From Port Lincoln To Bunbury: The End Of An Adventure

We slept in a little later than planned on Friday morning, grabbed some breakfast, and hit the road for the home stretch of our adventure. The driving goals I had set during our trip had always been a little on the optimistic side so I was impressed when we actually reached my goal of making it to Border Village just before dusk. By this point I just wanted to get home so I wanted to drive as far as possible each day.

First thing the next morning we passed through the quarantine point between state lines. This was tougher than border security crossing into the states. They searched each and every single car that drove through for fruits, vegetable, honey, and cheese. I was pretty shocked by this but also amazed at how little time it took. Before I knew it we were on our way and back in Western Australia.

It was another long day on the road without much excitement as we made our way to Esperance. Along the way I learned that we were driving through the World’s largest golf course that stretches from Ceduna in South Australia all the way to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and kind of wished I had learned about it earlier so we could have made the drive a bit more exciting even though it would have meant changing our route a little.

Once again we made it to our destination just before dusk, set up our tent, cooked some sausages, and called it a night. We must have put a hole in our air mattress at some point that day because I woke up around midnight to find it completely deflated. The rest of the night was pretty uncomfortable but I knew this would be our last night in the tent so I sucked it up and got as much sleep as I could.

The next morning we hit the road for the last time on this adventure. We stopped in Albany for lunch but decided to pass on exploring the town since it was raining and managed to make it back to Bunbury around 5pm.

I was so excited to be home. We had driven 13,668km in a little over a month and while we had a lot of fun it was also very stressful. This trip was very different from my past adventures and was a real learning experience for me. I really need to work on my patience and maybe develop my cooking skills so on my next camping trip I eat more than sausages and sandwiches.

If I could do it all over I think I would do a lot more planning but over all I think the trip was a success. I stepped out of my comfort zone on several occasions, I tried new foods, I learned a little about the aboriginal culture, and did a lot of things that most people never get the chance to do. I am definitely a very lucky girl.

On Monday I head off on my next adventure as I start my new job at a hotel in the outback. Hopefully I will have lots of exciting things to write about and internet access so I can actually post them but if not I have already planned adventures to the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, and New Zealand so stay tuned for lots of awesomeness. 

Adventures In Port Lincoln

The next morning we packed up our things, added some more duct tape to the plastic window, and started the trip to Port Lincoln. Compared to most days the drive was short and sweet and we were in Port Lincoln before lunchtime.

Our first stop for the day was Bridgestone Tyres (yeah that’s how they spell ‘tires’ over here, what a bunch of weirdos) to try and get our window replaced. We talked to a guy when we first walked in who looked very confused by the thought of replacing window at a shop that specializes in tires but luckily a lady overheard our conversation and asked us if we were the people from Alice Springs. This sounded promising. We tore off our fake window once again and while she and Jesse took some measurements and filled out some paper work I headed down the street to get some more duct tape. When I returned I learned that they would be able to ship the part we needed overnight from Adelaide and we would be able to get it installed the next morning. Normally I would be ecstatic at this kind of news but at this point I was smart enough to remain cautiously optimistic.

After ordering the part for the truck we headed down to the harbour to book the tour that was our main reason for stopping in this town. We were going to swim with great white sharks! I was pretty nervous about this experience and not because of the sharks but because of the whole breathing under water thing. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that adventures in scuba diving turned out pretty horrible for me so it was a relief when the lady in the office told me the top of the cage is above water meaning if I freaked out I could just pop my head up. I was no longer scared so we booked the tour for Wednesday morning and headed out.

With our next two days planned we found a campground and pitched our tent next to the ocean. It was quite windy so it was a bit more challenging than usual but by this point I could put that tent up in my sleep so it only took a few minutes longer than normal.

With a place to sleep for the night secured we headed out to make some arrangements to fill the rest of our time in Port Lincoln. We made our way to the tourist information office to find out what sorts of options were available to us. Most of the activities were related to fish and seafood so I wasn’t really interested but Jesse had managed to fill his time quite nicely. After getting the car fixed the next day he was going to go to a seafood tasting, and then to a tuna farm to swim with and feed some giant Bluefin tuna.

Next we headed to the YHA. We were entitled to a free nights stay with our shark dive so we wanted to make a reservation for the following night because they also offer a free shuttle to the shark boat which is definitely a plus at 6 in the morning. I'm normally not a fan of YHA hostels but this one seemed nice so I was looking forward to staying there.

