April 2014 - Mandurah and Perth

Our time in Mandurah waiting for Judy’s knee operation was well spent catching up with our Western Australian friends and family.  First up was a day trip to Mount Helena up in the hills east of Perth to catch up with our friends that we met in Meekatharra way back in the mid seventies.  We always love catching up with Trevor and Margo as the laughs never stop and we just pick up on where we left off last time we saw them.  The area around where they live was devastated by fire earlier this year and 56 houses were destroyed by fire, fortunately the last wind change for the day kept the fire from reaching their place so all is well. Trevor's mum and sisters live around Mandurah and Pinjarra so we caught up with them as well.

My sister Lyn and her family moved to Rockingham 20 or so years ago and we caught up with Lyn, her 2 sons Jay and Lane as well as Jay’s partner and 2 sons for a BBQ lunch at Jays place. We also caught up with Lyn’s ex, Russell, who was one of my best friends before they got married 40 odd years ago.It was great to catch up with him again and remember a lot of folk from our past and a lot of good times.

Mandurah has a lot of houses built on a man made canal system, so we took the canal boat tour to have a look at just how the other half live.

This house was said to be the most expensive in the area, valued at over 10 million dollars. It is owned by the president of Singapore’s brother. He doesn't live there but rents it out for $1,900 per week. 

Where there is water there are always residential developments.

Dolphin Key sits right on the edge of a canal and has it’s own sandy beach with shops and restaurants all within the same complex. 

Judy was booked into Hollywood hospital in Perth for an MRI scan at 6.00 pm so we took the day to visit Perth again.

The hospital is very close to Kings Park and the Perth Botanical Gardens so it was great to have a stroll around the gardens and a coffee in one of the open cafes.

Like most botanical gardens, the lawns and flower beds are immaculate, but this one also has a prehistoric theme with concrete dragons and huge crocodile for the kids to play on.

The MRI scans on Judy’s knee turned out to be exactly as the surgeon predicted, a torn cartilage and a damaged ligament was causing all the problems so the arthroscopy was the only way to fix it.

With the operation behind us and a good report from the surgeon a week later, we left Mandurah to spend Easter with Trevor and Margo in Mt. Helena.

During the Easter break we visited Hillarys Boat Harbour to the north of Perth and also the Maritime Museum at Fremantle to the south.

Fremantle is Perth’s major shipping port and the mouth of the Swan River so there is constant activity along this part of the river. Cruise ships mix it with container ships, Rottnest Island ferries and a whole myriad of smaller cabin cruisers and yachts.

The museum houses all types of maritime history including whaling and pearling vessels, but the most interesting for me was the Americas Cup and Australia 2 with its winged keel.  We were amazed just how big this yacht is, the keel is on the floor of the lower story, the deck is on the second story and the top of the mast is way up another 2 stories of the building.  Also on display is one of the worlds rarest sharks called Megamouth.

These sharks, which grow to 5 metres in length have a bulbous head and rows of small sharp teeth.  Only 9 of these have been found throughout the world and this is the 3rd one to have been captured. 

The Easter break at Mt Helena soon turned into a week as these guys are so easy to stay with, but with still a lot of kilometres to travel we headed of north, with our first stop being at Moora in the heart of the wheat belt, just 175 kilometres north of Perth.

We found Moora to be a very comfortable little town with a very neat and tidy shire run caravan park.  The lady that runs the caravan park is obviously a keen gardener and the roses were in full bloom.  Moora has a proud history with the army as there were 3 army camps around the area during WW2.

Even though Moora is 120 kilometres from the coast, the 44th Infantry Battalion which was stationed in Moora in 1942 was regarded as the strike force if any landings were detected along the Coral Coast. Various other murals around town depict various stages of life around this community.

This one with life sized statues of a draft horse and a kelpie are lasting memorials to these animals as they were essential in opening up the area in the early years.

From Moora we head across to Jurien Bay on the west coast, and then make our way north, trying to keep a bit ahead of the rest of the grey nomads and the real busy time.

March 2014 - Wave Rock to Mandurah

After being disappointed with Esperance, we had a couple of days to kill before making our way into Mandurah.
As usual something always comes up, and this time it was the little farming community of Hyden and it’s close proximity to Hyden Rock.

I don’t remember ever visiting such a community spirited town such as this one.  They have worked really hard to promote their town and Hyden Rock to tourists.  The first thing you notice about the town is the sculptures along the main road that tell the history of the town.

