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Saturday, April 24, 2010
Cat Sitting
For a couple weeks we had Krista's cats visiting us again while .jpg)
Krista and family moved into their new house. This time around the cats behaved very well. No peeing on the sofa, no poohing on the carpet, no scratching on the bedroom door at 6am on Sat/Sun mornings. On day one O'Malley hid for a couple hours in my clothes - well protected by a big towel but showed up even before the sun set. Sammy was out and about right away as usual. For the first time ever I saw O'Malley finish his meal before Sammy. Another first for Sammy to leave food in her dish - which O'Malley devoured ASAP - usually it's the other way around. The one thing that was the same was them taking over the sofa at night so that Jeff and ether had a cat each on our labs or we had to sit on the floor. Aren't they adorable like that?
.jpg)
Krista and family moved into their new house. This time around the cats behaved very well. No peeing on the sofa, no poohing on the carpet, no scratching on the bedroom door at 6am on Sat/Sun mornings. On day one O'Malley hid for a couple hours in my clothes - well protected by a big towel but showed up even before the sun set. Sammy was out and about right away as usual. For the first time ever I saw O'Malley finish his meal before Sammy. Another first for Sammy to leave food in her dish - which O'Malley devoured ASAP - usually it's the other way around. The one thing that was the same was them taking over the sofa at night so that Jeff and ether had a cat each on our labs or we had to sit on the floor. Aren't they adorable like that?
Friday, April 2, 2010
Australia Report - WA Part 5
It's been a while since I started this post. At that time a storm was howling outside so I decided to better spend some time with warmer thoughts and continue with my posts about our trip last year. We are only halfway through the WA portion of the trip yet. It took 3 weeks to write this part. At that speed I'll never finsih this year :-)
Day 13/31 (Nov 01, 2009): Remember my last post ending with the big rig and it's compressor running all night. Well, it left at 5:15am just after we got up. We enjoyed the silence around us but only for 15min - another big truck pulled in. So instead of exploring the half desert around us in the early morning to see what creatures we might find, we left in a hurry after a quick bite. Today's program was mostly driving down HWY 95. The weather was a mix of sun and clouds - some of them real dark storm clouds. Since we skipped my big adventure (maybe a good thing looking at the storm clouds) we decided to take a little detour to have a lock at the "Ayers Rock" of WA called Walga Rock just an hour out of Cue on dirt road. I was surprised to see all those signs directing us to Walga Rock since it isn't really one of those main attractions the travel .JPG)
guides talk about but I doubt we would have found it without them. Walga Rock should get more attention though because it is almost as impressive as Ayers Rock. Okay it is smaller and a bit overgrown in sections but it is one of those lonely red monolith sticking out of the otherwise flat landscape nonetheless. It also features some weird aboriginal paintings - although I have seen better once in Kakadu NP 15 years ago as well as later on on our trip through Queensland. .JPG)
On this trip though those were the first signs of aboriginal culture we saw (except for some aboriginals hanging out on a bench in a parking lot in Newman where we had lunch). You can walk or even drive around the rock. I started to walk but Jeff headed back for the truck. The flies were really bad at this spot again and started to annoy him seriously. It took him a little while to catch up with me again (I am sure he had a quick nap) even though I stopped a few times to look at the many kangaroos around the rock - these specimen seemed larger and the fur redder than the ones we had seen along the coast. There was also impressive thunder and lightning in the sky and the dark clouds over the red rock lit up by sunshine from behind made for some great shots. When Jeff caught up with me I finally surrendered to the fly attack and crawled into the truck. Jeff quickly regretted catching up with me. Naturally, I had to continue taking pictures every few seconds. Since the windows were really dirty I had to roll down mine for each shot. Word traveled fast in the world of flies and soon enough we had quite a few keeping us company. But they really only bother you as long as you drive slow. Once you speed up with open windows they get blown to the back and eventually die. Don't call me cruel saying I enjoyed seeing flies get smash when we accelerated - you have NOT been there and can't judge how bad it can get. Instead of back-tracking to Cue we decided to continue on on dirt road to stop in at the .JPG)
Dalgaranga Meteorite Crater. Never been to one and though that might be a cool thing to see. Again finding it was a challenge our GPS - often helping us to find the way - quite often lost the track completely and we had no idea if we were on the right track, there were so many - well at least we knew the general direction we were driving towards and that helped. But at the end it was luck and another small hand-painted sign on the road that led us to the right spot. Ah and then there was the sign right at the crater explaining how it was discovered and when. Without that sign we would not have known that the little dip in the dirt in front of us was a meteorite crater. Well it said on the sign it is the smallest known one. How they know it's a crater and not just a little depression in the ground (like many other we had seen all over) I still don't know. So if you ever go to WA - Walga Rock is a yes, Dalgaranga Crater not so much. But at the end the dirt road got us to Mt Magnet - past some beautiful dessert areas covered in tiny pink or yellow flowers -were we joined the HWY again. We meant to have lunch in Mt Magnet but when we got to town by 2pm everything was closed. Only store open was the gas station so at least we got gas - but I don't recommend gas station pies. Everyone is Australia says you have to try the meat pies - and yes a good meat pie is a great thing - but not the kept-warm-for-hours variety at a gas station. What can you do when you are hungry though. Continuing on we actually started to head east towards Sandstone. By now we had entered the "Southern Outback" also known as "Northern Goldfields" and sure enough there was a lot of evidence of gold mining along the road .JPG)
- from big open pits to large processing plants. We also learned that 3pm is Iguana time - how those animals know it is 3pm I don't know but sure enough for the next few days at 3pm they all started to crawl out into the middle of the road and just sit there. .JPG)
Should a car come towards them they started hissing at it but didn't move whatsoever. Until of course you stopped to take a picture of them. There sure was enough evidence that most people are unimpressed by the hissing and didn't stop. Otherwise the drive was pretty unspectacular and the country side changed little. In Sandstone we just about had enough of HWY driving and turned of onto gravel road again towards Lake Ballard. Since you drive slower on dirt than on hard surface you also get to see more stuff - Kangaroos and Emus and more Iguanas. The setting sun also gave the landscape this mystical glow of red sand and it changed from boring to "wow that's what I came here for". Nevertheless, sunset also meant we needed to find a campsite in a hurry. There wasn't much of anything along this track. We tried to find a suitable turn-off but it took a while. When we finally turned off onto a tiny track we ended up in some abandoned old mine pit or quarry of some sort. There we finally did found a flat enough area not covered in medium size boulders or thick bush. It was also protected on one side by a small ridge but pretty open in all other directions. Not really what I dreamed off but at least no big semi-truck could pull in here. The temperatures this far south were noticeably lower than up north and I had to put on a long-sleeve shirt and pants. The night was much quieter. Except for the wind rustling in the leaves of the eucalyptus tree above our tent and some wicked bird singing for an hour or so under the full moon.
