Half-lap Day 106: Kimba

LiAM woke early, feeling cold and unwell. He and I got up as neither of us were likely to go back to sleep, and discovered a thick layer of ice over everything outside. We’d left one waterbottle on the table and the water in that was not frozen solid, but was mainly ice. We sat in the car as it was the warmest spot and played on the iPad until the others got up a couple of hours later. By now the sun was up and the ice was starting to melt, it wasn’t too bad to stand in the sunshine.

We took our time over breakfast and decided not to try to see or do anything today. Kimba is the mid-point between Sydney and Perth, and has a few interesting things around town to check out, and it’s not far from here to the National Park with lots of interesting rock formations – we decided a rest day was way more important than seeing more things for the sake of it (there was nothing here we had been looking forward to or even knew anything about before we arrived).

Caitlin checked out the coin-operated showers and came back happy and clean. We read some Harry Potter and played on the iPad, then Tony and Caitlin rode their bikes into town to get food for dinner and a pump attachment to blow up the balls we’d bought with us. Millie, LiAM and I played cards until they got back.

With the balls pumped up (including a new football that they’d also bought) we went over to the tennis/netball/basketball courts. We were trying to figure out how to play netball with 5 people (Caitlin really wanted to play netball) when Millie fell and hurt her knee and elbow and didn’t want to play anymore. She was happy to lie in the sun and watch us, so we played a very tricky and exhausting version of 2-a-side netball. Lots of fun though. Once everyone was too knackered to play anymore we had a bit of a play in the playground, then Tony and the kids went out on to the football oval to kick the football around, and I found a powerpoint in the tennis pavilion to charge my computer and catch up on days worth of blogging, email, banking etc. It was warm in the sun and still a bit cool in the shade, a lovely day though to just enjoy and take our time over things.

We had a late lunch and hung around the tent and playground and tennis courts, a very relaxing afternoon. LiAM and I had showers (the water here is full of chlorine, it felt like I was showering in a hot swimming pool) and we played more iPad and read more Harry Potter then had hotdogs for dinner. I talked to a friend on the phone for a while and the kids played in the playground, then we got ready for bed. It was a cold evening but not as cold as the previous few nights. We still did hot water bottles and rugged up, and as LiAM had been feeling unwell all day he slept in my bed with Millie and I, Caitlin slept on Millie’s bed and Tony slept in LiAM’s. It took us a while to rearrange all the blankets again but eventually we were all ready and in bed for a bit more of Inheritance. Tony did the dishes then came in and read more of the Harry Potter book – we’re all trying to read it as fast as possible so we can talk about it, and I’m trying to read it aloud so that everyone can keep up – so we’re all up to different stages and some bits have been read by everyone and we’re getting to know the story really well.

Half-lap Day 105: The Nullarbor -> Kimba

I woke around sunrise and went out of the tent to find everything covered in ice. The chairs were still out and had white seats. The clean dishes on the table were covered in a layer of ice, and the spoons that were sitting the right way up were filled with frozen water. I got the fire going again and made myself a cup of tea, and sat and drank it and read Harry Potter while I warmed up a bit. LiAM came out of the tent shortly afterward, very excited that he’d slept all night and he felt great after a good sleep.

The others came out and had breakfast and we started packing up. We were really efficient this morning and were ready by 8.45 Western Australian time, ( which we’re still pretty well operating on, apart from the weird sunrise and sunset times…) our earliest pack up yet (if we don’t count the day we had to leave overflow at Coral Bay by 8am - we left on time that day but without breakfast). However this meant it was 10.25 South Australian time which didn’t feel quite so early.

By now we were out of the Nullarbor Plain and into farmland, more undulating and a much more lush green, with windmills and farmhouses. We drove to Ceduna and stopped at the quarantine checkpoint to get rif of our apple cores and have our fridge checked by the quarantine guy. There’s been a nasty smell in there for a few days (liquid in the bottom that I haven’t managed to clean out during our quick stops) – I hope the guy wasn’t too grossed out by it when he rummaged around in there. We drove down to the foreshore and found toilets – some of those self-clean ones, and only one was operating so we all lined up. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and not really very cold now, and the view across the bay was gorgeous. There was a long jetty leading out from the foreshore, which we went out on once we’d all been to the toilet.