These sculptures depict the days from the aboriginals through the early settlers, sandalwood cutters, town services like mechanics and power supply, shearers and right up to today with the tourists being a big part of the towns economy.  We met the lady who designed this and she told us of the local people who all pitched in to get it all together.  A lot was done during the drought when farmers were depressed and this project gave them new meaning and helped to reinvigorate them and pull them through the hard times. Close inspection of the sculptures shows that they are just built from farmyard scrap.

Fantastic what can be done when you put your mind to it.  First is the bush in aboriginal times with the eagles and kangaroos. Then came the sandalwood cutters with their horse and carts.  They would take the whole sandalwood tree, roots and all and these became one of Western Australias first exports.  The wood was highly prized for its fragrance and for its oil for use as an incense.

One of the early settlers was a guy named Mick who actually rode his bicycle out here 300 miles from Perth in 1924.  He knew the meaning of the salmon gums as they grow in the most fertile soils. He selected areas around the rocks where salmon gums grew and collected water run off from the rocks and channeled it into large catchment dams.  Micks ancestors still live in this area today.

With the farming came the need for blade shearers and later on machine shearers. One of the local shearers moved to Hyden in 1922 and the locals say that he deserves a medal as he shore for a total of 73 years.  During his time, he saw the move from blade shearing to machine shearing.

Of course with the men came the women and children and conditions were tough with most families living in tents or hessian walled humpies for years.  The lucky ones had shacks built from mud batts but most likely without any floor.  With automation came the need for mechanics.  In the early 1960’s the Hyden area boomed as substantial areas of land were opened up for agriculture.  The nitrogen and phosphate deficiencies had now been identified and land was being cleared rapidly to make way for this new enterprise.

Johnny the mechanic was kept busy repairing trucks, tractors and bulldozers which had been brought to town to clear the land.  Its amazing how long some of these out of the way towns went without services that we tend to take for granted.

For many years Hyden was powered by a large noisy generator and it wasn't until 1989 that the town was connected to the power grid.

The town wasn't connected to the main water supply until 2000.  Up until then the town relied on the water collected from “the rock” in a remarkable system that they developed many years ago.

The tourism bus has delivered the kind of stability and growth that other towns only dream of.  Hyden Rock is a large granite rock which has eroded over many years to create 2 very interesting formations.

The most well known of these is “Wave Rock” which is easily identified by its shape.  Wave Rock first came to world attention when a photograph of it was entered into a worldwide amateur photographic competition at the New York International World Fair in 1963.

The lesser known formation is “Hippos Yawn”.  Like us,most visitors you talk to have never heard of hippos yawn but once you see it, I am sure it will stick in our minds for a long time. 

About 20 kilometres further north is another granite rock called “The Humps” where Mulka’s Cave can be found.

Mulka was the illegal son of an Aboriginal woman who fell in love with an Aboriginal man with whom marriage was forbidden according to their law.  It was believed that as a result of breaking these rules she bore a son with crossed eyes.

Even though he grew to be an outstandingly strong man of colossal height, his crossed eyes prevented him from aiming a spear accurately and becoming a successful hunter.  Out of frustration it is said Mulka turned to catching and eating human children, and he became the terror of the district. He lived in Mulka's cave, where the imprints of his hands can still be seen, much larger and higher than that of an ordinary man.

Apparently, his mother became increasingly concerned about him. When she scolded him for his anti-social behaviour he turned on her and killed her.  This disgraced him even further and he fled his cave, heading south.  The Aboriginal people of the area, outraged by Mulka's behaviour, then tracked down this man who had flouted all the rules. They caught him near Dumbleyung, 156 km south west of Hyden, where they speared him to death.  Because he did not deserve a proper ritual burial, they left his body to the ants, a grim warning to those who break the law.

Back at Wave Rock Visitor Centre they have a huge dried wild flower display with dried flower from various trees all local to this area. Most of the ceiling of the visitors centre is covered with huge bunches of dried flowers, some are formed into the shape of a butterfly which would have to be 20 feet across.  The visitor centre also houses “The Lace Place” which is a collection of laces since 1650.

Now I usually leave these places for Judy to discover while I go to Bunnings or Tackle World, but out here I didn't have any option and maybe my feminine side came out, as even I was impressed by the intricate work that goes into making these garments.

Judy loved the wedding gowns, especially the one with horses embossed around the bottom of it as the bride was getting married at a racecourse.

Another piece that really impressed me was about 1.2 metres square, with images of famous buildings from around the world all done in lace, but for mine, the outfit that a farmers wife made from the strings of a super bag had to be the most inventive piece of clothing in the whole place.

