Back In The Alice

We made it into Alice Springs after 3 days of solid driving up the center of Australia via the Stuart Highway.

Tracey organised some work in K-Mart and I went for a successful job interview at AIS (Alice Industrial Supplies). I start there tomorrow, Friday, on the sales counter. They supply tools, hydraulic service, air conditioning service etc. Money isn't too good but between us we are still living like kings, and queens, and don't want for much.

We still have the prospect to be working in Broome as of March so we will see how that goes. We'll make a decision in the new year as soon as we know what is happening up in Broome.

It's hot here in the Alice, 43 degrees yesterday and the same today. The heats not too bad as it's a dry heat. We have a nice shady spot in the park but woke up yesterday to find gum tree sap all over the car!! Won't be parking there again. Most of yesterday was spent cleaning the sap off the paintwork.

That's it for now.

Let's See.......... Where Were We?

We camped at stony point for a few days to see the youngest daughter, Letitia, graduate from initial training in the Navy.




I managed to cut my foot open climbing over the van whilst washing it the day before her graduation. The gash required 3 stitches at the local clinic. So much for the new running regime!!



After seeing Letitia's graduation we left for Mildura to find some work. We got to Mildura after camping along the Murray river for a few days and registered at all the job agencies. We quickly found out that the town is dead employment wise as all the Christmas positions had been filled already and other businesses were winding up for Christmas. Mildura is a massive wine producing area and that work starts in Feb Mar. Missed the boat there as well.

So we are making our way to Alice Springs where Tracey has a job waiting and I applied for a job in an industrial supplies shop. Got a phone call back saying they were interested in me and when can I get there? So off we went.

We have just gone through Port Augusta and on the Stuart Highway heading for a camp just out side of Coober Pedy. Good to be back in the outback.

Great Ocean Road Walk

We decided to go do a section of the GOR Walk today, 10 Klm out and 10Klm back. 20 For the day.

We only did a small portion of it as it's 250 odd KLM long! The camp site we are at is right on the track and is used by walkers as a destination to rest for the day. Here are some photos of the spectacular scenery along the way.

This is the beach we are camped at. Johanna Beach.

On the way out of the camp site.

Some of the farm land around the camp.

One of the bays on the track.

A little fella we found on the way! :-)

We leave tomorrow for Ballarat. We have enjoyed our stay here very much, one of the best places yet.

The Great Ocean Road (GOR)

We made it to the Mornington Peninsula after Phillip Island and camped in a caravan park to catch up with Letitia, the youngest daughter.

After leaving the caravan park at Mornington we headed for the Great Ocean Road, something I have wanted to do for a while. We had two weeks to kill as Letitia is due to graduate then. So we didn't go too far as we had to be back in Mornington for that. So we hit the road and did the GOR. The little town of Apollo Bay was beautiful but a bit expensive.

We have had a few nights in caravan parks recently and it starts to add up!! We heard of a great free camp site on the GOR just before the highlight of the road, the twelve apostles. The camp site is right on Johanna Beach and is fantastic, lovely grassed areas about 100m from the beach.

S we have been here a week and a half waiting for the graduation and doing day trips and walks along the coastline. The coastline is fantastic here, we took a drive west along the road to the apostles and did all the walks to each of the attractions. We had an excellent day there and it was all free!!

There were plenty of tourists and school children on the same path as us, the crowds were unbelievable, you had to time it so you missed the bus load of people. Figured it out after the first site. We went and had a look at the 12 Apostles, London bridge (that fell down in 1990) and at the end of the trail, The Grotto.

Whats Left of London Bridge.

We had an excellent day along the coastline. Next is make our way North to Ballarat where we want to go to Sovereign Hill and spend the day there. It's an old gold mining town that has been preserved.

MotoGP and Phillip Island

We have just spent the week at the island, having a look around and going to the MotoGP. As usual, we had an excellent time and the racing was fantastic. Got a few good photos of this years event as well. The weather was bitterly cold for the first two days and on the Sunday we proceeded to get sun burnt! We had grandstand seats on a part of the track called Siberia, it's right at the bottom of the track layout and is right on Bass Strait.

Our rider, Valentino Rossi, didn't do too well but it was good to see so many people out at the track to farewell Casey Stoner. They had in excess of 122,000 people over the weekend, easily the crowd record.

Well, we are sitting at a feecamp just up the road from Phillip Island at the moment, we have a caravan park booked for a few days tomorrow on the Mornington Peninsula. Need to get the car serviced on Friday and visit the youngest child, Letitia, who joined the NAVY a couple of months ago and is undergoing training at HMAS Cerberus that is located on the Mornington Peninsula at Cribb Point. We will visit with her on the weekend to see how she is going.