.JPG)
guides talk about but I doubt we would have found it without them. Walga Rock should get more attention though because it is almost as impressive as Ayers Rock. Okay it is smaller and a bit overgrown in sections but it is one of those lonely red monolith sticking out of the otherwise flat landscape nonetheless. It also features some weird aboriginal paintings - although I have seen better once in Kakadu NP 15 years ago as well as later on on our trip through Queensland. .JPG)
On this trip though those were the first signs of aboriginal culture we saw (except for some aboriginals hanging out on a bench in a parking lot in Newman where we had lunch). You can walk or even drive around the rock. I started to walk but Jeff headed back for the truck. The flies were really bad at this spot again and started to annoy him seriously. It took him a little while to catch up with me again (I am sure he had a quick nap) even though I stopped a few times to look at the many kangaroos around the rock - these specimen seemed larger and the fur redder than the ones we had seen along the coast. There was also impressive thunder and lightning in the sky and the dark clouds over the red rock lit up by sunshine from behind made for some great shots. When Jeff caught up with me I finally surrendered to the fly attack and crawled into the truck. Jeff quickly regretted catching up with me. Naturally, I had to continue taking pictures every few seconds. Since the windows were really dirty I had to roll down mine for each shot. Word traveled fast in the world of flies and soon enough we had quite a few keeping us company. But they really only bother you as long as you drive slow. Once you speed up with open windows they get blown to the back and eventually die. Don't call me cruel saying I enjoyed seeing flies get smash when we accelerated - you have NOT been there and can't judge how bad it can get. Instead of back-tracking to Cue we decided to continue on on dirt road to stop in at the .JPG)
Dalgaranga Meteorite Crater. Never been to one and though that might be a cool thing to see. Again finding it was a challenge our GPS - often helping us to find the way - quite often lost the track completely and we had no idea if we were on the right track, there were so many - well at least we knew the general direction we were driving towards and that helped. But at the end it was luck and another small hand-painted sign on the road that led us to the right spot. Ah and then there was the sign right at the crater explaining how it was discovered and when. Without that sign we would not have known that the little dip in the dirt in front of us was a meteorite crater. Well it said on the sign it is the smallest known one. How they know it's a crater and not just a little depression in the ground (like many other we had seen all over) I still don't know. So if you ever go to WA - Walga Rock is a yes, Dalgaranga Crater not so much. But at the end the dirt road got us to Mt Magnet - past some beautiful dessert areas covered in tiny pink or yellow flowers -were we joined the HWY again. We meant to have lunch in Mt Magnet but when we got to town by 2pm everything was closed. Only store open was the gas station so at least we got gas - but I don't recommend gas station pies. Everyone is Australia says you have to try the meat pies - and yes a good meat pie is a great thing - but not the kept-warm-for-hours variety at a gas station. What can you do when you are hungry though. Continuing on we actually started to head east towards Sandstone. By now we had entered the "Southern Outback" also known as "Northern Goldfields" and sure enough there was a lot of evidence of gold mining along the road .JPG)
- from big open pits to large processing plants. We also learned that 3pm is Iguana time - how those animals know it is 3pm I don't know but sure enough for the next few days at 3pm they all started to crawl out into the middle of the road and just sit there. .JPG)
Should a car come towards them they started hissing at it but didn't move whatsoever. Until of course you stopped to take a picture of them. There sure was enough evidence that most people are unimpressed by the hissing and didn't stop. Otherwise the drive was pretty unspectacular and the country side changed little. In Sandstone we just about had enough of HWY driving and turned of onto gravel road again towards Lake Ballard. Since you drive slower on dirt than on hard surface you also get to see more stuff - Kangaroos and Emus and more Iguanas. The setting sun also gave the landscape this mystical glow of red sand and it changed from boring to "wow that's what I came here for". Nevertheless, sunset also meant we needed to find a campsite in a hurry. There wasn't much of anything along this track. We tried to find a suitable turn-off but it took a while. When we finally turned off onto a tiny track we ended up in some abandoned old mine pit or quarry of some sort. There we finally did found a flat enough area not covered in medium size boulders or thick bush. It was also protected on one side by a small ridge but pretty open in all other directions. Not really what I dreamed off but at least no big semi-truck could pull in here. The temperatures this far south were noticeably lower than up north and I had to put on a long-sleeve shirt and pants. The night was much quieter. Except for the wind rustling in the leaves of the eucalyptus tree above our tent and some wicked bird singing for an hour or so under the full moon. Day 14/32: It was cold in the morning getting up. We were up before the sun reach our little camp. It didn't look that much more inviting in the morning either. But the cold kept the flies away - definitely a bonus. I walked around a bit to 1) warm up and 2) find some GOLD. Number 1 was taken care of as soon as the sun crested the little ridge but number 2 never happened. We continued on on the dirt track through some nice bushland, unusual sandstone formations and red dirt all the way to Lake Ballard - a must see in the "Goldfields" as per the travel guides. The .JPG)
word lake is somewhat misguiding since Lake Ballard doesn't have any water in it - it's a salt lake, not too surprising being in the outback of Australia. From a lookout hill you get to see how large it is - or actually you don't see it because the white salt crust and the sky kinda melt together at the horizon and you don't know where one ends and the other one starts. Pretty cool sight but that's not the reason why it is in every travel guide. A world renowned artist .JPG)
named Anthony Gormely actually planted 51 sculptures across the lake - apparently modeled after the citizen of Menzies, a nearby gold mining town. If you like art this might be worth a visit. Walking out onto the lake surface you could see the mirror effect along the horizon - on a hot day that sight alone would make you thirsty. When we were visiting the lake early in the morning a freezing cold wind was blowing across the expanse of the lake (I am sure the wind was coming right from Tasmania) taking away from the "alone in the dessert" feeling. Instead of continuing on into Menzies and hitting the sealed HWY going south we decided to stay on the dirt road following the "Golden Trail" in the footsteps of the countries gold mining history. Lots of small attractions along the way such as old abandoned gold mines, small settlements etc. We stopped at "Ularring Soak" - an important aboriginal site but also a watering hole for the early explorers and gold miners. Not a surprise t.JPG)
hat there were large battles fought about that place. In reality it is a big flat rock that sticks out of the bush or forest - eucalyptus trees became more frequent again the further south we went. It's only a few tens of meters high at the highest point but quite wide across. Those rocks are important because they collect rain water in some of their crevices which stays for quite a long time - those were called Gnamma Holes by the settlers I believe - providing drinking water for people who lived in the area or were traveling through towards the gold mines. Since we got there just at the beginning of spring most of the Gnamma holes were dry. At Ularring Soak the settlers also dug a deep well to have permanent drinking water - well today it was a hole in the .JPG)
ground covered up with corrugated steel to prevent dumb tourist from falling in. And a very modern looking outhouse nearby. Back on the road we headed towards Rowles Lagoon - the map we had promised a fresh water lake to swim in. Since the temperatures came up rapidly as the sun climbed higher into the sky the thought of having a quick dip in some nice fresh water was fabulous. Well, it turned out to be a very shallow lake with lots of cow tracks around it and murky light brown looking water - we skip the swim. More dirt road driving got us past a couple abandoned towns - although we drove right by not seeing anything but trees and holes in the ground - and the ruins of the Grand Hotel at Kunanalling abandoned in the early 1960. So much about Australian history :-). Finally the dirt road spit us out at Coolgardie, a small mining town .JPG)
close to Kalgoorlie-Boulder were the "Wild West" is still alive. Well if that is true, Coolgardie sure didn't show any of that. Okay, the buildings looked like being out of an old Wild West movie (so did most of the mining towns we drove through for the past 2 days) but nobody was on the roads - no horses, no cars, no people. The grocery store only featured the minimum on culinary luxuries like white bread. No cafe to grab one last tasty meal before we headed off road again for another 2 days - outback adventure #2. But hey the town had a gas station and we stocked up on gas and ice for the cooler. What else would we need? It was still early afternoon when we left town and started out on our next planned outback adventure ala ExploreOZ. The "Holland Track" - a piece of Australian history. In 1893 a team led by John Holland cut the original 500km cart track from Broomehill to Coolgardie as an alternative route from the coast to the Eastern Goldfields in just over two month. The northern section of the track was re-opened in 1992 and is now a popular 4WD route. We only did the section from Coolgardie to Hyden - about half way and through real remote country. Past Hyden the track mostly goes through farmland and finding the right turn is the main challenge. The first part of the track out of Coolgardie followed a well maintained 2WD gravel road towards Victoria Rock - another one of those monolithic rocks that stick out of .JPG)
the ground, is only a few tens o meters high and collects water. Victoria Rock actually provided you with a great view over the surrounding area - mostly covered by eucalyptus forest or heath. Some of the pools on the rock had actually water in them and tadpoles!!!! Victoria Rock also features a campsite and is popular with people from Kalgooorlie-Boulder on weekends. Luckily this wasn't a weekend. Shortly after Victoria Rock we hit the "real" Holland Track - from here on 4WD only. And the track was quite rough and VERY narrow - just as wide as the truck most time, although it is not a one-way. We put in a couple light scratches due bushed taking over again or trying to get around the largest potholes but didn't see another car for a day and a half. Max speed would be less than 40km/hr for the next 200km. The landscape was mostly tall eucalyptus on white sandy dirt or thick bush. .JPG)
We get to see our first snake of the trip - almost running it over with the truck. But man they are quick - we hit the breaks hard and jumped out to have a closer luck - but the snake was gone. We stopped at Thursday Rock for the night - another of those rocks that .... you get the picture. Nobody else around. While sitting on the rock we watched the sun set in the west and the full moon rise to the east of us - very cool. We set up camp under a couple eucalyptus trees on a nice flat sandy spot with even an old picnic table nearby - we didn't have that much luxury since ... I can't even remember. Romantic dinner at candle light if not for those mosquitoes - this adventure started out nice. It got cold at night though but that didn't matter once I crawled into my nice sleeping bag. Poor Jeff though - since we were going to sunny and warm Australia - had only brought his fleece insert. So we both shared my sleeping bag.
