Adventures of Bruce and the Flying Whale Sharks
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2005
1
20
75
Trip End
Nov 21, 2006
Exmouth,
Australia
Saturday, March 11, 2006
First there were the two Dutch girls, Bregje and Willemine, Bregje being the typical tall Dutch girl and Willemine being the atypical really short one. Whenever Willemine got a little too controlling you could call her Napoleonic which had the added bonus of not only pissing her off but the French guy, Roland as well. At 26, Willemine has already experienced quite a bit, living at times in Ireland, Italy and in a kibbutz in Israel. At times she would be laid-back but mostly she would try to be in total control of the situation. Other times she was a little feisty psychopath running around and you could hear her pitter-patter approaching from a mile away, which earned her the nickname "Pixie." As for Bregje, she's been in Australia for nearly five months, and if anyone deserved a five-month holiday Down Under, it's her. Before she left Holland she had an ugly breakup with her boyfriend shortly after losing one of her best friends. She's been properly letting loose ever since. She also has an almost unhealthy obsession with pasta carbonara, which is OK because she's more than willing to cook it up at the mere mention of any word that starts with a "c." Willemine, by the way, had an addiction to mayonnaise that made Bregje look like an amateur.
Showing the penis pinnacle some love
The line in Pulp Fiction could have easily gone, You know what they put on their french fries, and cheese and salad and stir fries (I wish I made that last one up) and generally everything they eat, in Holland? And they really do drown their food in it too.Stephen turned 35 on our last night camping and has pretty much turned backpacking into his profession. This is his third trip to Oz and at one point spent four years away from home traveling the world. He's one of those guys that knows a little something about everything and can sufficiently bullshit whenever he needs to fill the gaps. He also did most of the driving, which was very convenient. He's also 6'5, which isn't too convenient for anyone when sitting around a campervan.
Finally there's Roland, the lunatic from Lyon. I personally enjoyed hanging out with him because he's as big a smartass as myself, just with a funny accent. He provided plenty of comedy along the way, like when before we even left for the road trip he threw his hostel keys into a wish fountain because he didn't have any change (with a key deposit of $20 he better have had a damn good wish in mind). With a sound barrier between the front and back of the van, we were free to run amok whenever we were back together. At one point while driving slowly down a dusty road he decided it would be fun to jump out, run along side the front of the car and then hop back in. In one of our few stints in civilization we decided to wave at every car that pulled up behind us.
Relaxing in Bruce with a little goon
One car had two girls in it that we were able to convince not to turn away, and after we flashed them our crate of XXXX and box of goon (it was Bregje's birthday) they were asking for our numbers. As an aside, it's a good thing that happened from the car since it had been a solid four days since either of us had showered -- not unusual for a Frenchman -- but we were a little ripe nonetheless. And oh yeah, he never really had a problem when his name officially switched from Roland to Frenchie and his nation's hygiene was consistently called into question.And then there was Bruce, our Kia Campervan that got us everywhere we wanted to be without too many dramas. Bruce came with a fridge, a stove and beds for up to three people so we were cruising in style.
Our first night out in Bruce we only made it about an hour north of Perth and struggled to find a patch of road to pull off to and set up camp so we had to make due with finding a well spread out community and asking people if they minded us pitching tents on their empty lots. Naturally, we sent the Dutch girls. On our first attempt we were directed to a patch of land within the community where camping was allowed and we wouldn't be bothering anybody. What the guy who pointed us there neglected to tell us (or told us and then stood by his window chuckling) was that the area was pretty heavily sprinklered at night. So at around 9 o'clock I heard a patter of water hitting the front of the car and started shouting at Stephen to close the screen window.
Bruce
He didn't process the request until too late and a heavy dose of water came flying through. At that point Bregje and Roland remembered their tent had a hole in it and went sprinting after it to change locations. For the next hour we sat in Bruce as the water loudly battered the car. It felt like one of those horror movies where the serial killer keeps banging away at the walls. Once the attack was over, we were treated to an amazingly full sky of stars, which we had most nights until the moon started getting too bright. It seemed like that would be all the excitement for th night as Stephen and I hung out star-gazing and Bregje and Roland had gone off to their tent. Out of the blue we hear the sound of water mashing against cloth at close range and watched as the sprinkler rotation had found Bregje's new location. Stephen and I couldn't control ourselves laughing while she scrambled to move her tent -- again. It was two full days before she could see the humor in the situation.The next morning we went for a swim at Yalchep with a nice white sandy beach and crystal clear water. If it were on the East Coast -- and this is a common sentiment about most locations here -- the place would've been swarmed with tourists and peppered with backpackers and high rises. Instead we almost had the place to ourselves. From there we moved onto Cervantes, the "largest" town (pop. 400) in the vicinity of Nambung National Park. Cervantes' downtown consisted of about five buildings, two of which were liquor stores.
