Smelling guts and loose tyres

Were we in for a shock or what?!

Karijini had left us breathless and needless to say, our expectations had risen about what was to come next. All the reason why dirty-dump-bum-hole-nowhere, or more commonly known as Port Hedland, was a big disappointing slap in the face.

Port Hedland is a very small port/mining town, located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. And well, that’s all there is to say about it really. The fact that it was a Sunday and everything was closed for this day, probably didn’t help much towards our opinion of this little place either. Driving around we did find a 24/7 (?) McDonald’s and a deserted but functioning Coles. How deserted? Well, the guys had a full on thong-fight: running around barefoot, throwing their thongs over the aisles trying to hit each other. Then deciding that using the deodorant-cans was more effective in making everyone smell like Britney Spears. After that they got thirsty and they downed a Fanta each before putting the empty bottles back on the shelves. Aahh.. well done guys… Mark: “Only in Port Hedland can you leave Coles re-hydrated and smell like a woman! Fuck yeah , Australia! Whoo!” *Air-punch.

We needed a plan. Nobody felt anything much for staying here, but it was getting rather late and even though Britney Spears deodorant smells awesome, we were still smelly and covered in bush/pindan/camping black dirt. Another nearby camp-site provided us with our necessary shower needs and we met up at the servo next door to discuss the next step. What was it going to be? Stay and leave early? Or drive on to the next town; Broome… 600 km’s up the road.

Up here, wet season was starting to get noticeable. Although it was the end of the season, it didn’t stop the ridiculous humidity and heat increasing by every km. The non-air-conditioned drives had gotten pretty tough. The nights’ cool breeze would give us a break from the sweating-fest. Night drive it is, red-bulls got knocked back and off we went.

The Great Northern Highway is long and straight.. very straight. No roadhouses or anything else for the whole drive. There was an 80 mile beach was on our left but we couldn’t see a thing because of the darkness, the only thing that truly stood out was the amazing lightning storm in the distance. Perfect wet-season weather. To keep ourselves awake and kill time, we started singing. The guys started banging on the roof for a bass and the singing soon turned into some jungle tune/monkey screeches.. oh well, whatever keeps you awake:)

After a while it was Dick’s turn to get some sleep in the back before he took his turn driving. No problem. But there is a slight offside to being stuck together in a van 24/7 all the time. There comes a time where burps or farts can’t be hidden any more, if you gotta go, you gotta go, there is no point in trying to keep it in. Especially if you have another 500 km’s to go. So the time also came for Dick to drop his guts. You know… all good, just keep your head close to the rolled down window. But then again, and again! Until it became a every two minute fart and not just the average smelly kind, but the silent ones, the kind that burns your nostrils and stays hanging around you. Every few minutes the silence got disturbed. Ben: “AAaahhwww!!!!! Dude what Did you eat!?” Mark:”Shhhhitt, even sticking your head outside of the window doesn’t help!”……. ” Are you Serious! You’re going to make me pass out and hit something!”  Dick: “Hey I can’t help it, I have a really bad stomach ache.” The thing was, the smell seemed to get worse by the second. To the point where we actually pulled over and forced him to ‘go’. He said he didn’t need to but that he couldn’t stop the farting. This actually went on for almost two hours, it was funny at first but we all just started to get pissed off by the end of it.

A sleeping Dick and a few hours later there was a loud bang and the van skidded off to the side of the road where Mark stopped the van perfectly. “Woah, what was that?” Ben asked worried looking. The tyre had blown. We sort of knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but all was alright because we had a spare tyre attached to the bull-bar. We all got out into the pitch-black night and helped with the jack and getting tools out to remove the tyre. I actually found it a little exciting, stuck in the middle of nowhere, blown tyre -  just a little adventure to write home about. Neither of us had ever changed a tyre but everything went smoothly, just had to re-attatch the spare and off we could go. The van was quite old and in bad shape as it was, we were lucky to even get a spare with it when we bought it. So, so lucky.. The tyre did not come off. Didn’t even budge in any way. The screw was stuck and none of us could get it loose. We all took turns in holding the torch while another would bang the tyre with a wrench/crowbar/foot-out-of-frustration to try and get the tyre off! It got to the point where we thought it might be easier to remove the bull-bar too. Yeah the heat was getting to our heads by then.. After two hours of screaming, banging and utter frustration of being stuck without help, it came off!! Ahh! Imagine the clouds parting and a ray of sun shining through. Two hours for a tyre change but we did it! The last few hours were smell and worry free.

