Addicted to oysters in Coffin Bay

We stopped in busy Port Lincoln to stock up on all items that may not be available in small-town stores this side of Perth. Kate toyed with getting another bottle of Tabasco to feed her serious addiction over the Nullabor, but decided not to indulge herself. We lunched in a cool little organic shop which sold dubious books about diets to cure cancer and improve your sexlife but also made great fresh salads, wraps and falafel. We were stinky and dusty with streaks of dirt in our moustaches, but the locals were still kind. While Bill and Sash went to discuss batteries with the local auto-electrician, Kate and Zara hit the second-hand bookshop where they were thrilled to stumble accross the Mrs Pepperpot's Omnibus (for some time Kate had been telling Zara about these amazing books from her childhood about an old lady who sometimes shrinks to the size of a pepperpot - Z has since read and loved the entire book and loved it - phew, always good to have childhood fondnesses substantiated by the next generation).

Anyhoo, back on the road for a short trip to the lovely town of Coffin Bay - famous for its oysters. We set up in the busy caravan park and considering we were camping so close to our neighbours we were practically sleeping in their annex, we were thrilled to find that they were super friendly. After we had set-up, Richard, Roxanne and Lucas easily lured us into their tent with offers of oysters (from local store for $8 a dozen - right off the boat). Great company and great oysters. Thanks to Richard for the shucking lessons which have already served us well. With our tastebuds whetted for local seafood, we dined at the local pub that night. It was good food but they were super busy so K and B worse for wear with drink by the time their seafood platter arrived. Kate accused of being sunburnt in the ladies toilets - but just warm with wine! Zara and Sash spent the entire next day with new friends Sasha (girl) and Oliver in the caravan park playground while B and K scrubbed dust and balsamic vinegar out of foodboxes and washed saltwater off all cutlery etc. Sad moment in Coffin Bay when we finished the last of Dave J's chilli relish - we still think of it fondly at every meal : (

Hair washed, tubs scrubbed and loaded with dozens of oysters, we packed up and headed into Coffin Bay national park. Here we finally put the landcruiser through its paces and realised why people buy them - it seems to be able to grunt through anything. Even loaded down with all our crap and through the softest sand, we managed to drag ourselves through. We tried to help another couple out of a bog but of course couldn't find our d-shackles (note to selves - probably smart to store recovery gear somewhere handy when 4wheel driving). Kate's 4-wheel drive course really came in handy as she remembered random and irrelevant driving tips at various inopportune moments. Thankfully for the bogged couple, a friendly and knowledgeable family drove up and had them out in a jiffy! Thankfully we made it safely to our camping spot, Black Springs. And wow - totally magic place. Right on a sheltered beach with crystal clear water and a welcoming party of dolphins jumping out of the water to great us... We set up with a beach view and settled into paradise. It was pretty quite except for a friendly older couple who shamed us with their energy, and a group of locals with a coupla kids. We set up chairs on the beach at oyster-oclock and watched the kids playing in their pretend shop (with real prices... the introduction of pocket money in Zara's life appears to have turned her into quite the little capitalist entrepeneur but that's another story). A clear night sky gave us an amazing view of the stars from the beach. Next day, we played at the beach and fished and took a short walk. All was perfect until we started noticing more and more locals arriving and hooning past our campsite to join their mates. By 5pm the techno was pumping on the beach and the party didn't stop. Fortunately the kids slept through it all and Kate and Bill gritted their teeth and put up with it. We recovered our tempers the next day and had a lovely time driving through the park, along beaches, over dunes and through rocky plains. Bill caught a Banjo Shark while Kate, Zara and Sash ran up and down massive soft sand dunes. We arrived back at the campsite and were thrilled to find that the party group had packed up and left! The day was so warm that we decided to get the swags off the roofrack and sleep on the beach.  But as we were preparing for our night under the stars, a new convey of locals hooned up and took up where the previous night’s party had left off. Needless to say the swags went back onto the roofrack and we hunkered down in our tent. No boombox on the beach but lots of loud, drunken swearing and laughing right outside our tent. To the man with the kookaburra laugh and the woman who screeched the f word all night – WE HATE YOU!

