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| Denmark |
Monday, February 23, 2009
Greetings From Denmark - Journal
Greetings from Denmark, in the heart of The Great Southern, W.A!
In short, it’s a cute little river town, where the forest meets the sea. We were very excited to be returning here as it is such a beautiful place with much of the coastal scenery comprising imposing headlands, rugged coastlines and giant granite boulders, whales (in season) plus also sheltered caves, rock-pools and tranquil coves. Away from the coast there are a great deal of other stunning wilderness areas and national parks to explore, not to mention some fantastic walking to be had in the beautiful forests of karri, marri, jarrah and red tingle – or along the Denmark section of the 964km Bibulmum Track (one of the world’s greatest long-distance walking tracks). And if all that weren’t enough, there’s still the lush vineyards and pretty rolling farmland to give you that “feel good” feeling that we have found Denmark to be so good at!
So, all of that Great Outdoors to be active in………and yet we have been pretty inactive compared to the last time we were here but I think back then we did practically everything there was to do anyway, so it’s not like we are missing out now! That said, Gordon did manage a paddle down the river from our campsite into town, I managed a lovely walk into town and back along the river, and we are keeping the training sessions going! Mostly though, I have read, slept or wrote and whenever I have been doing that, Gordon has seen fit to take his beers and fishing rod over to the river! All very laid-back really!
Foodie highlights – all this eating and yet, remarkably, losing weight???!
We’re still eating well and enjoying discovering what’s good to eat around here – but then what else would you expect of us?! Generally speaking, the gourmet food trail here will take you to local fudges and toffees, berries, honey, preserves and cheeses and also brilliant hobby-farm meat farmers (near enough organic as they only supply local shops). In particular though, we have been feasting on the freshest of local produce – either caught that day or hand-picked that day! Notable highlights have included us gorging on amazingly sweet organic blueberries
- blueberries have always been a bit of a non-event for me until I ate these ones - boy I never knew they could taste like that, bursting with so much flavour as they were! Also, local organic salad leaves (again, never eaten leaves that tasted and smelt so fresh nor eaten such a variety of unusual salad leaves – even had bright pink pansy flowers in there); native bush-tucker “Warragul Greens” (like spinach but much tastier and a more vivid deep yet bright green colour); fabulous local and super-fresh free-range eggs; fresh fish caught out of the river about 3 hours before we ate it (see Gordy’s story below!); and for Gordon, a couple of pies from our favourite multi-award winning bakery; and for me, some rather fantastic dark orange chocolate to go with my “wine o’clock” on a couple of days! There has of course also been the odd sampling or two of wines from the region, not to mention the stocking up on our favourite local (and home-made) tomato relish from Old Kent Farm – to die for! In short, life is still good!
Camp notes – sunrises, scary bras, new species of “Stinker” and more funny northerner’s
We’ve been staying at a campsite where the river-mouth meets Wilson’s Inlet which is W.A’s largest navigable waterway. It has been very tranquil living indeed and still just what we need for the gradual unwinding of life in Perth. Our rig is just yards from both the river on one side (entrance into the campsite), the inlet on the other, and then the surrounding perimeter trees at the back of the park. This campsite – not to mention Denmark itself – has a very different “vibe” to Yallingup. You see, in spite of it’s relative “cruisiness”, Yallingup still served up energetic, pounding surf and a greater percentage of more active and younger people whilst here in Denmark, you’ve got the tranquil river and inlet that just gently loll and lick and lap their way through the day and the people here generally seem to be an older, knowing-each-other crowd of average age 60! The men seem to be hobby fishermen who leave early in the morning in their little tinny boats to try their luck with their bait, whilst the women (many of them of the larger variety) stay either asleep, do laundry, read books all day or amble around wearing strange sarong things that has had me wondering aloud more than once as to what the hell they have wrapped round them…and to which Gordon retorts “not enough!” LOL!
So, whilst it’s very pleasant camp living here, in many respects it does seem to be less eventful. Everyone seems to be law-abiding citizens in bed by 10 (albeit watching their T.V’s from inside their caravans), there aren’t even any phantom stinkers in the toilets to report on and there’s certainly no need of mozzie patrol here. That said, I have still had to do a “toilet patrol” of another kind - this time it is more to do with the rather too many and oversized “boulder-holder bra’s” all flapping in the wind on the washing line by the toilet door, threatening to come and smother me with their huge brown, dirty grey or faded pink cups on any given day (the pertinent question of course, is WHO do they all belong to…..and, more importantly, should this person or persons come to collect them next time I happen to be walking to the loo, WHERE are my nearest escape routes??! Gulp!)
Both Gordon and I have discovered a NEW stinker-species here! This variety comes in the form of a woman who belongs to the caravan behind us and who keeps walking past our “front door” to get to wherever. The problem is you smell her before she sets off and by the time she’s drawn parallel to our tent, she’s practically knocked us both out cold with her rather vile and overly sweet perfume! Of course, we sit there and smile politely (as is camp-neighbor fashion, “nice day for it” etc!) and then positively gag the minute her back is turned! This carry on happens a number of times during the day and we can only assume that she piles so much of it on to disguise the fishy smell of her husband??! It’s a shame, as I am sure she’s a very nice lady underneath the noxious fume-cloud that goes with her – it’s just that we’ll never be able to breathe in enough oxygen in her presence to ever really get to know her and be that socially adventurous! Ho hum….
Having said camp-life is all quite uneventful here, I am now rather sad that we will be leaving tomorrow, because as I sit here writing this blog, a “potentially-very-entertaining” caravan has just moved in beside us this afternoon, containing two couples from Cleethorpes in the UK – MORE BLOODY NORTHERNERS! Much to my disdain, they frenetically descended upon me in my recliner during my rather relaxing “wine-o’clock” and you’d have thought they were going to be reversing a 10 tone-truck into the space the way all four of them did the site survey and mapping out of their small space - “we’ve got a bit that pops out” was the only explanation they proffered us, met by suppressed giggles on our part (well, it WAS wine-o’clock!”) For a second there, I feared that my doormat would very much be encroached upon but they stayed within MY boundaries and then, with the thing firmly ensconced in its spot, they went from being annoyingly frenetic to annoyingly faffing, all the while of course still being the unwitting purveyors of much comedic farce for us, the “pretending-not-to-be” onlookers!. We were, for example, quite bemused as to why they arranged all the outdoor chairs in a line in front of the fridge (did it turn into a TV we wondered?), especially since said fridge only seemed to contain one bottle of champagne, one bottle of beer, 2 bottles of soft drink, one salad and one tin of baked beans! But we decided to be gracious in the end and overlook some of their lesser qualities (i.e. poorly stocked fridge, coming from Cleethorpes, being supporters of Hull City football team etc) to focus instead on some of their more admirable qualities - one of which we found encapsulated in the line “don’t lose the beer, that’s the main thing”, spoken in all seriousness when something looked like it was going to fall over during set-up! Maybe it is a shame we won’t have time to get to know them!
Denmark and sunrise – meets Caroline “the Twitcher”
You don’t get the sun setting over the water in Denmark but if you can be arsed getting up early, you can witness some wonderful sunrises and Denmark does a rather fabulous sunrise that’s for sure! It all kicks off with the kookaburras almost chimpanzee-like wake-up call, that ricochets from the trees onto every tent and caravan roof in the park, just as the night-time stars are on their final farewell and the new moon still visible. That’s when I leave Gordon extremely cocooned in our lovely warm and cuddly bed, rug up for the cool but still air, grab the camera and walk the few steps over to the river and inlet for some quality trance-time! Once the kookaburras have announced themselves it’s really like a symphony then begins. First up there’s this monotone – yet paradoxically lovely and shrill - “pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew” from the surrounding trees, which seems to provide the consistent background for all the other birds, species by species, to “come in on cue”….as if being led in by some conductor only visible to them. Amongst these, the currawongs in the trees are my favourite, with their deep-throated and richly melodious warbling echoing beautifully around the campsite. The sweet little murmuring ducks on the water are rather cute too though!
