Albany, rock scrambling and crime busting!

Spent 2 nights in Albany, an old whaling town and the last bit of Aussie soil the Anzacs saw.  Now a busy shipping port for wheat and wood chip. I was surprised it is so hilly, but loved  the beautiful old homes  and buildings.    More gorgeous beaches and views, not sick of them yet. Stayed  at a lovely little caravan park on the river.

Back of our caravan  site

Salmon hole Albany

Because my last mountain climbing expedition wasn't exciting enough (bloody hell!) we decided to walk up Castle Rock to the  granite boulder skywalk at the top. This involved a  2.5km bush walk uphill (gawd help me) followed by a scramble/climb over big boulders to get to the  sky walk platform. Garry  actually videoed me doing this because we knew the kids wouldn't believe it!

View from Granite Skywalk

Garry and I became crime busters when, at the blowhole, we drove up just in time  to see a  man  trying to break into a car. He got scared off by us but not before breaking into some backpackers van. If he got into the car he would have scored 4 handbags left by the ladies travelling in it. They  were very grateful when we told them, with the damage to their window as proof.
Being the quick thinker he is, lol, Garry  snapped a photo of the thief's vehicle as he fled, and we trotted off to the local cop shop to do our  civic  duty. On arrival we met an elderly couple who had been victims at  the same place  just before we arrived.
I was able to describe the thief (under 30, no shirt, muscular, tanned) and offered to look at a line up of similar young men any time they wanted, sadly I was not  taken up on this offer :(.... Geez I  was just trying to help!
 As  Garry was the one that took the photo he had to give the statement, so the policeman told me to  go have a coffee or go shopping while I waited. Not wanting to disobey a police order I did just that!

Lucky Bay and the mountain of doom

Arrived in beautiful Experience, home of WA's most beautiful beach. There are so many lovely beaches and lookouts around here. The water is so clean and blue, and the sand so white. Fringed with amazing granite rock formations, the area is just gorgeous, although windy. Went to lucky bay and had morning tea on the beach at a caravan cafe, right on the beach.

Garry and I then had the seemly bright idea to go for the recommended walk up French Mans peak, to take in the amazing views. It is supposedly a 1.5 hr round trip of moderate walking uphill and then down. Started out OK, walking along a track marked out and surrounded by interesting native vegetation.
Soon the track disappeared, replaced by white marker posts now and then up and increasingly steep granite rock surface. I was getting puffed but encouraged by Garry I thought I could do it (being the amazingly fit physical specimen I am, lol).
Then I turned around and looked down. Oh that's right, I don't like open heights, give me a fence or a wall or window etc I'm fine, out in the open with nothing to cling to, not so good. Cue major panic attack! So there we were, half way up this blasted rock, me blubbering like a fool and clinging to the granite frozen with fear. Poor Garry managed to plonk me in a little depression, where sitting down I felt safer. After a while I encouraged him to continue to the top while I waited, which gave me time to get used to the height.
Don't go anwhere he says, as if! I wasnt moving a muscle, in fact i had a severely numb bum by the time he returned. When he came back Garry said I would not have liked it up there at all, windy, open and high, gives me the shivers thinking about it! They would have had to winch me out under sedation.
Then I was faced with the problem of how to get down, because I actually had to look ahead, which was scary. Garry was great and coaxed me down, holding me all the way, me with my eyes covered much of the way, what a bloody drama queen I turned out to be!
The good news is I now know not to do anything like that again, that panicked feeling is notworth it, much as iI would like to be an intrepid daredevil, I,m more of a tepid scare devil!

The view from my ledge on Mt Doom as I waited for Garry

Gold Rush

Spent a couple of days in Kalgoorlie, which is a much nicer mining town than Broken Hill, more money in the town. It has some really lovely old buildings and pubs. Went to the big super pit mine lookout to watch a blasting then to a brothel... Gotta say the earth didn't moved at either location!
The mine blast was more of a poof from where we were, but it is still amazing to stand looking down at this massive mine, so big it can be seen from space.

Bloody big hole in the ground

Went went on a tour of a brothel that has been in business since the gold rush days, I thought it was a bit ordinary, being the expert I am on brothels and all :-) . Only two left there now, mostly girls fly in and out of hotels now.

                                 Hopeful looking potential customer, in his dreams, haha

Our travelling companions Nola and Andy have continued their so called curse. First it was the car that kept stopping for no reason(now fixed, thank god), then the battery died in the car and their slide out bed in their van wouldn't slide. I have mentioned the almost rolling van and cliff incident. The latest is poor little Barney the wonder dog accidently got locked in the car on the Nullabor due to a faulty door lock, they spent the rest of the way to Kalgoorlie with a smashed window. Certainly hasn't been dull!

