Author Archives: Are We There Yet?

Bell Gorge

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Right, back to a post about the trip! At the rate we are going you guys will all be still reading posts about our trip twelve months after we finished it!

After two nights camping at Windjana Gorge and checking out Tunnel Creek we headed off to get a few kilometres of the Gibb River Road under our tyres. We were a bit nervous about what the road conditions would be like, but we were pleasantly surprised to find this stretch of road – about 1oo kilometres from Windjana Gorge to Bell Gorge – was pretty good. Corrugated and mostly dirt but it looked like it had been very recently graded so we travelled along with no problems. It was hard to bypass Lennard Gorge and the Mt Hart Homestead, but as we only had a week we had to be selective with where we stopped on the Gibb. We had decided that this was just to be a ‘practice run’ Gibb River Road trip and we will come back and do it properly one day!!

This stretch of the Gibb was quite scenic – with some lovely spots to stop and check out the views.

Lookout view Gibb River Road

Peter Prado and Karen Camper on the Gibb River Road

We had decided that Bell Gorge would be our lunch time stop, but we didn’t realise that it was actually 39km in to the Gorge along the access road off the Gibb River Road. This road was actually pretty rough and there are a couple of creek crossings along the way which we didn’t know about either. They were quite shallow when we went through so no problems and a bit of excitement for us as they were Karen Camper’s first water crossings!

Creek Crossing on Access Road into Bell Gorge

Peter Prado and Karen Camper handled them too easy!

We unhitched Karen Camper at the entrance to the Bell Gorge Campsite (called Silent Grove) as we thought the road was getting quite rough and we weren’t sure what parking there would be at the Gorge entrance. We were really glad we did this as the road did get more corrugated (it was another 10km’s from the campsite to the gorge) and the car park at the Gorge is really quite small – it would have been difficult to park the camper down there. The Silent Grove campsite looked quite nice – very dry and dusty but some shade and amenities so you could easily have a few nights there. We then had a quick bite of lunch and headed off for the short 3km return walk into the gorge – yes dragging a few reluctant kids again for another walk!

Back of the car lunch preparation

Off to walk in to Bell Gorge

It was an easy walk in to the Gorge although it was quite hot walking in the middle of the day! We were glad to have a swim when we got there! The water in the swimming hole at the bottom of the water falls was freezing!! But we did all get in eventually – even me! Be warned though – the edge going in to the water is very slippery and slimy – we all had big slips going in!! The pools at the top of the gorge are really lovely and not as cold as the bottom pool – they would make a great spot to waste away a few hours soaking in the sun and water. The climb down to the water fall pool is very steep but our kids made it no problems – their walking skills have definitely improved heaps over the duration of the trip!

Jack, Tobes and Lex at the top of Bell Gorge

Looking over the edge at Bell Gorge

Walking down to the waterfall pool Bell Gorge

The lovely top pools at Bell Gorge

Having a swim in the freezing water at Bell Gorge

When we first arrived at the waterfall pool at Bell Gorge there was a tour bus of people there but they left shortly after we arrived (I’m sure we didn’t scare them off – we didn’t smell that bad!) and we had the place pretty much to ourselves – it was heaven! We were definitely glad that we got to see this spot! After about an hour swimming and relaxing we headed back to pick up the camper and push on to our campsite for the night at Manning Gorge which was about another 80km’s along the Gibb River Road once we had got back out off the 40km stretch of the Bell Gorge access road. Once again we had to reluctantly drive right past Adcock Gorge and Charnley River Station, with a promise of ‘next time’. We stopped at the Barnett Roadhouse and purchased our camping permit for the next two nights camping at Manning Gorge. It was of course ‘ice-cream o’clock’ and we thought we all deserved one so we bought those and a souvenir stubby cooler too!

Barnett Roadhouse

Yum – Icecreams!

Our time at Manning Gorge will be our next post. So, who has stopped at the places we missed along the way from Windjana Gorge to Manning Gorge? C’mon then, make us jealous, tell us what did we miss out on???

Categories: Camping, WA Camping | Tags: Barnett Roadhouse, Bell Gorge, Bell Gorge Campsite, Gibb River Road, Manning Gorge, Silent Grove Campsite | 2 Comments

Buy A Bale of Hay

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

I am sure most of you are aware of the plight facing many of our farmers with two thirds of Queensland now drought declared. We drove through many of the places currently experiencing drought on our trip and we thought things were really bad then, that was months ago.

Some of the drought country we saw around WInton, QLD in June.

Just some of the drought affected country we saw on our trip

Boulia, Qld – drought affected country we saw on our trip.

Those of you who have been following our blog for a while now know that we are passionate about rural Australia and the need to support our Australian Farmers (you can read some of our other posts on this topic here and here). Now that we are part of the farming community ourselves, we understand even better the challenges which are presently facing all Australian Farmers in relation to the profitability and future viability of our agricultural industry. So, today I am sharing a letter ‘from the Bush’ which I think explains really well why this drought is so bad and what is happening in the Australian agricultural arena at present. I know not all of you will read the letter but at least please check out the ‘Buy A Bale’ website or their Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/BuyaBaleofHay which is doing great things to help drought affected farmers. You can buy a bale of hay for just $20 or donate a small amount to be used towards buying a few litres of diesel, groceries and other necessities for our struggling farmers.