This fantastic soundtrack then, along with the distant rumble of a lone fisherman’s boat, is what accompanies me as I gaze out onto the glassy river and inlet, camera in hand, observing the sheer abundance of birdlife and activity on the water whilst waiting for the egg-yolky sunrise to remind my belly it’s breakfast time! And for the record, no, I am sure I do NOT stalk, even though Gordon has now nicknamed me the “Twitcher” – but it is true there are some great photo opportunities and you can get positively lost in all that gazing at beautiful reflections and at birds that are initially blacked-out in silhouette but then gradually brought to life by the rising sun – it’s one of the best ways to be “in the now” that I know of! And take your pick for “twitching” opportunities too because on this inlet and river you have it all! Cormorants and geese fly in from all directions, as if the inlet were a busy airport; swans glide silently in procession further out on the water; herons wade just nearby; pelicans bob out on the water and feed (and when their beaks open at that time of the morning, I could swear they are yawning!); and seagulls sit closer in on the water, their black silhouettes transforming them into funny Chinese paper sailing boats! Of all of these birds though, it is the pelicans that are my absolute favourite and to see them fly is truly awesome. They can look like a massive and ancient Terradactyl when they flap their wings high in the air, yet when they have their wings simply still and outstretched, quietly soaring or just skimming the water coming in to land, they seem to combine grace and beauty on the one hand with, as Gordon accurately pointed out, all the precision flying control and stability of a 747 - the merest tilt here and there of their wings positioning them for a textbook smooth landing. It’s really quite something to watch – as is sunrise in Denmark!
Gordon’s tale of the 2-beer fish
On this trip I’ve decided I’d like to try a bit of fishing every now and then. However, this isn’t a pastime I know all that much about, there seems to be so much to know – what hooks, sinkers, lures, bait, where to fish, what time to fish how to cast etc, etc, etc. My idea of fishing is to find a nice spot by a river or on a beach, park my bum, throw out a line, have a couple of beers and chill out for a couple of hours. Then, when I’ve finished, wander back to the campsite (empty-handed) and cook the steak we bought that morning. And this was exactly the plan a couple of days ago when I wandered out of the entrance of the campsite and walked the 10 yards across the way to a nice grassy patch by the river, just near where it enters the main inlet. I’d sought the advice of various ‘experienced fishermen’ during the day on where they suggested I could try – they suggested a number of locations which required way too much effort to get to, so the grassy patch opposite the campsite entrance it was.
After a little while tying a hook and a sinker on (in a way that looked like it had some chance of not falling off as soon as I cast my line out), I then baited the hook and cast out a short distance from the bank, laid back on the grass and enjoyed the sunshine. A short while later I reckoned it was time to instigate Phase 2 of my fishing plan – open a beer! After the first sip I placed it carefully on the grass and lay back again to watch the Pelicans and other birds on the river (while still holding the fishing rod of course). Then all of a sudden the rod jerked violently and the line started whizzing off the reel! It was such a shock, I really wasn’t expecting this and it took me a little while to think what I should do – ah yes, start trying to reel the thing in! By this time it had made a beeline for the roots of one the paper bark trees growing half in and half out of the water. Luckily it didn’t get all tangled up in there and after a while I managed to reel it close to the bank, and I could see that it was quite a good sized fish. I thought it was a Snapper, but I was later informed it was a big Black Bream (I told you I don’t know much about this fishing mullarky). I carefully raised it out of the water and onto my little grassy patch, removed the hook and put the fish in a bag with some water in it.
After the shock and commotion had died down I realized in landing the fish my beer had been spilled – with just one sip having been taken (not happy)! Anyway I decide to get back to fishing and with the same process as before I baited the hook, cast out, opened my other beer, had a sip and placed it carefully down and resumed my lounging position watching the birds on the river. My fish in the bag obviously figured this would be a good time to make a break for it. It began flapping around in its bag and started sliding down the grassy slope, quickly heading back to the river. I made a desperate lunge for the bag and managed to catch it just before the fish had made good its escape. After securing the fish and the bag I realized that my other beer had been spilled – again with only a sip having been taken!
By this time Caroline had come over and a number of people had come to see what I’d caught and I was starting to lose interest in this fishing thing. I think it would have been cheaper to go down the shop and buy some bloody fish!! We had the fish for dinner that night though, and it was very nice indeed.
And that it the Tale of the 2-Beer Fish
.
PS: I haven’t caught anything since.
In short, it’s a cute little river town, where the forest meets the sea. We were very excited to be returning here as it is such a beautiful place with much of the coastal scenery comprising imposing headlands, rugged coastlines and giant granite boulders, whales (in season) plus also sheltered caves, rock-pools and tranquil coves. Away from the coast there are a great deal of other stunning wilderness areas and national parks to explore, not to mention some fantastic walking to be had in the beautiful forests of karri, marri, jarrah and red tingle – or along the Denmark section of the 964km Bibulmum Track (one of the world’s greatest long-distance walking tracks). And if all that weren’t enough, there’s still the lush vineyards and pretty rolling farmland to give you that “feel good” feeling that we have found Denmark to be so good at!
So, all of that Great Outdoors to be active in………and yet we have been pretty inactive compared to the last time we were here but I think back then we did practically everything there was to do anyway, so it’s not like we are missing out now! That said, Gordon did manage a paddle down the river from our campsite into town, I managed a lovely walk into town and back along the river, and we are keeping the training sessions going! Mostly though, I have read, slept or wrote and whenever I have been doing that, Gordon has seen fit to take his beers and fishing rod over to the river! All very laid-back really!
Foodie highlights – all this eating and yet, remarkably, losing weight???!
We’re still eating well and enjoying discovering what’s good to eat around here – but then what else would you expect of us?! Generally speaking, the gourmet food trail here will take you to local fudges and toffees, berries, honey, preserves and cheeses and also brilliant hobby-farm meat farmers (near enough organic as they only supply local shops). In particular though, we have been feasting on the freshest of local produce – either caught that day or hand-picked that day! Notable highlights have included us gorging on amazingly sweet organic blueberries
- blueberries have always been a bit of a non-event for me until I ate these ones - boy I never knew they could taste like that, bursting with so much flavour as they were! Also, local organic salad leaves (again, never eaten leaves that tasted and smelt so fresh nor eaten such a variety of unusual salad leaves – even had bright pink pansy flowers in there); native bush-tucker “Warragul Greens” (like spinach but much tastier and a more vivid deep yet bright green colour); fabulous local and super-fresh free-range eggs; fresh fish caught out of the river about 3 hours before we ate it (see Gordy’s story below!); and for Gordon, a couple of pies from our favourite multi-award winning bakery; and for me, some rather fantastic dark orange chocolate to go with my “wine o’clock” on a couple of days! There has of course also been the odd sampling or two of wines from the region, not to mention the stocking up on our favourite local (and home-made) tomato relish from Old Kent Farm – to die for! In short, life is still good!