To be honest I can’t remember how we spent the rest of our day so I'm going to guess that it probably wasn’t overly exciting.

The next morning we packed up our tent and headed to Bridgestone to get the window replaced. I had my fingers, toes, and anything else I could cross crossed. I let my cautious optimism grow into full-blown excitement when I saw that our part had arrived when we walked into the office. Stuff could still go wrong but I wasn’t going to think about that, the window was finally being replaced and life was going to be easy again! We walked down the street to get some breakfast and when we returned the truck was ready to go. Hooray!

Feeling happy we made our way back to the tourist information office to pick up Jesse’s ticket for his seafood tasting only to learn it had been cancelled due to lack of interest. This was the start of a downward spiral. We headed to the hostel where we were able to check in early and relaxed for a bit before Jesse left to go swim with the tuna. I made my way upstairs to the cinema room and was shocked when Jesse walked in an hour later because his tour had been cancelled due to poor conditions.

Rumours had been spreading through the hostel that the shark dive for the following day was going to be cancelled but we headed to bed early anyway. I took a seasickness tablet as recommended and hoped for the best. I woke up an hour or two later and puked my guts out then went back to bed feeling very worried about the next day.

We woke up at the crack of dawn and headed out to the lobby to find a caravan of taxis waiting for the group of us heading out on the dive. I popped another seasickness tablet along the way and started to feel like crap again. Things got worse once we were on the boat. The water was incredibly rough with 3 metre swells and once again I puked my guts out. I felt like absolute garbage but I figured it would all be worth it once I got in the shark cage. I was not impressed when we made it to Cape Catastrophe (I’m not being hyperbolic that’s a real name) and found out that the tour was being cancelled and we were heading back to shore. We had already been on the boat for three freaking hours and they were just now cancelling the tour? If I hadn’t vomited up all my energy I probably would have thrown a hissy fit but instead I sulked and tried not to toss my cookies again.

We made it back to shore around 1pm where we were given the option to rebook the tour for the following day or ask for a refund. Against my better judgement I rebooked for the following day. We made our way back to the hostel and extended our stay to accommodate our new tour and the receptionist offered me a sea sickness tablet that was supposed to be way better than the one I had been taking so I accepted it.

Since we now had the afternoon free we decided to head to a wild life park just out of town in hopes of seeing a koala and a wombat, two Australian animals I had not yet encountered. The park was set up so you had to walk through animal enclosures to get to other animals and if you know me at all you know I absolutely hated this because I am terrified of animals. I might have enjoyed trying to find the koala hidden in the tree if there weren’t 6 chickens clucking around my ankles making me think they were going to eat me. I almost shit my pants when one of them jumped up on to a fence right near my face.

The area surrounding the wombat enclosure was animal free which made me feel much better however wombats are a burrowing animal and spend most of their time underground so I never actually got to see one. I was pretty disappointed but the fact that I got to see an albino kangaroo made up for.

Back at the hostel we made some dinner and had another early night. This time I decided to skip on the night before seasickness tablet and had a much better sleep than the night before. I felt refreshed when I woke up at the crack of dawn but I also felt full of regret. What had I done booking on to another tour? I should have cancelled and gotten a refund when I had the chance!

Fortunately the tablet the receptionist gave me worked much better than the ones I had taken the day before and the ocean was much calmer but I still felt slightly nauseous. I had planned better this time around though because I grabbed a sick bag before the boat started moving and got a seat near the back deck so I was getting fresh air and it was only a short stumble to go outside if I got sick because you weren’t allowed to be sick inside (worst rule ever).

I spent most of the day asleep or trying to sleep thinking if I wasn’t awake I couldn’t get sick. This strategy seemed to work because I made it through the whole day puke free. The boat ride took forever but eventually we reached our dive location where we would be docked for several hours as the forty-odd people on the boat went into the cage six at a time for 45 minutes each.

Jesse called me out on the deck a few times to see the shark and when I started to feel crappy I would just go back inside and rest until it was time to get ready for our dive. The wetsuit I was given was soaking wet so I was cold before I even got in the water but I would soon turn into a popsicle. As I first climbed into the cage the cold water caused me pain. I told myself I would wait to see one shark then get out because the water was just too cold. As time passed my body adapted to the cold water and I managed to tough it out for the whole dive and I'm glad I did. It is really amazing how gracious and elegant such a vicious animal can seem as you watch it swim through the clear waters to attack its prey. It was an unbelievable experience that I will never be able to describe in a way that does it justice. All I can say is if you ever have a chance to cage dive with sharks do it, it is more than worth the money.

