Western
Australia 2001
With only a month at our disposal, and a 13000 km plan, we went to the destination we had been reluctantly putting off until now. The following is a pretty good summary, from an email I sent upon return.
Photos are at the bottom, so scroll down if you're keen.
G’day All,
It’s time to entertain you all with a few stories about my recent holiday to WA. The trip was for a month, just got back Sunday. First of all some stats:
Distance Travelled: 12964 km
Money Spent on petrol: $1358.70
Litres of Petrol Burnt by The General: 1393
Highest Cents Per Litre: 117.9 (Balladonia Roadhouse on the Nullabor)
Lowest Cents per Litre: 79.9 (Perth)
Most km travelled in 1 day: 1200 (This happened three times)
Hottest temperature experienced : 48 degrees
Total Dollars spent on Accommodation: $241.3
Average Accommodation per night: $8.61
Total Dollars spent on Food: $237
Average food per day (two people): $8.46
Total dollars spent on Ice: $27
Total cost of trip: 27+237+241+1358 = $1863 + beer.
Total cost of trip including beer = $51863.
Average costs per day per person: 33.26
Km I drove The General: 12964
Km Deb drove The General: 0
Km which The General has done now: About 300 000.
Number of times “The 12th man” collection was listened to : about 6 or 7 – Thanks Al, you’re a lifesaver.
How sick of “The 12th man” Deb got: Highly sick.
Average standard of “The 12th man” imitations: Very poor.
Average Cents Per Litre: 97.54
Average km / litre: 9.2
Average litres / 100km: 10.87
Average miles / gallon: 26.00
Average number of km travelled per day: 432.13
Highway km/L of new VX Commodore manual V6 : 14.71
Highway miles / Gallon new VX Commodore manual v6: 41.54
Litres of Petrol the VX would have consumed for the same trip: 871.35
Litres extra I used in The General: 487.3
Approximate extra cost of this volume: $475
% extra spent running The General compared to new VX commodore(approx) : 60% more.
Or The VX costs 62.5% of what it costs to run The General.
The amount the VX would have depreciated over the month and km: $2000
The amount The General depreciated over the month and km: $10
The amount spent repairing The General on the way: $280
The amount I saved in running the General and not some fancy new VX: $1225
Ratio of the The legendary status of a VK commodore over the fancy new VX: 10 million.
Things which went wrong:
Flat tyre
Keys locked in car
Hole in fuel tank (on a 4WD track in the Pilbara – fixed it on location)
Bogged in sand near the beach (fixed up three large blokes with a beer each)
Stuffed Distributor (replaced myself in Kalgoorlie in the car park of the parts shop)
Dead engine due to water on electrics (passing through floodway which was 1 foot deep at 100km/hr, repaired on location)
Air conditioning rooted (only works on cold days)
--------------------------------------------------
Well, Sorry about all that. Now for some stories. We went to Esperance on the south coast for some swimming, fishing, hiking, bodysurfing, snorkelling, and lazing about on beaches, and this was the theme for the remainder of the trip. We followed the coast around, dropping in on the tree forests, great mountains in Stirling ranges, Denmark area for snorkelling and beaches, then to the Margaret River region for more snorkelling and a bit of wine tasting (not that I can tell the difference). At a place starting with H, I swam with and snorkelled next to sting rays which were over 2.5m long, and 2 m wide, and even touched them in the water! Bloody unreal, all free, at a place where they come in to grab fish from the fishing boats! I’ll skip along to Perth which we gave half a day, you know how I like the city, and then north to the Pinnacles (rock formations), then more beaches and Gorges and Canyons and rocks in the Kalbarri region. Too much to summarise in one go. We got as far North as Tom Price, in the heart of the Pilbara, and we had to leave there in a hurry as the rains caused by Cyclone Chris were threatening to have us stuck in. We got out a matter of minutes before we were stuck. As I mentioned before, we hit a floodway at 100km /hour by accident, it was about a foot deep, and not only did we not crash, but we made it to the other side, but the poor General konked out with wet electrics a few k’s down the track. Great fun to fix in torrential rain. Near Tom Price are some of the most spectacular natural features I have ever seen, massive deep and beautiful gorges, with great clear cool pools in the bottom which you could swim in. Bloody unreal, you needed a 4WD to see them, but I thought an old Commodore would suffice. I got through, but not without a flat tyre and a hole in the fuel tank, and spending a couple hours driving 20 or so k’s, crossing a couple dozen floodways, having to walk about 8 first in the rain – the driza and akubra have now paid for themselves. The secret to getting through muddy floodways (where the wheels were spinning on mud even out of the water) seems to be momentum, momentum, momentum. An old couple in a Rodeo who we had met earlier were worried sick and had told the ranger about us – they met the ranger as he was kicking even the 4WD’s out due to the rising flood waters!
There is too much to tell, so I will save some stories for the next time we catch up. A real highlight was snorkelling at the Coral Bay area- warm water, perfect weather every day, and beautiful coral and hundreds of fish only metres off shore – we hung out there for a few days, during which we snorkelled alongside of about a dozen different sharks, 1 grey nurse (probably, it was a fair bit off and I was wetting myself), several white tipped reef sharks (4-5 feet long), several black tipped reef sharks (4-5 feet long) and one wobbergong (8 feet long). As there are so many sharks up there, we did some research so we knew not to shit ourselves too much. We sort of came across a few because we went looking for them a bit.
WA is certainly worth a visit, fantastic beaches and natural features, great weather and pretty cheap other than petrol.
Hope to catch up soon,
Hooroo,
Bakes.