Australian Farmers need our support, please spread the word!

“A Letter from the Bush

This drought is different.

It’s not different because virtually all of inland Queensland missed the 2013 wet season; that has happened in the past on numerous occasions. In a bad year, conversations tend to drift to other bad years and for the first time ever I have heard 1926 mentioned. Usually a comparison can be drawn with ’82 or ‘69 but this time they are going back 87 years to find a season that makes them feel lucky to be around now. Nevertheless, seasons have been missed before, that is not why this one is different.

It’s not different because of other factors such as fire or overstocking that have exacerbated the effects of the drought in some areas. The risks associated with a lack of grass are well understood in the industry because everyone has had to deal with it on some level in the past. Producers who went into this season with no grass were extremely aware of the importance of rain to their immediate prospects and that rain failed to materialise. The suffering, among both people and animals that resulted, does not make this drought different to those of the past.

This drought is not different because of the lack of options available to distressed stock. In a widespread drought, grass and water quickly become scarce. Tens of thousands of head of stock needed to be moved onto decent pasture but very little existed and as a result producers were forced to market cattle in preference to letting them die in the paddock. Markets thrive on distress and the cattle market this year has provided the perfect example. Distressed vendors are not unique to this year, however and markets have collapsed in the past. This drought is different but not for any of the reasons above.

This drought is different because people don’t see a way back. Droughts come and go and the seasons will come back but even with a succession of good years, people will not recover from the beating that they have taken in the last twelve months. There is no ‘fat’ left in the agricultural system to plan for bad years, nor to recover from them.

The process of rebuilding a breeding herd involves retaining heifers for several years and waiting for them to mature. During that time, revenue is severely impacted through reduced sales while costs increase with the growing herd numbers. It will be extremely difficult for producers to invest in rebuilding herd numbers from a low base whilst servicing all of the fixed costs associated with their business. They face very difficult and distorted markets both domestically and internationally and a high cost structure.

Profitability was eroded, many years ago and the industry has limped along on the back of cash reserves, cost cutting and equity ever since. That process is very nearly at an end. The capacity to endure further losses does not exist. The profitability crisis in agriculture can be linked to virtually every one of the issues that regional Australia is currently facing from skill shortages, to the malaise of small towns, to the perilous state of agricultural infrastructure and to the fact that these businesses are no longer in a position to properly manage in the natural environment that they are built on.

The markets for Australian agricultural product are damaged. Internationally Australian produce competes with protected industries in all of our developed world competitors. They are protected because they are not in a position to compete with the low costs of production in the developing world. Australian businesses are not able to compete either but they are expected to and they have to because the domestic market cannot absorb the entirety of our agricultural product.

Domestically, the market is dominated by a limited number of buyers and the resulting lack of competition has transferred wealth from the agricultural community to retailers and consumers.

The marketing of agricultural product has not been helped, at least in some industries, by a lack of sophistication among vendors. Prices offered have been accepted without regard to normal business practices. There has been no demand to maintain profit margins. There has been no demand to maintain excess cash flows to fund infrastructure or development. It is difficult to determine the cost of production in agriculture and many vendors have no idea what price they need to achieve to recover their costs.

Whatever the reasons for the profitability crisis, it has crippled the industry and robbed the cash reserves required for issues like drought and investment.

This drought is different because it isn’t really about the drought. The drought is just one more straw on the back of a very rickety camel.

Ben Callcott
Glenmore Station
Einasleigh 4871

Australia, we need to share this, tweet, reblog, share on Facebook and forward to all we can. Thank You”

Categories: About Us, Every Family Needs A Farmer | Tags: Buy A Bale, Buy A Bale of Hay Campaign, Every Family Needs A Farmer, Queensland Drought | 2 Comments

Tunnel Creek

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Tunnel Creek was really cool! I know I sound like a big kid when I say that but it was just really fun and quite amazing! We had read lots about it but I wasn’t really that excited about walking through a dark tunnel filled with bats and freezing water and if rumour had it correctly – fresh water crocodiles! But after being strongly encouraged to visit by a follower on our Facebook Page (thanks Tracy!) we decided to check it out and boy are we glad we did!

Tunnel Creek is Western Australias oldest cave system, in Tunnel Creek National Park, and is famous as a hideout used late last century by an Aboriginal leader known as Jandamarra. He was killed outside its entrance in 1897.

The entrance is actually a little tricky to find which adds to the experience – the kids were so excited running off ahead of us along the path to the cave entrance that they totally missed it and had run off up a hill and we all had to turn around and come back!

Can you spot the entrance?

Off we go!

The cave is about 750metres long and quite dark in places so taking a torch is a must. You have to wade through quite a few permanent water pools which were mostly only ankle deep when we were there – except for the last one which was about waist deep. I think if you are there after the wet season there is quite a bit more water around and you may even have to swim in parts. There are a colony of bats living in there and some beautiful stalactites that descend from the roof in many places. It was really quite fascinating.