Camp notes – sunrises, scary bras, new species of “Stinker” and more funny northerner’s
We’ve been staying at a campsite where the river-mouth meets Wilson’s Inlet which is W.A’s largest navigable waterway. It has been very tranquil living indeed and still just what we need for the gradual unwinding of life in Perth. Our rig is just yards from both the river on one side (entrance into the campsite), the inlet on the other, and then the surrounding perimeter trees at the back of the park. This campsite – not to mention Denmark itself – has a very different “vibe” to Yallingup. You see, in spite of it’s relative “cruisiness”, Yallingup still served up energetic, pounding surf and a greater percentage of more active and younger people whilst here in Denmark, you’ve got the tranquil river and inlet that just gently loll and lick and lap their way through the day and the people here generally seem to be an older, knowing-each-other crowd of average age 60! The men seem to be hobby fishermen who leave early in the morning in their little tinny boats to try their luck with their bait, whilst the women (many of them of the larger variety) stay either asleep, do laundry, read books all day or amble around wearing strange sarong things that has had me wondering aloud more than once as to what the hell they have wrapped round them…and to which Gordon retorts “not enough!” LOL!
So, whilst it’s very pleasant camp living here, in many respects it does seem to be less eventful. Everyone seems to be law-abiding citizens in bed by 10 (albeit watching their T.V’s from inside their caravans), there aren’t even any phantom stinkers in the toilets to report on and there’s certainly no need of mozzie patrol here. That said, I have still had to do a “toilet patrol” of another kind - this time it is more to do with the rather too many and oversized “boulder-holder bra’s” all flapping in the wind on the washing line by the toilet door, threatening to come and smother me with their huge brown, dirty grey or faded pink cups on any given day (the pertinent question of course, is WHO do they all belong to…..and, more importantly, should this person or persons come to collect them next time I happen to be walking to the loo, WHERE are my nearest escape routes??! Gulp!)
Both Gordon and I have discovered a NEW stinker-species here! This variety comes in the form of a woman who belongs to the caravan behind us and who keeps walking past our “front door” to get to wherever. The problem is you smell her before she sets off and by the time she’s drawn parallel to our tent, she’s practically knocked us both out cold with her rather vile and overly sweet perfume! Of course, we sit there and smile politely (as is camp-neighbor fashion, “nice day for it” etc!) and then positively gag the minute her back is turned! This carry on happens a number of times during the day and we can only assume that she piles so much of it on to disguise the fishy smell of her husband??! It’s a shame, as I am sure she’s a very nice lady underneath the noxious fume-cloud that goes with her – it’s just that we’ll never be able to breathe in enough oxygen in her presence to ever really get to know her and be that socially adventurous! Ho hum….
Having said camp-life is all quite uneventful here, I am now rather sad that we will be leaving tomorrow, because as I sit here writing this blog, a “potentially-very-entertaining” caravan has just moved in beside us this afternoon, containing two couples from Cleethorpes in the UK – MORE BLOODY NORTHERNERS! Much to my disdain, they frenetically descended upon me in my recliner during my rather relaxing “wine-o’clock” and you’d have thought they were going to be reversing a 10 tone-truck into the space the way all four of them did the site survey and mapping out of their small space - “we’ve got a bit that pops out” was the only explanation they proffered us, met by suppressed giggles on our part (well, it WAS wine-o’clock!”) For a second there, I feared that my doormat would very much be encroached upon but they stayed within MY boundaries and then, with the thing firmly ensconced in its spot, they went from being annoyingly frenetic to annoyingly faffing, all the while of course still being the unwitting purveyors of much comedic farce for us, the “pretending-not-to-be” onlookers!. We were, for example, quite bemused as to why they arranged all the outdoor chairs in a line in front of the fridge (did it turn into a TV we wondered?), especially since said fridge only seemed to contain one bottle of champagne, one bottle of beer, 2 bottles of soft drink, one salad and one tin of baked beans! But we decided to be gracious in the end and overlook some of their lesser qualities (i.e. poorly stocked fridge, coming from Cleethorpes, being supporters of Hull City football team etc) to focus instead on some of their more admirable qualities - one of which we found encapsulated in the line “don’t lose the beer, that’s the main thing”, spoken in all seriousness when something looked like it was going to fall over during set-up! Maybe it is a shame we won’t have time to get to know them!
Denmark and sunrise – meets Caroline “the Twitcher”
You don’t get the sun setting over the water in Denmark but if you can be arsed getting up early, you can witness some wonderful sunrises and Denmark does a rather fabulous sunrise that’s for sure! It all kicks off with the kookaburras almost chimpanzee-like wake-up call, that ricochets from the trees onto every tent and caravan roof in the park, just as the night-time stars are on their final farewell and the new moon still visible. That’s when I leave Gordon extremely cocooned in our lovely warm and cuddly bed, rug up for the cool but still air, grab the camera and walk the few steps over to the river and inlet for some quality trance-time! Once the kookaburras have announced themselves it’s really like a symphony then begins. First up there’s this monotone – yet paradoxically lovely and shrill - “pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew” from the surrounding trees, which seems to provide the consistent background for all the other birds, species by species, to “come in on cue”….as if being led in by some conductor only visible to them. Amongst these, the currawongs in the trees are my favourite, with their deep-throated and richly melodious warbling echoing beautifully around the campsite. The sweet little murmuring ducks on the water are rather cute too though!
This fantastic soundtrack then, along with the distant rumble of a lone fisherman’s boat, is what accompanies me as I gaze out onto the glassy river and inlet, camera in hand, observing the sheer abundance of birdlife and activity on the water whilst waiting for the egg-yolky sunrise to remind my belly it’s breakfast time! And for the record, no, I am sure I do NOT stalk, even though Gordon has now nicknamed me the “Twitcher” – but it is true there are some great photo opportunities and you can get positively lost in all that gazing at beautiful reflections and at birds that are initially blacked-out in silhouette but then gradually brought to life by the rising sun – it’s one of the best ways to be “in the now” that I know of! And take your pick for “twitching” opportunities too because on this inlet and river you have it all! Cormorants and geese fly in from all directions, as if the inlet were a busy airport; swans glide silently in procession further out on the water; herons wade just nearby; pelicans bob out on the water and feed (and when their beaks open at that time of the morning, I could swear they are yawning!); and seagulls sit closer in on the water, their black silhouettes transforming them into funny Chinese paper sailing boats! Of all of these birds though, it is the pelicans that are my absolute favourite and to see them fly is truly awesome. They can look like a massive and ancient Terradactyl when they flap their wings high in the air, yet when they have their wings simply still and outstretched, quietly soaring or just skimming the water coming in to land, they seem to combine grace and beauty on the one hand with, as Gordon accurately pointed out, all the precision flying control and stability of a 747 - the merest tilt here and there of their wings positioning them for a textbook smooth landing. It’s really quite something to watch – as is sunrise in Denmark!
Gordon’s tale of the 2-beer fish
On this trip I’ve decided I’d like to try a bit of fishing every now and then. However, this isn’t a pastime I know all that much about, there seems to be so much to know – what hooks, sinkers, lures, bait, where to fish, what time to fish how to cast etc, etc, etc. My idea of fishing is to find a nice spot by a river or on a beach, park my bum, throw out a line, have a couple of beers and chill out for a couple of hours. Then, when I’ve finished, wander back to the campsite (empty-handed) and cook the steak we bought that morning. And this was exactly the plan a couple of days ago when I wandered out of the entrance of the campsite and walked the 10 yards across the way to a nice grassy patch by the river, just near where it enters the main inlet. I’d sought the advice of various ‘experienced fishermen’ during the day on where they suggested I could try – they suggested a number of locations which required way too much effort to get to, so the grassy patch opposite the campsite entrance it was.