Apparently, back in 1960, super phosphate bags used to be sewn shut with 2 threads, one cotton and the other a shiny synthetic thread called vynylon.  The jacket and skirt were made from the cotton thread and the blouse from the shiny vynylon.  The outfit has a fluffy look because of all the knots, as the threads from the super bags were only in 80 to 90 centimetre pieces.

Further on from the lace place is a toy soldier collection.  The patience that it must have taken for somebody to gather and paint all these little plastic soldiers and set them up in their battalions is incredible.  The back of this part of the building has some of the history of the rabbit proof fence, and we felt privileged to discover the story of the life of one of our old friends from Meekatharra.  Norm Froome worked for the Agricultural Department in Meeka at the same time that Judy did back in the early 70’s.  Norm was one of the gentlemen of the world who spent his working time travelling around the outback stations doing surveys on animals and plant growth in the area.  Norm would camp out in his swag for weeks at a time and we would only see him in town for a couple of days to replenish his supplies and he would be off again.  One of Norms passions was introducing dung beetles into the area, he loved the outback and working with the station owners. We had lost track of Norm up until now, but we found out that he passed away in 2008 at the age of 93.

He had previously had a stainless steel cross made for his and his wife’s ashes, and his son has erected this cross on Narndee Station, on the southern side of the Dromedary Hills, overlooking the “Rabbit Proof Fence” which he helped to build in his younger years.

At the back of the visitor centre is a Wildlife Park where animals are kept in a natural bush surrounding. The most unusual animals that we a saw were the albino kangaroos.  Apart from their colour, these looked mostly like the big ugly red kangaroos found throughout Western Australia.

We loved Wave Rock and the surrounding areas.  The smell of the eucalyptus and sandalwood trees with a bit of early morning moisture on them was wonderful.  We had originally planned to stay one night but ended up staying 4.

On the way west from Hyden, we took a 40 kilometre detour through Kulin to see the “Tin Horse Highway” which runs for 14 kilometres east between the town and the racecourse.

The tin horses started as a bit of fun, skilfully made out of drums and odd bits and pieces from farm workshops. It was not long before the tin horses started appearing west of Kulin as well, so the competition began to make the biggest and best horse.

There are some really good ones along the way, but I think the most imaginative one is “Fillypoosis”, the tennis player.  

Forty three years in the transport industry taught me one thing and that is that if you want reliable service from your vehicles, then preventative maintenance is paramount.  With this in mind, we have our Landcruiser serviced meticulously every 6 months or 10,000 kilometres, so I was very alarmed when our fuel filter maintenance message and warning light came on when we were miles from nowhere, and just 4,200 kilometres after our last service.

This is a dirty filter. A new one is yellow all the way over

  Excuse me while I get a bit technical for a second as I know that some of our readers have the same vehicle.  Common rail diesel engines such as ours need very clean fuel and as a result, Toyota have fitted an excellent fuel filter.  They also believe that the filter is so good that they don’t recommend that it be changed at any of their specified service intervals, but they have a warning system to tell you when it needs changing.  Bad idea, as outback travelers 

don’t always get the best fuel available, and those of us that tow a caravan get through a lot more fuel than others who just travel around town.  Further to this, the nearest Toyota dealer can be hundreds of miles away.  Fortunately I was able to contact the dealer who serviced our car last when we got to the next town, and he assured me that it would be OK to continue driving for another 4 to 500 kilometres.  This is NOT to be confused with the warning that you get when the water condensate needs draining from the fuel filter.In this case the warning light flashes and the buzzer sounds which means you need to stop the vehicle immediately and drain the fuel filter in accordance with the procedure outlined in the handbook.  In our case I was lucky as I always carry a spare fuel filter and I was able to change it and re-prime the system to get us going again.  Please don’t ignore any fuel filter warnings as common rail fuel systems could easily cost $10,000 to replace if damaged by contaminated fuel.  My little word of advice to anybody who has one of these vehicles is to have the dealer change the fuel filter at every 30,000 service interval if you are not confident in doing the job yourself.

It's a "dead cert" that it will save you a lot of heart ache somewhere down the track. OK, so back off my high horse again as we settled into Mandurah for about 3 weeks while Judy gets her knee attended to at the hospital.

We consider ourselves very lucky as we got Judy booked in to see the Orthopedic Surgeon without a referral from a GP first which saved us weeks.  The surgeon was excellent and got Judy booked in for an MRI scan and pre booked the hospital even before the scan was done.  This saved many weeks of delays as well.  How good is the health system in WA to go from NO appointment to surgery all within less than 2 weeks.