Australia - Tgon's Travels

Week 114: Carnarvon to Exmouth

Posted on 15/09/2013

We were luck to be staying in Carnarvon with Mex and Chie at the start of this week, we hung around the town, taking long walks and doing some work in Mex’s garden in return for her letting us camp there. The town doesn’t have much to offer in terms of entertainment but the people are really awesome, everyone we met was really kind and welcoming, but after almost a week of waiting there we were ready to leave. If we had been working there it would have been a nice place to stay, but we weren’t.

The group we had met last week was now split into three separate groups, with a plan to meet again later on the journey. The remaining two members of the group had been working in a farm in Carnarvon for five days to get some extra cash. They were picking leaves from grape vines so that the farmer could easily spray the grapes with whatever chemicals he planned to spray on them. So on Wednesday Ryan and V came to collect us in their car. We drove up to Coral bay and stayed there for a couple of days. Coral Bay is a small town on the coast, next to a beautiful bay, which as the name suggests, is full of coral. We tried to do some fishing in a nearby bay but were unsuccessful, luckily there were some real fishermen next to us who were catching lots of fish easily, so they gave us some fish which we cooked on the beach before we left town.

From Coral Bay we headed further north to another town called Exmouth, this town is on the edge of a national park called Cape Range. The park has some beautiful gorges and small mountains, but the main attraction is Ningaloo reef, a large reef stretching along the coast. There is a lot of wildlife in the park and I managed to photograph my first emu, kangaroo and echidna. We snorkelled on some awesome beaches and I managed to get some video footage of a turtle that we snorkelled with, so that should be included in a YouTube video at some point. After a couple of nights staying in the park we are now headed inland to another national park called Karijini, where there are some more great gorges to hike through, should be great!

Week 113: Changing groups, the Kindness of Strangers

Posted on 06/09/2013

Last weekend we were staying in Shark Bay, saw the dolphins being fed on the beach and camped at a lookout where you can see dugong, sharks and dolphins swimming in the bay. From there we took a couple of days to travel up the coast to Carnarvon, but on the way we had to spend the night in a rest area because Dave didn’t like to drive after 2pm. I worked here for a few days while I was working for the Department of Water, so I knew a little about what the town has to offer. We took an afternoon to explore the beach and walk down ‘1 mile jetty’.

We then drove 50km inland to a campsite called Rocky Pool, the river flows underground for most of its length, but this campsite is next to a section which you can swim in. We camped here for a couple of days, walked around the pool, swam and generally chilled out. We wanted to head north to Exmouth from there but stopped in Carnarvon to get some shopping. We had been having some problems within the group up to this point, but we had all been trying to get along and see the positive elements of our time together, so when we stopped in Carnarvon, I walked around with Ben and we decided that we should leave the campervan. The only problem was that we didn’t have any place to stay or any way to continue travelling north.

We checked out the prices of rooms in the hostels, which were expensive, sent out CouchSurfing requests and checked Gumtree for other groups to share a ride with, but nothing was working, so we decided to get some beer to drink while we thought about it. We walked through the town, met a Japanese girl called Chie, in the street, we asked her where the nearest bottle shop (off license) was. After speaking to her for a couple of minutes, we told her about our situation and she invited us to stay at her place, with our tents in her garden. Chie lives with Nana Mex, of the Global Thunda Network, a website for Australian music. We agreed and invited her for a beer to celebrate, this is when we met a group of people on the beach. They are a group of 8, who have been travelling together in 2 cars and a van. They are a mixed group (French, Italian, Austrian, Belgian and English), musicians and hippy types, we told them about our situation and they invited us to join them. They will spend some time in Carnarvon before heading north, so we will hang around here getting to know our new friends.

Australia Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Weeks 111 & 112: Perth to Shark Bay

Posted on 01/09/2013

During week 111 I met up with Dave, he has been travelling around Australia in his VW campervan for just over two years and was looking for people to travel with him up to Queensland. He wasn’t quite ready to set off so we planned to leave on the Wednesday of week 112. So I spent the rest of the week trying to get to grips with video editing. When I get some more internet access I’ll try to get some uploaded. It felt really strange to be leaving my housemates in Perth, I hope I meet them again some day.

On the Wednesday of week 112 we set off from Perth at around 7am and headed north. There are three of us travelling together, Me and Dave and a French guy called Ben. We spent a few days travelling by day and camping in the bush by night. The first National Park we visited along the way was Kalbarri, just north of Geraldton. We didn’t see much wildlife there but the landscape was awesome.

We are spending the weekend in Shark Bay, camping in the bush at night and visiting Monkey Mia during the day to see the dolphins. I tested out my GoPro for the first time and was pretty disappointed with the video that came out. I guess the water was cloudier than I imagined, I’ll have plenty of time to work out how to get the best results as we travel further north. I am also starting to reassess my equipment, I want to start travelling by bicycle when I get to Asia, which will mean I need to carry as little as possible and have as little weight as I can, my new tent is great but I might need to get a smaller sleeping bag and get rid of my motorbike trousers and leather jacket.

Australia Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Weeks 109 & 110: Website Problems and Arranging a Ride

Posted on 18/08/2013

I thought that I would be on the road, heading north by now. Unfortunately the first ride I managed to find was cancelled because the vehicle broke down, so I have been waiting around in Perth, trying to find another group of people who are headed north. I think I may have found a ride that will leave in a few days, but I need to go and meet the guy who has the van before anything is set in stone. Fingers crossed I will have left Perth by this time next week.

Earlier this week the website went down, for about 3 days, because of a file being corrupted. The site is back up now, but without my theme applied, but the content is all still there for people to see. I’ll hopefully have my theme back on there as soon as possible. I have also closed down my old Youtube channel and opened another one, so anyone who had subscribed to the old one, can re-subscribe from the following link. ( Youtube Channel )

As much as I love being here in this house with my awesome housemates, I am really ready to get moving again, so I can start using my new camera and GoPro. Hopefully there isn’t much longer to wait.

Australia Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Weeks 107 & 108: Finishing work and getting ready to leave Perth

Posted on 04/08/2013

Week 107 was basically made up of me working, but I finished work on Wednesday, as it was the end of July and my contract was over. So now I am getting ready to travel north and follow the coast around Australia towards Melbourne. I have managed to find a group of people who are driving north and I can join them to split the petrol costs. It was kinda strange to leave work, I have been there for about 5 months and I really got to like the people I was working with. What is going to be stranger still, is leaving the house I have been living in. The people here are really great, the atmosphere in the house is so relaxed and friendly, it really has been a home from home, but It will be great to be on the road again, meeting new people, experiencing new places and getting some new pictures and videos to put on the website.

Since I finished work I have been working on the website and I finally wrote the content for my Africa trip (Click here to take a look). Now I need to sort through my video clips and start uploading things to Youtube.