The challenge

Finally!

Exhaustion had kicked in and the needle was hitting the Empty sign. Battling our way through the last km’s we arrived at the closed Roebuck roadhouse at 5 am. 8 hours of one hell of a drive and out of gas and energy we closed our eyes until we could fuel up.

Roebuck sunrise

Roebuck humour

What’s the moral of the story? None really It is however a part of my story that could not be left out and that made my trip what it was

-Ainslie

Dingo Dash

Lesson of the day: Little girls who go walk-about in the bush alone, will attract dingoes. They will chase you like you’re a Happy Meal.

The North-Western Pilbara region holds Australia’s most breathtaking national park, Karijini. In my opinion of course. Red rock formations light up against the green vegetation all around. Add a brightly coloured sunset overlooking this widespread landscape and you’ll get a good idea of why I love this area so much.

Thrashing our ‘old faithful’ of a van over the dusty dirt roads through the midst of this endless scenery, gave us all the feeling that this was what our trip was about. Like true outback explorers, we drove around for a while to see what Karijini had to offer. We discovered gorges, swam in the fresh water pools and screamed our lungs out while jumping off cliffs.

Back home I’d usually unwind by having a long walk after dinner, Ipod on, letting my thoughts flow, it was my little moment to myself I really valued. So after this amazing day, with the sun still up for a little while longer, I decided it was the perfect time to have a little wander around.

During all this driving around I felt like I had started to master this whole ‘sense of directions’ thing. Confident and excited I told the guys I wouldn’t be long, I mean, if I just stuck to the paths it would be fine. Heading off, I tried to make mental notes of at which tree I had turned left or right. Then after a few minutes I came across a sign indicating a 300 m return walk ahead. Ah.. 300 m, I could fit that in before the sun goes down! I started the walk on the grass-overgrown path but had to stop abruptly after  a few minutes. A dingo came out of nowhere,  stopped in the middle of the path and stood watching me, in silence – I started to panic.

Yes.. I am aware some people say dingoes are like pets, cuddly pets in fact, absolutely harmless. But then there is another group of people that say dingoes are like wolves. They aren’t big but they are wild dogs, carnivores. I am 5 foot nothing, to them a meal on legs.

I was terrified. Glued to the spot all I could remember from my days working as a veterinary nurse was to not look it in the eyes and back away slowly. As soon as I was able to move my feet I did exactly that. Still walking backwards, staring at the ground, I backed off slowly until the staring dingo was out of sight. From there all I could feel was my heart beating and the blind panic that took over. I started running as fast as I could, hoping it wouldn’t chase me, mistaking me for a half-priced meal-deal. Newspaper headlines flashed through my mind (I’m not exaggerating, they really did) “Backpacker attacked by dingoes whilst out for a walk”. Bloody hell! How could I have been so stupid!

While running I heard howling, which turned into more howls coming from all directions. The panic increased when I realised I couldn’t remember if I had to turn left or right at a fork in the road. I blindly chose to go left. SHIT! Nothing looked familiar. I kept running until I saw a camper-van through the trees ahead. Thank god, human beings! It wasn’t the camping-ground I stayed at but a French couple handed me a map and gave me directions. I must have looked like a complete crazy person, almost in tears, out of breath. I couldn’t thank them enough and ran off to the path where I should have gone right instead of left. Turned out it would have led me straight to the right camping ground.

