Month: October 2017

We arrived back in our home this afternoon, after swinging past the Animal Rescue to pick up the latest member of our family: a cute wolfhound cross called Bailey. No longer do we need to approach strange dogs on the street to get puppy cuddles.

We are now on a spartan diet with NO white flour products, NO sweets, NO pastries, and NO alcohol. Only good healthy products for us after eight months of over indulgence.

Rod goes back to work in the morning, but Georgie has nearly a week to settle Bailey in before she has to put her nose to the grindstone.

Soon we will post some missed-out-info on different places, and now that we have reliable internet we will put lots of photos up too.

After driving around Darwin and sightseeing for a bit we settled comfortably into a motel room. That city sure had changed from the outback town that Rod experienced about 35 years ago, now it is quite modern with big gardens and quiet areas, markets and shops. Gone are the wild pubs with drunks spilling out onto the streets, it’s all quite civilised really.

We spent a pleasant evening having dinner with Georgie’s niece whom she hadn’t seen for years, and then in the morning pushed off South, retracing our steps nearly 400 kms to the town of Katherine. Not far outside of town is probably NT’s most fabulous jewel: the Katherine Gorge, which now goes by its ancient name Nitmiluk. The land is back in the hands of the original tribal owners and they have teamed up with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to put together a very nice experience indeed.

The gorge is a permanently water filled, large and extensive snaking crevasse that weaves through that ancient sun drenched and incredibly parched land. Freshwater croc drag marks furrow down the sandbars, tall and slender livistonia palms cling to tiny cracks in the rock faces, the vertical and layered cliffs tower high up out of the clear clean water.

We took a boat tour up the gorge with a relatively small group (luckily) and were totally blown away by the stunning views. Gosh that place is pretty! Those of us who remembered the old Australian movie ‘Jedda’ were impressed with the amazing cliff face that featured in that incredible and devastating final scene.

There is probably no way we could put into words the awesomeness of that landscape, so we will try to let the photos do the talking for us.

(Click those awesome pics to full-page them)

Life forms that have been on this planet in an almost unchanged state for 3.5 billion years were an absolute thrill to observe at Hamlin Pool in Shark Bay. Stromatolites may not be the most dynamic of creatures but they sure are fascinating. That enormous World Heritage area also holds the amazing Shell Beach, an enormous expanse of cockle shells that are goodness-knows-how-many metres deep. A very pretty place indeed.

Broome is a famous place for very good reasons, the beach is huge clean and wide with hardly any people on it, the town is tastefully touristy with nice surrounds. But without a doubt, Broome’s best asset is Cable Beach, in fact Georgie felt that was one of the most stunning beaches that she’d ever been to.

It was not just wildflowers and scenery that really blew us away in Australia’s Northwest, but the numbers of wild animals were fabulous. Rescuing a stumpy blue tongue lizard off the road was fun and when a big mob of lanky brolgas flew overhead we were in heaven. Finches, roos, galahs, wedge-tail eagles, a range of raptors, goannas and so much more. Gosh it’s good to be back in a continent with wildlife again. Oz and Africa are the best for that.

Whilst driving the huge distances through the Kimberly we were regularly impressed with the changes in scenery and the fabulous boab trees, but Georgie struggled a bit with the intense heat. At one road side bush camp somewhere out in the never-never we endured 48 degree temperatures as we sat in deck chairs and watched the stars re-emerge and disappear behind clouds. The tent was, shall we say, a tiny bit stuffy that night.

The next night we decided to put the tent up in a caravan park at Timber Creek so that we could shower and use some civilised dunnies. It wasn’t the high temperatures that kept us awake there, but the thousands of rowdy fruit bats squawking and carrying on that disrupted our sleeping patterns that night.

But the thousands of boab trees along the side of the highway made it all worthwhile. They are just so gorgeous! After Madagascar’s stunning giant baobabs and Africa’s beautiful pot-bellied versions, the huge numbers of the every-bit-as-gorgeous Aussie boabs were an absolute delight to behold.

The amazing landscapes of the Pilbara sucked us right in. That country absolutely hums. It is ancient, stark, harsh and varied, the deep reds of the iron rich rock contrast beautifully with the smooth clean white trunks of the ghost gums. Rounded clumps of yellow-green spinifex cover the tumbled red rocky hillsides as the afternoon shadows cast pastel colours in layers over the sheered off cliff faces of mesas.

Rod would move there in a flash, but Georgie was not quite so keen. The extreme temperatures coupled with the regular fires kinda turned her off a bit.

The 110 speed limit of WA suddenly turned into the wilder 130 limit of NT and we were off! For a couple of days there we averaged about 150 kph along those huge straight and empty roads. Phew!

We got out of that expensive Dongara town later than expected (as per usual) and zoomed up the highway trying to make up the time we had dithered away the day before investigating interesting stuff along the way. We made great time right up until we got to the Kalbarri National Park where suddenly the road sides were continually bedecked with wondrous and weird flowering plants. We were lucky to be able to drive more than a few hundred metres before one of us would espy something fabulous and we would have to stop, reverse up, and get out to photograph this new botanical wonder.

