Broome

Broome - situated at the southernmost tip of the Dampier Peninsular, 18 degrees south of the equator. Discovered by Europeans in 1689 it was made famous for its pearling industry and only became a established tourist town when English building magnet Sir Alistair McAlpine invested millions of dollars in the 1980's.

Ellie in diving helmet at the Pearl Luggers Museum. Broome was founded by Japanese entrepreneurs in the 1880's. The pearling industry peaked in the early 1900's when the towns 400 luggers provided over 80% of the worlds mother-of-pearl, used mainly for buttons. Only ceasing when the plastic button was invented. Now Broome's pearl farms cultivate and produce pearls which includes the worlds largest pearl.

 The sign below the 'Welcome to Town Beach' sign. Last sighting of a crocodile was yesterday morning. No mention of where he went from there so we gave the swim in the sea a miss for the day and went to the pool.

The ladies on a camel trip along Cable Beach. First camels were imported into Australia from the Canary Islands primarily for transport. Australia is now the only country where there are feral herds of camels, numbering more than 1 million, they are culled and the meat exported to Saudi Arabia where it is consumed.

 The lighthouse at Gantheaume Point. Least impressive lighthouse so far but the rock colours are pretty and they are also home to some of Broome's famous Dinosaur footprints.

Sunday afternoon at Matso Brewery the only full mash hand crafted brewery in Australia's north west. Conveniently it also serves as a pub so Penny sampled the Mango Beer and I enjoyed a Smokey Bishop. Excellent beer and a nice Sunday.

Cable Beach - 22km stretch of sand named after the telegraph cable linking Broome to the rest of the world in 1889. Sitting on top of Larry and watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean. Voted the best beach in Australia, we're not so sure, what with the stingers and crocodiles it doesn't make our top ten list of beaches we have seen so far.

The natural phenomenon known as the Staircase to the Moon. It is caused by the rising of the full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats at extremely low tide - creating the optical illusion of stairs reaching to the moon. Only occurs 2 - 3 days per month between March and October. 

Whilst in Broome we also went to Sun Pictures the world's oldest and longest running outdoor picture house. Good fun to watch the movie outside under the stars and also directly under the landing approach to Broome Airport. 

Fleur's Blog

 This is my blog page of my favourite

things on our trip so far.

 At Adventure World in Perth, my favourite ride was Abyss, a roller-coaster, it went too fast to be able to get a photo of it. This photo is Rail Rider, you pedal to go along a track over the park.

 At Coral Coast I liked Monkey Mia because there were dolphins and I got to feed one. Every night we went to the Monkey Bar but there were no monkeys, I had lemonade and crisps.

 In the Pilbara the Tom Price Mine Tour was great. We went on a bus Ellie and I expected we would go slowly but we went fast at the speed of 90kph. There were monster dump trucks with tyres that were as tall as the bus. They mine iron ore and then take it up to Port Headland on trains. We went to Port Headland as well. 

At Adelaide we stayed on the best campsite ever. There were two swimming pools and 3 water slides. We went to see the cycling and cheered on the bike riders. We also met up with our friends from Newcastle.

 On Cable Beach at Broome we went on a camel ride. We were on the front camel called Isaac. It was lots of fun. There were 12 camels in a train. This is a picture of us on Isaac.

 This is my bed in the caravan I like it because it is the best bed when its hot. I have got a map of Australia where I plot our route with a red line and some art work that I did last year in school.

Hope you enjoyed reading my blog. Lots of love Fleur

 

Ellie's Blog

This is my blog page with my favourite things so far on our journey.

 At Karijini National Park we went on a short walk to a waterfall where you can swim in a pool. Fleur and Daddy went in first. I didn't want to go because there were lots if fish near the steps. We swam to the water fall and sat under it. It felt very heavy on my head. The water was really warm.

 When we went snorkelling we saw lots of pretty coral and fishes. We saw two sharks when we were snorkelling and they swam right under us. It was the best thing I have done so far.

 At Sovereign Hill we panned for gold but didn't find any. We went to a sweet shop and had a really nice raspberry sweet. We watched a pantomime of Beauty and the Beast. It was really good and funny. This picture is Fleur and me with the actors.