Relieved to see the guys I explained what had happened. More howling, now close by. The guys laughed it off but said they’d keep an eye out for me.

Those smiles would turn into screaming soon…..

To be continued..

The locust massacre

Our stallion on four wheels had made it out of Exmouth safely. No wailing sirens chasing us down the deserted streets. Still, going into hiding for the night seemed like a good idea, you know, just in case. Cape Range National Park provided us with a legal camping-spot on the beach, looking out over a  gap in between two cliffs with the sea at our feet. We set up a camp-fire under the stars and truly felt like the luckiest bastards alive.

The next day we spent driving all day to Karijini National Park. A long but beautiful drive, until it happened, in the outback: the female monthly drama started. Dying of cramps, overwhelmed by the heat and flies in the back of the van, I tried as hard as I could to not think about it. To me, the worst thing that could happen, I mean, try and explain your mood swings to three guys. Suddenly the 20 flies that got trapped in the back of the van with me, were all I could see. Annoyed , angry and armed with a thong (Ozzie translation) they were the perfect outlet for venting my frustrations.

It got late and we found a quiet roadhouse to crash for the night. During the drive it was obvious we had hit some insects on the way. The headlights acted as an insect magnet and we had to stop sometimes to clear the victims off our front window. About half an hour before we got to the roadhouse, the splattering noise increased by the second. When we got out of the van it became clear why. Millions, I shit you not, millions of locusts! In the air, on the ground… stuck in my bikini top.  Screaming like a little girl… It was quite an impressive sight.

Witness the bastards.

Setting up camp was madness. We had to do it all in the dark because turning on the headlights meant a full-on locust attack from all angles. After the tent was set up, I walked over to the bathrooms to freshen up a little and wash away my moody attitude. Walking through the complete darkness, I suddenly realised the crunching under my feet definitely weren’t branches. It wasn’t until I switched on my phone to use as a torch and aimed it on the ground, that I realised I was walking on a thick layer of dead/half dead/alive locusts. The entire ground was covered in them! Ok, they were a bit annoying but I had no intention of killing them.. unlike flies, but that’s a different story. I was already halfway and stood there for a bit, grossed out and contemplating what to do. I really needed that bathroom! So I carefully walked on my tip-toes, hoping to avoid another massacre under my feet.

Guess what locusts attract? Yes! Frogs! Millions of them too! Fast food flying around, if I were a frog, I wouldn’t miss out. Frogs landing on my feet, sliding down my leg after an attempted hop, locusts covering everything, I finally made it to the bathroom. Opening that door felt like my personal Everest. Until I switched on the light and had a look inside. At least 30 frogs decorated the toilet bowl from inside out, dead and alive locusts, ants and spiders covered the entire little space, it was like insect heaven. The other frogs happily hopped around with their tongues sticking out, having something land on them every second. They must have felt like the luckiest bastards alive.

Remember the scene from ” Raiders of the Lost Ark”, with the snakes, and the one with the spiders? Well, this made Indiana’s adventures look like a walk in the park!

Great… now what? Nothing could cheer me up now. This whole ‘Living the Dream’ thing started to show some dark sides. I growled but started laughing out loud straight after. It’s just one of those days, might as well look on the bright side of it.

Insect mayhem like this also meant snakes. Someone once told me to stomp my feet around before squatting, to scare off any nearby snakes. Whether this is true or not, I didn’t care. Rather have myself look like a complete idiot than having a snake hanging from my bum. So thankfully in the complete darkness, I stomped around a little, took the risk and squatted down in the grass. Clutching a toilet roll in between my chest and chin, balancing on one hand and using my free hand to swat away any creepy crawlies from flying against my bum, or drowning. See, even I have a heart.

I tried to run back to the tent this time. It seemed I was the only one who had witnessed this crazy insect night, everyone had passed out.

“Welcome to Australia”.. I still hear Dick’s voice echoing in the back of my mind. Yeah..cheers mate.

Drive through? Crash through!

