Doing it tough in WA - and getting paid for it!

[El_Freddo]

^ Now that's a dodgy looking fella! Wish you had've given me the chance at another photo! Maybe another day

Sorry that it's been a while between posts! I've actually found it tough re-adjusting to Vic time and I guess it's got a lot to do with chasing students all the time - up before them, bed after them and no nap time in between unlike the students... Fun and games.

Anyway, here's some pics of our trip to Kalbarri. This one is the sunrise before we left Coral Bay for the second time:



On the way out of town we passed these two vehicles that were abandoned on the side of the road, both rolled at least once. The surf was further from the road than when we passed it this time. Many items were pilfered I'm sure - we saw a fella taking the spotties when we passed them the first time:



And a camper van:



^ I hope the occupants were ok after this mess occurred!

More of this:



And we saw a few more of these - I'm missing them already, never got to overtake a 3 trailer one... ah well, next time!



On our way down we swung by a banana farm near Carnarvon, along the way we saw this odd place with a humpty dumpty out the front:




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[El_Freddo]

We headed on to the banana farm - Bumbak's. There's a little store there where they make all their own icecreams and chocolates that are orientated around their bananas. Pretty good!



I got a banana split. It was awesome!



We continued on with a stop at Woomeral road house again. A quick fuel up, pit stop and a sausage roll and we were off again. I noticed this poor fella who must have been having a bad day:





We got to Murchison Station House where we found our first real encounter with mozzies. Bloody buggers!

We were playing "the great stick debate of 1978" when a familiar and very clean L series rocked up - WayneO. It was great to meet him and we chatted for some time. The sun went down while we were chin wagging. I snapped off this pic but forgot to get any of WayneO's clean ride:



In the morning I was lucky enough to wake up to see part of the sunrise, I had my camera handy so snapped this image then promptly went back to sleep!



I woke up to head off to a morning paddle down the tidal Murchison River with breakfast provided. It was a great time until I realised I lost my Kokoda Tshirt. Real pissed about that but after a lengthy search there was not much that I could do about it.

After the paddle and the searching I dropped the boys off in town to go sand boarding for the arvo. I got to catch up with WayneO, send off some postcards and make some phone calls organising the end of the week. Here's WayneO's clean L series:



We hung out, WayneO took that terrible pic of me in the previous post and donated some fishing gear to the kids. WayneO's a very generous bloke and I can't thank him enough for the gear he gave us and the huge favour he did for me once I was back in Perth! I can't wait to catch up with him again!

On the way back from sandboarding we hung out at the front gates of the station for a bit where there are a couple of old bits of cool machinery - an old british 4x4 looking thing with an exo cage and a WWII armoured gunner buggy thing. It was here that I got the day's sunset - and it was a good one too!




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[El_Freddo]

Tonight we had roast lamb for dinner - cooked in a cast iron oven buried with the fire. It was a very good meal for our last night out on the road. While I was washing the last of the dishes I spotted this ancient Engel under one of the tables - still doing it's thing too!



Pretty amazing to see something like this on my travels.

Another interesting thing to check out was the interesting piece of "equipment" that greeted you to the central part of the main station:



And some more intimate details of it through images: The cockpit:



^ sitting beside the gearbox! And here's the powerplant of the whole operation - a radial air cooled engine - I didn't see that one coming!



I'm not sure if this is WWI or WWII, it kind of reads as a bit of both... There were loads of heavy machinery on the station and this is pretty much the only one I got a chance to photograph.

The next day we legged it from Kalbarri down to Perth. No photos to share from this day... We had a great trip, the convoy split and did their own thing - we had a lunch at Jarvin Bay at a cafe near the beach. It was a good sit down meal.

By the time we got to the caravan park everyone else was there waiting to check in - we arrived within 5 minutes of each other! Plans changed once again and the crew broke up to stay in cabins. We even split across two different caravan parks! I got to join the very small club of 5 that can claim to have stayed in swags for the whole trip



(^ Morning pic)

The order of the night allowed me to duck out to catch up with Mum and Dad who were visiting a family friend. We got the news that he doesn't have long to go, it was good timing that I was in town. And after all the ups, downs and frustrations of the trip and organising this last part of it where I detour from the group all became worthwhile.