The boys loved it! Lex wasn’t quite as keen!

Tunnel Creek

Exploring

Opening where the tunnel has caved in and where most of the bats can be found

Adventurers

Hard to capture the stalactites – they were beautiful!

We finished with a quick dip in the water hole at the other end of the tunnel which the backpackers swimming there assured us was croc-free! It is really quite a quick sightseeing trip – we spent about an hour there and felt like that was heaps of time and tunnel creek is only about a 45 minute drive from the Windjana Gorge campground where we had based ourselves for two nights. There is also some Aboriginal Artwork on the cliff face at the end of the tunnel which was quite easy to spot and something else interesting to see.

Having a dip in the water hole at the end of the tunnel – a little chilly!

The whole family enjoyed our afternoon out at Tunnel Creek, although be warned – all that time in a dark cave can make you go a little crazy!

Categories: WA Camping | Tags: Gibb River Road, Tunnel Creek, Tunnel Creek National Park | 3 Comments

Derby & Windjana Gorge

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Ok – now for the last two weeks of our trip on the road! After a great week at Middle Lagoon we reluctantly packed up reasonably early and were on the road out and headed for Derby by about 8am. We were all feeling a bit grumpy and sad as we left Middle Lagoon as we were now heading ‘back’ to the East and commencing the journey towards home. Up until now we had always been travelling ‘away’ – this was the first day heading back, signalling that our trip which had been almost two years in the planning was just about over!!!

At least we had the fact that we were heading into new territory again and the excitement of getting to tackle the Gibb River Road ahead of us. We had ummmed and aaahed all week at Middle Lagoon as to whether we head home via the infamous Gibb River Road or back the same way we had come across to Western Australia, via the Great Northern Highway. We were keen to not travel the same road again, but also a little worried that we wouldn’t be doing the Gibb the justice it deserved by trying to cram it all in to a week – before our trip plans were changed, we had planned to spend about a month exploring the Gibb! It was also worrying us that by having to travel quite hard to get across the Gibb in a fairly short amount of time, we might put a lot of strain on the car and camper and given that the Gibb has a name for being quite a rough stretch of road, we were not keen at all to have something major breakdown only 2 weeks out from home. However, after talking to other campers at Middle Lagoon who had done the Gibb in their caravans not to many weeks before us and said that the road was pretty good, we decided to give it a go.

So after a quick stop to check out the Church at Beagle Bay (pics in our Cape Leveque post) and a last longing look at the turnoff back in to Broome (if we had still been travelling we definitely would have spent another few weeks in Broome after exploring the Cape!), we headed to Derby (it took us about 4 hours from Middle Lagoon) for a quick look around, a late lunch and some grocery shopping to stock up on supplies before we headed off on the Gibb for a week.

We checked out the prison boab tree on our way in to Derby (it is about 7km’s outside of town on the Broome side), it is huge!

Prison Boab Tree – Derby

The kids were really interested!

We splashed out and had some lovely fish and chips for lunch down at the famous Derby Jetty. The tides in Derby are the highest in Australia and we were there at just about high tide which was lucky! The jetty in Derby used to be used for live export but is now mainly used for barges exporting lead and zinc from a mine at Fitzroy Crossing. We all thought it was pretty interesting as we had never seen a big commercial wharf before.

Lunch at the Jetty in Derby

Yummy treat lunch!

We stocked up on groceries from Wollies and had to wait in line for half an hour at the bottle shop to buy a carton of beer as it was rodeo weekend in town so everybody was out buying their alcohol! Then it was off to start the Gibb River Road!! It was late by the time we started the Gibb which had the bonus that we got to witness a beautiful sunset, but once again it meant we arrived in to our campsite in the dark!

Airing down at the start of the dirt on the Gibb.

Beautiful sunset

I had Matt taking photos of Boab Trees all over WA for me – I think this one is the pick of them!

We had decided that our first stop on the Gibb River Road would be Windjana Gorge. The road to get in to Windjana was very corrugated and we again lost a headlight – not ideal when you are driving in to a new campground at dark! Lucky for us when we arrived at the campground a lovely couple saw us come in and pointed out a great campsite for us right near the shower block and then also offered to mind our tired and grumpy kids while we set up. The funny thing about arriving at a camp site in the dark is that you really don’t know what to expect when the sun comes up in the morning and you can see where you are. We were so surprised to wake up and see that this was the view that greeted us;

Windjana Gorge

As we had heard that the best time to see the crocodiles at Windjana was early in the morning, we had a quick breakfast and then walked over from the campground to the Gorge to have a look around. We thought we were ‘gorged’ out after all the gorges we had seen in the Northern Territory but Windjana was definitely worth the stop!

The ‘tunnel’ entrance into Windjana

Time to find some crocodiles

Can you see any?

Heaps, and heaps of Freshwater Crocodiles!

Really beautiful

Time for a walk

Someone before us had built this ‘sand crocodile’ very clever!

We spent the morning at Windjana, but didn’t do the whole gorge walk as it was very hot and other campers had suggested that the best part of the gorge was just the first couple of kilometres so we were happy to just do that and then headed to Tunnel Creek for the afternoon. You will hear all about that in our next blog entry!