After warming up with a hot shower and changing into some dry clothes I ate some lunch and went back to sleep. I slept through most of the other groups dives and a good chunk of the drive home. I woke up about 90 minutes away from shore and the queasiness I had been feeling all day was gone. I was able to walk around the boat and get my own snacks instead of sending Jesse every time I wanted something. It was fantastic!

We returned to the hostel to learn that they were celebrating their first anniversary and had prepared a free barbecue for dinner. This was exciting news because I was starving and we couldn’t figure out what we should do for dinner.

Despite all the sleeping on the boat I was absolutely exhausted from the day’s adventures so after dinner I headed to bed and Jesse hung out with some new friends we had made on the boat. The next morning we would leave for the last leg of our trip. 

From Alice Springs To Port Augusta

We packed up our things on Saturday morning and headed down to ARB to get the truck fixed. We got there a bit early and peeled off the ridiculous amount of duct tape holding our plastic window in place (I will try to find a picture to post later so you can see how much tape was actually involved). We handed over the keys and started to stroll down the street to try to find a fun way to kill an hour. About 5 minutes later we bumped into one of the guys from the shop who had come looking for us because the cap on the back of the truck wasn’t the brand we thought it was so the replacement window he had for us wasn’t the right size and we were back to square one.

Luckily the people at ARB were super friendly and super helpful and put us in touch with another company in town that might be able to help us. We headed to an auto glass place just down the road and met a man who had been waiting on our arrival. He tried what he could to fix our truck but unfortunately was unable to do so. Thankfully he was also incredibly nice (all of the people in Alice Springs were, it was one of my favourite places we visited) and asked where we were headed next and made a few phone calls trying to find a place for us to finally get things sorted. We retaped up the plastic over the smashed window and left frustrated but at least we had a lead.

We spent the next hour or two checking out a few things in town we had missed over the past few days and grabbed a quick bite to eat before hitting the road. Our goal for the day was to make it to Coober Pedy, an opal-mining town, so we could camp underground, but with the day’s setbacks I didn’t think we would ever make it that far. Jesse was determined to spend the night underground so he may have sped just a little and driven for a little longer than he wanted but since we crossed the border into South Australia where the clocks are an hour ahead giving us an extra hour of sunlight we managed to make it to town just before dusk.

We headed down a dusty dirt road to the campground only to find that it would be closed until January. I was on there website the day earlier and hadn’t read anything about the grounds being closed so I was a little annoyed. We made our way back into the town centre and found an underground hostel. The man running the hostel wanted something like $35 for a dorm bed which was a little steep for my liking so unfortunately Jesse was not going to be able to fulfil his dream of camping underground that night. Instead we found a lovely caravan park that also happened to be the cheapest place we had camped thus far. We pitched our tent, cooked up some sausages and called it a day.

The next day we headed into town to do some exploring before hitting the road again. We both wanted to check out some underground buildings and I had read that there was an underground church that was open for tourists to check out so we made our way there. We both thought it was strange there were so many cars in the parking lot, surely this underground church wasn’t the biggest tourist attraction in town, but it wasn’t until I was about to walk through the door that I realized it was Sunday. Whoops. There was a service going on and we almost crashed it. Not wanting to interrupt we made our way back to the main street to check out some of the shops selling opal.

The first one we went in was dingy, all of the lights were off, and the man working made me uncomfortable so we left fairly quickly. The next shop we went in doubled as an underground café and the main reason we went was just so we could check out an underground building. This shop was clean, well lit, and the man who worked there was very friendly. I can’t remember his name but he was from Yugoslavia and was very passionate about his job. As well as opal this shop sold traditional didgeridoos that had been hallowed out by termites and we were given a quick lesson on how to properly play the instrument, however the cheapest one was around $300 so we didn’t buy one. Jesse did buy a lovely piece of opal though which is probably a little more exciting than a didgeridoo anyway.

Once we were all opaled out we hit the road again. It was a fairly uneventful day and we made it to Port Augusta around 4pm. We hit up the grocery store to stock up on supplies before finding a campground.  We were finally in a place where the temperature dropped enough at night to make sleeping comfortable. We even needed to use blankets to stay warm. It was wonderful!

The plan for the next day was to make the short journey to Port Lincoln where we were hoping to get the truck fixed. Stopping every few hundred kilometres to add more tape to the plastic window was getting annoying, so was not being able to easily get stuff out of the back of the truck so I really had my fingers crossed our problems would be solved when we got there.   