.JPG)
word lake is somewhat misguiding since Lake Ballard doesn't have any water in it - it's a salt lake, not too surprising being in the outback of Australia. From a lookout hill you get to see how large it is - or actually you don't see it because the white salt crust and the sky kinda melt together at the horizon and you don't know where one ends and the other one starts. Pretty cool sight but that's not the reason why it is in every travel guide. A world renowned artist .JPG)
named Anthony Gormely actually planted 51 sculptures across the lake - apparently modeled after the citizen of Menzies, a nearby gold mining town. If you like art this might be worth a visit. Walking out onto the lake surface you could see the mirror effect along the horizon - on a hot day that sight alone would make you thirsty. When we were visiting the lake early in the morning a freezing cold wind was blowing across the expanse of the lake (I am sure the wind was coming right from Tasmania) taking away from the "alone in the dessert" feeling. Instead of continuing on into Menzies and hitting the sealed HWY going south we decided to stay on the dirt road following the "Golden Trail" in the footsteps of the countries gold mining history. Lots of small attractions along the way such as old abandoned gold mines, small settlements etc. We stopped at "Ularring Soak" - an important aboriginal site but also a watering hole for the early explorers and gold miners. Not a surprise t.JPG)
hat there were large battles fought about that place. In reality it is a big flat rock that sticks out of the bush or forest - eucalyptus trees became more frequent again the further south we went. It's only a few tens of meters high at the highest point but quite wide across. Those rocks are important because they collect rain water in some of their crevices which stays for quite a long time - those were called Gnamma Holes by the settlers I believe - providing drinking water for people who lived in the area or were traveling through towards the gold mines. Since we got there just at the beginning of spring most of the Gnamma holes were dry. At Ularring Soak the settlers also dug a deep well to have permanent drinking water - well today it was a hole in the .JPG)
ground covered up with corrugated steel to prevent dumb tourist from falling in. And a very modern looking outhouse nearby. Back on the road we headed towards Rowles Lagoon - the map we had promised a fresh water lake to swim in. Since the temperatures came up rapidly as the sun climbed higher into the sky the thought of having a quick dip in some nice fresh water was fabulous. Well, it turned out to be a very shallow lake with lots of cow tracks around it and murky light brown looking water - we skip the swim. More dirt road driving got us past a couple abandoned towns - although we drove right by not seeing anything but trees and holes in the ground - and the ruins of the Grand Hotel at Kunanalling abandoned in the early 1960. So much about Australian history :-). Finally the dirt road spit us out at Coolgardie, a small mining town .JPG)
close to Kalgoorlie-Boulder were the "Wild West" is still alive. Well if that is true, Coolgardie sure didn't show any of that. Okay, the buildings looked like being out of an old Wild West movie (so did most of the mining towns we drove through for the past 2 days) but nobody was on the roads - no horses, no cars, no people. The grocery store only featured the minimum on culinary luxuries like white bread. No cafe to grab one last tasty meal before we headed off road again for another 2 days - outback adventure #2. But hey the town had a gas station and we stocked up on gas and ice for the cooler. What else would we need? It was still early afternoon when we left town and started out on our next planned outback adventure ala ExploreOZ. The "Holland Track" - a piece of Australian history. In 1893 a team led by John Holland cut the original 500km cart track from Broomehill to Coolgardie as an alternative route from the coast to the Eastern Goldfields in just over two month. The northern section of the track was re-opened in 1992 and is now a popular 4WD route. We only did the section from Coolgardie to Hyden - about half way and through real remote country. Past Hyden the track mostly goes through farmland and finding the right turn is the main challenge. The first part of the track out of Coolgardie followed a well maintained 2WD gravel road towards Victoria Rock - another one of those monolithic rocks that stick out of .JPG)
the ground, is only a few tens o meters high and collects water. Victoria Rock actually provided you with a great view over the surrounding area - mostly covered by eucalyptus forest or heath. Some of the pools on the rock had actually water in them and tadpoles!!!! Victoria Rock also features a campsite and is popular with people from Kalgooorlie-Boulder on weekends. Luckily this wasn't a weekend. Shortly after Victoria Rock we hit the "real" Holland Track - from here on 4WD only. And the track was quite rough and VERY narrow - just as wide as the truck most time, although it is not a one-way. We put in a couple light scratches due bushed taking over again or trying to get around the largest potholes but didn't see another car for a day and a half. Max speed would be less than 40km/hr for the next 200km. The landscape was mostly tall eucalyptus on white sandy dirt or thick bush. .JPG)
We get to see our first snake of the trip - almost running it over with the truck. But man they are quick - we hit the breaks hard and jumped out to have a closer luck - but the snake was gone. We stopped at Thursday Rock for the night - another of those rocks that .... you get the picture. Nobody else around. While sitting on the rock we watched the sun set in the west and the full moon rise to the east of us - very cool. We set up camp under a couple eucalyptus trees on a nice flat sandy spot with even an old picnic table nearby - we didn't have that much luxury since ... I can't even remember. Romantic dinner at candle light if not for those mosquitoes - this adventure started out nice. It got cold at night though but that didn't matter once I crawled into my nice sleeping bag. Poor Jeff though - since we were going to sunny and warm Australia - had only brought his fleece insert. So we both shared my sleeping bag. Day 15/33: It was cold when we woke up in the morning just after sunrise. At least there are no flies about at these temperatures and we could have breakfast again outside out tent again. It did warm up considerably during the day. Today we spend 95% with crawling along at 30km/hr .JPG)
along the narrow and badly eroded or sandy Holland track - good thing it was dry .JPG)
and sunny. I would not want to navigate though those potholes when they are full of water and mud. We stopped in at a few more rocks - getting smaller and smaller each time until they barely rise up over the heath at all anymore and are more like just open spaces in the .JPG)
bush. The bush around us changed little switching between small eucalyptus groves and burned bushland back and forth. It was a bit monotonous except for every so often the recently burned bushland turned into a sea of flowers: yellow, purple, white... blossoms as far as you can see. Just stunning and the air smelled like a mix of Jasmin and honey. As for animals we only saw .JPG)
reptiles sunning themselves on the sandy sections of the track or on the rocks. The highlight was a Thorny Devil - they are soooo .JPG)
cute and completely rely on their spiky appearance to defend them against all possible foes. He didn't run off at all and we had to push him of the track to not drive over him. .JPG)
Once off the road in the bush he was INVISIBLE. No wonder we never saw them hiking before, they blend in so well into their natural habitat (not so much roads which is a good thing). After about half a day of driving we cam across the Holland Track Logbook - off course we signed in as well. People from all over the .JPG)
world use this track and it looks like cars come by every 2-3 days. We didn't see anyone until almost the end of the trail a few kilometers out of Hyden. 3 big trucks - even bigger than ours and squeezing by was a bit challenging but hey it's only a rental. We .JPG)
were getting into the more cultivated areas of the southwest with bush being mostly replaced by agricultural fields. As dirt road was replaced by paved highway again we also saw another brown snake - this time we got a picture. .JPG)
In Hyden we did a quick stop at "Wave Rock" - it was already late in the day and the sun was going down. They still wanted some money to see it but we cheated and while Jeff stayed in the truck I found a side trail to get to the "Wave" without paying. It is impressive but not really worth paying for it. We stopped in Lake King for the night - after spending so many days in the bush we decided to actually camp at a real campsite tonight with a real shower. Nothing special to that town but they did have a pub - burgers and beer for the tired travelers, what a treat. The next day will get us back to the coast. Good bye Outback - Southern Ocean here we come!!!