Time to find some work soon!

Marlay Point, Lake Wellington.

Our lounge room at the moment.

Here We Are In Victoria.

We moved our way down out of the snow to the coast of Victoria through Cooma, Bombala then to Cann River. From Cann River we made our way West to Lakes Entrance where we stayed for a couple if days in a caravan park to do a bit of washing and shopping for food. Lakes Entrance is a fishing town with the esplinade full of fishing vessels, we had a great look around.

At the moment we are just outside of Sale camped at Marlay Point on lake Welington. Lovely spot, so we have decided to stay here for a few days.

Jindabyne and the Snowfields.

Once in Jindabyne we booked a caravan park for a couple of days to do some washing and spend a day in the snowfields. The day we set up in the caravan park it decided to snow. Pretty cool!!

The next day we hired some snow gear and a couple of toboggans and headed for the snowfields. We visited Charlottes Pass, Smiggins Holes and Thredbo. Charlottes pass was blowing a gale as it was the highest.

We had a great day at Perisher with the place to ourselves. All the crowds were gone and there was barely a soul in the place. So we had the pick of the hills and settled in to do a bit of tobogganing. After that we headed for Thredbo to catch the chairlift up the mountain to a cafe, the highest in Australia at 1935m, and have lunch.

We had an excellent day. Tomorrow is off to Cann River and out of the high country.

On The Way to Jindabyne

After we left Bathurst we headed for Wagga Wagga on the way to Jindabyne. The track we chose was through Cowra, Young, Cootamundra and finally into Wagga. We had a look at the RAAF Base Wagga museum where I did my Airforce training. I relived some memories there!

Onto Young, an old gold mine at Adelong and then to Tumut. The gold mine ruins were fascinating, a good time was had looking through the area.

Tumut is just outside Kosciuszko National Park where we planned to stay at a free camp. We weren't disappointed as the free camp was on the banks of Blowering Resivour, Just inside the north part of Kosciuszko Park.

Up and over the mountains on the Snowy Mountains Highway and onto Jindabyne. As we headed over the mountains it started to snow. As we got higher the dusting of snow got thicker and thicker. Good times!!

50th Anniversary Bathurst 1000 Race

We have just completed a great weekend at the Bathurst races. This year was the 50th anniversary of the event and it didn't let us down. There was heaps to see and do in the 3 days we spent on the track. They had over 200,000 people in the 4 days!!

We arrived in Bathurst on the Thursday afternoon and went out to have a quick look and get our bearings. Our accommodation whilst in Bathurst was at the Bathurst Sheep and Cattle Drome, a farm stay of sorts. The property we stayed on was great, even the other guests (V8 diehards) were pretty well behaved as well.

 
Friday we went out to the track to have a good look around before the crowds turned up. We were wrong, there were heaps of people there! The program the V8 guys put on was excellent. One of my favorite parts was they ran a great selection of cars from the past around the track. It bought back some great memories of watching the race as a kid and a real treat to see them running.

We had paddock passes so we went and had a look at the back of the pits and the massive trucks these teams turn up in. It was interesting just to watch how each of the teams run their business, glad we got the passes.

Saturday was spent up the top of Mount Panorama watching most of the programme, taking photos then headed down to watch the top 10 shootout from the stands. The tickets we ended up getting for the stands weren't the best, but live and learn hey?

Sunday we settled into the seat, watched the race and wandered to different vantage points around the bottom of the track. It was a great race to cap off the 50th year celebrations. We had an excellent time at Bathurst topped off by doing a few laps of the circuit this morning in the cruiser. We had a ball.

We leave tomorrow on our way to Phillip Island for the MotoGP in a couple of weeks. We have decided to travel down over the snowies to Eden on the coast and follow the coast to the island. Hoping to still see some snow in Kosciusko National Park.

On The Way To Bathurst

Trace and I finally hit the road this morning on the road to Bathurst and to watch the V8 car races. The delay was that I had been offered a job out west at Injune, near Roma, as a drillers offsider. I went into Caboolture to talk with the guys that are running the camp and project. Turns out the deal was not as sweet as it was made out to be and I passed it up. More to life than money heh?