Adventures In Alice Springs And Uluru

We arrived in Alice Springs in the early evening and decided since we didn’t want to wrestle with our make-shift window at the back of the truck to get all of our camping gear out we decided to find a hostel for the night. I picked a place at random out of our guidebook and I was pretty nervous about it because I usually use websites with guest comments before picking a hostel but I think I chose well anyway. The owners of the hostel are super friendly and the place just has a good vibe.

Once we had checked in and settled into our room we headed out for dinner. Jesse was craving crocodile so we headed to a restaurant that allegedly sold crocodile steaks, unfortunately that was a piece of misinformation but I'm glad we ended up there. The restaurant was called Overlanders Steakhouse and if it hasn’t been featured on Man Vs. Food yet then it should be with their 2kg ‘t-rex’ steak. It was a pretty unique restaurant. The menus were printed daily and contained an interesting fact from this day in history and the following days weather forecast for several major cities around the country. The décor was rustic with a lot of farming tools mounted on the wall and music by John Williamson (Australia’s version of Stompin’ Tom) echoed through the dining room. Jesse had a pretty run-of-the-mill meal with sausages made of crocodile, emu, kangaroo, and camel. I on the other hand was very adventurous and had spaghetti bolognese.

The next day our first order of business was to try to get the car fixed. We headed into ARB and I was very excited to learn they actually had the part we needed in stock and only slightly disappointed when they told us we would have to wait until Saturday to get it in the shop. Since this meant we were going to have some time to kill we ended up having a lazy day. We did some window-shopping around town, grabbed a bite to eat, and then headed to the cinema to watch Captain Phillips. Most of the evening was spent relaxing at the hostel, something we desperately needed to do after the dramas over the past few days.

Since we are still on an adventure we decided not to let the wait to get the car fixed keep us stagnant so the following morning we made the trip to Uluru or Ayers Rock. Visiting this giant rock has been on my list of things to do since I arrived in Australia and since our original plan was to follow the coast around the country I didn’t think I was going to be able to tick that box so I was pretty stoked about this opportunity.

We spent four or five hours on the road before arriving at the site full of historical and cultural significance for aboriginals. There are many hikes around Uluru and another nearby rock formation known as ‘The Olgas’ but the park puts restrictions on hikes when the temperature is above 36 degrees and since it was a scorching 41 degrees when we arrived we had limited options. Surprisingly the 10.6km walk around the walk was still open but not recommended in the heat so we decided to drive around instead. The sunrises and sunsets at Uluru are supposed to be magical as they make the rock glow red so I was looking forward to the show when we perched ourselves atop a hill along with about a hundred other tourists. Unfortunately the sky was quite cloudy and we didn’t get the display we were hoping for but it was still a pretty magnificent image in its natural state.

The previous night we went through the hassle of untying and untaping everything at the back of the truck to fish out our camping gear so we could stay at a free campground down the highway from Uluru. We didn’t think to grab the hammer until after we had resecured everything so getting the tent pegs into the ground was a challenge but we managed to get the tent up without much hassle.

This morning we headed back to the rock to do one of the hikes. Jesse wanted to make it back to Alice Springs in time to check out a didgeridoo workshop so we opted for one of the shorter hikes. We made our way from the car park to the watering hole where a spirit is said to still live today, stopping along the way to read a few of the many legends of how the rock came to be. I think the walk would be better during the wet season when waterfalls are trickling over the edges of the monster rock but it was still incredible, we even saw some cave paintings from many, many years ago.

After our hike we climbed back in the car and made our way back to Alice Springs. We were a few minutes late for the didgeridoo workshop and probably still could have joined in but Jesse said he was too hungry to care so we grabbed some lunch before heading into town to pick up a few souvenirs.

We had originally planned on camping tonight but when we finished up in town it looked like a storm was going to blow into town and our tent has seen better days so I suggested we stay at a hostel instead. So far it hasn’t rained a single drop and no longer looks like it’s going to but there isn’t much I can do about that now. I'm just happy to have a comfy bed to sleep in for the night.

Tomorrow morning we are taking the truck in to get fixed (hopefully it will only take an hour or two) and then the plan is to make our way to South Australia. I’m hoping to make it to a town called Coober Pedy, a small town known for opal mining that also has underground campsites. You better believe we will be staying at one of those campsites just to try to mix things up a little and keep life interesting.