A day on the reef

Finally after living back in Cairns for the last ten(ish) months Sandy and I have made the effort to go on a reef trip.......why on earth did we wait???

Before boarding the crew take your photo, apparently this is so they know who is on board as there have been a case of people being left offshore (by other operators)

On board and ready to leave

My nephew, Rod, works for Reef Magic as their boss engineer so scored us some cheap tickets for a day trip which was going to include our first ever dive.  Sandy and I had both been a been afraid of trying to dive despite doing loads of snorkelling?

Still calm here

The trip out was a little rough and saw me, the self confessed sailing addict, feeling a little queazy but not nearly as bad as some of those around us, the sick bags we getting quite a workout.  It was a biggish high tide which allows the ocean swell to come over the top of the reef so it was a little rougher than normal.

The intent of the day is to tie the boat to a pontoon that is permanently moored out on Moore Reef.  Unfortunately when we arrived the swell caused the boat to surge against the pontoon with a quite a force and broke shackles and even a bollard off the boat.  A quite rethink saw us use another pontoon that was a little more sheltered so no great problem.

The pontoon we 'should' have used.

You can see the swell breaking on the reef but it wasn't breaking quite enough

The pontoon we couldn't use in the distance.

So stomach settled we got ourselves a wetsuit and jumped in the water for a snorkel.  Life is grand on the reef.  As the tide was on the way out the water smoothed and we had a great swim checking out the coral and fish.

Pontoon life

Our boat

After our snorkel and a spot of lunch we were called for our Introductory Dive.  This is were a dive instructor gives you a crash course in scuba gear and then escorts you under water for about 30minutes.  

The entrance to the dive platform

I absolutly loved it!!!!  It is an incredible feeling that made me regret not having done it before.  Kind of ironic that I grew up in Cairns and never went diving :)

Anyway off we went and Wally, a Giant Maori Wrasse, who normally frequents the original pontoon must have followed the boat over and came in time for use to have a pat.

Our very own 'ill tempered sea wrasse'

Swimming with the fish

He was a bloody big fish

We had a fantastic day and earnt a quiet beer for the trip home which thankfully was much smoother so there we no people throwing up all around us.

Reef Magic provided our magnificent experience today and we couldn't recommend them highly enough.

Thursday 8 July 2010 Rome to Cairns

Thursday 8 July 2010 Rome to Cairns (flight)

Phase Four

Well no one needs to be reminded how torturous a flight from Europe to Australia is.  The long and short of it; we flew Rome-Dubai-Brisbane-Cairns, over 20 hours flying and some time spent in airports and very little sleep.  But we are now here in sunny overcast Cairns, homeless, jobless but thankfully have family who kindly feed us and give us a roof over our head till we get on our feet.

Phase four complete 

Thank you to everyone that has provided comments & emails while on our travels, it was great to have that contact with home.  I guess all there is left to say is ‘watch this space’ for future adventures!

19 March 2010 Nannup to Busselton

19 March 2010 Nannup to Busselton 70km

Not much to say, day six of this leg of the tour and we were pretty glad that today we end up at sea level. We started at 80m elevation, undulated up to 145m then undulated back down to 0m into Busselton and the up hill components were not as nasty as the previous days.

We forgot to take any photos today so I'll put on off the campsite and me updating the blog

Now we have a couple of days off before we fly to London on Tuesday.

Thursday 18 March 2010 Fonty's Pool to Nannup

Thursday 18 March 2010 Fonty's Pool to Nannup 57km
The word of the day is 'undulation'.
Bit chilly during the night, had the beanie on to keep my head warm.  This does not bode well for our upcoming UK trip next week :)
Did the usual morning routine, made porridge, cups of tea, packed up........

.......hung out the washing.
Fifth day in a row of hills and my legs were letting me know, Sandy kept the pace on the front the whole day.....dont tell Aaron from Cyclezone.
We started with 7km of dirt road in chilly and still conditions

The dust took ages to settle in breathless conditions

Stopped on the way and had a look at...