We could see fish and sea grasses from the jetyy and it felt lovely to be out in the sun and looking at the blue water. Tony left to go to the supermarket and the kids and I walked out to the end of the jetty. We could see a large ship coming in and couldn’t figure out where the wharf was – it was around the headland  a bit near the large silos we could see. We were able to head back in to shore when we saw what looked like a large fish break the surface of the water – it was a seal! We watched it swim through the water until it disappeared, very excited at spotting yet another animal that we’d really wanted to see. It popped up again one more time then we headed back to the car.

We drove through a lot of farmland from here, seeing many windmills (even the town of 100 windmills – we didn’t see 100 but probably 30 or so!) and lots of silos. We were following the railway line and every town had silos between the road and rail. We listened to the 2^nd book fof the Spirit Animal Series – we’d done book 1 way back when we were heading to the Flinders Ranges near the start of our trip. We slowly remembered the story line and found it quite exciting to be continuing this story.

Today and the last few days, we’ve seen a huge number of trucks carrying other vehicles and equipment – tractors, caravans, mining vehicles and scoops, diggers, graders, huge tyres… I guess all the stuff that’s being taken across to Western Australia. I drove for a while from Poochera to Wudinna and was behind a large truck with digger on it, for ages. I wanted to go past him but he was wider than the lane and the shoulder on the other side of the road was narrow – I had to go a long way out onto the other side to see if it was clear to overtake, and then I wasn’t confident about keeping the trailer steady as I passed him if I had to go over onto the shoulder at all. So I sat behind him and enjoyed the countryside we were passing through.

When we had stopped for petrol at Poochera there was a large sculpture of an ant – a local ant that they call the dinosaur ant because it was probably similar to the ants that were around with the dinosaurs. It was an unexpected bit of natural history to learn as we drove through South Australia. This is actually a part of the country that I have not really thought about before, across the top of the Eyre Peninsula. I didn’t know anything about the region and even though we won’t have time to stop and see much of it, I’m glad we’ve had the chance to have a look at least as we drive through

We reached Kimba a little after 4pm (on South Australian time now). We went to the Kimba Recreation Reserve, where we can camp for a small donation, and there are coin operated showers. Even if we end up paying $5 each for a shower, it’s still cheaper than a caravan park. The main camping area was all bitumen so at first we thought we wouldn’t be able to stay – then found a dirt area across from the entrance that looked like it had been used for tents before, so we set up there. The kids went and played in the playground and explored the sports ground. I chatted for a while to a Western Australian couple who were heading home, they were fun to talk to.

I read more Harry Potter aloud while Tony cooked spaghetti Bolognese. It was a cold night, although our tent was set up so that our living area was protected from the wind which made it a little more pleasant. We can’t have fires here so we rugged up and ate our hot dinner then got ready for bed as quickly as we cold. It was nice having a sink to clean our teeth in rather than just doing it in the bush. Into bed (Millie with us again as she still doesn’t feel well) and made sure everyone was very well rugged up, then read a bit more of Inheritance – hoping we’ll finish it before we get home.

Half Lap Day 100: Karlgarin -> Esperance

The sun was out when we got up in the morning and the whole area was quite pretty, lots of wattle trees with their blossoms shining in the early morning sun. It was also very very cold, with a layer of ice over the car and the tent, and frozen pools of water on top of our trailer cover. Tony got another fire going, and the kids gradually emerged out into the cold and sat around the fire before having breakfast. The kids rescued a little skink from the fire and played around the campground. Millie was keen to leave, she didn’t like the place at all. I’d hoped to get up and going early, we were all moving pretty slowly though and it was 10.30 by the time we had everything ready to go.

On our way to Wave Rock (only another 30km) we saw a pig farm, with lots of big pigs and a group of very cute little piglets. There had been a war memorial at our campground and as we drove I noticed that many of the road names were the same as the names on the war memorial – I guess they would have been farmers around this area, and I don’t know if the roads were named after the family who lived there, or in memory of the men who fought in the war. We got petrol in Hyden, which had cool decorations around the town. The old railway platform was covered in iron sculptures of people and seats and equipment – as if they were all waiting for the train to come.

Wave Rock is somewhere that I’ve wanted to go since I was a kid, and I didn’t think we’d be able to fit it in to this trip. When we looked at the best way to get home though, it worked quite nicely as a stopover on our way to Esperance (if we are willing to skip Kalgoorlie. I would have liked to see it too, but Wave Rock and Esperance seemed more exciting). We paid our entry fee and when the lady gave me all the information about the area I briefly wished we’d stayed at the rock instead of where we did, so we could spend more time there – then figured it wasn’t worth worrying about what we could have done if we’d had more information, and just to enjoy what we did do.