On Friday the 3rd, our last day, I took some last minute images to help "document" the trip:

The stupid blue cow that we found on the beach at Coral Bay - it became a grille orniment:



^ I wonder if this was removed!

Here's a pic of the tally - not a great one as the last day where most of the overtaking was done my texta was "borrowed" by the other bus - and never returned!




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[60766244]

Another neat set of posts!

My grand-dad bought one of those tanks post war for 50 pounds. The army was selling them off after the war for 5 pounds a try (at jump-starting that is) as they weren't any use without a war on.
The only catch was, if they needed the tanks back again, the farmers had to hand them back, and maintain them for a minimum 10 years. Apparently at the time the tanks cost 75,000 pounds to build each. Can you imagine a cost saving scheme like that these days?
He and several other farming neighbors bought them, Glen (gramps) jump-started one first, then they used his to jump-start the other 6 bought that day (these guys owned 1000-5000 acres each) used to use them to drag huge chains through the scrub to clear masses of land at a time.
Lots of good stories in his memoirs about it. Maybe the same thing happened with that beast on that station. This was in the wheat-belt though, so your find is more than a little way from there.

Loving the photo diary sir!

[El_Freddo]

This is the distance travelled, minus about 480km as I didn't think to re-zero the trip counter until we were already well into the trip, so about 3200km round trip in total!



I dropped the crew off at the airport and said goodbye (for a while) to most of them, a couple I'd see on Monday. After they passed security this is how my day went:

Breakfast at the airport:



I managed to catch up with the owner of this ride:



And what a ride we had! Paul took me to the hospital again to catch up with my family friend. Paul was good enough to wait for me in the carpark when I managed to take twice as long as planned - so I shouted lunch even though Paul tried to fight me over it. He took me to a joint in Freo - some great views out there!



And lunch:



After lunch we cruised around some more before heading out to Subarino's where I was going to catch up with him and Mrs Subarino as well as crash at theirs for the night. Unfortunately we had a bit of a mis-hap along the way so we found the nearest bar, as you do:



Subarino came to pick me up and 90Brumby (Tristan) helped Paul out. While we were waiting the call of nature naturally kicked in where I found this awesome mural:



I couldn't help but get another couple of pics of the yellow beast - this is the one to share:



After his my camera remained pretty idle. It was great catching up with everyone in Perth - I met Taza, saw his foz for real (with it's cheeky 2.5L badge on the back of it) - camera was in the boot, planned that one well...

Saturday the Subarinos drove me to the airport and saw me off. I had a great flight home - best one yet! Qantas really are a great company to fly with, this being my second time! Vic weather as little to be desired to what I'd experienced in the two weeks before heading home!

It was great to be home, catching up with Mrs El Freddo, getting back into the swing of things at work and trying to sort out this jet lag that I was totally not expecting! Been an interesting week so far, hopefully the rest of the term is smooth sailing, we'll see!

Mrs El Freddo has agreed to a big trip out west in 2017 (I think!), it'll be a half lap as such, but I'm looking forward to it. Maybe we'll sneak in a cheeky trip across that Nullabor before then, who knows!

I hope you've all enjoyed reading the thread or at least drooling over the images! Thanks for following!

Regards

Bennie

[60766244]

Another neat set of posts!

My grand-dad bought one of those tanks post war for 50 pounds. The army was selling them off after the war for 5 pounds a try (at jump-starting that is) as they weren't any use without a war on.
The only catch was, if they needed the tanks back again, the farmers had to hand them back, and maintain them for a minimum 10 years. Apparently at the time the tanks cost 75,000 pounds to build each. Can you imagine a cost saving scheme like that these days?
He and several other farming neighbors bought them, Glen (gramps) jump-started one first, then they used his to jump-start the other 6 bought that day (these guys owned 1000-5000 acres each) used to use them to drag huge chains through the scrub to clear masses of land at a time.
Lots of good stories in his memoirs about it. Maybe the same thing happened with that beast on that station. This was in the wheat-belt though, so your find is more than a little way from there.

