Western Exposure Day 1

Fri Oct 17
7:32, Perth
On the bus, headed to Monkey Mia on a tour with Western Exposure/Planet Perth. There’s a trainee, Woody, and the guide, Zolton, is telling him that some guys get this job, thinking that the tours are going to be full of supermodels. LOL! There’s at least 4 ppl over 50 on this tour of 14.


Sat Oct 18
6:43, Kalbarri
Am waiting for breakfast to be ready, and thought that it would be a good idea to blog while most of yesterday was still fresh in my mind. I woulda done it last night, except there’s no outlet in the room, and the lounge was fully of partiers. And I was tired. Still am not able to get a full night’s sleep. Could be that my body’s getting ready to go back to Vancouver time, who knows, eh?

So we get picked up yesterday from the Wellington Tourist Stand, which seriously is just a bay for buses. When I saw the boot space available, I was getting worried about how my luggage was going to fit. They had specified in fine print in the brochure that luggage should be in a soft bag, under 15kg. I only have my suitcase (what used to pass as a carryon), and I’m sure it’s closer to 20kg. It fit, so all is good =P

The bus is your average ‘adventure tour’ bus. It’s rows of pairs and single seats. The bus to Broome, a 10 day tour, had nice reclining seats. Makes ya think that there may be some overnight stretches.

From Perth, it was a 2-hour drive to our first destination, petrol. I don’t even remember where that station was. Then it was a relatively short hop (half an hour? one hour?) to Nambung Park, where the Pinnacles are. The word “Nambung” means “snaking river” and is the name given to the river that runs through the park. On the way there, we passed by the Emu Downs Wind Farm, which supplies all the power to the 5000 or so residents in the area. WA is quite sparsely populated. The state takes up a third of the land in Australia, but only has 2 million people, 1.8 of which are in Perth and suburbs.

The Pinnacles are in the desert area of the park. Again, I wish I had my camera, but I’m sure I can pilfer some off the web as my own momentos. The formation of the Pinnacles has been about 20,000 years in the making. As the trees sent their roots down into the limestone to search for water, the limestone started to wear away in v formations. Acidic leaching further eroded the stone in patterns. A calcrete layer formed over the remaining pillar structures, and that has helped to prevent erosion as the forest gave way to the desert.

The Pinnacles are not very big; I think the tallest being about 7 or 8 feet, maybe 10. What is neat about them is how they look against the blue blue sky (and it is an intense blue, the air is so clean and dry) and in comparison to the white sand dunes in the distance. There’s a lookout where you can survey the entire area, all the way to the sea.

We stopped for lunch at Jurien Bay Beach, probably better known as Hangover Bay, as the signage calls it that. Simple affair of sandwiches. There were a couple of Blue Tongues, reptiles of some sort. The Germans in our group fed them bits of lettuce and red pepper. The beach was so nice (seems to be a recurring theme in WA, eh?). The water was probably about 18-20 degrees, and the sand was powdery soft. I think a large part of its appeal was that there were no people and crowds around.

Next was Geraldton for SANDBOARDING! Much simpler and more forgiving than snowboarding, as you can’t carve into the sand. You just go down with the curve of the dune. The first time I went sitting down on the board, I started off a bit sideways, and the board spit me out pretty quickly. Then I did it right and went to the bottom. Not so fun was the climb back up =P. The sand is so soft that you end up sinking into it a bit.

Then I went standing up, and got all the way to the bottom! Much better than my first attempt at snowboarding =PPP. The Swedish girl in our group, Sophie (she has some resemblance to Markus Naslund, no lie. Was about to ask if she were from Ornchlovik (sp?)) was so determined. She wiped out so many times, and just kept coming back for more. She eventually went down the highest and steepest slope, and did well until the bottom, where she got a mouthful of sand.

Didn’t matter whether or not you went boarding, the wind blew sand everywhere: in your ears, eyes, nose, clothes, hair. And because the sand is so fine, it CLINGS. Showering never felt so divine, though I STILL have sand in my ears.

The scenery from the top of the dune was stunning because you could see it contrasting against the shimmering ocean. You just don’t get that back home, ya know?

Just FYI, should anyone ever decide to make this trek themselves, the dunes are in Geraldton, on McDermott near Oceanside. Oh, and I don’t particularly recommend driving here, as the distances are VAST, and petrol is 161.9, while diesel is 174.9. Oh, and most of the highways are just straight stretches.

We stopped into North Hampton for booze. And you just can’t miss the tavern, even from the air. Its red roof’s got TAVERN in huge white lettering. Strongbow’s available in sweet here! $3 per bottle; what a bargain! I also got a bottle of Jack Daniels mixed with cola.

Zolton told us that by law, we are not allowed to drink in the bus, but hey, when we leave town, if we wanted to crack open a few, then what the cops don’t see won’t hurt them. Of course, if he told us to, then we would have to hide the bottles out of sight.

We stayed at the Pelican Cove YHA. Had chicken stirfried on the barbie, so it was like teriyaki, on thickish noodles. I was sooooooooo hungry that everything tasted good. I’m sure it was decent, but lunch had been a good 7 hours prior.

Called it a night pretty early, but Sandy, another tour guide from Western Exposure had her group there, and they were partying it up for a bit. I think I actually managed to get in a good 5 hours of sleep. Woke up before my alarm. I think my body’s still on Melbourne time.