.JPG)
along the narrow and badly eroded or sandy Holland track - good thing it was dry .JPG)
and sunny. I would not want to navigate though those potholes when they are full of water and mud. We stopped in at a few more rocks - getting smaller and smaller each time until they barely rise up over the heath at all anymore and are more like just open spaces in the .JPG)
bush. The bush around us changed little switching between small eucalyptus groves and burned bushland back and forth. It was a bit monotonous except for every so often the recently burned bushland turned into a sea of flowers: yellow, purple, white... blossoms as far as you can see. Just stunning and the air smelled like a mix of Jasmin and honey. As for animals we only saw .JPG)
reptiles sunning themselves on the sandy sections of the track or on the rocks. The highlight was a Thorny Devil - they are soooo .JPG)
cute and completely rely on their spiky appearance to defend them against all possible foes. He didn't run off at all and we had to push him of the track to not drive over him. .JPG)
Once off the road in the bush he was INVISIBLE. No wonder we never saw them hiking before, they blend in so well into their natural habitat (not so much roads which is a good thing). After about half a day of driving we cam across the Holland Track Logbook - off course we signed in as well. People from all over the .JPG)
world use this track and it looks like cars come by every 2-3 days. We didn't see anyone until almost the end of the trail a few kilometers out of Hyden. 3 big trucks - even bigger than ours and squeezing by was a bit challenging but hey it's only a rental. We .JPG)
were getting into the more cultivated areas of the southwest with bush being mostly replaced by agricultural fields. As dirt road was replaced by paved highway again we also saw another brown snake - this time we got a picture. .JPG)
In Hyden we did a quick stop at "Wave Rock" - it was already late in the day and the sun was going down. They still wanted some money to see it but we cheated and while Jeff stayed in the truck I found a side trail to get to the "Wave" without paying. It is impressive but not really worth paying for it. We stopped in Lake King for the night - after spending so many days in the bush we decided to actually camp at a real campsite tonight with a real shower. Nothing special to that town but they did have a pub - burgers and beer for the tired travelers, what a treat. The next day will get us back to the coast. Good bye Outback - Southern Ocean here we come!!! Statutory Holidays never felt so good
It has been a while since my last blog - being back at work takes some adjustments. Having today off is sooo nice!! Jeff and I planned to go for a paddle but unfortunately a big storm is blowing up and down the BC coast with strong gust up to 60km/hr. Hey wait a minute - that's no worse than what we had to race in at the World Masters Games in Australia, except that the air and water temperature was up by at least 10 degrees.
And we had the construction guys come in this morning as well - they don't seem to get Good Friday off. The end to our "flood" ordeal is finally in sight. No more holes in walls or ceilings. All that is missing is a bit of paint on the walls. So by next Tuesday we should be DONE. My friend Krista loaned me a couple boxes when it happened in which I store all the non-perishable food items I had to move out of the cupboards. I promised her she would get them back in a week. Hah - what a joke, it's now over a month. But she'll be glad to get them back next week because they are moving in a couple weeks.
I have gotten so used to my 8hr sleep at night that my time after work is too short to do all the things I'd loved too. I know most of you think - "8hrs!!!!, I never get 8hrs" - but after being off for 9.5 month one can get used to a lot of nice things. Like sleeping in and exercising in the middle of the day. Now I am back to do stuff either before or after work, sigh. At least it's light now till 8pm so I can go for a paddle on the lake after work. Currently I am spending my work hours at two different locations - one close to home, the other close to the lake (until end of April when the close to home location will be the only one). So if I work close to home I can ride my bike (sad to say I am counting that as part of my daily exercises) or if I work up the hill close to the lake I take the car and go for a paddle in the evening. I also manage to go swimming still twice a week in the mornings. Since my new job doesn't require me talking to Europe all the time I can start later and stay later which suits me just fine.
On top of working, sleeping and playing (can't really call that training anymore) I am also organizing a training camp for our Canoe & Kayak Club next week - organizing boat, coaches, trailers etc, coming up with a schedule and handling all the registration. Never thought it would be so much work. My former coach Catherine, made it look so easy when she did it in 2005. I miss her!!! She is enjoying life in Sweden these days - another of those postdoc adventures which might turn out to be a permanent move maybe?
And we had the construction guys come in this morning as well - they don't seem to get Good Friday off. The end to our "flood" ordeal is finally in sight. No more holes in walls or ceilings. All that is missing is a bit of paint on the walls. So by next Tuesday we should be DONE. My friend Krista loaned me a couple boxes when it happened in which I store all the non-perishable food items I had to move out of the cupboards. I promised her she would get them back in a week. Hah - what a joke, it's now over a month. But she'll be glad to get them back next week because they are moving in a couple weeks.
I have gotten so used to my 8hr sleep at night that my time after work is too short to do all the things I'd loved too. I know most of you think - "8hrs!!!!, I never get 8hrs" - but after being off for 9.5 month one can get used to a lot of nice things. Like sleeping in and exercising in the middle of the day. Now I am back to do stuff either before or after work, sigh. At least it's light now till 8pm so I can go for a paddle on the lake after work. Currently I am spending my work hours at two different locations - one close to home, the other close to the lake (until end of April when the close to home location will be the only one). So if I work close to home I can ride my bike (sad to say I am counting that as part of my daily exercises) or if I work up the hill close to the lake I take the car and go for a paddle in the evening. I also manage to go swimming still twice a week in the mornings. Since my new job doesn't require me talking to Europe all the time I can start later and stay later which suits me just fine.
On top of working, sleeping and playing (can't really call that training anymore) I am also organizing a training camp for our Canoe & Kayak Club next week - organizing boat, coaches, trailers etc, coming up with a schedule and handling all the registration. Never thought it would be so much work. My former coach Catherine, made it look so easy when she did it in 2005. I miss her!!! She is enjoying life in Sweden these days - another of those postdoc adventures which might turn out to be a permanent move maybe?
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Back to work - both at work
For those who don't know yet I unexpectedly started to work again this week. It all went really fast. In late February, a friend of mine sent me a posting for a project manager at a company in Burnaby that makes power supplies. I actually applied with them last year in April for a similar position and didn't get it because I didn't have an engineering degree or PMP certification on my resume. So I looked at the posting and saw the requirement for an engineering degree right on top of the requirements list yet again. All the rest I could easily match up with my previous experiences. I thought there is no point in sending in a resume to their HR department without having the top most listed requirement on it. Incidentally, a former Kodak HR employee I knew from my olden days, although we never really worked together, is now the director of HR at that company. So I contacted her by personal email and asked about how much emphasis they are putting onto the engineering degree. She wasn't the the person in charge of hiring and not sure about how important it would be but we still connected by phone to chat about the Olympics and my trip to Australia and a little bit about what I'd be looking for in a job. She put me in contact with the HR person hiring. I sent my resume the next day and got a phone interview for the following Monday. All this happened while the water was dripping out of our kitchen sealing onto the floor (see previous posts)!!! So I wasn't as prepared for an interview as I wanted to be when the HR person called that Monday, expecting the demolition people to show up any minute again, but it went okay. The same afternoon I got a call to meet the hiring manager later that week. For some odd reason I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be for my first face to face interview in a long time - all the while thinking that they are really looking for an engineer and are just bringing me in because I knew the director of HR. The interview with the manager - his title was director of program management - went okay too - not a single engineering question. We more or less chatted about project management and gate processes etc. - it didn't feel like an interview. I didn't hear anything for the rest of the week and thought that was it. The next week I got invited to another round of interviews - 3hrs meeting 5 different people in groups of 2 and 2 and 1 - most of them had something engineering in their titles. So I figured they would finally ask all those tough engineering questions - and 3HRS of that!!! My brain hadn't been challenged to think for almost a year. So I practiced a bit by doing logic puzzles online. Ah what a waste - none of them ask a single technical question. But I felt better going into the 3hr session having done it, so maybe it wasn't a waste. Again I felt the interviews went okay. Everyone seemed very nice. The HR person called again the next day asking for references. I sent them my list by late Friday. Early Monday the HR person emailed me that if my reference would check out they would be making me an offer. The only gotcha - I had to start asap! I wasn't worried about my references and knew that's it. My wonderful easy life of sleeping in, working out and cooking dinner will come to an end. I am not going to do chemistry anymore. I am managing projects I totally won't have a clue about the product. Aaargh. I got the offer Monday afternoon, signed it that night (I know they say you should negotiate but it came in better than I expected) and started working on Wednesday! I needed Tuesday to do some clothes shopping since I hadn't bought any work clothes since I started at Creo in 2001. That was painful.
On day 1 my new boss, Douglas from South Africa who is a really nice person, told me he'll be leaving for 4 weeks and I would pick up all his projects. 5 of them, dealing with power supplies, I still don't know what the products look like, I can't even remember all the project names yet since they all start with CX - some more letter - some numbers- and kW at the end (for kilowatts, I managed to get that much) but I saw the project plans and schedules and met all the people in the last 3 days - good to go!!!???
Three tiring days and I am way behind on my training already. But the company does have a beautiful gym I can use and are located just 7 or so kilometers up the river - easy biking distance and no MORE hills!!!
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Jeff is still working as well. Since I like putting pictures up here is a shot of him walking home last week. He either runs or walks to avoid traffic on Knight Street Bridge - for those not from Vancouver, every time you have to cross a bridge during rush hour (either to get over the Fraser River or Burrard Inlet) you have a 8 in 10 chance of sitting in traffic.
I was wondering who will do all the cooking and dishes from now on but we are sharing the work evenly. Only I have to do the shopping since its almost on my way home - back to buying stuff every day for dinner rather than planning ahead.
By the way our kitchen is still not fixed after that mini-flood and the fridge is sitting in the middle of the kitchen and all my cooking ingredients stored away in boxes!!!
