"Like Texas, only it's big": exploring West Australia with Clint and Buddy

Tim Winton, the quintessential West Australian novelist, describes West Australia (WA) as "Like Texas, only it's big".  It's fair comment: WA occupies 2.7 million square km of the earth's surface, Texas just 0.7 million. When we arrived in Perth after our journey from Sydney on the Indian Pacific train, we'd already got a sense of the size: it had taken us parts of two days and a full night to cross the Nullarbor from the state border. Our planned road trip from Exmouth to Perth was only a small part of WA's coastline, but 1200 km of driving. The rental agreement banned us from going more than 200km from the coast: in NZ there isn't anywhere 200km from the coast, in WA it excluded most of the state.

But before heading north, we had a day to reacquaint ourselves with Perth. On our previous visit in 1977, we'd been overcoming the culture shock of being in a western city again after 9 months crossing Asia. Now we just had to cope with finding our own way rather than relying on the train staff. From the train, we biked to Anna's AirBnB apartment to get the keys from Diane the cleaner. As promised, the view of the Swan river from the 18th floor was stunning, particularly when I woke in the early hours to see the Moon setting over Narrows Bridge.

Breakfast on the 18th floor, Ferry terminal and Kings Park behind

Swan River Bike trail

Kings Park beckoned, so we biked the river side path and hiked up the aptly named Kokoda track. One of the reasons for visiting WA in September was to see the wildflowers, and it looked like we could tick off most of the species in the flowerbeds overlooking the city. In 1977 we'd been getting used to Asians not being around, in 2016 it was hard not to photobomb a selfie destined for Guangzhou or Kuala Lumpur.

Marg, Kings Gardens, 1977

Marg, Kings Gardens, 2016

Next morning we caught the ferry down the river to Fremantle, past $80 million Tuscan villas, and across to Rottnest Island. Rottnest/Wadjemup, the Waiheke of Perth, turned out to also be the bike rental capital of Australia. As the crowds disembarked from the ferry, people claimed their pre-booked rental bike, grabbed a helmet from a huge bin, and cycled off to explore the Island.

Following the trend, we went clockwise, stopping first at the Kingsland Barracks, the remnants of the "Rottnest Island Fortress" defending Fremantle during the World Wars. Cycling through the tundra-like landscape, we passed an intriguing sculpture based on old bike parts, and reached the south coast beaches, which looked like they'd offer good snorkeling in more clement weather. Two Pelicans preened on one beach, and Marg found a dessicated puffer fish.

Preening pelicans ignore photobombing gull

A detour inland took us to the Wadjemup Lighthouse, where we ate our sandwiches while we waited for the half hourly tour up the winding staircase to the machine room at the top where keepers used to wind up the weight that powered the turning light through the night. We were able to repay the guide for the knowledge she shared, by giving her a test ride on Lucie, to help her research for her own folding bike purchase.

Lenses, Wadjemup lighthouse

Retrospective advice for Captain Cook, Wadjemup Lighthouse

Al and Marg with Victorian ironwork on top of Wadjemup Lighthouse

Back at the wharf, we were entertained by the endemic Quokka, the rat-like animals that gave the island its European name, and subject of numerous Internet selfies. Their survival strategy belies their cuteness - if threatened by a predator, Mum chucks the baby out of her pouch as a distraction, and hightails it in the direction of the nearest male Quokka to restart the perpetuation of the species.

Mum checks for predators and discarded muffins, Rottnest Mall

Back in Freemantle, we took the efficient and bike friendly train back to the city to prepare for our early flight next morning to Exmouth and Ningaloo National Park.

When booking, I'd wondered why there was a Monday 5:20am flight, even checking that I hadn't confused am and pm. When we got to the airport, the reason for the early flight became clear: squads of mine workers in fluoro overalls were checking their steel capped boots through airport security, heading back to work after their weekend at home. FIFO (Fly In, Fly Out) has replaced hard life in an outback mining settlement. Sadly, while heavy duty mining equipment was acceptable as carry on, Marg had to surrender her beloved pen knife that had accompanied her around the globe several times.

