Western Australia, Part 1

We had a little more than 4 weeks for Perth and surroundings; afterwards we would be heading out to Asia. There were a couple of acquaintances living in Perth, and furthermore we were hoping to do some fruit picking for a week or two.

We were picked up from the airport by Karen and Oom Bram (Karen’s Uncle, living in Perth). We spent the first couple of days together with Bram and Lynette. Karen had come over a few days earlier, and the first night was for the family a special occasion to organize a family-gather with two of their children: Astrid and Paul – and their families.

The rest of the days we spent with Bram and Lynette in the area of Dunsborough and Margeret River; about 3 hours south of Perth. We were spoiled with delicious food every morning, midday and evening and we had our private tour guides leading us to several beautiful beaches and small community towns in the area. Although the weather wasn’t the best, it was good enough for our first afternoon of chilling at the beach again: with white sand, crystal-clear water and a group of dolphins passing by.

Back in Perth, we left Karen, Bram and Lynette and made our way to Yangebup at the other side of Perth to meet up with friends of Pam’s family: Craig, Kerran and their son Declan.
We were picked up by Craig and Xandi, who arrived earlier that day. It was a very nice reunion for Pam after 5 years.
That evening we had a real Aussie BBQ and a couple of beers and some good catch up talks. The next morning we went into Fremantle to meet up with Karen again. Fremantle is a port city just south of Perth with colonial style houses. We got some fish and chips, a coffee and a nice local beer.

That night we had a farewell dinner (lamb-roast) with Karen, Bram and Lynette. Then the final day had come for Karen to head back to Amsterdam: those 2 months for her had flown by!  

The days after, we spent preparing for our next road trip: the Outback! With Craig and Xandi and Craig’s Land Rover + camping trailer we would be cruising around for 7 days scratching the outback of W.A. Since we would be out in the wilderness, Craig made sure the car was in tiptop conditions, and that all the necessities and camping equipment were organized and packed.

Our first stop was Hyden, known for the world famous Wave Rock, a rocky sandstone/granite formation in the shape of a giant wave. From the top of this wave we had an awesome view of the dry and dead flat landscape. We then continued the endless straight roads and passed smaller and bigger mining towns like Kalgoorlie (with a huge active open pit mine). We also past several deserted mining villages and areas, creating a very cool wild-west sphere. A very unique spot was the pub in Ora Banda, where we enjoyed a steak sandwich and a very cold beer; the bar was located in the middle of nowhere surrounded by old red dirt roads. We spent a night at Lake Ballard; dried out during the summer months and known for 52 awkward looking metal human sculptures, and furthermore just red dirt and a lot of flies. We had a nice lightning show that night (all around us), but except for some heavy wind, we were spared from the storm itself.

We had a quick stop at the London Bridge, another rock-formation in the shape of an arch and then made our way via Mt Magnet to the coast again. Soon the landscape changed from outback-desert into the wide wheat production district. We camped in Kalbarri and went for a daytrip to Kalbarri National Park, where we walked to “Natures Window” and to the “Z-bend”; both parts of a long canyon crossing the National Park. Our last night we camped in Horrocks, a beautiful idyllic little town where especially Xandi fell in love with. We had a very nice moment with the four of us during sunset, with a nice beer cheering to this unique journey.

Overall, it was an awesome road trip, and for both of us the missing link of our Australia-experience. We covered around 3000km over endless roads and dirt roads, with fitting rock-music from Craig’s collection. We passed kilometer-long trains, crossed lots of road-trains (trucks with multiple trailers) and had to avoid many ‘monitor’-lizards heating up on the asphalt. We saw some more emus and kangaroos and even encountered a dingo attacking a calf in the middle of the road.

Being back in Perth we had another 2 weeks left, and since we were not able to do any fruit-picking without a valid working-visa (apparently they have gotten much stricter), we started sorting out our next road trip right away…