 In Denmark I went to a farm. I fed a baby cow, a baby goat and a baby kangaroo with milk. There were lots of different animals, my favourite were the llamas they had big fluffy ears.

 At Perth we went to the zoo and saw lots of different animals. My favourite animals were the lemurs I liked watching them play in the trees. They were on a little island in the middle of a lake. There were lots of fish and pelicans in the lake.

 In Adelaide we watched the cycling and met our friends Mikayla and Erika from Newcastle. I went in a cycling race and did seven laps in twenty minutes. Our caravan park had three waterslides and two pools it was the best park so far. We went on the slides and pools with Mikayla and Erika.

 Hope you like my blog page. Love from Ellie x

 

Pilbara

The Pilbara, large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its ancient landscapes, the red earth, and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. The Pilbara includes some of Earth's oldest rock formations (over 2 billion years old).

The Rio Tinto Tom Price Iron Ore Mine - Fleur and Ellie discussing the merits of the 300T shovel. It was agreed by all that if you really want to move iron ore there was no point getting out of bed to operate anything less than the 800T shovel which is probably why this 300T'er was parked up in the viewing area.

On top of 'Mount Nameless' over looking Tom Price town and the Mine. At 747m the town is the highest town in WA hence the nickname 'WA's Top Town'. At 1115m the Mountain is the highest point in WA that you can drive to albeit an extremely steep and rough road to the top, low range 4 wheel drive and first gear nearly all of the way. 

Karijini National Park, the second largest National park in WA with stunning views in to the deep gorges and cascading waterfalls. At Fortescue Falls, a waterfall that falls all year round, we all had a swim in Fern Pool. The water was lovely and warm which was refreshing after the climb down into the gorge on a typically hot and humid day. The other great thing is that the flies don't seem to be able to muster the strength to make it down into the gorges so we could swim in peace.  

Port Headland the final Australian stage of the iron ore mining process. Iron ore is loaded on to ships to send to China or Japan at the rate of 6-8 ships per day. Very much like Newcastle in NSW except red iron ore in place of black coal and Port Headland is a bit rougher than Newcastle. 

Torres Strait Islander Memorial Statue. This monument recognises the record breaking Pilbara track layers who laid seven kilometres of track in 11 hours and 40 minutes whilst constructing the line to Newman in the 1960s. Not sure what happened, 50 years later the best we could achieved was 800m in a day.

Eighty Mile Beach at sunset. The beach lies along the north-west coast of WA between Port Headland and Broome and at 220 kilometres (140m) in length, is the longest uninterrupted beach in WA. Can't tell you why its not called 140 Mile Beach. This coastline is where the Great Sandy Desert meets the Indian Ocean.

Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park, surreal in that it is 250km from anywhere yet it has acres of manicured lawns and box hedges and is positioned right behind the sand dunes on the beach. This must be the largest expanse of lawn in the entire outback and is the most grass we have seen since leaving NSW, you could be in England, almost, if it wasn't so hot. 

The Coral Coast - Western Australia

The Coral Coast the top Western Part of Western Australia famous for the Ningaloo Reef and the whale sharks.

Carnarvon - Fleur at the Space and Technology Museum, which celebrates the role that Carnarvon Tracking Station played in the manned space programme. Built to support NASA's Gemini & Apollo programmes it was the last station to communicate with the space capsules leaving the earth orbit, and the last contact before splashdown. 

Just to prove its not all beer and skittles on this jolly, a little bit of work having to change the shock absorber rubbers on Larry after some serious corrugations had reduced the originals to dust causing some major knocking noises. We ended up staying 6 days in Carnarvon to catch up on school work and caravan and car maintenance.

The Blowholes just north of Carnarvon with a sign to warn you of the dangers. Off the beach there was some good coral for our first family snorkelling adventure. Ellie said "That was the best thing ever" as we sat on the beach eating our picnic and watching some sort of shark swim past exactly where we had just swam.

