I will come back and fill in this blank page with both writing and photographs very soon, before I forget what happened. Does anyone out there still have the emails I sent while I was away? I will have to ask Janis nicely if she'll scan some photos for me.
Just a quick rundown of what will appear here in the near future. The trip started with 2 nights and 1 day on the Indian Pacific train. I boarded in Adelaide and left in Perth. Then came 3 days on Rottnest Island, and afterwards 1001 km of riding from Perth to Albany. There will be stories of blowouts, dog bites, stacks, dirt roads, food, friends and of course the SCUBA diving, for who could go to WA and miss diving the Busselton Jetty, or the Swan wreck at Dunsborough.
Please, I invite you to come back soon to read about these adventures, for I must share them with you or they will be lost from my memory. Who will come with me on my next trip? Maria and Dave? Janis and Michael? Get on those treadly machines and start training guys!!!
After a busy weekend of going to 2 weddings, I set off in the car to visit my aunt who has a small vinyard in Finnis, SA (near Adelaide). I had never been to her place before, even though she had had the farm for about 5 years. Stopping to visit my parents on the way and to get my very own mobile phone (I'm still anti-mobile phones, but it certainly does come in handy at times) meant it took me all day to get there. The surrounding area has lots of rolling hills, and at the bottom of the farm is a creek fed by a spring so it permenantly has water in it. On a fine day you can just see the Coorong from the house.
The harvest had been organised for the weekend of all the weddings, but due to rain it had had to be postponed. I stayed 2 days, but unfortunately the harvest started the very next day. I wish I had been around to help.
For most of the day that I spent on the train I looked out at the Nullabor, and it is truely as treeless as its name means. There is nothing to look at besides orange dirt and a few whispy shrubs. This is also the location of the longest straight stretch of railway (in the world?) of 477 km without a bend. The trip may have been more fun if I had some friends with me, but alone it was rather boring. We stopped for about 15 minutes in Cook where a grand total of 4 people lived (2 parents and 2 kids). The next stop was Kalgoolie. We got there at about 8 pm and the only things open were the pubs. I wandered a little around town, but because I didn't really want to go to the pub by myself I ended up back at the train waiting 3 hours for it to get going again. By the time I got to Perth, I had a numb bum....not a good way to start a bicycle touring trip!
I spent the days at Rottnest cycling around the island and SCUBA diving. I did 2 dives whilst I was there. They were good dives with lots of kelp and sea grasses around. I was there over a weekend, and my friend from Perth came out on the Sunday and we spent the day cycling the island. We went to see the old gun which could fire a cannon all the way back to Fremantle. It was part of the Australian defence during WWII. We also went to the lighthouse. The gun and the lighthouse were found on 2 of the highest hills on the island.
I also had the inevitable flat on that first day. I was lazy though, as I was so close to Mandurah that I couldn't be bothered taking everything off the bike, so I just kept pumping up the tire. I finally made it to my great aunt and great uncle's house and collapsed in a heap! After showering, a good feed, and a repaired inner tube I felt a lot better.
3 km later I reached a service station, and I stopped to wash my hands. I checked how the tire was going, but it didn't look good. Both the tyre and the rubber of the old inner were wearing badly. I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with a nice couple of people for about 15 km, and before they left the guy helped to patch the hole in the tyre with electrical tape. It did the job and I'm happy to report that I made it the rest of the way to Bunbury without any problems. When I finally got to a bicycle shop I asked the guy who sold me the new tyre to cut up the old tyre so that if it happened again at least I could line the hole with a piece of actual tyre. Naturally that was my only blowout of the trip. I've been bicycle touring now (off and on) for about 9 years, and riding bicycles my whole life, and that was only my second ever blowout.
The next day I rode to Busselton, detouring through the Tuart Forest National Park. I stopped to visit an historical house, Wonnerup House, which was in a beautiful setting and I just sat in the coolness of the shade of a huge old olive tree and rested. The Tuart trees apparently were extremely common from Augusta up to Perth, but there is now only the one natural stand of the trees near Bussleton.
Busselton is on the Geographe Bay which is home to stunning beaches. I found a caravan park about 5 km out of the main part of town just across the road from the beach. I thought $22 was outrageous for an unpowered tent site, but there it was. I only stayed for one night.
After setting up the tent I rode back into town along a bike track along the beach and walked along the Busselton Jetty. This is a 2 km long wooden jetty so it took about an hour to wander out and back again. There were numerous people fishing off the jetty but it didn't seem like many people were catching very much. You couldn't walk all the way to the end of the jetty because about a year earlier there had been a fire about 3/4 of the way along the jetty and there is now a big gap between the main part of the jetty and the rest.