So we are sitting at a free camp just outside of Goondawindi and before Moree for the night. Up early to get going in the morning and hopefully be in Bathurst after lunch. Out to the track to do a bit of famil for the weekend. :-)

It was good catching up with everyone in Brisbane, you know who you are, and look forward to catching up again sometime. For now we are going to continue down to Melbourne after Bathurst to watch the MotoGP and get some work in VIC. We have not spent too much time in Victoria and look forward to having a good look around.

That's about it for now, will update with some pics of Bathurst.

Woodford.

Chilling out in Woodford, QLD at the moment. Not much work around this neck of the woods so I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up on a few things that needed to be done.
I have been wiring up the car and only have a couple of jobs left to do and I'll have all the gadgets finished. Wired up phone chargers, GPS power, compressor, rear outlets and a few other small things. Had the Kedron serviced.
I have also made a portable fire pit out if a second hand gas cylinder with the help of dads welder. I have seen a few of there out on the road in the last couple if years and thought they are a good idea, so I had a crack.
Tracey is working in town at the moment spending 3 hrs a day commuting, just like the old days. She can't wait to head off. Speaking of which, we are going to be leaving for Bathurst in 5 weeks time for the V8 race then down to Phillip island for the MotoGP. Can't wait, we are both looking forward to hitting the road again.

Want to be back out bush me thinks.

Tracey and I have traveled down to Newcastle and Sydney to see her sister and some friends of ours, we are in Sydney at the moment.

We had a good visit with Tracey's sister and her family. They have some very cute children and we had a great time. It was good to also get around all the old places from my childhood as I did a bit of growing up in Newcastle.

We are in Sydney at the moment visiting with some friends and plan on leaving mid week, back to Brisvegas to get a job for a couple of months before we head to Bathurst for the car races.

I miss being in the bush as the city seems to be a bit busier than I remember, probably isn't.

On The Way Down The Bruce

We are sitting 50 KLM north of Rockhampton at the moment heading south. Should be at the old mans place in the next few days. It's been raining all down the coast which has made a pretty crappy time. We haven't done much sight seeing because of the rain.

The Bruce highway is a terrible road to travel on but we wanted to do it to say "we've done it!" kind of thing. Now I can add my two cents worth when people are discussing it. There is so much roadwork you are forever stopping and starting. Not good for the fuel ecconomy.

The car and the van are going great, had a stone from a roadside slasher thump into the passengar door and left a few good scuffs for me to repair! Apart from that all good!

Savannah Way..........DONE!

We are sitting in Cairns tonight after completing the Savannah Way from Broome to Cairns. Thoroughly enjoyed it! We free camped along the way managing to avoid the caravan park until we got to Atherton in the tablelands surrounding Cairns.

Cairns is quite nice, Tracey and I aren't too impressed with the amount of people and "stuff" around here. I think we have become quite accustomed to being in small towns. We will get the car serviced at Toyota in the morning the head off the day after, make our way down the coast towards Brisvegas.

We had a look around Atherton and went to a great coffee spot called "Coffee Works". We paid to get in and had unlimited coffee, liqueur and chocolate tastings. We had an excellent arvo with a b great lunch.

Must go clean the car of the Gulf Country dust and prepare to hit the road again.

Savannah Way

We continue our journey east along the Savannah Way towards Cairns. When we get to Cairns that will be the complete Savannah experience from Broome to Cairns. Another track to tick off the list! If you follow this link you will see we have pretty much done the lot.

http://www.savannahway.com.au/resources/swmap.pdf

We left King Ash Bay for Normanton, mostly dirt. The car and the van were champions as there was no trouble with either of them. We free camped along the way with a stop at Hells Gate Road House.

From Hells Gate we continued on to Burketown via Doomadgee (where the fuel bowsers were fully encased in a steel cage!) and had a look. Burketown was very important in the early settlement of Australia as it provided the country's only port in the Gulf, a lovely little town.

From Burketown we headed for a free camp on the Leichhardt river. It was a great camp at the falls. Our lounge room this time was of the falls and a heap of whistling kites to keep us company.

From our free camp we headed to Normanton and on the way visited Burke and Wills camp 119. This is where Burke and Wills turned around and headed south again to Cooper Creek, never to make it of course. They surveyed and reached the Gulf waters from here. We went and had a look at Kurumba as this is the only sealed road to access the gulf. We went and had a look at the sea and decided to head for a free camp in between Kurumba and Normanton. Kurumba was like a resort town, full of fishing boats and caravans for the winter.

The view of the Gulf Of Carpentaria from Kurumba.

I am writing this in Normanton waiting for the fuel truck to get here as there is no diesel in town. It's due at lunch or mid afternoon. The cars fuel light is on so we don't have too many options.