We camped for two nights at Windjana Gorge and it was a nice spot! The showers were hot and free – pretty good for a National Park Campground! The only downside to our time at Windjana was that after a week at Middle Lagoon without power, and then some very hot weather at Windjana – the fridge in our camper just didn’t seem to cope! Which made us very grumpy as we have struggled all along to get the camper fridge to run well on gas. Anyway – we decided for the rest of the trip to just turn it off and run with our car fridge only which worked out fine! Stay tuned for Tunnel Creek details next – it was one of my favourite stops on the whole trip!

Relaxing afternoon at camp – Windjana Gorge

Fun with play dough – Windjana Gorge

Categories: WA Camping | Tags: Derby, Derby Boab Prison Tree, Derby Wharf, Freshwater Crocodiles, Gibb River Road, Windjana Gorge, Windjana Gorge Campground | 6 Comments

We’re Back! An Update ……….

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Just another sunset here in Far North Queensland!

Yes – the Fealy Family is still alive!! Aaaargh – where to start??? We have so much to tell you! Firstly a big apology for anyone who has been missing our posts (surely someone has!), eeeeek – it has been 7 weeks since our last blog entry!!! I’m feeling excited to be back and trying to get our blog rolling again! I really, really want to finish off the entries about our trip as there are still two weeks of travelling to tell you about!

So first, the big news (and one of the reasons we’ve fallen behind with the blog) is that I haven’t been feeling too great ……………. You see, we are expecting Fealy Bub Number 4 in April next year!!!

Fealy Bub No 4

Eeeek – yes – we are a little nuts but we are all very excited to be having one more little member added to our family! We are now 15 weeks along and I am starting to have more energy back at night and not feeling so sick so time to get the blog up to date! And if anyone dares to make a comment about ‘so that’s what happens with no TV on a trip around Australia’ – there will be trouble!

Ok – where to start? Well, the kids are all pretty much settled at their new school/kindy. It is a big school and things are a bit different up here so it is a big change but the kids are happy so far! Lexi loves kindy and has already made a great little friend called Moana. Next week they will begin catching the bus for the first time! We live not too far out of town – only about 10km’s but a school bus service goes right past our driveway and the kids are keen to give the bus a go.

Kids in their school uniforms on Day 1 at their new schools at the end of August.

After only a week at the new school, the kids all went down with a very nasty bout of gastro! It seems our three months travelling on the road kept us pretty much out of the ‘germ’ cycle so the poor kids went down hard! It was an awful week and lets just say that not having a washing machine in the house with three very sick kids, plus ‘afternoon’ sickness, does go down in my book as one of the worst parenting experiences ever!

Lexi alseep in Matt’s office in the packing shed while I ran the boys to school.

But we all survived and the kids went back for the last week of school before the school holidays. They even made it to the school fancy dress ball – just!

Fancy Dress Ball time!

I will do a seperate post on what we got up to in the school holidays but in brief we had a great time with a few days up at Ben Avon Station and then having the Townsville cousins come to visit our new place! We also had the Brissie cousins come to visit just last week too!

We picked the Townsville cousies up from halfway at Mission Beach and had a great day there with the Tronson cousies too!

Ute tour of the orchard

Other than that we have done lots of unpacking, sorting and purchasing a new lounge, washing machine and dining table – all items we sold thinking we wouldn’t be needing them for at least 12months! We were lucky that our shipping container sold in just a couple of days so that funded our new furniture purchases! We have enjoyed spending lots of time having our families close!

My mum & dad braved the gastro germs to come over for afternoon tea for my birthday!

Matt’s mum hard at work on the weekend helping us get our garden back under control!

On the farm front it has all been happening!! Matt has had a HUGE learning curve but is really enjoying the new role so far! He is very proud of the fact that he can now drive numerous tractors, sprayers, forklifts etc and can not only use a chainsaw but can fix one too! His office worker hands have been taking a bit of a flogging ………

Matt’s whopper splinter from unloading hay – ouch!

We have now had two loads of passionfruit and limes be shipped off to Melbourne – so much hard work goes in to the picking, sorting and packing and it is such a nice feeling to see those boxes head off in the refridgerated trucks bound for the markets! Matt will do a more detailed blog post on Farm Life soon, but just a few photos for now.

Our first run of passionfruit through the polishing machine

Then the limes turn

Packing the fruit up in the packing shed

Loading our first pallet on to the truck – wahoooo!

It hasn’t all gone smoothly. We have had breakdowns, a smashed tractor door (don’t talk to Matt about it), a pallet of fruit returned for re-packing and lots of long hours of research and phone calls but we are all learning fast. Speaking of learning, look who has learnt how to ride the four-wheeler all by himself???

This makes us happy to see our biggest boy riding the four wheeler!

And that is pretty much what we have been up to. At the moment we have four german backpackers staying here on the farm helping out with all of the farm work such as mulching, pruning and helping to plant the new lime trees which are going in. Hopefully by December we will be picking Mangos – yum!! I’ll finish with just a few other photos of farm life over the last few weeks. Life is pretty good! Hope you are all well! Stay tuned for the first of our Gibb River Road posts to come!