After a little while tying a hook and a sinker on (in a way that looked like it had some chance of not falling off as soon as I cast my line out), I then baited the hook and cast out a short distance from the bank, laid back on the grass and enjoyed the sunshine. A short while later I reckoned it was time to instigate Phase 2 of my fishing plan – open a beer! After the first sip I placed it carefully on the grass and lay back again to watch the Pelicans and other birds on the river (while still holding the fishing rod of course). Then all of a sudden the rod jerked violently and the line started whizzing off the reel! It was such a shock, I really wasn’t expecting this and it took me a little while to think what I should do – ah yes, start trying to reel the thing in! By this time it had made a beeline for the roots of one the paper bark trees growing half in and half out of the water. Luckily it didn’t get all tangled up in there and after a while I managed to reel it close to the bank, and I could see that it was quite a good sized fish. I thought it was a Snapper, but I was later informed it was a big Black Bream (I told you I don’t know much about this fishing mullarky). I carefully raised it out of the water and onto my little grassy patch, removed the hook and put the fish in a bag with some water in it.
After the shock and commotion had died down I realized in landing the fish my beer had been spilled – with just one sip having been taken (not happy)! Anyway I decide to get back to fishing and with the same process as before I baited the hook, cast out, opened my other beer, had a sip and placed it carefully down and resumed my lounging position watching the birds on the river. My fish in the bag obviously figured this would be a good time to make a break for it. It began flapping around in its bag and started sliding down the grassy slope, quickly heading back to the river. I made a desperate lunge for the bag and managed to catch it just before the fish had made good its escape. After securing the fish and the bag I realized that my other beer had been spilled – again with only a sip having been taken!
By this time Caroline had come over and a number of people had come to see what I’d caught and I was starting to lose interest in this fishing thing. I think it would have been cheaper to go down the shop and buy some bloody fish!! We had the fish for dinner that night though, and it was very nice indeed.
And that it the Tale of the 2-Beer Fish
.
PS: I haven’t caught anything since.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Greetings From Yallingup
Greetings from Yallingup – our “recovery holiday” destination!
Greetings from Yallingup, on the S.W. coast of the Margaret River wine region! And for all our Pommie readers who haven’t been here before (in which case “Where the bloody hell are you????!”), then Yallingup is home to sun, beaches and world-class surf, whales and dolphins, forests and caves, top notch wineries and breweries, luxury spa retreats, artisan galleries and woodcrafts, wonderful deli’s and GREAT food (including all the infamous “try-before-you-buy” samplings you can do round the region in any given day or period of time you are here: wine tastings, beer tastings, coffee tastings, icecream tastings, fruit tastings, chutneys/preserves/oil tastings, chocolate tastings….and the list goes on!)
So, this was our first pit stop - the 2 ½ wk “recovery holiday” before the real trip begins - and I guess mostly what we have been doing is relaxing and being just a bit active (instead of our usual being very active and just a bit of relaxing that we used to do in Perth!). We have been waiting for the Big Crash from each of us, the Big Wind-Down in rather spectacular fashion, but we have been here 2 weeks already and there has been no sign of that. Happy to report our new bed is very comfy indeed and feels very luxurious with the deluxe sheepskin underlay. The camper-trailer set-up overall works really well for us, quite the home-from-home! Our BBQ/oven works a treat, the ladder from bed seems easy enough to negotiate at night (though neither of us has done it drunk yet!), there seems to be massive amounts of room in both of the fridges, and the table and chairs in the annexe-tent double up nicely as eating table and study table for doing our blog/internet etc – in short, it all seems to be working just fine.
Feeding our faces!
We have been eating really well and just loving the top quality produce here. It’s a joy to prepare each meal and I have to say, whilst I used heaps of fresh ingredients when in Perth, now we seem to be having one or two key ingredients in each meal and sort of letting them speak for themselves more, rather than putting too much of anything else in to overcrowd that. I am enjoying cooking more in this way and more working out what to eat each day based on what looks good when we go “shopping”. There is a local farmer who comes 2x a week to sell his produce - all of which is half the price of Perth and a billion times the flavour. He parks in the little car-park up the hill that overlooks the campsite and the ocean (as does a mobile coffee van which Gordon has seen fit to support rather regularly!). We have been feasting on deep purple and juicy plums, soft and rosy nectarines, beautifully fragrant mangoes, crisp apples, the most vibrantly red capsicums, really flavorful tomatoes and amazingly sweet squash and corn on the cob….and then just supplementing his things with lots of varied salad stuff from Dunsborough. Have also been patronizing the local Cowaramup butcher who does fantastic maple-cured organic bacon rashers, which, together with the organic Margaret River eggs down here too, made for a pretty amazing brekkie on the day that we did it - cooked on our BBQ and eaten in the fresh ocean air of Yallingup! Unbeatable! Yallingup’s other indulgence for me has to be its biodynamic and hand-crafted artisan bread, baked in a genuine wood-fired, volcanic stone oven and with no hidden/crap ingredients whatsoever. Now I try not to do too much bread but THIS bread goes amazingly crisp when toasted, yet retains an almost “crumpet-like” springiness and softness when you bite into it – just add butter and marmalade into all those indents and I am in heaven!
Swapped Fitness First gym for exercise in the great outdoors!
Not a huge amount of routine to our days really - perhaps the only thing we do have a bit of a routine around is our “set” exercise training 3x a week and I’m OK with that because the core-body work we are doing there will enable us top sit for hours on end doing these long car trips and also be even more active with kayaking and walking, all without injury to the back. Still spins me out that we have swapped a gym for training in the great outdoors overlooking the ocean but it’s just another example of the freedom we have been trying to create, now being there for us to enjoy. (and for those of you who are curious - along with a 65cm fit ball, a foam roller, a yoga mat and 2kg and 4kg weights- balls, our main piece of core-body workout equipment is the Ultimate Instrument, which we can use on swings, the car door or branch of a tree…..anywhere! It is bloody brilliant and we can train every part of our body using all the core muscles at the same time – when we have finished the initial programme our trainer has given us, he will write a new one with computer-video link up for us to see how to do the new programme etc…..and so we will travel round Australia getting fitter and stronger ).
Camp-life at Yallingup – mornings, people-watching, shower and loo shenanigans, TV replacement
Well, we wake up in the morning listening to the ocean, on some mornings the wind, and on all mornings to “breakfast F.M” (courtesy of the birds who twitter in the tree that overhangs the tent and of the 30-40 galahs that feed on the grass alongside our tent window) (and again, for all you Pommie readers who don’t know, galahs are rather raucous, pink-breasted and dove-grey cockatoos, who much to my amusement, seem to walk around on the backs of their heels, crest up their head feathers often and do their loud “chupp chup!” call). It’s not long after getting up that a veritable Mexican Wave of BBQ sausages, sizzling bacon and eggs and fresh toast smells start wafting around the whole campsite (how we have managed to stay eating fresh fruit and yoghurt (biodynamic and homogenized, Paul!!!) most mornings, with just a bit of Yallingup toast, defies belief really!). So, mornings smell absolutely heavenly here.