Bruce and the Flying Whale Sharks
The sights around it though, were outstanding. Nambung National Park is home to the Pinnacles, thousands of limestone pillars spread along golden sands that you can wander amongst (or drive through if you want to ruin the idea of it being some sort of relic from prehistoric ages). We got a decent sunset there as the falling sun helped cast all sorts of odd shadows around the park. It was in the general vicinity of Nambung the next morning where we got our first taste of what an absolute horror the flies would be for the coming two weeks. Just to eat breakfast, you had to lean into your bread, blow the flies away and then quickly dive in. This turned out to be one of the more tamer spots. And just a side note on these flies. Outback flies are very patient, camping out at night, lounging around until the first hint of sunlight and then all of a sudden it's a blitzkrieg on your face as the more brave ones go on kamikaze missions for any and all of the holes on your face and no amount of swatting will make them go away. They just keep coming and coming until you resign yourself to your fate and make 10,000 new best friends. At least these flies are laughably slow and Bruce would often be turned into a mass burial ground for flies that were too cheeky for their own good.After surviving the first onslaught of flies we checked out Cervantes' lake of stromatolites, but not before getting lost in the massive town (it's what happens when you have two girls sitting up front navigating. Roland and I would just sit back and giggle at what became a running joke until we mercifully bailed them out).
Getting some more colors
Stromatolites are the organisms that we basically have to thank for our existence on Earth. They were the ones who first pumped oxygen into the atmosphere making it possible for us to do such mundane things as breathe. For this, I'm entirely grateful, but it didn't make much of a tourist attraction (at least another stromatolite spot in Shark Bay put up informative signs to tell you what you were looking at and had the decency to be in a more scenic location so you could enjoy it even if you didn't care). The next day we made sure to settle in Geraldton, the largest town on our itinerary, since it was Bregje's birthday. Geraldton didn't have much to it except for a decent museum that had a large exhibit on the Batavia -- a Dutch ship (now you can see why we went) that crashed on the reef on the West Coast and set off a series of horrifying events in which part of the ship was isolated from the rest of the group so that group could go on massive killing sprees so that only those loyal to the new colony on a tiny island were left. Meanwhile, the captain and second in command sailed to Indonesia, the original destination, in a rescue boat, somehow made it and then sailed back down to arrive just in time for the end of the bloody battle between the outcasts and the murderers. An amazing story and the museum produced a comically awful dramatic version of it which was highly entertaining but made it very difficult to take the tragedy seriously. We ate, naturally, pasta carbonara for dinner and then lured Bregje away long enough to set up her birthday cake and sing happy birthday in Dutch (well, Willemine sang, we hummed).
Happy birthday Bregje!
Two French guys and an English girl heard the hubbub and produced their own cake and a candle -- we hadn't even thought of that. You could clearly tell that Bregje appreciated feeling cared about on her birthday, even so far from home. We then made sure she properly celebrated by getting her very drunk very fast. Needless to say, the next day got off to a sluggish start as we didn't escape the caravan park and it's lovely swimming pool (and showers) until noon and the town itself until 2. By the time we reached Kalbari, home to Kalbari National Park, we only had time for one walk, which was more than enough time to get acquainted with a thousand or so flies. We walked around mushroom rocks, rocks that look like mushrooms and have stone layers that almost look like rainbows, and returned to the parking lot in time to see some kangaroos hopping along in the distance and watch our first proper sunset over the Indian. That night we camped in what must have been a spider breeding ground. For those who don't know, Australian spiders are not to be fucked with. So every 10 minutes or so we'd hear Bregje -- sitting next to the open back door and supplying a huge fear of spiders -- scream before Stephen would calmly walk out, scoop up the spider in a plastic container and dump it off down the road.
The next morning I woke up to the rising sun and was greeted by swarming flies and the first ear infection. We did a couple walks around Kalbari before the flies drove us to the brink of insanity and we set off on our first really long drive of the trip toward Shark Bay.