Nonetheless, Sash and Kate got up and headed off early the next day to hike to Black Rocks on the other side of the peninsular. It was a lovely walk through the dunes and across rocky plains – and Sash was a trooper (3 easy strategies for hiking with a 3 yo – lots dried fruit along the way, musli bar at the end and lots of talk about his upcoming birthday as we walk along – on this walk he decided that he wants a chocolate cake shaped like a log with someone sitting on it and a Tasmanian tiger and a backdrop of gum trees… B to be in charge of birthday cake this year!). Got back to find the party group packing up (although leaving toilets unusable and a nice pile of rubbish... Kate and Bill could have hugged the softly spoken Col from Leongatha who set up in their wake – not only did he lend us his generator to charge our failing batteries he (and destroy the peace ourselves for a bit!) he then accompanied Bill on a highly successful night fishing expedition (garfish and flathead - yum). And not a peep at night. Peace was finally restored to paradise... 

God bless quiet campers!     

                               

           

Easter Bunny, fishing mad Frenchfolk and razor-fish paella

We stayed for 6 nights in Lincoln National Park - at a spot called Fisherman's Point (chosen for obvious reasons). We decided to set up and stay put rather than try and move around over the Easter break. We arrived on the Wednesday night before good Friday, and found the place busy but not too crowded. It did get super crowded over the Easter break and we were hedged in on all sides, but everyone was surprisingly quiet and friendly so it was actually fine.

It was really hot when we arrived so we were thrilled to spend some time on the beach and to have a swim in the beautiful turquoise water. Sash and Zaz collected so many things from the beach that we started to feel that we were singlehandedly destroying the environment. Sash developed a passion for finding crab claws - he called them 'crabby' and made up little beds for them in the tree branches.

Bill enjoyed considerable squid success off the rocks there - so we ate like kings as Bill experimented with different ways of cooking and eating the squid. Kate went through the campsite boasting about Bill's ability to haul in squid in great numbers with the greatest of ease, and he soon attracted a gang of eager dudes hoping to learn his secrets. Naturally he struggled to catch anything from then on... Kate to keep her big mouth shut from now on! A massive crowd of French people set up camp next to us. We were amazed at their commitment to any form of fishing - it seemed that any time of day they could be seen storming down to the beach with rods, spears, knives, snorkels, nets, lights and various other forms of equipment. They were out with their rods and flippers at dawn and still spearing crabs at midnight. We actually didn't see them do anything else. Bill was sufficiently impressed at this level of passion and so swapped tips and stories with Jerome, Pierre and the rest.

We met a lovely family who were heading home to Brisbane after 12 months away - they had done a very similar trip to the one we have planned and were full of useful tips and advice. Their kids, Priya and James, were similar ages to ours so many happy hours were spent playing. Zara and Priya spent a day in our tent making beds for Priya's barbies and playing all sorts of other secret games. Kumar and Bill joined forces to battle the Razor fish (a bugger to get out of their shells - but sooo tasty!) and managed to get a big pile of them, plus heaps of crabs and squid. To celebrate, Kumar and Jill whipped up a fabulous paella which we ate ate their place (van) - was delicious!

There was much excitement at our camp over the imminent arrival of the Easter Bunny. Fears that it wouldn't find us in the National Park were assuaged by the memory of the Tooth Fairy finding us in the wild west of Tasmania. We boiled eggs, dyed them with crepe paper and then painted them with acrylic paints. They looked pretty cool and were well-received by most of the other campers when the kids donned their bunny ears and went around the campsite handing them out on Easter Sunday. Of course, the Easter Bunny was very generous and the kids spent a happy couple of days eating chocolate! Sash has been asking almost every day since when next Easter is. Ahhhh the interminable 12 months between the good times for children.