King Ash Bay

After a night or two in Borroloola we headed for King Ash Bay, right near the Gulf. The drive was a short 50 K or so and had us camped on the McArthur River that leads straight into the Gulf. We found ourselves in one of the best camp spots so far, our loungeroom this time was an excellent view over the river and spectacular sunsets.

We were lucky enough to meet up with a couple beside us with a boat and spent a day fishing. Didn't do too good, only caught a couple of catfish. The weather had cooled considerably and all the fish had gone to ground. So much for these "No Brainer" fishing spots!!

We had a great few days there and will head off East along the Savannah Way to Normanton, going through Burketown. This will include a visit to the iconic Hells Gate Roadhouse on the way. Can't wait to head bush again!!

Making our way into Gulf Country

After leaving the Bungle Bungles we made our way to Lake Argyle. The caravan park there is like a resort, it even had an horizon pool looking out over the lake. We spent a night there and moved on the next day.

After seeing the lake we traveled west to meet up with a couple of friends of ours from Brisbane. We met up with Darren and Nat at Big Horse Camp ground. We spend a lovely couple of days with them, caught up a went our separate ways. We, East and them West to do the Gibb River Road.

BAck into the N.T and into Katherine to stock up on food and beer. Just down the road we turned left toward the Gulf and towards Borroloola. This is uncharted territory for us as we have not been this way before. Borroloola is the gateway to the Gulf and we plan to go from there to visit King Ash Bay, then Burktown and onto Normanton. Gradually making our way to Cairns.

The Bungle Bungle Ranges.

A short drive from Wolf Creek Crater is Purnululu National Park, better known as the Bungle Bungles. We left the van at a free camp across the road from the entrance of the national park and drove in to do an overnight camp. The drive in to the park was excellent and took a couple of hours to do the 54 Km due to the roughness of the track. The car still has the factory tyres on it so I took it easy. So with the swag and a bit of tucker packed we headed in.

We arrived and did the walk into Echidna Chasm, it was good to be in the bush again enjoying a walk and the chasm was beautiful.

This completed the northern part of the park and in the morning the southern part before we headed off, so after a few hours of walking a few trails we headed for the camp ground to settle for the night.

                                                      The photo above is in the chasm.

The next day we traveled down the short road trip to the south of the park and to Cathedral Gorge, this is another excellent walk and where the quintessential Bungle Bungle rock formations can be seen.

The end of the walk you are rewarded with a massive open area at the end of the gorge cut into the rock, like a cathedral funnily enough. :-)

All in all an excellent walk and we would recommend it. Lake Argyle next.

Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater

Our first port of call after leaving Fitzroy was Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater. The Crater is found 170 Km South down the Tanami Road just before Halls Creek. An excellent drive with the van and a camp area that was beautiful.

A short walk from where we were camped is the crater and an easy climb got you to the top of it. Nice view of the second largest meteorite crater in the world, the largest on is in the US. The crater is 20m deep but back in the day it was formed used to be 120m deep. Over time the desert winds have blown in sand as is slowly filling it. The crater is thought to be about 300,000 years old.

The above photo is of the bottom of the crater.

Next stop, The Bungle Bungles.

Back On The Road.

After wrapping up business at Broome and saying goodbye to the friends we made, we hedded to Fitzroy Crossing to stay with a friend of Tracey's. Steve is an employee of the same organisation Tracey worked for in Broome and is the Fitzroy Crossing court officer.

We had a good few days fishing and catching cherabin. Steve's family owns a cattle station in the area and they had just shot a beast, known as a "killer", so the engel fridge was chock a block full of beef. We left the Crossing for Kununurra and free camped all the way.

Done and Dusted

I just finished my last shift at KDC, a night shift. It's 6am and we fly out at 9:30am..........for the last time. Although the job out here has been a good experience I don't think I will make a career out of mining as you are away from home too much. Oh well, it served us our purpose.

Picture of me with my favorite moxie.



As soon as I get home it's packing again for the trip to Brisbane to pick up the new car. I fly out tomorrow. Then it's the arduous task of getting back to Broome, about a 5 day drive.

We will hook up the van and head out on the road again, but before that we have been invited to go barra fishing on the Fitzroy river for a few days. Good time to stock up the freezer before heading off. Looking forward to it and spending some time with Trace. Most of the time I am home she is working, so we are well over due for a break.

This is the sunrise at the mine yesterday.




That's it for now, I will post some pictures of the barra. :-)