In Exmouth we collected our van, along with Clint (Eastwood) and Buddy (Holly). We'd been a bit apprehensive as to what slogans our van would be emblazoned with (masking tape was Plan B), but decided we could live with Clint and Buddy's words of wisdom.

Clint on gun control

Buddy, Marg and the Exmouth Prawn

Exmouth was established in the cold war era to service the Harold Holt VLF radio station (there's a certain irony in naming a naval facility after a drowned Prime Minister) used to communicate with the US submarines that would deliver the nuclear deterrent; the codes from the Presidential briefcase would be transmitted through here. Originally the town had so many US personnel with their vehicles that petrol heads from across Australia would make special trips here to view the Broncos and Corvettes.

Pure Australiana, Exmouth IGA

Now Exmouth is gateway to the Ningaloo Marine Park and more peaceful underwater activity. Just inside the circling reef is some of the finest snorkeling in Australia. We headed around the coast to Turquoise Bay, where we drifted on the current over coral and schools of fish, and Marg made friends with a turtle.

Pink Galahs, Ningaloo

Marg asks for a Wellington weather update to gloat over while enjoying another snorkel drift

Coral and fish, Turquoise Bay

In the evening we walked up to Yardie River gorge past termite mounds and scrub. The National Park campsites along the shore were booked out, but we headed up to the Yardie Homestead Caravan Park just on the park boundary to enjoy our sunset drinks.

Termite mound, Yardie Creek

Kayak fisher and cormorants, Yardie Creek

Yardie Gorge

Next day we headed back to Exmouth and south to Coral Bay, restoring our calories at the traditional bakery where the Heart Foundation hasn't yet expunged the whipped cream from apple turnovers. We spent the rest of the day snorkel drifting over coral resembling ornate cabbages and blue tipped antlers, accompanied by swarms of fish.

Next morning we had a brisk early morning snorkel, then tackled the 600km drive south to Shark Bay. On the road, ordinary saloon cars were rare, red dusted four wheel drives towing outback caravans, and multi-trailer road trains more common.

At Hamelin Pool we stopped off to visit the Stromatolites. At first sight underwhelming, they gain respect when you realise that these coral-like creatures have eschewed evolution for almost 4 billion years. I imagined an interview:

Stromatolites, Hamelin Pool

Interviewer: "Can I just ask: why have you gone for 4 billion years without evolving?"
Stromatolite: "Well, when Charlie Darwin came up with this evolution thingy yesterday..."
Interviewer "Excuse me, Darwin's Origin of the Species was published 150 years ago!"
Stromatolite: "Sorry - we've got a different sense of time than primates - anyway as I was saying we did wonder if we we'd let the life sciences side down a bit, but looking at where evolution has taken homo sapiens - Donald Trump and reality TV for example  - we think we made the right decision."

Termite proto-mounds, Shark Bay

The draw card of Shark Bay is Monkey Mia, where dolphins have learned to show up at the beach for breakfast, and tourists have learned to show up at the beach for selfies with the dolphins. A downside was that the dolphins learned unhealthy eating habits, so the Parks and Wildlife rangers now limit dolphin interaction to 20 minutes and 300g of gluten free healthy snacks, delivered by a select few tourists who persuade the rangers they are cute enough - a kid sized dolphin suit helps.

Dolphins observe human interaction at Monkey Mia

We headed back to the main road, stopping at Eagle Bluff to see a dark shadow roaming the seagrass that we convinced ourselves was a dugong, and at the brilliant white, uniform-sized, shells of Shell Beach.

Sifting shells at Shell Beach

The "only it's big" factor came into play again - Shark Bay had looked a minor detour on the map so we hadn't thought too much about fuel, but it's similar to driving from Wellington to Bulls and back, and 70km from the nearest fuel stop the gauge was reading empty. We were pleased to see the cluster of gum trees and and parked up road trains at the Overlander Roadhouse.