One Tree Bridge

We arrived at Nannup and blew the budget on a hamburger.......you can only eat so much tinned tuna.

Wednesday 17 March 2010 Northcliffe to Fonty's Pool

Wednesday 17 March 2010 Northcliffe to Fonty's Pool 62km
What a great time with Maree and Ian (and Garth and Harrison, the little cuties).  Gladly drank the bottle of wine I'd been carrying for two days.  Woke up to a beautiful day although a bit chilly in the morning it climbed to a perfect riding temperature.  We were both a little nervous about todays ride as the previous three days were pretty tough but it turned out really well.
Northcliffe to Pemberton was nice, up and down but nice with not much traffic on the narrow road.



You can tell I found the 'video' option on our camera :)

More riding through forest

We make a point of getting right off the bitumin when there are oncoming cars or trucks.  Got to Pemberton and had a yummy devonshire tea at a cafe.

 Chatted to a cyclist from Perth who was most intrigued with the Rohloff hubs on our bikes.
From Pemby we headed to the back roads via Big Brook Dam and we hit the steepest hills of our trip so far.

Made lots of use of 1st gear today.  Big Brook Dam was great, we had a quick rinse off and then set off again with the road turning to dirt, and pretty steep dirt which saw us pushing our bikes up one of the first dirt hills.

Had a look at 'The Big Tree' (yep that's what it's called on the map) which is a big Karri tree.

A little further down the road we turned onto Big Tree Road and it looked pretty dodgy.  The grader had been through recently so the surface was very loose and the first hill was a beauty which meant more walking.  I got to the top and then went back down to help Sandy with her bike.  At this stage we had about 8km of this road and we were getting even mnore worried but all was OK as things leveled out a bit and the road surface became firmer.
Very glad to have the GPS today as the back roads on our paper map dont really match reality very much and at times we were concerned about where we were heading.  The GPS maps are crap but better than the paper ones we have.  By the way when there is mobile coverage the Google maps on the iPhone are better than the maps I paid lots of money for on the Garmin.
Anyway after a bloody hard slog we got to Fonty's Pool springing out of the bush onto the bitumin for the last four km to the caravan park.

The campsite at Fonty's

Had a swim and some well earnt snacks.

That's Sandy lounging in the pool

Tuesday 16 March 2010. Beedelup Falls to Northcliff

Tuesday 16 March 2010. Beedelup Falls to Northcliffe 44km
Not too many km but not one of them was flat.  As soon as it was light enough to see we quickly packed up and left our stealth camp site sharing a museli bar for breakfast.
We rode to the Bicentenial Tree, which is a bloody big karri tree, for our 'real' breakfast and as we rode in it was chilly and damp and very peaceful.

As we started unpacking the Trangia a ute drove in and the guy appologised for disturbing our peace.  "No worries" I say but then he tells us that they have 24 school kids on their way for breakfast.

We had a laugh and moved out of their way.  This was all good except they cooked bacon and eggs......luckily we had porridge :(
Now the point of this little trip to Northcliffe is to visit Maree and Ian.  All good except I had forgot to ring them to let them know we were coming.  As we left Busselton two days ago I remembered but by then we were out of mobile range so thought 'no problem, we can ring tomorrow'.  This was not to be as there was no mobile coverage until we got into Northcliffe!!  We rang Maree and apologised for the short notice :)

Monday 15 March 2010. Sues Bridge to Beedelup Falls

Monday 15 March 2010.  Sues Bridge to Beedelup Falls 76km

As we'd had a couple of weeks off from loaded touring, and no cycling at all for the last week, our legs were a bit sore this morning.  We packed up, filtered some more water and hit the road by 0800.  Nice cool morning but lots of hills so our sore legs did a bit of complaining :)  Now if I dont mention the March Flies anywhere in this story then please note that now.
We trundled down the last of Sues Road and about six loaded log trucks blasted past us going the opposite direction.  That they were on the other side of the road is good but we both knew that a loaded truck going one way turns into an unloaded truck going the other way and sure enough about an hour later they came so we kept a weather eye on our mirrors and got off the road if it looked dodgey.
We stopped every hour of so to have a stetch and a bite to eat.  At one stage we had a nice tailwind that saw our average speed creep up.  Lovely forest all around and no sign of human habitation anywhere.  The plan was to stop near the Donnelly River Winery to have lunch and buy Maree and Ian a bottle of wine.  As water has been a bit scarce we decided to cook our main meal at lunch so that we could stock up on water during the afternoon if the opportunity presented itself.