Again I would have started this post about how we just arrived in Exmouth and the beach was so pretty..which it was by the way..but I’m sure everyone gets that by now. So I’ll leave that out but just to give you a mental image of Exmouth beaches:

Clear Blue

Turquoise Bay

I know right?:) Even though it was absolutely heaven to see, Ben was a little annoyed there were no waves. Oh well, even in heaven you can’t have it all.

The evening started surprisingly enough by watching the guys doing the push-up sessions to even out the testosterone levels. Yawn.. We hadn’t found a place to sleep yet and had seen one camp-site but it would be a bit of a mission to get in there unnoticed. We parked on a big parking-lot nearby to have a meal, when I noticed a restaurant. An Italian restaurant, with luscious pizza’s and mozzarella salad starters. Dribbling at the thought of sinking my teeth into the worlds’ best food, I grabbed Ben and dragged him into the restaurant. Mark and Dick gave it a miss. Who does that? It was worth the money alright. Ben and I had a great chat and he even paid a little towards it. (His budget for the next three days, bless him.) After that the four of us hung out on the parking-lot discussing burps, farts and god knows what, when it became time to figure out what to do for a sleeping spot.

Driving around the camp-site we found a fence. A removable fence. If you get what I’m saying.. Mark and Dick got a sneaky smile on their faces as Ben and I hid in the back under blankets hoping this was going to go alright. We drove right onto a perfect little spot to park the car and we set up tent as if we had been there all day. Obviously people had seen us. After a while a blond, long dread-locked-haired guy came up. (Picture the typical, surfer dude, who speaks slow as if he has been smoking weed all day) ” Man,.. you can’t just drive through the fence, man. That’s not cool man.” We promised him we were going to see reception in the morning. Laughing our asses off after he walked off. Hippy surfer dude. Muahaha.

Well, you can guess what happened in the morning. It sort of went like this. After showering and up-dating my diary, Dick came up and told us we had to get out now. We had taken too much time getting our stuff together, reception was open and hippy surfer dude was on to us. We packed up like crazy and got into the van. I’ve never been  more happy for it to actually start in one go. Suddenly Mark told us to hold on tight and started revving up. “What are you doing?!” I yelled at him. ” We don’t have time to move the fence, just hold on!” he yelled back. We flew forward and before I knew it we burst through the fence, loudly skidding before speeding off as if we had just robbed a bank.

We all laughed and screamed for ages. Still can’t believe we did that. We quickly got some food for the night and drove off out of public places where we could be recognised. The next thing we’ll be hitting, is a pillow!

 

Road Surfing

It’s funny, I rung up Dick the other day on some details from one of our nights on the trip. “Do you know we have not had one single, normal day on our trip?” I asked him. We laughed. “But that’s what made it so memorable!” he replied. Ahh..if only we could do it all again.

Our second morning in Kalbarri, Dick woke up with horrible back pain. He could not sit up or move one bit. Without breakfast, we packed up and drove to the nearest chiropractor, hoping this guy had a few minutes for an emergency treatment. Ben and Mark carried him in, it turned out the chiropractor did have time and Dick was helped straight away. A bit later he came out walking by himself looking much better. His back had been cracked and patched up with this special band-aid thing on his back. No movement for Dick today, which meant only one thing…Beach day!!

Red bluff was meant to be a beautiful beach and oh my was it! Again, not a soul in sight, my favourite thing about Australia,- paradise to yourself. The surf was incredible. (By now I’d actually become good at recognising what good surf is and what’s not) While Dick and I spent the afternoon on our backs in the sand, Mark and Ben were out in the waves all day. Every now and then we’d cheer them on from the beach and took some really good photos. On the way back they couldn’t stop talking about the surf, as if they were two little 5 year olds coming back from a party. Later on, Ben confessed that he hadn’t surfed for years. He had surfed since he was a little boy, until a few years ago, he had an accident and had almost drowned. He said he is lucky to be alive and unfortunately that accident had stopped him from getting back on his board. It was only a month ago he had tried it again. This day had been a milestone for him.