Oh the plants we found! Oh the wonders we photographed! Oh how slowly we moved!

Then we travelled on to the fabulous Murchison Gorge, stopping continually whenever a flash of slightly different colour caught our eye, and took several different walks down to view the magnificent meandering watercourse located in that expansive and undulating dry country. We were delighted when an emu sauntered past in front of us, then we spotted a couple of roos in the gully and watched a pretty kite hovering in the gorge’s updraughts. Suddenly we realised that somehow the day had zoomed past without us noticing. So we high-tailed it down to the coast, restricting ourselves to only stopping ten million times for plant photos (slight exaggeration), so that we could get to glimpse the starkly impressive Kalbarri cliffs before the Sun went down.

Oddly enough, we were told by a local that it had been a poor wildflower season this year, so we can’t wait to return when the flowers are back in full swing!

Once again we considered camping, but threw that idea out when we looked at the massive wall of water not far off the coast. There were big rainy clouds out there and they were very dark and definitely ominous-looking. So we went looking for a room, determined to not get scalped like we had in Dongara the night before.

But it seems that the mid-west coast still believes that the mining boom is on and prices are inflated way out of proportion. We eventually found a horse riding / farm stay joint right out of town that had rooms to rent at reasonable prices and settled in for the night, cautiously waiting to hear the thunderstorm slamming into the roof, which sadly did not eventuate.

Deciding that an early start was to be the go, yet again, to try to make up time from the previous day’s dithering, an evening scrub-up rather than a morning wash would be a smart idea. Unfortunately just before Rod went to use the shared bathroom someone else got in before him. After waiting over an hour and getting no response from knocking on the door and calling out, we finally decided to enter to see if the person was actually OK. It turned out it was a bloke with a hearing disability who had decided to not only do his laundry in the shower but also shave his whole body! But one and a half hours later he was finished (despite the sign on the door saying five minute showers only because of water shortages) and Rod managed to get in to freshen up. Luckily there was still some hot water!

What follows is a teensy weensy collection of thousands of wildflowers that we photographed:

(Click those gorgeous pics to enlarge)

We drove North from Perth after having a couple of night’s relaxation at a wonderful mate’s place. She had looked after our car for seven months for us whilst we were overseas, regularly turning the engine over and just keeping a close eye on it.

We were very excited about the wildflower season that purportedly would be in full swing, so eyes were peeled as we trundled North through Perth’s outer suburbs. The streets were wide and well made, the traffic not too bad and best of all wildflowers were blooming all along the roadside. These unusual flowers were beautiful and colourful, sometimes in mosaic blankets that covered whole hill sides, and we revelled in the sport of spotting new and different shapes and forms.

The further North we drove the darker the sky grew, promising the rare situation of a wet experience in the usually dry Western deserts.

One place we stopped at to take a walk to a lookout overlooking the Indian Ocean was covered in multiple species of wonderful flowering native plants. We wandered about, shuffling excitedly with camera in hand from one amazing bloom to another. Even the hundreds of annoying bush flies did not deter us from photographing these gorgeous plants.

Thousands of weird limestone pinnacles projecting randomly from the sandy desert was our first major stop along the way. We were fortunate that a dark blue-black sky, occasionally flashing with horizontal cloud-to-cloud lightning, was the backdrop for those amazing limestone outcrops of fantastic shapes. It was a strange and other-worldly experience with the sandy track meandering between these natural monuments, some standing about four metres tall.

We had the option of camping out that night but the air was so cold and damp and the flies so thick that we decided to do a motel instead. Unfortunately the town of Dongara that we arrived at just after sunset was probably the most expensive place that we have stayed in for the whole eight months we’d been away. Even fish and chips at the local take away cost over $30 by crikey!

(Click pics to big them up)

The very thing we never expected from Greece was huge mountains with steep sides and dark forests. But that’s exactly what we found. Who woulda thunk it? When previously we thought of Greece we tended to only see dry rocky olive-clad hills and white washed towns reaching down to the sea. But it is much more than that.

For a few days we zig-zagged around those incredible alpine roads getting our final fill of the expansive mountain country before needing to leave the Northern Hemisphere and return to the relatively flat land of Oz. We do still do have one more day in Greece, but we will probably fill that with coastal scenery, just for a change, before making our way back to the bustling insanity of Athens to catch our plane.

At one point we did rescue a tortoise from certain death on a narrow winding road, but we were not quick enough to save two very flat hedgehogs. Rod had to stop and ghoulishly look at their poor shattered corpses because he had never seen one before, alive or dead.

We have loved the food of Greece, the nice simple Greek salads, lashings of good quality olive oil and herbs on everything, and the incredibly strong coffee. Almost every meal we’ve had so far has been a real pleasure. We love eating in tiny cafes in odd little backwoods towns, that’s where you get the real Greek experience. Plus it’s usually cheap as chips.

