forward to some sliding around. However, the nightly rainstorms did their work - another advantage of travelling late in the season - and many of the roads had started to flood over. In fact another couple of weeks and we wouldn't have been able to get through this region. Eventually the entire road was axle deep allowing plenty of sideways fun and giving the Landcruiser a coating that'd take hours to wash off. Many of the subsidiary tracks were inaccessible even to 4WD vehicles and much of this part of the park was closed till next season in April.

At one refuelling stop we made enquires about possible campsites ahead. The locals were always keen to help but we had to laugh when told that Jack's Waterhole, one of our short-listed stops, had been 'washed away'. "A bit flooded then?" I asked hoping to clarify the situation "No mate" came the reply "It's washed away, it's gone" - imagine someone in the UK casually telling you "no sorry mate, Islington isn't there anymore, got washed away" - only in Australia!

Bungle Bungles

Back on the tarmac we had an overnight stop at Kununarra. Much as we had both loved our recent isolation, it was good to have showers and a crystal blue swimming pool.

Our last stop in WA was the Bungle Bungles - a most bizarre sight especially when viewed from above. Beehive shaped rock formations as high as 300 metres with thick orange and black bands. Having done our fair share of walking we opted for a heli-tour. 45 minutes in an open-sided helicopter took us through the park's narrow gorges and to heights of 1,000 metres over parts of the park too remote to reasonably access by land.

On the drive down to the park we'd picked up a man who's tyre had blown sending his car careering into a tree. He had a nasty gash in his head and so we offered to drive him to the nearest town. He was obviously in a bit of shock but even in these circumstances the Aussie ability for understatement came though. As he sat next to me in the front seat keeping the bleeding at bay with a large towel, I told him he would probably need stitches. "Oh no" he said calmly "its only a graze" ! The last we heard he had had 12 stitches in the head and was being looked after by a friend.

Gregory Park

A lot of the parks were closing down for the wet season but one - Gregory Park - was still open. And this time we really were the only people there. We spent the night in a bush camp by the side of the river. Now armed with face nets, we could stick two fingers up at our 'friendly' face invaders. Instead we had a new 'pest' to contend with. This was estuarine crocodile country so there was to be no more cool swims on the cards. Despite the heat, I couldn't resist the urge to build a fire so set off in search of wood. While looking around the bush at the edge of the river I caught sight of a pair of eyes watching me through the rushes. I don't know who was more disturbed as the croc slid off into the water and I retreated to the van to slide into some new underwear.

The following morning we set off on the 60k 'Humbert Track'. This was undoubtedly the trickiest route we'd done - even though the Park information marked the run as only moderately difficult! It was nearly 5 hours till we saw anything resembling a decent road.

Heading for Queensland

From here we headed down the never-ending Stuart Highway to see the Devil's Marbles. These rock boulders, carved out of the earth over millions of years, made an extraordinary sight sitting in the middle of the desert. The Aborigines believe that small devil-like creatures live between the rocks and try to steal your children. The place certainly has a slightly eerie feel about it.

Back on the dirt road we set off for Queensland and the start of our journey down the East Coast. The road to Burketown was so bleak and arid, we were starting to look forward to seeing the rainforest!

Photographs

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