The first warm days were followed by some pretty crappy weather. A huge dust storm came up on Good Friday. Everything was covered with dust - inside and out. By the time we left, we had never seen our boxes and equipment so dirty. Bill's hair collected so much dust it began sticking straight up and Zara threatened to dye it blue and call him Marge Simpson. We are all getting steadily hairier - anyone who has seen pics of Bill recently will note the hairy face (Kate reckons he's a cross between Boris Becker and Bear Grylls...). For those of you who have witnessed Sash's hair at its most mop-like - you should see it now! Kate has been trimming fringes with blunt scissors to keep hair out of eyes - but we are all looking pretty odd already.

Mt Remarkable, then onto Lincoln National Park

After stocking up on provisions (including 2 rolls of veggie loaf - a weird and hard-to-get vegetarian sandwich loaf that Kate, Zara and Sash are quite partial to in our daily sandwiches...) and saying farewell to Adelaide we drove north to Mt Remarkable. Kate was keen to climb the mountain and so we camped at the east side of the national park for easy access to the walking track. We ended up setting up at the Melrose Showgrounds - which was all quite odd. Some local folk were setting up for a Landrover expo (which made us a bit nervous given the reported animosity between Landcruiser drivers and Landrover fans...) with gazebos and witches hats. We were facing a long drive the next day, so Kate arose with the birds in order to get up Mt Remarkable and back by midday. It was a beautiful climb - good views and some exciting rock fall crossings. An extra hour was added due to a wrong turn, but much time was made up due to the speedy joy of walking without any children! Back for a pack up with aching legs and then a long drive all the way down the east cost of the Eyre peninsular in a mad rush to reach Lincoln National Park, set up a good campsite, before squaring our shoulders and bracing for the Easter hordes...

Getting beautified and seeing pandas in Adelaide

We had fun in Adelaide. Was surprisingly good to be back in a big smoke for a short time. Neither of us had ever really spent much time there but had heard only good things about it. We stayed in a caravan park right near the heart of Adelaide so we could jump on our bikes, cruise down the bike tracks next to the river and get into the city. The Park was a bit crowded but full of the usual friendly folk. Our neighbours were a nice couple from Brisbane who had left their house in the responsible hand of 20-something children to travel Australia. They were kind enough to let our kids play in their van and showed them the van's fancy step which could be slid in and out at the touch of a button (hours of fun for a 3yo). Sadly they only stayed a couple of nights and were replaced by an older couple from country Victoria who had plenty to say about the perils of iPads, computer games, lazy children and of course the Government giving too much to the 'abos'. We listened politely to the diatribe, then got out of there quick!

Spectacular Japanese dinner the first night - pricey but we were in heaven!

On a perfect sunny day, we cycled to the Adelaide Zoo to see the famous pandas - Funi and Wang Wang. The pandas were cool and so was the rest of it. Saw a flamingo doing a funny dance. After the zoo, we went to see the Lorax movie. As big Dr Seuss fans we were prepared for the worst, but it was actually really good!

Next morning, Kate fulfilled a long-held promise to Zara by taking her to a cheap and cheerful nail-place to get a manicure. It was a bribe to stop Zara biting her nails and worked a treat. By the time we arrived in Adelaide Zara had talons which the ladies at Citi Nails turned into gold-polished beauties! Zara was thrilled, Kate was slightly uncomfortable with the whole deal but got her toenails polished up anyway! Then we hung out in a bookshop and Zara got a book about the human body. Over hot chocolates at a nearby cafe, all patrons were treated to a stream of loud facts about blood cells, ligaments, bones and how babies are made...

Joined by the boys who had cleaned the car and done the shopping, we rode our bikes to the South Australian museum which had lots of cool stuffed animals, a giant squid display and mummies from ancient egypt - amongst other things. Then we jumped back on our bikes and rode off in search of gourmet pizza. Ended up at a place called 'Good Life' where we had a great dinner and bumped into an old family friend of Bill's - bit weird to bump into the one person we know in Adelaide during our 3 night stay there! Cycled back in the dark which was slightly hairy due to Sasha's newness to bike riding - But Bill did a great job riding next to him and grabbing his arm when things got hairy...