On day 1 my new boss, Douglas from South Africa who is a really nice person, told me he'll be leaving for 4 weeks and I would pick up all his projects. 5 of them, dealing with power supplies, I still don't know what the products look like, I can't even remember all the project names yet since they all start with CX - some more letter - some numbers- and kW at the end (for kilowatts, I managed to get that much) but I saw the project plans and schedules and met all the people in the last 3 days - good to go!!!???
Three tiring days and I am way behind on my training already. But the company does have a beautiful gym I can use and are located just 7 or so kilometers up the river - easy biking distance and no MORE hills!!!
.jpg)
Jeff is still working as well. Since I like putting pictures up here is a shot of him walking home last week. He either runs or walks to avoid traffic on Knight Street Bridge - for those not from Vancouver, every time you have to cross a bridge during rush hour (either to get over the Fraser River or Burrard Inlet) you have a 8 in 10 chance of sitting in traffic.I was wondering who will do all the cooking and dishes from now on but we are sharing the work evenly. Only I have to do the shopping since its almost on my way home - back to buying stuff every day for dinner rather than planning ahead.
By the way our kitchen is still not fixed after that mini-flood and the fridge is sitting in the middle of the kitchen and all my cooking ingredients stored away in boxes!!!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Australia Report - WA Part 4
Day 10/28 (Oct 29, 2009): Finally woken up by crows again at 5am. Breakfast was a bit of a bummer though since our bread got soak in the cooler. The ice bags don't last that long when it is .JPG)
this hot all day and hardly cools down at night. We used the early morning to explore the park a bit. First we headed to a lookout over Crossing Pool - part of the Fortescue River system. Most of the area is flat and dry except for close to the river. All sudden you see large eucalyptus trees as well as palm trees. The Millstream palm is actually native to this area. Great to see a bit more green after mostly red, yellow & brown. We hiked for a bit through eucalyptus forest, dry grasslands and areas full of palm trees - all in a couple kilometer radius. We visited the old date palm tree plantation (none native palm trees) near the Millstream Chichester Homestead with a nice little pond in the back yard and "wild" cows hidden in the long grass that scared the hell out of me - or I out of them. As the morning went on and the .JPG)
temperature rose we drove over to Crossing Pool for a quick dip in the water - that was nice. In theory we would be able to do a loop through the park taking in most of it's attractions in that little area but guess what - the road was blocked off due to maintenance. This area floods regularly in the spring and most of the roads will be covered by a couple meters of water, leaving behind some washed out road once it dries up. Once more we had to back track for a few tens of kilometers before hitting the hwy again which was still unpaved but in good conditions most of .JPG)
the way to Tom Price - another 350km or so away. Scenery on the drive was spectacular again: grass lands, red dirt, low mountains, puffy white clouds in the blue sky, endless roads. We stopped in Tom price for lunch and to stock up on food and other items we figured we need for our "real" 4x4 adventure still to come in a few days time. Clouds had been moving in constantly and it was pretty much overcast by now but stinking hot nonetheless. Tim Price is another mining town but has a bit more to over than Pannawonica. It actually had a pool and a large shopping centre as well as a library. .JPG)
Oh and every tree was covered in Corellas - a kind of cockatoo. We continued on into Karijini National Park - the drive in through a scenic Valley with low mountains on either side. We were going to spend the first night near Dale Gorge one of the two national park campsite. This site was quite a bit busier than others we stayed at but we found a good spot - probably lucky that we were setting up camp earlier than usual. Since we still had an hour daylight left we scooted over .JPG)
to Circular Pool to cool us down for the night - if possible. And what a sight that is. The pool is nestle at the bottom of a 50-75m deep gorge and is almost round. There is a 500m hike into it where you climb down the cliffs and follow the gorge to the end. A couple people were around, two of them a couple from Holland we talked to, but that didn't take away from us enjoying our swim. A beautiful spot with water trickling down the walls and ferns growing all over - and that in the middle of the semi-dessert. The sun was setting fast and we had to almost run back up since we didn't bring any flash lights. .JPG)
Needless to say, dinner was in the dark again. And although it was nearly dark, the flies were most annoying while cooking - fortunately they did disappear just before we were ready to eat (not sure about the fly count in the pot though - well it's all protein)!!! A few small bats were flying above our heads - maybe they scared the flies away.
.JPG)
this hot all day and hardly cools down at night. We used the early morning to explore the park a bit. First we headed to a lookout over Crossing Pool - part of the Fortescue River system. Most of the area is flat and dry except for close to the river. All sudden you see large eucalyptus trees as well as palm trees. The Millstream palm is actually native to this area. Great to see a bit more green after mostly red, yellow & brown. We hiked for a bit through eucalyptus forest, dry grasslands and areas full of palm trees - all in a couple kilometer radius. We visited the old date palm tree plantation (none native palm trees) near the Millstream Chichester Homestead with a nice little pond in the back yard and "wild" cows hidden in the long grass that scared the hell out of me - or I out of them. As the morning went on and the .JPG)
temperature rose we drove over to Crossing Pool for a quick dip in the water - that was nice. In theory we would be able to do a loop through the park taking in most of it's attractions in that little area but guess what - the road was blocked off due to maintenance. This area floods regularly in the spring and most of the roads will be covered by a couple meters of water, leaving behind some washed out road once it dries up. Once more we had to back track for a few tens of kilometers before hitting the hwy again which was still unpaved but in good conditions most of .JPG)
the way to Tom Price - another 350km or so away. Scenery on the drive was spectacular again: grass lands, red dirt, low mountains, puffy white clouds in the blue sky, endless roads. We stopped in Tom price for lunch and to stock up on food and other items we figured we need for our "real" 4x4 adventure still to come in a few days time. Clouds had been moving in constantly and it was pretty much overcast by now but stinking hot nonetheless. Tim Price is another mining town but has a bit more to over than Pannawonica. It actually had a pool and a large shopping centre as well as a library. .JPG)
Oh and every tree was covered in Corellas - a kind of cockatoo. We continued on into Karijini National Park - the drive in through a scenic Valley with low mountains on either side. We were going to spend the first night near Dale Gorge one of the two national park campsite. This site was quite a bit busier than others we stayed at but we found a good spot - probably lucky that we were setting up camp earlier than usual. Since we still had an hour daylight left we scooted over .JPG)
to Circular Pool to cool us down for the night - if possible. And what a sight that is. The pool is nestle at the bottom of a 50-75m deep gorge and is almost round. There is a 500m hike into it where you climb down the cliffs and follow the gorge to the end. A couple people were around, two of them a couple from Holland we talked to, but that didn't take away from us enjoying our swim. A beautiful spot with water trickling down the walls and ferns growing all over - and that in the middle of the semi-dessert. The sun was setting fast and we had to almost run back up since we didn't bring any flash lights. .JPG)
Needless to say, dinner was in the dark again. And although it was nearly dark, the flies were most annoying while cooking - fortunately they did disappear just before we were ready to eat (not sure about the fly count in the pot though - well it's all protein)!!! A few small bats were flying above our heads - maybe they scared the flies away.Day 11/29: This morning we decided to have breakfast in the tent to avoid the flies and it .JPG)
worked great. We started the hike at Fortescue Falls walking down Dale Gorge to Circular Pool once more. Although we were at the falls before 6am someone already beat us to it - but the couple didn't stick around. We had our first swim below the falls to cool us down before the hike - the night had been really hot. Walking through the canyon was relatively cool along water holes, through eucalyptus trees and head high grass. The canyon walls were glowing in all shades of red to brown in the early morning sun in nice contrast to the yellow grass or green bushes. Sometime you had to climb a bit along the canyon wall finding handhold in nooks and crannies. We thought nothing of it until we saw an Australian Red Back Spider sitting in its net covering one of those "convenient" hand holds. Afterwards we were a bit more careful about were to put our hands - the red back spider is the second most poisonous spider in Australia! We did see other spiders as well - bigger ones - but had no idea if they are poisonous or not. Given that we were in Australia, the assumption they would be isn't too far fetched I'd say. Other creatures hiding in those gorges are lizards of all sizes from 5cm to 2m long. Finally reaching Circular Pool again we had it all to ourselves. Still no sun down here to take good pictures! For the walk back to the truck we decided to follow along the canyon rim rather than retracing our steps down below in the gorge. Gosh, it was hot! Nevertheless we saw a very picture friendly lizard on the .JPG)