Ben surfing

X marks the spot

We had a great spaghetti dinner in the park. Convincing the guys that adding capers and cheese to the kind of bland sauce would really make a change, I think this must have been my best meal so far. That, noodles for lunch or a sick sandwich (Ben’s name for my mashed avocado on bread lunch special) were the only contents on my travel menu. Capers were a well enjoyed luxury.

No one noticed us, or came up to ask us if we had paid, so until that happened we stayed on the same camp-site again. At one point a guy from the van parked up next to us, came over and asked if he could use our power-point to change his phone. “Haha, sure mate, it’s free for us too.” He introduced himself as Jacob, a guy from Denmark, travelling together with his friends Martin and Ingelise (a.k.a. Lisa) up the west coast too. They seemed really cool so we joined them with our goon and our Moby filled Ipod. While we were all busy talking, this huge greenish shooting star shot over the sky. (Cheesy but amazing) It was an awesome sight! Never again have I seen such a big or bright shooting star. It’s hard for me to describe the atmosphere of this day, as I think it was just how we all felt together that made it such a memorable day. That good, that now, 3 years later, we still rave about it.

After a great night meeting new friends, we said our goodbye’s in the morning while we left for Pink lake in Port Gregory. (The pink colour is due to algae) Oh it was pink alright. Bright, raspberry pink. quite a crazy sight, something you’d only see in cartoons. Unfortunately it didn’t taste as good as it looked. Yes, sadly we tried. On our way again, we made stops at most of the cliff views around Kalbarri, which were as amazing as we had heard.

Island rock, Kalbarri

Pink Lake

 

Dick in Pink

People on the way had told us Monkey Mia was the bees knees. “A small place, but great for spotting dolphins and amazing beaches’. Alright that sounded awesome, let’s go there! 380 km’s later it was starting to get dark and we decided to stop in Denham for a free night. We got up at the crack of dawn to drive on to Monkey Mia, but got a bit delayed after Dick realised after 40 km’s he had left his phone charging at the camp-site in Denham. Shit! We did a u-turn and speeded back. Reception had opened by now but no one asked questions when Dick walked past and finding his phone still in the same spot. Alright,..back on the road again.

Monkey Mia Resort had an entrance fee of $6 a person and I think because of that we expected quite a bit. Sadly is was extremely touristic and seemed more like a zoo. The dolphins were indeed free but because of standard feeding times, it might as well have been a zoo. Within two hours we left again. Carnarvon (what the hell) was our next stop. Haha well pit-stop really. This place seemed so dull we left again immediately after a quick lunch, making it all the way to Coral bay. Now there’s paradise on earth!

Coral bay is the definition of what those postcards look like when somebody goes on a exotic holiday and wants to rub it in that you aren’t there. All of us were just stunned by the amazing little place. Whale-sharks, snorkelling and mantra rays, this was going to be an amazing few days. It was to early to sneak onto a camp-site, so we had a BBQ. Or well,.. there was already a party going on, we sort of just joined in to use the BBQ and enjoy their music, they didn’t seem to mind:) We had a great night hanging out with a two French guys we met they were flat broke and explained how to steal food in exchange for us telling them how to get free accommodation. Backpackers have each others back They taught me how to say “Qui va à la chasse perd sa place, qui va à la pêche, la repêche.” It means something like ‘He who leaves his seat, loses it’. Random, I know. The thing is, when you travel, everybody teaches you the most rude or strange words in various languages. I never remember a thing but this, I strangely remember. Oh and some German swear words I won’t repeat here. The six of us headed to our new free accommodation. More exploring tomorrow…

BBQ Coral Bay

3 guys + cliff jumping = seriously red rocks

We used our two days in Geraldton to relax and refresh down at the beach. Ben desperately tried to sell his surfboard, but no-one offered him more than $200 for it, while it was as good as new, so he didn’t bother. At the same time he was tossing up the options of finding some work in Geraldton and stay, or to continue his trip with us to Broome. We constantly told him money was not an issue for us, that we enjoyed his company more than anything else. But worries kept playing in his mind. I can completely understand, being so dependent on faith is a tough thing.