We had a yummy lunch and while we sat the bloody March flies were out-staying their welcome.  A lovely bottle of wine found it's way into our panneirs and off we set after scabbing a couple of bottle of water from the salesperson.

Did I mention the March Flys!!!!

On the map there was a little camping symbol at Beedelup Falls and it was only another 20ish km so off we went.  More hills and our legs werent not getting any fresher.  After finding the turn off to the falls and knowing we couldnt ride much further today we discovered a 'No Camping' sign!!!!!  The bush for miles around was too think to pitch the tent so we kept on to the falls car park to make the descision on where we would stay.

Very nice forest

We arrived both knackered and hungry and decided to wait until dark and just pitch the tent under one of the picnic shelters and hope the ranger doesnt come along.  As a token gesture we bought a $10 day park pass and had our story clear if the ranger did turn up but these little legs were not climbing the massive hill we rolled down to get into this place today, I'll worry about them in the morning.  The falls are right in the middle of the Karri forest and a Karri tree is a bloody big tree that photos do no justice.  As we sipped a warming cup of hot chocolate, beautiful wrens hopped around the bush next to the picnic table...very peaceful.

Gathering water for filtering

I sure hope tomorrow my legs improve as even though we only have 45ish km to get to Maree and Ian's I know there will be heaps of hills and because of the water problem we are carrying a few extra kg.
We waited on the picnic table for the visitors to leave trying not to look like we were going to stay the night but I'm sure it would have been pretty obvious.

Our stealth camp spot :)

Sunday 14 March Busselton to Sues Bridge

Sunday 14 March 2010. Busselton to Sues Bridge 65km
After a small delay we did the sums and worked out we could still squeeze in the trip to Northcliffe.  We were home from Perth in Busselton Saturday afternoon and hit the road Sunday morning via the corner store for some supplies.

What cycle tourist can 'not' stop at a bakery?

Unlike our cycle trip to date the clouds were out and it was a cool not quite crisp morning - perfect cycling weather. As for the ride we headed out towards Nannup, turning onto Sues Rd and just kept pedalling - a few undulations, jarrah forests and pine plantations.  We stopped at Sue's Bridge, a lovely bush camp along the Blackwood River, for a spot of lunch.  After consulting the map, assessing Gary's chaffing and the prospect of a bath in the river we decided to pitch the tent and stay the night.  We didnt realise when we left how remote this leg is so luckily we have a water filter and purification tablets as we had to get water from a dodgy tank.

Our camp site in the trees

The Blackwood river

Sues Bridge

Beef strog minus the beef, sour cream, onion....bloody beautiful

Pondering while off the bikes

We're in Perth on an errand for the next few days so no cycling for us.  While cruising my favourite cycling websites and blogs I came across this quote on the EcoVelo site:


"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."  Ernest Hemingway

Lunch at the Colonial Brewery

Norm was telling us about the Pork Ribs they serve at the Colonial Brewery and we just had to try them.  One condition I (Gary) put on this quietly was that I had to ride there in a vain attempt at balancing my current calorie intake and expenditure.
Norm tells me 'it's a 40km trip'.
'No problem' I say '40km round trip makes for a nice day with a lunch thrown in.
'40km each way' Norm retorts.
mmmm 80km round trip is a bit longer for a lunch but we'll be right as by now Sandy and Mary have both agreed to join me.
So off we set yesterday into a howling head wind and a steady climb from sea level to 130m.  We stop for a photo which we tried to set the camera on timer for but the wind kept blowing the canera over.