We have been out and about a bit in Margaret River region overall (walking, coffee tasting, winery on Valentines Day, our favourite brewery etc) but having had many weekends here in the past, we know the area pretty well, so our stay here has been less to do with “sightseeing’ and more to do with just chilling out. I have thoroughly enjoyed not having to blow-dry my hair or put on make-up and we have been amusing ourselves some days forgetting what day it was! Our most immediate “neighbours” have the same rig as us, farmers from the northern wheat-belt of W.A (with a really cute 18month old boy called Dustin, who has mild downs, boy, what a smile he had, I was in love!) – we got on really well with them (chats over the washing line or the communal water tap!) and ended up having a great and very funny night with them on their last night. Also made friends with a long-timer here at Yallingup, 75 year old Peter, Swiss-born Aussie who wanted to get out of Switzerland so much that he went to the library to see what other places there were to migrate to, started with A and found Alaska…..loved the pioneering history but they said there was a 2 year waiting list….no way was he waiting that long, so he then arrived at A for Australia, same pioneering history and attitude of the people and they COULD take him and so here he has been ever since! A very interesting guy with all sorts of interesting tales to tell – and a bloody good sport too, seeing as how on Valentines Day when we ran out of wine, he agreed to drive me back up to the winery,10 mins before it closed, so I could get some more! A bit cheeky of me, when you consider I had only met him the day before but for his part, now that’s what I call Aussie spirit!
We have had some amusing “people-watching” moments here – including a family of out and out Scousers who had the cabin behind us for a few nights. They were pale-white and overweight people with full-on accents and cackling laughs, who only ever seemed to move very slowly from car door to cabin door, armed every single time with more and more supplies of crisps and Pepsi Max. The father was a hoot, being very anal about cleaning his car EVERY DAY and had even brought an ACTUAL HOOVER to do so! Other amusing people-watching moments have of course also included watching the newcomers putting up their tents and us, from the comfort of our campchairs and a beer in hand, guessing on a scale of 1-10 where each couple were on the about-to-have-a-row syndrome!
Showers and loo-times have proven to be rather entertaining too. For me, shower-time is “Mozzie-Patrol” time, which I feel I already have off to a fine art - armed as I am, with my can of “kill the bastards” spray and guerilla-warfare tactics (i.e. bashing the shower curtain around a bit to see what flies out, spraying them when they do and, for a minute or so, standing “on-guard” waiting for any others to come try their luck. When I have ascertained that the coast is clear - which usually synchronizes with me not being able to breathe for the cloud of fumes I have just sent up into the cubicle - then showering may commence, though of course mozzie patrol is still ongoing even when showering has started!). My very good colleague did hypnosis with me prior to my leaving Perth, so that I would not be afraid of bugs and insects – I distinctly remember him saying that they were more afraid of me than I was of them, and, on reflection, when they see me coming into the shower room armed with my killer spray, they just might indeed be going “Oh shit here she comes again - run!” LOL! But showers are not just the place to inflict a bit of harm on mozzies you know – I have come to realize that they can, at times, also be a place where you could seriously consider slitting your own wrists rather than have to listen to some of the inane conversations that some mothers have with their young children while showering them – the one the other day had to be the best…….sounded JUST like the dumb blonde on the Vicar Of Dibley, oh my God! Also in these very same restrooms, I have had one or two very unpleasant “Manure-Moments” so far – and I can honestly say they weren’t mine! But why oh why is it that when I go to the loo really early first thing in the morning, there’s already one person in the toilet beside mine and they STINK already – and why is it that no sooner have I locked the door of my cubicle and sat down, that the person in said-offending cubicle flushes the loo and quickly leaves???? (They don’t realize though, that I am on to them, and that from my Bog-Throne I can see them through the chink of my door that faces the mirrors where they are standing to wash their hands…..it was a blonde today but not the same blonde as yesterday! Hmmmmm……I have made a note and the investigation of the Phantom Stinker shall continue!
In closing my observations regards camp-life so far in Yallingup, I can honestly say we have not missed the TV at all (yes, I know guys, even though “So You Think You Can Dance Australia is back on!). Our “TV” viewing has literally been walking the 50 yards out of the campsite to go and sit down on the rocks for a panoramic view of the sun as it sets into the ocean. Pure bliss! (except for the night a massive bull-ant chose to retaliate to Gordon’s arse sitting squarely down on it, by squirting an extremely painful spurt of ascorbic acid into his left cheek lol!). Amazingly, once the sun has gone down, we are yawning already and by about 9.30pm, when the stars and the Milky Way are already starting to switch on the big night-sky, we are pretty much ready to turn in. We watch them briefly - and the bright white full moon we have had here past few nights - from our bed windows until our lids get heavy and the sound of pounding surf finally ushers in sleep. (Jeez, it’s hard work, all this relaxing, you know!).
Leaving tomorrow (Monday 16th) – and the REAL trip begins!
Tomorrow we have our first experience of fully packing up our rig and setting off for our next stop at gorgeous Denmark, where we will stay for a few days enjoying the wonderful outdoors down there. It will be interesting to see how it will feel to be leaving Yallingup and NOT driving back up to Perth but keep going south! Also, 2 ½ wks is quite a long time to stay put here so it even feels like I live here LOL! Maybe tomorrow, when we actually DON’T go back to Perth, things will feel a little bit more real! After our 4 days in Denmark we head down to stop no. 3 and I would say that probably after that stop, we will post another blog update. Until then, stay happy everyone and we look forward to talking to you some more soon!
Before we go – a couple of great quotes I have read in the past couple of weeks that really resonated!
1) Bob Dylan” “A man can consider himself a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and does exactly what he wants in between!” (We like to think that this trip and beyond is exactly the kind of “success” we will be living!)
2) Unknown: “If you don’t create change, change will create you” (How true! I feel pretty certain that if, out of fear, we had decided against doing this trip, for money reasons or other, then I reckon with the economic downturn, then Gordon may well have faced redundancy etc and the Universe would have continued to nudge us unceremoniously into change if we hadn’t done this ourselves!!!)
xxxxx
Greetings from Yallingup, on the S.W. coast of the Margaret River wine region! And for all our Pommie readers who haven’t been here before (in which case “Where the bloody hell are you????!”), then Yallingup is home to sun, beaches and world-class surf, whales and dolphins, forests and caves, top notch wineries and breweries, luxury spa retreats, artisan galleries and woodcrafts, wonderful deli’s and GREAT food (including all the infamous “try-before-you-buy” samplings you can do round the region in any given day or period of time you are here: wine tastings, beer tastings, coffee tastings, icecream tastings, fruit tastings, chutneys/preserves/oil tastings, chocolate tastings….and the list goes on!)
So, this was our first pit stop - the 2 ½ wk “recovery holiday” before the real trip begins - and I guess mostly what we have been doing is relaxing and being just a bit active (instead of our usual being very active and just a bit of relaxing that we used to do in Perth!). We have been waiting for the Big Crash from each of us, the Big Wind-Down in rather spectacular fashion, but we have been here 2 weeks already and there has been no sign of that. Happy to report our new bed is very comfy indeed and feels very luxurious with the deluxe sheepskin underlay. The camper-trailer set-up overall works really well for us, quite the home-from-home! Our BBQ/oven works a treat, the ladder from bed seems easy enough to negotiate at night (though neither of us has done it drunk yet!), there seems to be massive amounts of room in both of the fridges, and the table and chairs in the annexe-tent double up nicely as eating table and study table for doing our blog/internet etc – in short, it all seems to be working just fine.
Feeding our faces!
