BigBlog

Well so much for holiday stuff, now it's down to business.

We did the Adelaide Caravan Show, and surpassed our expectations, selling bucketloads of DVDs. People keep telling us how good it is, so I guess it must be . . .

Now we're in Melbourne, two days into the show here, and despite a less than average site, we're still doing quite well. We're really stoked that everyone likes what we've done!

Between Adelaide and Melbourne shows, we stopped off in Leongatha with some very good friends we met on the road a couple of years back. They took us to their cabin in the mountains, and it was unbelievably fabulous! We hope to revisit for a much longer period next time. After this show we'll head out east with them to Orbust for a couple of days before heading north to Canberra for the folk festival.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that in Adelaide, at our caravan park, we had koalas in the trees behind our van. And record breaking winds that damaged our annex . . .

On the domestic front, our house plans have been finalised and sent off to council. Building on our Bridgetown block is imminent!  I can't wait to get into my new shed . . .

Left the Eyre Peninsula and dropped down into the Yorke Peninsula, across the Gulf of St Vincent from Adelaide, and met up with friends from QLD whom we haven't seen for a year or so. Have camped at several spots around the peninsula with them and another couple of friends of theirs. The other guy is a pretty good fisherman, and showed us how to get yabbies with a bait pump and then wade out on the sand flats on a rising tide and catch beaut whiting. I got a bag of big yellow fins one day, and I've just come back from another outing with half a dozen nice King Georges. Yummie.

2 more days and we hit Adelaide and get set up for the caravan show there. We hope we sell heaps of DVDs!

Well, the Nullabor hasn't changed much. We crossed it as quickly as we could. Not just because it's so bloody boring (they've even closed the caves, scared someone might stub their toe) - it's the flies. Millions of them. From Norseman to Ceduna, they just didn't let up. I'm not talking about the "pass the aeroguard to the man in the frot row" kind of flies. These are the "pick you up and carry you away" kind of critters that drive you raving mad in seconds. You wouldn't think there'd be enough kanga-poop out here to support them!

Now we've mosied down the Yorke Peninsula, hoping to catch up with some Queensland friends who are in the area. We'd been in touch by phone every couple of days as we drew closer, but now we're here, they've disappeared without so much as an SMS to tell us where they went - obviously somewhere out of coverage. We hope they'll contact us tomorrow, 'cos otherwise we're outta here. No, not flies this time, but wind. It's HOWLING non-stop, and the locals say it's normal! I guess the huge wind generator farm at the entrance to the peninsula should have forewarned us . . .

On the way here we diverted via Streaky Bay on the Eyre Peninsula, and that was great (still windy though). We camped right on the beach for nothing.

OK, let's do it!

 We've hit the road again folks, and are currently cowering  for the night in Widgiemooltha, between Coolgardie and Norseman. I say cowering, because we are being assailed by the most amazing electrical storm. All the salmon gums are swaying violently in the gale, sillouhetted by continuous flashes from forked and sheet lightning in a non-stop show of nature's power. It's enough to make me go all poetic . . .

Tomorrow we hit the Nullabor - stay tuned.

Check this out!  He's a survivor . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njTVLtmxSRs

Well, producing the DVD was fun. But getting it into the market is even more interesting.

"The West" newspaper reviewed it in the Caravan & Camping column the other day, and gave it a great wrap. Now the orders are rolling in.

The good news is we're going to hit the road again in February and start filming the next DVD. So stay tuned, this blog will be well and truly firing up again shortly.

Check out my DVD website www.greynomad101.com

No, we haven't passed away. It's just that with our travels over for the time being, we didn't want to bore you with meaningless wafflings-on about nothing in particular - hence the inactivity on this blog of late.

We're still in Perth, house-sitting here and there, catching up with everybody.

But the big news is:- We're getting married!!   

Crikey, I hear you say, waddaya wanna do that for?

Well, 4th August is our 9th anniversary together, and we just decided "what the hell, let's do it", so that's the big day. Then it's off to Phuket for a 10 day honeymoon ("crikey" once again!).

After that, things are fairly open, but one thing's for sure - we won't be hanging around Perth much longer, and will be heading south somewhere to live, we think.

I was out in the bush with the trusty old chain saw the other day, getting firewood, when this little fellow waddled past. Fortunately I had a cheap'n'nasty digital with me, and got this snap:

. . . Yup, we just hit the little smoke again after 16 months toodling around the nation. We start a house sit in Gidgegannup tomorrow for the whole of November.

We never launched the boat in the end to go see the whales up close - the wind wasn't good.

There won't be much news on this blog now for a couple of months until we head off again, this time to the south coast we think.

. . . but whales can!

That's right folks. Imagine the largest living creature in the universe (unless you believe in flying saucers) completely airborne. It's whale migration time at Ningaloo, and every day, we are treated to the most amazing spectacle. We walk 20 metres up the sandhill from our caravan and perch on top of the dune in our fold-a chairs, and scan the ocean in front of us. Before long we spot the first blow, followed by a dozen others, and then the mighty denizens of the deep erupt from the water. Sometimes they just roll over and flap their fins. At other times they launch themselves vertically, a complete body length above the surface, before crashing back with an enormous splash.

We have never seen anything like this in our lives, even on Attenborough TV specials. There are literally hundreds of whales out there, all heading south at a great speed, but having a whale of a time along the way. It's like they are really having fun. One of the locals (camps here for 7 months of the year) assures us it's OK to get close in a dinghy. So if and when this BLOODY WIND starts to behave, we will launch the boat and get out there. If you never hear from us again, you'll know we got too close.

As the name suggests, it's like a waterfall going sideways. A half hour sea-plane flight north of Derby takes you to Talbot Bay, and  luxury 50 foot catamaran for an overnight stay. Soon after setting up on the cat, we board a "fast boat" - 10 seats with bars to hang onto, and a few hundred horses out the back. We head across the bay and into the gap between a couple of cliff faces, where one of the world's largest tides roars each day. It's only about 100 metres long, and the water level difference is 2 or 3 metres from one side to the other. Going against the flow, we "hover" at the top end, with the boat at a precarious angle and the big motors holding us in position at a water speed of 50 kph. It's a rough ride, and we're in the pair of seats right at the bow - fabulous!

Going with the flow, it’s over much faster as we bounce from one wave crest to the next. That night, it’s a BBQ on the pontoon moored next to the cat, and the crew feeds several large sharks that hang around the stern. In the morning we hop on another run-about and mosey up the river looking for crocs, before finally heading out of the bay for a couple of hours on the cat while the crew cook up a barramundi lunch, before the seaplane appears flying low down the river towards us.

The flight back out is spectacular, with the plane zooming around the curves of the river, staying low, close to the water, with our ex-vietnam pilot explaining the scenery to us over the intercom. And we were glad to land safely once again at Derby airport. This was because when he landed in front of us the day before, we watched as he made a low pass over the terminal while ground staff checked to make sure the wheels had gone down properly! A light on the dash wasn’t working properly apparently.

Now we’ve come south through Karratha and are spending a week or two on Ningaloo station. We’re camped 20 metres from the beach, and the BLOODY WIND won’t stop blowing. It’s so bad that there’s no point even launching the boat. We have sill done a bit of snorkelling on the coral reef though, and that’s fantastic – the wind doesn’t blow very hard underwater . . .  We’ve thought of moving on, but the weather charts say that it’s the same all the way down to Perth, So we’ll just sit here for a while and hope that it abates. If not, well it’s very cheap, and a great way to dodge the school holiday crowds.