Great times in Adelaide but time to get out of there before the Easter hordes hit the nearby camping spots...

Pelicans and sunsets at the Coorong

Next stop was the Coorong in SA - a weird long stretch of skinny peninsular between the sea and a salty lagoon. Hard to describe so look at a map. We knew of it because of Alison Lester's book Are we there yet? (bible of all families travelling Australia) where they stop at the Coorong and the big brother makes them all laugh by saying, 'what a wonderful bird is the pelican, it's beak can hold more that it's belly-can'. Unsurprisingly this phrase was repeated perhaps 100 times during out stay there. There were lots of pelicans there - flying in beautiful formations over our campsite.

We set up camp right next to the lagoon and were greeted with such a spectacular sunset that we almost decided to stay there forever. We had the place to ourselves for a day or so, and then were joined by an older couple from South Australia who spend a lot of time camping and finance their retirement by collecting cans from the roadside and searching campsites and beaches with a metal detector. Bill and Kate had a sudden flash into their future...

At the Coorong, we resumed our usual past-times - Bill hitting the wild and rugged beaches in search of fish, and Kate hitting the walking trails through sand dunes and accross salt lakes. One kid each. We also discovered the fun of driving on the beach. This time, the Go-Pro was held out the window while Bill drove through water crossings and across dunes. Cool footage.

The kids found a few new past-times - making a doll's adventure playground from rocks and dressing up in our clothes a pretending to be us...

We could have stayed longer, but Easter was bearing down on us and we wanted to avoid the Adelaide holiday makers. So, time to head to the big smoke!

Getting scrubbed up in Nelson

From the Grampians we headed South to camp at Nelson - a lovely little town right on the Glenelg River and next to the Lower Glenelg National Park. We aimed to spend 2 nights there washing the Grampians dirt off ourselves and our clothes, but got so distracted by the local attractions that we stayed an extra night. But there were too many signs in the caravan park, so we couldn't stay any longer than that. Kate has always been irritated by signs and is always the person in offices who pulls down notices in the bathrooms asking staff to 'not wee on the seats', or reminding staff in the kitchen to 'wash your own cups'. Just so annoying. Well this caravan park was the worst - I reckon about 100 signs and counting. It felt like a cross between kindergarten and a penitentiary. There was even a sign on the fridge saying that if anyone was caught taking someone else's food the police would be called! Bit much I think (but that could be guilty memories of stealthily scraping the top of other people's butter as a backpacker in the 90s...). Anyway, signs aside, it was a nice place - a lovely setting, with lots of friendly grey nomads and welcoming managers who have recently taken charge of the property and with any luck may remove some signs before our next visit.

We went down to the Lady Margaret Rose cave - which was cool. Zara and Sash have a thing for the rangers who lead cave tours - they like to hold their hands and open their big brown eyes wide with interest until they are taken into forbidden parts of the cave and get told special secret facts about the cave... It's only happened twice, but perhaps it is a pattern??

Then fishing, playing around the river and all-round good times. Nelson is a hot-spot for kayaking on the beautiful Glenelg river, so we hired a Canadian canoe and paddled up the river for a picnic. Bill dusted off the Go-Pro camera for the first time and attached it precariously to the canoe where it took a great video of Kate's bum and the kids enjoying the ride. Lots of beautiful birds.

Despite being forewarned numerous times, before crossing over into SA we ate an entire bag of carrots, a cucumer, a tub of tomatoes and 7 apples. A friendly couple pulled up beside us and offered us some apples that they didn't want to throw out. We tried to politely say no thanks but we really wanted to throw our mountain-load of apple cores at them!

Goodbye Victoria! See ya in a loooong time.