Road through Kalbarri

Murchison River, Kalbarri

Bottlebrush, Kalbarri

Kalbarri river mouth

At Kalbarri we headed back towards the sea through the wildflowers, stopping at the lookouts over the Murchison River. From Kalbarri town we enjoyed a morning bike ride down the coast to a scenically sited coffee cart, and Marg had her last snorkel at Blue Holes. A sign at a peaceful inlet warned of sharks.

Geraldton Wax flowers, Kalbarri

Coffee on the Kalbarri coastal path

Blue Hole

Before GPS, this coast collected errant navigators: Dutch who failed to turn left for Batavia, and Brits who didn't head far enough south for Port Philip and Botany Bay. Before governing NZ, George Grey had been wrecked on this coast, and with the help of the local Noongar people walked to Perth, so it was the George Grey highway we followed along the cliff tops dotted with scrub and wildflowers to Pink Lake, coloured by algae in its salt rich waters.

Murchison Rose

Violet Eremaea

Purple Flag

Coral Gum

Pink Lake

The must-see wildflower at this time of year was the Wreath Flower, which grows only in a very specific area. At the Geraldton Tourist Information Office we learned how specific this area was. "Head inland 100km to Mullewa, then the Mount Magnet mine road 30km to Pindar, then 10km up the dirt road to Beringarra Station, you'll see the flowers"

Pindar ensures its title of "Tidy Town of the Outback"

We followed the directions and found the natural wreaths of flowers. The spot was very localised - they only grew over a 50m stretch of road. They used to grow on fire cleared land, but with increasing agriculture and fewer bush fires, they rely on the graded verges of the dirt road to bloom.

Marg pays her respects

Wreathed out, we headed back to Mullewa for the night. Next morning we headed back out to the coast through the yellow fields of Everlastings at Coalseam Conservation Park.

Truck art, Mullewa

Coal Seam Park

At Nambung we visited the Pinnacles, hundreds of sandstone outcrops among the dunes. Geologists struggle to explain them (something to do with sand solidifying around tree roots or trunks). To the local Yued people, the pinnacles are the grasping fingers of young men who strayed into the forbidden dunes and were swallowed up. If they appeared in Wellington, we'd assume they were a Weta Workshop set for a new Tolkien movie.

Nambung Pinnacles

Google navigated us across Perth to the Wicked depot, where we left Clint and Buddy in the care of two cheery guard dogs, keen to show their skill at crushing plastic drink bottles with their bare teeth.

End of the trip for Clint and Buddy

A short bike ride and a couple of train trips got us to Fremantle, and the Hougoumont Hotel, where our compact but comfortable room was well stocked with capsules for the Nespresso machine, and the Terns were welcomed to park up in the lobby with the hotel's complementary bike fleet.

Next morning we joined the magpies, rosellas and morning joggers on Memorial Hill, then biked down through the old terrace houses to the waterfront. Having spent a morning waiting on dolphins at Monkey Mia, it was a a surprise come on a pod gamboling in the Fremantle boat harbour. We breakfasted at the old Tramway depot by the Roundhouse where Aboriginal guerrillas were interned before being exiled to Rottnest, then headed to the Fremantle Market, where stalls stocked everything from boomerangs to chocolate to ingenious plastic bag closers.

Fremantle Market

At the Wreck Museum we saw the remains of the Batavia, one of the Dutch ships that failed to make the turn. This shipwreck had a particularly dark history, its crew descending into a Lord of the Flies nightmare of violence, but it left on the WA coast its hull and an ornate stone archway destined for the Javanese colony, along with a collection of domestic goods encapsulating 1600s Dutch life.