Hmm where is the wombat?

Nullabor run

Am posting this from middle of the Nullabor, where amazingly there is Telstra service. Garry has been having a lovely time doing the nullabor links golf along the way. The golf courses have been hilarious, starting with the blue metal tee at Ceduna. The greens :-)  are scrub and bush mainly, and we have had to beware wombat holes, emus, snakes and a ballstealing crow! Greg Norman has nothing to worry about, trust me.

 I actually towed the van over Eucla course, so we had a fancy cart and I can say I towed a van on the nullabor!

Perilous adventures

As mentioned we had trouble with our fridge and had to backtrack to Port Lincoln to get it fixed. I am not allowed to mentioned that In Garry's efforts to fix said fridge he fiddled with it, filling our van with gas. Luckily there were no bright sparks around at the time..
 Went on to beautiful Venus bay, which has spectacular views from the lookout.

Then we went to a sea lion colony along a hideous corrogated dirt road that scrambled my eggs and covered everything in dust.

Nola and Andy went ahead to our planned campsite which turned out to be a major nightmare. The allegedly easily accessible site nearly had their van on its side, then they went close to cliff to try and back up out of there. Needed a stiff drink after that!

Today went to Streaky Bay and Garry caught some blue swimmer crabs.

fridgy follies

Well, had 2 nights down near Coffin Bay, ate some oysters just because, and Garry went fishing and caught a big snapper off the pier. He was a very happy chappy. Unfortunately we had to give most of the fish away because our fridge decided it didn't like gas any more. So now, here we are back in Port Lincoln trying to get the thing fixed.
With all that going on we nearly forgot it was our 30th wedding anniversary!
Garry narrowly missed a clip over the ear when he said he will never forget March 10th as the day he caught the big fish (and not our wedding grr).

The hunter home from the sea. Or the pier anyway. 

While Garry was struggling with the snapper I was obliviously admiring the sunset.

Port Lincoln

This is the view back from the jetty to the esplanade.  Boston Bay is very pretty and large. Garry tried his luck for some squid or fish last night.  Today we bought fish at the shop, so thats how well that went!
My thermostat has gone berko the last few days,  because it is now hot again after the last 2cold days and night.
We are preparing to bid farewell to our laptop which is just about to cark it. A very nice young geeky computer nerdy fellow had a look at it and declared it to be caputski.
I did my 15 minutes of housework today, gotta love that!
Tomorrow we head off to Coffin Bay, looking forward to some mega oysters...

technical difficulties

Have been having problems with the laptop ever since we used free WiFi at Broken Hill, think its got a virus or something. So I am doing this on the tablet which is slighty dodgy brothers also. Anyhoo, we pretty much saw all Broken Hill had to offer, including the lovely living desert sculptures at sunset. Someone described the calm spiritual feeling that happens up there at this time and it was nice, Garry got some nice pics-but is still waiting for the feeling lol. I will try to get some more pics up soon.
We had a couple of nights free camping on our way to Port Lincoln, last night at a beach front camp at port Gibbon. It is really windy down this way, and much cooler. Will be digging out the winter woollies if this keeps up! Port old Barney the dog nearly got blown away.
Garry and I are travelling well, especially if he does what he's told :-)  Tomorrow off to explore Port Lincoln.

Landing on another planet

Broken Hill is a definitely like landing on another planet, compared to the lush green hills of home. Yesterday we went out to Silverton, site of many TV ads and movies such as Mad Max. The remnants of the old mining town sit there in the dusty streets like an old ghost town. A few mad Max mobiles sit around, a random donkey wanders around, and the cemetary sits in the red dirt and scrub containing the graves of many young people and kids. You had to be tough to survive out there!
Went out to Mundi Mundi scenic lookout, which is a bit of a stretch since all you can see is miles of flat nothing and scrub, it looks like the apocalypse!

Today, we went to visit our friends Dad at the cemetary, he is nearby artist Pro Harts grave which is pretty impressive. I was also flabbergasted by the black granite cat headstone below, perfect your crazy cat ladies, amazing!

Another scenic view of lovely, beautiful, er interesting Broken Hill, from near the top of the slag pile in the middle of town. Tomorrow its off to the RFDS, art gallery, living desert statues and Menindee lakes on Monday.