We rugged up, there was a wind blowing and it was pretty cold. We walked around to the Wave and it was very very cool. So weird to see a rock curving out like that, and it was high and long and quite impressive, well worth the drive out to see it. The kids climbed up the slope as far as they could, and slid down again, We wandered along it’s length, reading about how it was formed and the geography of this area – it’s a very rocky part of the world, and Wave Rock is the most famous of a great number of cool rock formations around here. I wasn’t expecting the colours on the rock, lots of vertical stripes of black and orange and yellowy colours, caused by water and lichen and cyanobacteria, which made it look even cooler.

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Past the end of the wave we were able to walk along the side of Hyden Rock (the larger rock that Wave Rock is a part of, and start to climb up behind the wave. There was a dam here, they had built a dam wall to catch the runoff from Hyden Rock, and that supplies the town of Hyden with its water. So cool to see sensible usage of rain water. Walking along the rock up above the wave was pretty cool, Hyden Rock rose up a lot higher behind it, and there were rock pools, wildflowers, trees and boulders scattered across the rock. There was a concrete wall built along the length of the wave, 20m or so from the edge, to stop people going to the top of it. We decided to do the short walk across Hyden Rock, which took us the length of the wave – then we had to climb over the concrete wall and walk down the sloping rock to the ground. It seemed a bit ludicrous, but that’s the way the trail went, and the climb down was fine. Cool to see yet another view of the wave (from the side as we sloped down next to it).

Back at the car we got some lunch ready, then finally headed off around 12.30. The countryside was beautiful as we drove south east. Lots of crops, green and yellow, lots of sheep and occasionally cattle. Wildflowers here and there, hills in the distance. The land was undulating, with areas of flat ground as well. There were lots of low lying areas that obviously filled with water when it rained – many of them were full now – with dead trees throughout them. As we’ve been driving around Australia we’ve seen lots of cleared paths running from the road into the trees or bush to the side, then suddenly stopping, and we couldn’t figure out what they were for. Here, those cleared areas were full of water, so it looks like they are drainage channels to help keep the water off the road when it rains.

The little towns we past through all looked interesting. Lots of them had done interesting things with their now out-of-use railway stations. One town (Lake King I think) had a tractor museum (a large open shed full of tractors).  We stopped in Ravensthorpe to go to the toilet, then drove mainly east from there – eyeing off the black clouds to the south and hoping we’d get to Esperance in time to set up before that rain rolled in from the ocean.

With a forecast for gales and lots of rain, we decided to stay at a caravan park that wasn’t right on the beach. I’d found the one that claimed to be the cheapest, and when I went to book in the girl said it would be $60 for unpowered – the kids were $10 each! That’s the 2^nd highest amount we’ve paid ANYWHERE, and by far the most for unpowered. I went back out to the car to discuss with Tony – the wind was picking up and it was feeling more urgent to get a spot and get the tent up, but we’re also still needing to be careful of our spending. I rang another caravan park and while they were giving me a price (which was even higher!) the girl came out and said that seeing as we had 3 kids, she’d only charge $5 each. So that made it affordable and we were happy to stay. She also said that there wasn’t much demand for the unpowered sites at the moment, no one else was game enough. She said we could pick either of the corner sites, whichever we thought would give us more protection from the wind.

When we got to the unpowered area, we were the only people using it. There was a fence surrounding most of the area, on 3 sides, so we were able to set up in a corner with a fence on 2 sides of us, and were mainly protected from the wind. We got the tent up as quickly as we could, and managed it before the rain started. I set up the beds while Tony and the kids went to the camp kitchen to start getting dinner ready.

The rain was quite steady throughout the evening, easing off occasionally, when we could make quick dashes over to the car or tent if we needed anything. We watched the Olympics and some ABC3 shows, ate a fantastic butter chicken dinner, filled in our Census form and hung out in the (slightly warmer – there was still a breeze coming through above the windows, its really just an enclosed shed) kitchen area for the rest of the evening. Tony, Caitlin and LiAM went and had a shower before bed, Millie was asleep before they came back and we snuggled into our beds – it was warmer than last night but the rain made it feel less comfortable.