Running the water lines – a job that has to be done a few times a day to check the sprinklers are working on all the trees

Feeding the orchard birds – in togs – cause that’s how we roll in Far North QLD!

Afternoon Walk

Matt built a chook pen for us!

Laying boxes pinched from Grammy & Grunda’s place

And remember these fluffy ducklings?

Look how much they’ve grown!

Categories: About Us, Every Family Needs A Farmer | 3 Comments

‘As One Door Closes, Another Opens’

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

It is so hard to believe it is all over. This time last week we were camped at Mt Surprise having our last night on the road and tonight we are spending our first night in our new ‘farm house’. Our trip honestly feels like it happened a million years ago now which is sad, but we are very excited about starting this new adventure in the Fealy Family saga!

Our last week on the road was filled with so many mixed emotions. We were sad not to be seeing so many of the places we had wanted to get to. We were disappointed not to keep going as we really felt like we were only just starting to find our rhythm – the kids were just starting to know what was expected of them and become a little more independent. But we were excited about seeing our families again, and finally getting to check out the house we would be living in and seeing the farm we would be working on. We feel a little bit strange when we pass caravans and campers in town and wave without realising we don’t have the camper on anymore – we are no longer part of the camping and caravaning crowd heading off to the next camp spot or tourist attraction.

We arrived in Ravenshoe, where my parents live, last Thursday at about lunch time, unhitched the camper and reluctantly spent the afternoon washing off our ‘proof of an adventure’ dust. Peter Prado was transformed back in to a town car once again, no longer a ‘roadtripping warrior’.

Washing the proof of our adventure away

The next day Matt flew to the Gold Coast for the weekend to be the MC at his cousin’s wedding (congratulations Ant & Tran!!) which was a real culture shock after so long away from the city life! The kids and I relaxed and were spoilt rotten by my Mum (Grammy) with meals and baking and washing done for us! Jack got to show off all of our fossicking treasures from the trip and spend a day in the shed with Grunda learning how to ‘facet’ a gem.

Fun at Grammy & Grunda’s (sorry about the laundry trolley Grammy!)

Jack in the shed with Grunda learning how to facet a gem

And now we are here, in Mareeba, unpacking our container much sooner than we expected to be. So far we have only managed to unpack about a third of the container and to date we have only really been happy to see about 2 items each (Jess – the coffee table and big frying pan! Matt – his speakers and work boots so he doesn’t have to wear his sneakers around the farm anymore and look like a real city slicker fish out of water!) Even though we only had 3 short months on the road, we definitely have realised how little we really need. I absolutely could have just tossed out most of what we unpacked today!!! Finding our pre-trip whiteboard ‘To Do List’ was a little bit of a spin out ……………………………………………So – looking at this photo of our container unpacking reminds me that I really better get back to trying to locate the kids lunch boxes and school shoes in preparation for their first day in their new school tomorrow. They are all excited but I am a little nervous for them!! Enough procrastinating via blogging for one night. I still have the last 2 weeks of our trip to blog about, they were really awesome so hopefully I will have some of those coming through soon. I’ve really enjoyed the blogging, thank you to everyone for commenting and following along – it was heaps of fun reading what you had to say on our trip and we got some great advice along the way too! I’d like to keep blogging, but not sure what form that will take yet – stay tuned!

I’ll leave you with just a couple of shots Matt took today here on the farm. We had nine little ducklings hatch this morning which was a lovely sight for us ‘newies’ to see mama duck wandering around with her little ducklings following. We know that this life is not going to be all ‘fluffy ducklings’ but for now we are enjoying these little moments and the kids are in heaven!

Brand new ducklings – yes – Tobes may have a little work to do on his handling skills yet – don’t worry the duckling was fine!

Meet ‘Mr Turkey’

First taste of passion fruit – straight off the vine

Feeling happy and lucky to be calling this home.

Categories: About Us, Every Family Needs A Farmer | 4 Comments

Cape Leveque & Surrounds

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

While we spent a week camped at Middle Lagoon, we had time to check out some of the lovely spots along the road to Cape Leveque. First a few photos of the road. It was long, corrugated and very dusty! We dropped our tyre pressures to 28 PSI and travelled along ok – no damage to the camper on arrival – just lots and lots of dust inside – we probably should have taped up our fridge vents!! From Broome the road to Cape Leveque is unsealed until about 80km from Cape Leveque where it is then sealed all the way up to One Arm Point. On our way up to Middle Lagoon we stopped in to check out the Quondong Point free camp areas. These were only about 30minutes out of Broome and there were three camp areas off Manari Road. It looked like a lovely spot but was quite busy when we checked it out so we decided not to leave Middle Lagoon early to come back here. The track to the last Quondong Point camp spot was quite narrow so we copped quite a lot of scratches to the camper going along here and it was a little tricky to turn around at the end. We think you would have to pick a quiet time at Quondong Point to nab a nice shady campsite as most of the sites were in full sun which would make it pretty hot in the middle of the day.