Heading north from Carnarvon and crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, an imaginary line of latitude going around the earth at approximately 23.5° south of the equator. It is the southernmost point on earth where the suns rays can be directly overhead at local noon on the December solstice. We have left the southern temperate zone and entered the tropics. As this imaginary line is moving in a complex manner and not fixed, Penny, using all the things she learnt at university, has positioned herself on the actual latitude for 2014 and is demonstrating just how far out of position the sign is now.

Coral Bay in the Ningaloo Coast Marine Park, another Word Heritage area. The reef is one of the largest fringing reefs in the world and you get to it by stepping off the beach. Two days of snorkelling and swimming in the warm crystal clear waters with plenty of coral, fish and a few rays spotted. Fleur and Ellie celebrating what might just be the best beach so far! It's also worth recording that on day 104 of our trip it actually rained, for a full 10 minutes, our first rain on the trip so far, but not enough to wash the car or caravan. 

Turquoise Bay in the Ningaloo Marine Park - another full couple of days snorkelling at the many beaches up and down the reef, it is now starting to become a problem to choose the best beach, there may be too many to choose from. Trip Advisor voted Turquoise Bay the second best beach in Australia.

Sunset at the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse which stands at the northernmost tip of Cape Range on the Coral Coast. The Lighthouse overlooks Lighthouse Bay and has the distinction of being one of the few places in Australia where you can watch the sun rise and set. Another lighthouse landmark on our journey as we stop heading north and turn to head east.  

100 Days

Thursday 20 March 2014 is the 100th day of our big lap.

Current location - Carnarvon

Some statistics so far:

     Overall distance travelled - 10,835 km (6,732 miles)

     Route distance travelled (big lap) - 8,851 km (5,500 miles)

     Total fuel used - 2300 L (506 gallons)

     Average fuel Price - $1.66 L (90p)

     Number of different places stayed overnight - 36

     State/Territory boarders crossed - 5

     Amount of rain on lap - 0mm

     Hottest day - 46 degrees South Australia

     Mountains climbed - 4

     Hats lost - 3 (Fleur 2, Mark 1)

     Thongs (flip flops) lost - 3 (2 to wind, 1 to dingo)

     Number of days since paid employment - 105 (Mark) 6 years (Penny)

Shark Bay

Shark Bay - a World Heritage Area due to its unique and abundance marine life. To be inscribed, properties must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one of ten selection criteria set by the UNESCO. Shark Bay satisfied all four of the natural criteria for World Heritage listing.

Denham - Having an evening beer at the most westerly bar, in the most westerly hotel (pub for those in the uk) in the most westerly town in the whole of Australia. At this present time there was no one drinking beer, in a bar, in a town, west of us until you get to South Africa and they would have been in bed so probably Brazil!

Monkey Mia - Home to the world famous Monkey Mia Dolphins. Morning time, Penny, Fleur and Ellie (specially chosen to feed the dolphins) unsure about who was going to hold the fish to give to Puck the dolphin. Puck who was born in 1976 and been coming to Monkey Mia ever since has never had to wait so long for her one fish breakfast.

Ellie playing Lego outside the caravan was surprised to find that one of the locals wanted to join in. Fleur had barricaded herself inside the caravan to watch from the safety afforded by the fly screen. 

Evening sailing in Shark Bay Marine Park, a major fish nursery with extensive sea grass meadows that provides the food for the wide array of marine life. We got to see a number of dugongs and dolphins along with a turtle. Both Mark and Fleur lost their hats due to the wind which are now consigned to litter this world heritage area.   

Shell Beach - an amazing pure white beach that has been created naturally from hundreds of millions of tiny sea shells (Fragum cockles) that grow in profusion in the bay. Extending 120km long and over 10m deep, scientists are puzzled by the proliferation and extensive deposits of these shells thought to be up to 4000 year old. Compacted shells were quarried for building blocks and the local church in Denham was constructed using these shell blocks.

Hamelin Bay - Ellie hanging out with the Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool. The living microbes that construct the Stromatolites are similar to the earliest forms of life on earth dating back 3000 million years and are responsible for the production of the oxygen in the atmosphere and therefore all other life. Not much to look at but one of only two sites in the world where they still exist.