Snap! Folding bikes are a popular choice to get to the Wreck Museum

Traditional Dutch jug at the Wreck Museum

Lunch at the Little Creatures Brewery, then we biked up the coastal trail to Cottesloe and on to Kings park on the generous separated paths following the railway line. At Kings Park we checked out the wildflowers one last time, and traversed the treetop walkway.

Warning sign, Kings Park

Treetop walkway, Kings Park

We biked on to the City West station and got the train back to Fremantle. Fellow passenger Elder Edwards wistfully admired our Terns - the Mormons now proselytise by public transport rather than the traditional bikes.

All too soon we were 10000m above the land we'd traversed, losing our sense of scale as we crossed the Nullarbor in an hour or so rather than days, on our way back to Sydney and home to Wellington. Maybe it's time to check out Texas.

Return to the Nullarbor: by train across the lucky country

Indian Pacific at Two Wells, South Australia

In 1977 Marg and I decided that the cheapest way to finish our two year OE was by flying from Jakarta to Perth, hitching across Australia, then flying from Sydney to Auckland. Easy eh? Our first driver out of Perth enlightened us "Yeah, you'll have to get a ride across the Nullarbor. Took me two weeks to get a ride when I did it". Our fixed date flight from Sydney was in 10 days, so we clearly needed some good fortune to cross the "Lucky Country". At dusk at Kalgoorlie on the edge of the Nullabor, our first good fortune arrived in the form of a truck that stopped at every place between there and Eucla on the South Australian border: 900 km and 6 stops. Our second good fortune was a mining worker from the northwest who'd heard that his daughter was sick in Melbourne, hopped in his car and drove across Australia, picking us up in Eucla to keep him awake. So rather than being stranded in the outback, we returned to NZ and established home, careers and a family.

Lift across the Nullarbor, 1977

39 years later we decided to repeat the trip in reverse. Rather than hitch, we opted for the Indian Pacific train. We'd taken the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin in 2011 and found that watching Australia go by was a satisfying travel experience. I'd taken the Overland from Adelaide to Melbourne in 2014, so the Indian Pacific completed the trifecta.

Despite it being Marg's Gold Card birthday, our age can't have been obvious when we checked in for the flight to Sydney; we were asked if our bagged Tern folding bikes were baby strollers . We settled into the Rendezvous Hotel on the Rocks, enjoying the promised terrace view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Next morning, we discovered that Air New Zealand baggage handling had bent the chainring on Lucie, Marg's bike. The nail file on my Leatherman didn't give enough leverage to realign it, so we headed out for breakfast, pondering how far away the nearest bike shop was. A tradie was working on the street. "Ah, you wouldn't have a shiftgrip you could lend us?" "Sure, mate, I'm off for brekkie. Just chuck it in the back of the ute when you're finished"

With Lucie's gear changing restored, we headed up to the cycle track on the Harbour Bridge - bikes get one side, pedestrians the other. It was peak commuter time, with numbers that would gladden the hearts of Skypath promoters. On the stairs on the north side a security guard was posted to keep order as bikers hiked up the stairs - except for one fit soul who stormed up the near 1:1 gradient centre lane.

We explored Milsom's point and Lavender Bay finding a series of sculptures by the trail.

Bib and Bub, iconic Australian Gumnut babies

A replica Luna Park lurks in the bushes

Marg checks out the real Luna Park

A ferry took us over to Darling Harbour, and we biked back around Barangaroo Reserve to the Rocks, passing a roundabout with a sculptural commentary on traffic, and the bike friendly cafe BarCycle where customers can practice their pedal ankling while sipping their lattes.

Barangaroo shared path

A quick loop around the Opera House and the Royal Botanic Gardens, lunching with the resident ibis, then we checked out the cycle lanes on the way to the station.

Tern touring the Opera House

Marg at Mrs Macquarrie's chair, Botanic Gardens

Two way separated bike lane, Castlereagh St

The Terns were checked through to Perth, and we settled in to our Gold Class compartment, home for the next four days.