Loving the photo diary sir!

[RSR 555]

And what a ride we had! Paul took me to the hospital again to catch up with my family friend. Paul was good enough to wait for me in the carpark when I managed to take twice as long as planned - so I shouted lunch even though Paul tried to fight me over it. He took me to a joint in Freo - some great views out there!

When in town you get the royal treatment mate. Monk is one of the best places to sit and watch the pleasures of life go by and have a feed and a drink or 2

How was those S&P calamari with that sauce and the prawns?

http://www.themonk.com.au/#!

After lunch we cruised around some more before heading out to Subarino's where I was going to catch up with him and Mrs Subarino as well as crash at theirs for the night. Unfortunately we had a bit of a mis-hap along the way so we found the nearest bar, as you do:

Sorry for the little mis-hap and glad to see you got a condom for that drink

Subarino came to pick me up and ChriSTian helped Paul out. While we were waiting the call of nature naturally kicked in where I found this awesome mural:

Wrong bloke.. was Tristan (90brumby) that came to tow me home. What a mission that was too.. had fun and even had to stop for one of those pit stops as my condom was getting warm

[El_Freddo]

When in town you get the royal treatment mate. Monk is one of the best places to sit and watch the pleasures of life go by and have a feed and a drink or 2

How was those S&P calamari with that sauce and the prawns?

It was off tap! Couldn't believe how awesome it was!

Wrong bloke.. was Tristan (90brumby) that came to tow me home. What a mission that was too.. had fun and even had to stop for one of those pit stops as my condom was getting warm

I'll edit that now! Sorry 90brumby!! Well, we only got those "condoms" due to your loud mouth Glad you did, otherwise our drinks would have been getting warm quick!

I've also got to edit a pic of the old engel - no use looking at the sunset twice!!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Another neat set of posts!

Thanks mate! I've got a couple of other photos to share that I dug up on one of the other cameras we had with us.

Like this one of the Okka - had a short cruise in the front seat of this beast - awesome to cruise in and got me thinking of a full sized family remote 4wd trip through the red centre...



Cruising along:



Me at one of the good fishing holes, I can't remember the name of the site though - WayneO will!



There are other pics of the bbq breakfast we had - but they're also on another camera that I've not been able to locate yet....

Cheers

Bennie

[NachaLuva]

The Okka...what a great name for an Aussie "go anywhere" 4WD bus.

Sounds like you & the kids had an awesome time...lucky bugger

[60766244]

...
Like this one of the Okka - had a short cruise in the front seat of this beast - awesome to cruise in and got me thinking of a full sized family remote 4wd trip through the red centre...

Fantastic shots.

If you're gonna seriously commit to that dream, might as well get a real solid camper.
http://www.amesz.com.au/view/4wd-motorhomes
A guy I went to high-school with, and his dad build these! Very capable.

[El_Freddo]

The Okka...what a great name for an Aussie "go anywhere" 4WD bus.

Yeah, apparently if you're going to get one you need to get the second model as a) it comes with a manual gearbox and b) it has better diffs and driveline in general.

Sounds like you & the kids had an awesome time...lucky bugger

Yeah mate we all had a blast! It was tough though, don't get me wrong there!

Fantastic shots.

Thanks mate!

If you're gonna seriously commit to that dream, might as well get a real solid camper.
http://www.amesz.com.au/view/4wd-motorhomes
A guy I went to high-school with, and his dad build these! Very capable.

These look pretty awesome, but they also looks like a house on 4wd wheels! Not quite what I think I'd be looking at if it were ever to happen, but it's good to know there are these options out there still!

Cheers

Bennie

[NachaLuva]

These look pretty awesome, but they also looks like a house on 4wd wheels! Not quite what I think I'd be looking at if it were ever to happen, but it's good to know there are these options out there still!

Thats the whole point...you drive your house around

The GF or wife could drive the Subie lol

[El_Freddo]

Thats the whole point...you drive your house around

The GF or wife could drive the Subie lol

I think I'd have it the other way around - then she can be responsible for the house on wheels

Don't tell Mrs El Freddo I said that!

Cheers

Bennie