Random sheep
Shark Bay is deemed a World Heritage Site for fulfilling a number of criteria, including housing rare species and other vegetation. It's abundance of sea grass also helps, but the sea grass is annoying more than anything else. Before the grass the water doesn't reach your bathing suit and after, well, you have to walk through sea grass. It's only redeeming quality is that the water around the grass is turquoise and the grass underneath turns the ocean blue, sometimes forming perfect squares of turquoise and blue. At one part of the bay is a lookout called Red Bluff where you can overlook the ocean into the crystal clear waters and see rays, sharks and other things swimming around below. After Red Bluff we went to Denham, which had maybe the best example of how the sea grass can form the colors of the ocean into perfect lines. It also supplied the most fun you could have while filling up a water tank. Since the hose given to us was fitted to not fit on any tap, we had the dilemma of figuring out a way to fill our tank without wasting shittons of water (Australia doesn't necessarily experience droughts so much as temporary periods of having water) and money to keep the pump running. As a joke I suggested we could siphon the water 40 times from our 1-liter water bottles. The joke turned out to be the solution as we also had a 10-liter bucket -- it just meant that Willemine and myself had to be constantly running around filling our water bottles from the tap and chucking in into the bucket until the whole thing was done.
Fighting the flies
Once Bruce was successfully rehydrated we headed onto Francois Peron National Park, which wasn't much use to us since all the scenic sites are down long 4WD tracks. The only thing accessible to us was a defunct homestead with a picnic area where we could watch emus while eating lunch. That night I (sort of) learned to drive a manual while Stephen good-naturedly (and probably nervously) instructed me. I only stalled out one or two times. Per K-turn.The next morning we woke up good and early to head to Monkey Mia to watch a dolphin feeding, not a problem for me with the sun and the flies. Throw in a painful ear and I didn't have much sleep that I had to wake up from. The early morning feed at Monkey Mia is where you're likely to see the most tourists at any one spot in West Australia. At around 7:30 dozens of dolphins come only a few feet from shore to perform and wait for some free food. There's also an informative presentation where we learned that dolphins don't breathe involuntarily. We also learned that dolphins have to pee every 10 minutes, giving them a bladder relatively twice the strength of your average German girl. It also brought about the unpleasant revelation that since we were standing in very shallow water for an hour we were probably wading in a fair amount of dolphin piss. That being said, it was really cool to be that close to the dolphins as well as the pelicans that fly in to be fed afterward.
Early the next morning we pulled into Carnarvon to restock supplies. Carnarvon is a town of 6000 whose one horse rode out years ago.
Denham
It was odd then that the town had the most needlessly over modern bathroom I've ever had the pleasure to use. The bathroom, basically the only attraction listed in Lonely Planet, is opened and closed electronically and a red button under a man taking a dump alerts people on the outside that the facilities are engaged. Once inside, you are treated to elevator music as you do your business. The toilet paper is dispensed automatically, as is the soap and water and the toilet can only be flushed when the tap is turned on or the door is opened. This of course is entirely impractical when people like, say me, go in to brush their teeth, use the faucet three times and therefore flush the toilet three times. Carnarvon, of course, has a water shortage. We stopped for lunch about 100 kms north at a spot with cockatoos in the trees, flies EVERYWHERE and half a dozen or so redback spiders in the toilets. I proposed someone go in there (I was the one who discovered the spiders) and test whether the highly venomous spiders would scare you shitless or scare the shit out of you. A more sensible person proposed using the toilet in the petrol station across the street. From there we drove toward Coral Bay, watching the large termite mounds and the numerous rainbows that appeared every few minutes.It was Coral Bay that supplied, at least for me, the best 24 hours of the trip. After a dip in the caravan park's swimming pool we went out to the beach to watch the sunset. It was the first time, that I can remember at least, that I watched the sun set while actually in the ocean.
Dolphin
There was a massive cloud by the sun that looked like a hilly landscape with large plains flipped upside down that turned from pink to orange to crimson as the sun disappeared. Behind us was a large cloud that looked like a bunny rabbit that brilliantly picked up a light shade of orange. The lighting was such that everything in front of us appeared to be coming out of a shadow, so you could see the silhouettes but not the actual images. Behind us, things were almost illuminated so if you stopped and looked at someone admiring the sunset with the purple skies behind them, it looked like the type of image a cruise company would use in its brochure. I can't come up with a word to describe the moment, it was ... just right. It was one of those moments that validates everything we do out here, that makes everything -- the sharing cramped rooms with seven strangers, living out of a backpack and wearing the same half-dozen t-shirts for a year, scrutinizing every dollar you spend, tearing yourself away from friends and family -- worthwhile. Every now and then while it was happening I could remove myself from the moment as it was occurring and appreciate it for what it was, and whenever I made eye contact with someone else, their smile said they were doing the same.That night, we ate carbonara while watching a stunning electrical storm in the distance where the sky was turned yellow every couple seconds by bolts of lightning. Willemine, Roland and I took the party to the beach that night (I let loose with the pain in my ear gone) and I struck up a conversation with Nat from Perth and Amy from Canada while they tried to avoid looking at Roland who was still au natural after his skinnydipping foray (I don't know why, but he kept pointing out to us that it was very cold).