trail. He was posing for up to 3 photographers taking tons of pictures. I am sure he wanted to become a movie star the way he was posing on the rocks for us. As mentioned, Karijini NP isn't a secret in Western Australia and you have to be prepared to run into quite a few campers/hikers. Next we drove onwards to Kalamina Gorge. .JPG)
Similar to Dales Gorge but also different - the cliffs seemed to be closer together and straight up in beautiful layers of red rock. Lots of pools along the way to bathe in. The waterfall at the start of the gorge didn't have much water in it though - guess up here, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, it was the end of the dry season. Around noon we moved our camp over to the west side of the park into Weano Gorge. The campsite there was now private - twice as expensive for a similar spot but also fresh water and cold beer at the office. For them it was the end of the season and everything would be shutting down for the wet season to come in a week. The camping will stay open but no amenities whatsoever and the nearby wilderness lodge will be closed. Since we had our camp spot secured early we headed over to Oxer Lookout - one of the main attractions in the park. Here you have a view into an area where 5 gorges meet - all of them over 100m deep into the rock, so deep that no sunlight gets down to the bottom. Very cool!!! There were a couple of options for hikers to get into some of the gorges - to explore them in their entire length you need to be a proper trained climber and have abseiling experience. Jeff and I tackled Hancock Gorge first. It started out like any of the others we had seen so far but then narrowed dramatically until you can touch both walls with your hands at the same time. .JPG)
Actually the only way to get through was to walk like a spider since water was running along the bottom making it very slippery - hence it's called the spider walk. It opened up a bit into a small pool - Kermit Pool - where we stopped for a quick dip. Another couple was already enjoying the place. The walls were dwarfing us being close together and running ~80m straight up. No sunlight down here which made it nice and "cool" in comparison to the scorching temperatures up top. The gorge continued on but it turned into a class 6 hike where you needed proper equipment to get down a 2-3m drop to the next pool. Well, I guess down would not have been as much of a problem than coming back up. We enjoyed the scrambling through these very narrow canyons so much that we decided to do Weano Gorge as well with Handrail Pool as our destination before it also turned into a class 6. We went back the way we came, cross the parking lot and descended down into our last gorge for the day - just noticing the big tour bus in the lot wondering where all those people would be. This gorge also narrowed quite quickly. We saw about 20 pairs of shoes at the beginning of the narrow section which almost made us turned around on the spot - the tour bus!! Nevertheless we continued and after scrambling on came to a narrow gap which all sudden opens up into a large open cavern or pit of ~10-15m in diameter with straight walls going up for 60-70m and most of it filled with water - Handrail Pool. To .JPG)
get down to the water you had to use a handrail and rope - hence the name. There was a small ledge in one of the corners on which, I kid you not, 20 sour looking tourist were watching a family of 5 splashing around in the pool. I am not sure why they all looked so grim because the place was spectacular - maybe because they weren't told to bring a bathing suite? It didn't concern us a bit and Jeff and I jumped into the water - what a treat again in that heat - and bonded right away with the family of 5 already in the water. On the opposite side the gorge actually continued on and although it was supposed to be the start of the class 6 I had to see how far one could go. So did the 3 kids and their mom - the guys, Jeff and Dad stayed behind. It was eerie since it was almost completely dark with the walls being even narrower on the top than the bottom. The bottom was filled with water up to your neck or deeper so that one had to wade and swim at times. Then the bottom rose up again and reduce the water flow to a small rivulet before dropping about 5m straight down into the next pool. Needless to say that was the end of the line for us. When we got back to handrail pool only 10 min later the grumpy group of tourists was gone. Jeff and I spent some time talking to the family while warming up on the rocks - the water was actually cold. Those guys were from Kangaroo Island in South Australia. He was a doctor and after spending years and years of hard work and lots of overtime he got the chance to take some time off. So they decided to travel around their own country for almost one year, taking their 3 boys out of school. When we met them they were 8 month into their trip, traveling in a truck just like ours towing a small trailer full off equipment. The stories they had to tell were phenomenal: following old trekking trails through some of the most remote areas in central Queensland; breaking the axle on their truck in the middle of nowhere; helping a farmer driving his cows across the country; staying on remote homesteads in the Kimberley region, etc. Wow, I am not sure if I would be up for all the abuse and hardship they went through and they had 3 kids between 10 and 15. They home-schooled them 3 times a week but honestly just the experiences they gather by traveling around like this will be priceless education. Eventually we had to leave to explore more of the upper gorge on the way back. We saw some pretty, greenish lorikeets as well as a large iguana. And the setting sun set the red canyon walls on fire once more. Beautiful!!! We made it back to camp in time to enjoy dinner with sunset. Although it had clouded over a bit it was still hot. I woke up in the middle of the night hearing a group of dingos howling what sounded like right next to our tent. Karijini NP is known for it's healthy dingo population. Apparently the family from SA saw one coming right up to them in their camp. We never got to see them only hear them at night which was scary enough.
.JPG)
worked great. We started the hike at Fortescue Falls walking down Dale Gorge to Circular Pool once more. Although we were at the falls before 6am someone already beat us to it - but the couple didn't stick around. We had our first swim below the falls to cool us down before the hike - the night had been really hot. Walking through the canyon was relatively cool along water holes, through eucalyptus trees and head high grass. The canyon walls were glowing in all shades of red to brown in the early morning sun in nice contrast to the yellow grass or green bushes. Sometime you had to climb a bit along the canyon wall finding handhold in nooks and crannies. We thought nothing of it until we saw an Australian Red Back Spider sitting in its net covering one of those "convenient" hand holds. Afterwards we were a bit more careful about were to put our hands - the red back spider is the second most poisonous spider in Australia! We did see other spiders as well - bigger ones - but had no idea if they are poisonous or not. Given that we were in Australia, the assumption they would be isn't too far fetched I'd say. Other creatures hiding in those gorges are lizards of all sizes from 5cm to 2m long. Finally reaching Circular Pool again we had it all to ourselves. Still no sun down here to take good pictures! For the walk back to the truck we decided to follow along the canyon rim rather than retracing our steps down below in the gorge. Gosh, it was hot! Nevertheless we saw a very picture friendly lizard on the .JPG)
trail. He was posing for up to 3 photographers taking tons of pictures. I am sure he wanted to become a movie star the way he was posing on the rocks for us. As mentioned, Karijini NP isn't a secret in Western Australia and you have to be prepared to run into quite a few campers/hikers. Next we drove onwards to Kalamina Gorge. .JPG)
Similar to Dales Gorge but also different - the cliffs seemed to be closer together and straight up in beautiful layers of red rock. Lots of pools along the way to bathe in. The waterfall at the start of the gorge didn't have much water in it though - guess up here, north of the Tropic of Capricorn, it was the end of the dry season. Around noon we moved our camp over to the west side of the park into Weano Gorge. The campsite there was now private - twice as expensive for a similar spot but also fresh water and cold beer at the office. For them it was the end of the season and everything would be shutting down for the wet season to come in a week. The camping will stay open but no amenities whatsoever and the nearby wilderness lodge will be closed. Since we had our camp spot secured early we headed over to Oxer Lookout - one of the main attractions in the park. Here you have a view into an area where 5 gorges meet - all of them over 100m deep into the rock, so deep that no sunlight gets down to the bottom. Very cool!!! There were a couple of options for hikers to get into some of the gorges - to explore them in their entire length you need to be a proper trained climber and have abseiling experience. Jeff and I tackled Hancock Gorge first. It started out like any of the others we had seen so far but then narrowed dramatically until you can touch both walls with your hands at the same time. .JPG)
