Cape Arid in Western Australia-Pics and story included

[PaulC]

Some will be pleased to hear that the Handbrake(wife) and I head off on a 4000mile round trip tonight, our time. We will be away for 16 days and I promise(Miriam) that I'll bring back heaps of pics.
Have fun while we're away
Cheers
Paul

[neal b]

hi paul have fun and have a safe trip

neal b

[madjack]

...have fun and be safe...we'll be lookin' for da pics on your return..................................

[Miriam C.]

Some will be pleased to hear that the Handbrake(wife) and I head off on a 4000mile round trip tonight, our time. We will be away for 16 days and I promise(Miriam) that I'll bring back heaps of pics.
Have fun while we're away
Cheers
Paul

Are we there yet? Oh yeah, Back of beyond. Man needs some serious tech help out there. I hope you are having a wonderful time!

[SteveH]

So Paul, where are the pictures?????

[Mike C.]

Yes Paul,

Where are the pictures?

[PaulC]

For those of you that do not know Australia, here is a pic of our tripon a map. We travelled from Adelaide, across the Nullabor(No trees)Plain to Norseman and then across country down to Cape Arid National park and stayed at Israelite Bay. The blue line is the side trip we did, when coming home, up to the goldfields at Coolgardie, Kalgoolie and Norseman.
More pics to follow when I get them downloaded into my album.
Cheers
Paul


PS Thanks for the gentle reminder Mike and Steve

[SteveH]

Paul, so what was that, about 75 miles?

[PaulC]

Paul, so what was that, about 75 miles?

Steve,16 days and about 3500 miles with only 5 days of no driving. BIG TRIP

Cheers
Paul

[Gage]

So which tear did you take, 'with' or 'with out' galley?

[PaulC]

So which tear did you take, 'with' or 'with out' galley?

Hi Gage, we took the "with" on this trip and, I must say, that it was excellent to be able to cook etc on the spot.
Cheers
Paul

[PaulC]

We left Adelaide late on a Thursday night and drove for 3 hours to a friends place in the Flinders Ranges. The next day we drove about 350 miles to the little town ship of Penong (Pop of about 40 people) and camped in the Caravan Park there. This pic shows us on the road just outside of Penong. Please take note of how clean and new everything looks.

The next day we drove to the Head of the Great Australian Bight and went whale watching. The cliffs all along the bight are absolutely awesome.


After leaving here we drove inland for about a 100 miles and checked out the old railway settlement of Cook ( population 4) My Mum spent time there as a child and I wanted to see it. Very isolated and dirt road in and out.
After leaving Cook we headed out onto the Nullabor Plain(means No trees) and, after spending the night in Mundrabilla(Pop Eight) we headed onto Norseman. We spent the night here and, next morning headed out of town for about 15 miles before turning onto the Old Overland Telegraph track, which looks like this

Which,in turn started to look like this

This track degenerated into this

and this

As a result of this, I lost all mudflaps off of the car and the TD, had numerous scratches on both sides of each and lost this

Note the distinct lack of a Fender(we call them mudgaurds).
This in the three days it took us to complete, what is listed as a one day drive
We finally arrived at Israelite Bay and set up camp for three days for a bit of R&R

Unfortunately the weather decided that we should move on a
little earlier than expected

We then drove the 100 miles of dirt track to get to Esperance and then the weather did this

To give you all an idea of exactly what we experienced here is a pic of the sign they have put up for all who wish to continue on

The best part of the trip was the stunning wildflowers that where in bloom

The girls had us stopping on a regular basis ( about every 10 minutes, it felt like) to take pics.
All in alll we had a ball, even with getting lost. Would I do it again, you betcha
Cheers
Paul

[martha24]

Paul,
Fabulous pictures. Great explanation of the trip too. I can see why you need to build rugged teardrops driving over those "roads". Going though some of those areas looks like you might want to carry extra fuel too.
Thanks for sharing.

[PaulC]

Thanks Martha, The gas tank holds about 18 gallons and I had an extra 15 gallons in jerry cans on the roof rack. We also carried about 15 gallons of water in each vehicle. Nothing like getting into the real remote stuff.
Cheers
Paul

[Miriam C.]

Thank you Paul! You have some really unique pictures to share. Makes me want take off.