There always seems to be a lot of middle aged men sitting around wherever we have gone, the women manage to keep busy but the blokes tend to spend a lot of time on their backsides yakking and drinking coffee.

Some poor old hound dogs seem to get it a bit rough here, there was one starving young puppy that we saw on a back road that we did stop to give a feed to, and often you will see hungry dogs scrounging about the place. But we have to admit that they don’t cop it half as bad as most dogs do in Asia and Africa.

On the upside, at least in Greece (like in many European countries) people can take pet dogs onto public transport and into shops and restaurants, which is a very civilised thing indeed! Australia tends to be utterly phobic about dogs in public and has this weird thing that hounds are somehow ‘unclean’. Very strange.

Remembering to drive on the right (or wrong) side has been a trial, and was most difficult when pulling out onto an empty road. Roundabouts were not so hard, but often when the road was empty we would sing either Monty Python Life of Brian’s:

Always Drive On                                                                                                                         The Right                                                                                                                                    Side of The Road.

or Manfred Mann’s:

Driving on the right                                                                                                                       Revved up like a Deuce                                                                                                               Another a runner in the night

to help remind where to put the plurry car. There have been a couple of scary moments, mainly when we have been tired or distracted, but on the whole we’ve managed to normalise right hand driving. Unfortunately this does mean that upon our return to Australian roads we are going to have be re-learn to use the opposite side again. Phew!

(Click the pics to make ‘em big)

First we started the day by accidentally ‘discovering’ a mountain that had ancient fortifications on it. As we were driving through winding back roads at the time we thought that we may be able to access the mountain by following narrow trails up between olive groves. We didn’t manage to get too close but by golly we had fun trying.

Then the Navigatrix Extraordinaire discovered that we might be able to get to it by going around the mountain and driving up the other side. We did and we could.

It turned out to be a fabulous old walled city called Acrocorinth that dated way back to 400 BC, and we had a grand old time wandering about and enjoying the incredible views.

Then we travelled on to shuffle about the Temple of Zeus at Nemea. It was an ancient sporting venue that pre-dated the Olympics and had undergone some fantastic restorations by some hard working people. That place also dated way back a long time to the 4^th century BC. In the attached museum were pieces of gold jewellery and other artefacts that were dated at 1300 BC recovered from nearby excavations. Amazing stuff!

After a wonderful feed at a local restaurant we progressed on along the most meandering and obscure tracks the Navigatrix could find. We ended up climbing high up into alpine mountains, heavily wooded with large trees and graced with huge and expansive views. We had no idea that Greece had such things until we experienced it ourselves. A splendid thing indeed!

(Click the pics to big ’em up)

We stayed with some lovely friends in Mohammedia who were incredibly welcoming and generous. Their big house was close to the sea and not too far from Casablanca but far enough away so that we couldn’t see or hear that huge concrete jungle or its millions of inhabitants.

In our travels around Morocco we had investigated, and even gotten purposefully lost in, several medinas (ancient walled cities) but we were warned to keep well away from Casablanca’s centre because apparently it was just too dangerous for Westerners, even in broad daylight.

After leaving Morocco we had a quick stopover in Germany to pick up our gear and have a wander around some big glasshouses to admire the plants.

Then we flew to Greece to experience a real culture shock. Unlike Morocco it is very westernised and clean with only about the same levels of rubbish as seen in the streets of Australia. Despite Morocco banning plastic shopping bags recently it is, unfortunately, too little too late. Plastic is strewn everywhere across the landscape with some country areas looking quite disgusting.

After a bit of a kerfuffle with Greek car hire companies we were on our way exploring the road less travelled, just as we do so well. We stumbled across ancient ruins, investigated dirt roads up into uncrowded coastal stretches and ate delicious meals in random restaurants. We watched a colourful sunset over the Aegean Sea as a full moon simultaneously rose over the dry hills of the mainland.

And that evening Rod even had a few grogs for the first time in ages. Ahh.

We spent a large part of one day wandering around the Acropolis, looking past the crowds and their selfie-sticks at that amazing and incredibly ancient masterpiece. A quiet walk around the base of the rocky outcrop was wonderful, lots of history and very few people. Rod puzzled over the name of the ancient path until it struck him that ‘Perapitos’ is so similar to the perapitus – or velvet worm – the ancient and very weird creature that inhabits the wet forests of Tasmania.

After getting scalped really badly by a taxi driver and then totally bamboozled in the winding and narrow streets, we got the hell outa Athens and cruised up the coastal road. There in a tiny coastal town off the beaten track we found a quiet and comfortable place to rest and enjoy a feed whilst surrounded by more cats than we saw in Morocco.

Our next task was to decide if we should do a Greek island or concentrate on the rocky hills up North. Decisions decisions.

(Click the pics to big ’em up)