Actually the only way to get through was to walk like a spider since water was running along the bottom making it very slippery - hence it's called the spider walk. It opened up a bit into a small pool - Kermit Pool - where we stopped for a quick dip. Another couple was already enjoying the place. The walls were dwarfing us being close together and running ~80m straight up. No sunlight down here which made it nice and "cool" in comparison to the scorching temperatures up top. The gorge continued on but it turned into a class 6 hike where you needed proper equipment to get down a 2-3m drop to the next pool. Well, I guess down would not have been as much of a problem than coming back up. We enjoyed the scrambling through these very narrow canyons so much that we decided to do Weano Gorge as well with Handrail Pool as our destination before it also turned into a class 6. We went back the way we came, cross the parking lot and descended down into our last gorge for the day - just noticing the big tour bus in the lot wondering where all those people would be. This gorge also narrowed quite quickly. We saw about 20 pairs of shoes at the beginning of the narrow section which almost made us turned around on the spot - the tour bus!! Nevertheless we continued and after scrambling on came to a narrow gap which all sudden opens up into a large open cavern or pit of ~10-15m in diameter with straight walls going up for 60-70m and most of it filled with water - Handrail Pool. To .JPG)
get down to the water you had to use a handrail and rope - hence the name. There was a small ledge in one of the corners on which, I kid you not, 20 sour looking tourist were watching a family of 5 splashing around in the pool. I am not sure why they all looked so grim because the place was spectacular - maybe because they weren't told to bring a bathing suite? It didn't concern us a bit and Jeff and I jumped into the water - what a treat again in that heat - and bonded right away with the family of 5 already in the water. On the opposite side the gorge actually continued on and although it was supposed to be the start of the class 6 I had to see how far one could go. So did the 3 kids and their mom - the guys, Jeff and Dad stayed behind. It was eerie since it was almost completely dark with the walls being even narrower on the top than the bottom. The bottom was filled with water up to your neck or deeper so that one had to wade and swim at times. Then the bottom rose up again and reduce the water flow to a small rivulet before dropping about 5m straight down into the next pool. Needless to say that was the end of the line for us. When we got back to handrail pool only 10 min later the grumpy group of tourists was gone. Jeff and I spent some time talking to the family while warming up on the rocks - the water was actually cold. Those guys were from Kangaroo Island in South Australia. He was a doctor and after spending years and years of hard work and lots of overtime he got the chance to take some time off. So they decided to travel around their own country for almost one year, taking their 3 boys out of school. When we met them they were 8 month into their trip, traveling in a truck just like ours towing a small trailer full off equipment. The stories they had to tell were phenomenal: following old trekking trails through some of the most remote areas in central Queensland; breaking the axle on their truck in the middle of nowhere; helping a farmer driving his cows across the country; staying on remote homesteads in the Kimberley region, etc. Wow, I am not sure if I would be up for all the abuse and hardship they went through and they had 3 kids between 10 and 15. They home-schooled them 3 times a week but honestly just the experiences they gather by traveling around like this will be priceless education. Eventually we had to leave to explore more of the upper gorge on the way back. We saw some pretty, greenish lorikeets as well as a large iguana. And the setting sun set the red canyon walls on fire once more. Beautiful!!! We made it back to camp in time to enjoy dinner with sunset. Although it had clouded over a bit it was still hot. I woke up in the middle of the night hearing a group of dingos howling what sounded like right next to our tent. Karijini NP is known for it's healthy dingo population. Apparently the family from SA saw one coming right up to them in their camp. We never got to see them only hear them at night which was scary enough.Day 12/30: Today we got ready to leave the park but not until we visited a couple more of the .JPG)
sights. First stop was Knox Gorge - hiking along the canyon floor until we hit the class 6 sign again after which it continues on into Red Gorge as all the others we visited the day before. I was very tempted to try to go on but Jeff wanted to get back. He had by now enough of Gorges and I am sure so do you as the reader. The nice thing about Knox Gorge though, it seemed to be a less popular destination and the trail was more like a trail and not a tourist highway with ladders and steps. Here you get loose rock and muddy trails. We skipped our last hike but had a quick look at Joffre Falls from the top - again no falling water here either although the pools on the bottom looked fine. The flies seemed to be a bit worse today too - time to move on. After we got back to the main highway we made one more stop on the south side of i to have a look at the Mt Bruce (2nd highest mountain in WA) and Marandoo Mine. This area is know for it's high iron content in the rock. Although all of The Pilbara is red rock because of iron minerals in it, most of it does not contain enough to make mining worthwhile. But there are a few areas that do - and therefore open pit mines are not uncommon. Since Marandoo Mine is in a National Park they apparently save the top soil and try to recover the area once the iron ore is depleted. The lookout didn't really get you close to the mine and it didn't look too bad from afar. The same lookout also gave .JPG)
you a great view over the northern part of the park - the part we just left - with the high plateau rising from the flood plains. I could have stayed here forever!!! Nevertheless we had to move on - tomorrow was supposed to be the start of our REAL outback adventure although everything we .JPG)
saw so far already felt pretty real. We hit the highway again driving for hours and hours going east a bit and than south again. Stopped in Newman - another mining town but also the largest city in the area - for lunch and stocking up on supplies for our 2-3 days in nowhere land. So this next adventure was again something I found on ExplorerOZ - Carnarvon Range & part of the Canning Stock Route. A really remote place - 300km of rough track through the Australian Outback -where you have to be completely self sufficient: bring all your fuel, water and food (which we had), be able to navigate by map and GPS (which we had), have at least 2 spare tires (of which we had one and a repair kit), be able to fix anything that goes wrong with your car (of which we had nothing), ALWAYS travel in groups (we were alone), etc. Bad weather can turn the tracks into big mud holes and make them impassible for days. The only way to get help would be via satellite phone (which we didn't have) or wait for weeks or month for a framer or other adventurer to come along (we only had supplies for a week max). Some of the route is on private land and we still needed to get permission - so we stopped in at Kumarina Roadhouse, the only gas station/pub/restaurant along the highway for hundreds of kilometers. Those guys were really friendly but looked at us funny when we told them about our plan: "Why the hell would you want to go there?". I think Jeff was wondering the same thing the whole time but for me this was the ultimate challenge AND I was scared of it. Nevertheless we found out about the owner of the land we were supposed to cross and told how to get there and what to do. Filling up on water and diesel one last time we continued on. To the east of the highway - the way we would be going - we saw huge storm clouds build up. No rain yet. The drive to the homestead we had to go to took longer than expected and we didn't want o walk in on them in the middle of the night. My resolve started to crumbled. My homemade travel guide had another 10 days of sight seeing listed mostly in the southwest of WA and we didn't have any day to spare to get stuck. So finally I gave into my fears or Jeff said common sense and we decided to skip this part of the trip. It was hard for me since I had done so much research on it and the likelyhood of something going seriously wrong was small - but I guess in the Australian Outback even a small risk is a high risk. And really, we haven't done that much 4x4 driving in Canada - logging roads in the temperate rainforest are not the same challenge as semi-dessert tracks in Western Australia. I still want to do it one day though - but I would bring a satellite phone along!!! So instead of turning of east .JPG)
into the unknown we continued on along the highway until we found one of those roadside rest stops where we could pull off a little deeper into the bush. We set up camp hidden from the road - you could still hear the truck driving by every so often but it was a nice enough spot. After we crawled into the tent we heard a semi-truck pull into the rest area. And this id... had his compressor running all night long with few interuptions. Not a very restfull night under the full moon in the outback of Western Australia - not what I had hoped for at least.