So we had to settle for me taking the shot.

Anyhow off we trundle into the wind, so much wind that riding up the hills (made worse by the wind) you cant even look forward to the downhill as on the up-side we are on the lee of the hill and as we crest the hill hits us at twice the speed and we have to peddle down the other side lest we slow to a crawl.

So after 2 1/2 hours we make it an average of about 17kph....hard work.

Lovely cool day which was the only nice thing that could be said for the southerly wind.

Beaut lunch and Norm's recommendation for the Pork Ribs was on the mark as they were spot-on. And if I wasn't riding home I would have enjoyed more than the one Pale Ale that I had....bloody beautiful.

This time we could get the camera timer to work without getting blown over.

Mary joined Norm in the car for the return trip so Sandy and I got to revel in the tail wind on the way home.  Our average spend nudged 25kph without too much effort which on our lovely Thorn touring bikes is not too bad.
Overall a pretty tough day on the bikes given that we've been a bit lazy lately but it felt great.

Still lazing around Busselton

No big news as we are still hanging out in Busso relaxing.  The only thing I'm concentrating on is carbo loading for the next leg of our trip :)

Lazy days in Busselton

Not very exciting travel journal at the moment as we are just hanging out at Busso in Kerry and Andrew's (Sandy's sister and bro in-law) house which is about 200m from the beach.

I went for a ride with the Geographe Over 50s Cycle Club on Monday as I thought I might at least be able to not get the pasting I received last time I rode with the Darwin guys. 

It turned out that it wasnt quite the relaxing pootle I planned and that the 'A1' group are all on serious road bikes.  The Thorn Raven Tour kept up but I was pretty pleased to get to the morning tea spot.

 Now these guys know how to hold a group ride.  I think the Darwin group need to follow this example and provide a suport car with tea and little sandwiches.

Anyway must dash as we are off to the beach again :)

Breakfast in Busso

Had a lovely breakfast at Goanna Gully this morning

 

  

Mary and Norm's place

Week off in Bussleton

We are spending the week in Bussleton so no trip stories for a bit.  Next week we will head to Northcliffe to see ian and Maree.

Bought a new camera yesterday so will be able to take shots again.

18/2/2010 Ferguson Valley to Bussleton

18/2/2010 Ferguson Valley to Bussleton 115km
Yes you read it right, 115km.  This wasnt the plan when we set off from the B&B we stayed at.  We wanted to get to Peppermint Grove Beach and stay the night in the caravan park which would have worked out to be about 80km.  The problem was that once we got to Peppermint Grove Beach the caravan park had closed down and there is nothing else but houses and a nice beach and Mary and Norm's place was only another 35(ish)km to go.

The weather forecast for the day was cooler than yesterday which was a great relief to us.  We woke up early and made breakfast and naturally because I (Gary) measured the oats we had enough for a complete prison breakfast.  A quick pack of the gear and off we went.  Not far down the road I'm hot and cant believe it.  I'm wearing a sun protection shirt, long sleeves, collar and a sort of heavy synthetic material.  I stopped and took it off and what a difference, almost chilly, so I rode along for a while without a shirt on.  Down the road a bit I put one of my light wool shirts on and was heaps better so I was feeling great.

Not far down the road was Gnomesville, a quaint spot where people donate and display their gnomes.

I arrived expecting a few gnomes around a picnic table but no, they were everywhere, had to be thousands of them some in elaborate displays.

The road we were on was single lane bitumen and winded it's way through the forest with hardly a car to be seen.  We could ride side by side chatting and admiring the views.  This was until we got to Lowden, which is no more than a shop, and turned onto a major road with not much of a shoulder.  Trucks roared by and we cowered each time.  10 km later we pulled into Donneybrook, a pretty little town famous for apple growing.  The first cafe/tea house we rode past had a sign for Devonshire Tea out the front so we pulled in and were treated to fantastic tea and fresh scones jam and cream.....yummy.

