This is the second part of my somewhat self indulgent rambling about a trip my mate Leigh and I did around most of Australia in an old XB Panelvan, way back in 1986. Part one featured our adventures as we travelled from Melbourne to Adelaide with a brief sojourn into the Flinders Ranges, this post is all about our journey from Adelaide across to Perth. Once again I'll largely let the photos tell the story, my memory is not too bad for an old bloke but I can't remember all the details of our day to day adventures, now this may be just as well when it comes to the other people in the photos, as they have probably all got grand kids who have got no idea what granny got up to in her younger days...fuck I'm getting old!
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| Before leaving Adelaide we fitted a new set of driving lights to the blue beast. |
The first part of our journey was a marathon journey across the Nullarbor, we left Adelaide late at night. We'd replaced our driving lights in Adelaide as we had lost one on our journey up the Birdsville Track, the new ones came in handy straight away as we travelled north out of town in the wee hours. As we made our way west over the next few days the weather deteriated a lot, by the time we pulled up at Kalgoorlie we were enduring constant rain, not ideal when living out of the back of the panel van, I thought Australia was meant to be hot and dry, it wasn't like this on the Leyland Brothers....
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| The morning after leaving Adelaide we pulled up at Port Germain for breakfast, checking out Australia's longest wooden jetty. |
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| Leigh caught the unluckiest fish in the world over at Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula. |
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| The Nullarbor was beckoning us. |
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| The Great Australian Bight, I've been here plenty of times over the years and it's still a special place. |
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| The dunes near the SA/WA border. |
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| An alfresco breakfast somewhere near Eucla on the Nullarbor. |
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| On the Eyre Highway heading west. |
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Crossing over from South Australia to Western Australia on the Eyre Highway.
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| The remains of the Old Telelgraph Station near Eucla. |
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| These dunes are slowly reclaiming the Old Telegraph Station. |
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| Our luxury digs on our first night in Western Australia. |
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| Balladonia Roadhouse, I'd spent a few weeks here years before with my dad carting water from Norseman to keep the road house going during a drought. |
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| The Eyre Highway crossing the Fraser Range on the way to Norseman. |
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| The closer we got to Kalgoorlie the worse the weather got. |
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| Our rather dreary and damp camp at Kalgoorlie. |
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The weather didn't stop us checking out Hay Street in Kalgoorlie, it was certainly an eye opener for us as it was a fairly wild place back in the day. Kalgoorlie was also the first place that we bumped into skimpies, as it turned out
skimpies were a particular Western Australian phenomenon and we would come across them quite often on our time over there. You might want to google Hay Street, Kalgoorlie or Skimpies to get an idea of what I'm on about. |
After getting rained out in Kalgoorlie we decided to head south and check out the wild South West coast line of Australia. This section of our trip proved to be a bit of a surprise to me, I'd never actually been down to this part of the country before and the wild coast, beautiful forests and stunning caves meant that there was always something to hold our interest. The weather stayed cold, but the rain gradually eased as we slowly meandered our way west to Perth.
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Pink Lake near Esperance looked a little under whelming in the gloom, the short coastal drive out of Esperance is one of the best short drives in Australia in good weather though.
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Eventually we finally got some sun, this is our campsite in Albany.