We had a generous couch that converted into the lower of two bunk beds at night (and yes, there was a chocolate by the pillow every night!) and an en suite toilet and shower. Marg was a bit disconcerted to discover that we'd be travelling backwards, but it turns out that on the side trip into Adelaide, the 28 carriage train comes out the other way, so you end up doing half the trip forwards and half backwards.

We joined our fellow passengers in the lounge car as the train wound up through the Blue Mountains. We tried not to overdo the unlimited complimentary drinks. An English fellow passenger spent the evening taking selfies of himself with a soft toy kiwi, clearly confused by geography. Our turn in the dining car came as the sun set on the Megalong valley.

We woke to the arid red outback, though pools of water showed that there had been recent rain. We rolled into Broken Hill for our off train excursion to the Miners' Memorial, a gaunt sheetmetal structure on a hill overlooking the town, with plaques recording the grim human cost of mining, such as 12 year old John Armitt, asphyxiated by dynamite fumes in 1890.

Indian Pacific from the Miners' Memorial, Broken Hill

Back at the train with 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, we thought we'd go for a walk around the block. However we were pursued by two train staff  "We're locking the doors in 5 minutes!" With several hundred passengers to keep tabs on, and the risk of losing clients in the outback with the next train not due for a week, the protectionist approach isn't surprising, though it could be significant that until recently the rail company was owned by prison operator Serco.

At Two Wells, 60km out of Adelaide, we changed to bus for the Barossa Valley. The land ownership in the area reflects Australian immigration: from the original aboriginal occupiers, to British settlers, German immigrants such as the Seppelts who established the wineries, then Italians and now Vietnamese horticulturalists. We passed under the Long Tan bridge on the way to the Seppeltsfield Winery, where the chef explained the wine and snack matches laid out for us in the cavernous storage shed.

In the museum, a minute book recorded the important decisions in the early days of the German community "That we hold our Xmas Party...It was suggested that we have more sport this year mainly for the children... Ask that Mr H Wendt be Father Xmas". We left through avenues of date palms, planted as depression employment for the Winery staff, though it's only recently that the enterprising chef has discovered that while the dates don't reach full maturity in the South Australian climate, the immature fruit can be pickled to produce capers.

Brazier for heat treating barrels, Yalumba cooperage

At the Yalumba Winery cooperage we saw how time, heat and steam make staves of imported oak into wine storage. On a larger scale, Yalumba used to store wine in big underground vats, the concrete walls sealed with paraffin. These have now be converted to elegant dining rooms, where we had our dinner before being bused into Adelaide to rejoin the train.

Next morning we were still in South Australia, but definitely outback. The scrubby landscape occasionally sported pink wildflowers, and nondescript buildings topped with solar panels, their purpose not apparent apart from providing nests to storks.

By lunchtime we'd reached Cook, a ghost town where a well meaning group had defied the Latin meaning of Nullarbor (no trees) by planting 600 trees around the town, but only a few survive. In an attempt to retain services, the town hospital was advertised with the slogan "If you're crook, come to Cook". Now only a few railway workers live in the town.

The WA/SA border obelisk flashed by in mid afternoon, and at dusk we pulled into Rawlinna, the rail halt for the eponymous sheep station. Tables were laid out alongside the carriages, warming braziers lit, and a roast meal was served up under a Milky Way made visible by the lack of city lights.

In the night I woke during a long stop at Kalgoorlie station, the ornate Victorian ironwork contrasting with a sleek inter city train parked across the station platform. Later the sun came up as we progressed through gradually more arable landscapes, kangaroo giving way to sheep and alpaca (apparently alpaca protect the sheep from foxes), scrub to bright yellow fields of canola.

By mid afternoon we'd reached Perth, and the next stage of the adventure. While it was more expensive than our last crossing of the Lucky Country, the Indian Pacific gave us four days of travel experience, great food, attentive staff, and a true sense of how big our western neighbour is.