We stocked up on more lunch making stuff at the local supermarket and then headed off down a windy little road.  A couple of climbs but we must be getting our 'touring legs' because we felt pretty good even though in our lowest gear just spun up.  Fabulous ride, the forest we all around and little traffic.

Hit Capel after flying down a gently sloping straight and stopped to fill up water bottles.

 

We then headed to Peppermint Grove Beach were as I mentioned at the start didnt have any facilities.  What it does have is a lovely beach

 

and after some very hot days we locked up the bikes and went for a swim.  Very nice.  We than ate some more (seem to be doing alot of that on this trip) and decided to push onto to Bussleton.

Apart from a punishing headwind in places it was a pretty good ride although I think our legs had had enough by the time we got to Mary and Norm's.

18/2/2010 Harvey to Ferguson Valley

18/2/2010 Harvey to Ferguson Valley 64km

Had a camera failure so had to use the phone until we buy a new camera

Reluctently left Anthea and Justin after they spoilt us with an amazing bacon and egg breakfast.  The morning was cool and once we got going we felt pretty good and that showed in our average speed.  It was beautiful riding the back roads from Harvey and there was the slighest hint of a tailwind which was the first time of the trip so far so we felt great.  As we headed down the south west highway we felt great but the temperature was rising.
Today's plan would see us hit the hills for the first time and the first climb was 130m over a few km which tested our legs.  Unfortunatly we met this hill (and the subsequant ones) with increasing temperature and as you climb you lose your apparent wind so we swealtered in 34ish deg C.  Despite the temperature we both felt pretty good on the climb although we both used our lowest gear so maybe I should have spec'd the bikes with lower gearing :)
We stopped for lunch at the Ferguson Valler town hall under the shade of a gum tree as by then we were both very hot.  The thought of continuing on dampening our spirits.  It was a bit unfortunate that the route we chose didnt really have anywhere we could camp so we plugged on.  It wasnt far down the road that we faced more climbs and more heat and we had already covered 55km and the prospect of another 30km to Donneybrook started to seem like a dumb idea.  As we rode along we saw a sign advertising a 'Retreat' so we had a quick discussion on the road and knocked on the door.  A nice mad came out and after enquiring if we just wanted a room suggested he might be a bit expensive at $275 and he was right.  He then rang a mate down the road who was closed but would give us a room in his B&B.  After receiving some quick directions we headed off.  What this bloke failed to mention was the 500m dirt road that was too steep to ride up so we had to push our bikes.  Very hot, very tired, very sore we knocked on the door of the B&B and took a room at $160!!!  Desperate times call for desperate measures so we paid the price as the prospect of a bush camp with no water in the searing heat did not sound like a good alternative.
We had showers and lounged around in the cool room and ate the complimentary Tim Tams with a cup of tea....life was good again.
Cooked our Thai curry on the Trangia outside our room and settled in for the night.  Tomorrow we head back toward the coast hoping to reach Peppermint Beach.  Hopefully the weather forecast is correct and temperatures will be a bit cooler.

17/2/2010 Waroona - Harvey

17/2/2010 Waroona - Harvey 34km
South West highway from Waroona to Yaloop 

 

then back roads to Harvey. 

 

Cross winds most of the way and not too hot. Not long before we got to Anthea and Justin's we had to knock our speed down to 40 for road works

 

Just after the 40 sign there was a detour sign with two choices so we had to ring Anthea to check which one was quickest.  She led us down a beautiful little dirt lane

We arrived at Anthea and Justin's idealic country house. 

 

We had a great time catching up and playing with their beautiful kids wandering around the orchid and eating lots of fantastic home cooked food.  After a couple of beers Justin suggested we go and get some of their wine made from their own grapes.  We grabbed torches and headed off to the big shed.  I'm not much of a wine reviewer but that one we could have run our Trangia stove on!!
Dinner was amazing and Justin cooked a self-saucing pudding in their new slow cooker...very nice indeed and much need calorie replacement.