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| Million star dining in Albany. |
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| We spent a bit of time Albany checking out the coastline in Torndirrup National Park. |
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| Natural Bridge. |
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| And the Gap, both in Torndirrup National Park. |
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| Jimmy Newells Harbour. |
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| At the end of the road we came to Whale World Museum, believe it or not whaling had only ceased here a few years previously (November 78), see what I mean about it being a different time socially! |
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| Finally we went up to the lookout on Mt Clarence to check out the view over Albany and Princess Royal Harbour. |
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| After our time in Albany we left the coastline for awhile and headed to the Karri forests around Pemberton for a change of pace. |
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| That's Leigh halfway up the Gloucester Tree. |
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| The view from the top of the Gloucester Tree. |
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| Yeah, I get it, its high! |
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| After leaving the forests around Pemberton we cut across to the coast near Augusta. |
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| Getting the XB a bit dirty in the process. |
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| This region of Australia is now famous for its vineyards around Margaret River and its great surfing breaks, but we didn't know to much about that back in the day, we found something just a spectacular though, a series of magnificent caves. |
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| Stalagmites' in Jewel Cave. |
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| And a few Stalactite's. |
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| My old photos are crap but if you're ever over in the area check out the caves, they're awesome. |
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After getting our fill of the limestone caves we pointed the XB north and headed up to Perth, once in town we quickly located the Central Caravan Park (interestingly its still trading) and got ourselves an on-site van. We spent a fair bit of time in Perth checking things out and hanging out with new friends. It was good to be stopped for awhile and not be packing and un packing each day, the van was soon filled with all our crap. Being the middle of winter I quickly worked out that the back of the XB was actually warmer than the pop up van so I still ended up sleeping in the car most nights. What do I remember about our trip now, well I remember Rottnest Island being stunning and that was backed up when I finally returned there with Sam a few years ago. I remember the beaches were beautiful, I remember a particularly boozy wine cruise up the Swan River, I remember seeing the Party Boys in just about every beer barn in town, and I remember just having fun with my new friends, although most of that will have to go onto the pay per view section of my blog!
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| This was the view down over the Swan River and the Perth CBD back in 1986, from Kings Park. |
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| Our home for awhile at the Central Caravan Park in Redcliffe, Perth. |
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We quickly made ourselves at home, nice pink blanket Leigh!
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Err, I reckon I might of had one or two drinks this night.
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Leigh tweaking the carby...yeah remember them!
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Our time in Perth involved a wine cruise up the Swanny River, the conservative English couple look happy to be seated with us:) Lets just say appearances can be deceptive sometimes!
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The day after our wine cruise we backed up for a trip over to Rottnest Island, accompanied by our knew friends from yesterdays wine cruise, the conservative English couple, and our new Kiwi friend above.
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There were plenty of Quokas on hand to greet us.
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| Flaked out on the ferry back from Rottnest after another big day. |
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Heading down to Scarborough Beach (I think), check out the age of the cars in the car park, the XB was looking quite modern.
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Yep, says it all really.
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We went to check out the recently opened Adventure World.
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Yeah, we were easily amused back in the day.
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Sometimes we just chilled out at the Caravan Park.
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Leigh with our new friends Sandy and Gail at Central Caravan Park.
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We ate well.
The Dirt.
We covered around another 3000 kilometres on this leg of our trip. The XB was still going strong, although unlike vehicles now days, it required constant tweaking to keep it on the road. As I've mention we stayed in the Central Caravan Park in Redcliffe, Perth and the caravan park still appears to be trading. As far as I know all the places we visited are still open, although I'd be interested to see if they let you climb the Gloucester Tree without any protection now days, it was a little hairy back in the day.
Here's some links to other posts that I've written up that tie in with this one;
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| Judging by the sunlight it looks like we're on our way to a Sunday Session. |
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| We had been tracking our way around Australia frequently in town at the same time as the then current incarnation of The Party Boys, I remember seeing the band in Adelaide, Albany and more than once in Perth. |
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| This incarnation of the band featured Angry Anderson (Rose Tattoo) on vocals, Kevin Borich (Kevin Borich Express) on lead guitar, Alan Lancaster (Status Quo) on base, John Brewster (The Angles) on rhythm guitar, Paul Christie (Mondo Rock) on one set of drums and Richard Harvey (The Divinyls) on the other set of drums. The Party Boys achieved a bit of commercial success a few years later with Swanee out front, with their covers of Hold Your Head Up and He's Gonna Step On You Again..... You Tube is probably your friend here if you want to check out the band. |
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| It's funny to think that some of these girls on stage dancing to the Z.Z.Top song Legs, are grandma's now. |
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