The first campsite at Quondong Point

One afternoon at Middle Lagoon we headed out in search of icecreams to the nearby Whalesong Cafe & Campground. It was only about 15 minutes drive from Middle Lagoon and it was a lovely spot (and it had full internet reception – if I had of known this earlier I would have taken the laptop up one morning on my own and enjoyed a cake and smoothie and gotten a couple of blog posts done – would have been lovely)! The Whalesong Campground was only small and quite basic with its amenities but there were some nice sites with lovely views over the water. The beach there was closed when we were there because a crocodile had been sighted so that was a bit of a bummer.

Lovely spot at the Whalsong Cafe and the yummiest mango smoothies!

Looking out over the beach from Whalesong Cafe

The very cool outdoor shower at the Whalesong Campground – looked like it was cold water only though!

We took a full day trip away from Middle Lagoon and decided to check out the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, One Arm Point and the Kooljaman Campground at Cape Leveque. It was a big day out – we left about 9am and didn’t get home until after 7pm! It was a little bit of a pain having to air our tyres up again when we hit the bitumen after the Middle Lagoon Road and then air down again when we came back in that night but a small thing to whinge about really!! If we had more time I would definitely have liked to try out one of the beach camping shelters right on the beach front at Kooljaman – something to go back for!

Our first stop was the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm. This is a family owned and operated farm and it was really pretty – a great cafe on site with little sandpit for the kids to play in and the meals and drinks looked delicious! We did the Pearl Farm tour which was something I had wanted to do in Broome and although the tour was good and really interesting – it was very expenisve ($140 for our family) and we didn’t really get to see a lot. I was a bit disappointed too that we didn’t get to go out on the water to check out the oyster shells but that was a different tour that you had to pay extra for and was just too expensive for us. It was a beautiful spot though!

Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm

Family Shot at the Pearl Farm

I love pearls! This necklace was only $16,000!!

The boys with the old pearl diving suit

From here we headed up to One Arm Point where you are required to obtain a permit ($10 per adult) from the local general store to enter the community. One Arm Point had the most crystal clear water I have ever seen! Again – if we had more time I would have loved to have come back and spent a day snorkelling and swimming here! Another family said they saw some whale sharks here so we would probably have to be a little careful about where we swam! There is also an aquaculture centre at One Arm Point that does tours for $10 an adult which looked quite interesting.

One Arm Point

Crystal clear water

Watching the amazing fast flowing current at the end of One Arm Point near the Trochus Hatchery

We finished off the day with a late lunch and a swim at Kooljaman at Cape Leveque. It was a lovely spot – a bit more commercial than Middle Lagoon but lots of different types of accommodation here which looked awesome. The kids found themselves with a few scrapes on them after their swim as there were quite a few submerged rocks in the water – we might have been swimming at low tide I think! Matt got some lovely shots of the kids here!

A swim at Cape Leveque

Lunch under the picnic shelter

On the beach at Cape Leveque

Fealy Kids – Cape Leveque 2013

And of course we had to stay and watch the sunset and have an icecream on the deck of the newly built restaurant – beautiful spot! And the woodfired pizzas they were cooking there looked pretty good too!

Newly built resaurant at Kooljaman

Sunset – Cape Leveque

Nothing better than an ice-cream at sunset - ok maybe and icecream and a cocktail would be perfect!

Nothing better than an ice-cream at sunset – ok maybe an icecream and a cocktail would be perfect!

On our way out after our wonderful seven nights at Middle Lagoon, we stopped in at Beagle Bay and checked out the lovely little church there. Inside it is beautifully decorated with local shells and definitely worth a stop to see it – I had never seen anything like it!

Beagle Bay Church

Cape Leveque and surrounds is a really beautiful part of Australia and definitely worth the long and dusty, bumpy road in!

Categories: Camping, WA Camping | Tags: Cape Leveque, Kooljaman, One Arm Point, Travel, Whalesong Cafe & Campground | 2 Comments

Middle Lagoon

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

From Broome we headed north to the top of the Western Australian coastline and spent a glorious week relaxing and ‘taking a break from our holiday’ at Middle Lagoon.

Our week went a little something like this ……………………………………

Swimming

Kayaking

The mission to build the biggest and best sandcastle we have ever made!

Hard Work!

Getting There

Family effort with the help of some ringins!

The finished product – not a bad effort!

Sunsets

And lots of campfires!

What it is all about!

Middle Lagoon is a two and a half hour drive from Broome along a pretty rough, red sand and dirt, corrugated road, but it is worth the drive. We did get a bit of a surprise when we reached the Middle Lagoon turn off the Cape Leveque Road and then realised we still had just over 30kms still to go! And the road in to Middle Lagoon was rougher than what we had already travelled on the Cape Leveque Road so it was a very long drive!

The road in to Middle Lagoon

Red sand and corrugations all the way

We stayed at Nature’s Hideaway Campground at Middle Lagoon on an excellent site called site 5 on the Terraces (or Snob Hill as Trice and Geoff called it hehehe!). Although it wasn’t directly overlooking the water like you can see in this picture (and those sites were spectacular!)

Beautiful ocean front sites!

we really liked our site because we could still see the water but we had lots of shade too which the ocean front ones didn’t. The shade was really nice to have in the afternoon when it was too hot at the beach and we just wanted to be chilling out around camp.