It was dark when I finally got on my bike and rode back to the caravan park. It is strange riding on offroad bike tracks where there is no light at night. The light on my bike doesn't light up much, it really acts more as a warning that I am there. But I got back without a mishap.
The next morning I went for a dip in the bay and then packed up the tent site to head on to Dunsborough. I had tried to organise to go diving on Busselton Jetty but there were no spare places for 2 days, so I thought I'd move on and come back later. Dunsborough was only 25 km away, so it wasn't inconceivable that I could ride back.
The ride was uneventful, and there is a bike track to ride on for about half the distance. When I got to Dunsborough I went straight to a dive shop to see if I could dive the Swan wreck. I had to book a spot a couple of days away, so I ended up looking for a place to stay. The caravan park was quite a way out of town and once again the fees were outrageous, so I ended up at a hostel with a roof over my head for the same price. $20 per night, and most nights I had the room to myself as there weren't many people staying during the week. On the weekend I had one other person in my room which could fit 4 people. The kitchen was great, and I was really impressed with the place.
I spent the rest of the day riding out to the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste. I was really happy I wasn't carting all my gear as it was rather hilly riding. Apparently I have hit the hills. From Perth to Dunsborough the roads were all relatively flat, but from now on there will be hills. I detoured to a beautiful beach on the way up to the lighthouse and went snorkelling. There wasn't a great deal to see, but it was lovely all the same, and the weather was hot so I didn't mind getting wet.
I got to the lighthouse just before it closed, but I quickly bought a ticket and went up into the lighthouse. It wasn't a really tall one, but it was interesting being inside it.
The next day I did a ride to the Yallungup Cave. It was a really nice limestone cave. The guide took us down into the cave, gave us some instructions and orientated us, and then left. So we could take as long as we liked to go through the cave. I really enjoyed the way they did this. There were a couple of people at certain points in the cave, so if you had any questions you could ask them, and they also pointed out certain features to you. I had a wonderful time there!
I rode back to Dunsborough via a different route. I went past a couple of wineries, and of course I had to stop for a tasting. Most people were rather amused by the fact that I was on the bicycle. I loved Haas winery, because there was a wonderful pottery place attached to the winery. You could walk around and talk to the guys as they worked. I also bought some wine there and had it shipped home.
The last stop before getting back to Dunsborough was Simmos Icecreamery. I thoroughly recommend going there. There are an amazing number of icecream flavours and all icecreams are locally made. I got there just before they closed, so I bought an icecream and scoffed it down. *icecream headache* I got Strawberry Cointreau Cheesecake....absolultely scrum-dilli-icious!
The next day was Saturday and I was booked to dive Busselton Jetty. I rode the 25 km back to Busselton (minus the gear) and went on the dive. It was a wonderful dive. We got on a boat which took us to the very end of the jetty, the bit which noone can fish from because of the gap made by the fire. That fire has apparently been a bonus for divers, because now that people can't fish there is a lot more to see there than there used to be.
When we finished the dive and got back to the small jetty in the boat, I was getting all my gear organised to put back on the truck and I was suprised to see Darren, my friend's hubby from Perth. I knew that they were in Busselton for the weekend for their friends' engagement party, but I didn't expect Darren to find me. Anyway, after all the dive gear was cleaned up I followed them (I on bicycle, they in car) to their friend's place where I ended up being invited to stay for the party. It was a nice party but extremely cold. The weather, which up until then had been pretty mild at night, and even nights following were milder, but it was absolutely FREEZING that night! I spent the night standing by an outdoor gas heater and talking to lots of people I've never met before and in all likelyhood will never meet again.
I stayed the night and in the morning I was given a lift (with my bike) back to Dunsborough. Darren also dives, and when Annette, his wife, had rung me to tell me they'd be in Busselton for the weekend, I had said I was going diving on the Sunday and Darren decided he wanted to come too. So we headed off to the dive shop to dive the Swan wreck.
The HMAS Swan was decomissioned several years ago and it was deliberately sunk off the coast of Dunsborough to create an artifical reef and dive site. It had huge holes punched in the side so that there was no danger of getting lost inside, all the dangly bits were removed so divers couldn't get caught up on anything, and it was sunk in 30 metres of water. I had only ever dived that deep about 9 years earlier, so I was a little nervous about what it would be like. But I didn't have any problems and we had two excellent dives throughout the day.
Stay tuned for the continuing saga of the bike ride.