Hangin' out in the Gramps

A forced stay in the Grampians turned out to be a blessing. Neither of us had been there since high school camps and had forgotten how cool it is. Why don't we go camping there regularly? We managed to nab a group camping site at Jimmy's Creek (halfway between Dunkeld and Halls Gap) for about a week and a half. Bill researched possibilities for fishing in the lakes of the Grampians, Kate poured over the list of walks and the kids began their hand-eye coordination training course with endless hours of totem tennis... Next day we were all totally thrilled to welcome visitors - none other than Greta, Dash and baby Jett. Before the tent was even set up, Sash and Dash had resumed their old commraderie and plunged into the bush in search of a Gruffalo... Then there was hours of hysterical totem tennis comps, with Sash swinging wildly but missing every time and Dash standing motionless, holding up his racket and smiling happily while the ball raced past. You'd think it would be frustrating, but they had a great time! It was lovely to hang out with the Macks (minus Cam : ( ), to catch up with all the goss and cuddle beautiful smiling baby Jett. Zara fell head over heels in love with her 'soul sister' and threatened to pack her into one of our bags to take around Australia. Felt a bit sad when they left cos unless we can convince the Macks to come to The Kimberlys later in the year, the kids will be 4 and 1 next time we see them!! But good to know that Sash and Dash can pick up their easy friendship after long separations.

In the Grampians we (re)discovered a love of scrambling up rocks for hours on end. First we tackled the Pinnacle walk, which we all loved, especially Silent Street, a kind of big rock crevice you can walk through. Then, more confident in the kid's interest and ability, Kate started taking one kid after another on rock-scrambling walks. We particularly loved Hollow Mountain where Kate and Sash found themselves on climbing up precipices completely unsuitable for an adventurous but somewhat clumsy 3-year old! We also startled an earnest rock-climber practising up the top who looked a bit deflated to see our mop-haired boy balancing happily on the pinnacle!

Bill valiently drove the car all the way back to Melbourne to have the engine looked at, then borrowed Jane and Sasha's car to come all the way back again the next day. Without a car, Kate and the kids were pleasently forced to spend a full day at the campsite where we painted rocks, did schoolwork, played boardgames, honed our totem tennis skills (i.e. learnt to hit the ball...) and devised scavenger hunts for each other. Sash started on a new craze of making presents for everyone - wrapping up rocks, leaves and textas to send/give to all his loved ones. He would post 10 packages a day if we let him.

The wild life in the Grampians was incredible - masses of wallabies and emus and birds. Despite the impressive array of wildlife we had seen in Tassie, we realised that we had missed the sounds of birds in the morning - screeching cockies, laughing kookaburras and singing magpies. We shared our campsite with numerous kangaroos - all of whom Sash and Zaz called 'Liberty or Death' (long story...) which may have slightly freaked out some of our fellow campers (all rugged up European couples in Juicy vans who were taken aback by the chilly weather).

Another Grampians highlight was the Halls Gap Zoo. We expected a few Australian animals on display but they had everything - particularly popular with the Kennojus clan were the little monkey things that look like Michael Jackson. Kids spend their pocket money on crystals from the giftshop - Sash lost his within 10 minutes.

After a lovely week, we headed to Lake Bolac for the annual Eel Festival - a celebration of the local community and particularly the area's Aboriginal heritage. And yes, we ate eel (yum!). There was music, art, food and lots of cool stuff for the kids. They had storytime, circus activities, kite making, furry creatures making and more. We discovered Korean potato twists - some new franchise where they make a twist of potato, deep fry it, then roll it in seasoning - so bad for us but soooo good - we could have eaten 100 of them but stopped at 5. There was a funny-guy doing his show and naturally Zara managed to get on stage. Sash tried to follow and had to be stopped! We met Jane and Sasha (who had kindly driven the landcruiser back to do a car swap) in Lake Bolac and they came back to Jimmy's Creek with us to camp for the night. It was lovely for us all to have them there if only briefly - and the kids were thrilled to have a bit of grandparent time before a long separation. Sash is still struggling to get his head around being away from Melbourne for such a long time - and often talks about when he next goes to Eltham to hang out with Jamu and Big Sash. We were thrilled to stock our fridges with lovely fresh produce from the Eltham garden - although we had to eat it all fast as we knew we were about to cross the SA border...

A massive effort to pack up because we had spread ourselves far and wide. But it was eventually done - thanks to child-distracting assistance from Jane and Sasha!