Sliding on the beach
I wound up staying up till 3:30 with the girls and their friends, even getting Nat hooked on our running joke of getting nations to apologize. The gag started on our train ride from Adelaide, when hearing enough about American politics, I issued an apology on behalf of the United States. Later Roland apologized for France's misdeeds, such as invading Holland. We even cornered Emily, the English girl from Bregje's birthday, for an apology, solely because the Dutch girls said they wouldn't apologize until we had an English apology. That night Nat apologized, some Canadian apologized (I'm not sure what for, probably for its denial that it's better than its neighbor to the south) and I tried to get an apology from some Germans, but they didn't have much of a sense of humor about it. Nat got so into it, actually, that she tried to get her Russian friend to apologize (Russians are near impossible to find), but he didn't get the gag either.The next morning I made the best of a very bad situation. For one thing, I had three hours of sleep. I somehow managed to lose a battery from my charger (it had to be SOMEWHERE in the car) and Bruce wouldn't start because the immobilizer was activated and Stephen had swam with the car keys in his pocket the day before. Shockingly, salt water and electronics don't get along, so we were stuck. I first foolishly tried to track down the Carolina-Dook game (Coral Bay has a population of 120 and literally one street -- I was living on a prayer) before heading to the beach.
Coral Bay
On the way, we bumped into Nat and Amy and as we approached the beach saw some dolphins swimming near the shore and frantically ran in and swam after them. We got as close as 5 feet to them, about as close as I did when I paid $95 for the honor in Paihia. After swimming a while, I called into a local beach bar for a beer, which served the dual purpose of being a celebratory drink for the HUGE victory and helping deal with the near 50 degree heat. That night, after finally getting the car to start, we had another excellent sunset, but a completely different one. We were inland and it was cloudy, but the clouds managed to pick up all the different colors in different areas. There were rainstorms south of us that turned red as the sun sank. We got a spectacular image (but no picture, we were driving) of three red kangaroos hopping west toward the setting sun. That night we camped in a driveway of a man that was in no way suspicious of an American guy and a French guy walking on his property seeking permission to free load on his space. The next few days we spent in Cape Range National Park, an absolutely ideal spot that was virtually empty. The Park is lined by the Ningaloo Reef so there is some excellent snorkeling. In three days, I saw reef sharks, thousands of fish, manta rays and one ray that was yellow with neon blue spots that was more than twice my size. When I spotted it, I made sure to quietly hover above it in case it suddenly decided it was sick of bottom feeding and instead had a taste for tourist. The only problem with the snorkeling is that the currents are so strong in many of the places that you stop to tread water for a minute and you're 10 meters down. Not only is the snorkeling spectacular, current aside, but the beaches are pristine. Sandy Bay was the pick of them, with white beaches and turquoise water that was absolutely clear -- no snorkeling gear necessary. Take a picture of that beach, throw it onto a Caribbean brochure and you'd be bringing in millions of tourists a year. Put it on the West Coast and you have five people with a beach to themselves. Spend three days in the park and you'll also see as many hopping kangaroos as you'd need in a lifetime. Thankfully, none of them hopped square into Bruce. From there, it was a matter of driving half the coastline back to Perth, this time with an infection in my right ear to keep me company. And now I'm back in Perth (Fremantle to be exact) where I plan on being a beach bum until my visa expires and it's time to head to Asia.
Now for the grades. Overall, West Australia gets an A-. Some scenery was spectacular, a lot of it was monotonous Outback nothingness. And with Tasmania setting the bar, well, it's tough to match up unless you have something spectacular waiting at every turn. Still, lovely beaches, Outback terrain, ocean sunsets and lots of kangaroos make for a very strong effort.
The road trip itself, gets an A-, too. We could've used one or two more females with sexy accents and loose morals, but then again what situation doesn't. I also could've done without the ear infections. Still, a great time, I miss the group already and we made our goodbyes earlier today.