Dick and I would tan up on the beach, while Mark would be rolling around the waves with his board, or the three of them took turns in showing off their guns doing push-ups. *rolling eyes again. I understand they want to stay in shape and Dick being a personal trainer and all, but really, guys?! I loved this town and became more aware of the Australian lifestyle. At around 3 pm when the schools were out, parents would come down to the beach with their kids, teach them how to surf and have a barbie (barbecue) with the neighbours. They really know how to enjoy their surroundings. Awesome.

Everything went smooth, apart from the one morning when a ranger discovered our hiding spot and woke us up, banging on the van door while seriously reminding us of the severity of illegal camping. Oh really? sorry we didn’t know.. We got away without a fine though, which was pretty lucky. That morning it rained and we came to the conclusion it was the best to use this weather for driving in. Ben chose the unknown path of faith and jumped back into the van ready for the next adventure. Let’s see what Kalbarri had to offer.

We used our ‘drive through’ method on a camp-site in Kalbarri we found that night.

*The drive through method: Driving onto a camp-site after the reception has closed. Have a very pleasant sleep, if necessary a shower and make full use of other facilities. (e.g. a shit on an actual toilet) Set alarm for early in the morning and make sure you leave before reception opens.

We spent our free night drinking and shaving Ben’s hair in turns, all captured on video. Dick and Mark had both agreed on not cutting their hair until their trip was done, which meant they now both had afro-like hairstyles, and were still figuring out why no female attention was given to them for ages. Hmm… Ben had given it some thought but the further north we went, the hotter it got. Extra hair felt more like a torture than a statement to him. Off it went, and on with the drinking.

The next day we got ready for some proper sightseeing. Kalbarri was a beautiful place and according to this lady at the I-centre, our crappy van would make it to the national park no bother. Wow, how wrong she was! The entrance to the national park itself was a 25 km unsealed road. It didn’t look too bad but it turned out to be in the worst state ever. Our van shook uncontrollably and the only way to make it was to slow down, completely, while other 4wd’s passed us at high speed either laughing or yelling at us to move out of the way. We had gone down too far to just turn and go back. Damage had already been done and we were almost there anyway. Well, with Ben holding the steering wheel and Dick holding his foot down on the gas while taking photo’s, it took us almost an hour to do the 25 km’s.

The park itself was stunning! Dark red rock formations, waterfalls and fresh water for swimming and what else…cliff-jumping! Earlier on the trip the guys had already pointed out that it was stupid to carry my bag around with me all the time. I had a little handbag with two straps, which I would wear as a backpack. It contained things like band-aids, water, my camera and all sorts of stuff. All in the name off you never know. I found myself quite clever to think of this but the guys would laugh and shake their heads. While I explored the national park with my camera, the others did so too, by jumping off the highest rocks they could find. Everything went great doing back-flips and god knows what, until Ben dived off a waterfall head first and ended up in ankle deep water smashing his face into a rock. Blood seemed to come from everywhere but he didn’t seem to panic. After the initial shock, it all turned out to be not so bad after all. I got to use my you-never-know equipment and cleaned up the wound nice and tidy Ben didn’t need any facial surgery but we decided to call it a day and head back.

On the bumpy way back we found a sign saying ‘Nature’s Window’ was just 3 km’s away. We had heard of it somewhere and decided to have a quick look to see what is was. Definitely worth the curiosity. Nature’s window is a rock formation with a large gap in the middle, making it look like a window because it looks out over the most incredible view of Kalbarri national park. We spent some time gazing at the beautiful scenery and took some cheesy pictures to go with it. It was almost 9 p.m. when we got back but it felt like 3 am. Time to really hit the sack now.