We have been eating really well and just loving the top quality produce here. It’s a joy to prepare each meal and I have to say, whilst I used heaps of fresh ingredients when in Perth, now we seem to be having one or two key ingredients in each meal and sort of letting them speak for themselves more, rather than putting too much of anything else in to overcrowd that. I am enjoying cooking more in this way and more working out what to eat each day based on what looks good when we go “shopping”. There is a local farmer who comes 2x a week to sell his produce - all of which is half the price of Perth and a billion times the flavour. He parks in the little car-park up the hill that overlooks the campsite and the ocean (as does a mobile coffee van which Gordon has seen fit to support rather regularly!). We have been feasting on deep purple and juicy plums, soft and rosy nectarines, beautifully fragrant mangoes, crisp apples, the most vibrantly red capsicums, really flavorful tomatoes and amazingly sweet squash and corn on the cob….and then just supplementing his things with lots of varied salad stuff from Dunsborough. Have also been patronizing the local Cowaramup butcher who does fantastic maple-cured organic bacon rashers, which, together with the organic Margaret River eggs down here too, made for a pretty amazing brekkie on the day that we did it - cooked on our BBQ and eaten in the fresh ocean air of Yallingup! Unbeatable! Yallingup’s other indulgence for me has to be its biodynamic and hand-crafted artisan bread, baked in a genuine wood-fired, volcanic stone oven and with no hidden/crap ingredients whatsoever. Now I try not to do too much bread but THIS bread goes amazingly crisp when toasted, yet retains an almost “crumpet-like” springiness and softness when you bite into it – just add butter and marmalade into all those indents and I am in heaven!
Swapped Fitness First gym for exercise in the great outdoors!
Not a huge amount of routine to our days really - perhaps the only thing we do have a bit of a routine around is our “set” exercise training 3x a week and I’m OK with that because the core-body work we are doing there will enable us top sit for hours on end doing these long car trips and also be even more active with kayaking and walking, all without injury to the back. Still spins me out that we have swapped a gym for training in the great outdoors overlooking the ocean but it’s just another example of the freedom we have been trying to create, now being there for us to enjoy. (and for those of you who are curious - along with a 65cm fit ball, a foam roller, a yoga mat and 2kg and 4kg weights- balls, our main piece of core-body workout equipment is the Ultimate Instrument, which we can use on swings, the car door or branch of a tree…..anywhere! It is bloody brilliant and we can train every part of our body using all the core muscles at the same time – when we have finished the initial programme our trainer has given us, he will write a new one with computer-video link up for us to see how to do the new programme etc…..and so we will travel round Australia getting fitter and stronger ).
Camp-life at Yallingup – mornings, people-watching, shower and loo shenanigans, TV replacement
Well, we wake up in the morning listening to the ocean, on some mornings the wind, and on all mornings to “breakfast F.M” (courtesy of the birds who twitter in the tree that overhangs the tent and of the 30-40 galahs that feed on the grass alongside our tent window) (and again, for all you Pommie readers who don’t know, galahs are rather raucous, pink-breasted and dove-grey cockatoos, who much to my amusement, seem to walk around on the backs of their heels, crest up their head feathers often and do their loud “chupp chup!” call). It’s not long after getting up that a veritable Mexican Wave of BBQ sausages, sizzling bacon and eggs and fresh toast smells start wafting around the whole campsite (how we have managed to stay eating fresh fruit and yoghurt (biodynamic and homogenized, Paul!!!) most mornings, with just a bit of Yallingup toast, defies belief really!). So, mornings smell absolutely heavenly here.
We have been out and about a bit in Margaret River region overall (walking, coffee tasting, winery on Valentines Day, our favourite brewery etc) but having had many weekends here in the past, we know the area pretty well, so our stay here has been less to do with “sightseeing’ and more to do with just chilling out. I have thoroughly enjoyed not having to blow-dry my hair or put on make-up and we have been amusing ourselves some days forgetting what day it was! Our most immediate “neighbours” have the same rig as us, farmers from the northern wheat-belt of W.A (with a really cute 18month old boy called Dustin, who has mild downs, boy, what a smile he had, I was in love!) – we got on really well with them (chats over the washing line or the communal water tap!) and ended up having a great and very funny night with them on their last night. Also made friends with a long-timer here at Yallingup, 75 year old Peter, Swiss-born Aussie who wanted to get out of Switzerland so much that he went to the library to see what other places there were to migrate to, started with A and found Alaska…..loved the pioneering history but they said there was a 2 year waiting list….no way was he waiting that long, so he then arrived at A for Australia, same pioneering history and attitude of the people and they COULD take him and so here he has been ever since! A very interesting guy with all sorts of interesting tales to tell – and a bloody good sport too, seeing as how on Valentines Day when we ran out of wine, he agreed to drive me back up to the winery,10 mins before it closed, so I could get some more! A bit cheeky of me, when you consider I had only met him the day before but for his part, now that’s what I call Aussie spirit!
We have had some amusing “people-watching” moments here – including a family of out and out Scousers who had the cabin behind us for a few nights. They were pale-white and overweight people with full-on accents and cackling laughs, who only ever seemed to move very slowly from car door to cabin door, armed every single time with more and more supplies of crisps and Pepsi Max. The father was a hoot, being very anal about cleaning his car EVERY DAY and had even brought an ACTUAL HOOVER to do so! Other amusing people-watching moments have of course also included watching the newcomers putting up their tents and us, from the comfort of our campchairs and a beer in hand, guessing on a scale of 1-10 where each couple were on the about-to-have-a-row syndrome!
Showers and loo-times have proven to be rather entertaining too. For me, shower-time is “Mozzie-Patrol” time, which I feel I already have off to a fine art - armed as I am, with my can of “kill the bastards” spray and guerilla-warfare tactics (i.e. bashing the shower curtain around a bit to see what flies out, spraying them when they do and, for a minute or so, standing “on-guard” waiting for any others to come try their luck. When I have ascertained that the coast is clear - which usually synchronizes with me not being able to breathe for the cloud of fumes I have just sent up into the cubicle - then showering may commence, though of course mozzie patrol is still ongoing even when showering has started!). My very good colleague did hypnosis with me prior to my leaving Perth, so that I would not be afraid of bugs and insects – I distinctly remember him saying that they were more afraid of me than I was of them, and, on reflection, when they see me coming into the shower room armed with my killer spray, they just might indeed be going “Oh shit here she comes again - run!” LOL! But showers are not just the place to inflict a bit of harm on mozzies you know – I have come to realize that they can, at times, also be a place where you could seriously consider slitting your own wrists rather than have to listen to some of the inane conversations that some mothers have with their young children while showering them – the one the other day had to be the best…….sounded JUST like the dumb blonde on the Vicar Of Dibley, oh my God! Also in these very same restrooms, I have had one or two very unpleasant “Manure-Moments” so far – and I can honestly say they weren’t mine! But why oh why is it that when I go to the loo really early first thing in the morning, there’s already one person in the toilet beside mine and they STINK already – and why is it that no sooner have I locked the door of my cubicle and sat down, that the person in said-offending cubicle flushes the loo and quickly leaves???? (They don’t realize though, that I am on to them, and that from my Bog-Throne I can see them through the chink of my door that faces the mirrors where they are standing to wash their hands…..it was a blonde today but not the same blonde as yesterday! Hmmmmm……I have made a note and the investigation of the Phantom Stinker shall continue!
In closing my observations regards camp-life so far in Yallingup, I can honestly say we have not missed the TV at all (yes, I know guys, even though “So You Think You Can Dance Australia is back on!). Our “TV” viewing has literally been walking the 50 yards out of the campsite to go and sit down on the rocks for a panoramic view of the sun as it sets into the ocean. Pure bliss! (except for the night a massive bull-ant chose to retaliate to Gordon’s arse sitting squarely down on it, by squirting an extremely painful spurt of ascorbic acid into his left cheek lol!). Amazingly, once the sun has gone down, we are yawning already and by about 9.30pm, when the stars and the Milky Way are already starting to switch on the big night-sky, we are pretty much ready to turn in. We watch them briefly - and the bright white full moon we have had here past few nights - from our bed windows until our lids get heavy and the sound of pounding surf finally ushers in sleep. (Jeez, it’s hard work, all this relaxing, you know!).