Our lovely shady spot – still with water views – the kids had lots of friends come to visit and play lego with them!

Relaxing watching a movie in the camper one afternoon.

We did lots of relaxing at Middle Lagoon but we also had lots of fun as it just worked out that also here at the same time were the family we had meet at Lake Argyle (Geoff & Trice and the kids), plus the Rollason family we met at Cable Beach and another family we had met in the caravan park in Broome! The kids had a ball having lots of friends to play with and Matt and I enjoyed some friends to talk to as well! We were lucky enough to be given one night, a dinner’s worth of freshly caught spanish mackeral from a lovely couple at a neighbouring campsite. This fish came to us filleted and all so all we had to do was cook it over the fire – it was so delicious!!!

Getting our hot plate ready to cook our fish

Fish and Chips Middle Lagoon Style

Our delicious dinner – best fish we have ever tasted!

The next day Matt and the boys were lucky enough to go out with Geoff in his tinnie and try a bit of fishing themselves! Even though they came home empty handed they were so lucky having got to see whales, dolphins, a big sea turtle and lots of different types of fish! The boys had a great time and Geoff we are so grateful to you for taking them all out!

Off fishing in Geoff’s boat!

We really didn’t do much at Middle Lagoon – we spent a big day trip out exploring Cape Leveque and surrounds but other than that we just ‘stopped’ and although it was a little hard to make ourselves do it when there is so much to do and see – we’re really glad we did as it was a great rest.

An easy place to slow down for a week!

Campfires every night.

On our last night at Middle Lagoon we decided to head off and explore some of the 4wd tracks around the lagoon – we ended up on our own private little beach to watch the sun set – it was beautiful!

Our own little beach all to ourselves!

Come and see ………

A sunset picnic

Seen enough photos of this ugly mob yet???

Sunset

Middle Lagoon was probably my favourite place of the whole trip – it was worth leaving Broome for!

Categories: Camping, Travel, WA Camping | Tags: Middle Lagoon, Nature's Hideaway Middle Lagoon | 6 Comments

Broome

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

We know you have already seen lots of photos from Broome from our little video but we wanted to include a post about what we got up to in Broome for the five days we were there. The short answer is not a lot! Lots of swimming and hanging out at the beach watching sunsets mostly! We loved Broome!

From Lake Argyle we had a big day in the car and pushed three quarters of the way along the just over 1,000 kilometres to Broome along the Great Northern Highway. Unfortunately as we were now running on a time schedule we had to bypass the Bungle Bungles on this trip – definitely something we would like to visit next time though!! We camped at a rest area just west of Fitzroy Crossing for the night and managed to get up and away early the next morning (second rig out of the campsite that day – a record for us – it is very difficult to beat the Grey Nomads onto the road in the mornings!!!) and we arrived in Broome just after 10.30am in the morning. We managed to get a great site close to the amenities and pool at the Cable Beach Caravan Park. The caravan park was huge and filled to the brim but it was lovely and shady with very clean and modern amenities. The swimming pool was fantastic and the kids loved it even though it was freezing cold while we were there. It was expensive at about $70 per night for our family of five but all of the accommodation in Broome is expensive so we thought it was pretty good value for money! There were aqua aerobics classes happening in the pool and craft circles and a muscian performed one night we were there too so definitely heaps to do at the caravan park and the staff were lovely!

Kids built a cubby house on our great site at Cable Beach Caravan Park

Kids cubby house

Awesome swimming pool at Cable Beach Caravan Park

Even though we really liked the Cable Beach Caravan Park, I think next time we would stay at the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park which is closer to town and located right on the beach at Roebuck Bay. It is also right beside a great kids playground and small water park and has a nice little cafe right on site. I don’t know what the amenities etc are like at the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park but we spent a lovely morning at Roebuck Bay exploring the rock pools and playing in the playground and water park – it would have been great to be camped right there I think – definitely with small kids like ours who dig all that stuff!

Exploring the rock pools at Roebuck Bay

Water park at Roebuck Bay

Lex not wanting her photo taken at Roebuck Bay – I was trying to capture the beautiful colour of the water!!

We spent a couple of afternoons watching the sun set over cable beach which was just spectacular and a real treat to watch the sun set over the water for us East Coasters!! Matt got sooooooo many great photos down there it was hard to choose just a couple for the blog!

It was soooooo exciting to arrive in Broome after so long in the cold and dirt and dust – we were all in heaven!!

First swim at Cable Beach

Peter Prado on the beach – so different to the dirt & dust!

The camels on the beach at sunset really are beautiful

The photographer!

Sunset

We caught up with Matt’s Dad and Rema again in Broome and finally cracked open our bottle of champagne (a gift from Hans & Ang when we left Brissbane – thank you guys!!!) on the beach for an evening picnic! We also met another lovely family that afternoon (big hello to the Rollason family – their blog is Rollinroundoz – check it out for some great photos!) and the kids had a great time playing with their new friend ‘Sam’ (sorry James – they just kept calling you that – I think you will always be Sam in our house!). We got to meet up with the Rollason’s again at Middle Lagoon which was great!