.JPG)
sights. First stop was Knox Gorge - hiking along the canyon floor until we hit the class 6 sign again after which it continues on into Red Gorge as all the others we visited the day before. I was very tempted to try to go on but Jeff wanted to get back. He had by now enough of Gorges and I am sure so do you as the reader. The nice thing about Knox Gorge though, it seemed to be a less popular destination and the trail was more like a trail and not a tourist highway with ladders and steps. Here you get loose rock and muddy trails. We skipped our last hike but had a quick look at Joffre Falls from the top - again no falling water here either although the pools on the bottom looked fine. The flies seemed to be a bit worse today too - time to move on. After we got back to the main highway we made one more stop on the south side of i to have a look at the Mt Bruce (2nd highest mountain in WA) and Marandoo Mine. This area is know for it's high iron content in the rock. Although all of The Pilbara is red rock because of iron minerals in it, most of it does not contain enough to make mining worthwhile. But there are a few areas that do - and therefore open pit mines are not uncommon. Since Marandoo Mine is in a National Park they apparently save the top soil and try to recover the area once the iron ore is depleted. The lookout didn't really get you close to the mine and it didn't look too bad from afar. The same lookout also gave .JPG)
you a great view over the northern part of the park - the part we just left - with the high plateau rising from the flood plains. I could have stayed here forever!!! Nevertheless we had to move on - tomorrow was supposed to be the start of our REAL outback adventure although everything we .JPG)
saw so far already felt pretty real. We hit the highway again driving for hours and hours going east a bit and than south again. Stopped in Newman - another mining town but also the largest city in the area - for lunch and stocking up on supplies for our 2-3 days in nowhere land. So this next adventure was again something I found on ExplorerOZ - Carnarvon Range & part of the Canning Stock Route. A really remote place - 300km of rough track through the Australian Outback -where you have to be completely self sufficient: bring all your fuel, water and food (which we had), be able to navigate by map and GPS (which we had), have at least 2 spare tires (of which we had one and a repair kit), be able to fix anything that goes wrong with your car (of which we had nothing), ALWAYS travel in groups (we were alone), etc. Bad weather can turn the tracks into big mud holes and make them impassible for days. The only way to get help would be via satellite phone (which we didn't have) or wait for weeks or month for a framer or other adventurer to come along (we only had supplies for a week max). Some of the route is on private land and we still needed to get permission - so we stopped in at Kumarina Roadhouse, the only gas station/pub/restaurant along the highway for hundreds of kilometers. Those guys were really friendly but looked at us funny when we told them about our plan: "Why the hell would you want to go there?". I think Jeff was wondering the same thing the whole time but for me this was the ultimate challenge AND I was scared of it. Nevertheless we found out about the owner of the land we were supposed to cross and told how to get there and what to do. Filling up on water and diesel one last time we continued on. To the east of the highway - the way we would be going - we saw huge storm clouds build up. No rain yet. The drive to the homestead we had to go to took longer than expected and we didn't want o walk in on them in the middle of the night. My resolve started to crumbled. My homemade travel guide had another 10 days of sight seeing listed mostly in the southwest of WA and we didn't have any day to spare to get stuck. So finally I gave into my fears or Jeff said common sense and we decided to skip this part of the trip. It was hard for me since I had done so much research on it and the likelyhood of something going seriously wrong was small - but I guess in the Australian Outback even a small risk is a high risk. And really, we haven't done that much 4x4 driving in Canada - logging roads in the temperate rainforest are not the same challenge as semi-dessert tracks in Western Australia. I still want to do it one day though - but I would bring a satellite phone along!!! So instead of turning of east .JPG)
into the unknown we continued on along the highway until we found one of those roadside rest stops where we could pull off a little deeper into the bush. We set up camp hidden from the road - you could still hear the truck driving by every so often but it was a nice enough spot. After we crawled into the tent we heard a semi-truck pull into the rest area. And this id... had his compressor running all night long with few interuptions. Not a very restfull night under the full moon in the outback of Western Australia - not what I had hoped for at least.I am NEVER ever going to do renovations
You might have read my post about the little flood we had last Thursday. Since then I just had about enough of contractors coming or not coming, doing stuff or not.... .jpg)
When the plumber left last Thursday he said he would be back the next morning to shut off the water to the whole complex to fix the leak. He didn't need access to our townhouse but was hoping I could be home to open all faucets to prevent pressure build up when they reconnect to the city water supply. That meant I had to miss my spinning class too. He mentioned he would call that evening to let me know an approximate time. Of course nobody called that evening - or at least didn't leave a message while Jeff and I had a nice dinner at Simbas. The kitchen was still a mess.
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When the plumber left last Thursday he said he would be back the next morning to shut off the water to the whole complex to fix the leak. He didn't need access to our townhouse but was hoping I could be home to open all faucets to prevent pressure build up when they reconnect to the city water supply. That meant I had to miss my spinning class too. He mentioned he would call that evening to let me know an approximate time. Of course nobody called that evening - or at least didn't leave a message while Jeff and I had a nice dinner at Simbas. The kitchen was still a mess.Friday morning I picked up the phone and called the plumber. His response "Oh, we rather not do such a big job on Fridays in case things go wrong and the units would be without water over the weekend". He promised me the temporary fix would last over the weekend no problem. @#$% Did he not know yesterday that the next day was a Friday!!!??? But I was smart and had called early enough to still make it to my spinning class at 9:20am. I left the house in a rush and went to my class followed by a 12km paddle on the lake. It felt great and life seemed to be in order again. I was just about to leave the lake when Jeff called. Apparently our strata manager was in a panic because he couldn't get a hold of anyone. Apparently he called home, Jeff's parents and Jeff's work. Someone wanted to get into our unit to look at the water damage. They didn't seem as desperate when I called in the leak on Thursday to get a plumber in as they were for someone to look at the damage - seemed a bit odd to me. Anyhow, I rushed home, called the guy, Jim, who was to look at our place only to learn that he had to call someone else, Chris, to have a look. 20min later Jim was standing at our door. Fine by me. Jim looked at all the walls, checked for water damage, marked a couple spots, told me this and that had to be moved so that they could get at the wall behind it. But he still wanted Chris to have a look as well. Whatever, I had done my workouts for the day and was content to spend the afternoon at home. Halfway through the afternoon someone else, James, from the same company called asking if he could send the DEMOLITION guys out on Monday to start working. They were supposed to show up 8-8:30am. Okay, sounded like things were going to move along just fine.
Saturday morning water started leaking out of our ceiling again. Saturday afternoon Chris left a message while we were watching the curling games with Jeff's parents and asked for a time he could come by to check out the unit. I figured we call him back on Monday.
Sunday morning the leak got a bit worse again. Nothing a couple buckets could fix though. Jeff emailed the strata guy and he responded with having the plumber back on Monday. Sunday night I cleaned out the garage and kitchen while Jeff was watching TV.
Monday morning 8:30am I called Chris and he said he would be there in 20min. Shortly after I called the demolition guys showed up. Since Chris hadn't been here yet, they weren't sure what to do and went up to the other unit - the one with the actual broken pipe - to start working on those walls. Around 9am Chris showed up and did the same thing Jim had done Friday. He left saying he'll be back at 11am with the demolition guys. At 10am I had a phone interview scheduled which didn't start till 10:30am. But we finished in time for 11am. Now I was waiting for the demolition guys to come back. I could hear a lot of noise from upstairs which must be the plumbers fixing the leak finally. Nobody showed up. At 3pm I got a call again from James saying his guys got tied up in the other unit and wouldn't be able to do anything in ours. We arrange for them to come back the next morning. Unfortunately it was too late now to go for my swim workout - another missed workout because of this mess. And a day wasted for nothing. Another person called about getting access to the unit - this time it was Laura, the insurance person. She was available between 9-10am every day a week. I called her back that evening to say she could come the next morning with the demolition people.
Tuesday - the demolition guys showed up in time and cut big holes into a number of walls, .jpg)
pulled out wet insulation and installed some large blowers and dehumidifiers in the kitchen and garage. One of the walls in the garage seemed to be worse and they wanted to follow up with Chris/Jim about any additional work that needed to be done. In the meantime the blowers were to run day and night - and those things aren't quite. I had to prepare for an interview the next morning at 10am but couldn't even hear myself think . So I went for a swim instead since I missed out on it the day before. Laura didn't show up, she though we would meet Wednesday morning but that wasn't going to work. We rescheduled for Thursday at 10:30 after my morning workout.
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pulled out wet insulation and installed some large blowers and dehumidifiers in the kitchen and garage. One of the walls in the garage seemed to be worse and they wanted to follow up with Chris/Jim about any additional work that needed to be done. In the meantime the blowers were to run day and night - and those things aren't quite. I had to prepare for an interview the next morning at 10am but couldn't even hear myself think . So I went for a swim instead since I missed out on it the day before. Laura didn't show up, she though we would meet Wednesday morning but that wasn't going to work. We rescheduled for Thursday at 10:30 after my morning workout. Wednesday - I was just about ready to leave for my interview when the door bell rang. The demolition guys were back and wanted to do more work in our garage: "Eh, we thought the office had called you yesterday" but nobody had. So I sent them away - wasn't really about to miss my interview for this now was I - telling them to be back the next morning after 10:30am (after my morning workout, same time as the insurance person). Interview went okay - was only an hour. I barely made it home and Chris rings the bell. He just wanted to quickly check the drying progress. Do those people ever call ahead to make sure you are home?
Thursday - I rushed back from my morning workout to have Laura already waiting for me. It took her about 15min to take a couple pictures and FINALLY explaining what the next steps will be. So far I only had tons of people calling but nobody to give us the whole picture. I was pleased with her explanation and didn't ask about who is going to pay for our electrical bill this month (all those blowers and dehumidifiers must make a difference) or the pain killers for my head (I should record the sound and post it). The demolition guys never showed though. I called Jim who thought the guys should have been here. So he called the office (James) to find out what's going on. Shortly after James called me to tell me that Chris was supposed to check the drying status first before sending the demolition guys on site again but was called on an emergency. Okay, "but", I asked, "what are the next steps" - I wasn't about to sit here for the next 2 days waiting for someone to maybe show up. James said he had to talk to Jim to see what he would suggest. And it only took 10min for James to call me back saying the guys will be on site by 1pm today to finish off the demolition part. And I am waiting again, just about ready for another pill for my head.
WHY could this not have happened when Jeff was still at home all day? I would have gladly gone to work to leave him with the mess and noise. No wonder he seems a bit more cheerful these mornings when leaving the house.
I am sure there will be at least one more post on this.
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