Leaving tomorrow (Monday 16th) – and the REAL trip begins!
Tomorrow we have our first experience of fully packing up our rig and setting off for our next stop at gorgeous Denmark, where we will stay for a few days enjoying the wonderful outdoors down there. It will be interesting to see how it will feel to be leaving Yallingup and NOT driving back up to Perth but keep going south! Also, 2 ½ wks is quite a long time to stay put here so it even feels like I live here LOL! Maybe tomorrow, when we actually DON’T go back to Perth, things will feel a little bit more real! After our 4 days in Denmark we head down to stop no. 3 and I would say that probably after that stop, we will post another blog update. Until then, stay happy everyone and we look forward to talking to you some more soon!
Before we go – a couple of great quotes I have read in the past couple of weeks that really resonated!
1) Bob Dylan” “A man can consider himself a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and does exactly what he wants in between!” (We like to think that this trip and beyond is exactly the kind of “success” we will be living!)
2) Unknown: “If you don’t create change, change will create you” (How true! I feel pretty certain that if, out of fear, we had decided against doing this trip, for money reasons or other, then I reckon with the economic downturn, then Gordon may well have faced redundancy etc and the Universe would have continued to nudge us unceremoniously into change if we hadn’t done this ourselves!!!)
xxxxx
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
The camper-trailer and 4WD – what we are carrying and how the set-up works!
Q. How did you convert the 4WD?
Gordon spent quite a bit of time devising how to convert the back of the 4WD so that we don’t become decapitated by unruly flying boxes the minute we hit the dirt-track! He then spent quite a while creating it – being the eternal potterer/handyman that he is, he was naturally in his element and I don’t think a day went by in the 3 months prior to leaving, that I didn’t come home from work to find him sawing, drilling and tinkering around with it all! Still, he has done a sterling job and saved us quite a bit of money to boot.
In short, he removed the 2 “dickie” spare seats at the very back of the 4WD (these joined the rest of our things into storage) and then folded the back seats down and pushed these forward in order to create more space overall in the back. He then built a main-frame (which he drilled to the floor for stability in transit) which was to house some of the other storage crates and to include a slider for one of the fridges to sit on and slide out as and when we needed to get to it en-route) and did it so that all the crates etc were strapped down to the mainframe too; he got a snorkel fitted to the passenger side of the 4WD (very necessary thing to have when outback!) and another frame for storage behind the first frame (accessed via the side doors of the 4WD). Thanks to his design and planning, we are able to carry as much in that 4WD as what we are! Well done Gordy!
Q. So what’s IN the 4WD?!
The main frame is carrying:
1x slide-out 40 litre fridge
2x smaller crates for clothes (one each)
1x big box for Caroline’s books
1x smaller crate for Gordons books
The secondary frame (accessed via side doors) behind this one is carrying:
1x big crate for games
1x secure box for laptops
1x smaller crate for assorted shoes/thongs etc
1x small crate toiletries and First Aid
Wedged tight all around these frames are:
2x foldable camp chairs
1x foldable pop-up UV beach shelter
1x 2-ring gas stove
Mobile gym (1x foam roller; 1x 65kg fit ball (deflated), 1x mobile gym straps; yoga mat; 2kg and 4kg balls)
1x camera
1x kitchen/study table and bench seats (neat flat pack design for storing)
1x IPOD speaker unit
2x picnic blankets and 1x picnic rucksack
1x cooler bag
1x laundry bag/pegs etc
1x A4 recipe folder (filled with photocopies of all my fave ones ‘cos a year is a long time and I get bored easily ……and I will miss Nigella Lawson lol!)
1x hanging suit carrier ( couple of dresses/shirts for more smart casual attire – hey, a year is a long time folks!)
1x mini flat-pack ironing board and iron (for suit carrier stuff!)
1x satellite locator beacon (on the rare chance of an absolute emergency in the outback)
1x 12v-240v inverter (so we can run laptops off car batteries etc)
1x rechargeable outdoor lantern
Various maps and bushcamping maps in both doors of the car at the front
Ipods plus mobile phone/GPS/mobile broadband device on the dashboard
Q. Other than the 4WD where is there extra storage?
1. On top of the camper-trailer itself (inside the tent part and under the grey canvas cover) – our very comfy inner-sprung mattress/queen-sized bed with luxurious sheepskin underlay (keeps us cool in summer and warm in winter!) and duvet and pillows etc. Laid on top of that (during transit), is the ladder for the bed, 2x luxury sun-recliners, 1x chefs prep-table from the kitchen, the bedroom tent and floor itself and then the annexe tent and floor!
2. The 4 big black hardwearing boxes that pull out on a slide from the back of the camper-trailer. When we stop just for the night or just for a short while in the day, we only need to pull out the slide and the boxes are easily accessed. The front one is pantry items (tins, dried goods such as rice/lentils etc, and then condiments (vinegars, oils, Gordy’s tomato sauce etc!). The one behind that is the kitchenware box (pots, pans, roast tray, cake tin and loaf tin, mini-scales, wok and fry-pan, coffee plunger, pestle and mortar, and blender bottles). The back two are overfill/miscellaneous. When the tents are fully erected, these boxes come out into the front annexe area or just slide out as are when we need to do a pit stop without erecting tents
3. Our fantastic camper-trailer stainless-steel kitchen at the back of the trailer – also pulls out on a slide next to the slide for the black boxes, so again, at the back of the camper-trailer and very easy access either when we are fully set up in camp or just for a pit stop without setting up any tent or for an overnight stop when we are just setting up the bed tent. Heaps of storage in this pull-out kitchen – kettle; single ring gas burner; coffee/teas/cocoa/Gordy’s peanut butter/salt and pepper/Vital Greens powder for my alkaline fix!)/home-made muesli/spice rack; washing up liquid/tea-towels/dishcloth etc; cutlery drawer with extra bag of bigger utensils etc that live in a bag in the washing up bowl there; BBQ cutlery set; cups/glasses/bowls/plates/napkins.
4. 3 separate side units around the camper-trailer itself – one housing a gas bottle for the Weber BBQ unit, electrical extension leads, 2 LED lights for the front annexe plus hose for filling the water tank; another hosting 2 more gas bottles (one for the single ring extra burner and one for the 2 ring burner); and another still looking after a big battery and battery charger.
5. The “front box” with lift-up lid that is the front of the camper-trailer itself. Housing another 40litre fridge (currently being used for beers and drinks while in camp and as long as we are near towns etc – but will be converted to a freezer when we are outback); Weber “Baby Q” portable BBQ/oven; 1x generator (so we can have electricity in the middle of nowhere!); 1x compressor (for pumping up tyres and our exercise fit-ball); snatch-strap and shackles (for if we get bogged in mud or stuck in sand – bloody hell, hope not lol!); all our tent poles/pegs in a storage bag; Gordy’s fishing rod; toolkit; 2x tarpaulins
6. Just behind the “front box” of camper-trailer- for 22 litre jerry can of diesel; 1x 5 litre jerry can of unleaded petrol for the generator; 3x 22 litre gerry cans of water
7. In front of the “front box” of the camper-trailer – we had it custom designed so that we could carry our bikes here
8. Under the camper-trailer itself – 1x 65 litre water tank (there is a hose connecting this to the tap on our sink in the pull out kitchen); 1x spare wheel
9. On top of the 4WD itself – 2x kayaks and paddles; shovel; hilift jack
10. Inside the kayaks – 2x kayak vests
Q. How are we getting internet?
Through the phone, using mobile broadband. We won’t be able to get it in the outback though.