Sunset picnic to finally open our bottle of champagne from Ang & Hans!

Just your ordinary day for Peter Prado – on the beach with camels walking past!

The car park that is Cable Beach at sunset!

The kids playing with their friend James

And we did of course do a camel ride which was fantastic! Pretty reasonably priced at I think $140 for our whole family for a pre-sunset ride of 45minutes. We choose the pre-sunset ride because it was the cheapest and shortest. We thought that would be long enough for the kids and we wanted to be able to watch the camels go past at sunset – not be riding them – we were pretty happy with our decision.

Poppy & Rema came down to watch us do our camel ride

We choose the Blue Camel tour - run by Broome's original camel lady Alison Bird - and I got a few pair of tiny pearl earrings!

We choose the Blue Camel tour – run by Broome’s original camel lady Alison Bird – and I got a pair of tiny pearl earrings!

Tobes was a little bit frightened!

Lots of fun – definitely worth the $$$$

We also spent a lovely afternoon at Gantheaume Point. We had a wonder around the rocks up at the Lighthouse where at certain times of the month with very low tides you can spot dinosaur footprints – unfortunately the tide was too high when we were there. We ended up bumping into our next door neighbour from the campground (hello Marika and the boys!) at the point and they were very kind letting our kids have a turn on their surfboard and skim boards in exchange for a go on the green kayak. Lex and I had a good paddle around on the kayaks. It was another beautiful afternoon!

Gantheaume Point

Kayakers in the water at Gantheaume Point

Kayaking

Fun in the surf!

Toby’s first go at surfing and he managed to stand up first go – it was a fantastic surfboard for kids – thanks Marika!!

Jacko’s first turn too – they made it look easy!

Beautiful sunset Gantheaume Point

On our last day in Broome we spent the morning at Riddell Beach. It was rockier and redder than Cable Beach but we loved it as we had it to ourselves – it was very quiet! On the way home we picked up some fresh prawns from the fish co-op and had yummy prawn sandwiches for lunch – so good!

Lex having a go in the kayak at Riddell Beach

Oh – nearly forgot – we also squeezed in a lunch at Matso’s Brewery which overlooks Roebuck Bay – reasonably priced and delicious! We had a voucher for a free tasting paddle with lunch so Matt was happy!

Lunch at Matso’s Brewery

Mmmmmmm ……. Beer!

While we were in Broome I also managed a morning out by myself which was bliss! I got some essential waxing done, checked out the shops and bought a new pair of togs – awesome! Matt got his turn too and headed to the physio for a massage to try and sort his sore back out (lots of time in the drivers seat the problem we think!) – it didn’t really help but any time out on your own is a bonus!

I wish we had more time in Broome, it is a place that weeks could easily be spent in the blink of an eye!! Loved it, loved it!

Sooooo hard to drag the kids away from the beach at sunset!

Categories: Camping, WA Camping | Tags: Broome, Matso's Brewery | 9 Comments

Lake Argyle

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Are We There Yet?

Lake Argyle was spectacular. When we left Brisbane we hadn’t even really heard of Lake Argyle and did not have any plans to stop in there. However, nearly every person we spoke to along the way on the trip said we had to go in and see it and we are so glad we did – it is really difficult to explain how beautiful it was. So, some photos first.

The drive in to Lake Argyle was really pretty

Our campsite at Lake Argyle

The amazing infinity pool – it was freezing though!!!

The pool was an attraction in its own right!

The Dam wall

At the lookout over the dam wall

The Ord River & release valves

Nice picnic spot at the bottom of the dam wall

The Lake is massive! It is Australia’s largest fresh water lake and covers an area of more than 900 square kilometres! We camped for two nights at the campground there and one of the perks of having our trip shortened was that we have been able to splash out on a few things we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford to do and one of those was a sunset cruise on the Lake. We all really enjoyed the cruise which was good as it was very expensive!!! The cruise started at 1pm in the reception area with a history on the building of the lake and we then spent the rest of the afternoon until about 6pm cruising around on the lake. The photos give you a bit of an idea of what we got to see …………………

Cruising

The boys got to have a go at driving the boat

We all loved looking out the back of the boat

We got to spot our first freshwater crocodile

Fish feeding time

Euros on one of the islands on the lake

Just beautiful

Matt jumping off the roof of the boat for a swim in the lake

Jack got in too but he was very nervous about swimming with freshwater crocodiles – beers were thrown out to all those swimming

Sunset

Just beautiful

The cruise was extravagant but we all loved it! The other great thing about Lake Argyle was that we met a lovely family from Townsville here and spent a great night chatting to them around the campfire – we then got to meet up with them again at Middle Lagoon and it has been a real highlight of the trip for us to meet some great new friends! Big shout out to Geoff, Trice and the kids – we’ll catch up with you again back in Far North Qld!!!

Lake Argyle is a definite must see in our book!!!

Cool guy performing some good music at the pub at the campground – he plays regularly at the Newfarm bowls club for any Brisbaneites!

Great campfire at Lake Argyle

Categories: WA Camping | Tags: Lake Argyle, Travel | 6 Comments

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