Q. What about a postal address for mail/mail forwarding?
We have paid a small annual fee to a service provider that receives all our mail and everytime they get something for us, they email us and we log-in to the member site to see either a written description of what it is or a scanned copy of the front of the envelope. We then instruct them whether to ignore it, bin it or forward it – to do the latter we just have to type in our next forwarding address (e.g. c/o X Post Office) and a date for when we want them to on-send. Groovy!
Q. How heavy is the trailer?
The camper-trailer is 780kg (without all our crap in it!); has full off-road suspension tyres and hydraulic brakes and is made of 100% stainless-steel, hand-built in Perth from scratch (took about 3 months)
Gordon spent quite a bit of time devising how to convert the back of the 4WD so that we don’t become decapitated by unruly flying boxes the minute we hit the dirt-track! He then spent quite a while creating it – being the eternal potterer/handyman that he is, he was naturally in his element and I don’t think a day went by in the 3 months prior to leaving, that I didn’t come home from work to find him sawing, drilling and tinkering around with it all! Still, he has done a sterling job and saved us quite a bit of money to boot.
In short, he removed the 2 “dickie” spare seats at the very back of the 4WD (these joined the rest of our things into storage) and then folded the back seats down and pushed these forward in order to create more space overall in the back. He then built a main-frame (which he drilled to the floor for stability in transit) which was to house some of the other storage crates and to include a slider for one of the fridges to sit on and slide out as and when we needed to get to it en-route) and did it so that all the crates etc were strapped down to the mainframe too; he got a snorkel fitted to the passenger side of the 4WD (very necessary thing to have when outback!) and another frame for storage behind the first frame (accessed via the side doors of the 4WD). Thanks to his design and planning, we are able to carry as much in that 4WD as what we are! Well done Gordy!
Q. So what’s IN the 4WD?!
The main frame is carrying:
1x slide-out 40 litre fridge
2x smaller crates for clothes (one each)
1x big box for Caroline’s books
1x smaller crate for Gordons books
The secondary frame (accessed via side doors) behind this one is carrying:
1x big crate for games
1x secure box for laptops
1x smaller crate for assorted shoes/thongs etc
1x small crate toiletries and First Aid
Wedged tight all around these frames are:
2x foldable camp chairs
1x foldable pop-up UV beach shelter
1x 2-ring gas stove
Mobile gym (1x foam roller; 1x 65kg fit ball (deflated), 1x mobile gym straps; yoga mat; 2kg and 4kg balls)
1x camera
1x kitchen/study table and bench seats (neat flat pack design for storing)
1x IPOD speaker unit
2x picnic blankets and 1x picnic rucksack
1x cooler bag
1x laundry bag/pegs etc
1x A4 recipe folder (filled with photocopies of all my fave ones ‘cos a year is a long time and I get bored easily ……and I will miss Nigella Lawson lol!)
1x hanging suit carrier ( couple of dresses/shirts for more smart casual attire – hey, a year is a long time folks!)
1x mini flat-pack ironing board and iron (for suit carrier stuff!)
1x satellite locator beacon (on the rare chance of an absolute emergency in the outback)
1x 12v-240v inverter (so we can run laptops off car batteries etc)
1x rechargeable outdoor lantern
Various maps and bushcamping maps in both doors of the car at the front
Ipods plus mobile phone/GPS/mobile broadband device on the dashboard
Q. Other than the 4WD where is there extra storage?
1. On top of the camper-trailer itself (inside the tent part and under the grey canvas cover) – our very comfy inner-sprung mattress/queen-sized bed with luxurious sheepskin underlay (keeps us cool in summer and warm in winter!) and duvet and pillows etc. Laid on top of that (during transit), is the ladder for the bed, 2x luxury sun-recliners, 1x chefs prep-table from the kitchen, the bedroom tent and floor itself and then the annexe tent and floor!
2. The 4 big black hardwearing boxes that pull out on a slide from the back of the camper-trailer. When we stop just for the night or just for a short while in the day, we only need to pull out the slide and the boxes are easily accessed. The front one is pantry items (tins, dried goods such as rice/lentils etc, and then condiments (vinegars, oils, Gordy’s tomato sauce etc!). The one behind that is the kitchenware box (pots, pans, roast tray, cake tin and loaf tin, mini-scales, wok and fry-pan, coffee plunger, pestle and mortar, and blender bottles). The back two are overfill/miscellaneous. When the tents are fully erected, these boxes come out into the front annexe area or just slide out as are when we need to do a pit stop without erecting tents
3. Our fantastic camper-trailer stainless-steel kitchen at the back of the trailer – also pulls out on a slide next to the slide for the black boxes, so again, at the back of the camper-trailer and very easy access either when we are fully set up in camp or just for a pit stop without setting up any tent or for an overnight stop when we are just setting up the bed tent. Heaps of storage in this pull-out kitchen – kettle; single ring gas burner; coffee/teas/cocoa/Gordy’s peanut butter/salt and pepper/Vital Greens powder for my alkaline fix!)/home-made muesli/spice rack; washing up liquid/tea-towels/dishcloth etc; cutlery drawer with extra bag of bigger utensils etc that live in a bag in the washing up bowl there; BBQ cutlery set; cups/glasses/bowls/plates/napkins.
4. 3 separate side units around the camper-trailer itself – one housing a gas bottle for the Weber BBQ unit, electrical extension leads, 2 LED lights for the front annexe plus hose for filling the water tank; another hosting 2 more gas bottles (one for the single ring extra burner and one for the 2 ring burner); and another still looking after a big battery and battery charger.
5. The “front box” with lift-up lid that is the front of the camper-trailer itself. Housing another 40litre fridge (currently being used for beers and drinks while in camp and as long as we are near towns etc – but will be converted to a freezer when we are outback); Weber “Baby Q” portable BBQ/oven; 1x generator (so we can have electricity in the middle of nowhere!); 1x compressor (for pumping up tyres and our exercise fit-ball); snatch-strap and shackles (for if we get bogged in mud or stuck in sand – bloody hell, hope not lol!); all our tent poles/pegs in a storage bag; Gordy’s fishing rod; toolkit; 2x tarpaulins
6. Just behind the “front box” of camper-trailer- for 22 litre jerry can of diesel; 1x 5 litre jerry can of unleaded petrol for the generator; 3x 22 litre gerry cans of water
7. In front of the “front box” of the camper-trailer – we had it custom designed so that we could carry our bikes here
8. Under the camper-trailer itself – 1x 65 litre water tank (there is a hose connecting this to the tap on our sink in the pull out kitchen); 1x spare wheel
9. On top of the 4WD itself – 2x kayaks and paddles; shovel; hilift jack
10. Inside the kayaks – 2x kayak vests
Q. How are we getting internet?
Through the phone, using mobile broadband. We won’t be able to get it in the outback though.
Q. What about a postal address for mail/mail forwarding?
We have paid a small annual fee to a service provider that receives all our mail and everytime they get something for us, they email us and we log-in to the member site to see either a written description of what it is or a scanned copy of the front of the envelope. We then instruct them whether to ignore it, bin it or forward it – to do the latter we just have to type in our next forwarding address (e.g. c/o X Post Office) and a date for when we want them to on-send. Groovy!
Q. How heavy is the trailer?
The camper-trailer is 780kg (without all our crap in it!); has full off-road suspension tyres and hydraulic brakes and is made of 100% stainless-steel, hand-built in Perth from scratch (took about 3 months)
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